Trump was the only candidate who during his election campaign was against neoliberal
globalization as well as against neoliberal wars for the expansion of US-led global neoliberal empire (but also only until he was
elected)
During elections he looked like the best chance to prevent military confrontation with Russia in Syria and the risk of WWIII.
After elections he looks quote opposite experiencing political metamorphose similar to Obama who
became Bush II in foreign policy in just 100 days: another masterful "bait and
switch maneuver"
The last time America saw a strong paleo-conservative was
Pat Buchanan in 1996. An early win in Louisiana caused Buchanan to place second in Iowa and first
in New Hampshire. Lacking money, Buchanan was steamrolled by the establishment in Arizona and, in terms
of paleo-conservatism, many thought he was the Last of the Mohicans. Trump's campaign is Buchananesque
with one difference: Trump has money... -- by Joseph R. Murray II
(Orlando Sentinel, Aug 12, 2015)
"There is one political party in this country, and that is the party of money.
It has two branches, the Republicans and the Democrats, the chief difference between which is
that the Democrats are better at concealing their scorn for the average man."
-- Gore Vidal
“The Democrats are the foxes, and the Republicans are the wolves – and they both want to
devour you.” So what does that make Libertarians? Avian flu viruses?”
-- Leonard Pinkney
The race is no contest when you own both horses. That is why no matter which political party
is in power nothing really changes other than the packaging. The puppets who drink at the champagne
fountains of the powerful do the bidding of their masters. The people are superfluous to the process.
In the “democracy” that America has evolved to, money counts more than people.
In past elections, the votes were counted, now they are going to start weighing them.
“(T)he rich elites of (the USA) have far more in common with their counterparts in London,
Paris, and Tokyo than with their fellow American citizens … the rich disconnect themselves
from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place
to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and
ruling it, but not of it.”
-- Mike Lofgren
Note: On April 6, 2016 Trump surrendered to neocons. Events after
April 6, 2017 are discussed at Trump
after his Colin Powell moment.The election image of Trump
(like in case of king of "bait and switch" Obama it proved to be false) -- he easily
betrayed his election promises
Note: this article was written long before the election as as such does not reflect
subsequent events such as Trump attack on Syria.
Both choices in US Presidential election 2016 were dismal, but they are unequal in their gravity options.
All this blabbering about Trump future appointment of "wrong" (aka reactionary) Supreme Court justices,
slashing taxes for rich, elimination of inheritance tax, and other similar things make sense if
and only if the country continues to exist. Which is not given due to the craziness and the level of
degeneration of neoliberal elite, especially neocons that infest Washington, DC, Obama administration (including
Obama himself), as well as "bloodthrusty" democrats like Hillary (“no fly zone in Syria” is one example of her craziness).
While formally neocons are aligned with Republican party, they feel at home at Democratic Party too as
it became the second War Party in Washington. And war (cold or hot are OK, as long as neocons personally do not need to fight
in the trenches and somebody else need to die in wars of neoliberal empire expansion) is all they
want. Neocons are, in essence, MIC lobbyists. Playing chicken with a nuclear power for the sake of
providing MIC with outside profits and maintaining the US global dominance is a crazy policy that
exhausts country resources, and impoverish population, like previously was the case with British and Spanish empires.
Neocons rule the roost in both parties, which essentially became a single War Party with two
wings. They completely appropriated formulation of the US foreign policy and dominate the State
Department and Pentagon. In this sense Trump is a real outlier (or was, before he was elected).
Simplified his foreign policy platform includes two simple and very attractive for the US population
slogan, that are completely opposite to Washington official foreign policy doctrine, enforced by
"deep state"
F*ck neocons and their wars of neoliberal empire expansion. That is probably the most
important part the meaning of his famous slogan "America first" borrowed for
paleoconservatives.
F*ck globalization. This is the second part of the meaning of his slogan "America
first".
So the hissy fit the deep state displayed before December 19 (classic "Russians are under
every bed" hysteria, supported by all neoliberal MSM, including WaPo, NYT, CNN, ABC, MSBNC, etc) was
not about Russia, it was about the danger that the current neocon-driven foreign policy that was a
hallmark of the US forign policy during the last four administrations (Bush I, Clinton, Bush
II and Obama) will be abandoned by Trump administration.
The fact the American people discarded Hillary Clinton is encouraging. As a neocon
warmonger she belongs to the dust bin of history. But
as it is not clear whether Trump is capable to deliver his key foreign policy promises/objectives, such a
detente with Russia, and no new wars of neoliberal empire expansion. Deep state is way too strong
for a single maverick, or even a group of like minded mavericks change the US foreign policy.
Even if they have unconditional support of US military (as
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard demonstrated with her recent bill):
The chances are high that Trump he will be co-opted by
Washington neocons and gradually will became Bush IV or Obama II. That will be really
unfortunate development. In this chess game, Trump having weaker figures and position in
labyrinth of power will need to find new people ready to go and skillfully navigate
around the neocon swamp and MIC land mines. The only countervailing force are US military, who are
fighting all those neocon wars and who really hate neocon chickenhawks, and know their real price. Separately, Trump has
suggested a new rules prohibiting lobbying
for five years after service in his administration and total prohibition of being lobbyist of
foreign states. That is really revolutionary and this alone make Trump distinct from a typical
Washington politicians. But those parasites will definitely fiercely resists such sensitive for
their family budget change.
Trump looks like the only chance somewhat to limit their influence and reach some détente with Russia.
And I would not be surprised one bit if Dick Cheney, Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz and Perle voted
for Hillary. Robert Kagan and papa Bush publicly declared such an intention. And the fact Hillary is a
staunch neocon, and always was. A wolf in sheep clothing,
if we are talking about real anti-war democrats, not the USA brand of DemoRats. She is a crazy warmonger,
no question about it, trying to compensate a complete lack of diplomatic skills with jingoism and saber
rattling. In foreign policy area she was John McCain in pantsuit. Here is one interesting quote (
nakedcapitalism.com )
“What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the generals
and the admirals that she is a ‘tough bitch’, ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate to pull
the trigger. An illuminating article in the
NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions
of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited. ”
But it looks that many people in the USA were able to understand that the choice in this particular
case was between the decimation of the last remnants of the New Deal and a real chance of WWIII. Those
are two events of completely difference magnitude: one is reversible (and please note that Trump is
bound by very controversial obligations to his electorate and faces hostile Congress), the other is
not.
Neoliberalism after 2008 entered zombie state so while it is still strong aggressive and bloodthirsty
it might not last for long. And in such cases the defeat of democratic forces on domestic front is temporary.
That means vote against Hillary.
Bottom line: The use of military power since 2001 has:
Turned a previously whole and regionally impotent Iraq that balanced
Iran into a factory of terrorism and a client of Tehran;
Turned Afghanistan from a country with a two-sided civil war—contained
within its own borders—into a dysfunctional state that serves as a magnet for terrorists.
Turned a Libya that suffered internal unrest, but didn’t threaten
its neighbors or harbor terrorists, into an “unmitigated failure” featuring a raging civil war,
serving as an African beachhead for ISIS and a terrorist breeding ground;
Contributed to the expansion of al-Qaeda into a “franchise” group,
spawned a new strain when ISIS was born out of the vacuum created by our Iraq invasion, and seen
majorterrorist threats explode worldwide;
Joined other nations in battles in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and
other areas within Africa whose only result has been the expansion of the threat and the deepening
of the suffering of the civil populations.
These continued and deepening failures kill unknown numbers of innocent civilians each year, intensify
and spread the
hatred many have of America, and incrementally weaken our national security. But these military
failures have another, less obvious but more troubling cost.
With the exception of Iran, which for some reason he hates so much, that he wants to risk a war with
it, Trump speaks more like a paleoconservative
then a neocon.
He is more reasonable as for US-Russian relation that bloodthirsty warmonger Hillary (which is an easy
task because "this woman"
wet kiss neocons all the time).
His focus in relations with China, while also hawkish in more
about trade balance and "bringing jobs home" issues, not so much about South Sea military adventures (U.S.-China
Trade Reform Donald J Trump for President):
How We Got Here: Washington Politicians Let China Off The Hook
In January 2000, President Bill Clinton boldly promised China’s inclusion in the World Trade Organization
(WTO) “is a good deal for America. Our products will gain better access to China’s market, and every
sector from agriculture, to telecommunications, to automobiles. But China gains no new market access
to the United States.” None of what President Clinton promised came true. Since China joined the
WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions
of jobs. It was not a good deal for America then and it’s a bad deal now. It is a typical example
of how politicians in Washington have failed our country.
The most important component of our China policy is leadership and strength at the negotiating
table. We have been too afraid to protect and advance American interests and to challenge China to
live up to its obligations. We need smart negotiators who will serve the interests of American workers
– not Wall Street insiders that want to move U.S. manufacturing and investment offshore.
The Goal Of The Trump Plan: Fighting For American Businesses And Workers
America has always been a trading nation. Under the Trump administration trade will flourish.
However, for free trade to bring prosperity to America, it must also be fair trade. Our goal is not
protectionism but accountability. America fully opened its markets to China but China has not reciprocated.
Its Great Wall of Protectionism uses unlawful tariff and non-tariff barriers to keep American companies
out of China and to tilt the playing field in their favor.
If you give American workers a level playing field, they will win. At its heart, this plan is
a negotiating strategy to bring fairness to our trade with China. The results will be huge for American
businesses and workers. Jobs and factories will stop moving offshore and instead stay here at home.
The economy will boom. The steps outlined in this plan will make that a reality.
When Donald J. Trump is president, China will be on notice that America is back in the global
leadership business and that their days of currency manipulation and cheating are over. We will cut
a better deal with China that helps American businesses and workers compete.
The Trump Plan Will Achieve The Following Goals:
Bring China to the bargaining table by immediately declaring it a currency
manipulator.
Protect American ingenuity and investment by forcing China to uphold intellectual
property laws and stop their unfair and unlawful practice of forcing U.S. companies to share proprietary
technology with Chinese competitors as a condition of entry to China’s market.
Reclaim millions of American jobs and reviving American manufacturing by
putting an end to China’s illegal export subsidies and lax labor and environmental standards.
No more sweatshops or pollution havens stealing jobs from American workers.
Strengthen our negotiating position by lowering our corporate tax rate to
keep American companies and jobs here at home, attacking our debt and deficit so China cannot
use financial blackmail against us, and bolstering the U.S. military presence in the East and
South China Seas to discourage Chinese adventurism.
Details of Donald J. Trump’s US China Trade Plan:
Declare China A Currency Manipulator
We need a president who will not succumb to the financial blackmail of a Communist dictatorship.
President Obama’s Treasury Department has repeatedly refused to brand China a currency manipulator
– a move that would force China to stop these unfair practices or face tough countervailing duties
that level the playing field.
Economists estimate the Chinese yuan is undervalued by anywhere from 15% to 40%. This grossly
undervalued yuan gives Chinese exporters a huge advantage while imposing the equivalent of a heavy
tariff on U.S. exports to China. Such currency manipulation, in concert with China’s other unfair
practices, has resulted in chronic U.S. trade deficits, a severe weakening of the U.S. manufacturing
base and the loss of tens of millions of American jobs.
In a system of truly free trade and floating exchange rates like a Trump administration would
support, America's massive trade deficit with China would not persist. On day one of the Trump
administration the U.S. Treasury Department will designate China as a currency manipulator. This
will begin a process that imposes appropriate countervailing duties on artificially cheap Chinese
products, defends U.S. manufacturers and workers, and revitalizes job growth in America. We must
stand up to China’s blackmail and reject corporate America’s manipulation of our politicians.
The U.S. Treasury’s designation of China as a currency manipulator will force China to the negotiating
table and open the door to a fair – and far better – trading relationship.
End China’s Intellectual Property Violations
China’s ongoing theft of intellectual property may be the greatest transfer of wealth in history.
This theft costs the U.S. over $300 billion and millions of jobs each year. China’s government
ignores this rampant cybercrime and, in other cases, actively encourages or even sponsors it –without
any real consequences. China’s cyber lawlessness threatens our prosperity, privacy and national
security. We will enforce stronger protections against Chinese hackers and counterfeit goods and
our responses to Chinese theft will be swift, robust, and unequivocal.
The Chinese government also forces American companies like Boeing, GE, and Intel to transfer
proprietary technologies to Chinese competitors as a condition of entry into the Chinese market.
Such de facto intellectual property theft represents a brazen violation of WTO and international
rules. China’s forced technology transfer policy is absolutely ridiculous. Going forward, we will
adopt a zero tolerance policy on intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer. If
China wants to trade with America, they must agree to stop stealing and to play by the rules.
Eliminate China’s Illegal Export Subsidies And Other Unfair Advantages
Chinese manufacturers and other exporters receive numerous illegal export subsidies from the
Chinese government. These include - in direct contradiction to WTO rules - free or nearly free
rent, utilities, raw materials, and many other services. China’s state-run banks routinely extend
loans these enterprises at below market rates or without the expectation they will be repaid.
China even offers them illegal tax breaks or rebates as well as cash bonuses to stimulate exports.
China’s illegal export subsidies intentionally distorts international trade and damages other
countries’ exports by giving Chinese companies an unfair advantage. From textile and steel mills
in the Carolinas to the Gulf Coast’s shrimp and fish industries to the Midwest manufacturing belt
and California’s agribusiness, China’s disregard for WTO rules hurt every corner of America.
The U.S. Trade Representative recently filed yet another complaint with the WTO accusing China
of cheating on our trade agreements by subsidizing its exports. The Trump administration will
not wait for an international body to tell us what we already know. To gain negotiating leverage,
we will pursue the WTO case and aggressively highlight and expose these subsidies.
China’s woeful lack of reasonable environmental and labor standards represent yet another form
of unacceptable export subsidy. How can American manufacturers, who must meet very high standards,
possibly compete with Chinese companies that care nothing about their workers or the environment?
We will challenge China to join the 21 st Century when it comes to such standards.
The Trump Plan Will Strengthen Our Negotiating Position
As the world’s most important economy and consumer of goods, America must always negotiate
trade agreements from strength. Branding China as a currency manipulator and exposing their unfair
trade practices is not enough. In order to further strengthen our negotiating leverage, the Trump
plan will:
Lower the corporate tax rate to 15% to unleash American ingenuity here
at home and make us more globally competitive. This tax cut puts our rate 10 percentage points
below China and 20 points below our current burdensome rate that pushes companies and jobs
offshore.
Attack our debt and deficit by vigorously eliminating waste, fraud and
abuse in the Federal government, ending redundant government programs, and growing the economy
to increase tax revenues. Closing the deficit and reducing our debt will mean China cannot
blackmail us with our own Treasury bonds.
Strengthen the U.S. military and deploying it appropriately in the East and South
China Seas. These actions will discourage Chinese adventurism that imperils American
interests in Asia and shows our strength as we begin renegotiating our trading relationship
with China. A strong military presence will be a clear signal to China and other nations in
Asia and around the world that America is back in the global leadership business.
And his views on relations with Russia and China, regime change wars, and imperial overreach,
as best they can be ascertained, are a lot wiser and less lethal than hers. These are not so
much left-right issues as matters of common sense.
Clinton’s overriding concern was and always has been to maintain and expand American world domination
— in the face of economic decline, and at no matter what cost. Trump wants, or says he wants,
to do business with other countries in the way that he did with sleaze ball real estate moguls and
network executives, people like himself. He wants to make deals.
The Trump way is, as they say, “transactional.” The idea is to wheel and deal on a case-by-case
basis, with no further, non-pecuniary end in view.
... ... ...
Better that, though, than a foreign policy dedicated to keeping America the world’s hegemon. That
is the foreign policy establishment’s aim; it is therefore Clinton’s too. It is the way of perpetual
war. Trump’s way is far from ideal, but it is less wasteful, less onerous and less reckless.
During the campaign, Trump would sometimes speak out against banksters and financiers, especially
the too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail kind. For some time, though, the “populist” billionaire has
been signaling to his class brothers and sisters in the financial “industry” that he is more likely
to deregulate than to regulate their machinations.
This will become even clearer once Trump settles on key Cabinet posts and on his economic advisors.
It is already plain, though, that the modern day counterparts of Theodore Roosevelt’s “malefactors
of great wealth” have little to fear; they and Trump are joined by indissoluble bonds of class-consciousness
and solidarity.
Many of the rich and heinous were skeptical of Trump’s candidacy at first; because he is such
a loose cannon. But now that he has won, the bastards are sucking up; and glee is returning to Wall
Street.
Trump is now starting too to allay the fears of the movers and shakers of the National Security
State. He still has a way to go, however. We can therefore still hope that they are right to worry.
What is bad for them is good for the country.
Clinton’s defeat also seems to have unnerved their counterparts in European capitals, at NATO headquarters
in Brussels, and in Japan, South Korea and other countries where the presence of the American military
has been very very good for the few at the top, and disastrous for ordinary people.
If he means it, then more power to him. The United States and the rest of the world would be well
rid of the American dominated military alliances now in place; NATO most of all. However, having
talked with him, Obama is now telling the Europeans that Trump is fine with NATO. Time will tell.
Then there is Israel. Trump thinks that the blank check the ethnocratic settler state already gets
from the United States isn’t nearly enough. So much for allies paying their own way!
However, even if Trump leaves America’s perpetual war regime and its military alliances intact, some
good could come just from him being at the helm – not so much because, as a wheeler and dealer, he
would be less inclined actually to start wars than has become the norm, but because he is vile enough,
and enough of an embarrassment, to undermine America’s prestige, hastening the day when the hegemon
is a hegemon no more.
This would be good for most Americans, and good for the world.
The election he won has already done a lot to explode the idea, more widely believed at home than
abroad, that American “democracy” is somehow a model for the world.
"The Democrats consider their views to be the ultimate truth. It is impossible to reach any
agreement with them in this respect. They are not focused on national interests, but rather on
globalist goals and universal human values. In this sense the ability of Obama's team to reach
deals has passed into legend," he said. "In recent years, Russia has not tried to engage in
meaningful diplomacy with the Obama administration since it was useless."
But negotiation will be tough because Trump explicit position is to seek advantages for the USA,
not equal deals. He might possibly cooperate on tackling Daesh in Syria. If so, this will mark a major
departure from Russia's relations with the US under the Obama administration in recent years. But
the problem is the Congress which is infected with war hawks (mostly chickenhawks).
Real Trump position on Russia would be more clear when he selects his candidate for the Secretary
of State. So far his views were encouraging: he is not in favor of direct confrontation that Obama
administration pursued and Clinton administration would probably convert into armed conflict. Here are some additional details from Russophobic Guardian presstitute Shawn Walker (The
Guardian, July 7, 2016):
Page, an investment banker who previously worked in Russia, insisted he was in
Russia on a private visit,
although he is likely to meet Russian officials when he gives the commencement speech at the New
Economic School in Moscow on Friday. He refused to comment on whether he had any meetings with officials
planned.
The presumptive Republican nominee has expressed his confidence that he would build a good relationship
with the Russian president
telling reporters last year: “I think I would get along very well with Vladimir Putin.”
He
also defended the Russian leader against accusations that Putin has ordered the killing of journalists,
telling ABC News “In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that.
I don’t know that he has. Have you been able to prove that? Do you know the names of the reporters
that he’s killed? Because I’ve been – you know, you’ve been hearing this, but I haven’t seen the
names,”
The announced topic of Page’s discussion was “the evolution of the world economy”, but much of
it involved semi-coherent analysis of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
In passing, Page castigated the US for interfering in the internal affairs of other countries
and pursuing "regime change" in former Soviet countries. He said Russia and the US could have better
relations in future, but this would be “contingent upon US’s refocus toward resolution of domestic
challenges”. However, when pressed on details he was evasive.
In March, Page told Bloomberg that his experience on the ground doing deals in Russia and Central
Asia would make him better placed to give advice than “people from afar, sitting in the comfort of
their think tanks in Washington”. It is unclear how close he is to Trump and how much weight his
advice holds with the presidential candidate.
Page repeatedly emphasised that he was in Russia as a private citizen rather than as an emissary
of Trump. However, it is connections with the presidential candidate which prompted the New Economic
School to invite him to give their keynote annual speech. In previous years, the commencement speeches
at the university have been given by high-profile figures, including Barack Obama in 2009.
In December, Putin referred to Trump as a “colourful” person who was the “absolute leader” of
the US presidential race, comments which prompted Trump to respond in turn that he was flattered
by the praise. “When people call you brilliant, it’s always good, especially when the person heads
up Russia,” Trump said, adding incorrectly that Putin had called him a “genius”.
Last month, Putin
clarified the comments, saying he had not endorsed Trump, but welcomed his stance on relations
with Russia.
“Here’s where I will pay close attention, and where I exactly welcome and where on the contrary
I don’t see anything bad: Mr Trump has declared that he’s ready for the full restoration of Russian-American
relations. Is there anything bad there? We all welcome this, don’t you?”
Trump declared the Obama nuclear deal, the deal which helped to
keep oil prices very low since mid 2014, "disastrous" and suggested it would be one of the first
arrangements he would "renegotiate" after he assumes the office of the presidency in January, 2017.
"They are laughing
at the stupidity of the deal we’re making on nuclear," Trump
said of the Iranians, in an interview last summer with CNN. "We should double up and triple
up the sanctions and have them come to us. They are making an amazing deal."
It is unlear why he calls this stupidity. IMHO this was a very
shrewd move, then decimated Russia economic, as Russia budget depends of world prices and also
heavily hit KAS, Venezuela and other oil producing nations. Putting some of them on the wedge of
bankruptcy. In American Conservative
Daniel Larison gave very insightful overview of
Trump position, which is shared by his close advisors such as General Flynn (Trump
and Iran The American Conservative):
Scott McConnell
asks what we could expect from Trump on foreign policy, specifically on Iran:
The greater neoconservative goal, of course, is the prevention any American
rapprochement with Iran, keeping the sanctions going till they have a president
willing to start a war on the country. How does Trump fit into that?
I have tried to avoid writing about Trump as much as possible over the last few
months, because it is generally a waste of time to attempt to analyze the policy views
of an opportunistic demagogue, but since the question has been asked here I’ll try to
answer it.
As far as I can tell, Trump endorses the hard-liners’ position on the
nuclear deal. He has characteristically denounced it in the
most hyperbolic terms, he is preparing to
share a stage with the only other presidential candidate that can match him in
demagogic rhetoric to repeat these denunciations, and two of the groups sponsoring the
rally that Trump will attend are among the most fanatical hawkish organizations in the
U.S. He has also repeated some of the most ludicrous and dishonest hawkish talking
points about what the deal requires of the U.S. For instance, he recently
repeated the lie that the deal obliges the U.S. to defend Iran from an Israeli
attack:
He then claimed that there’s something in the Iran deal saying if someone attacks
Iran, “we have to come to their defense.” And so he interpreted that to conclude, “If
Israel attacks Iran, according to that deal, I believe the way it reads… that we have
to fight with Iran against Israel.”
This is complete and utter nonsense, so it doesn’t surprise me that Trump believes it
(or at least claims to believe it). This is the sort of deliberate distortion of the
deal’s contents that hard-line “pro-Israel” hawks like to indulge in. Rubio said
something similar to this in his
questioning of Kerry earlier in the summer.
It should tell us everything we need to know about Trump’s views on foreign
policy that he buys into these lies and repeats them. There are all kinds of reasons not
to trust Trump’s judgment, but his statements on the nuclear deal are sufficient to
prove that his foreign policy judgment is horrible.
Before you read, though, take a moment to watch less than two minutes of
Donald Trump above, from his victory
speech after winning in Michigan and Mississippi. I’ve cued it up to start at the remarks I want
to highlight, Trump discussing our trade deficit.
Now Thomas Frank, writing in
The Guardian. He starts by noting the utter invisibility of real working Americans to
our elite class, including our media elites, and especially our liberal media elites (my emphasis
throughout):
Millions of ordinary Americans support Donald Trump. Here’s why
When he isn’t spewing insults, the Republican frontrunner is hammering home a powerful message
about free trade and its victims
Let us now address the greatest American mystery at the moment: what motivates the supporters
of Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump?
I call it a “mystery” because the working-class white people who make up the bulk of Trump’s
fan base show up in amazing numbers for the candidate, filling stadiums and airport hangars, but
their views, by and large, do not appear in our prestige newspapers. On their opinion pages, these
publications take care to represent demographic categories of nearly every kind, but “blue-collar”
is one they persistently overlook. The views of working-class people are so foreign to that
universe that when New York Times columnist Nick Kristof wanted to “engage” a Trump supporter
last week, he
made one up, along with this imaginary person’s responses to his questions.
When members of the professional class wish to understand the working-class Other, they traditionally
consult experts on the subject. And when these authorities are asked to explain the Trump movement,
they always seem to zero in on one main accusation: bigotry. Only racism, they tell us, is capable
of powering a movement like Trump’s, which is blowing through the inherited structure of the Republican
party like a tornado through a cluster of McMansions.
The conclusion of these writers is this:
The Trump movement is a one-note phenomenon, a vast surge of race-hate. Its partisans are not
only incomprehensible, they are not really worth comprehending.
And yet…
A lot of people are racists, including those not supporting Trump. But people have other
concerns as well, especially working people. They are dying faster than they used to,
from drugs and despair, and they fear for their jobs and their families, for very good reasons.
This economy is failing them.
They also hate — and understand — “free trade.”
Trump Also Talks Trade
Donald Trump talks about more than just race and immigration. He talks about trade and the trade
deficit, an issue that powered Bernie Sanders to his Michigan victory as well. From the New York
Times:
Trade and Jobs Key to Victory for Bernie Sanders
Democratic presidential candidate had campaigned in Traverse City, Mich., in decades until
Senator Bernie Sanders pulled up to the concert hall near the Sears store on Friday. Some 2,000
people mobbed him when he arrived, roaring in approval as he called the country’s trade policies,
and Hillary Clinton’s support for them, “disastrous.”
“If the people of Michigan want to make a decision about which candidate stood with workers
against corporate America and against these disastrous trade agreements, that candidate is Bernie
Sanders,” Mr. Sanders said in Traverse City, about 250 miles north of Detroit.
Mr. Sanders pulled off a
startling upset in Michigan on Tuesday by traveling to communities far from Detroit and by
hammering Mrs. Clinton on an issue that resonated in this still-struggling state: her past support
for trade deals that workers here believe robbed them of manufacturing jobs. Almost three-fifths
of voters said that trade with other countries was more likely to take away jobs, according
to exit polls by Edison Research, and those voters favored Mr. Sanders by a margin of more
than 10 points.
There is no question — America’s billionaire-friendly, job-destroying trade policy is toxic —
again,
literally. That’s why Obama and his bipartisan “free trade” enablers in Congress have to pass
TPP, if they can, in post-election lame duck session. TPP is also toxic to political careers, and
only lame ducks and the recently-elected can vote for it.
Frank again on Trump:
Last week, I decided to watch several hours of Trump speeches for myself. I saw the man ramble
and boast and threaten and even seem to gloat when protesters were ejected from the arenas in
which he spoke. I was disgusted by these things, as I have been disgusted by Trump for 20 years.
But I also noticed something surprising. In
each of the
speeches I watched,
Trump spent a good part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could
even be called left-wing.
Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking
about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan
to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame. He did
it again during the debate on 3 March: asked about his
political excommunication by Mitt Romney, he chose to pivot and talk about … trade.
It seems to obsess him: the destructive free-trade deals our leaders have made, the
many companies that have moved their production facilities to other lands, the phone calls he
will make to those companies’ CEOs in order to threaten them with steep tariffs unless they move
back to the US.
On the subject more generally, Frank adds:
Trade is an issue that polarizes Americans by socio-economic status. To the professional
class, which encompasses the vast majority of our media figures, economists, Washington officials
and Democratic power brokers, what they call “free trade” is something so obviously good and noble
it doesn’t require explanation or inquiry or
even thought. Republican and Democratic leaders alike agree on this, and no amount of facts
can move them from their Econ 101 dream.
To the remaining 80 or 90% of America, trade means something very different. There’s
a video going around
on the internet these days that shows a room full of workers at a Carrier air conditioning plant
in Indiana being told by an officer of the company that the factory is being moved to Monterrey,
Mexico and that they’re all going to lose their jobs.
As I watched it, I thought of all the arguments over trade that we’ve had in this country since
the early 1990s, all the sweet words from our economists about the scientifically proven benevolence
of free trade, all the ways in which our newspapers mock people who say that treaties like the
North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement allow companies to move jobs to Mexico.
Well, here is a video of a company moving its jobs to Mexico, courtesy of Nafta. This is what
it looks like. The Carrier executive talks in that familiar and highly professional HR language
about the need to “stay competitive” and “the extremely price-sensitive marketplace.” A worker
shouts “Fuck you!” at the executive. The executive asks people to please be quiet so he can “share”
his “information”. His information about all of them losing their jobs.
Frank goes to greater length, and again, please
click through. But you get the idea. This is what Trump is speaking to, whether he means what
he says or not, and this is what his voters are responding to, whether they like his racism or not.
After all, haven’t you, at least once, voted for someone with qualities you dislike because of policies
you do like?
Whose Fault Is This? Both Parties, But Especially the Democratic Elites
One final point. Frank takes on the issue of responsibility:
Trump’s words articulate the populist backlash against liberalism that has been building slowly
for decades … Yet still we cannot bring ourselves to look the thing in the eyes. We cannot admit
that we liberals bear some [or most] of the blame for its emergence, for the frustration of the
working-class millions, for their blighted cities and their downward spiraling lives. So much
easier to scold them for their twisted racist souls, to close our eyes to the obvious reality
of which Trump_vs_deep_state is just a crude and ugly expression: that neoliberalism has well and truly
failed.
I am certain, if this comes up in a general election debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump, she could very likely get her clock cleaned; not certainly, but certainly very likely. First,
she can only equivocate, and Trump will have none of it. (Trump: “Let me understand. You were for
this before you were against it? So … will you be for it again next year? I’m just trying to understand.”)
Second, this is a change election, Trump is one of only two change candidates in the race, and
Clinton is not the other one.
Here’s that Carrier Air Conditioning “we’re
moving to Mexico” video that Frank mentioned above. Take a look, but prepare to feel some pain
as you watch:
FBI memos show case was to be closed with a defensive briefing before a second interview
with Flynn was sought.
Evidence withheld for years from Michael Flynn's defense team shows the FBI found "no
derogatory" Russia evidence against the former Trump National Security Adviser and that
counterintelligence agents had recommended closing down the case with a defensive briefing
before the bureau's leadership intervened in January 2017
In the text messages to his team, Strzok specifically cited "the 7th floor" of FBI
headquarters, where then-Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCane worked,
as the reason he intervened.
"Hey if you haven't closed RAZOR, don't do so yet," Strzok texted on Jan. 4,
2017
####
JFC.
Remember kids, the United States is a well oiled machine that dispenses justice equitably
along with free orange juce to the tune of 'One Nation Under a Groove.'
So, I think Mark asked about 'legal action', but as you can see Barr and others are going
through this stuff with a fine tooth comb so it is as solid when it goes public. More
importantly, it can be used as evidenec to reform such corruption and put some proper
controls in place to stop it happening again at least for a few years
And meanwhile everybody who thinks they might be in the line of fire at some future moment is
destroying evidence as fast as they can make it unfindable.
"... Comey later publicly took credit when he had told an audience that he decided he could "get away" with sending "a couple guys over" to the White House to set up Flynn and make the case. ..."
"... In his role as the national security adviser to the president elect, there was nothing illegal in Flynn meeting with Kislyak. To use this abusive law here was utterly absurd, although other figures such as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates also raised it. Nevertheless, the FBI had latched onto this abusive law to target the retired Army lieutenant general ..."
"... Another newly released document is an email from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who played the leadership role in targeting Flynn. In the email, Page suggests that Flynn could be set up by making a passing reference to a federal law that criminalizes lies to federal investigators. She suggested to Strzok that "it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in." So this effort was not about protecting national security or learning critical intelligence. It was about bagging Flynn for the case in the legal version of a canned trophy hunt. ..."
Previously undisclosed documents in the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn offer us a chilling
blueprint on how top FBI officials not only sought to entrap the former White House aide but
sought to do so on such blatantly unconstitutional and manufactured grounds.
These new documents further undermine the view of both the legitimacy and motivations of
those investigations under former FBI director James Comey. For all of those who have long seen
a concerted effort within the Justice Department to target the Trump administration, the
fragments will read like a Dead Sea Scrolls version of a "deep state" conspiracy.
One note reflects discussions within the FBI shortly after the 2016 election on how to
entrap Flynn in an interview concerning his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak. According to Fox News, the note was written by the former FBI head of
counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, after a meeting with Comey and his deputy director, Andrew
McCabe.
The note states, "What is our goal? Truth and admission or to get him to lie, so we can
prosecute him or get him fired?" This may have expressed an honest question over the motivation
behind this targeting of Flynn, a decision for which Comey later publicly took credit when
he had told an audience that he decided he could "get away" with sending "a couple guys over"
to the White House to set up Flynn and make the case.
The new documents also explore how the Justice Department could get Flynn to admit breaking
the Logan Act, a law that dates back to from 1799 which makes it a crime for a citizen to
intervene in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. It has never been used
to convict a citizen and is widely viewed as flagrantly unconstitutional.
In his role as the national security adviser to the president elect, there was nothing
illegal in Flynn meeting with Kislyak. To use this abusive law here was utterly absurd,
although other figures such as former acting Attorney General Sally Yates also raised it.
Nevertheless, the FBI had latched onto this abusive law to target the retired Army lieutenant
general .
Another newly released document is an email from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to former
FBI special agent Peter Strzok, who played the leadership role in targeting Flynn. In the
email, Page suggests that Flynn could be set up by making a passing reference to a federal law
that criminalizes lies to federal investigators. She suggested to Strzok that "it would be an
easy way to just casually slip that in." So this effort was not about protecting national
security or learning critical intelligence. It was about bagging Flynn for the case in the
legal version of a canned trophy hunt.
It is also disturbing that this evidence was only recently disclosed by the Justice
Department. When Flynn was pressured to plead guilty to a single count of lying to
investigators, he was unaware such evidence existed and that the federal investigators who had
interviewed him told their superiors they did not think that Flynn intentionally lied when he
denied discussing sanctions against Russia with Kislyak. Special counsel Robert Mueller and his
team changed all that and decided to bring the dubious charge. They drained Flynn financially
then threatened to charge his son.
Flynn never denied the conversation and knew the FBI had a transcript of it. Indeed,
President Trump publicly
discussed a desire to reframe Russian relations and renegotiate such areas of tensions. But
Flynn still ultimately pleaded guilty to the single false statement to federal investigators.
This additional information magnifies the doubts over the case.
Various FBI officials also lied and acted in arguably criminal or unethical ways, but all
escaped without charges. McCabe had a supervisory role in the Flynn prosecution. He was then
later found by the Justice Department inspector general to have repeatedly lied to
investigators. While his case was referred for criminal charges, McCabe was fired but never
charged. Strzok was also fired for his misconduct in the investigation.
Comey intentionally leaked FBI material, including potentially classified information but
was never charged. Another FBI agent responsible for the secret warrants used for the Russia
investigation had falsified evidence to maintain the investigation. He is still not indicted.
The disconnect of these cases with the treatment of Flynn is galling and grotesque.
Even the judge in the case has added to this disturbing record. As Flynn appeared before
District Judge Emmet Sullivan for sentencing, Sullivan launched into him and said he could be
charged with treason and with working as an unregistered agent on behalf of Turkey. Pointing to
a flag behind him, Sullivan declared to Flynn, "You were an unregistered agent of a foreign
country while serving as the national security adviser to the president of the United States.
That undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably, you sold your country
out."
Flynn was never charged with treason or with being a foreign agent. But when Sullivan
menacingly asked if he wanted a sentence then and there, Flynn wisely passed. It is a record
that truly shocks the conscience. While rare, it is still possible for the district court to
right this wrong since Flynn has not been sentenced. The Justice Department can invite the
court to use its inherent supervisory authority to right a wrong of its own making. As the
Supreme Court made clear in 1932, "universal sense of justice" is a stake in such cases. It is
the "duty of the court to stop the prosecution in the interest of the government itself to
protect it from the illegal conduct of its officers and to preserve the purity of its
courts."
Flynn was a useful tool for everyone and everything but justice. Mueller had ignored the
view of the investigators and coerced Flynn to plead to a crime he did not commit to gain
damaging testimony against Trump and his associates that Flynn did not have. The media covered
Flynn to report the flawed theory of Russia collusion and to foster the view that some sort of
criminal conspiracy was being uncovered by Mueller. Even the federal judge used Flynn to rail
against what he saw as a treasonous plot. What is left in the wake of the prosecution is an
utter travesty of justice.
Justice demands a dismissal of his prosecution. But whatever the "goal" may have been in
setting up Flynn, justice was not one of them.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington
University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley . - "
Source "
In a dramatic new turn of events, the legal team for Flynn, President
Trump's former national security advisor, says the Department of Justice has turned over exculpatory
evidence in his case. Flynn is defending against charges he lied to FBI agents in the course of their
investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
At a minimum, this information, which includes evidence that US government prosecutors illegally
coerced a guilty plea by threatening Flynn's son with prosecution, warrants the withdrawal of that
guilty plea. Whether or not the judge in the case, US District Court Judge Emmet G Sullivan, will
dismiss the entire case against Flynn on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct is yet to be seen.
One fact, however, emerges from this sordid affair: the FBI, lauded by its supporters as the world's
"premier law enforcement agency,"
is anything but.
Evidence of FBI misconduct during its investigation into alleged collusion between members of the
Trump campaign team and the Russian government in the months leading up to the presidential election
has been mounting for some time. From mischaracterizing information provided by former British MI6
officer Christopher Steele in order to manufacture a case against then-candidate Trump, to committing
fraud against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize wiretaps on former low-level
Trump advisor Carter Page, the FBI has a record of corruption that would make a third-world dictator
envious.
The crimes committed under the aegis of the FBI are not the actions of rogue agents, but rather
part and parcel of a systemic effort managed from the very top – both former Director James Comey and
current Director Christopher Wray are implicated in facilitating this criminal conduct. Moreover, it
was carried out in collaboration with elements within the Department of Justice, and with the
assistance of national security officials working for the Obama administration, making for a
conspiracy that would rival any investigation conducted by the FBI under the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act.
The heart of the case against Michael Flynn – a flamboyant, decorated combat veteran, with 33 years
of honorable service in the US Army – revolves around a phone call he made to the Russian ambassador
to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29, 2016. That was the same day then-President Obama
ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the US on charges of espionage. The conversation
was intercepted by the National Security Agency as part of its routine monitoring of Russian
communications. Normally, the identities of US citizens caught up in such surveillance are
"masked,"
or hidden, so as to preserve their constitutional rights. However, in certain instances
deemed critical to national security, the identity can be
"unmasked"
to help further an
investigation, using
"minimization"
standards designed to protect the identities and privacy
of US citizens.
In Flynn's case, these
"minimization"
standards were thrown out the window: on January 12,
2017, and again on February 9, the Washington Post published articles that detailed Flynn's phone call
with Kislyak. US Attorney John Durham, tasked by Attorney General William P Barr to lead a review of
the actions taken by law enforcement and intelligence officials as part of the Russian collusion
scandal, is currently investigating the potential leaking of classified information by Obama-era
officials in relation to these articles.
Flynn's phone call with Kislyak was the central topic of interest when a pair of FBI agents, led by
Peter Strzok, met with Flynn in his White House office on January 24, 2017. This meeting later served
as the source of the charge levied against him for lying to a federal agent. It also provided grist
for then acting-Attorney General Sally Yates to travel to the White House on January 26 to warn
then-White House Counsel Michael McGahn that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his
conversations with Kislyak, and, as such, was in danger of being compromised by the Russians.
That Flynn lied, or otherwise misrepresented, his conversation with Kislyak to Pence is not in
dispute; indeed, it was this act that prompted President Trump to fire Flynn in the first place. But
lying to the Vice President, while wrong, is not a crime. Lying to FBI agents, however, is. And yet
the available evidence suggests that not only did Flynn not lie to Strzok and his partner when
interviewed on January 24, but that the FBI later doctored its report of the interview, known in FBI
parlance as a
"302 report,"
to show that Flynn had. Internal FBI documents and official
testimony clearly show that a 302 report on Strzok's conversation with Flynn was prepared
contemporaneously, and that he had shown no indication of deception. However, in the criminal case
prepared against him by the Department of Justice, a 302 report dated August 22, 2017 – over seven
months after the interview – was cited as the evidence underpinning the charge of lying to a federal
agent.
The evidence of a doctored 302 report, when combined with the evidence that the US prosecutor
conspired with Flynn's former legal counsel to
"keep secret"
the details of his plea
agreement, in violation of so-called Giglio requirements (named after the legal precedent set in
Giglio v. United States which holds that the failure to disclose immunity deals to co-conspirators
constitutes a violation of due-process rights), constitutes a clear-cut case of FBI malfeasance and
prosecutorial misconduct. Under normal circumstances, that should warrant the dismissal of the
government's case against Flynn.
Whether Judge Emmet G Sullivan will agree to a dismissal, or, if not, whether the Department of
Justice would seek to retry Flynn, are not known at this time. What is known, however, is the level of
corruption that exists within the FBI and elements of the Department of Justice, regarding their
prosecution of a US citizen for purely political motive. Notions of integrity and fealty to the rule
of law that underpin the opinions of many Americans when it comes to these two institutions have been
shredded in the face of overwhelming evidence that the law is meaningless when the FBI targets you. If
this could happen to a man with Michael Flynn's stature and reputation, it can happen to anyone.
Devastating flashback clip of Comey just aired on @marthamaccallum show.
When asked who went around the protocol of going through the WH Counsel's office and instead decided to send the FBI agents
into White House for the Flynn perjury trap ...
...Comey smugly responds "I sent them."
Here is the clip:
@comey is preparing for prison and hoping to avoid
the death penalty. Will Obama be brought down too?
Imagine having your life and reputation ruined by rogue US govt. officials. Then years later when the plot finally comes to
light the first thing you do is post an American flag. This is the guy they wanted you to believe was a Russian asset. 🙄
https://t.co/TI768Vijn2
U.S. District Court Judge
Emmet
G. Sullivan unsealed four pages of stunning FBI emails and handwritten notes Wednesday, regarding former Trump National Security
Advisor Michael Flynn, which allegedly reveal the retired three star general was targeted by senior FBI officials for prosecution,
stated Flynn's defense attorney Sidney Powell. Those notes and emails revealed that the retired three-star general appeared to be
set up for a perjury trap by the senior members of the bureau and agents charged with investigating the now-debunked allegations
that President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, said Sidney Powell, the defense lawyer representing Flynn.
Moreover, the
Department of Justice release 11 more pages of documents Wednesday afternoon, according to Powell.
While we await Judge Sullivan's order to unseal the exhibits from Friday, the government has just provided 11 more pages even
more appalling that the Friday production. We have requested the redaction process begin immediately.
@GenFlynn @BarbaraRedgate pic.twitter.com/YPEjZWbdvo
"What is especially terrifying is that without the integrity of Attorney General Bill Barr and
U.S. Attorney Jensen , we still would not have this clear exculpatory information as Mr. Van Grack and the prosecutors have opposed
every request we have made," said Powell.
It appears, based on the notes and emails that the Department of Justice was determined at the time to prosecute Flynn, regardless
of what they found, Powell said.
"The FBI pre-planned a deliberate attack on Gen. Flynn and willfully chose to ignore mention of Section 1001 in the interview
despite full knowledge of that practice," Powell said in a statement.
"The FBI planned it as a perjury trap at best and in so doing put it in writing stating 'what is our goal? Truth/ Admission
or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired."
The documents, reviewed and obtained by SaraACarter.com , reveal that
senior FBI officials discussed strategies for targeting and setting up Flynn, prior to interviewing him at the White House on Jan.
24, 2017. It was that interview at the White House with former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka that
led Flynn, now 61, to plead guilty after months of pressure by prosecutors, financial strain and threats to prosecute his son.
Powell filed a motion earlier this year to withdraw Flynn's guilty plea and to dismiss his case for egregious government misconduct.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017, under duress by government prosecutors, to lying to investigators about his conversations
with Russian diplomat
Sergey Kislyak about sanctions on Russia. This January, however, he withdrew his guilty plea in the U.S. District Court in Washington,
D.C. He stated that he was "innocent of this crime" and was coerced by the FBI and prosecutors under threats that would charge his
son with a crime. He filed to withdraw his guilty plea after DOJ prosecutors went back on their word and asked the judge to sentence
Flynn to up to six months in prison, accusing him of not cooperating in another case against his former partner. Then prosecutors
backtracked and said probation would be fine but by then Powell, his attorney, had already filed to withdraw his guilty plea.
The documents reveal that prior to the interview with Flynn in January, 2017 the FBI had already come to the conclusion that Flynn
was guilty and beyond that the officials were working together to see how best to corner the 33-year military veteran and former
head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The bureau deliberately chose not to show him the evidence of his phone conversation to
help him in his recollection of events, which is standard procedure. Even stranger, the agents that interviewed Flynn later admitted
that they didn't believe he lied during the interview with them.
Powell told this reporter last week that the documents produced by the government are "stunning Brady evidence' proving Flynn
was deliberately set up and framed by corrupt agents at the top of the FBI to target President Trump.
She noted earlier this week in her motion that the evidence "also defeats any argument that the interview of Mr. Flynn on January
24 was material to any 'investigation.' The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution
-- knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn."
Powell told this reporter Wednesday that the order by Sullivan to unseal the documents in Exhibit 3 in the supplement to Flynn's
motion to dismiss for egregious government conduct is exposing the truth to the public. She said it's "easy to see that he was set
up and that Mr. Flynn was the insurance policy for the FBI." Powell's reference to the 'insurance policy,' is based on one of the
thousands of texts exchanged by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and her then-lover former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok.
In an Aug. 15, 2016, text from Strzok to Page he states, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's
(former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's
like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before 40."
The new documents were turned over to Powell, by U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea. They were discovered after an extensive review by
the attorneys appointed by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review Flynn's case, which includes U.S. Attorney of St. Louis,
Jeff Jensen.
In one of the emails dated Jan. 23, 2017, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who at the time was having an affair with Strzok and who worked
closely with him on the case discussed the charges the bureau would bring on Flynn before the actual interview at the White House
took place. Those email exchanges were prepared for former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired by the DOJ for lying
multiple times to investigators with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's office.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Trump for his conduct, revealed during an interview with Nicolle Wallace
last year that he sent the FBI agents to interview Flynn at the White House under circumstances he would have never done to another
administration.
"I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration,"
Comey said. "In the George W. Bush administration or the Obama administration, two men that all of us, perhaps, have increased appreciation
for over the last two years."
In the Jan 23, email Page asks Strzok the day before he interviews Flynn at the White House:
"I have a question for you. Could the admonition re 1001 be given at the beginning at the interview? Or does it have
to come following a statement which agents believe to be false? Does the policy speak to that? (I feel bad that I don't know this
but I don't remember ever having to do this! Plus I've only charged it once in the context of lying to a federal probation officer).
It seems to be if the former, then it would be an easy way to just casually slip that in.
"Of course as you know sir, federal law makes it a crime to "
Strzok's response:
I haven't read the policy lately, but if I recall correctly, you can say it at any time. I'm 90 percent sure about that, but
I can check in the am.
In the motion filed earlier this week, Powell stated "since August 2016 at the latest, partisan FBI and DOJ leaders conspired
to destroy Mr. Flynn. These documents show in their own handwriting and emails that they intended either to create an offense they
could prosecute or at least get him fired. Then came the incredible malfeasance of Mr. Van Grack's and the SCO's prosecution despite
their knowledge there was no crime by Mr. Flynn."
Attached to the email is handwritten notes regarding Flynn that are stunning on their face. It is lists of how the agents will
guide him in an effort to get him to trip up on his answers during their questioning and what charges they could bring against him.
"If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ & have them decide," state the handwritten notes.
"Or if he initially lies, then we present him (not legible) & he admits it, document for DOJ, & let them decide how to address
it."
The next two points reveal that the agents were concerned about how their interview with Flynn would be perceived saying "if we're
seen as playing games, WH (White House) will be furious."
"Protect our institution by not playing games," t he last point on the first half of the hand written notes state.
From the handwritten note:
Afterwards:
interview
I agreed yesterday that we shouldn't show Flynn (redacted) if he didn't admit
I thought @ it last night, I believe we should rethink this
What is (not legible) ? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?
we regularly show subjects evidence, with the goal of getting them to admit their wrongdoing
I don't see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him
If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ & have them decide
Or if he initially lies, then we present him (not legible) & he admits it, document for DOJ, & let them decide how to address
it
If we're seen as playing games, WH will be furious
Protect our institution by not playing games
(Left column)
we have case on Flynn & Russians
Our goal is to (not legible)
Our goal is to determine if Mike Flynn is going to tell the truth or if he lies @ relationship w/ Russians
can quote (redacted)
Shouldn't (redacted
Review (not legible) stand alone
It appears evident from an email from former FBI agent Strzok, who interviewed Flynn at the White House to then FBI General Counsel
James Baker, who is no longer with the FBI and was himself under investigation for leaking alleged national security information
to the media.
The email was a series of questions to prepare McCabe for his phone conversation with Flynn on the day the agents went to interview
him at the White House. These questions would be questions that Flynn may ask McCabe before sending the agents over to interview
him.
Email from Peter Strzok, cc'd to FBI General Counsel James Baker: (January 24, 2017)
I'm sure he's thought through these, but for DD's (referencing Deputy Director Andrew McCabe) consideration about how to answer
in advance of his call with Flynn:
Am I in trouble?
Am I the subject of an investigation?
Is it a criminal investigation?
Is it an espionage investigation? Do I need an attorney? Do I need to tell Priebus? The President?
Will you tell Priebus? The President? Will you tell the WH what I tell you?
What happens to the information/who will you tell what I tell you? Will you need to interview other people?
Will our interview be released publically? Will the substance of our interview be released?
How long will this take (depends on his cooperation – I'd plan 45 minutes)? Can we do this over the phone?
I can explain all this right now, I did this, this, this [do you shut him down? Hear him out? Conduct the interview if he starts
talking? Do you want another agent/witness standing by in case he starts doing this?]
President Donald Trump has bashed former FBI Director James Comey, after unsealed documents
revealed an agency plot to entrap Gen. Michael Flynn in a bid to take down the Trump
presidency. "DIRTY COP JAMES COMEY GOT CAUGHT!" Trump tweeted on Thursday morning, in
one of a series of tweets lambasting the FBI's prosecution of retired army general Michael
Flynn, which he called a "scam."
Flynn served as Trump's national security adviser in the first days of the Trump presidency,
before he was fired for allegedly lying about his contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak.
An FBI investigation followed, and several months later, Flynn pleaded guilty to Special
Counsel Robert Mueller about lying during interviews with agents. He has since tried to
withdraw the plea, citing poor legal defense and accusing the FBI and Obama administration of
setting him up from the outset.
Documents unsealed by a federal judge on Wednesday seem to support that argument. In one
handwritten note, dated the same day as Flynn's FBI interview in January 2017, the unidentified
note-taker jots down some potential strategies to use against the former general.
"We have a case on Flynn + Russians," the note reads. "What's our goal?
Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"
#FLYNN docs just
unsealed, including handwritten notes 1/24/2017 day of Flynn FBI interview. Transcript: "What
is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"
Read transcript notes, copy original just filed. @CBSNews
pic.twitter.com/8oqUok8i7m
The unsealed documents also include an email exchange between former agent Peter Strzok and
former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, in which the pair pondered whether to remind Flynn that lying to
federal agents is a crime. Page and Strzok were later fired from the agency, after a slew of
text messages emerged showing the pair's mutual disdain for Trump, and discussing the
formulation of an "insurance policy" against his election.
Flynn's discussions with Kislyak were deemed truthful by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe. Additionally, a Washington Post
article published the day before Flynn's January 2017 interview revealed that the FBI had
tapped his calls with the Russian ambassador and found "nothing illicit."
Still, Section 1001 of the US Criminal Code, which makes it illegal to lie to a federal
agent, is broad in its scope. Defense Attorney Solomon Wisenberg
wrote that "even a decent person who tries to stay out of trouble can face criminal
exposure under Section 1001 through a fleeting conversation with government agents."
Early January 2017 Recommendation To Close Case on General Flynn Rebuffed by FBI Leaders
by Larry C Johnson
The document dump from the Department of Justice on the Michael Flynn case continues and the
information is shocking and damning. It is now clear why previous leaders of the Department of
Justice (Sessions and Rosenstein) and current FBI Director Wray tried to keep this material
hidden. There is now no doubt that Jim Comey and Andy McCabe help lead and direct a conspiracy
to frame Michael Flynn for a "crime" regardless of the actual facts surrounding General Flynn's
conduct.
The most stunning revelation from today's document release is that the FBI agents who
investigated Michael Flynn aka "Crossfire Razor" RECOMMENDED on the 4th of January 2017 that
the investigation of Flynn be closed. Let that sink in. The FBI agents investigating Flynn
found nothing to justify either a criminal or counter-intelligence investigation more than two
weeks before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President. Yet, FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy
Director McCabe, with the help of General Counsel Jim Baker, Assistant Director for Counter
Intelligence Bill Priestap, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok decided to try to manufacture a crime
against Flynn.
The documents released on Wednesday made clear that as of January 21st, the FBI Conspirators
were scrambling to find pretext for entrapping and charging General Flynn. Here is the
transcription of Bill Priestap's handwritten notes:
Apologists for these criminal acts by FBI officials insist this was all routine. "Nothing to
see here." "Move along." Red State's Nick Arama did a good job of reporting on the absurdity of
this idiocy (
see here ). Former US Attorney Andy McCarthy cuts to the heart of the matter:
"They did not have a legitimate investigative reason for doing this and there was no
criminal predicate or reason to treat him [Flynn] like a criminal suspect," McCarthy
explained.
"They did the interview outside of the established protocols of how the FBI is supposed to
interview someone on the White House staff. They are supposed to go through the Justice
Department and the White House counsel's office. They obviously purposely did not do that and
they were clearly trying to make a case on this."
"For years, a number of us have been arguing that this looked like a perjury trap," McCarthy
said.
Today's (Thursday) document dump reinforces the validity of McCarthy's conclusion that this
was a concocted perjury trap. The key document is the "Closing Communication" PDF dated 4
January 2017. It is a summary of the FBI's investigation of Crossfire Razor (i.e., Mike Flynn).
The document begins with this summary:
The FBI opened captioned case based on an articulable factual basis that Crossfire Razor
(CR) may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation
which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security. . . . Specifically, .
. . CR had ties to various state-affiliated entities of the Russian Federation, as reported by
open source information; and CR traveled to Russia in December 2015, as reported by open source
information.
The Agent conveniently fails to mention that Flynn's contacts with Russia in December 2015
were not at his initiative but came as an invitation from his Speaker's Bureau. Moreover,
General Flynn, because he still held TS/SCI clearances, informed the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) of the trip, received permission to make the trip and, upon returning to the
United States from Russia, was fully debriefed by DIA. How is that an indicator of posing a
threat to the national security of the United States?
The goal of the investigation is stated very clearly on page two of the document:
. . . to determine whether the captioned subject, associated with the Trump campaign, was
directed and controlled by and/or coordinated activities with the Russian federation in a
manner which is a threat to the national security and/or possibly a violation of the Foreign
Agents Registration Act, 18 U.S.C. section 951 et seq, or other related statutes.
And what did the FBI find? NOTHING. NADA. ZIPPO. The Agent who wrote this report played it
straight and the investigation in the right way. He or she concluded:
The Crossfire Hurricane team determined that CROSSFIRE RAZOR was no longer a viable
candidate as part of the larger CROSSFIRE HURRICANE umbrella case. . . . The FBI is closing
this investigation. If new information is identified or reported to the FBI regarding the
activities of CROSSFIRE RAZOR, the FBI will consider reopening the investigation if
warranted.
This document is dated 4 January 2017. But Peter Strzok sent a storm of text messages to the
Agent who drafted the report asking him to NOT close the case.
This is not how a normal criminal or counter-intelligence case would be conducted. Normally
you would have actual evidence or "indicia" of criminal or espionage activity. But don't take
me word for it. Jim Comey bragged about this outrageous
conduct:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/NxNhjFrjXqI
Comey is a corrupt, sanctimonious prick. I suspect he may not think what he did was so funny
in the coming months. He may have forgotten saying this stupidity, but the video remains
intact.
The documents being released over the last week provide great insight into Attorney General
William Barr's strategy. He is not going to entertain media debates and back-and-forth with the
apologists for treason. He is letting the documents speak for themselves and ensuring that US
Attorneys--who are not part of the fetid, Washington, DC sewer--review the documents and
procedures used to prosecute political figures linked to President Trump. Then those documents
are legally and appropriately released. Barr is playing by the rules.
We are not talking about the inadvertent discovery of an isolated mistake or an act of
carelessness. The coup against Trump was deliberate and the senior leadership of the FBI
actively and knowingly participated in this plot. Exposing and punishing them remains a top
priority for Attorney General Barr, who understands that a failure to act could spell the doom
of this Republic.
No indictments.
Not for this bunch of swamp rats.
One set of laws for the swamp, another for America.
And now the same swamp - the bureaucrat pinhead version - are destroying the economy and
shutting down the country?.
Why?
Terrible decisions based on worse "data" AND tank the economy and Trump's re-election
chances.
Flynn has been bankrupted. He has fought valiantly to restore his honor ALONE. His fate is in
many ways in the hands of Judge Sullivan.
Trump other than tweet has done what for someone that brought military and national
security cred to his campaign? Let's not forget that Flynn was fired ostensibly for lying to
VP Pence. Exactly what the putschists wanted to accomplish.
blue peacock
Flynn is a nice Irish Catholic boy from Rhode Island whose father a retired MP staff sergeant
and branch manager of a local bank successfully cultivated the ROTC staff at U of RI so that
his two sons were given army ROTC scholarships in management, something their father could
understand. Michael and his brother, both generals are NOT members of the WP club and
therefore available for sacrifice. Michael Flynn occupied a narrow niche in Military
Intelligence. He was a targeting guy in the counter-terrorism bidness and rode that train to
the top without much knowledge or experience of anything else. He and his boss Stan
McChrystal, soul mates. He was singularly unqualified to be head of one of the major agencies
of the IC. IMO Martin Dempsey, CJCS (a member of the WP club) used Flynn to stand up to
Brennan's CIA and the NSC nuts at the WH while standing back in the shade himself. That is
why Obama cautioned Trump to be wary of North Korea and Michael Flynn. And this "innocent"
was then mousetrapped by people he thought were patriots.
True then, but what was not expected was Trump neither resigning nor being impeached nor
getting a new AG who would launch the Durham investigation. I wonder what FISA warrants are
out related to the Chinese virus and associated communications with US and Chinese nationals.
At least we don't have Obama's cast of characters involved in that, unless we have his "j.v."
team.
Someone that doesn't show up much in The NY Times or the Washington Post now but was the
central character in numerous scurrilous stories. Svetlana Lokhova was falsely slandered for
having an affair with Gen.Flynn and accused as a Russian agent by CIA/FBI agent Stefan
Halper.
What we learned today from the STUNNING document release in the case of @GenFlynn 1. FBI
opened a full-blown counterintelligence investigation in 2016 on the ex head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency while he was working for a political campaign based on one piece of
false intel
Its mind blowing the vast tentacles of this conspiracy at the highest levels of our law
enforcement and intelligence agencies. It is even more mind blowing that the miscreants have
profited so handsomely with book deals, media sinecures, GoFundMe campaigns. None have been
prosecuted.
Newly unsealed documents indicate that the FBI targeted former National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn for prosecution, showing senior officials at the bureau discussing ways to
ensnare him in a "perjury trap" before an interview.
The four pages of documents were
unsealed by US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan on Wednesday, revealing in handwritten notes
and emails that the FBI's goal in investigating Flynn may have been "to get him to lie so we
can prosecute him or get him fired."
"The FBI planned it as a perjury trap at best and in so doing put it in writing,"
Flynn's defense attorney Sidney Powell said in a statement.
Sullivan also ordered another 11 pages of documents unsealed, which, according to Powell ,
may soon be redacted and published.
How they planned to get Flynn removed:1) Get Flynn "to admit to breaking the Logan Act";
or2) Catch Flynn in a lie.Their end goal was a referral to the DOJ - not to investigate
Flynn's contacts with the Russians. pic.twitter.com/Vty3FYaSt9
The potentially exculpatory documents were inexplicably denied to Flynn's defense team for
years, despite numerous requests to the government.
"What is especially terrifying is that without the integrity of Attorney General Bill
Barr and US Attorney Jensen, we still would not have this clear exculpatory information as ...
the prosecutors have opposed every request we have made," Powell said.
The role of the FBI in instigating the prosecution of Michael Flynn, the criminality of its conduct, and
the encouragement it received in doing so from senior Obama officials should offend everyone.
In a dramatic new turn of events, the legal team for Flynn, President Trump's former national security
advisor, says the Department of Justice has turned over exculpatory evidence in his case.Flynn is
defending against charges he lied to FBI agents in the course of their investigation into allegations of
Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
At a minimum, this information, which
includes evidence that US government prosecutors illegally coerced a guilty plea by threatening Flynn's
son with prosecution, warrants the withdrawal of that guilty plea. Whether or not the judge in the case,
US District Court Judge Emmet G Sullivan, will dismiss the entire case against Flynn on the grounds of
prosecutorial misconduct is yet to be seen. One fact, however, emerges from this sordid affair: the FBI,
lauded by its supporters as the world's
"premier law enforcement agency,"
is anything but.
Evidence of FBI misconduct during its investigation into alleged collusion between members of the
Trump campaign team and the Russian government in the months leading up to the presidential election has
been mounting for some time. From mischaracterizing information provided by former British MI6 officer
Christopher Steele in order to manufacture a case against then-candidate Trump, to committing fraud
against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize wiretaps on former low-level Trump
advisor Carter Page, the FBI has a record of corruption that would make a third-world dictator envious.
The crimes committed under the aegis of the FBI are not the actions of rogue agents, but rather part
and parcel of a systemic effort managed from the very top – both former Director James Comey and current
Director Christopher Wray are implicated in facilitating this criminal conduct. Moreover, it was carried
out in collaboration with elements within the Department of Justice, and with the assistance of national
security officials working for the Obama administration, making for a conspiracy that would rival any
investigation conducted by the FBI under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The heart of the case against Michael Flynn – a flamboyant, decorated combat veteran, with 33 years of
honorable service in the US Army – revolves around a phone call he made to the Russian ambassador to the
United States, Sergey Kislyak, on December 29, 2016. That was the same day then-President Obama ordered
the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the US on charges of espionage. The conversation was
intercepted by the National Security Agency as part of its routine monitoring of Russian communications.
Normally, the identities of US citizens caught up in such surveillance are
"masked,"
or hidden,
so as to preserve their constitutional rights. However, in certain instances deemed critical to national
security, the identity can be
"unmasked"
to help further an investigation, using
"minimization"
standards designed to protect the identities and privacy of US citizens.
In Flynn's case, these
"minimization"
standards were thrown out the window: on January 12,
2017, and again on February 9, the Washington Post published articles that detailed Flynn's phone call
with Kislyak. US Attorney John Durham, tasked by Attorney General William P Barr to lead a review of the
actions taken by law enforcement and intelligence officials as part of the Russian collusion scandal, is
currently investigating the potential leaking of classified information by Obama-era officials in
relation to these articles.
Flynn's phone call with Kislyak was the central topic of interest when a pair of FBI agents, led by
Peter Strzok, met with Flynn in his White House office on January 24, 2017. This meeting later served as
the source of the charge levied against him for lying to a federal agent. It also provided grist for then
acting-Attorney General Sally Yates to travel to the White House on January 26 to warn then-White House
Counsel Michael McGahn that Flynn had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with
Kislyak, and, as such, was in danger of being compromised by the Russians.
That Flynn lied, or otherwise misrepresented, his conversation with Kislyak to Pence is not in
dispute; indeed, it was this act that prompted President Trump to fire Flynn in the first place. But
lying to the Vice President, while wrong, is not a crime. Lying to FBI agents, however, is. And yet the
available evidence suggests that not only did Flynn not lie to Strzok and his partner when interviewed on
January 24, but that the FBI later doctored its report of the interview, known in FBI parlance as a
"302 report,"
to show that Flynn had. Internal FBI documents and official testimony clearly show
that a 302 report on Strzok's conversation with Flynn was prepared contemporaneously, and that he had
shown no indication of deception. However, in the criminal case prepared against him by the Department of
Justice, a 302 report dated August 22, 2017 – over seven months after the interview – was cited as the
evidence underpinning the charge of lying to a federal agent.
The evidence of a doctored 302 report, when combined with the evidence that the US prosecutor
conspired with Flynn's former legal counsel to
"keep secret"
the details of his plea agreement,
in violation of so-called Giglio requirements (named after the legal precedent set in Giglio v. United
States which holds that the failure to disclose immunity deals to co-conspirators constitutes a violation
of due-process rights), constitutes a clear-cut case of FBI malfeasance and prosecutorial misconduct.
Under normal circumstances, that should warrant the dismissal of the government's case against Flynn.
Whether Judge Emmet G Sullivan will agree to a dismissal, or, if not, whether the Department of
Justice would seek to retry Flynn, are not known at this time. What is known, however, is the level of
corruption that exists within the FBI and elements of the Department of Justice, regarding their
prosecution of a US citizen for purely political motive. Notions of integrity and fealty to the rule of
law that underpin the opinions of many Americans when it comes to these two institutions have been
shredded in the face of overwhelming evidence that the law is meaningless when the FBI targets you. If
this could happen to a man with Michael Flynn's stature and reputation, it can happen to anyone.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing
the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on
Twitter @RealScottRitter
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
"... Of particular interest will be cases overseen by now-unemployed former US attorney for DC, Jessie Liu, which includes actions against Stone, Flynn, the Awan brothers, James Wolfe and others . Notably, Wolfe was only sentenced to leaking a classified FISA warrant application to journalist and side-piece Ali Watkins of the New York Times - while prosecutors out of Liu's office threw the book at former Trump adviser Roger Stone - recommending 7-9 years in prison for process crimes. ..."
"... What's next on the real-life House of Cards? ..."
A
week of two-tiered
legal shenanigans was capped off on Friday with a
New York
Times report that Attorney General William Barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to
scrutinize the government's case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn,
which the Times suggested was " highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political
interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors."
Notably, the FBI excluded
crucial information from a '302' form documenting an interview with Flynn in January, 2017.
While Flynn eventually pleaded guilty to misleading agents over his contacts with the former
Russian ambassador regarding the Trump administration's efforts to oppose a UN resolution
related to Israel, the original draft of Flynn's 302 reveals that agents thought
he was being honest with them - evidence which Flynn's prior attorneys never pursued.
His new attorney, Sidney Powell, took over Flynn's defense in June 2019 - while Flynn
withdrew his guilty plea in January , accusing the government of "bad faith,
vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement."
In addition to a review of the Flynn case, Barr has hired a handful of outside prosecutors
to broadly review several other politically sensitive national-security cases in the US
attorney's office in Washington , according to the Times sources.
Of particular interest will be cases overseen by now-unemployed former US attorney for DC,
Jessie Liu, which includes actions against Stone, Flynn, the Awan brothers, James Wolfe and
others . Notably, Wolfe was only sentenced to leaking a classified FISA warrant application to
journalist and side-piece
Ali Watkins of the New York Times - while prosecutors out of Liu's office threw the book at
former Trump adviser Roger Stone - recommending 7-9 years in prison for process crimes.
Earlier this week, Barr overruled the DC prosecutors recommendation for Stone, resulting in
their resignations. The result was the predictable triggering of Democrats across the spectrum
.
According to the Times , "Over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have begun
grilling line prosecutors in the Washington office about various cases -- some public, some not
-- including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them, according to
the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal
deliberations."
The moves amounted to imposing a secondary layer of monitoring and control over what
career prosecutors have been doing in the Washington office. They are part of a broader
turmoil in that office coinciding with Mr. Barr's recent
installation of a close aide, Timothy Shea , as interim United States attorney in the
District of Columbia, after Mr. Barr maneuvered out the Senate-confirmed former top
prosecutor in the office, Jessie K. Liu.
Mr.
Flynn's case was first brought by the special counsel's office, who agreed to a plea deal
on a charge of lying to investigators in exchange for his cooperation, before the Washington
office took over the case when the special counsel shut down after concluding its
investigation into Russia's election interference.
-New
York Times
I was obvious that Flynn was targeted for elimination by what ludicrously calls itself the
"resistance" right from the beginning using Hoover's G-boys and girls who have by the way
been heavily infiltrated by CIA to get him.
Many of the players involved in this act worked in CI which is closely connected to the
CIA's own counter intelligence. In fact the connections are so incestuous that many of the
FBI's "agents" are sheep dipped Agency officers.
One has to ask themselves why the FBI would be so interested in foreign policy? Hoover
despite his many failings stayed out of the area of Foreign Intel yet the Bureau currently
seems obsessed by it.
Why? Probably because they are working on the same team as CIA, NSA, DIA, DHS and the
other alphabet soup agencies who gain their power from what could be correctly called the War
of Terror. Flynn being a threat because he was in agreement with Trump's proposed
noninterventionist foreign policy.
The same one he promised his voters but has currently reneged on. Remember the
"resistance" as they call themselves but are really the same ol' shit faction want America
constantly embroiled in Foreign conflicts and the operation known as the "Purple
Revolution"by the same group who likes to color code their regime changes was not only to
take down Flynn but Trump as well. A soft coup in other words.
Now that Trump's playing ball they can go after his base and those on the left who oppose
the usual that the so called "resistance' offers.
Seamus Padraig ,
One has to ask themselves why the FBI would be so interested in foreign policy? Hoover
despite his many failings stayed out of the area of Foreign Intel yet the Bureau currently
seems obsessed by it.
The FBI does have a counter-intelligence function, so that would give them some legitimate
interest in the activities of foreign intelligence services, at least; but I suspect their
obsession with Trump and Flynn goes far, far beyond any legitimate legal mandate.
True they've always had a CI function but it was more like a total Keystone Kops' operation.
Still is probably when you consider that Hannssen worked in their CI for over two decades
without being detected.
Of there's CIA with James Jesus Angleton who was a good friend of Kim Philby who wrecked
any CI capability both FBI and CIA had by being suspicious of any Russiaphile.
In fact this whole Russiaphobia and hoax is probably the resurrection of the ghost of
Angleton.
True Hoover spent more time chasing Commie and creating the Red Scare than he did cross
dressing and hanging out a Mob hangouts which he assured us didn't exist.
Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn filed a supplemental motion to withdraw his
guilty plea Wednesday citing failure by his previous counsel to advise him of the firm's
'conflict of interest in his case' regarding the Foreign Agents Registration Act form it filed
on his behalf, and by doing so "betrayed Mr. Flynn," stated Sidney Powell, in a defense motion
to the court.
Flynn's case is now in its final phase and his sentencing date, which was scheduled for Jan.
28, in a D.C. federal court before Judge Emmet Sullivan was changed to Feb. 27. The change came
after Powell filed the motion to withdraw his plea just days after the prosecutors made a major
reversal asking for up to six months jail time. The best case scenario for Flynn, is that Judge
Sullivan allows him to withdraw his guilty plea, the sentencing date is thrown-out and then his
case would more than likely would head to trial.
Powell alleged in a motion in December, 2019 that Flynn was strong-armed by the prosecution
into pleading guilty to one count of lying to FBI investigators regarding his conversation with
former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Others, close to Flynn, have corroborated the
accounts suggesting prosecutors threatened to drag Flynn's son into the investigation, who also
worked with his father at Flynn Intel Group, a security company established by Flynn.
In the recent motion Flynn denounced his admission of guilt in a declaration,
"I am innocent of this crime, and I request to withdraw my guilty plea. After I signed the
plea, the attorneys returned to the room and confirmed that the [special counsel's office]
would no longer be pursuing my son."
He denied that he lied to the FBI during the White House meeting with then FBI Special Agent
Peter Strzok and FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka. The meeting was set up by now fired FBI
Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was also fired for lying to
Inspector General Michael Horowitz's investigators. Strzok was fired by the FBI for his actions
during the Russia investigation.
Flynn stated:
"When FBI agents came to the White House on January 24, 2017, I did not lie to them. I
believed I was honest with them to the best of my recollection at the time. I still don't
remember if I discussed sanctions on a phone call with Ambassador Kislyak nor do I remember
if we discussed the details of a UN vote on Israel."
Powell Targets Flynn's Former Legal Team
Powell noted in Wednesday's motion that Flynn's former defense team at Covington &
Burling, a well known Washington D.C. law firm, failed to inform Flynn that their lawyers had
made "some initial errors or statements that were misunderstood in the FARA registration
process and filings." She also reaffirmed her position in the motion that government
prosecutors are continuing to withhold exculpatory information that would benefit Flynn.
A spokesperson with Flynn's former law firm Covington & Burling, stated in an email to
SaraACarter.com that "Under the bar rules, we are limited in our ability to respond publicly
even to allegations of this nature, absent the client's consent or a court order."
In Powell's motion, she stated that Covington and Burling was well aware that it had a
'conflict of interest' in representing Flynn after November 1, 2017. She stated in the motion
it was on that day, when Special Counsel prosecutors had notified Covington that "it recognized
Covington's conflict of interest from the FARA registration." Moreover, the government had
asked Covington lawyers to discuss the discrepancy and conflict with Flynn, Powell stated in
the motion.
"Mr. Flynn's former counsel at Covington made some initial errors or statements that were
misunderstood in the FARA registration process and filings, which the SCO amplified, thereby
creating an 'underlying work' conflict of interest between the firm and its client," stated
Powell in the motion.
"Government counsel specified Mr. Flynn's liability for 'false statements' in the FARA
registration, and he told Covington to discuss it with Mr. Flynn," states the motion.
"This etched the conflict in stone. Covington betrayed Mr. Flynn."
Powell included in her motion an email from Flynn's former law firm Covington & Burling
between his former attorney's Steven Anthony and Robert Kelner. The email was regarding the
Special Counsel's then-charges against Paul Manafort, who had been a short term campaign
manager for Trump. Manafort and his partner Rick Gates, were then faced with 'multiple criminal
violations, including FARA violations."
Internal Email From the motion:
In the internal email sent to Kelner, Anthony addresses his concerns after the Manafort
order was unsealed.
I just had a flash of a thought that we should consider, among many many factors with
regard to Bob Kelley, the possibility that the SCO has decided it does not have, [with regard
to] Flynn, the same level of showing of crime fraud exception as it had [with regard to]
Manafort. And that the SCO currently feels stymied in pursuing a Flynn-lied-to-his-lawyers
theory of a FARA violation. So, we should consider the conceivable risk that a disclosure of
the Kelley declaration might break through a wall that the SCO currently considers
impenetrable.
In February, 2017, then Department of Justice official David Laufman had called Flynn's
lawyers to push them to file a FARA, the motion states. In fact, it was a day after Flynn was
fired as the National Security Advisor for Trump. Laufman made the call to the Covington and
Burling office "to pressure them to file the FARA forms immediately," according to the
motion.
Laufman's push for Flynn's FARA seemed peculiar considering, Flynn's company 'Flynn Intel
Group' had filed a Lobbying Registration Act in September, 2016. Former partner to Flynn Bijan
Rafiekian, had been advised at the time by then lawyer Robert Kelly that there was no need for
the firm to file a FARA because it was not dealing directly with a foreign country or foreign
government official, as stated during his trial. In Rafiekian's trial Kelly testified that he
advised the Flynn Intel Group that by law they only needed to file a Lobbying Disclosure Act
and suggested they didn't need to file a FARA when dealing with a foreign company. In this
instance it was Innova BV, a firm based in Holland and owned by the Turkish businessman, Ekim
Alptekin.
Flynn's former Partner's Case Overturned, Powell Cites Case In Motion
In September, 2019, however, in a stunning move Judge Anthony Trenga with the Eastern
District of Virginia Rafiekian's conviction was overturned. Trenga stated in his lengthy
acquittal decision that government prosecutors did not make their case and the "jury was not
adequately instructed as to the role of Michael Flynn in light of the government's in-court
judicial admission that Flynn was not a member of the alleged conspiracy and the lack of
evidence sufficient to establish his participation in any conspiracy "
An important side note, Laufman continually posts anti-Trump tweets and is frequently on CNN
and MSNBC targeting the administration and its policies.
These despicable remarks reflect contempt for democracy and government accountability, and
constitute further evidence of the President's unfitness to lead our great nation. Republican
Members of Congress, stand up and fulfill your oaths. https://t.co/a8BwWkLTkv
Powell said prosecutors reversed course on their decision to not push for jail time for
Flynn in early January because she said, her client "refused to lie for the prosecution" in the
Rafiekian case.
do yourselves a favor and read her brief...Covington and the FBI are EVIL
BASTARDS......god help any of us who find ourselves in the govt crosshairs..I don't give a
rat's *** how much you despise Trump...these bastards in DC would cut your heads off if they
could profit from it.
Worse than that in this case. He had a deal that if he plead guilty they wouldn't go after
his son and they wouldn't recommend prison time for him. He did what they asked. Then they
recommended prison time in the end anyway.
How that isn't legal malpractice, I'm sure I don't know.
He may as well try suing the Queen of England. Federal prosecutors and federal law
enforcement agents have almost complete immunity from civil causes of action arising from the
performance of their duties, even if they acted maliciously, lied, etc. It's good to be the
King (or Queen, or a federal prosecutor). People generally have no idea how badly the deck is
stacked against them if they end up in the cross hairs of these people.
Ukrainegate has definite signs of Soros funded operation
Notable quotes:
"... America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers. ..."
"... Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team. ..."
"... There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic, and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions. ..."
"... Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit them to infest his administration. ..."
"... PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle. ..."
"... HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED... ..."
"... Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through 501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil. ..."
"... Tyler, please rerun this! How George Sorros destroys countries, profits from currency trading, convinces the countries to privatize its assets, buys them and then sells them for yet another profit: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly... ..."
"... We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... ..."
"... JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world. ..."
"... If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him) ..."
"... Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen. ..."
"... AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge in her own country! ..."
"... Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money ..."
Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning
after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned
in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent
the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete
ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon
George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros,
were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump
administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution
will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of
Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation
faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the
Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide
Huma Abedin
. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because
there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being
mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit
them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have
read as follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms
as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect
Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle
East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted
off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War.
Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his
administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies
but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with
the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities
to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed
at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and
the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org
and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle,
Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great
Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump
presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans
to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street
protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former
Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign
policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the
Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against
Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump
newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair
Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible
for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets
of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as
"anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's
son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics
not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George
Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
"It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care."
None of those "pressing issues" involve the DOJ or the FBI.
Investigate, prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton and her crew.
Trump is going to need a hostage or two to deal with these fucks.
News for the Clintons, The R's and D's already united to vote against Hillary.
I do not understand why they think street protests will bring down a POTUS? And that would be acceptable in a major nation.
Why isn't the government cracking down the separatists in Oregon, California, and elsewhere? They are not accepting the legal
outcome of an election. They are calling for illegal secession. (Funny in 1861 this was a cause for the federal government to
attack the joint and seveal states of the union.) If a group of whites had protested Obama's election in 2008?
The people living in Kalispell are reviled and ridiculed for their separatist views. Randy Weaver and family for not accepting
politically correct views. And so on.
This is getting out of hand. There will be no walking this back.
"Yes. And who are the neocons really? Progressives. Neocon is a label successfully used by criminal progressives to shield their
brand."
Well let's go a little bit deeper in examing the 'who' thing:
"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right, is, in
reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary , a media arm of the American
Jewish Committee , which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward , the oldest American Jewish weekly, wrote
in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: " If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can
lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.... "
The idea of arresting the Clinton Crime, Fraud and Crime Family would be welcomed. BUT, who is going to arrest them? Loretta Lynch,
James Comey, WHO? The problem here is that our so called "authorities" are all in the same bed. The tentacles of the Eastern Elite
Establishment are everywhere in high office, academia, the media, Big Business, etc. The swamp is thoroughly infested with this
elite scum of those in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, Club of Rome,
Committee of 300, Jason Society and numerous other private clubs of the rich, powerful and influential. The Illuminati has been
exposed, however they aren't going down lightly. They still have massive amounts of money, they own the media and the banking
houses. Some have described it as MIMAC, the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex. A few months ago here at Zero Hedge,
there was an article which showed a massive flow chart of the elites and their organization
They could IF and WHEN Trump gets to Washington after 20 Jan 2017, simply implode the economy and blame t it on Trump. Sort
of what happened to Herbert Hoover in the late 1920's. Unfortunately the situation in the US will continue to deteriorate. George
Soros, a major financial backer of Hillary will see to that. Soros is a Globalist and advocate of one world government. People
comment that Soros should be arrested. I agree, BUT who is going to do that?
Agree. I think Trump will yank all the "aid" to Israel as well as "aid" to the Islamic murderers of the Palitrashian human garbage
infesting the area. This "aid" money is simply a bribe to keep both from killing each other. F**k all of them. None of our business
what they do.
We got progressives ( lots and lots of Jews in that group) who are the enemy of mankind and then we got Islam who are also
the enemy of mankind. Why help either of them? Makes no sense.
Soros is hated in Israel and has never set foot there but his foundations have done such harm that a bill was recently passed
to ban foreign funding of non profit political organizations
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the man puts America first, really says
it all.
The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to act? There should be no question
about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
There are entirely way too many Intelligence Agencies. Plus the Contractors, some of who shouldn't have high level clearance to
begin with which the US sub contracts the Intel / work out to.
For Fucks sake, Government is so incompetent it can't even handle it own Intel.
Something along the lines of Eurpoe's Five Eyes would be highly effective.
Fuck those Pure Evil Psychopaths at the CIA They're nothing more than a bunch of Scum Fuck murdering, drug running, money laundering
Global Crime Syndicate.
The FBI is still investigating the Clinton Foundation, Trump needs to encourage that through backdoor channels. Soro's needs to
be investigated, he has been tied to a conspiracy to incite violence, this needs to be documented and dealt with. Trump can not
ignore this guy. If any of these investigations come back with a recommendation to indict then that process needs to be started.
Take the fight to them, they are vulnerable!
Make a National APB Warrent for the apprehension & arrest of George Sooros for inciting violence, endsrgerimg the public & calling
for the murder of our Nations Police through funding of the BLM Group.
Have every Law Informent Agency in the Nation on alert. Also, issue a Bounty in the Sum of $5,000,000 for his immediate apprehension.
Trump needs to replace FBI chickenshits & sellouts with loyal people then get the FBI counter-terrorism to investigate and shut
down Soros & the various agencies instigating the riots. It's really simple when you quit over-thinking a problem. It's domestic
terrorism. It's the FBI's job to stop it.
I read what Paul said this morning and thought, despite Paul's hostility to Trump during the primaries most likely due to his
son, Rand's loss, that Paul gave good advice to Trump.
Let's face it Donald Trump is a STOP GAP measure. And demographic change over the next 4 years makes his re-election very, very
UNLIKELY. If he keeps his campaign promises he will be a GREAT president. However as ZH reported earlier he appears to be balking
from repealing Obamacare, I stress the word APPEARS.
Let us give him a chance. This is all speculation. His enemies are DEADLY as they were once they got total control in Russia,
they killed according to Solzhenitsyn SIXTY-SIX MILLION Russian Christians. The descendants of those Bolsheviks are VERY powerful
in the USSA. They control the Fed, Hollyweird, Wall Street, the universities...
Much of the media and advertising exist by pushing buttons that trigger appropriate financially lucrative reflexes in their
audiences, from pornography to romantic movies to team sports. Media profits are driven by competition over how best to push
those buttons. But the effort to produce politically and racially cuckolded Whites adds a layer of complexity: What buttons
do you push to make Whites complicit in their own racial and cultural demise?
Actually, there are a whole lot of them, which shouldn't be surprising. This is a very sophisticated onslaught, enabled
by control over all the moral, intellectual, and political high ground by the left. With all that high ground, there are a
lot of buttons you can push.
Our enemies see this as a pathetic last gasp of a moribund civilization and it is quite true for our civilization is dying.
Identity Christians describe this phase as Jacob's Troubles and what the secular Guillaume Faye would, I think, describe as the
catastrophe required to get people motivated. The future has yet to be written, however I cannot help but think that God's people,
the White people, are stirring from their slumber.
"PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William
Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.
JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. "explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's
security" Served on JINSA's Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Perle."
If Trump has probable cause on the Soros crimes, have his DoJ request a warrant for all of Soros's communications via the NSA,
empanel a grand jury, indict the bastard, and throw his raggedy ass in prison. It would be hard for him to run his retarded purple
revolution when he's getting ass-raped by his cell mate.
I agree. Thing is, I think as president he can simply order the NSA to cough up whatever they have, just like Obama could have
done at any point. The NSA is part of the Defense Department, right? What am I missing here?
But in respect to Soro's money and the Dalas shooting or other incited events, there should be a grand jury empanelled and
then charges brought against him. I think nothing short of him hiding in an embassy with all his money blocked by Swift is justice
for the violence that he funded.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on
Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be
distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
And so it begins; I really hope that this is just some misinformation/disinformation, because HE PROMISED he would appoint
a special prosecutor, PROMISED...
The likes of Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg get to catch up on their Torah for the forseeable future but the likes
of Lloyd Blankfein will probably get to entertain the court since they have probably crossed paths doing business in NYC. The
"real conservative" deeply introspective, examine-my-conscience crowd screwed themselves to the wall, god love them.
Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because
that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through
501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a
massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil.
We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an
advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... (just in case you confused him with Mother Theresa)..
But then again JFK took office with a set of initiatives that were far more bellicose and provocative (like putting huge Jupiter
missile launchers on the USSR border in Turkey)... once he saw he light and fired the pro Nazi Dulles Gang , JFK was gunned
down in front of the whole world.
If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will
unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him)
I'm guessing though that deep down Trump is quite comfortable with a neoCon cabinet... hell he already offered Jamie Diamon
the office of Treasry Secretary... no doubt a calculated gesture to signal compliance with the Deep State.
The Clintons do not do things by accident. Coordination of colors at the concession speech was meant for something. Perhaps the
purple revolution or maybe they want to be seen as royals. It doesn't really matter why they did it; the fact is they are up to
something. They will not agree to go away and even if they offered to just disappear with their wealth we know they are dishonest.
They will come back... that is what they do.
They must be stripped of power and wealth. This act must be performed publicly.
In order to succeed Mr. Trump I suggest you task a group to accomplish this result. Your efforts to make America great again
may disintegrate just like Obamacare if you allow the Clintons and Co. to languish in the background.
The protestors are groups of individuals who may seek association for any number of reasons. One major reason might be the loss
of hope for a meaningful and prosperous life. We should seek out and listen to the individuals within these groups. If they are
truly desirous of being heard they will communicate what they want without use of violence. Perhaps individuals join these protest
groups because they do not have a voice.
Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction
and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen.
The articles reporting that Mr. Trump has changed his response to the protestors is a good effort to discover the protestors'
complaints and channel their energy into beneficial political activity. Something must be done quickly though, before the protests
get out of hand, for if that happens the protestors will be criminals and no one will want to work with them.
In order to make America great again we need input from all of America. Mr. Trump you can harness the energy of these protestors
and let them know they are a part of your movement.
Classical economists are experts on today's capitalism, it is 18th and 19th Century capitalism, it's how it all started.
Adam Smith would think we are on the road to ruin.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society.
On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalizing itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services.
Got that wrong as well.
Adam Smith wouldn't like today's lobbyists.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great
precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous,
but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of
the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions,
both deceived and oppressed it."
First five minutes of Alex Jones' video today is clips of people saying "Donald Trump will never be president". Full Show - Soros-Funded Goons Deployed to Overthrow America - 11/11/2016
AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge
in her own country!
lakecity55 -> CoCosAB •Nov 12, 2016 7:53 AM
Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money. Trump will have to do some rough stuff,
but he needs to, it's what we hired him for.
Junk author, junk book of the butcher of Yugoslavia who would be hanged with Bill clinton by
Nuremberg Tribunal for crimes against peace. Albright is not bright at all. she a female bully
and that shows.
Mostly projection. And this arrogant warmonger like to exercise in Russophobia (which was the
main part of the USSR which saved the world fro fascism, sacrificing around 20 million people)
This book is book of denial of genocide against Iraqis and Serbian population where bombing with
uranium enriched bombs doubled cancer cases.If you can pass over those facts that this book is
for you.
Like Robert Kagan and other neocons Albright is waiving authoritarism dead chicken again and
again. that's silly and disingenuous. authoritarism is a method of Governance used in military.
It is not an ideology. Fascism is an ideology, a flavor of far right nationalism. Kind of
"enhanced" by some socialist ideas far right nationalism.
The view of fascism without economic circumstances that create fascism, and first of
immiseration of middle and working class and high level of unemployment is a primitive
ahistorical view. Fascism is the ultimate capitalist statism acting simultaneously as the civil
religion for the population also enforced by the power of the state. It has a lot of common with
neoliberalism, that's why neoliberalism is sometimes called "inverted totalitarism".
In reality fascism while remaining the dictatorship of capitalists for capitalist and the
national part of financial oligarchy, it like neoliberalism directed against working class
fascism comes to power on the populist slogans of righting wrong by previous regime and kicking
foreign capitalists and national compradors (which in Germany turned to be mostly Jewish)
out.
It comes to power under the slogans of stopping the distribution of wealth up and elimination
of the class of reinters -- all citizens should earn income, not get it from bond and other
investments (often in reality doing completely the opposite).
While intrinsically connected and financed by a sizable part of national elite which often
consist of far right military leadership, a part of financial oligarchy and large part of lower
middle class (small properties) is is a protest movement which want to revenge for the
humiliation and prefer military style organization of the society to democracy as more potent
weapon to achieve this goal.
Like any far right movement the rise of fascism and neo-fascism is a sign of internal problem
within a given society, often a threat to the state or social order.
Still another noted that Fascism is often linked to people who are part of a distinct ethnic
or racial group, who are under economic stress, and who feel that they are being denied rewards
to which they are entitled. "It's not so much what people have." she said, "but what they think
they should have -- and what they fear." Fear is why Fascism's emotional reach can extend to
all levels of society. No political movement can flourish without popular support, but Fascism
is as dependent on the wealthy and powerful as it is on the man or woman in the street -- on
those who have much to lose and those who have nothing at all.
This insight made us think that Fascism should perhaps be viewed less as a political
ideology than as a means for seizing and holding power. For example, Italy in the 1920s
included self-described Fascists of the left (who advocated a dictatorship of the
dispossessed), of the right (who argued for an authoritarian corporatist state), and of the
center (who sought a return to absolute monarchy). The German National Socialist Party (the
Nazis) originally came together ar ound a list of demands that ca- tered to anti-Semites,
anti-immigrants, and anti-capitalists but also advocated for higher old-age pensions, more
educational op- portunities for the poor, an end to child labor, and improved ma- ternal health
care. The Nazis were racists and, in their own minds, reformers at the same time.
If Fascism concerns itself less with specific policies than with finding a pathway to power,
what about the tactics of lead- ership? My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remem-
ber best were charismatic. Through one method or another, each established an emotional link to
the crowd and, like the central figure in a cult, brought deep and often ugly feelings to the
sur- face. This is how the tentacles of Fascism spread inside a democ- racy. Unlike a monarchy
or a military dictatorship imposed on society from above. Fascism draws energy from men and
women who are upset because of a lost war, a lost job, a memory of hu- miliation, or a sense
that their country is in steep decline. The more painful the grounds for resentment, the easier
it is for a Fascist leader to gam followers by dangling the prospect of re- newal or by vowing
to take back what has been stolen.
Like the mobilizers of more benign movements, these secular evangelists exploit the
near-universal human desire to be part of a meaningful quest. The more gifted among them have
an apti- tude for spectacle -- for orchestrating mass gatherings complete with martial music,
incendiary rhetoric, loud cheers, and arm-
lifting salutes. To loyalists, they offer the prize of membership in a club from which
others, often the objects of ridicule, are kept out. To build fervor, Fascists tend to be
aggressive, militaristic, and -- when circumstances allow -- expansionist. To secure the
future, they turn schools into seminaries for true believers, striv- ing to produce "new men"
and "new women" who will obey without question or pause. And, as one of my students observed,
"a Fascist who launches his career by being voted into office will have a claim to legitimacy
that others do not."
After climbing into a position of power, what comes next: How does a Fascist consolidate
authority? Here several students piped up: "By controlling information." Added another, "And
that's one reason we have so much cause to worry today." Most of us have thought of the
technological revolution primarily as a means for people from different walks of life to
connect with one another, trade ideas, and develop a keener understanding of why men and women
act as they do -- in other words, to sharpen our perceptions of truth. That's still the case,
but now we are not so sure. There is a troubling "Big Brother" angle because of the mountain of
personal data being uploaded into social media. If an advertiser can use that information to
home in on a consumer because of his or her individual interests, what's to stop a Fascist
government from doing the same? "Suppose I go to a demonstra- tion like the Women's March,"
said a student, "and post a photo
on social media. My name gets added to a list and that list can end up anywhere. How do we
protect ourselves against that?"
Even more disturbing is the ability shown by rogue regimes and their agents to spread lies
on phony websites and Facebook. Further, technology has made it possible for extremist
organiza- tions to construct echo chambers of support for conspiracy theo- ries, false
narratives, and ignorant views on religion and race. This is the first rule of deception:
repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible. The
Internet should be an ally of freedom and a gateway to knowledge; in some cases, it is
neither.
Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by assert- ing: "Fascism was the major
political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain." Over the
years, he and other scholars have developed lists of the many moving parts that Fascism
entails. Toward the end of our discussion, my class sought to articulate a comparable list.
Fascism, most of the students agreed, is an extreme form of authoritarian rule. Citizens are
required to do exactly what lead- ers say they must do, nothing more, nothing less. The
doctrine is linked to rabid nationalism. It also turns the traditional social contract upside
down. Instead of citizens giving power to the state in exchange for the protection of their
rights, power begins with the leader, and the people have no rights. Under Fascism,
the mission of citizens is to serve; the government's job is to rule.
When one talks about this subject, confusion often arises about the difference between
Fascism and such related concepts as totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, tyranny,
autocracy, and so on. As an academic, I might be tempted to wander into that thicket, but as a
former diplomat, I am primarily concerned with actions, not labels. To my mind, a Fascist is
someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is
unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary --
including violence -- to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be
a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.
Often the difference can be seen in who is trusted with the guns. In seventeenth-century
Europe, when Catholic aristocrats did battle with Protestant aristocrats, they fought over
scripture but agreed not to distribute weapons to their peasants, thinking it safer to wage war
with mercenary armies. Modern dictators also tend to be wary of their citizens, which is why
they create royal guards and other elite security units to ensure their personal safe- ty. A
Fascist, however, expects the crowd to have his back. Where kings try to settle people down,
Fascists stir them up so that when the fighting begins, their foot soldiers have the will and
the firepower to strike first.
Hypocrisy at its worst from a lady who advocated hawkish foreign policy which included the
most sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam, when, in 1998, Clinton began almost daily
attacks on Iraq in the so-called no-fly zones, and made so-called regime change in Iraq
official U.S. policy.
In May of 1996, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Madeleine Albright, who at the time was
Clinton's U.N. ambassador. Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, in connection with
the Clinton administration presiding over the most devastating regime of sanctions in history
that the U.N. estimated took the lives of as many as a million Iraqis, the vast majority of
them children. , "We have heard that a half-million children have died. I mean, that's more
children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and, you know, is the price worth it?"
Madeleine Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think
the price is worth it.
While I found much of the story-telling in "Fascism" engaging, I come away expecting much
more of one of our nation's pre-eminent senior diplomats . In a nutshell, she has devoted a
whole volume to describing the ascent of intolerant fascism and its many faces, but punted on
the question "How should we thwart fascism going forward?"
Even that question leaves me a bit unsatisfied, since it is couched in double-negative
syntax. The thing there is an appetite for, among the readers of this book who are looking
for more than hand-wringing about neofascism, is a unifying title or phrase which captures in
single-positive syntax that which Albright prefers over fascism. What would that be? And, how
do we pursue it, nurture it, spread it and secure it going forward? What is it?
I think Albright would perhaps be willing to rally around "Good Government" as the theme
her book skirts tangentially from the dark periphery of fascistic government. "Virtuous
Government"? "Effective Government"? "Responsive Government"?
People concerned about neofascism want to know what we should be doing right now to avoid
getting sidetracked into a dark alley of future history comparable to the Nazi brown shirt or
Mussolini black shirt epochs. Does Albright present a comprehensive enough understanding of
fascism to instruct on how best to avoid it? Or, is this just another hand-wringing exercise,
a la "you'll know it when you see it", with a proactive superficiality stuck at the level of
pejorative labelling of current styles of government and national leaders? If all you can say
is what you don't want, then the challenge of threading the political future of the US is
left unruddered. To make an analogy to driving a car, if you don't know your destination, and
only can get navigational prompts such as "don't turn here" or "don't go down that street",
then what are the chances of arriving at a purposive destination?
The other part of this book I find off-putting is that Albright, though having served as
Secretary of State, never talks about the heavy burden of responsibility that falls on a head
of state. She doesn't seem to empathize at all with the challenge of top leadership. Her
perspective is that of the detached critic. For instance, in discussing President Duterte of
the Philippines, she fails to paint the dire situation under which he rose to national
leadership responsibility: Islamic separatists having violently taken over the entire city of
Marawi, nor the ubiquitous spread of drug cartel power to the level where control over law
enforcement was already ceded to the gangs in many places...entire islands and city
neighborhoods run by mafia organizations. It's easy to sit back and criticize Duterte's
unleashing of vigilante justice -- What was Mrs. Albright's better alternative to regain
ground from vicious, well-armed criminal organizations? The distancing from leadership
responsibility makes Albright's treatment of the Philippines twin crises of gang-rule and
Islamist revolutionaries seem like so much academic navel-gazing....OK for an undergrad
course at Georgetown maybe, but unworthy of someone who served in a position of high
responsibility. Duterte is liked in the Philippines. What he did snapped back the power of
the cartels, and returned a deserved sense of security to average Philippinos (at least those
not involved with narcotics). Is that not good government, given the horrendous circumstances
Duterte came up to deal with? What lack of responsibility in former Philippine leadership
allowed things to get so out of control? Is it possible that Democrats and liberals are
afraid to be tough, when toughness is what is needed? I'd much rather read an account from an
average Philippino about the positive impacts of the vigilante campaign, than listen of
Madame Secretary sermonizing out of context about Duterte. OK, he's not your idea of a nice
guy. Would you rather sit back, prattle on about the rule of law and due process while
Islamic terrorists wrest control over where you live? Would you prefer the leadership of a
drug cartel boss to Duterte?
My critique is offered in a constructive manner. I would certainly encourage Albright (or
anyone!) to write a book in a positive voice about what it's going to take to have good
national government in the US going forward, and to help spread such abundance globally. I
would define "good" as the capability to make consistently good policy decisions, ones that
continue to look good in hindsight, 10, 20 or 30 years later. What does that take?
I would submit that the essential "preserving democracy" process component is having a
population that is adequately prepared for collaborative problem-solving. Some understanding
of history is helpful, but it's simply not enough. Much more essential is for every young
person to experience team problem-solving, in both its cooperative and competitive aspects.
Every young person needs to experience a team leadership role, and to appreciate what it
takes from leaders to forge constructive design from competing ideas and champions. Only
after serving as a referee will a young person understand the limits to "passion" that
individual contributors should bring to the party. Only after moderating and herding cats
will a young person know how to interact productively with leaders and other contributors.
Much of the skill is counter-instinctual. It's knowing how to express ideas...how to field
criticism....how to nudge people along in the desired direction...and how to avoid ad-hominem
attacks, exaggerations, accusations and speculative grievances. It's learning how to manage
conflict productively toward excellence. Way too few of our young people are learning these
skills, and way too few of our journalists know how to play a constructive role in managing
communications toward successful complex problem-solving. Albright's claim that a
journalist's job is primarily to "hold leaders accountable" really betrays an absolving of
responsibility for the media as a partner in good government -- it doesn't say whether the
media are active players on the problem-solving team (which they have to be for success), or
mere spectators with no responsibility for the outcome. If the latter, then journalism
becomes an irritant, picking at the scabs over and over, but without any forward progress.
When the media takes up a stance as an "opponent" of leadership, you end up with poor
problem-solving results....the system is fighting itself instead of making forward
progress.
"Fascism" doesn't do nearly enough to promote the teaching of practical civics 101 skills,
not just to the kids going into public administration, but to everyone. For, it is in the
norms of civility, their ability to be practiced, and their defense against excesses, that
fascism (e.g., Antifa) is kept at bay.
Everyone in a democracy has to know the basics:
• when entering a disagreement, don't personalize it
• never demonize an opponent
• keep a focus on the goal of agreement and moving forward
• never tell another person what they think, but ask (non-rhetorically) what they think
then be prepared to listen and absorb
• do not speak untruths or exaggerate to make an argument
• do not speculate grievance
• understand truth gathering as a process; detect when certainty is being bluffed;
question sources
• recognize impasse and unproductive argumentation and STOP IT
• know how to introduce a referee or moderator to regain productive collaboration
• avoid ad hominem attacks
• don't take things personally that wrankle you;
• give the benefit of the doubt in an ambiguous situation
• don't jump to conclusions
• don't reward theatrical manipulation
These basics of collaborative problem-solving are the guts of a "liberal democracy" that
can face down the most complex challenges and dilemmas.
I gave the book 3 stars for the great story-telling, and Albright has been part of a great
story of late 20th century history. If she would have told us how to prevent fascism going
forward, and how to roll it back in "hard case" countries like North Korea and Sudan, I would
have given her a 5. I'm not that interested in picking apart the failure cases of
history...they teach mostly negative exemplars. Much rather I would like to read about
positive exemplars of great national government -- "great" defined by popular acclaim, by the
actual ones governed. Where are we seeing that today? Canada? Australia? Interestingly, both
of these positive exemplars have strict immigration policies.
Is it possible that Albright is just unable, by virtue of her narrow escape from Communist
Czechoslovakia and acceptance in NYC as a transplant, to see that an optimum immigration
policy in the US, something like Canada's or Australia's, is not the looming face of fascism,
but rather a move to keep it safely in its corner in coming decades? At least, she admits to
her being biased by her life story.
That suggests her views on refugees and illegal immigrants as deserving of unlimited
rights to migrate into the US might be the kind of cloaked extremism that she is warning us
about.
Albright's book is a comprehensive look at recent history regarding the rise and fall of
fascist leaders; as well as detailing leaders in nations that are starting to mimic fascist
ideals. Instead of a neat definition, she uses examples to bolster her thesis of what are
essential aspects of fascism. Albright dedicates each section of the book to a leader or
regime that enforces fascist values and conveys this to the reader through historical events
and exposition while also peppering in details of her time as Secretary of State. The climax
(and 'warning'), comes at the end, where Albright applies what she has been discussing to the
current state of affairs in the US and abroad.
Overall, I would characterize this as an enjoyable and relatively easy read. I think the
biggest strength of this book is how Albright uses history, previous examples of leaders and
regimes, to demonstrate what fascism looks like and contributing factors on a national and
individual level. I appreciated that she lets these examples speak for themselves of the
dangers and subtleties of a fascist society, which made the book more fascinating and less of
a textbook. Her brief descriptions of her time as Secretary of State were intriguing and made
me more interested in her first book, 'Madame Secretary'. The book does seem a bit slow as it
is not until the end that Albright blatantly reveals the relevance of all of the history
relayed in the first couple hundred pages. The last few chapters are dedicated to the reveal:
the Trump administration and how it has affected global politics. Although, she never
outright calls Trump a fascist, instead letting the reader decide based on his decisions and
what you have read in the book leading up to this point, her stance is quite clear by the
end. I was surprised at what I shared politically with Albright, mainly in immigration and a
belief of empathy and understanding for others. However, I got a slight sense of
anti-secularism in the form of a disdain for those who do not subscribe to an Abrahamic
religion and she seemed to hint at this being partly an opening to fascism.
I also could have done without the both-sides-ism she would occasionally push, which seems
to be a tactic used to encourage people to 'unite against Trump'. These are small annoyances
I had with the book, my main critique is the view Albright takes on democracy. If anything,
the book should have been called "Democracy: the Answer" because that is the most consistent
stance Albright takes throughout. She seems to overlook many of the atrocities the US and
other nations have committed in the name of democracy and the negative consequences of
capitalism, instead, justifying negative actions with the excuse of 'it is for democracy and
everyone wants that' and criticizing those who criticize capitalism.
She does not do a good job of conveying the difference between a communist country like
Russia and a socialist country like those found in Scandinavia and seems okay with the idea
of the reader lumping them all together in a poor light. That being said, I would still
recommend this book for anyone's TBR as the message is essential for today, that the current
world of political affairs is, at least somewhat, teetering on a precipice and we are in need
of as many strong leaders as possible who are willing to uphold democratic ideals on the
world stage and mindful constituents who will vote them in.
The book is very well written, easy to read, and follows a pretty standard formula making
it accessible to the average reader. However, it suffers immensely from, what I suspect are,
deeply ingrained political biases from the author.
Whilst I don't dispute the criteria the author applies in defining fascism, or the targets
she cites as examples, the first bias creeps in here when one realises the examples chosen
are traditional easy targets for the US (with the exception of Turkey). The same criteria
would define a country like Singapore perfectly as fascist, yet the country (or Malaysia)
does not receive a mention in the book.
Further, it grossly glosses over what Ms. Albright terms facist traits from the US
governments of the past. If the author is to be believed, the CIA is holier than thou, never
intervened anywhere or did anything that wasn't with the best interests of democracy at
heart, and American foreign policy has always existed to build friendships and help out their
buddies. To someone ingrained in this rhetoric for years I am sure this is an easy pill to
swallow, but to the rest of the world it makes a number of assertions in the book come across
as incredibly naive. out of 5 stars
Trite and opaque
We went with my husband to the presentation of this book at UPenn with Albright before it
came out and Madeleine's spunk, wit and just glorious brightness almost blinded me. This is a
2.5 star book, because 81 year old author does not really tell you all there is to tell when
she opens up on a subject in any particular chapter, especially if it concerns current US
interest.
Lets start from the beginning of the book. What really stood out, the missing 3rd Germany
ally, Japan and its emperor. Hirohito (1901-1989) was emperor of Japan from 1926 until his
death in 1989. He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon
turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism. During World War II (1939-45), Japan attacked
nearly all of its Asian neighbors, allied itself with Nazi Germany and launched a surprise
assault on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, forcing US to enter the war in 1941. Hirohito
was never indicted as a war criminal! does he deserve at least a chapter in her book?
Oh and by the way, did author mention anything about sanctions against Germany for
invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland? Up until the Pearl Harbor USA and
Germany still traded, although in March 1939, FDR slapped a 25% tariff on all German goods.
Like Trump is doing right now to some of US trading partners.
Next monster that deserves a chapter on Genocide in cosmic proportions post WW2 is
communist leader of China Mao Zedung. Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural
history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic
torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants compares to the Second World
War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in
China over these four years; the total worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55
million.
We learn that Argentina has given sanctuary to Nazi war criminals, but she forgets to
mention that 88 Nazi scientists arrived in the United States in 1945 and were promptly put to
work. For example, Wernher von Braun was the brains behind the V-2 rocket program, but had
intimate knowledge of what was going on in the concentration camps. Von Braun himself
hand-picked people from horrific places, including Buchenwald concentration camp. Tsk-Tsk
Madeline.
What else? Oh, lets just say that like Madelaine Albright my husband is Jewish and lost
extensive family to Holocoust. Ukrainian nationalists executed his great grandfather on
gistapo orders, his great grandmother disappeared in concentration camp, grandfather was
conscripted in june 1940 and decommissioned september 1945 and went through war as
infantryman through 3 fronts earning several medals. his grandmother, an ukrainian born jew
was a doctor in a military hospital in Saint Petersburg survived famine and saved several
children during blockade. So unlike Maideline who was raised as a Roman Catholic, my husband
grew up in a quiet jewish family in that territory that Stalin grabbed from Poland in 1939,
in a polish turn ukrainian city called Lvov(Lemberg). His family also had to ask for an
asylum, only they had to escape their home in Ukraine in 1991. He was told then "You are a
nice little Zid (Jew), we will kill you last" If you think things in ukraine changed, think
again, few weeks ago in Kiev Roma gypsies were killed and injured during pogroms, and nobody
despite witnesses went to jail. Also during demonstrations openly on the streets C14 unit is
waving swastikas and Heils. Why is is not mentioned anywhere in the book? is is because
Hunter Biden sits on the board of one of Ukraine's largest natural gas companies called
Burisma since May 14, 2014, and Ukraine has an estimated 127.9 trillion cubic feet of
unproved technically recoverable shale gas resources? ( according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA).1 The most promising shale reserves appear to be in the
Carpathian Foreland Basin (also called the Lviv-Volyn Basin), which extends across Western
Ukraine from Poland into Romania, and the Dnieper-Donets Basin in the East (which borders
Russia).
Wow, i bet you did not know that. how ugly are politics, even this book that could have been
so much greater if the author told the whole ugly story. And how scary that there are
countries where you can go and openly be fascist.
To me, Fascism fails for the single reason that no two fascist leaders are alike. Learning
about one or a few, in a highly cursory fashion like in this book or in great detail, is
unlikely to provide one with any answers on how to prevent the rise of another or fend
against some such. And, as much as we are witnessing the rise of numerous democratic or
quasi-democratic "strongmen" around the world in global politics, it is difficult to brand
any of them as fascist in the orthodox sense.
As the author writes at the outset, it is difficult to separate a fascist from a tyrant or
a dictator. A fascist is a majoritarian who rouses a large group under some national, racial
or similar flag with rallying cries demanding suppression or exculcation of those excluded
from this group. A typical fascist leader loves her yes-men and hates those who disagree: she
does not mind using violence to suppress dissidents. A fascist has no qualms using propaganda
to popularize the agreeable "facts" and theories while debunking the inconvenient as lies.
What is not discussed explicitly in the book are perhaps some positive traits that separate
fascists from other types of tyrants: fascists are rarely lazy, stupid or prone to doing
things for only personal gains. They differ from the benevolent dictators for their record of
using heavy oppression against their dissidents. Fascists, like all dictators, change rules
to suit themselves, take control of state organizations to exercise total control and use
"our class is the greatest" and "kick others" to fuel their programs.
Despite such a detailed list, each fascist is different from each other. There is little
that even Ms Albright's fascists - from Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin to the Kims to Chavez
or Erdogan - have in common. In fact, most of the opponents of some of these
dictators/leaders would calll them by many other choice words but not fascists. The
circumstances that gave rise to these leaders were highly different and so were their rules,
methods and achievements.
The point, once again, is that none of the strongmen leaders around the world could be
easily categorized as fascists. Or even if they do, assigning them with such a tag and
learning about some other such leaders is unlikely to help. The history discussed in the book
is interesting but disjointed, perfunctory and simplistic. Ms Albright's selection is also
debatable.
Strong leaders who suppress those they deem as opponents have wreaked immense harms and
are a threat to all civil societies. They come in more shades and colours than terms we have
in our vocabulary (dictators, tyrants, fascists, despots, autocrats etc). A study of such
tyrant is needed for anyone with an interest in history, politics, or societal well-being.
Despite Ms Albright's phenomenal knowledge, experience, credentials, personal history and
intentions, this book is perhaps not the best place to objectively learn much about the risks
from the type of things some current leaders are doing or deeming as right.
Each time I get concerned about Trump's rhetoric or past actions I read idiotic opinions,
like those of our second worst ever Secretary of State, and come to appreciate him more.
Pejorative terms like fascism or populism have no place in a rational policy discussion. Both
are blatant attempts to apply a pejorative to any disagreeing opinion. More than half of the
book is fluffed with background of Albright, Hitler and Mussolini. Wikipedia is more
informative. The rest has snippets of more modern dictators, many of whom are either
socialists or attained power through a reaction to failed socialism, as did Hitler. She
squirms mightily to liken Trump to Hitler. It's much easier to see that Sanders is like
Maduro. The USA is following a path more like Venezuela than Germany.
Her history misses that Mussolini was a socialist before he was a fascist, and Nazism in
Germany was a reaction to Wiemar socialism. The danger of fascism in the US is far greater
from the left than from the right. America is far left of where the USSR ever was. Remember
than Marx observed that Russia was not ready for a proletarian revolution. The USA with ready
made capitalism for reform fits Marx's pattern much better. Progressives deny that Sanders
and Warren are socialists. If not they are what Lenin called "useful idiots."
Albright says that she is proud of the speech where she called the USA the 'Indispensable
Nation.' She should be ashamed. Obama followed in his inaugural address, saying that we are
"the indispensable nation, responsible for world security." That turned into a policy of
human rights interventions leading to open ended wars (Syria, Yemen), nations in chaos
(Libya), and distrust of the USA (Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, NK). Trump now has
to make nice with dictators to allay their fears that we are out to replace them.
She admires the good intentions of human rights intervention, ignoring the results. She says
Obama had some success without citing a single instance. He has apologized for Libya, but
needs many more apologies. She says Obama foreign policy has had some success, with no
mention of a single instance. Like many progressives, she confuses good intentions with
performance. Democracy spreading by well intentioned humanitarian intervention has resulted
in a succession of open ended war or anarchy.
The shorter histories of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Venezuela are much more
informative, although more a warning against socialism than right wing fascism. Viktor Orban
in Hungary is another reaction to socialism.
Albright ends the book with a forlorn hope that we need a Lincoln or Mandela, exactly what
our two party dictatorship will not generate as it yields ever worse and worse candidates for
our democracy to vote upon, even as our great society utopia generates ever more power for
weak presidents to spend our money and continue wrong headed foreign policy.
The greatest danger to the USA is not fascism, but of excessively poor leadership
continuing our slow slide to the bottom.
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
The Trump Administration http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly no experts on his life or
times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a problematic president. But the Harding administration was
in some ways an impressive one, which served the country reasonably well.
It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president.
And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified
men who served with considerable distinction.
Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts spurred years of economic growth.
Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic
policies, brought the budget into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult
world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next decade, one wishes in retrospect
for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the
national mood.
In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft and George Sutherland -- were
distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things: He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that
era, in favor of racial equality; he commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways,
he contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.
The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration and that of his vice president
and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially
in the economic sphere; those years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.
President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that of President Warren G. Harding.
But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and also on its failures, particularly the scandals that
exploded into public view after Harding's sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions,
where they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.
Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately depends on performance. If a
Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but
because it provides a worthwhile experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows.
If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know something about golf. The failed
Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough
to carry mediocre or worse enterprises across the finish line.
To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the presidency, getting elected only
gets you so far. Governing matters.
It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of governance that restored greater
responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency
also featured a return of authority to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory
led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and forms. It would be ironic if the
election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional normalcy.
If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena of either Warren G. Harding
or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.
But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory
over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the
reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great
again.
(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft & Wilson administrations, as the
GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)
Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the
"Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that.
It is the neocon's taking a back seat! Kristol is co-founder of PNAC along with a Clinton mob long time foggy bottom associate's
husband.. Trump is somewhat less thrilled with tilting with Russia for the American empire which is as moral as Nero's Rome.
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Prescient: dumping Kristol's PNAC will strengthen the republic.
"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom"
of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the
former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should
support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity
than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of
the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic
Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."
Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the issues in a polite and congenial
manner?
Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line
up with the agreed-upon party line.
Donald Trump's unorthodox US presidential transition continued on Monday when he held talks with one of the most prominent supporters
of leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders.
The president-elect's first meeting of the day at Trump Tower in New York was with Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic maverick who endorsed
the socialist Sanders during his unsuccessful primary battle with Hillary Clinton.
... ... ...
At first glance Gabbard, who is from Hawaii and is the first Hindu member of the US Congress, seems an unlikely counsellor. She
resigned from the Democratic National Committee to back Vermont senator Sanders and formally nominated him for president at the party
convention in July, crediting him with starting a "movement of love and compassion", although by then Clinton's victory was certain.
But the Iraq war veteran has also expressed views that might appeal to Trump, criticising Obama, condemning interventionist wars
in Iraq and Libya and taking a hard line on immigration. In 2014, she called for a rollback of the visa waiver programme for Britain
and other European countries with what she called "Islamic extremist" populations.
In October last year she tweeted: "Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won't bomb them in Syria. Putin did.
#neverforget911." She was then among 47 Democrats who joined Republicans to pass a bill mandating a stronger screening process for
refugees from Iraq and Syria coming to the US.
Trump betrayed all and every of his main election promises, except may be building the wall. For example "Trump said that
he no longer sees the point of NATO 25 years after the Soviet collapse."
Notable quotes:
"... Trump said that he no longer sees the point of NATO 25 years after the Soviet collapse. If he sticks to his view, it means a big political change in Washington's EU vassals. The hostility toward Russia of the current EU and NATO officials would have to cease. German Chancellor Merkel would have to change her spots or be replaced. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg would have to be dismissed. ..."
It also remains to be seen how the Oligarchy will respond to Trump's victory. Wall Street and
the Federal Reserve can cause an economic crisis in order to put Trump on the defensive, and they
can use the crisis to force Trump to appoint one of their own as Secretary of the Treasury. Rogue
agents in the CIA and Pentagon can cause a false flag attack that would disrupt friendly relations
with Russia. Trump could make a mistake and retain neoconservatives in his government.
With Trump there is at least hope. Unless Trump is obstructed by bad judgment in his appointments
and by obstacles put in his way, we should expect an end to Washington's orchestrated conflict
with Russia, the removal of the US missiles on Russia's border with Poland and Romania, the end
of the conflict in Ukraine, and the end of Washington's effort to overthrow the Syrian government.
However, achievements such as these imply the defeat of the US Oligarchy. Although Trump defeated
Hillary, the Oligarchy still exists and is still powerful.
Trump said that he no longer sees the point of NATO 25 years after the Soviet collapse. If he sticks
to his view, it means a big political change in Washington's EU vassals. The hostility toward Russia
of the current EU and NATO officials would have to cease. German Chancellor Merkel would have to
change her spots or be replaced. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg would have to be dismissed.
We do not know who Trump will select to serve in his government. It is likely that Trump is unfamiliar
with the various possibilities and their positions on issues. It really depends on who is advising
Trump and what advice they give him. Once we see his government, we will know whether we can be hopeful
for the changes that now have a chance.
If the oligarchy is unable to control Trump and he is actually successful in curbing the power
and budget of the military/security complex and in holding the financial sector politically accountable,
Trump could be assassinated.
RT correspondent Eisa Ali reports on the latest Brexit drama in the UK Parliament. Then,
economist and founder of Democracy at Work Richard Wolff joins Rick Sanchez to discuss, arguing
that the Brexit debate constitutes "an endless struggle about what doesn't matter" and that
whether the British are "in" or "out" of Europe is an irrelevant distraction from the problems
really faced by the UK.
A couple of points he makes in passing surprised me:
1) "It's why they are using the non-issue of the Irish border ..." Is it really a non-issue,
and why? Surely it is a big issue, and intrinsically explosive? Maybe I am missing something
there.
2) "The Labour party is squealing out of both sides of its mouth trying to get themselves
out of the corner they've painted themselves into. Because they can read the polls. And what
was a solid Labour lead in the winter has become a solid Tory lead in the Spring." Is it really
so that that huge Labour lead has been turned into - of all things - a Tory lead? Horror
of horrors. If true, the present day Brits are unfathomable. And what about the first part of
that citation - what about turning it around and expressing it in terms of the reality, which
is that the Labour Party consists of two wholly different, wholly contradictory, and wholly
ireconcilable parts, namely the socialist majority standing behind Corbyn and the lying fascist
corporatist right-wing 5th columnists whose sole objective is to sabotage the previous group in
every manner possible. Would perhaps a better statement be that the difference between these
two groups is being made more explicit than ever (which, I would have thought, would only
increase Corbyn's support not decrease it)? Or is that just my wishful thinking and the UK
masses are being successfully hoodwinked by the propaganda of the 2nd group as spouted by the
MSM?
Comments on those two issues anyone, from those closer to the action? (Comments from Bevin
would be especially gratefully read!)
Posted by: BM | Mar 16, 2019 9:58:53 AM |
172 ... ... ...
The other most ridiculous thing, probably moreso when you think about this Monty
Pythonesque British escapade into hillarity is the fact such grand sweeping measures are
allowed on a simple majority vote of the populace, thus ensuring approximately half the
population will detest the result no matter what.
Say what you will about the US of A-holes, and I admit nearly all of what you say is true
(except of course for the oft repeated mis-trope that Trump = US in all his venal stupidity.
No, he only represents roughly 35%...and true that is egregious enough...) at least in the US
such grand sweeping measures able to be put to a vote to the nation as a whole (iow, amending
the Constitution) either require super majority of state legislatures or a super majourity of
Congress criminals to pass.
The fact an entire nation of blooming idiots in England are where they are today is insanely
larfably and udderly absurd. Also, infotaining.
And to think Theresa May is the headliner fronting this comedy act for the ages.
All this inspired of course by the equally ridiculous US president and his chief strategist
the completely nutz Bannon.
... ... ...
Posted by: donkeytale | Mar 16, 2019 10:49:56 AM |
173@ bevin | Mar 15, 2019 3:45:05 PM; Jen | Mar 15, 2019 3:49:59 PM; mourning dove |
Mar 15, 2019 3:59:32 PM
Posted by: ex-SA | Mar 16, 2019 9:18:03 AM | 171
A few half-baked thoughts on this: it seems to me both sides of this argument have some
merits. On the one side I am inclined to agree with ex-SA that the working classes in the
colonising countries have had by and large a pretty cushy life since after the 2nd World War
when compared to the disenfranchised of the colonised countries, both before and after
(ostensible but not really real) decolonisation.
The brutality of neoliberalism and austerity on working people in the rich nations (but
arguably even more so on those in poor nations!) does not in my view very seriously detract
from that argument.
One thing that does arguably somewhat detract from the above argument is that when viewed in
non-materialistic terms, those living in the so-called rich countries often have markedly
meaningless and miserable lives compared to many poor people living in materially poor
countries (extreme destitution obviously aside) - in other words they are miserably
unhappy.
Many people in Germany, for example, earn relatively high wages, most of which they spend on
very high housing costs (and energy costs etc) - often alone, and spend the rest of their
income on highly processed food from supermarkets that costs a multiple of what the simple
basic local foodstuffs that were eaten in former times would cost (and still could if you know
how to live more meaningfully); and meanwhile their life is spiritually frozen and devoid of
worthwhile meaning.
In contrast, often people living materially poor lives in undeveloped and in materialist
terms extremely poor countries, but living much closer to nature and with much warmer intra-
and inter-familial relations in extended families, and have a philosophy of life that is less
exclusively materialist and much more conducive to spiritual well-being. I would argue however
that this aspect is largely tangental to the issue of winners and losers of colonialism.
I agree with Bevin @ 131's point about the destitution of the British working classes prior
to the first world war, but what about post-1960's? I don't really see that the lifestyles of
the worst victims of austerity today are comparable to the lifestyles of the poor in the 18th
or 19th century? I think the lives of even the poorest of the poor (excluding probably the
homeless) in the West are massively subsidised by the spoils of the (ongoing) rape of the
colonised countries.
The entire expectations of people in the West - including the poor - are based on
assumptions of entitlement to things which are critically dependent on the rape and theft of
the resources of the colonised countries. Look at the extraordinarily privileged living
standards of ordinary working people in Belgium today, as an extreme example!
It is always interesting to reflect that in former times the West was always viewed as the
poor part of the world, and the East as wealthy - and historically it is true that throughout
most of recorded history the East was extremely wealthy compared to the pauper West - the
current-day material wealth of the West relative to the East should be viewed as an
extraordinary anomaly! The first Westerners to visit the East marvelled at its phenomenal
wealth and envied it. That indeed was the primary cause of the Crusades - the paupers of the
West envied the riches of the East and drummed up pseudo-religious excuses to rape and pillage
whatever they could grab. It is not without reason that most of the economically poorest
countries in reacent times are precisely those countries with the most abundant valuable
natural resources.
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual
myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they
may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared
with that of the rich."
John Kenneth Galbraith
The sugar high of the Trump election seems to be wearing a bit thin on Wall Street. I had said at the time that I thought they would
just execute the trading plans they had in place in their supposition that Hillary was going to win. And this is what I think they
did, and have been doing.
And so when the thrill is gone, and dull reality starts sinking in, I suspect we are going to be in for quite a correction.
However, I am tuning out the hysteria from the Wall Street Democrats, especially the pitiful whining emanating from organizations
like MSNBC, CNN, and the NY Times, because they have discredited themselves as reliable, unbiased sources. They really have.
They may just be joining their right-leaning peers in this, but they still do not realize it, and think of themselves as exceptional,
and morally superior. And the same can be said of many pundits, and insiders, and very serious people with important podiums
in the academy and the press.
Hillary was to be their meal ticket. And their anguish at being denied a payday for their faithful service is remarkable.
We are being treated to rumours that Trump is going to appoint this or that despicable person to some key position. I am waiting
for him to show his hand with some actual decisions and appointments.
This is not to say that I am optimistic, not in the least. I am not, and I most certainly did not vote for him (or her for that
matter). But the silliness of the courtiers in the media is just too much, too much whining from those who had their candy of power
and money by association expectations taken away.
I am therefore very interested in seeing who the DNC will choose as chairperson. Liz Warren came out today and endorsed Ellison,
which I believe Bernie Sanders has done as well. He is no insider like Wasserman-Schulz, Brazile, or Dean.
The Democratic party is at a crossroads, in a split between taking policy positions along lines of 'class' or 'identity.'
By class is meant working class of the broader public versus the moneyed interests of financiers and tech monopolists.
Identity implies the working with various minority groups who certainly may deserve redress for real suppression of their
rights and other financial abuses, but in a 'splintering' manner that breaks them down into special interest groups rather than a
broader movement of the disadvantaged.
Why has this been the establishment approach of the heart of the Democratic power circles?
I think the reason for this Democratic strategy has been purely practical. There was no way the Wall Street wing of the Democratic
party could make policy along lines of the middle class and the poor, and keep a straight face, while gorging themselves in a frenzy
of massive soft corruption and enormous donations from the wealthiest few who they were thereby expected to represent and to serve.
And so they lost politically, and badly.
The average American, of whatever identity, finally became sick of them, and rejected the balkanization of their interests into
special identity groups that could be more easily managed and messaged, and controlled.
This was a huge difference that we saw in the Sanders campaign, almost to a fault. Not because he was wrong necessarily, but because
it was so unaccustomed, and insufficiently articulated. Sanders had his heart in the right place, perhaps, but he lacked the charisma
and outspokenness of an FDR. Not to mention that his own party powers were dead set against him, because they wanted to keep the
status quo that had rewarded them so well in place.
It is not at all obvious that the Democrats can find themselves again. Perhaps Mr. Trump, while doing some things well, will take
economic policy matters to an excess, and like the Democrats ignore the insecurity and discontent of the working class. And the people
will find a voice, eventually, in either the Democratic party, or something entirely new.
This is not just an American phenomenon. This has happened with Labour and Brexit in the UK, and is happening in the rest of the
developed nations in Europe. One thing that the ruling elite of the West have had in common is a devotion to corporate globalisation
and inequality.
And that system is not going to 'cohere' as economist Robert Johnson had put it so well.
With all this change and volatility and insecurity, it appears that people will be reaching for some sort of safe haven for themselves
and their resources. So far the Dollar index has benefited from this, not because of its virtues, but from the weakness and foundering
of the others.
I am afraid that the confidence in the Dollar as a safe haven is misplaced, especially if things go as I expect that they will
with the US economy under a Trump administration. But that is still largely in his hand,s to be decided and written. We have yet
to see if he has the will and mind to oppose the vested interests of his own party and the corporate, moneyed interests.
That is an enormous, history-making task, requiring an almost historic moral compass. And so I am not optimistic.
First of all, what is called "School of management" typically is a voodoo cult that should
have nothing to do with university education ;-)
"He [Bush] signaled the shift [in strategy] in a speech here [in Pittsburgh] last week
when he charged that Reagan had made 'a list of phony promises' on defense, energy and
economic policy. And he labeled Reagan's tax cut proposal 'voodoo economic policy' and
'economic madness.'"
It's not the temporary ban on immigration that upsets people so much as singling out
people from specific countries, whether Obama's Republican Congress in did it or Trump did
it.
The ban should be on all religious extremists including apartheid Zionists and Christian
extremists. Religious extremists from all of the major religions have committed heinous
atrocities.
...And the Demo establishment lines up to attack Drumpf's ban; hoping to get some easy
votes for corporatist neo-con hypocrites?
...The main purpose of all the noise against president Trump is to weaken him and
then force him to take the positions the deep state wants him to take. Among the many
problems he has he is only an apprentice.
"... As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy." You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites. ..."
"... Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare and getting out of wars. ..."
Not surprised at all. The election is over, the voters are now moot. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren
has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy."
You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes
via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites.
Also no mention of NAFTA or renegotiating trade deals in the new transition agenda. Instead
there's just a bunch of vague Chamber of Commercesque language about making America attractive
to investors. I think our hopes for a disruptive Trump presidency are quickly being dashed.
Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things
he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare
and getting out of wars.
As to the last point, appointing Bolton or Corker Secretary of State would be a clear indication
he was just talking. A clear violation of campaign promises that would make Obama look like a
choirboy. Trump may be W on steroids.
I can't imagine how he's neglected to update his transition plan regarding nafta. After all,
he's already been president-elect for, what, 36 hours now? And he only talked about it umpteen
times during the campaign. I'm sure he'll renege.
Hell, it took Clinton 8 hours to give her concession speech.
On the bright side, he managed to kill TPP just by getting elected. Was that quick enough for
you?
Look at this forecast now and laugh... Trump betrayed all hopes.
Notable quotes:
"... It's obvious that Americans want a new direction when it comes to foreign policy. That's partly what Trump's election is all about. Americans are sick and tired of the never-ending wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. That includes military families, especially the many who supported Trump, Gary Johnson, or Jill Stein. Americans are also tired of the out of control spending and debt that come with these wars. By electing Trump, it is obvious that Americans are demanding a change on foreign policy. ..."
Eight years ago, President Obama had a chance to change the warmongering direction that outgoing
President Bush and the U.S. national-security establishment had led America for the previous eight
years. Obama could have said, "Enough is enough. America has done enough killing and dying. I'm going
to lead our country in a different direction - toward peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people
of the world." He could have ordered all U.S. troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan to return
home. He could have ended U.S. involvement in the endless wars that Bush, the Pentagon, and the CIA
spawned in that part of the world. He could have led America in a new direction.
Instead, Obama decided to stay Bush's course, no doubt believing that he, unlike Bush, could win
the endless wars that Bush had started. It was not to be. He chose to keep the national-security
establishment embroiled in Afghanistan and Iraq. Death and destruction are Obama's legacy, just as
they were Bush's.
Obama hoped that Hillary Clinton would protect and continue his (and Bush's) legacy of foreign
death and destruction. Yesterday, a majority of American voters dashed that hope.
Will Trump change directions and bring U.S. troops home? Possibly not, especially given he is
an interventionist, just as Clinton, Bush, and Obama are. But there is always that possibility, especially
since Trump, unlike Clinton, owes no allegiance to the U.S. military-industrial complex, whose survival
and prosperity depends on endless wars and perpetual crises.
If Clinton had been elected, there was never any doubt about continued U.S. interventionism in
Afghanistan and the Middle East. Not only is she a died-in-the-wool interventionist, she would have
been owned by the national-security establishment. She would have done whatever the Pentagon, CIA,
and NSA wanted, which would have automatically meant endless warfare - and permanent destruction
of the liberty and prosperity of the American people.
It's obvious that Americans want a new direction when it comes to foreign policy. That's partly
what Trump's election is all about. Americans are sick and tired of the never-ending wars in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. That includes military families, especially the many who
supported Trump, Gary Johnson, or Jill Stein. Americans are also tired of the out of control spending
and debt that come with these wars. By electing Trump, it is obvious that Americans are demanding
a change on foreign policy.
Imagine the benefits to American society if Trump were to change directions on foreign policy.
No more anti-American terrorist blowback, which would mean no more war on terrorism. That means the
restoration of a sense of normality to American lives. No more TSA checkpoints at airports. No more
mass surveillance schemes to "keep us safe." No more color coded warnings. No more totalitarian power
to round up Americans, put them into concentration camps or military dungeons, and torture them.
No more power to assassinate people, including Americans. In other words, the restoration of American
civil liberties and privacy.
The Middle East is embroiled in civil wars - wars that have been engendered or magnified by U.S.
interventionism. Continued interventionism in an attempt to fix the problems only pours gasoline
on the fires. The U.S. government has done enough damage to Afghanistan and the Middle East. It has
already killed enough people, including those in wedding parties, hospitals, and neighborhoods. Enough
is enough.
Will Trump be bad on immigration and trade? Undoubtedly, but Clinton would have been bad in
those areas too. Don't forget, after all, that Obama has become America's greatest deporter-in-chief,
deporting more illegal immigrants than any U.S. president in history. Clinton would have followed
in his footsteps, especially in the hope of protecting his legacy. Moreover, while Trump will undoubtedly
begin trade wars, Clinton would have been imposing sanctions on people all over the world whose government
failed to obey the commands of the U.S. government. A distinction without a difference.
Another area for hope under a Trump presidency is with respect to the drug war, one of the most
failed, destructive, and expensive government programs in history. Clinton would have followed in
Bush's and Obama's footsteps by keeping it in existence, if for no other reason than to cater to
the army of DEA agents, federal and state judges, federal and state prosecutors, court clerks, and
police departments whose existence depends on the drug war.
While Trump is a drug warrior himself, he doesn't have the same allegiance to the vast drug-war
bureaucracy that Clinton has. If we get close to pushing this government program off the cliff -
and I am convinced that it is on the precipice - there is a good chance that Trump will not put much
effort into fighting its demise. Clinton would have fought for the drug war with every fiber of her
being.
There is another possible upside to Trump's election: The likelihood that Cold War II will
come to a sudden end. With Clinton, the continuation of the new Cold War against Russia was a certainty.
In fact, Clinton's Cold War might well have gotten hot very quickly, given her intent to establish
a no-fly zone over Syria where she could show how tough she is by ordering U.S. warplanes to shoot
down Russian warplanes. There is no telling where that would have led, but it very well might have
led to all-out nuclear war, something that the U.S. national-security establishment wanted with the
Soviet Union back in the 1960s under President Kennedy.
The danger of war with Russia obviously diminishes under a President Trump, who has said that
he favors friendly relations with Russia, just as Kennedy favored friendly relations with the Soviet
Union and Cuba in the months before he was assassinated.
Indeed, given Trump's negative comments about NATO, there is even the possibility of a dismantling
of that old Cold War dinosaur that gave us the crisis in Ukraine with Russia.
How about it, President-Elect Trump? While you're mulling over your new Berlin Wall on the Southern
(and maybe Northern) border and your coming trade wars with China, how about refusing to follow
the 16 years of Bush-Obama when it comes to U.S. foreign interventionism? Bring the troops home.
Lead America in a different direction, at least insofar as foreign policy is concerned - away from
death, destruction, spending, debt, loss of liberty and privacy, and economic impoverishment and
toward freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony.
"... What happened? Why is this clique's triumphant return to power erupting in massive scandal this time around? Probably because we are living in an era during which much that was mysterious is suddenly becoming clear. Probably because Trump's "silent majority" suddenly saw before them someone they had been waiting for for a long time – a man ready to defend their interests. ..."
"... Perhaps also it is because the middle class is choking on its growing exasperation with the "elite caste" occupying its native country. And it finally became clear to the sober-minded American patriots in law enforcement that the return to power of the people responsible for the current global chaos could be a big threat to the US and rest of the world. Because, in the end, everyone has children and no one wants a new world war. ..."
Today Trump represents an entirely new party made up of half of the American electorate, and they
are ready for action. And whatever the eventual political structure of this new model, this is what
is shaping America's present reality. Moreover, this does not seem like such a unique situation.
It rather appears to be the final chapter of some ancient story, in which the convoluted plotlines
finally take shape and find resolution.
The circumstances are increasingly reminiscent of 1860, when Lincoln's election so enraged the
South that those states began agitating for secession. Trump is today symbolic of a very real American
tradition that during
the Civil War (1860-1865) ran headlong into American revolutionary liberalism for the first time.
Right up until World War I traditional American conservatism wore the guise of "isolationism."
Prior to WWII it was known as "non-interventionism." Afterward, that movement attempted to use
Sen. Joseph
McCarthy to battle the left-liberal stranglehold. And in the 1960s it became the primary target
of the "counter-cultural revolution."
Its last bastion was
Richard
Nixon , whose fall was the result of an unprecedented attack from the left-liberal press in 1974.
And this is perhaps the example against which we should compare the present-day Trump and his current
fight.
And by the way, the crimes of Hillary Clinton, who has failed to protect state secrets and has
repeatedly been caught lying under oath, clearly outweigh the notorious Watergate scandal that led
to Nixon's forced resignation under threat of impeachment. But the liberal American media remains
silent, as if nothing has happened.
By all indications it is clear that we are standing before a truly epochal moment. But before
turning to the future that might await us, let's take a quick glance at the history of conflict between
revolutionary liberalism and traditional white conservatism in the US.
***
Immediately after WWII, an attack on two fronts was launched by the party of "expansionism" (we'll
call it that). The Soviet Union and Communism were designated the number one enemy. Enemy number
two (with less hype) was traditional American conservatism. The war against traditional "Americanism"
was waged by several intellectual fringe groups simultaneously.
The country's cultural and intellectual life was under the absolute control of a group known as
the " New York
Intellectuals ." Literary criticism as well as all other aspects of the nation's literary life
was in the hands of this small group of literary curators who had emerged from the milieu of a Trotskyist-communist
magazine known as the
Partisan Review (PR). No one could become a professional writer in the America of the 1950s and
1960s without being carefully screened by this sect.
The foundational tenets of American political philosophy and sociology were composed by militants
from the Frankfurt School
, which had been established during the interwar period in Weimar Germany and which moved to
the US after the National Socialists took power. Here, retraining their sights from communist to
liberal, they set out to design a "theory of totalitarianism" in addition to their concept of an
"authoritarian personality" – both hostile to "democracy."
The "New York Intellectuals" and representatives of the Frankfurt School became friends, and
Hannah Arendt , for example, was an
authoritative representative of both sects. This is where future neocons (Norman Podhoretz, Eliot
A. Cohen, and Irving Kristol) gained their experience. The former leader of the Trotskyist Fourth
International and godfather of the neocons,
Max Shachtman , held a place
of honor in the "family of intellectuals."
The anthropological school of Franz Boas and Freudianism reigned over the worlds of psychology
and sociology at that time. The Boasian approach in psychology argued that genetic, national, and
racial differences between individuals were of no importance (thus the concepts of "national culture"
and "national community" were meaningless).
Psychoanalysis also became fashionable, which primarily aimed to supplant traditional church institutions
and become a type of quasi-religion for the middle class.
The common denominator linking all these movements was anti-fascism. Did something look fishy
in this? But the problem was that the traditional values of the nation, state, and family were all
labeled "fascist." From this standpoint, any white Christian man aware of his cultural and national
identity was potentially a "fascist."
Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University, analyzed in detail
the seizure of America's cultural, political, and mental landscape by these "liberal sects" in his
brilliant book The Culture
of Critique , writing:
"The New York Intellectuals, for example, developed ties with elite universities, particularly
Harvard, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of California-Berkeley, while
psychoanalysis and anthropology became well entrenched throughout academia.
"The moral and intellectual elite established by these movements dominated intellectual
discourse during a critical period after World War II and leading into the countercultural revolution
of the 1960s."
It was precisely this intellectual milieu that spawned the countercultural revolution of the 1960s.
Riding the wave of these sentiments, the new
Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965, encouraging this phenomenon and facilitating
the integration of immigrants into US society. The architects of the law wanted to use the celebrated
melting pot to "dilute" the "potentially fascist" descendants of European immigrants by making use
of new ethno-cultural elements.
The 60s revolution opened the door to the American political establishment to representatives
from both wings of the expansionist "party" – the neo-liberals and the neo-conservatives.
Besieged by the left-liberal press in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment.
In the same year the US Congress passed the
Jackson-Vanik
Amendment (drafted by Richard
Perle ), which emerged as a symbol of the country's "new political agenda" – economic war against
the Soviet Union using sanctions and boycotts.
At that same time the "hippie generation" was joining the Democratic Party on the coattails of
Senator George McGovern's campaign . And that was when Bill Clinton's smiling countenance first
emerged on the US political horizon.
And the future neo-conservatives (at that time still disciples of the Democratic hawk Henry "Scoop"
Jackson) began to slowly edge in the direction of the Republicans.
In 1976, Mr. Rumsfeld and his fellow neo-conservatives resurrected the
Committee
on the Present Danger , an inter-party club for political hawks whose goal became the launch
of an all-out propaganda war against the USSR.
Former Trotskyists and followers of Max Shachtman (Kristol, Podhoretz, and Jeane Kirkpatrick)
and advisers to Sen. Henry Jackson (Paul Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliott Abrams, Charles Horner, and Douglas
Feith) joined Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and other "Christian" politicians with the intention
of launching a "campaign to transform the world."
This is where the neocons' "nonpartisan ideology" originated. And eventually today's "inalterable
US government" hatched from this egg.
American politics began to acquire its current shape during the Reagan era. In economics this
was seen in the policy of neoliberalism (politics waged in the interests of big financial capital)
and in foreign policy – in a strategy consisting of "holy war against the forces of evil." The Nixon-Kissinger
tradition of foreign policy (which viewed the Soviet Union and China as a normal countries with which
is essential to find common ground) was entirely abandoned.
The collapse of the USSR was a sign of the onset of the final phase of the "neocon revolution."
At that point their protégé, Francis Fukuyama, announced the "end of history."
***
As the years passed, the influence of the neo-conservatives (in politics) and neoliberals (in
economics) only expanded. Through all manner of committees, foundations, "think tanks," etc., the
students of Milton Friedman and Leo Strauss (from the departments of economics and political science
at the University of Chicago) penetrated ever more deeply into the inner workings of the Washington
power machine. The apotheosis of this expansion was the presidency of George W. Bush, during which
the neocons, having seized the primary instruments of power in the White House, were able to plunge
the country into the folly of a war in the Middle East.
By the end of the Bush presidency this clique was the object of universal hatred throughout the
US. That's why the middle-ground, innocuous figure of Barack Obama, a Democrat, was able to move
into the White House for the next eight years. The neocons stepped down from their central rostrums
of power and returned to their "influential committees." It is likely that this election was intended
to facilitate the triumphant return of the neoconservative-neoliberal paradigm all wrapped up in
"new packaging." For various reasons, the decision was made to assign this role to Hillary Clinton.
But it seems that at the most critical moment the flimsy packaging ripped open
What happened? Why is this clique's triumphant return to power erupting in massive scandal this
time around? Probably because we are living in an era during which much that was mysterious is suddenly
becoming clear. Probably because Trump's "silent majority" suddenly saw before them someone they
had been waiting for for a long time – a man ready to defend their interests.
Perhaps also it is because the middle class is choking on its growing exasperation with the "elite
caste" occupying its native country. And it finally became clear to the sober-minded American patriots
in law enforcement that the return to power of the people responsible for the current global chaos
could be a big threat to the US and rest of the world. Because, in the end, everyone has children
and no one wants a new world war.
How will this new conservative revolt against the elite end? Will Trump manage to "drain the swamp
of Washington, DC" as he has promised, or he will end up as the system's next victim? Very soon we
can finally get an answer to these questions.
Some people understood it in 2016: "The deep state ushered in Trump because he's clearly their most useful decoy. As the country
hopes in vain, the crooked men behind the curtain will go on with business as usual. Trump is
simply an Obama for a different demographic. Nothing will change for the better."
Also: "To claim the trump is more powerful and has more influence over the US deep state on day one
is just ludicrous."
Notable quotes:
"... Remember, the US Constitution was written by aristocrats who were still in many ways monarchists who didn't want to give up all their power. That mindset also put the electoral college process into the constitution. ..."
"... Oh, what does anyone know about Pence? Folks have been saying he's going to be Trump's Cheney (and apparently Cheney is a Pence's avowed role model and personal hero). Cheney had a lifetime of insider experience and I'm guessing is both ambitious and intelligent (if evil). ..."
"... Did anyone catch Peter Thiel's speech to the National Press Club? Listen to this and tell me it is not spot on. His is actually on Rumps transition team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYLEPRiIyE ..."
"... "The deep state ushered in Trump because he's clearly their most useful decoy. As the country hopes in vain, the crooked men behind the curtain will go on with business as usual. Trump is simply an Obama for a different demographic. Nothing will change for the better." ..."
"... So is Trump Hope and Change for the Angry White Male demographic? ..."
"... I doubt very much that the Obama is providing "continuity". IMO this is a naive reading. Obama has just created a smokescreen that allows for preparing to 'facts on the ground' that will force Trump to respond accordingly. ..."
"... That's a mini-conspiracy compared with the one that the Fake War Of Terror has distracted people's attention from. The Privatisation of almost every Publicly-owned asset and piece of infrastructure in the West. The Neolib takeover was well-advanced in 1999 but slipped into overdrive in 2001. Banks, Insurance Cos, Telcos, Airlines, Childcare, Hospitals, Health Clinics (preventative), Roads, Rail, Electrical Generation and distribution. ..."
"... To claim the trump is more powerful and has more influence over the US deep state on day one is just ludicrous. ..."
"... I'm going with the new boss is the same as the old boss. ..."
"...the paradox problem is they'll have to charge Clinton before da boy can pardon her..."
That's one of those facts that sounds right but isn't true. If the law was logical that might
be correct, but then mathematicians would get the highest scores on the Law School Admission Test
(which supposedly tests aptitude to "think like a lawyer.")
The President of the U.S. can't pardon someone in advance for possible later crimes, but can give
a pardon for any and all past crimes without specifying those crimes. That's how Ford was able to
pardon Nixon, who had not been indicted, for any crimes "he might have committed."
If Obama wants he can pardon the Clintons for everything and anything they MIGHT have done up
to the final minutes of swearing in Trump. In that case they would never need to concede they had
ever broken any laws at all.
Remember, the US Constitution was written by aristocrats who were still in many ways monarchists
who didn't want to give up all their power. That mindset also put the electoral college process into
the constitution.
Are you saying that Obama could pardon Bill Clinton and his entire foundation for financial crimes
(apparently) being investigated in New York wrt New York's laws regarding charitable foundation
practices? That seems like it would be "bigger than Marc Rich" demonstration of Democratic misuse
/ abuse of power, cronyism, etc.
If he can do it, he might do it ... if the punishment/threat for not doing it was sufficient.
I've not been impressed by Obama's "brilliance" or "vision" ... I have been impressed rather by
his self-promotion and self-interest -- Neither Bush or Bill Clinton had the sort of job opportunities
that GHWB enjoyed.
Oh, what does anyone know about Pence? Folks have been saying he's going to be Trump's
Cheney (and apparently Cheney is a Pence's avowed role model and personal hero). Cheney had a
lifetime of insider experience and I'm guessing is both ambitious and intelligent (if evil).
Does Pence have genuine potential as Cheney II ... and where does the awkward relationship
between the GOP establishment and Trump put "Pence as a new Cheney" ... The GOP might love it.
Is Trump ideologically consistent enough (don't laugh) to recognize the contradictions?
Did anyone catch Peter Thiel's speech to the National Press Club? Listen to this and tell
me it is not spot on. His is actually on Rumps transition team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYLEPRiIyE
Early days indeed. An alternative view of the recent events, by someone who said more or less
the same about Obama when he was selected.
"The deep state ushered in Trump because he's clearly their most useful decoy. As the country
hopes in vain, the crooked men behind the curtain will go on with business as usual. Trump is
simply an Obama for a different demographic. Nothing will change for the better."
I agree with Hoarsewhisperer @11: ... it's a crock and a trick.
I doubt very much that the Obama is providing "continuity". IMO this is a naive reading.
Obama has just created a smokescreen that allows for preparing to 'facts on the ground' that will
force Trump to respond accordingly.
We are at a very very dangerous point in time.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Also, giving ANY credence to 'Obama legacy' BS is misguided in the extreme. His 'legacy'
is dissembling and treachery. Anything thing beyond that is just BS meant to keep adversary's
off-balance.
@22 Where do you get the idea that those countries are somehow bad for USA? If we ramp up industries
in USA it will cost substantially more than in those countries. They've benefitted USA immensely.
If the industries come back to USA it won't go over too well, unless slave wages are truly instituted
I don't know if Trump can take credit ... but rather that the Clinton wing of the Pentagon
and CIA, etc. has been defanged and the threat of a coup (if Obama acted in ways contrary to Clinton
and the General's plans) is now neutralized ... Clinton's loss, I hope, will mean future books
will be more candid than might have been possible if she were in office... yes, I wanna know how
bad it's been these last 8 years.
Obama's personal stock wrt his future as a consultant, motivational speaker and all around
leader fell dramatically both with Clinton's campaign (and anticipated sharp turn from Obama's
foreign policy) but also with her defeat (now his legacy). He was spared the ongoing shaming by
a Clinton administration. Likely too little, too late ... when does Kerry get back from the Antarctica?
He's got a chance at some legacy mending as well.
I believe reports that the Clintons and the Obamas loathe each other ... particularly since
the Clintons hate everyone/anyone who does not grovel perfectly. Did Obama sell-out to the DLC
Democrats to secure his future $$$ with all their and the foundation's friends... it will be fun
to watch and look for breadcrumbs, particularly if the foundation implodes under scrutiny.
That would be as part of the carveup that we are not supposed to talk about because it is a
wicked "conspiracy theory"...
Posted by: paul | Nov 11, 2016 12:12:44 PM | 17
That's a mini-conspiracy compared with the one that the Fake War Of Terror has distracted people's
attention from. The Privatisation of almost every Publicly-owned asset and piece of infrastructure
in the West. The Neolib takeover was well-advanced in 1999 but slipped into overdrive in 2001.
Banks, Insurance Cos, Telcos, Airlines, Childcare, Hospitals, Health Clinics (preventative), Roads,
Rail, Electrical Generation and distribution.
In Oz the Govt/people used to own all of the above, or a competitive participant in the 'market'
in the case of banking, insurance, health clinics, airlines etc. In 2016 the govt owns only unprofitable
burdens. Public Education is currently under extreme pressure to be Privatised for Profit.
(The Yanks call it Anti-Communism but consumers call it an Effing Expensive way to get much
crappier service than in the Good Old Days).
I think you give Barrack Obongo way too much credit. He is a "selfishly concerned" narcissist
alright but that's about it. All his years at the bathhouses and public lavatories with his wookie-in-drag
in Chicago, has not made him particularly smarter you know, rather the opposite...
Dropping AQ means dropping KSA, i.e. the 9/11 enquiry will probably go ahead. As for the MB/Qatar
who run a bunch of other groups, this is left to the EU to decide what it want to do with Turkey.
You bet the Eurocrats are having a headache. And Hollande shows his muscles (sic) and claims he
will talk with Trump on the phone and gets some "clarifications" about his programme.
MSM are reporting on a daily basis of the huge problems with the "Syrian refugees" crossing
the Mediterranean Sea although there is just a handful of Syrians compared to Eritreans, Sudanese,
Gambians etc.
According to the report, the last time Turkish jets participated in airstrikes against terrorists
in Syria was on October 23, three days after around 200 PKK/PYD terrorists were killed.
Ash Carter is, together with John Brennan, the major anti-Russian force in the Obama administration.
He is a U.S. weapon industry promoter and the anti-Russia campaign, which helps to sell U.S. weapons
to NATO allies in Europe, is largely of his doing.
BTW, I do believe he re-won his senate seat, against the true patriot Arpaio there.
Hence his absence from the public scene these months.
So things have not changed much if at all, since still 70 days to Jan20, except for appearances
as they've rearranged some furniture & color-matched the curtains to the upholstery in the act/play
is all.
@11 Hoarsewhisperer - I think it's unrealistic to expect the US simply to leave..
...
Posted by: Grieved | Nov 11, 2016 12:33:02 PM | 27
Today, your guess is as good as mine (at least).
But I regard FrUKUS as Ter'rism Central and if Russia & China et al think they can put a stop
to TerCent without dislodging some teeth and kneecapping them, they're pissing into the wind/dreaming.
It's a bit ambiguous but China, according to CCTV Nov 12, during a chat about Sun Yat Sen and
China/Taiwan unity, seems to be issuing a Global reminder to Loyal Chinese Citizens overseas similar
to the one that Russia issued a month ago.
Disgusting as it is, yes, my understanding is Obama can do exactly that. My guess is, want
to or not, he probably will come under so much pressure he will have to pass out plenty of pardons.
Or maybe Lynch will give everyone involved in the Clinton Foundation immunity to testify and then
seal the testimony -- or never bother to get any testimony. So many games.
For Obama, it might not even take all that much pressure. From about his second day in office,
from his body language, he's always looked like he was scared.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut, which he would do, being the lawyer he is, Giuliani has
been screaming for the Clintons' scalps. That's exactly what a sharp lawyer would do if he was
trying to force Obama to pardon them. If he really meant to get them he would be agreeing with
the FBI, saying there doesn't seem to be any evidence of wrong doing, and then change his mind
once (if) he's AG and it's too late for deals.
With so many lawyers, Obama, the Clintons, Lynch, Giuliani, Comey, no justice is likely to
come out of this.
@ Posted by: Ken Nari | Nov 11, 2016 2:51:53 PM | 55
I heard a podcast on Batchelor with Charles Ortel which explained some things -- even if
there are no obvious likely criminal smoking guns -- given that foundations get away with a lot
of "leniency" because they are charities, incomplete financial statements and chartering documents,
as I recall. I was most interested in his description of the number of jurisdictions the Foundation
was operating under, some of whom, like New York were already investigating; and others, foreign
who might or might be, who also have very serious regulations, opening the possibility that if
the Feds drop their investigation, New York (with very very strict law) might proceed, and that
they might well be investigated (prosecuted/banned??) in Europe.
The most recent leak wrt internal practices was just damning ... it sounded like a playground
of favors and sinecures ... no human resources department, no written policies on many practices
...
This was an internal audit and OLD (2008, called "the Gibson Review") so corrective action
may have been taken, but I thought was damning enough to deter many donors (even before Hillary's
loss removed that incentive) particularly on top of the Band (2011) memo. Unprofessional to the
extreme.
It's part of my vast relief that Clinton lost and will not be in our lives 24/7/365 for the
next 4 years. (I think Trump is an unprincipled horror, but that's as may be, I'm not looking
for a fight). After the mess Clinton made of Haiti (and the accusations/recriminations) I somehow
thought they'd have been more careful with their "legacy" -- given that it was founded in 1997,
2008 is a very long time to be operating without written procedures wrt donations, employment
"... "How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite . We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. ..."
"... A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose." ..."
"... However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham, a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways." ..."
"... He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues." ..."
"... Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again," he warned. ..."
"... MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation. ..."
"... No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying. ..."
"... the U.S. Empire has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that. ..."
"... Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC. ..."
"... Yes. Out of NATO, stop the endless pointless wars in the M.E., embrace George Washington and avoiding "foreign entaglements." ..."
"... Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place. ..."
"... There is a problem with the long term approach...is that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war. ..."
"... With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks, the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore. ..."
"... The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period. ..."
"... You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything, just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses and happy days are here again. ..."
"... What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible for both nations. ..."
"... Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis ..."
"... Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence. ..."
"... In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment. ..."
"... Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk. ..."
"... Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease. ..."
"... The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him, as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. ..."
"... Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed. ..."
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was "guaranteed" to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that
among the neo-con, foreign policy "elites" of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter
of time before the "pacifist" Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary.
As the
WaPo reported , "there is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump's scorched-earth presidential campaign is treated as a
mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President
Obama's departure from the White House - and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton - is being met
with quiet relief ."
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.
Oops.
Not only did the "foreign policy" elite get the Trump "scorched-earth distraction" dead wrong, it now has to scramble to find
what leverage - if any - it has in defining Trump's foreign policy. Worse, America's warmongers are now waging war (if only metaphorically:
we all know they can't wait for the real thing) against libertarians for direct access to Trump's front door, a contingency they
had never planned for.
As The Hill reported
earlier , "a battle is brewing between the GOP foreign policy establishment and outsiders over who will sit on President-elect
Donald Trump's national security team. The fight pits hawks and neoconservatives who served in the former Bush administrations against
those on the GOP foreign policy edges."
Taking a page out of Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's commitments
around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and "nation-building," curtail expensive military campaigns and troop deployments,
and intervene militarily only to protect American interests. In short: these are people who believe that human life, and the avoidance
of war, is more valuable than another record quarter for Raytheon, Lockheed or Boeing.
On the other hand, the so-called establishment camp, many of whom disavowed Trump during the campaign, is made up of the same
people who effectively ran Hillary Clinton's tenure while she was Secretary of State, fully intent on creating zones of conflict,
political instability and outright war in every imaginable place, from North Africa to Ukraine. This group is pushing for Stephen
Hadley, who served as national security adviser under George W. Bush. Another Bush ally, John Bolton whose name has been floated
as a possible secretary of State, also falls into this camp.
According to The Hill, other neo-con, establishment candidates floated include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob
Corker (R-Tenn.), outgoing Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), rising star Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and senior fellow at conservative think-tank
American Enterprise Institute and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.).
"These figures all generally believe that the United States needs to take an active role in the world from the Middle East to
East Asia to deter enemies and reassure allies."
In short, should this group prevail, it would be the equivalent of 4 more years of HIllary Clinton running the State Department.
The outsider group sees things differently.
They want to revamp American foreign policy in a different direction from the last two administrations. Luckily, this particular
camp is also more in line with Trump's views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment camp.
"How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite
. We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles
Koch Institute.
A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last
few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed
to oppose."
... ... ...
However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham,
a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends
and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways."
He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on
national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues."
Funny, that's exactly what the experts said about Trump's chances of winning not even two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to
see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved
relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny.
That is where we must stand again," he warned.
Luckily, McCain - whose relationship with Trump has been at rock bottom ever since Trump's first appearance in the presidential
campaign - has zero impact on the thinking of Trump.
Furthermore, speaking of Russia, Retired Amy Col. Andrew Bacevich said there needs to be a rethink of American foreign policy.
He said the U.S. must consider whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan qualify as U.S. allies, and the growing divergence between the U.S.
and Israel. "The establishment doesn't want to touch questions like these with a ten foot pole," he said at a conference on Tuesday
hosted by The American Conservative, the Charles Koch Institute, and the George Washington University Department of Political Science.
Furthermore, resetting the "deplorable" relations with Russia is a necessary if not sufficient condition to halt the incipient
nuclear arms build up that has resulted of the recent dramatic return of the Cold War. As such, a Trump presidency while potentially
a failure, may be best remember for avoiding the launch of World War III. If , that is, he manages to prevent the influence of neo-cons
in his cabinet.
And then there are the wildcards: those Trump advisers who are difficult to peg into which camp they fall into. One example is
retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was selected by Trump as his national security
adviser. Flynn is a "curious case," said Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative. The retired Army general has
said he wants to work with Russia, but also expressed contrary views in his book "Field of Fight."
According to Larison, Flynn writes of an "enemy alliance" against the U.S. that includes Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria,
Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. From that standpoint, he is about
as "establishment" as they come.
It's also not crystal clear which camp Giuliani falls into. The former mayor is known as a fierce critic of Islamic extremism
but has scant foreign policy experience.
Most say what is likely is change.
"Change is coming to American grand strategy whether we like it or not,' said Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in National
Security at Texas A&M University.
"I think we are overdue for American retrenchment. Americans are beginning to suffer from hegemony fatigue," he said.
And, let's not forget, the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who are droned to death every year by anonymous
remote-control operators in the US just so the US can pursue its global hegemonic interest. They most certainly have, and unless
something indeed changes, will continue to suffer, leading to even more resentment against the US, and even more attacks against
US citizens around the globe, and on US soil. Some call them terrorism, others call them retaliation.
Help me here with this word (or whatever it means) REALISTS :
Article: Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and REALISTS see an opportunity . to intervene militarily only to
protect American interests.
So dear Libertarians, as I am about to show you two examples, but the list is long, that you have a problem, because of (US)
reality:
1) You are told by the left and right massmedia that the US is something like that: King of natural gas. We'll be the world
exporter. That we have enough natural gas for 100 years, or some nonsense like that. But here is the REALITY :
US "still" had to import almost 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2015.
2) Again, you might hear from the left and right massmedia that: US is shale this. US is shale that, even that shale is not
oil, but some form of kerogen. In any event, here' the reality: US crude oil imports, by Millions of Barrels a Day: 2014: 7,344
2015: 7,363 As of July 2016: 8,092 (MBD)
Key Point (in my opinion): Libertarians, you can't have both of best worlds -two incomparable believes. You have to chose,
otherwise you'll be a hypocrite while being a neocon as well.
MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the
US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation.
No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying.
This construction of the U.S. empire is a myth. Unlike the British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, or any other empire throughout
history you care to name, the construction of the U.S. Empire has been a drastic net drain on U.S. finances.
Unlike any preceding
empire, which invaded other lands in search of wealth and captured client states to monetize added value, the U.S. Empire
has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy
to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private
globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other
way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy
rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that.
In the process, the USA has been hollowed out from the inside, and risks imminent collapse. The greatest hope we can hold out
for a Trump presidency is a recognition of the truth of this. Bannon gets close sometimes, but I still have my doubts that there
is true recognition of just how dire these current circumstances are. In this, people like Ron Paul are right on target - to save
the Republic, the Empire and its enabling institutions (like the Fed) must go.
Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot
Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member
lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC.
Michael Flynn's book "Field of Fight" is co-authored by neocon Michael Ledeen, defender of Israel and
promoter of "universal fascism" . Ledeen
is a member of the "Foundation for Defense of Democracies" where Trump advisor James Woolsey is chairman. Woolsey, Clinton's ex-CIA
director, is also a member of the "Flynn Intel Group".
Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms
sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place.
The gov expansion into and control of the economy has so distorted the markets, and created so much dependency that we are
now in a situation where without it, our economy collapses. It would take decades to fix this problem without collapsing the economy
while you are doing it...
However, we would still feel the pain as we transition the economy. There is a problem with the long term approach...is
that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war.
With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks,
the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore.
The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know
violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and
beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period.
You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything,
just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses
and happy days are here again.
Only those doped up hippies worry about nukes. Don't listen to them.
I hear you do not like yo read, but you must read this ZH post that neatly summarizes the NeoCon influence in Wash. which has
run it's course with little tangible returns and many negative debt outcomes including loss of millions of lives . Time to change
or face world condemnation worse than Germany received after WWII. America has always been regarded as a savior Nation until the
Neocons took over Wash. for narrow corporate, DOD and foreign interests.
You have now heard all the arguments and must decide---compromise will only lead to more strife and possible economic collapse.
This is the most important decision of your Presidency ---all other decisions and promises depend on this one.
Fuck those stinking neo-con bastards. We are not going to be fighting Israel's wars again. This is the United States, not Israel,
no matter how much jew money controls congress and no matter how much jew money controls the media. I hope Trump understands this
very clearly.
What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if
Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame
the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible
for both nations.
The reason "Islamophobia" is even a thing is because Saudis paid Jewish SJWs to make it a thing, all while they pay WASPs like
Bolton to go apeshit on non-Wahhabi Muslims.
Yes, before you even start, I'm aware of the claims that the Saudis are some sort of "crypto-Jews". Whatever. They need to
be named regardless.
I don't recall the US fighting any wars that would directly benefit Saudi Arabia. Sure, the Saudis have a lot of money, but they
are just a bunch of camel-fuckers who got rich because they are sitting on oil. They are still a bunch of dumb camel-fuckers.
They don't have any nukes. I imagine the Saudis do nothing without the approval of the CIA Israel is a whole different story.
Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis
Let's deconstruct this statement shall we:
1971 Nixon goes off gold standard. Why? Deficit spending on Vietnam War was causing European Central Banks to hold dollars
they didn't want. They bought gold with it rather than mainstreet American goods. This then started depleting American Gold...especially
to France.
1973 Nixon sends his special JEW Kissinger to Saudi. Why? To make the petrodollar a world standard.
The Saudi Kissinger deal: Saudi gets protection by American War Machine, they get to Cartelize with OPEC, they get transhipment
protection by U.S. Navy, Saudi Illegitimate Coup is OK'd and sanctioned by the West, they get front line American Gear. Today
that gear includes the latest Jets and AWAC's.
What does America get, especially the Western Illuminist Bankers? All Saudi Petrodollars are to cycle into Western Capital
Market, including Western Banks. Saudi's are to buy TBILLs with their petrodollars. All oil is to be priced in dollars, to then
create demand for said dollars. Saudi's do not get to own a powerful financial center. (Can you name me a powerful Saudi bank?)
Our Jewish friends are not stupid and have been running the money game since forever.
The Coup for Saudi was actually a British MI6 project. If you trace MI6 back in time, it was an arm of Bank of England. BOE
was brought into existence by Jewish Capital out of Amsterrrdaaaamn.
Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC
as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded
the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence.
So- absolutely, the Salafists are on the side of our Illuminist friends.
The Shites, especially those of Iran/Persia - have had their "funds" absconded with and/or locked up.
So, which side of Islam has our Jewish Illuminist Cabal masters selected?
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see it. it generally tracks with my understanding
but i could use some solid source material.
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see i
Google 1973 Saudi Kissinger deal:
For BOE the sources are more obscure. I personally have tracked them through time using population statistics and the like.
I need to write a book, so I can quote myself.
BOE, Cromwell, the Orange Kings - the usurpation of England, are all related by way of Stock Market Capital in Amersterdamn.
You can trace our Jewish friends arrival in Amersterdamn with their loss of East West Mechanism (silver gold exchange rates on
the caravan routes). They lost it to the portuguese when Vasco de Gama discovered the Sourthern route.
The person who best cataloged these maneuvers was an american Alexander Del Mar - a great monetary historian. Look for his
books.
This stuff will take you years of effort, and I applaud anyone who takes it on.
For the circulation of dollars during Vietnam War, See Hudson's books... especially Super Imperialism
Dr. Bonzo •Nov 19, 2016 11:04 PM
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White
House.
In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that
they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos
in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the
point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment.
Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not
in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk.
A nation of fucking morons. I swear.
Victor999 -> Dr. Bonzo •Nov 20, 2016 4:09 AM
You answered your own question....Israel is the first priority of American foreign policy - always.
Chaos is precisely what Israel ordered in order to weaken central governments of the ME and destroy their military capability.
WWIII? Doesn't matter in the least for Israel who will quietly stand aside and let the goyim fight it out, and then pick up the
remains. We're all fucking morons for allowing the Jews to take over our money supply, our government, our intelligence services,
our media - and hide themselves under the protective cloak of liberalism, political correctness and 'anti-Semitism' to shut down
all rational debate and guard them against 'discriminatory' practices.
Neochrome •Nov 19, 2016 11:06 PM
First of all, McStain should STFU, we'll send a nurse to change his depends, no need to get all cranky.
Giuliani's foreign expertise comes down apparently to be so "brave" to kick down Serbs when they are down and to proclaim to
their face that they have deserved to be bombarded.
Bolton is exactly opposite of everything that Trump campaigned on.
Again, Mitt doesn't look half-bad considering the alternatives...
Kagemusho •Nov 19, 2016 11:13 PM
The Elite always signal their intent through the Traditional Media...like this:
Empire or Not? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role
by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 21 August 2001
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/empireOrNot.html
You will find the bastards were planning for war and just needed their Pearl Harbor 2 in order to launch it. The same PNAC,
Office of Special Plans NeoCon nutcases that want to get close to Trump were talking so glibly and blithely about 'empire'. I
knew even then that this was the Elite signaling intent, and we all know what happened a few weeks later. This article should
provide the benefit of hindsight when considering Cabinet postings. These NeoCon Israel-Firster assholes belong in prison for
war crimes!
Salzburg1756 •Nov 19, 2016 11:16 PM
neocon = Israel-Firster
If Trump disempowers them, he will be a great/good president.
the.ghost.of.22wmr -> Salzburg1756 •Nov 20, 2016 12:18 AM
Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad
is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend
and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease.
The Kurds have served our shared interests well , but like all Muslims have no real interest in becoming westernized and will
turn on us once they have achieved their goals.
UnschooledAustr... -> dunce •Nov 20, 2016 1:50 AM
You are wrong about the Kurds. Besides the Alevites the only sane people in this mess called the islamic world.
shovelhead -> dunce •Nov 20, 2016 9:35 AM
The Kurds are an ethnic identity, not a religious one. While most are of an Islamic rootstock, the are Kurds of various religious
beliefs. The Kurds are fighting for an autonomous region where all religions can co-exist without one being dominant and forcing
others to conform.
The Kurds problem is they are not physically separated by geography like Sicily, who falls under the Italian State but are
still distinctly Sicilian in language and culture while the outside world sees them as Italian.
The Kurds problem is that someone in Europe drew a line on a map without consulting them whether they wanted their traditional
homeland to be divided between three different countries.
Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 12:37 AM
BERNIE SANDERS would be a genius choice for Secretary of State. A kick in the teeth to the Clintonistas and the neocons, an
olive branch to liberals of good will, and a hilarious end to the American civil war that the MSM and Soros are trying to drum
up. Bernie's foreign policy was the only thing I
liked about him.
sinbad2 -> Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 1:02 AM
What a fantastic idea, political genius.
UnschooledAustr... -> Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 1:30 AM
I - non-US citizen living in the US - frequently argued that I would have loved seeing Bernie run as VP for Trump.
Not a lot of people who got it. You did.
BTW: Fuck Soros.
Big Ben •Nov 20, 2016 12:51 AM
The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him,
as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it
did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
Incidentally, I've been looking at some websites that claim that the 911 attacks could not have happened the way the government
claimed. There were actually THREE buildings that collapsed: the North and South Towers and WTC7 which was never hit by an airplane.
The government claims it collapsed due to fires, but a whole bunch of architects and structural engineers say that isn't possible.
And if you look at the video of the collapse, it looks like a perfect controlled demolition. There have been a number of large
fires in steel framed skyscrapers and none of them has caused a collapse. And even if a fire somehow managed to produce a collapse,
it would create a messy uneven collapse where the parts with the hottest fires collapse first.
Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse
weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed.
Also Steven Jones, a retired BYU physics professor and other scientists have found particles of thermite in the dust from the
North and South tower collapses. Thermite is an incendiary used to cut steel. This suggests that the collapse of the the North
and South Towers was also caused by something other than an airplane collision.
I have seen claims that GW Bush's younger brother was a high executive in the company that handled WTC security.
So were the 9/11 attacks a preplanned event designed to create support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
"... I don't think we should be a nation builder. ..."
"... I had to listen to [Senator] Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking Syria and attacking, you know, and it's like you're now attacking Russia, you're attacking Iran, you're attacking. And what are we getting? We're getting - and what are we getting? ..."
"... I'd say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn't it be nice to actually report what they said, wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, ..."
FRIEDMAN: What do you see as America's role in the world? Do you believe that the role
TRUMP: That's such a big question.
FRIEDMAN: The role that we played for 50 years as kind of the global balancer, paying more for
things because they were in our ultimate interest, one hears from you, I sense, is really shrinking
that role.
TRUMP: I don't think we should be a nation builder. I think we've tried that. I happen to think
that going into Iraq was perhaps I mean you could say maybe we could have settled the civil war,
O.K.? I think going into Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country. I think
getting out of it - I think we got out of it wrong, then lots of bad things happened, including the
formation of ISIS. We could have gotten out of it differently.
FRIEDMAN: NATO, Russia?
TRUMP: I think going in was a terrible, terrible mistake. Syria, we have to solve that problem
because we are going to just keep fighting, fighting forever. I have a different view on Syria than
everybody else. Well, not everybody else, but then a lot of people.
I had to listen to [Senator]
Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking
Syria and attacking, you know, and it's like you're now attacking Russia, you're attacking Iran,
you're attacking. And what are we getting? We're getting - and what are we getting?
And I have some
very definitive, I have some very strong ideas on Syria. I think what's happened is a horrible, horrible
thing. To look at the deaths, and I'm not just talking deaths on our side, which are horrible, but
the deaths - I mean you look at these cities, Arthur, where they're totally, they're rubble, massive
areas, and they say two people were injured. No, thousands of people have died. O.K. And I think
it's a shame. And ideally we can get - do something with Syria. I spoke to Putin, as you know, he
called me, essentially
UNKNOWN: How do you see that relationship?
TRUMP: Essentially everybody called me, all of the major leaders, and most of them I've spoken
to.
FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP: I wouldn't use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think - I would love
to be able to get along with Russia and I think they'd like to be able to get along with us. It's
in our mutual interest. And I don't go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would
say - when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump,
I said, huh, wouldn't it be nice, I'd say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn't it be nice
to actually report what they said, wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn't
it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it's
very expensive, and ISIS shouldn't have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and
give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that
I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that's a positive thing. It is a great thing that
we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.
JOSEPH KAHN, managing editor: On Syria, would you mind, you said you have a very strong idea about
what to do with the Syria conflict, can you describe that for us?
TRUMP: I can only say this: We have to end that craziness that's going on in Syria. One of the
things that was told to me - can I say this off the record, or is everything on the record?
"... News that Trump might work 4 days a week as President, or at least work the same work week as Congress does, would suggest he plans on running a lean government. ..."
"... A counter-argument that could be put forward is that the Presidency doesn't (and shouldn't) define the office-holder's life and the Clintons themselves are an example of what can happen if the Presidency consumes their lives ..."
"... If it's Trump's intention to reform the political culture in Washington and make it more accountable to the public, and bring the Presidency closer to the public, then defining the maximum limits of the position on his time and sticking to them, perhaps through delegating roles and functions to his cabinet secretaries, is one path to reform. ..."
My impression is that Donald Trump is planning or at least thinking of running the government
as a business, choosing people as cabinet secretaries on the basis of past experience and on what
they would bring to the position, as opposed to choosing cabinet secretaries because they have
been loyal yes-people (as Hillary Clinton would have done)
News that Trump might work 4 days a week as President, or at least work the same work week
as Congress does, would suggest he plans on running a lean government. At present the prevailing
attitude among Washington insiders and the corporate media is that Trump is not really that interested
in being President and isn't committed to the job 24/7.
A counter-argument that could be put forward is that the Presidency doesn't (and shouldn't)
define the office-holder's life and the Clintons themselves are an example of what can happen
if the Presidency consumes their lives: it can damage the individuals and in Hillary Clinton's
case, cut her off so much from ordinary people that it disqualifies her from becoming President
herself.
If it's Trump's intention to reform the political culture in Washington and make it more accountable
to the public, and bring the Presidency closer to the public, then defining the maximum limits
of the position on his time and sticking to them, perhaps through delegating roles and functions
to his cabinet secretaries, is one path to reform.
Donald Trump's success or failure as the next US president will largely depend on his ability to keep his independence from the "shadow
government" and elite structures that shaped the policies of previous administrations, former presidential candidate Ron Paul told
RT.
[...]
" Unfortunately, there has been several neoconservatives that are getting closer to Trump. And if gets his advice from them then
I do not think that is a good sign, " Paul told the host of RT's Crosstalk show Peter Lavelle.
The retired Congressman said that people voted for Trump because he stood against the deep corruption in the establishment, that
was further exposed during the campaign by WikiLeaks, and because of his disapproval of meddling in the wider Middle East.
" During the campaign, he did talk a little bit about backing off and being less confrontational to Russia and I like that. He
criticized some the wars in the Middle East at the same time. He believes we should accelerate the war against ISIS and terrorism,
" Paul noted.
[...]
" But quite frankly there is an outside source which we refer to as the 'deep state' or the 'shadow government'. There is a lot
of influence by people which are actually more powerful than our government itself, our president, " the congressman said.
" Yes, Trump is his own guy, more so than most of those who have ever been in before. We hope he can maintain an independence
and go in the right direction. But I fear the fact that there is so much that can be done secretly, out of control of our apparent
government and out of the view of so many citizens, " he added. More: https://www.rt.com/usa/366404-trump-ron-paul-crosstalk/
While focusing on preserving ObamaCare and other achievements of the Obama administration that are
threatened by a Donald Trump presidency, the DA's agenda includes panels on rethinking polling and
the left's approach to winning the working-class vote. The group will also stress funneling cash
into state legislative policy initiatives and races where Republicans took over last week.
President-elect Donald Trump has said his first 100 days will be dedicated to restoring "honesty,
accountability and change to Washington" through the following seven steps:
A Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress
A hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting
military, public safety, and public health)
A requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated
A five year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave
government service
A lifetime ban on the White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government
A complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections
Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America's
water and environmental infrastructure
Billionaire George Soros immediately had fingers of blame pointing at him for the anti-Trump riots
and protests that swept the nation since Nov. 9, as
his group MoveOn.org has organized most of them .
The billionaire committed
$25 million to boosting the Clinton campaign and other Democratic candidates and causes in 2016.
Ran Paul was one of the few who understood how quickly Trump will betray his voters: "There was a time, a very brief
time under the Articles of Confederation, when Americans recognized the evils of the establishment and avoided instituting one." But
it looks like he shares most of illution about Trump ability to changethings to the better: " The Obama establishment is dead. The Democratic establishment is dead, at least for 4 years.
"
Notable quotes:
"... Washington insiders attempt to capture Trump and influence his positions, policies and decisions. ..."
"... The Obama establishment is dead. The Democratic establishment is dead, at least for 4 years. There was a time, a very brief time under the Articles of Confederation, when Americans recognized the evils of the establishment and avoided instituting one. ..."
What happens next in Washington? Trump fills out his administration.
At the same time, Washington insiders attempt to capture Trump and influence his positions,
policies and decisions. The presidency is an institution, not a man, not a president. The presidency
is a network of enormous power with Trump now at its center.
Washington insiders who live and breathe politics are now in a race for positions of power and
influence. They hanker and vie for appointments. Trump must make appointments. He cannot operate
alone. He must delegate power to make decisions. He cannot monitor all information pertinent to every
issue in which the government has a hand.
The presidency is not 100 percent centralized. Decision-making power is allocated to levels below
the president himself and to levels surrounding him. It also lies outside the presidency in Congress.
Trump has his ideas and desires for actions, but their realization depends on the people he appoints.
He loses control and locks himself in with every appointment that he makes. People around him want
his power and want to influence him. They have a heavy influence on what he hears, whom he sees,
the options presented to him, and the evaluations of competing personnel. Trump will likely form
a very small team of offshoots of himself, people whom he trusts implicitly, in order to extend his
capacity to choose people who will adhere to and execute his agenda.
Power in Washington is not simply the apparatus of administering the presidency that will take
up headlines for the next few months. After the U.S. Treasury robs the tax-paying Americans, new
robbers (the Lobby) appear to rob the Treasury using every device they can get away with. There is
a second contingent, the power-seekers. Those who covet the exercise of power unceasingly work toward
their own narrow aims. As long as Washington remains the place that concentrates unbelievably large
amounts of money and powers, it will remain the swamp that Trump has promised to drain but won't.
He cannot drain it, not without destroying Washington's power and he cannot accomplish that, nor
does he even hint that he wants to accomplish that. His stated aims are the redirection of money
and powers, not their elimination for the sake of a greater justice, a greater right, and a truly
greater people and country.
The presidency is an establishment and Washington is another. By being elected, Trump struck
a blow at the members of the establishment who will be packing their bags while weeping over their
losses (see
here and
here .)
But elections do not strike the roots of the presidency, the establishment or Washington. Neither
will demonstrations against Trump.
The Obama establishment is dead. The Democratic establishment is dead, at least for 4 years.
There was a time, a very brief time under the Articles of Confederation, when Americans recognized
the evils of the establishment and avoided instituting one.
This gave way almost immediately (in 1787) to the constitutional seed that planted the enormous
tree that now cuts out the sun of justice from American lives. A domestic war failed to uproot that
tree. Long live the establishment, the Union, the American state, and may they be possessed of immense
powers over our lives - these became the social and political reality. Trump isn't going to change
it. He's a president administering a presidency. He's at the top of the heap. His credo is still
"Long Live the Establishment!"
Pretty interesting video... no we know that the Swamp consumed Flatfooted Donald rather quickly
Notable quotes:
"... Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters discuss the bitter establishment's desperation to manufacture a Trump scandal ..."
"... Most people don't know that after the 134 men died on the Forrestal fire in 1967 McCain was the ONLY person helicoptered off the ship. It was done for his own safety as many on the ship blamed him for causing the fire by "wet" starting his jet causing a plume of fire to shoot out his plane's exhaust and into the plane behind McCain causing the ordnance to cook off on that jet. McCain then panicked and dropped his own bombs onto the deck making matters much worse. McCain should have ended his career in jail. Oh, wait, he kinda did, maybe karma justice? ..."
"... FakeStream Media ..."
"... The very Fake Media has met their match ..."
Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters discuss the bitter establishment's desperation to manufacture
a Trump scandal
Louis John 2 hours ago
@hexencoff
McCain is a trouble maker. supporter of the terrorist and warmonger Iraq Libya
Syria he is behind all the trouble scumbag
Gary M 3 hours ago
McCain is a globalist
belaghoulashi 2 hours ago
(edited) McCain has always been full of horseshit. And he has always relied on people calling
him a hero to get away with it. That schtick is old, the man is a monumental failure for this
country, and he needs to have his sorry butt kicked.
ryvr madduck 1 hour ago
+belaghoulashi
Most people don't know that after the 134 men died on the Forrestal fire in 1967 McCain was the
ONLY person helicoptered off the ship. It was done for his own safety as many on the ship blamed
him for causing the fire by "wet" starting his jet causing a plume of fire to shoot out his plane's
exhaust and into the plane behind McCain causing the ordnance to cook off on that jet. McCain
then panicked and dropped his own bombs onto the deck making matters much worse. McCain should
have ended his career in jail. Oh, wait, he kinda did, maybe karma justice?
Michael Cambo 4 hours ago
When you start to drain the swamp, the swamp creatures start to show.
Alexus Highfield 3 hours ago
@Michael Cambo
don't they...they do say shit floats.
Geoffry Allan 41 minutes ago
@Michael Cambo
- Trump has not drained the swamp he has surrounded himself with billionaires in his cabinet who
don't give a damn about the working middle class who struggle e eryday to make a living -
explain to me how he is draining the swamp
tim sparks 3 hours ago
Trump is trying so fucking hard to do a good job for us.
Integrity Truth-seeker 2 hours ago
@tim sparks
He is not trying... HE IS DOING IT... Like A Boss. Thank God Mark Taylor Prophecies
2017 the best is yet to come
Jodi Boin 3 hours ago
McCain is a traitor and is bought and paid for by Soros.
Grant Davidson 4 hours ago
Love him or hate him. The guy is a frikkin Genius...
Patrick Reagan 4 hours ago
FakeStream Media
Michael Cambo 4 hours ago
@Patrick Reagan
Very FakeStream Media
aspengold5 4 hours ago
I am so disappointed in McCain.
orlando pablo 4 hours ago
my 401k is keep on going up....thank u mr trump....
Dumbass Libtard 3 hours ago
McCain is not a Republican. He is a loser. Yuge difference.1
Mitchel Colvin 3 hours ago
Shut up McCain! I can't stand this clown anymore! Unfortunately, Arizona re-elected him for six
more years!
robert barham 4 hours ago
The very Fake Media has met their match
H My ways of thinking! 3 hours ago
Why does everyone feel that if they don't kiss McCain's ass, they are being un American? Mccain
has sold out to George Soros. He is a piece of shit who is guilty of no less than treason! Look
up the definition for treason if you're in doubt!
Sam Nardo 3 hours ago
(edited) Mc Cain and Graham are two of the best democrats in the GOP. They are called RINOS
kazzicup 3 hours ago
We love and support our President Donald Trump. The media is so dishonest. CNN = Criminal News
Network.
Geoffry Allan 34 minutes ago
@kazzicup - yeah if you get rid of the media Trump becomes
a dictator - is that what you want he will censor everything and tell you what he wants - Trump
is still president and he is doing his job and fulfilling his promises even though the media is
there and reporting - so what's the problem - I don't want a got damn dictator running this country
- if you don't like the media then just listen to Trump - 2nd amendment free speech and the right
to bear arms we have to respect it even if we may disagree
The United States should threaten Russia with military force in order to contain the Kremlin's growing
power on the international stage, a top candidate to become Donald Trump's Secretary of State has
said.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York Mayor
who is believed to be the front runner to head Mr Trump's
State Department, made the comments at a Washington event sponsored by the
Wall Street Journal
.
In
quotes | The Trump - Putin relationship
Putin on Trump:
"He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about
that He is an absolute leader of the presidential race, as we see it today. He says that
he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level of relations with Russia.
How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it." -
December 2015
Trump on Putin:
"It is always a great honour to be so nicely complimented by a
man so highly respected within his own country and beyond." -
December 2015
"I think I would just get along very well with Putin. I just
think so. People say what do you mean? I just think we would." -
July 2015
"I have no relationship with [Putin] other than he called me a
genius. He said Donald Trump is a genius and he is going to be the leader of the party and
he's going to be the leader of the world or something. He said some good stuff about me I
think I'd have a good relationship with Putin, who knows." -
February 2016
"I have nothing to do with Putin, I have never spoken to him, I
don't know anything about him, other than he will respect me." -
July 2016
"I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there's nothing I can
think of that I'd rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to how they are right now
so that we can go and knock out Isis together with other people. Wouldn't it be nice if we
actually got along?" -
July 2016
"The man has very strong control over a country. It's a very
different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he's
been a leader." -
September 2016
"Well I think when [Putin] called me brilliant, I'll take the
compliment, okay?" -
September 2016
Ron Paul was right in 2016 to express reservations about Trump forign policy.
Notable quotes:
"... Paul started off the interview saying that he is keeping his "fingers crossed" regarding Trump's potential foreign policy actions. ..."
"... Trump has presented "vague" foreign policy positions overall. Paul also comments that a good indication of how Trump will act on foreign policy issues will be provided by looking at who Trump appoints to positions in the executive branch and from whom Trump receives advice. ..."
"... Regarding Trump's foreign policy advisors and potential appointees, Paul expresses in the interview reason for concern. Paul states: "Unfortunately, there have been several neoconservatives that are getting closer to Trump, and, if he gets his advice from them, then I don't think that is a good sign." ..."
"... Even if Trump wants to pursue a significantly more noninterventionist course than his recent predecessors in the presidency, Paul warns that the entrenched "deep state" that favors foreign intervention and war, special interests that have "sinister motivation for these wars," and media propaganda that "builds up the war fever" can ..."
Ron Paul, known for his promotion of the United States following a noninterventionist foreign policy,
presented Thursday his take on the prospects of Donald Trump's foreign policy as president. Paul
set out his analysis in an extensive interview with host Peter Lavelle at RT.
Paul started off
the interview saying that he is keeping his "fingers crossed" regarding Trump's potential foreign
policy actions. Paul says he views favorably Trump's comments in the presidential election about
"being less confrontational with Russia" and criticizing some of the US wars in the Middle East.
Paul, though, notes that Trump has presented "vague" foreign policy positions overall. Paul also
comments that a good indication of how Trump will act on foreign policy issues will be provided by
looking at who Trump appoints to positions in the executive branch and from whom Trump receives advice.
Regarding Trump's foreign policy advisors and potential appointees, Paul expresses in the interview
reason for concern. Paul states: "Unfortunately, there have been several neoconservatives that are
getting closer to Trump, and, if he gets his advice from them, then I don't think that is a good
sign."
Even if Trump wants to pursue a significantly more noninterventionist course than his recent predecessors
in the presidency, Paul warns that the entrenched "deep state" that favors foreign intervention and
war, special interests that have "sinister motivation for these wars," and media propaganda that
"builds up the war fever" can
Pretty interesting video... no we know that the Swamp consumed Flatfooted Donald rather quickly
Notable quotes:
"... Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters discuss the bitter establishment's desperation to manufacture a Trump scandal ..."
"... Most people don't know that after the 134 men died on the Forrestal fire in 1967 McCain was the ONLY person helicoptered off the ship. It was done for his own safety as many on the ship blamed him for causing the fire by "wet" starting his jet causing a plume of fire to shoot out his plane's exhaust and into the plane behind McCain causing the ordnance to cook off on that jet. McCain then panicked and dropped his own bombs onto the deck making matters much worse. McCain should have ended his career in jail. Oh, wait, he kinda did, maybe karma justice? ..."
"... FakeStream Media ..."
"... The very Fake Media has met their match ..."
Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters discuss the bitter establishment's desperation to manufacture
a Trump scandal
Louis John 2 hours ago
@hexencoff
McCain is a trouble maker. supporter of the terrorist and warmonger Iraq Libya
Syria he is behind all the trouble scumbag
Gary M 3 hours ago
McCain is a globalist
belaghoulashi 2 hours ago
(edited) McCain has always been full of horseshit. And he has always relied on people calling
him a hero to get away with it. That schtick is old, the man is a monumental failure for this
country, and he needs to have his sorry butt kicked.
ryvr madduck 1 hour ago
+belaghoulashi
Most people don't know that after the 134 men died on the Forrestal fire in 1967 McCain was the
ONLY person helicoptered off the ship. It was done for his own safety as many on the ship blamed
him for causing the fire by "wet" starting his jet causing a plume of fire to shoot out his plane's
exhaust and into the plane behind McCain causing the ordnance to cook off on that jet. McCain
then panicked and dropped his own bombs onto the deck making matters much worse. McCain should
have ended his career in jail. Oh, wait, he kinda did, maybe karma justice?
Michael Cambo 4 hours ago
When you start to drain the swamp, the swamp creatures start to show.
Alexus Highfield 3 hours ago
@Michael Cambo
don't they...they do say shit floats.
Geoffry Allan 41 minutes ago
@Michael Cambo
- Trump has not drained the swamp he has surrounded himself with billionaires in his cabinet who
don't give a damn about the working middle class who struggle e eryday to make a living -
explain to me how he is draining the swamp
tim sparks 3 hours ago
Trump is trying so fucking hard to do a good job for us.
Integrity Truth-seeker 2 hours ago
@tim sparks
He is not trying... HE IS DOING IT... Like A Boss. Thank God Mark Taylor Prophecies
2017 the best is yet to come
Jodi Boin 3 hours ago
McCain is a traitor and is bought and paid for by Soros.
Grant Davidson 4 hours ago
Love him or hate him. The guy is a frikkin Genius...
Patrick Reagan 4 hours ago
FakeStream Media
Michael Cambo 4 hours ago
@Patrick Reagan
Very FakeStream Media
aspengold5 4 hours ago
I am so disappointed in McCain.
orlando pablo 4 hours ago
my 401k is keep on going up....thank u mr trump....
Dumbass Libtard 3 hours ago
McCain is not a Republican. He is a loser. Yuge difference.1
Mitchel Colvin 3 hours ago
Shut up McCain! I can't stand this clown anymore! Unfortunately, Arizona re-elected him for six
more years!
robert barham 4 hours ago
The very Fake Media has met their match
H My ways of thinking! 3 hours ago
Why does everyone feel that if they don't kiss McCain's ass, they are being un American? Mccain
has sold out to George Soros. He is a piece of shit who is guilty of no less than treason! Look
up the definition for treason if you're in doubt!
Sam Nardo 3 hours ago
(edited) Mc Cain and Graham are two of the best democrats in the GOP. They are called RINOS
kazzicup 3 hours ago
We love and support our President Donald Trump. The media is so dishonest. CNN = Criminal News
Network.
Geoffry Allan 34 minutes ago
@kazzicup - yeah if you get rid of the media Trump becomes
a dictator - is that what you want he will censor everything and tell you what he wants - Trump
is still president and he is doing his job and fulfilling his promises even though the media is
there and reporting - so what's the problem - I don't want a got damn dictator running this country
- if you don't like the media then just listen to Trump - 2nd amendment free speech and the right
to bear arms we have to respect it even if we may disagree
So the coup against the President was exposed already in Jan 2017 and Trump did not take any measures to prevent the appointment
of the Special Prosecutor.
Notable quotes:
"... The stories about Russian intelligence supposedly filming Trump in a high-end Moscow hotel with prostitutes have been circulating around Washington for months. I was briefed about them by a Hillary Clinton associate who was clearly hopeful that the accusations would be released before the election and thus further damage Trump's chances. But the alleged video never seemed to surface and the claims had all the earmarks of a campaign dirty trick. ..."
"... However, now the tales of illicit frolic have been elevated to another level. They have been inserted into an official U.S. intelligence report, the details of which were leaked first to CNN and then to other mainstream U.S. news media outlets. ..."
"... In American history, legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was infamous for using his agency to develop negative information on a political figure and then letting the person know that the FBI had the dirt and certainly would not want it to become public – if only the person would do what the FBI wanted, whether that was to reappoint Hoover to another term or to boost the FBI's budget or – in the infamous case of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – perhaps to commit suicide. ..."
"... Still, perhaps the more troubling issue is whether the U.S. intelligence community has entered a new phase of politicization in which its leadership feels that it has the responsibility to weed out "unfit" contenders for the presidency. During the general election campaign, a well-placed intelligence source told me that the intelligence community disdained both Clinton and Trump and hoped to discredit both of them with the hope that a more "acceptable" person could move into the White House for the next four years. ..."
"... Then, after the election, President Obama's CIA began leaking allegations that Russian President Vladimir Putin had orchestrated the hacking of Democratic emails and provided them to WikiLeaks to reveal how the DNC undermined Sen. Bernie Sanders's campaign and what Clinton had told Wall Street bigwigs in paid speeches that she had sought to keep secret from the American people. ..."
"... Now, we are seeing what looks like a new phase in this "stop (or damage) Trump" strategy, the inclusion of anti-Trump dirt in an official intelligence report that was then leaked to the major media. ..."
"... America's Stolen Narrative, ..."
"... There are moments in history when it seems almost the entire population of a nation has been struck with deafness and blindess. This maybe one such moment for the United States as a political elite begins the process of tearing the Union apart. ..."
"... The Craft of Intelligence, by Allen Dulles, (1965, if memory serves; alas, that book's text seems unavailable on the internet) ..."
"... At Kent State the National Guard was quite willing to shoot "their own people". The increasingly militarized Police of the US have been getting lots of practice shooting at "their own people". ..."
"... I'm wondering if we are seeing the beginnings of a President Pence. ..."
"... Why are you in the US so keen on destroying any credibility of your government? ..."
Exclusive: President-elect Trump is fending off a U.S. intelligence leak of unproven allegations
that he cavorted with Russian prostitutes, but the darker story might be the CIA's intervention in
U.S. politics, reports Robert Parry.
The decision by the U.S. intelligence community to include in an official report some unverified
and salacious accusations against President-elect Donald Trump resembles a tactic out of FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information
about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press.
Legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
In this case, as leaders of the U.S. intelligence community were pressing Trump to accept their
assessment that the Russian government had tried to bolster Trump's campaign by stealing and leaking
actual emails harmful to Hillary Clinton's campaign, Trump was confronted with this classified "appendix"
describing claims about him cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.
Supposedly, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan included
the unproven allegations in the report under the rationale that the Russian government might have
videotaped Trump's misbehavior and thus could use it to blackmail him. But the U.S. intelligence
community also had reasons to want to threaten Trump who has been critical of its performance and
who has expressed doubts about its analysis of the Russian "hacking."
After the briefing last Friday, Trump and his incoming administration did shift their position,
accepting the intelligence community's assessment that the Russian government hacked the emails of
the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign chief John Podesta. But I'm told Trump saw
no evidence that Russia then leaked the material to WikiLeaks and has avoided making that concession.
Still, Trump's change in tone was noted by the mainstream media and was treated as an admission
that he was abandoning his earlier skepticism. In other words, he was finally getting onboard the
intelligence community's Russia-did-it bandwagon. Now, however, we know that Trump simultaneously
had been confronted with the possibility that the unproven stories about him engaging in unorthodox
sex acts with prostitutes could be released, embarrassing him barely a week before his inauguration.
The classified report, with the explosive appendix, was also given to President Obama and the
so-called "Gang of Eight," bipartisan senior members of Congress responsible for oversight of the
intelligence community, which increased chances that the Trump accusations would be leaked to the
press, which indeed did happen.
Circulating Rumors
The stories about Russian intelligence supposedly filming Trump in a high-end Moscow hotel with
prostitutes have been
circulating around Washington for months. I was briefed about them by a Hillary Clinton associate
who was clearly hopeful that the accusations would be released before the election and thus further
damage Trump's chances. But the alleged video never seemed to surface and the claims had all the
earmarks of a campaign dirty trick.
However, now the tales of illicit frolic have been elevated to another level. They have been inserted
into an official U.S. intelligence report, the details of which were leaked first to CNN and then
to other mainstream U.S. news media outlets.
Trump has denounced the story as "fake news" and it is certainly true that the juicy details –
reportedly assembled by a former British MI-6 spy named Christopher Steele – have yet to check out.
But the placement of the rumors in a U.S. government document gave the mainstream media an excuse
to publicize the material.
It's also allowed the media to again trot out the Russian word "kompromat" as if the Russians
invented the game of assembling derogatory information about someone and then using it to discredit
or blackmail the person.
In American history, legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was infamous for using his agency
to develop negative information on a political figure and then letting the person know that the FBI
had the dirt and certainly would not want it to become public – if only the person would do what
the FBI wanted, whether that was to reappoint Hoover to another term or to boost the FBI's budget
or – in the infamous case of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – perhaps to commit suicide.
However, in this case, it is not even known whether the Russians have any dirt on Trump. It could
just be rumors concocted in the middle of a hard-fought campaign, first among Republicans battling
Trump for the nomination (this opposition research was reportedly initiated by backers of Sen. Marco
Rubio in the GOP race) before being picked up by Clinton supporters for use in the general election.
Still, perhaps the more troubling issue is whether the U.S. intelligence community has entered
a new phase of politicization in which its leadership feels that it has the responsibility to weed
out "unfit" contenders for the presidency. During the general election campaign, a well-placed intelligence
source told me that the intelligence community disdained both Clinton and Trump and hoped to discredit
both of them with the hope that a more "acceptable" person could move into the White House for the
next four years.
Hurting Both Candidates
Though I was skeptical of that information, it did turn out that FBI Director James Comey, one
of the top officials in the intelligence community, badly damaged Clinton's campaign by deeming her
handling of her emails as Secretary of State "extremely careless" but deciding not to prosecute her
– and then in the last week of the campaign briefly reopening and then re-closing the investigation.
Then, after the election, President Obama's CIA began leaking allegations that Russian President
Vladimir Putin had orchestrated the hacking of Democratic emails and provided them to WikiLeaks to
reveal how the DNC undermined Sen. Bernie Sanders's campaign and what Clinton had told Wall Street
bigwigs in paid speeches that she had sought to keep secret from the American people.
The intelligence community's assessment set the stage for what could have been a revolt by the
Electoral College in which enough Trump delegates could have refused to vote for him to send the
election into the House of Representatives, where the states would choose the President from one
of the top three vote-getters in the Electoral College. The third-place finisher turned out to be
former Secretary of State Colin Powell who got four votes from Clinton delegates in Washington State.
But the Electoral College ploy failed when Trump's delegates proved overwhelmingly faithful to the
GOP candidate.
Now, we are seeing what looks like a new phase in this "stop (or damage) Trump" strategy, the
inclusion of anti-Trump dirt in an official intelligence report that was then leaked to the major
media.
Whether this move was meant to soften up Trump or whether the intelligence community genuinely
thought that the accusations might be true and deserved inclusion in a report on alleged Russian
interference in U.S. politics or whether it was some combination of the two, we are witnessing a
historic moment when the U.S. intelligence community has deployed its extraordinary powers within
the domain of U.S. politics. J. Edgar Hoover would be proud.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press
and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either
in
print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Excuse the mixed metaphors, but this looks like another entirely predictable nail in the coffin
of US democracy, as the chickens come home to roost. For some time it has been quite obvious the
CIA has been pulling strings from behind the scenes to make whatever puppet occupies the White
House dance to its tune. But it won't end there. Only when the CIA climbs completely out of the
coffin can the epic finale between the CIA, FBI and NSA begin.
The big question is as to how long the people of states like Texas and Florida stand by in
the wings as the theater catches fire.
There are moments in history when it seems almost the entire population of a nation has been
struck with deafness and blindess. This maybe one such moment for the United States as a political
elite begins the process of tearing the Union apart.
Jean-David , January 12, 2017 at 11:22 am
Don't mix your metaphors before they are hatched. ;-)
Reply
Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 2:05 pm
There are moments in history when it seems almost the entire population of a nation has
been struck with deafness and blindess. This maybe one such moment for the United States as a
political elite begins the process of tearing the Union apart.
The United States has been accused of decadence for decades by Americans and non-Americans
without much concern being shown by anyone not in a certain minority. The great tragedy of a decadent
way of life is its durability.
In 1961 William Lederer's book, "A Nation of Sheep" revealed the abuse of American power and
the ignorance of the American people regarding this misrule. Nothing much has changed since then
except the names of the aggressors and their primary geographic areas of intended domination.
The mass of people are essentially clueless and content to believe whatever lies and salacious
tales are told them from the nation's Towers of Babel. This is in line with human history that
shows people of authoritarian dispositions tend to be more aggressive and dominant in politics
and commerce and the masses accept their lot as long as they get enough crumbs from establishment's
plate..
(The title of the book was also an insult to sheep, but that is another story.)
The saying goes, "power corrupts," but i believe that it is the corrupt who seek power to begin
with.
Most people are content to live and let live, to live by the golden rule, mind their own and reciprocate
kindness etc., etc.
Then there are those who get a thrill from exercising control over others. Those are the ones
who shoot straight to the top.
Jack Flanigan , January 14, 2017 at 1:47 am
An interesting and clear observation. As an australian I note our system is dominated by two
major parties (and I mean dominated) similar to the US. The two parties are vehicles for ambitious
and corrupt individuals to fast track political careers. The power rests in these organizations
and attracts the corrupt like bees to honey.
Reply
Curious , January 12, 2017 at 6:09 pm
Bill, regarding your sense of human history I might add that for many centuries people couldn't
read, except for the aristocracy and the religious sects mostly. The reformation produced a 100
year war and literacy was at an all time low in Luthers time but something motivated them to fight
for such a long time, and it wasn't information nor intellect.
Where has our literacy gone which would prevent a repeat of endless war and violence these
days? Oh yes, corporate controlled media hiring people who are certain to have no critical thinking
skills, no moral rudder, nor worldly experience to shed the scales from their eyes. We are almost
in pre-Gutenberg times of short attention spans and 140 character 'news truths' covering the landscape
of the ignorant. One can only hope the Tower of the oligarchs Babel has rapidly decaying clay
feet. We certainly know how to reduce cultures more ancient than ours to ashes without so much
as a second thought regarding the sanctity of life. Where are all the pro-lifers now? Oh yeh,
that's only in the womb, and after the umbilical cord is cut they are fair game for destruction.
The US values we rave about will really hurt when other cultures treat us as they have been treated.
Curious , January 12, 2017 at 6:32 pm
Or better yet, we are in Gutenberg times where the "type" is set by the big players and the
papers around the country keep the same type and only add ink. It's their only function now at
the national level to inhibit discourse, excluding this site of course.
Reply
Curious , January 12, 2017 at 6:34 pm
Or better yet, we are in times of the early press machines, where the "type" is set by the
big players and the papers around the country keep the same type and only add ink. It's their
only function now at the national level, meant to inhibit discourse and ideas. (excluding this
site of course)
Reply
Wendi , January 12, 2017 at 5:41 pm
In its Hoover relation, this article reprises the passage in The Craft of Intelligence, by
Allen Dulles, (1965, if memory serves; alas, that book's text seems unavailable on the internet).
It describes the power struggle involved post-FDR, during-HST 1946-48, at the institution of
the CIA (The Agency was not legislatively enacted, only instituted through Executive Order.)
Hoover opposed the creation of an intelligence collection that would compete with the FBI's monopoly
of spies snoops and snitches.
The compromise settlement set the FBI with domestic coverage and the CIA with international
haunts for its spooks.
Come the the present day, they still have turf wars in power rivalry for budget money.
However, in effect, after the budget shuffle the two legions merge their 'assets' - making each
one double its real size. They join in advocating for (the oxymoronic) 'authoritarian morality,'
gaining both the unlawfulness funded in the Judiciary with same unlawfulness, (or, being 'outlaw,'
'above the law'), funded by the Executive.
You can depend that they employ the same techniques. Coercion, extortion, blackmail, assassination,
torture, defamation, slander and Press Release aspersion. The polity is hung pendant on those
strings the outlaws pull. Or, 'hanged' pendant.
As Hoover, so Clapper et al.
Trump seems to have reconsided, maybe recanted, his defiance of 'intelligence' after he has
seen some truth in it regarding things he knows he did in places he knows he was. He knows he
dare not let the public see him through the cyclopian 'eye' of the intelligentia illumination.
_____
My wit sez, Lo! That explains his undocumented wife - he heard about Russian mail-order brides
and flew off to visit the showroom. And brought back some capital equipment, manufactured in foreign
lands.
Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:04 pm
The Craft of Intelligence, by Allen Dulles, (1965, if memory serves; alas, that book's
text seems unavailable on the internet)
Try alibris or abebooks dot coms. They have copies.
Good comment Bryan, but I wonder if we should pay attention at all to this decline of everything,
not only of democracy. Yet, I wish to highlight two humorous comments which best characterise
the situation.
The first one was a title I saw on Russia-Insider website: "Trump watch out! John Brennan throws
even a kitchen sink at Trump in desperation."
The other was a comment by a zero-hedge reader: "Trump could have had sex with a goat in a
Moscow hotel room and be videod as much as I care if he only delivers on his election promises.
I voted based on his policy promises, not on his sexual preferences."
The sexual smear is so 20th century, the same as the CIA – obsolete.
Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 11:39 am
To continue on the humorous side, the vile RT has one on the Pornhub reporting a huge increase
in searches for "Golden Showers". Perhaps the kiddies are adding a new term to their vocabularies.
It seems that Trump supporters are many and varied, and very loyal. To pretend that all these
shenanigans were needed to help elect him against such a faulty candidate as Hillary is pathetic
in the extreme. The terrible results, when we see how the new Administration is being gently helped
by the Senate including Democrats, will be bad for us all if their warlike statements lead to
facts. However, Obama's sending of 2800 tanks and 4000 troops to help Germany(!) and Poland against
"Russian aggression" right now, plus Hillary's promises, do not give a hopeful alternative scenario
for the "land of the free" or peace on earth.
Reply
W. R. Knight , January 12, 2017 at 11:06 am
The saddest part of this entire debacle is that the intelligence agencies, as well as main
stream media, the president and most members of Congress have destroyed their own credibility.
Lacking credibility, they cannot be believed; and when they cannot be believed, they cannot be
trusted; and a government that cannot be trusted is doomed.
J. D. , January 12, 2017 at 1:35 pm
Trump proved more feisty than expected at his first press conference as President-Elect, hitting
back at both Buzzfeed ('You're fake news" and CNN ("you're organization is terrible") And went
on to say that "If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a
liability," describing the urgency of cooperation in defeating terrorism. Lost in the shuffle
however was the source of the lies - British intelligence agencies.In fact, the NYTimes reported
Jan. 6 that the official report released last week by the US intelligence agencies, which accused
Putin of subverting the U.S. election, also came from British intelligence, which "raised an alarm
that Moscow had hacked into the Democratic National Committee's computer servers, and alerted
their American counterparts.Talk about foreign interference.
Get with the program! We are supposed to believe that all we have heard from and about the
CIA in this century was pure and innocent incompetence, and should therefore continue to put all
of our faith in their motives and methods.
Reply
The entire sordid mess needs to be dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt from the ground up.
Washington should be razed to the ground. It is beyond rescuing. it is beyond saving. It is rotten
from the foundations to the pinicle of the obilisk. The American People should declare war on
Washington DC and invade the place and clean house. Bring the Guillotine along with them and the
baskets for the heads.
The stench is overwhelming. It needs to be cleaned up. No it needs to be wiped from the face
of the earth. One of the founding fathers said that periodically, the tree of democracy had to
be watered with blood. That time has arrived.
Reply
Znam Svashta , January 12, 2017 at 11:22 am
George Orwell predicted our current mess in his classic, "1984". Interestingly, that was the
year that the neocons took over the Pentagon's Office of Risk Assessment, the State Department,
and the whore-house American media.
Reply
Lin Cleveland , January 12, 2017 at 11:50 am
What's going on here? I think Julian Assange may be on to something. ( my bold )
"Hillary Clinton's election would have been a consolidation of power in the existing ruling
class of the United States. Donald Trump is not a D.C. insider , he is part of
the wealthy ruling elite of the United States, and he is gathering around him a spectrum of
other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities. They do not by themselves form an
existing structure, so it is a weak structure which is displacing and destabilizing the pre-existing
central power network within D.C. It is a new patronage structure which will evolve rapidly,
but at the moment its looseness means there are opportunities for change in the United States:
change for the worse and change for the better."–Julian Assange
floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 2:02 pm
Thanks, Lin [for your 'bold.' Assange and Snowden are two voices "in the wilderness" always
worth listening to.
Reply
Jessejean , January 12, 2017 at 2:10 pm
Brilliant– as always. No matter how vilified JA is and no matter how much he's lied about,
he still is a force for reason and subversion, both of which we desparately need. Thanks for the
quote.
Reply
D5-5 , January 12, 2017 at 4:50 pm
Curious to me in the two-pronged attack on Trump (a. demonizing to delegitimize and replace
with Pence coming from the political establishment; b. hysterical fear of Trump coming from left
wing journalism sources including left-oriented alternative news sites) is why the hysteria in
the left continues so virulently. Assange's comment, to me, is balanced and sober. We don't know
what will happen out of Trump and his collection of "idiosyncratic personalities," we don't know
what will turn out "change for the worse and change for the better," and all the fear-mongering
from people like Robert Reich, appearing regularly in Truthdig, is entirely speculative. I then
question–would these same people on the left, that I once thought to be colleagues, prefer Hillary
Clinton and "consolidation of power in the existing ruling class"? This fracturing in what I had
thought was an intelligent left opposition is disturbing.
As an "old leftie" myself, I'd have to agree with Paul Craig Roberts that there IS no left
anymore. It was co-opted and bought by Big Money. Maybe we need to forget about "left" and "right"
and operate according to our own minds rather tha taking our cues from apologists for the establishment
like Robert Reich. But it sounds like you're already doing that.
Reply
Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 5:10 pm
Change that will undoubtedly benefit the privileged in a big way.
I don't give a crap about if Trump had prostitutes. That's between he and his wife. What I
do care about is if there are Trump financial threads to Russia and if his team had illegal meetings
with Moscow before the election. There are too many questions that need to be answered.
Why does Trump continue to dote on Putin? He's a vicious killer who has no qualms of eliminating
his opponents. Those are facts.
Why won't he release his tax returns? It could only mean he is hiding something.
What benefit does the world intelligence community gain in smearing a president elect? Is it
financial? idealogical? Power? Are they not tied and beholdened more to the entrenched financial
hierarchies then to the ever changing political landscape?
What advantage did this operative from British intelligence gain from compiling this info?
Money, fame, a 2nd home in Portugal?
How does anyone watching that press conference not come away with the chilly realization that
our president-elect is psychologically impaired? My god you don't have to be a trained psychologist
to see the guy has some serious mental health issues.
Anna , January 12, 2017 at 9:54 pm
"He's a vicious killer " – this is a music for the Kagans' clan
Reply
JayHobeSound , January 13, 2017 at 4:10 am
"What advantage did this operative from British intelligence gain from compiling this info?"
Reportedly he asked his neighbours to feed his cats and he went into hiding. Bizarre.
'Why does Trump continue to dote on Putin? He's a vicious killer who has no qualms of eliminating
his opponents. Those are facts.'
Facts? I'm pretty familiar with Putin's career and I've seen nothing to suggest that Putin is
a killer at all.
Can you provide links to evidence? Not just links to other people making assertions without evidence,
please.
Reply
Truth First , January 13, 2017 at 6:20 pm
"Why does Trump continue to dote on Putin? He's a vicious killer who has no qualms of eliminating
his opponents. Those are facts."
You talking about Trump or Putin? In any case has Russia or Putin killed as many people as America
or Obama. The "facts" say no, not even close.
Reply
stinky rafsanjani , January 16, 2017 at 9:36 am
vicious killer? since when is that a bad thing? jinkies, obama of nobel fame
sends missiles and drones around the planet, bombing and killing for fun and
profit. why, he even orders the assassination of citizens of his own country,
without trial even. meanwhile, putin has, umm look! a squirrel!
James van Oosterom , January 16, 2017 at 11:45 am
Nobody said it was a bad thing. You're inferring things. Stick to squirrels . Ah yes, the door .
Reply
Andreas Wirsén , January 12, 2017 at 11:54 am
A "new phase" in Intelligence meddling with presidential candidates, yes – but only in how
openly they stand behind it as the source. Campaigns to scandalize unwanted primary challengers
have been alleged before. Senator Gary Hart, for one, has said in interviews he believes he was
caught in a honey trap, which cost him his candidacy.
floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 2:08 pm
Gary Hart, a potentially strong contender, was also [like Trump] not up to Deep State's standards
in Russophobia.
Reply
LongGoneJohn , January 12, 2017 at 12:04 pm
Didn't Trump just acknowledge that attacks on cyber US infrastructure including the DNC takes
place, in a general way? That is what his statement read and to me that does not sound like "Trump
acknowledges Russian DNC hack" at all.
So is it me, or ?
floyd gardner , January 12, 2017 at 2:12 pm
No, LGJ, it's not just you who can read through MSMB[ullsh t.]
Reply
Michael Morrissey , January 12, 2017 at 12:05 pm
If Trump & Co. accept "the intelligence community's assessment that the Russian government
hacked the emails," they are only saying that, as is common knowledge, everybody hacks everybody.
This is not, as Parry says, an acceptance of the intelligence "assessment" that Putin or Russian
hackers released the emails, or even got them. Assange and Murray have said unequivocally that
the source was inside the DNC, which means it cannot have been the Russians.
Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 1:07 pm
Assange and Murray have said unequivocally that the source was inside the DNC, which means
it cannot have been the Russians.
Assange and Murray might be right, and they might not. There is a term being tossed around
– "cutout". Just because an intermediary claims to be a DNC leaker doesn't mean he actually was
such.
Under the circumstances I just don't care. Now if the Russians or Chinese or Ugandans or anybody
else had done more than facilitate the release of true information useful to voters, I'd be agitated
myself. Not that I'd expect anybody else to be. US votes have been hacked ever since the no-verify
touchscreen devices were first introduced, and nobody in authority has given a hoot about it.
Jessejean , January 12, 2017 at 2:18 pm
Zachary–you are so right. It drives me crazy that Bush got away with stealing the voting system
and all the Damn Dems care about is using it themselves. And now it drives me crazy that the Clintonistas
took down Bernie and are getting away with it. With that cat's paw Obusha hanging around to "work"
on rebuilding the DNC, we'll never see democracy again.
Sam F , January 13, 2017 at 6:52 am
We must indeed Dump the Dems. We need a progressive party.
There is a strong progressive majority everywhere which is being deliberately fragmented by
the Dems. In the US, Clinton supporters must unify not only with the critics of Dem warmongering
for Israel and KSA, but also with the Trumpers who want economic security in a rapacious oligarchic
state. Clinton supporters will have to admit their mistake and abandon the Dems as a scam of oligarchy
serving only as a backstop for the Repubs.
The solution is for a third party to align moderate progressives (national health care, no
wars of choice, income security) with parts of the traditional right (fundamentalists, flag-wavers,
make America great) leaving out only the extreme right (wars, discrimination, big business imperialism),
use individual funding, and rely upon broad platform appeal to marginalize the Dems as the third
party.
RMDC , January 13, 2017 at 9:28 am
Sam F. I agree with you but you have to stop using the term "progressive." The Clinton faction
of the demo party owns that term. It arose with John Podesta's Center for American Progress. Podesta
is the ideologue of contemporary progressivism. It has nothing to do with the Progressive movement
of the early 20th century.
The right term is Sander's term: Democratic Socialism. I know socialism is a problematic term,
too, but at least it is now claimed by the right people.
Sam F , January 13, 2017 at 2:20 pm
RMDC: Do you think "Progressive" can be brought back to its original meaning, or given a better
one, despite people falsely claiming to be progressive? Sanders' term might be incorporated into
that. It would be nice to deny the fakers the use of it.
Truth First , January 13, 2017 at 6:23 pm
"we'll never see democracy again."
Humm? When did we last see that "democracy" thing?
Reply
Bill Cash , January 12, 2017 at 12:08 pm
Trump could end all this by releasing his tax returns but he won't do it. I believe the intelligence
community had fears that once inaugurated, Trump would squash the whole thing. The Russian connection
is the only theory that connects all the dots. I'm waiting t see what happens with Assange. Will
he suddenly be able to go to Sweden?
As far as Trump's behavior, don't forget he was accused of raping a 13 year old girl but the woman
had to withdraw the suit because her life was threatened.
Why is your post such a strong reminder of Pizzagate?
Reply
Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:48 pm
Wont make any difference what t he does. He's an outsider. There's no escape except trying
& convicting the traitors running obama.
Reply
Wm. Boyce , January 12, 2017 at 12:14 pm
Very interesting column. I guess Mr. Trump is getting a lesson in who really runs things around
here.
Reply
Patricia Victour , January 12, 2017 at 12:22 pm
Unless Trump killed a prostitute on film, how could whatever is on the alleged video be any
worse than the pussy-grabbing debacle and all the other accusations of sexual predation? I don't
think you can embarrass Trump. He would just brush it off, and his base would probably think he
was a super stud.
Wm. Boyce , January 12, 2017 at 12:52 pm
Oh, I don't know, they could well have much worse stuff to leak, given Mr. Trump's complete
lack of control of his desires.
Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 12:59 pm
I collected a lot of "stuff" on Trump from the internet in the past year, and was surprised
to see virtually none of it used against him. My best guess is that Hillary & Co. didn't think
it was necessary against their carefully selected "easiest" opponent. That "stuff" is still available,
and might well be used to buttress wilder and unverifiable claims.
col from oz , January 12, 2017 at 7:49 pm
Yesterday on anther site i wrote how Hillary was complicit in a very serious charge.
Please watch video titles, where is Eric braverman on you tube . I have watched some and most
of the material gives you the reality of what is occurring. A example is this. A fact is Gaddafi
wanted to have some kind of gold backed Dina money policy. Fact. So Libya had a lot of gold maybe
hundreds of tons. Where is it now. Did the "invaders' get it with their usual cut out Libyan man?
In the spirit of trying to make a better world i put this up, it seems political unbiased however
it shows the Clinton as they are?
"Libya's Qadhafi (African Union 2009 Chair) conceived and financed a plan to unify the sovereign
States of Africa with one gold currency (United States of Africa). In 2004, a pan-African Parliament
(53 nations) laid plans for the African Economic Community – with a single gold currency by 2023.
"African oil-producing nations were planning to abandon the petro-dollar, and demand gold payment
for oil/gas Qaddafi had done more than organize an African monetary coup. He had demonstrated
that financial independence could be achieved. His greatest infrastructure project, the Great
Man-made River, was turning arid regions into a breadbasket for Libya; and the $33 billion project
was being funded interest-free without foreign debt, through Libya's own state-owned bank.
That could explain why this critical piece of infrastructure was destroyed in 2011. NATO not only
bombed the pipeline but finished off the project by bombing the factory producing the pipes necessary
to repair it."
Speaking of "leaks", isn't the specific accusation in this case that Trump paid a prostitute
to "take a leak" on the bed where he believed the Obamas had spent the night? (So I guess it was
the prostitute that had "worse stuff to leak"!)
Gregory Herr , January 12, 2017 at 8:58 pm
And while no one at Trump's press conference mentioned the specifics, Trump stated, "Does anyone
really believe that story? I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way, believe me."
The Saker writes in "The Neocon's Declaration of War Against Trump":
"After several rather lame false starts, the Neocons have now taken a step which can only be
called a declaration of war against Donald Trump. [ ] All of the above further confirms to me
what I have been saying over the past weeks: if Trump ever makes it into the White House (I write
'if' because I think that the Neocons are perfectly capable of assassinating him), his first priority
should be to ruthlessly crack down as hard as he legally can against those in the US "deep state"
(which very much includes the media) who have now declared war on him. I am sorry to say that,
but it will be either him or them – one of the parties here will be crushed. [ ]
As I predicted it before the election, the USA are about to enter the worst crisis in their
history. We are entering extraordinarily dangerous times. If the danger of a thermonuclear war
between Russia and the USA had dramatically receded with the election of Trump, the Neocon total
war on Trump put the United States at very grave risk, including civil war (should the Neocon
controlled Congress impeach Trump I believe that uprisings will spontaneously happen, especially
in the South, and especially in Florida and Texas). At the risk of sounding over the top, I will
say that what is happening now is putting the very existence of the United States in danger almost
regardless of what Trump will personally do. Whatever we may think of Trump as a person and about
his potential as a President, what is certain is that millions of American patriots have voted
for him to "clear the swamp", give the boot to the Washington-based plutocracy and restore what
they see as fundamental American values. If the Neocons now manage to stage a coup d'etat against
Trump, I predict that these millions of Americans will turn to violence to protect what they see
as their way of life
If a coup is staged against Trump and some wannabe President à la Hillary or McCain gives the
order to the National Guard or even the US Army to put down a local insurrection, we could see
what we saw in Russia in 1991: a categorical refusal of the security services to shoot at their
own people. That is the biggest and ultimate danger for the Neocons: the risk that if they give
the order to crack down on the population the police, security and military services might simply
refuse to take action. If that could happen in the "KGB-controlled country" (to use a Cold War
cliché) this can also happen in the USA."
Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 12:54 pm
If a coup is staged against Trump and some wannabe President à la Hillary or McCain gives
the order to the National Guard or even the US Army to put down a local insurrection, we could
see what we saw in Russia in 1991: a categorical refusal of the security services to shoot
at their own people.
At Kent State the National Guard was quite willing to shoot "their own people". The increasingly
militarized Police of the US have been getting lots of practice shooting at "their own people".
I suspect that's why a great many of them joined up in the first place. Finally, carefully chosen
drone operators thousands or tens of thousands of miles away won't have the slightest problem
slaughtering evildoers. That's what they do all the time in their regular jobs.
Brad Owen , January 12, 2017 at 3:44 pm
Don't forget veterans, millions of them. When THEY stepped up to the North Dakota pipeline,
security forces backed off. Backwards' described scenario could be our "1991" moment to break
free and break the Deep State, and reinstating Glass-Steagall would break their Imperial paymasters
in The City and The Street. A new World could suddenly come about, faster than even the USSR/Warsaw
Pact disappeared.
Reply
Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:14 pm
At Kent State the National Guard was quite willing to shoot "their own people". The increasingly
militarized Police of the US have been getting lots of practice shooting at "their own people".
Police departments all over the U.S. and other nations have a long history of acting as goon
squads and occasional firing squads for their local establishments. Lots of examples in labor
histories.
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Peter Loeb , January 13, 2017 at 8:23 am
KILLING OUR OWN PEOPLE .
Special thanks to Zachary Smith.
In the US it's called "heroism", patriotism" and the rest. But if we are
inconvenienced to kill our own people, we can kill other peoples'
people. Gigantic weapons deals to Saudi Arabia and Israel
are proof of that.
By the way, did anyone happen to notice in the NDAA (Defense Authorization
Act) the increase of funds to rebels in another country whose goal is to
defeat the Syrian Government?
-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
PS For those who object to our killing our own people in the US join
Black Lives Matter.
Reply
Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 2:53 am
At the very least, the US should get rid of this prolonged waiting period between the elections
and actual assuming power by the president-elect. It was meant to facilitate the orderly transition
of power, but as we see now it is serving just the opposite goals. I cannot believe Obama is so
keen on hurting Trump he is ready to badly hurt his own country as well.
Reply
Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 12:37 pm
Whether this move was meant to soften up Trump
The motive I see is to "soften" him up for his impeachment. Given Trump's temperament, it could
be a winning strategy for the people who prefer President Pence. In my barely informed opinion,
that would include a majority of both parties in both houses of the US congress.
Joe Tedesky , January 12, 2017 at 1:41 pm
Read section 4 of the 25th amendment .
"Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of
the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the
President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written
declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the
Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President."
I'm wondering if we are seeing the beginnings of a President Pence. Although Donald Trump may
give one some consternation to his being a qualified person to sit in the Oval Office, Mike Pence
may bring down the house with his religious leanings inside of his political philosophy. Either
way we Americans are in for a most interesting time of it in our country's brief history. We should
all probably prepare ourselves for the worst, and hope that the best will happen.
Zachary wasn't Mike Pense your governor, or do I have you in the wrong state?
Realist , January 12, 2017 at 4:27 pm
Fascinating and disturbing at the same time. That section was surely MEANT to apply to the
president's health and physical capacity to do the job. However, a declaration by the VP (supported
only by a simple majority of the cabinet or the congress) "that the President is unable to discharge
the powers and duties of his office" can be based in an insurrection, a coup, or simply the erosion
of political capital. Gerald Ford could have argued that Richard Nixon no longer had the support
to govern (which is what Nixon himself conceded as the basis for his resignation). It basically
gives the VP and whatever insurgents he can muster the ability to quickly overthrow the sitting
president without the inconvenience of an impeachment and trial in the Senate. It could be the
Maidan without the messy blood all over the pavement. How wonderful.
Very resourceful of you in looking that up, Joe. I would never have imagined the seeds for
a coup existed right in the constitution.
Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 9:16 am
I have a saying: For the people in law-enforcement, law is a fringe benefit. Those who control
law always use it as a tool. Have you ever heard of a coup which was not based on some law, even
if it was the one written post-festum by the coup plotters? In other words, a coup is never difficult
to justify by the winners.
I have no doubt that the coup that Joe describes is possible. But the issue for the coup plotters
has always been: what happens with all the Trump voters after such a coup, the millions of them?
Will they sit and just watch the destruction of their social contract?
To some extent such US coup dilemma is not dissimilar to the nuclear war dilemma: easy to start,
difficult to finish.
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 10:53 am
KIza, nice to hear from you it's been awhile.
Read this link. Trump got 26.8% of the total citizenry to vote for him. In all honesty I haven't
seen any polls on how the American populace shakes out on these controversies such as this most
recent fake news story, but I would imagine that a clever beat down campaign would be able to
soften the blowback .but then again I agree with you to some extent, that by pushing Trump out
of office this would have to have some kind of consequence that would not be pretty.
Joe, in general I am trying to highlight that it is one thing to bamboozle sheeple with a talk
of democracy (which does not exist) and another to openly crush even this reassuring lie. I just
cannot see the end game of a US coup and Trump is but a minor obstacle if they want to start it.
Therefore, they really want to make a Trump a lame and controllable President, not to take
over. Maintaining a reassuring lie of democracy is a much more sophisticated and efficient control
mechanism than direct control. I may we wrong but I do believe that Trump is just being house
trained/broken by TPTB in front of our eyes.
You write: I have not seen any polls how American populace shakes out on these controversies.
My reading of the online beat is that the Trump voters are not swayed, whilst the Clinton voters
use the "controversy" as confirmation that they were right all along about Trump. But then Clinton
voters would receive a confirmation even from an oily rag thrown in their direction. In other
words, a mountain shook and a mouse was born – almost no change at all on either side.
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 12:56 pm
KIza your comparing Trump's attackers to how the MH17 story was spun is right on.
Trump is an easy target since his nature is certainly different than that of the usual norm
of our politico class who are cookie cutter politicians on the whole. I'm disappointed by how
people such as Michael Moore are going out of their way attacking Trump, while they completely
ignore how corrupt and dishonest the Clinton's are.
I wouldn't go so far as to predict that Trump supporters won't rebel against his impeachment,
but there again I believe the Trump supporters would be out numbered due to an over aggressive
media who could sway the majority into believing we must get Trump out of office. Any other method
other than impeachment is to horrible to even contemplate, so let's hope that all of our concerns
turn to ashes, and that for the good or bad of it that Trump finishes out his first term in good
health.
Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 8:19 pm
Yes, Joe, those 26.8% of citizenry who voted for Trump are built into 75-76% of citizenry who
do not believe in the MSM any more and in the John Brennan's two kitchen sinks, that is, his two
top secret but leakable kompromat dossiers on Trump – the first one apparently from an MI6 agent
and the second one promoted by the BBC (source unknown yet).
But this is not about Clintons any more, this is about the owners of the Clintons training/braking
Trump to be like the Clintons. If they cannot have a Clinton as a President, they want to have
a President as Clinton. If kompromat does not work, maybe a billet will, their patience is limited.
Always enjoyable to exchange thoughts with you Joe.
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 11:14 am
Realist, considering how our country's founders were a bunch of slave owners declaring how
all men are created equally well need I say more?
Words are just words, that is until lawyers interpret these legal words into a reality, which
doesn't always fit into our own personal definition of a certain word usage. You and I deal with
this stuff all the time. Whether it be a traffic ticket, or an ordinance summons, we read one
thing, and the judge administers another thing. Prisons are filled with people who swear with,
'yeah but' explanations which give these prisoners no relief what so ever so I do think these
crafty legislators could pull a fast one, and install Mike Pence into the White House. Let's you
and I hope that I'm the one out in left field with my 25th amendment comment, and that we won't
end up with a Christian whack job as our president.
Reply
Zachary Smith , January 12, 2017 at 5:23 pm
Yeah, Pence was elected Governor of Indiana. But despite this state being one of the most conservative
in the nation, Pence was too "nutty" and "far-right" for Mississippi North, and would have surely
been defeated. Now the man is one heartbeat/one impeachment conviction from becoming President
of the United States.
Quote: "From his denial of climate change to his belief in creationism, Pence is the most
hard-right radical to ever appear on a national ticket. Just this week a federal court had to
block his atrocious bill barring Syrian refugees from his state because his reasoning that Syrians
scare him is discriminatory."
Quote: "it is a literal truth, Mr. Speaker, to say that I am in Congress today because of
Rush Limbaugh, and not because of some tangential impact on my career or his effect on the national
debate; but because in fact after my first run for Congress in 1988, it was the new national voice
emerging in 1989 across the heartland of Indiana of one Rush Hudson Limbaugh, III, that captured
my imagination.""
It's a fact we are very, very close to having a Rush 'druggie' Limpaugh clone as President.
In my opinion, Pence is Trump's worst mistake up till now. If they can't have Hillary, for the
neocons and neo-liberals and the Christian End-Timers there remains Worse-Than-Hillary Mike Pence.
Trump is a Trojan horse for a cabal of vicious zealots who have long craved an extremist
Christian theocracy, and Pence is one of its most prized warriors. With Republican control
of the House and Senate and the prospect of dramatically and decisively tilting the balance
of the Supreme Court to the far right, the incoming administration will have a real shot at
bringing the fire and brimstone of the second coming to Washington.
"The enemy, to them, is secularism. They want a God-led government. That's the only legitimate
government," contends Jeff Sharlet, author of two books on the radical religious right, including
"The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power." "So when they speak
of business, they're speaking not of something separate from God, but they're speaking of what,
in Mike Pence's circles, would be called biblical capitalism, the idea that this economic system
is God-ordained."
Zachary I looked forward to your reply, since you always have references to your level headed
comments .so thanks for getting back to me.
In my world I don't even like bringing up the word God, or religion, since I believe a government
should be governed in a truly secular way. Who I pray to, and who I pay taxes to, are two completely
different things. My devotion to God is a very private matter, and I don't need some politician
interpreting God's greatness to me in anyway. So with that if Mike Pense wants to preach the gospel
to me, then he should resign from public office and become a full fledged preacher and even then
I will not go to his mean spirited church. Amen.
Realist , January 13, 2017 at 3:13 pm
What a troubling coincidence that Hulu is releasing its production of "the Handmaid's Tale"
by Margaret Atwood this April, which tells the story of the United States government being taken
over by extreme Christian fundamentalists and the consequences, especially to women and religious
dissenters. Read the book by Atwood and you'll see where Isis/Daesh got many of their ideas on
punishment and control of the masses. The Spanish Inquisition was six hundred years ago, but its
urges lie just beneath the veneer of our civilised modern world. Human nature hasn't changed,
only technology has. I thought this country was in danger of playing out the novel during Dubya's
administration, as 9-11 was exactly the kind of pretext for such a takeover in the book's plot
narrative and the Islamic world was portrayed as the great global adversary just as many Americans
believe in the real world. Trump has never struck me as a religious man, certainly not a zealot,
but Pence, with a little help from the Deep State, he could bring this disturbing novel to life.
Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:16 pm
I'm wondering if we are seeing the beginnings of a President Pence.
A very plausible and ominous possibility.
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 12:53 am
Seriously Bill even taking into consideration how some like Glenn Beck along with Rick Santelli
ridiculed an early President Obama back in 2009, I can't recall a more hostile media such as the
likes of how this current day corporate media is going after Trump. True, that Donald Trump by
just being Donald Trump can be an outrageous person with his words and actions, but still I just
can't get over the 24/7 media coverage, and how most of it isn't good coverage at that. This leaves
me to wonder if we all are not being setup for something big.
With Trump's winning streak putting away a whole herd of Republican primary candidates, and
how he sent 'low energy Jeb' packing, and then to go on and beat Hillary by his winning the Electoral
vote, he has had a great run. Now Donald Trump is battling not only the CIA/FBI/NSA, but he is
also bumping up against the congressional establishment. You know that McCain and Graham hate
him, but you can only bet that there is yet much more to come.
I'm sorry, but I don't sense there is much good to come with all of this. Thanks for the reply.
Kiza , January 13, 2017 at 9:57 am
Joe, I wonder if people missed the crazy similarity of the media campaign on the Trump "report"
and the one on MH17 ?
It appears that the TPTB have decided that if they generate enough media screaming, the lack
of proof does not matter any more.
Thus, I have become a strong proponent of the theory that whatever TPTB use outside, it is
only a practice for what they will use (more productively) inside. Drones anyone?
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:06 pm
KIza read my comment above, it pertains to what you brought up here.
All this turmoil and a dysfunctional Congress insures that nothing will change. The 1% loves
the status quo and will do anything to preserve it. Simply a smokescreen to keep US from dealing
with the corporate stranglehold on our government.
An Empire in decline.
Reply
Mike Flores , January 12, 2017 at 1:24 pm
While others laugh and make jokes, those of us who study Intel know that what just happened
with the leaked report was that the CIA has involved itself in U.S. politics, which it is forbidden
to do. How did the alliance between the Democratic Party and CIA begin? President Truman had allowed
200 Nazi Intel agents to come into the U.S. – including the men who created the blueprint for
the holocaust. Fearing Joe McCarthy would discover this, the CIA faked an Intel report and has
spent decades ever since lying about Joe. They actually confessed that his 2 lists were correct,
so they had to fool him with a fake dossier right before the Army hearings to shake his confidence.
Just search CIA AND THE POND and you will find on their website STUDIES IN INTELLIGENCE in the
last third of the article a full confession of framing Joe. This Facebook photo album THE REAL
JOSEPH McCARTHY is packed with forbidden information and can be viewed with this link by anyone
whether they are on FB or not. The alliance between the Democratic Party and CIA began by hiding
the people responsible for the holocaust. ( We should keep in mind Truman was KKK and forbade
the bombing of the train tracks to the death camps. The reason soldiers were not prepared for
the camps was that none had been told about them. Truman did not want our troops wasting time
on them). Interesting to note that absolutely no one has ever done an article or book on the impact
of the beliefs of the KKK on the 5 Democrats who were Presidents and Klansmen in the 20th century.
That would reveal the true nature of the Democratic Party.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153995222685986.1073741929.695490985&type=1&l=6dd1544b9d
Reply
Bill , January 12, 2017 at 1:37 pm
You don't mention President Obama, but it certainly seems likely that he's involved with this.
Who told Brennan and Clapper to go on TV to hype the intelligence reports and bad-mouth the next
President?
And were the leakers within the agencies acting on their own, or were they given orders from
above? There's a conspiracy going on and it's not my imagination.
Does the behavior rise to the level of treason or espionage?
Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:58 pm
Obama is a deadhead it is Brennan who instructs him. But who instructs Brennan?
Reply
Michael Morrissey , January 12, 2017 at 1:46 pm
As I have just learned from another reader's comment on another article, David Spring has augmented
his earlier article to an 85-page expose. Seems it was both a leak and a hack, but in neither
case by "the Russians."
I hope Ray McGovern and especially Wm Binney (and some Trump guy) read this and tell us what
they think!
I read it last night. Very much worth the couple of hours it took.
Reply
Realist , January 14, 2017 at 3:42 am
Well, that's THE comprehensive treatment in a nutshell. Everything documented chronologically.
Nothing important left out. Everything explained clearly and concisely. As organised as possible
and argued like a philosopher rather than a lawyer. The man has exceptional writing skills as
well as incredible computer knowledge. I'd like to see him question Clapper on the witness stand.
I hope that President Trump puts the Justice Department on this case to do a thorough investigation,
including potential indictments of spooks that perjured themselves and/or engaged in partisan
activities during the election and its ugly aftermath.
Reply
Oleg , January 12, 2017 at 2:47 pm
I am really surprised to no end. Why are you in the US so keen on destroying any credibility
of your government? I do not really know what would happen in the US but in Russia there would
be riots. Any leader in Russia can govern only until he/she is trusted. Think Tsar Nicholas II,
Gorbachev I hope it will not get to this and some sanity will prevail in your country.
Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 10:22 pm
Why are you in the US so keen on destroying any credibility of your government?
What credibility? Oleg, if you check the graphic at the top of the right sidebar on this page
you will see a reference to "I. F. Stone" who was one of this nation's great journalists of the
20th Century. He is noted for a dictum that says, "All governments lie." All governments certainly
include the U.S. government. You can get plenty of examples of lies with a little effort.
Bill Bodden , January 12, 2017 at 11:12 pm
Lies out of government agencies and elected politicians are not the only problem. Hypocrisy
is another and has been part of American governance since the writing of the Declaration of Independence
by slave owners who said that all men are created equal with the right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. Now hypocrisy is rampant with politicians decrying alleged Russian intervention
is U.S. elections with the claim that it is wrong for any nation to interfere in the elections
of another nation. There is no nation on the planet that interferes in the governments of other
nations than the United States.
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Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 3:02 am
Well, I certainly agree, but a government can still be largely trusted even if they resort
to some petty lies. As we all do too sometimes. But this this is not a petty thing, this is an
intentional attack on the whole institution of elections and democracy when they try to impeach
the elected President because some part of the establishment, not the people, dislike him. This
has a potential to really get very dangerous, and having any kind of uprisings (as was also mentioned
by other commenters above) in a country like the US is extremely dangerous for the whole world.
Reply
Abe , January 12, 2017 at 3:01 pm
Anyone in Washington seeking a golden shower from a couple of Russian prostitutes just has
to hop on one of those all-expenses-paid AIPAC junkets to Israel.
It's truly amazing how streams of urine help elevate one's anxiety about Iran's nuclear energy
program.
American journalist and activist Chris Hedges noted a key purpose of the declassified report
"Russia's Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election" from the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI):
"to justify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization beyond Germany, a violation
of the promise Ronald Reagan made to the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the
Berlin Wall. Expanding NATO in Eastern Europe opened up an arms market for the war industry. It
made those businesses billions of dollars. New NATO members must buy Western arms that can be
integrated into the NATO arsenal. These sales, which are bleeding the strained budgets of countries
such as Poland, are predicated on potential hostilities with Russia. If Russia is not a threat,
the arms sales plummet. War is a racket."
Israeli arms sales to Europe more than doubled from $724 million in 2014 to $1.63 billion in
2015. http://jfjfp.com/?p=83806
Israel is the leading arms exporter in the world per capita (2014), and ranks 11th among the
top 20 exporters of military equipment and systems (2011-15).
75-80% of Israeli military exports are generated by just three companies - the state-owned
Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries and the publicly traded Elbit Systems.
The largest categories of Israeli military exports are upgrading aircraft and aerospace systems
(14%), radar and electronic systems (12%), drones (11%), and intelligence and information systems
(10%).
In 2015, the Russian government described Israel's delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine as
"counterproductive". There is a close arms trade and production co-operation between Israel and
Poland. Israeli companies have invested in building arms manufacturing facilities in Poland.
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jfl , January 12, 2017 at 3:26 pm
However, in this case, it is not even known whether the Russians have any dirt on Trump.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something
in them which will hang him.
- said to have been said by redhat richelieu
what is known is that the nsa/cia/fbi have all the dirt on everyone, and that they use it
on the leaders of the eu, for instance.
if the only thing that comes out of this filthy little exercise is the death of the nsa/cia/fbi
– superpower america's superstazi – by executive fiat it will have been worth trump's election.
it's either that or another dead president. with pence playing lbj.
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F. G. Sanford , January 12, 2017 at 3:41 pm
Funny how these "leaks" work, isn't it? If there really were an "insider" able to provide insight
on the deepest, darkest secrets that had been gathered by Russian intelligence, why would any
responsible intelligence agency completely destroy that asset only to expose a mundane fetish
like "golden showers"? But don't anybody dare leak "The Torture Report". Don't even consider leaking
information about war crimes, election fraud, financial crimes, murder, state corruption or state
sponsorship of terrorism.
Just my opinion, but here's how it really went. The "hack" scenario is a diversion from the
"leak" scenario. The "deep state" didn't really want Hillary. While she may superficially represent
their interests, the Clinton machine is too knowledgeable, too experienced and too selfish and
self-centered to predictably execute their programs. The Clintons have plenty of dirt on them.
But they had enough dirt on her to compromise her electability. They don't want Trump either,
but they can manufacture or dig up enough dirt to compromise his Presidency. Their first choice
was Jeb Bush. Their second choice is Mike Pence.
The DNC stuff was leaked by an insider, and the Podesta stuff was hacked by the NSA. The only
plausible alternative points to hacking attempts by the neo-Nazi Ukrainian hacking outfit "RuH8",
not the Russians.
A bunch of recent articles seek to analyze Barack Obama's legacy, personality and motivations.
That's all superfluous. The "real deal" has been well documented. His grandparents were CIA His
mother was CIA His first job after law school was with Banking international Corporation, a CIA
"front company". He was groomed and thoroughly vetted.
Nobody wants to hear the truth or look at real evidence. The circumstantial – though well documented
– evidence connecting Ted Cruz's father to the anti-Castro Cubans, the CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald
is actually much more plausible and substantial than the evidence for "Russian hacking" of the
election, yet the general public has no problem dismissing that as a "conspiracy theory".
Between the two, Trump was perceived – mistakenly – as the lesser threat to the "deep state".
Just a guess, but we may be about to see all hell break loose.
It's about time some journalists and researchers started naming names and making lists. The
"New McCarthyism" uses lists to good advantage. It creates the perception of a vast subversive
network dedicated to destroying our "democracy". Until some names are named and fingers pointed,
the "deep state" and its intelligence community enforcement arm will continue to control the "democracy"
we don't really have. Blackmail is just one of their methods, and it's far from the worst.
My favorite quotes from the "Company Intelligence Report":
"However, he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow " (Is this a pun?)
"PUTIN angry with senior officials who "overpromised" on TRUMP and further heads likely to
roll as result. Foreign minister LAVROV may be next" (What Putin is going to make him change the
sheets in Trump's hotel room?)
" TRUMP has paid bribes and engaged in sexual activities there but key witnesses silenced and
evidence hard to obtain" (Were the "key" witnesses the same ones that claim Putin shot down MH-17?)
I think they dug up the script writers from "The Man from Uncle" and put them back to work.
This sounds like a Quinn Martin Production straight out of a Hollywood "B Movie".
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Abe , January 12, 2017 at 10:24 pm
First Draft coalition "partner" BuzzFeed is leading the charge to make fake news, hybrid war
propaganda, and hoaxes "more shareable and more social"
FG, I'm not gay, but I always scroll down to find your comment. You are always looking into
the big picture, not the big illusion.
backwardsevolution , January 13, 2017 at 1:44 am
Gregory – I agree. His comments are always very good.
Reply
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:07 pm
Me three.
F. G. Sanford , January 13, 2017 at 6:41 pm
Thanks to all – sometimes I wonder if it's worth putting in my two cents. We're probably a
statistically insignificant group of readers on the world's stage, but I like to think at least
it's worth a try.
Reply
We must organize beyond cyberspace as this is a coup in action. CIA is greatest meddler of
all nations, coups and assassinations well documented. DC is the Aegean stable that must be cleaned,
a truly Herculean task and We the People have to get organized because this planet is imperiled.
Agree with Dan that whole sordid mess is beyond a swamp, a stinking pit and pitchforks are necessary!
Reply
LJ , January 12, 2017 at 4:36 pm
It's more doublethink logic from the Intelligence heads. It would require a tremendous leap
of faith for anyone with a brain to think that Russia/Putin/Lavrov would use this info, if it
existed at all, in public manner. To do so wouldn't help them achieve a goal and it would only
hurt Russia .. The tape would never become public even if it existed. That means this rumor is
clearly slander and was aimed at some political end. . Where is the smoking gun?, sorry. By the
way , Putin is friends with Bertoloscini , Sarkozy and other notorious womanizers and is known
to like women himself. This is not something he would do. He is not a mobster. This is puerile
and it is coming from the Democrats although the word is that George Bush initially hired the
guy, the former MI5 spy, who wrote the dossier/smear piece on Trump in the first place. . Hoover
would have kept it in shop and tried to leverage Trump himself.
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Bernie , January 12, 2017 at 5:09 pm
There's an article at ABC News today about US tanks rolling into Poland. This reminds me of
Nazis rolling into Austria in 1938 and then Poland on Sept 1, 1941 to start WWII. "American soldiers
rolled into Poland on Thursday, fulfilling a dream some Poles have had since the fall of communism
in 1989 to have U.S. troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia. Some people waved and
held up American flags as U.S. troops in tanks and other vehicles crossed into southwestern Poland
from Germany and headed toward the town of Zagan, where they will be based. "
Abe , January 12, 2017 at 6:32 pm
Like Poland, Ukraine is eager to express its devotion to the Reich, er, its "Euro-Atlantic
aspirations".
If only for the sake of NATO "cooperation" and "capacity building", Poland and Ukraine have
much to forgive and forget:
Of course, reports of Russian "euphoria" remain "unconfirmed".
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Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 5:36 pm
Absurd. Who is this "they" everyone is talking about? How many are/is this 'they'? 5, 10 20?
Who is in control of 'they'? Who's in charge? The political elite? Do they have a club and do
they meet for bridge every Tuesday? Do they have a secret handshake? Are they all really Mason's?
This conspiracy holds no credibility because 'they' is just an 'idea'. That is all. Until someone
can give names of those who are responsible and running this political elite then its all storybook
conjecture. We should be more concerned with the obvious psychological dementia affecting the
president elect. He was a total looney tune in that press conference.
What you are saying with this list then, Wendi, it is not the political elites, intelligence
agencies or career politicians whoTrump continuously rails against as the cause for the end of
the American Empire. It is the financial hierarchies that Trump so desperately wants to be a part
of. Putin is obviously at the top of this list and Trump sees him as a way to become a player
in this club. That makes sense to me.
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Dr. Ibrahim Soudy , January 12, 2017 at 6:14 pm
"THEY" are the people who control the MONEY. They are referred to as the BANKERS. Those are
a mafia that runs the political circus BEHIND the scene. The parties and elections are a diversion
to keep the idiots busy arguing with each other like the crazy fans of sports teams. The BANKERS
always make sure that the "idiots" are choosing between alternatives that ultimately BOW to the
BANKERS. Read for example the following:
– "All the President's Bankers" by Naomi Prins.
– "Memoirs" by David Rockefeller.
– "The Crisis of Democracy" a publication of the Tri-Lateral Commission on their website.
-Goldman, Wall Street and Financial Terrorism | The Inline image 2
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-whetten/goldman-wall-street-and-f_b.. .
Jun 19, 2010 · The most disturbing aspect of the recent Goldman Sachs lawsuit isn't just the legal
violations involved Goldman, Wall Street and Financial Terrorism.
-Goldman Sachs Are Financial Terrorists | FacebookInline image 1 http://www.facebook.com/Stop.Goldman
Goldman Sachs Are Financial Terrorists. 95,662 likes · 6,188 talking about this. Get the Honest
truth on the economy, this page sponsors no organization
Those will give you a good start ..Good Luck.
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Sam F , January 13, 2017 at 7:29 am
Perhaps you do not mean the ridicule you suggest. The effects of economic aristocracy and political
conspiracy are of course not "storybook conjecture" but the combined deductions of experienced
observers. That would become conjecture only if specific persons were accused, which is seldom
done without evidence.
The demand for detailed evidence of an old-fashioned conspiracy to effect societal trends is
not valid. It becomes propaganda when used to attack the means by which we all deduce that events
are driven by cabals, or loose organizations of interested parties. While we are occasionally
surprised by the detailed evidence that emerges long after events, even that is incomplete and
not very relevant.
The means of ridicule shows its invalidity. There is no reason to speculate upon clubs, meetings,
or handshakes, as there is no need for such specific or antiquated organization. No modern organization
works that way, no one has suggested that, and no one here has reasoned from such nonsense, but
rather from well documented effects of cabals. So I hope that you merely overstated a wish for
more evidence.
Robert, Could it not be true that the real losers in the neocon push to extend the American
dominion might actually be the intelligence services? They have become so politicized in domestic
politics since the Iraq War build up (a la Rice, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Powell) that
they figure they can shape American public opinion to support any war, no matter how "unthreatening"
the enemy (say Russia) might actually be. Originally they were basically "fact collectors" (objective)
– at first from around the world, but since 9/11's Patriot Act, at home also. Then, they became
"interpreters and analyzers of motives" which takes a bit of a weed-gee board (subjective!) on
the part of the "experienced eye". When whatever these very effective (and appreciated) fact collectors
opine suddenly becomes gospel in their "estimates" (interpretation), we have lost the ability
to even influence the fate of our nation. Is this the country I grew up in? Or, has it been this
way since we were led so effectively to support World War I? Take care, HM
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Thurgle , January 12, 2017 at 6:44 pm
The NYT skirts around the issue of who paid the huge sums for the research that produced the
story of Trump's alleged sexcapades in Moscow. They never say the funders are unknown, but instead
use devices like the passive tense to avoid saying. But it would be very interesting to know who
signed the checks. Apparently, there was a Republican funder during the primaries who stopped
payment when Trump prevailed, whereupon Fusion found a Clinton backer to write their checks. It
would be very interesting to know who these funders were and why the MSM seems so keen to avoid
saying.
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BlackPete , January 12, 2017 at 7:46 pm
When it comes to cavorting with prostitutes JFK was the undisputed champion. Given the high
regard JFK is held in in some circles maybe Trump's alleged misbehaviour is a positive sign. Also,
now that Trump's behaviour has been made public isn't the Russian threat to expose him now worthless
and their alleged hold/influence gone?
Mark West , January 12, 2017 at 8:01 pm
Its not about the hookers. That's useless drivel. It's about the potential of illegal financial
dealings with Russia prior to the election. Just show the damn tax returns. What the hell is he
afraid of? What could possibly go wrong?
Are you keen on asking Clintons to reveal their financial dealings with Saudis, the sponsors
of 9/11?
How about the Kagans' clan being currently "supported" financially by Qatari?
And this is much more interesting than tax return: "The NYT skirts around the issue of who paid
the huge sums for the research that produced the story of Trump's alleged sexcapades in Moscow.
They never say the funders are unknown, but instead use devices like the passive tense to avoid
saying. But it would be very interesting to know who signed the checks. Apparently, there was
a Republican funder during the primaries who stopped payment when Trump prevailed, whereupon Fusion
found a Clinton backer to write their checks. It would be very interesting to know who these funders
were and why the MSM seems so keen to avoid saying."
It is controlling, deceptive, organized, bloody and does not give a "rat ass" about the needs
of any other human being on earth who does not belong to it!
It neither tolerates opposing views from anybody who does not belong to its members nor allows
the outsiders to organize . It is determined to be the lens through which everybody under its
control see the rest of the world; any conclusion drawn by the besieged population, based on what
it is forced to see, must conform to the "DEEP STATE" norms; otherwise, you are in deep trouble.
The POTUS or the Congress must toe lines dictated by the members of this organization, (the Deep
State). We are observing that no effort is being spared to see to it that President-Elect toes
the "DEEP STATE" line; it is deep and scary indeed!
Reply
John , January 12, 2017 at 8:40 pm
Russia is the half naked female in the magic show The real slight of hand is the relationship
with the American oligarch and china .wow !!! . talking about messing with the bottom line some
of you big brain folks will get this in 4 ..3 2 ..lol
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There is little doubt that the obvious blackmail will never be covered in that light by main
stream media. To those of us who are historians or are natural skeptics or have actually lived
through those times, this is all fairly obvious. They are trying to put Donald Trump in a corner
so he can be controlled.
I suspect that is why Trump retained Steve Bannon for. Not just a house racist but someone
who can get down and dirty on those that dish up dirt on Trump. We'll have to see if it works.
Headlines: "Donald unleashes TwitterBomb on CIA". But he'll have to go on the internet since the
CIA owns the press in the USA.
He has two choices. Listen to the CIA and do their bidding which is the requirement to start
WWIII with Russia or resist and be smeared in the press. It's an uphill battle too. Unlike Silvio
Berlusconi or Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump does not actually own the press. That will make it
especially hard to do.
This thing is shaping up to be a geopolitical oil war. Rex and the Russians vs the Saudi/CIA
Team USA.
All I can say is fine America. Don't give a damn about privacy. Don't give a damn about anything.
But one of these days this massive spying ring gathering every shred of any and all traces of
your life and filing them away forever cannot be good. It will most certainly not end well.
When AI has us all pinned up against a wall threatening to out all of us if we do not do exactly
what it wants then what will we do?
We need some privacy laws. Also we need to throw the main stream media out with the trash.
It is pure evil. Back in the day, the press wouldn't run the stories about MLKs extramarital affairs
it recorded secretly. The press demanded to know the source of the B.S. and the FBI did not want
to tip their hand so the Mexican standoff led to the suicide letter which said "if you accept
the Nobel Prize, we will shame you and ruin you and you should consider preserving you legacy
by killing yourself instead. At least the MSM had some ethical standards and smelled a rat and
refused to run the stories. Imagine that. If MLK was alive today we and we still had segregation,
people and the media would fight to keep it! MLK would be a portrayed in the press as a philandering
bad guy. A sexual predator. The Civil Rights movement would end in a quagmire of gossip surrounding
its leader.
The Republicans have certainly had their fun with it too making Monica Lewinsky describe to
a court the distinctive features of the president's privates. I bet they were rolling in the aisles
when that happened. Now it's their turn. Will they defend Trump or will they hope that perhaps
Mike Pence would make a better leader.
All this tawdry B.S. really gets old fast. I could care less what people do in private as long
as nobody gets hurt.
One person abroad when asked what they thought about Bill Clinton's circumstances replied they
were confused since after all we were not electing the Pope. Amen. I feel the same way about Trump.
It's all B.S.
The problem is America can't remember what happened yesterday. We are collectively like terminal
Alzheimer patients. Two seconds after we see something, we forget it and are completely susceptible
to B.S.in two seconds after we forgot what just happened which ignores the facts which occurred
a mere two seconds earlier but we are none the wiser since we can't remember what happened more
than two seconds ago. That means there are a lot of opportunities each day to fool us.
What ever happened to the story about James Comey influencing the election? We just forgot
it. What ever happened to all of the other historically "likely suspects" thought to have been
likely suspects in vote rigging schemes. They are all absent and not presented as possible influencers
of the election by our CIA owned press. Instead we are presented with a fake narrative filled
with salacious gossip and naughty bits designed to turn public opinion into a weapon for further
increases in militarization and military spending while preserving foreign relationships which
benefit wealthy investors.
We need to wake up and start taking some strong medicine to ward off the Alzheimer disease
that is affecting us in order to put the daily snow job presented by the MSM and the CIA into
perspective. That perspective would include what just happened two seconds ago.
Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen since the medication would have to include administering
it to the MSM too.
The ability of the MSM to erase our collective memory and present us with a new fake narrative
on any given day should ring alarm bells that we are obviously vulnerable to being fooled.
We are being fooled. Every day. Time to start taking the meds.
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Jurgen , January 12, 2017 at 10:01 pm
This is no "deep state" this is rather in-plain-sight US Government at work.
Trivial task:
1) Create a dense smoke screen by broadcasting on every single TV channel non-stop anti-Russian
and anti-Trump*** hysteria (they know it can't go wrong – they know Trump would try to reply to
every single fake thus making their task easier and the picture even more colorful)
2) Behind that smoke screen ship few thousands of US troops and tanks over to Poland and to those
parasitic micro quasi-states in Baltic and by doing that de-facto lay foundation for 4-5 new military
bases,
which (yet another NATO expansion) otherwise would not be approved and likely axed by Trump. But
now it went through s-m-o-u-ht-ly, like a butter. Highest class of the old Shell Game. Where CIA,
FBI and other spook shops are used as shills and the population of the US are total losers (everyone's
taxes will be used to pay for that yet another NATO expansion).
3) Behind the same smoke screen Obamacare has just been demolished late last night, congrats 20
million of poor folks!
*** Just wait till grainy videos surface showing some naked figures – one of them would be
vaguely resembling Trump.
That'd be no hard task for talented movie makers from either PSYOP or/and PAG (just remember their
masterpieces featuring Jessica Lynch and other ones featuring fat "Osama bin Laden"-looking dude).
Note: Authorization to create and finance state Propaganda apparatus, S.2943, was quietly passed
late Friday night Dec.23 behind the smoke screen of the same anti-Russian and anti-Trump hysteria,
thus what we are seeing now is perfectly lawful – propaganda machine at full throttle, who said
bureaucracy is slow(?)
As a non-citicen one has to wonder about the mind boggling machination the US politic is capable
of.
After WW2 the European countries looked upon the USA as the beacon of democratic values.
How bitter for the young generation to find, bit by bit, that behind the American facade lurked
a system
of smoke and mirrors. As ruthless as the very system they replaced in Europe. Slowly sugarcoating
their deep aims of domination. Under words like freedom,liberty and equality there is the underlying
unbelievable lust for money and with it power. From a human point of view, and the thinking person,
the politics and aims of the United States of America is an abomination for all the worlds people.
Oleg , January 13, 2017 at 3:27 am
I certainly agree with you, but also I am really saddened that this pattern is far from being
unique and repeats itself all over and over again. The power corrupts, and it is true for states
as well as for people. But the US are indeed a sad champion in hypocrisy. Their predecessors were
not as skilled in hiding their true intentions behind the screen of freedom and all other very
attractive values. This makes it especially hard to accept.
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Brad Owen , January 13, 2017 at 5:08 am
You've fingered the wrong culprits, or rather indicted fellow victims. It's the same bloody,
titled ruling class and their managerial elites in business and banking from old-line European/British
families who've been playing their Imperial games and still are. THEY created the late 19th century
Synachist Movement for Empire (SME) that gave birth to Fascism and its' feverish twin NAZIism,really
just movements to update the workings of the old-fashioned European Empires. It's also the Cecil
Rhodes/Milner RoundTable Group that dove-tailed with SME machinations to update old Empires, campaigning
strenuously, through their managerial elites on Wall Street, to recapture their "rogue colony"
USA and bring it into the British version of Empire. Right at the moment of FDR's death (may have
been assassination), the tables were turned on us, with Churchill leading stupid Truman around
by the nose speaking of iron curtains and Red Scares and Cold Wars. FDR's intelligence community
was taken over by Anglophile RoundTable allies in the post-war 40s. Having helped win the battles,
we lost the War to the fascist/NAZI SME and RoundTable groups who never received so much as a
scratch from all the bombs and bullets. Have you seen the show Hunting Hitler? WWII never ended,
the methods of fighting just changed.
Brad Owen , January 13, 2017 at 5:44 am
P.S. Not only did WWII never end, just a change in fighting methods, BUT the SME/RoundTable
Groups managed to get the two most powerful allies turned against each other: USSR and USA, so
that we, together, couldn't focus on the REAL enemy; SME/RoundTable group of elites (which would
have happened under FDR in post-war. He would have been President until January 1949 if he hadn't
died/been killed, Stalin told FDRs son that "that Churchill gang killed him" been trying to do
the same to Stalin) and THIS is why Trumps' Russophilia is such a grave and real threat to our
Establishment.
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:13 pm
Brad you hit the nail on the head with your comments here .bravo!
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John P , January 14, 2017 at 9:55 pm
Where on earth did you get this fable. Roosevelt had polio and needed a wheelchair, he was
a heavy smoker, had high blood pressure, angina followed by congestive heart failure all finalized
by a stoke. He had been weakening over a long period. This is all before the days of polonium
the USSR uses to kill its foes today.
Russia wasn't following the agreements drawn up in Yalta and fair free elections were not provided
in Poland and many Poles who fought for the allies in the war felt betrayed. The Soviets went
their own way, so were we to tell the Poles, tough.
Allied convoys, mainly British, at great cost in ships and men, supplied the Russians with war
supplies. They faced U-boats and heavily armed German battle-cruisers in freezing arctic waters.
After the war Germany got assistance in rebuilding, but the British were held to paying off debts
for US build liberty ships used to replace ships lost on the Atlantic convoys. I had an uncle
who's ship was sunk and very luckily, after much time in a life boat, was picked up. Many Americans
sat back and watched until Pearl Harbour. The British had warned the Americans some time before,
that they had lost contact with one of the Japanese fleets they were following, and you can guess
the consequences.
Britain saw what was coming when Germany attacked Poland and declared war on Germany. We didn't
have much. My father was almost killed assisting surgeon in a Liverpool hospital and luckily had
to leave to go out in an ambulance. When he came back the OR was gone. Bombed out. Luckily on
another occasion, the day staff had been told to stay on duty with the night staff and the nursing
residence was flattened. We had rationing until 1950, and had to grow food in our small back garden,
sprouts, peas, cabbage. We had 6 chickens and a rooster, a source of much needed nutrition from
eggs. I remember my mother weeping terribly after telling the police she had lost her ration books.
As a young lad I went on a search and eventually found them in the folds of a chair. You may never
have had to live through something like that.
And if you think America is any better than others, read "What is America?" by Ronald Wright.
Learn about the Trail of Tears and traders knowingly giving natives blankets used by whites with
small-pox.
Brad Owen , January 15, 2017 at 6:47 am
You relate the manufactured cover story, thanks to the anglophile Intel community that took
over in post-war forties, and did their typical change of the narration, much like they do today
with the phony crap about Russian aggression. This kind of sh!t has been going on since the revolution,
as the wealthy and powerful Imperial Tories never left and never relented. I got this"fable" from
EIR and Tarpley.net. It makes more sense to me than the current fable we call history. Check it
out for yourself, it amounts to mountains of articles and essays. It took me years to piece it
all together and relay it adequately in brief paragraphs. Choose to believe there is no over-arching
Imperial ruling class inimical to the interests of commoners if you want. I refuse to be blind
to it anymore.
David F., N.A. , January 12, 2017 at 10:18 pm
What if the intelligence community wasn't choosing between HRC and Trump, but, in stead, between
HRC and Pence. So no matter who won, wouldn't this hedged election mean business as usual?
Sorry, HRC, but for this downward neoliberal/fascist spiral thingy to work, you lesser-of-2-evil
conservaDems are just going to have to learn to share with the equally-corrupt conservatives.
See ya in 4 (or maybe 8 (naw, 4)).
Hail to the de facto Chief. da dada da dada dada dada da.
Reply
Furtive , January 12, 2017 at 11:36 pm
You forgot to declare who is the drag queen in this matter?
Let's warn these evil psychopaths that a JFK OUTCOME IS OFF LIMITS.
That is the inference of your article.
By the way, Trump NEVER READ THE REPORT PRIVATELY. THERE WAS AN ORAL PRESENTATION, & CLAPPER
& Brennan took the CLASSIFIED documents back with them. Trump never read the 2 pg libel nor was
it discussed in the presentation.
Carl Rising-Moore , January 13, 2017 at 2:38 am
This is also reminiscent of Hoover and JFK. When JFK attended Hoover's office, he was handed
the President's file. JFK read some of the file while Hoover waited. When JFK stood up to leave,
Hoover told the President that the file remains with him. No wonder JFK and Bobby hated this dangerous
psychopath.
Reply
John P , January 12, 2017 at 11:43 pm
It's all slime, Americans let their political system fall into the trap of big money (lobbying
system and PACs) and neo-liberalism. I have no faith that Trump has the capabilities to be a good
president. His dialogue is simple, his temper easily aroused as are his feelings of hurt. He shows
little historical knowledge or political skills and speaks in a petty childish way. Who is going
to pay for the southern border wall ?! What is going to replace Obama's medical care programs,
more big business institutions ?! To me it looks like the Palestinians are on the Titanic run
by captain Trump and his son-in law, and only minutes to go. What real in depth policies has Trump
ever stated ?! Look out because Trump has a habit of passing on the bills be it cash, broken promises
or a road you never thought he would take.
And yes we need a calming down and discussion between the US, Russia and China, but I don't see
any hope in the line of folks Trump has chosen or Clinton. To me, Trump is like passenger on an
aircraft in which the pilot has expired and he is relying on others to tell him what to do because
he has no idea or understanding.
I think this and a world where jobs have been taken by microprocessors and robots, is a very dangerous
place and we don't need a blind narcissist leading the way. Sadly Bernie Sanders got burnt on
the stake.
Reply
Carl Rising-Moore , January 13, 2017 at 2:28 am
At times like this I miss the wise words of the late Chalmers Johnson. Chalmers was not encouraged
by the possibility of America stepping back from her efforts to control the entire world. He felt
the deep state was too committed to America's Full Spectrum Dominance. Is this the sloppy end
to the legacy of the Sole Super Power? Or, is this just the middle of the play before curtain
call?
When Russia came to the aid of Syria, I believed that we were entering the Multipolar World Order.
Hopefully that is still possible but better sooner than later before we enter the No World Order
of endless chaos. Does the American deep state really want to play Russian Roulette with live
nucs?
Joe Tedesky , January 13, 2017 at 1:16 pm
I wish Chalmers Johnson were still with us, and able to comment on our current events good
of you to bring his name up.
Reply
John P , January 15, 2017 at 7:01 pm
I'm sorry Brad. With your EIR's reference, the first story I saw concerned Obama-care connected
to some Nazi policies. Next they claim global warming is fake. The US was the only western nation
without a national health program. People die because they haven't the money to pay for drugs
or health care. The health of a labourer is more important to them that a rich bloke sitting at
a desk. And excuse me but back in the late 60s I studied astronomy besides my major, another science,
and even then learned that both CO2 and methane each trap the sun's energy and cause temperatures
to rise. That was long before global warming came to peoples attention. Sorry, your story is pure
fiction.
Also, Trump hasn't a clue what he's talking about as far as global warming is concerned. Take
a look at the temperatures in the far north. They have been warmer than ever while we down here
are having huge cycles of heat and cold and are experiencing the fury that those changes can induce.
Dieter Heymann , January 16, 2017 at 2:23 pm
As a scientist you ought to know that CO2 and methane do not trap the sun's energy but absorb
upward IR radiation from Earth part of which they radiate back towards Earth's surface part out
into space. The blanket I use on my bed at night does not trap the heat generated by me either.
If it did it might catch fire?
John P , January 16, 2017 at 4:13 pm
Dieter I was just trying to make it simple, not write an article for Nature. The point being
so many people don't believe that we are altering the earths climate through burning fossil fuels.
We take down our forests, and plants are a big reason we are here as they take in carbon dioxide,
utilize the suns energy through photosynthesis and create organic compounds thus setting the stage
for further developments. There is so much irrationality out there brought on by job losses through
technology, and this creates huge divisions within society and that can lead to awful consequences
as history has shown.
I not sure some would understand the true science behind it. The subject was a reliance on a web
site that promoted climate change denial and a mentioned link between Obamacare and Nazism. Is
that a firm foundation of reliance ?
John P , January 16, 2017 at 4:33 pm
Just to clarify, I said astronomy wasn't my major, it was microbiology and medical sciences.
I had an interest in star gazing and following the planets.
Reply
Jamie , January 16, 2017 at 1:54 pm
Many liberals fail to understand that Hillary was the chosen candidate of the deep-state and
international finance capital. Unlike the unwashed masses - these forces don't care if politician
has a 'D' or 'R' next to their name. It is how well they will serve capital.
"... Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends. ..."
"... Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams. ..."
"... And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal, hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly admitted recently, " It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. " ..."
"... Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance. ..."
Government shutdown, Venezuela: Donald Trump evolves into the best propagator of neoliberal fascism that tends to become a
normFebruary
07, 2019by system failure
Even before the 2016 US presidential election, this blog supported that Donald Trump is
apure sample of neoliberal barbarism . Many almost laughed at this perception because Trump was being already promoted,
more or less, as the 'terminator' of the neoliberal establishment. And many people, especially in the US, tired from the economic
disasters, the growing inequality and the endless wars, were anxious to believe that this was indeed his special mission.
Right after the elections, we supported that the
US establishment
gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same
establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders.
In 2017 , Trump bombed Syria for the first time, resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war disaster. Despite the fact that
the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the
targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is
prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of the confrontation with Russia.
Indeed, a year later, Trump built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish neocons. And then, he ordered
a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neocolonial friends.
In the middle of all this 'orgy' of pro-establishment moves, Trump offered a controversial withdrawal of US forces from Syria
and Afghanistan to save whatever was possible from his 'anti-interventionist' profile. And it was indeed a highly controversial action
with very little value, considering all these US military bases that are still fully operational in the broader Middle East and beyond.
Not to mention the various ways through which the US intervenes in the area (training proxies, equip them with heavy weapons, supporting
the Saudis and contribute to war crimes in Yemen, etc.)
And then , after this very short break, Trump returned to 'business as usual' to satisfy the neoliberal establishment with a 'glorious'
record. He achieved a 35-day government shutdown, which is the
"longest shutdown in US history"
.
Trump conducted the longest experiment on neoliberals' ultimate goal: abolishing the annoying presence of the state. And this
was just a taste of what Trump is willing to do in order to satisfy all neoliberals' wet dreams.
And now, we have the Venezuela issue. Since Hugo Chavez nationalized PDVSA, the central oil and natural gas company, the US empire
launched a fierce economic war against the country. Yet, while all previous US administrations were trying to replace legitimate
governments with their puppets as much silently as possible through slow-motion coup operations, Trump has no problem to do it in
plain sight.
And perhaps the best proof for that is a statement by one of the most warmongering figures of the neocon/neoliberal cabal,
hired by Trump . As John Bolton cynically and openly
admitted recently, " It will make
a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities
in Venezuela. "
Therefore, one should be very naive of course to believe that the Western imperialist gang seriously cares about the Venezuelan
people and especially the poor. Here are three basic reasons behind the open US intervention in Venezuela:
The imperialists want to grab the rich oil fields for the US big oil cartel, as well as the
great
untapped natural resources , particularly gold (mostly for the Canadian companies).
Venezuela must not become an example for other countries in the region on social-programs policy, which is mainly funded
by the oil production. The imperialists know that they must interrupt the path of Venezuela to real Socialism by force if
necessary. Neoliberalism must prevail by all means for the benefit of the big banks and corporations.
Venezuela must not turn to cooperation with rival powers like China and Russia. Such a prospect may give the country
the ability to minimize the effects of the economic war. The country may find an alternative to escape the Western sanctions in
order to fund its social programs for the benefit of the people. And, of course, the West will never accept the exploitation of
the Venezuelan resources by the Sino-Russian bloc.
So, when Trump declared the unelected Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate president' of Venezuela, all the main neoliberal powers of
the West rushed to follow the decision.
This is something we have never seen before. The 'liberal democracies' of the West - only by name - immediately, uncritically
and without hesitation jumped on the same boat with Trump towards this outrageously undemocratic action. They recognized Washington's
puppet as the legitimate president of a third country. A man that was never elected by the Venezuelan people and has very low popularity
in the country. Even worse, the EU parliament
approved this action
, killing any last remnants of democracy in the Union.
Yet, it seems that the US is finding increasingly difficult to force many countries to align with its agenda. Even some European
countries took some distance from the attempted constitutional coup, with Italy even
trying to
veto EU's decision to recognize Guaido.
Donald Trump is the personification of an authoritarian system that increasingly unveils its true nature. The US empire makes
the Venezuelan economy 'scream hard', as it did in Chile in 1973. The country then turned into the first laboratory of neoliberalism
with the help of the Chicago Boys and a brutal dictatorship. So, as the big fraud is clear now, neoliberalism is losing ground and
ideological influence over countries and societies, after decades of complete dominance.
This unprecedented action by the Western neoliberal powers to recognize Guaido is a serious sign that neoliberalism returns
to its roots and slips towards fascism. It appears now that this is the only way to maintain some level of power.
"... It's almost like there's a neo-liberal playbook, isn't there? No underpants gnomes , they! (1) Defund or sabotage, (2) Claim crisis, (3) Call for privatization (4) Profit! [ka-ching]. Congress underfunds the VA, then overloads it with Section 8 patients, a crisis occurs, and Obama's first response is send patients to the private system . ..."
"... Assuming that wait time is a function of resources, you can easily see how the playbook would work: (1) Reduce resources, (2) whinge about wait time, and (3) drain patients from the VA system, for profit! (Note that while Democrats are ostensibly jumping on board the #MedicareForAll train, they are, in the main, silent -- Warren and Sanders being the only notable exceptions -- about the destruction of an existing ..."
"... "This is nothing short of a steady march toward the privatization [1] of the VA," Sanders said. "It's going to happen piece by piece by piece until over a period of time there's not much in the VA to provide the quality care that our veterans deserve." ..."
"... Now, just because privatizing the Veterans Administration is a project of the political class as a whole doesn't mean that the Trump Administration hasn't brought its own special mix of corruption and buffoonery to the table. Indeed it has! Who, we might ask, were the actual factions in the Republican administration pushing for VA Mission? Three of Trump's squillionaire golfing buddies at Mar-a-Lago[2], as it all-too-believably turns out. From Pro Publica, " The Shadow Rulers of the VA ": ..."
"... The wretched excess of Trump's policy-by-golfing buddies aside, I don't see why privatiizing the Veterans Administration shouldn't become a major campaign issue, especially given Sanders' presence on the relevant committee. We send our children off to die in wars for regime change where the only winners are military contractors. ..."
With the release of new proposed eligibility rules under the VA Mission Act, we see that privatization at the Veterans Administration
(VA) continues to unfold, as outlined in the
neoliberal
playbook , to which we have alluded before:
The stories intertwine because they look like they're part of the
neoliberal privatization playbook , here described in a post about America's universities:
It's almost like there's a neo-liberal playbook, isn't there? No
underpants gnomes , they! (1) Defund or sabotage, (2) Claim crisis,
(3) Call for privatization (4) Profit! [ka-ching]. Congress underfunds the VA, then overloads it with Section 8 patients, a
crisis occurs, and
Obama's first
response is send patients to the private system .
Congress imposes huge unheard-of, pension requirements on the Post Office, such that it operates at a loss, and it's gradually
cannibalized by private entities, whether for services or property. And charters are justified by a similar process.
(I've helpfully numbered the steps, and added 'sabotage' alongside defunding, although defunding is neoliberalism's main play,
based on the ideology of austerity.)
The political class has been trying to privatize the VA across several administrations -- "
Veterans groups are angry after President
Obama told them Monday that he is still considering a proposal to have treatment for service-connected injuries charged to veterans'
private insurance plan" -- although it is true that the Trump administration has brought its own special brand of crassness to the
project, as we shall see. As
we might expect , the project has nothing to do with
the wishes of veterans :
Nearly two-thirds of veterans oppose "privatizing VA hospitals and services," according to a poll released Tuesday by the Vet
Voice Foundation. And some 80 percent of the veterans surveyed believe veterans "deserve their health care to be fully paid for,
not vouchers which may not cover all the costs."
A plurality of veterans, or 42 percent of those surveyed, agreed with the statement that the VA "needs more doctors," according
to the poll, indicating they believe the VA's problems are at least partly due to a personnel shortage [Step (1)].
Although Vet Voice is a progressive organization, the poll of 800 veterans was jointly conducted by a Democratic polling firm
and a Republican one.
A new study by Dartmouth College that compares Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals with other hospitals in the same regions
found VA facilities often outperform others when it comes to mortality rates and patient safety.
Researchers compared performance data at VA hospitals against non-VA facilities in 121 regions. In 14 out of 15 measures, the
VA performed "significantly better" than other hospitals, according to results from the study.
"We found a surprisingly high, to me, number of cases where the VA was the best hospital in the region," said Dr. William Weeks,
who led the study. "Pretty rarely was it the worst hospital." "One has to wonder whether outsourcing care is the right choice
if we care about veterans' outcomes," Weeks said. "The VA is, for the most part, doing at least as well as the private sector
in a local setting, and pretty often are the best performers in that setting."
"One has to wonder" indeed! Be that it may, the new VA eligibility rules accelerate privatization.
USA Today :
Nearly four times as many veterans could be eligible for private health care paid for by the Department of Veterans Affairs
under sweeping rules the agency proposed Wednesday.
VA officials estimated the plan could increase the number of veterans eligible for private care to as many as 2.1 million
– up from roughly 560,000 .
Assuming that wait time is a function of resources, you can easily see how the playbook would work: (1) Reduce resources,
(2) whinge about wait time, and (3) drain patients from the VA system, for profit! (Note that while Democrats are ostensibly jumping
on board the #MedicareForAll train, they are, in the main, silent -- Warren and Sanders being the only notable exceptions -- about
the destruction of an existing , and highly functional, single payer system. So how do we get to this point? A previous
iteration of the neoliberal playbook, of course!
The program, which began in 2014, was supposed to give veterans a way around long waits in the VA. But veterans using the Choice
Program still had to wait longer than allowed by law. And according to ProPublica and PolitiFact's analysis of VA data, the two
companies hired to run the program [TriWest and Health Net] took almost $2 billion in fees, or about 24 percent of the companies'
total program expenses .
According to the agency's inspector general, the VA was paying the contractors at least $295 every time it authorized private
care for a veteran. The fee was so high because the VA hurriedly launched the Choice Program as a short-term response to a crisis.
Four years later, the fee never subsided -- it went up to as much as $318 per referral .. In many cases, the contractors' $295-plus
processing fee for every referral was bigger than the doctor's bill for services rendered, the analysis of agency data showed.
Ka-ching! So, step (3) -- profit! -- worked out very well for TriWest and Health Net, piling up $2 billion in loot. (
Step (2) was a scandal of "35 veterans who had died while waiting for care in the Phoenix VHA system," step (1) being the usual
denial of resources/sabotage). The VA Mission Act was the legislative response to Veterans Choice debacle. Naturally, it moved the
privatization ball down the field.
The American Prospect
:
Only two of the 42 members on the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee opposed Mission last year , when it
came up for a vote.
In other words, privatizing the Veterans Administration has strong bipartisan support. But:
One of those lawmakers, Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Democrat, reiterated his opposition to Mission in December.
"This is nothing short of a steady march toward the privatization [1] of the VA," Sanders said. "It's going
to happen piece by piece by piece until over a period of time there's not much in the VA to provide the quality care that our
veterans deserve."
Now, just because privatizing the Veterans Administration is a project of the political class as a whole doesn't mean that
the Trump Administration hasn't brought its own special mix of corruption and buffoonery to the table. Indeed it has! Who, we might
ask, were the actual factions in the Republican administration pushing for VA Mission? Three of Trump's squillionaire golfing buddies
at Mar-a-Lago[2], as it all-too-believably turns out. From Pro Publica, "
The Shadow Rulers of the VA ":
[Bruce Moskowitz, is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service "concierge" medical care] is one-third
of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's private club in
Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance
of President Trump's. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government
.
The arrangement is without parallel in modern presidential history.
Everything is like CalPERS.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 provides a mechanism for agencies to consult panels of outside advisers, but such
committees are subject to cost controls, public disclosure and government oversight. Other presidents have relied on unofficial
"kitchen cabinets," but never before have outside advisers been so specifically assigned to one agency. During the transition,
Trump handed out advisory roles to several rich associates, but they've all since faded away. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd, however, has
deepened its involvement in the VA.
In September 2017, the Mar-a-Lago Crowd weighed in on the side of expanding the use of the private sector. "We think that some
of the VA hospitals are delivering some specialty healthcare when they shouldn't and when referrals to private facilities or other
VA centers would be a better option," Perlmutter wrote in an email to Shulkin and other officials. "Our solution is to make use
of academic medical centers and medical trade groups, both of whom have offered to send review teams to the VA hospitals to help
this effort."
In other words, they proposed inviting private health care executives to tell the VA which services they should outsource to
private providers like themselves. It was precisely the kind of fox-in-the-henhouse scenario that the VA's defenders had warned
against for years.
While it is true that the ideological ground for privatization was laid by
the
Koch Brothers , among others, the actual vector of tranmission, as it were, seems to have been the Mar-a-Lago crowd. There has
been pushback against them, in the form of
a Congressional
request for a GAO investigation , and
a lawsuit by veterans
, but as we have seen, the neoliberal play continues to run.
* * *
The wretched excess of Trump's policy-by-golfing buddies aside, I don't see why privatiizing the Veterans Administration shouldn't
become a major campaign issue, especially given Sanders' presence on the relevant committee. We send our children off to die in wars
for regime change where the only winners are military contractors.
Then, when our children come home, we're going to send them into a health care system that's been as crapified as everybody else's
(and that's before we get to PTSD, homelessness, and suicide). Surely a pitch along those lines would play in the heartland? If Sanders
doesn't pick up the ball and run with it, Gabbard should.
[SANDERS:] No one disagrees that veterans should be able to seek private care in cases where the VA cannot provide the specialized
care they require, or when wait times for appointments are too long or when veterans might have to travel long distances for that
care. The way to reduce wait times is to make sure that the VA is able to fill the more than 30,000 vacancies it currently
has. This bill provides $5 billion for the Choice program. It provides nothing to fill the vacancies at the VA. That is wrong
. My fear is that this bill will open the door to the draining, year after year, of much needed resources from the VA.
In other words, the way to solve the problem is not to take Step 1: Give the VA the resources that it needs.
[2] I continue to believe that golf play, or knowledge of golf play, should be a disqualification for high office.
Re: "The possibility that MAGA was, in fact, a sly misdirection to co-opt the fervour of re-ignited passions in a disenfranchised
segment of the America people - to re-capture the kind of patriotic commitment and ardor that drove the war effort in two world
wars - into a renewed Imperial adventure was obviated, in my view, by Trump's loud and overt criticism of past Imperial adventures
such as the Iraq war and Obama's inaction regarding ISIS (the accusation that Obama "created" ISIS was a bombshell, in my opinion).
Trump engaged in a bare, pointed, often crass and bordering on contemptuous criticism of his predecessors' foreign policy.
The irreverent tone was unprecedented in recent campaign history and was so plain and completely at odds with Hilary's stated
positions that it essentially committed him (in my eyes anyway) to following through, or to make all efforts to follow through.
If not, he would set one of the worst examples of a duplicitous politician, perhaps ever. The same applies to other bold campaign
positions, such as the border wall, for example.
But when viewed in the context of a deep state "policy change," such a clear and utter denunciation and discrediting of the
former policy would be necessary to shift the National mindset and would not necessarily preclude Trump from engaging in further
Imperial adventures, as long as they were different from the discredited policy."
Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency who came up through intelligence positions
in Iraq and Afghanistan, says that the George W. Bush administration's Iraq war was a tremendous blunder that helped to create
the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.
"It was a huge error," Flynn said about the Iraq war in a detailed interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel published Sunday.
"As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him," Flynn went on to say. "The same is true for Moammar
Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History
will not be and should not be kind with that decision."
When told by Der Spiegel reporters Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark that the Islamic State would not "be where it is now without
the fall of Baghdad," Flynn, without reservations, said: "Yes, absolutely."
Flynn, who served in the U.S. Army for more than 30 years, also said that the American military response following 9/11 was
not well thought-out at all and based on significant misunderstandings.
Interesting, very interesting. As noted in the Flynn sentencing memo last night there were some curiously framed explanations
of events surrounding his FBI inquisition.
Now Judge Emmet Sullivan wants expanded information, and wishes to see the actual notes (FD-302) that were mentioned by Flynn;
and Judge Sullivan is directing the special counsel to provide all documents created by the FBI surrounding the Flynn interview:
from the comments:
Curt says:
December 12, 2018 at 9:56 pm
This could be big news! Judge Emmet Sullivan was the same judge that had prosecutors investigated for criminal actions they took
in the Sen. Ted Stevens FALSE prosecution. Some on Mueller's team, including Weinstein, were held in contempt. One prosecutor
committed suicide. Others threatened with disbarment and some were suspended. "A federal judge dismissed the ethics conviction
of former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on Tuesday after taking the extraordinary step of naming a special prosecutor to investigate
whether the government lawyers who ran the Stevens case (2008) should themselves be prosecuted for criminal wrongdoing. Mueller
was also involved in that horrible attempt by prosecutors to frame Sen. Ted Stevens. Judge Sullivan has absolutely no use for
this group of prosecutors. He smells a rat here and is asking for all investigative materials, including 302s. This judge will
not hesitate to take action against these crooked prosecutors if he finds evidence of ANY wrong doing.
On April 7, 2009, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia unleashed his fury
before a packed courtroom. For 14 minutes, he scolded. He chastised. He fumed. "In nearly 25 years on the bench," he said, "I've
never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I've seen in this case.
. . .
For months Judge Sullivan had warned U.S. prosecutors about their repeated failure to turn over evidence. Then, after the jury
convicted Stevens, the Justice Department discovered previously unrevealed evidence. Meanwhile, a prosecution witness and an agent
from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) came forward alleging prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, newly appointed U.S. Attorney
General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he had had enough and recommended that the seven-count conviction against the former
Alaska senator be dismissed.
On April 7, Judge Sullivan did just that. But he was far from done.
In an extraordinarily rare move, he ordered an inquiry into the prosecutors' handling of the case. Judge Sullivan insisted
that the misconduct allegations were "too serious and too numerous" to be left to an internal Justice Department investigation.
He appointed Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III of Janis, Schuelke & Wechsler to investigate whether members of the trial
team should be prosecuted for criminal contempt.
12-13-18 Following the allegations, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan yesterday ordered that both the Mueller investigation and
the Flynn team turn over all documents [the "302s"] relating to the fateful interview, including all contemporaneous notes, before
3pm Friday.
The EU didn't impose austerity on the UK, its own government did. We don't have the euro, in
case you haven't noticed. The US is our top overseas buyer. If we want more of that, we'll
have to take something like TTIP or worse.
The EU was a voice for African, Caribbean and Pacific producers against US transnationals,
and offered favorable terms. We've weakened that voice.
Brexit makes us more dependent on the IMF, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup
and Morgan Stanley. They're not EU bodies.
Britain opposed EU democratisation for forty years by upholding national governments' veto
powers over proposals supported by elected MEPs.
You voted against everything you claim to uphold. Because it was a vote against
everything.
None of that's even the issue. Do you have an insight to offer beyond antipathy to the
EU?
"... Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity. ..."
"... I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people ..."
It should be pointed out that the Integrity Initiative recently claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch
#4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.
It doesn't really matter, though: all that we know, anti-socialist shills writing propaganda on behalf of II (Nimmo, Cohen,
Reid-Ross) have confirmed their own roles, and the Twitter account was proven to have pushed out slanderous material on Jeremy
Corbyn.
Note that "misrepresented" could have referred to the inclusion of the Corbyn slide show document which was presented at but
created by the II.
This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously
and using smears,
-Yellow Vests
– Jill Stein
-Jeremy Corbyn
-George Galloway
-Seuams Milne
-German Left Party
-French Left Party
-French Communist Party
-Greek Communist Party
-Podemos
-Norwegian Red Party
-Norwegian Socialist Left Party
-Swedish Left Party
-Swedish Greens
-International Anti-NATO Groups
-Greyzone Project
-Julian Assange
-MintPressNews
Via
-Infiltrating Corbyn and Sanders campaigns
-Inserting propaganda anonymously into local media including the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, The Times, the Guardian, and more
-Using social media to orchestrate hate and dismissal campaigns against those mentioned above
-Hosting events for collaboration between members
-Building online "clusters" to deploy and shape discourse in the media and elsewhere
By repeating or openly collaborating with:
-Ben Nimmo
-Oz Katergi
-Anne Applebaum
-Peter Pomerantsev
-Bellingcat
-Atlantic Council
-Carole Cadwalladr
-David Aaronovitch
-Center For A Stateless Society
-PropOrNot
-Alexander Reid-Ross
-Nick Cohen
-Michael Weiss
-Jamie Fly
-Jamie Kirchick
Directed by:
-Tory Government
-NATO
-Facebook
-German Multinationals
Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward
many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity.
I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least
for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people.
Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.
Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post
that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response
Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the
two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican
nomination in 2020. We'll see.
But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a
window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.
Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive
leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique
of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian
civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear
to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We
know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.
Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with
those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year
ago.
That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain
Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an
existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt,
extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.
Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the
private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the
country.
Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist
foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations,
Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while
simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those
goals enthusiastically.
There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In
countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others
-- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a
decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting
against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.
Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode
a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political
revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are
destroying America? Those are open questions.
But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest
of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How
do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.
The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning
cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones,
or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They
haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide
are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be
summed up in GDP is an idiot.
The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness.
There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your
children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.
But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to
the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through.
They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even
bother to understand our problems.
One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything
else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture,
meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.
Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party
who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words,
functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the
markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the
health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as
they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.
Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet
reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the
American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the
libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct.
The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They
refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.
Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined.
Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies
possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The
evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.
Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were
horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor
neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule.
Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.
What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were
benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready
explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of
badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives
called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.
There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually
the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways,
rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.
This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone
from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political
beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives,
mostly.
Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown
Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A
terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd
think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They
don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of
native-born Americans who are slipping behind.
But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part
of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but
disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools
and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made
more than men.
Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after
study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them.
Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop
in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably
follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the
next generation.
This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science.
We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they
have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in
America can afford.
And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married
people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much
nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight
malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.
This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our
mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families
face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or
Facebook executives.
For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more
virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own
kids.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our
first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is
one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.
We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.
They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in
this game, and it shows.
What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was
saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media
celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean
In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans
should say so.
They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all
commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or
charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect
400 percent annual interest.
We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work --
consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also
disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans,
whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.
And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it
would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our
kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new
technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.
And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana,
marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or
decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana
industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than
alcohol," they tell us.
Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's
been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want
that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the
reason. Because they don't care about us.
When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even
try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities
based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes
close.
Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate
as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of
what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.
In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He
paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners,
the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But
for everyone else, it's infuriating.
Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on
the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws
that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for
those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a
big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids
don't hate you. They hate each other.
That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided
countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are
getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special
treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.
What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive
country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own
profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.
A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can
make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as
important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting
outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And
above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place
special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that
actually cares about families, the building block of everything.
What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will
have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.
But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a
religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool
to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do
not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn
decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors
in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market
fundamentalism a form of socialism.
That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working
desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a
group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that
protects normal people.
If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2,
2019.
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."
Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged
monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.
America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking
marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families
is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."
He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate
the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."
The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans
have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More
broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative
politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.
Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain.
What kind of country will be it be then?"
The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher
wrote of Carlson's monologue,
"A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would
be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in
National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.
I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his
monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003
bookThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree
with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."
Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank
fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any
policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites
-- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."
But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the
most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.
"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put
these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"
Populism on the right is gaining, again
Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald
Trump, whose populist-lite
presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless
you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."
Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the
words of Cas
Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people
on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal
point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896.
Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative,
thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.
When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter
spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she
said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big
rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar
workers":
Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact
that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This
is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.
These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.
Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people
won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed
when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's
past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.
"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home
an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."
Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent
a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that
labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and
figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."
"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he
told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."
But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current
state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are
its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson
railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation
of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.
Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on
the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson
wrote
a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And
these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their
own family members struggling to get by.
Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense
of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.
At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing
wrote of Carlson's
monologue, and a
response
to it by National Review columnist David French:
Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different
French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed
unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families
are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions
responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists
outside of its fantasies.
J.D. Vance, author of
Hillbilly Elegy
, wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless
to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago,
and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years
ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"
Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed
at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded.
"I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns
of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."
Who is "they"?
And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy
on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like
Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate
themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.
When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific
group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or
immigration policies.
In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in
1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana
legalization means more teens are smoking weed (
this probably isn't true ). Someone,
or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight
of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."
The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives
believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision
making or a
lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument
that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates
doesn't make sense .
But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood
populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's
rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual
revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are
doing to you .
And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other
groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family
dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say,
less than
enthusiastic .
Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same
problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!
Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to
identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the
expansion of trans
rights or creeping secularism
than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in
private prisons or an expansion
of the
militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market
capitalism and efforts to
fight
inequality .
I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by "
demographic change
." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he
includes in his monologue .
He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something
to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because
it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're
living under affects your culture."
Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same
poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking,
'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was
because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For
the record, libertarians have
critiqued Carlson's
monologue as well.)
Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an
economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a
function or raw nature."
And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those
on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those
dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns
are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.
"... Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military establishment. ..."
If Syria wins the award for Country of the Year 2018, I'd hate to see who gets the Wooden
Spoon for 2018. There must be quite a few serious contenders for that prize!
Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer
disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that
constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own
collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity
Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military
establishment.
He has announced his order to withdraw US troops from Syria.
His Defense Secretary James Mattis has resigned. There are rumors National Security
Adviser John Bolton may go too. (Please take
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with you!)
He announced a start to withdrawing from Afghanistan.
He now says he will veto a government funding bill unless he gets $5 billion for his
Wall, and as of 12:01 AM Washington time December 22 the federal government is officially
under partial shutdown.
All of this should be taken with a big grain of salt. While this week's assertiveness
perhaps provides further proof that Trump's impulses are right, it doesn't mean he can
implement them.
Senator Lindsey Graham is demanding
hearings on how to block the Syria pullout . Congress hardly ever quibbles with a
president's putting troops into a country, where the Legislative Branch has legitimate
Constitutional power. But if a president under his absolute command authority wants to pull
them out – even someplace where they're deployed illegally, as in Syria – well hold
on just a minute!
This will be a critical time for the Trump presidency. (And if God is really on his side, he
soon might get
another Supreme Court pick .) If he can get the machinery of the Executive Branch to
implement his decision to withdraw from Syria, and if he can pick a replacement to General
Mattis who actually agrees with Trump's views, we might start getting the America First policy
Trump ran on in 2016.
Mattis himself said in his resignation letter, "Because you have the right to have a
Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these [i.e., support for
so-called "allies"] and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my
position."
Right on, Mad Dog! In fact Trump should have had someone "better aligned" with him in that
capacity from the get-go. It is now imperative that he picks someone who agrees with his core
positions, starting with withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan, and reducing confrontation with
Russia.
Former Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel complains that "our government is not a one-man show." Well, the "government"
isn't, but the Executive Branch is. Article II,
Section 1 : "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of
America." Him. The President. Nobody else. Period.
Already the drumbeat to saddle Trump with another Swamp critter at the Pentagon is starting:
"Several possible replacements for Mattis this week trashed the president's decision to pull
out of Syria. Retired Gen. Jack Keane called the move a "strategic mistake" on Twitter.
Republican Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) signed a letter demanding
Trump reconsider the decision and warning that the withdrawal bolsters Iran and Russia." If
Trump even considers any of the above as Mattis's replacement, he'll be in worse shape than he
has been for the past two years.
On the other hand, if Trump does pick someone who agrees with him about Syria and
Afghanistan, never mind
getting along with Russia , can he get that person confirmed by the Senate? One possibility
would be to nominate someone like Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney specifically
to run the Pentagon bureaucracy and get control of costs, while explicitly deferring
operational decisions to the Commander in Chief in consultation with the Service Chiefs.
Right now on Syria Trump is facing pushback from virtually the whole Deep State
establishment, Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as the media from Fox News , to NPR ,
to MSNBC . Terror has again gripped the establishment that the Trump who was elected president
in 2016 might actually start implementing what he promised. It is imperative that he pick
someone for the Pentagon (and frankly, clear out the rest of his national security team) and
appoint people he can trust and whose views comport with his own. Just lopping off a few heads
won't suffice – he needs a full housecleaning.
In the meantime in Syria, watch for another "Assad poison gas attack against his own
people." The last time Trump said we'd be
leaving Syria "very soon " was on March 29 of this year. Barely a week later, on April 7,
came a supposed chemical incident in Douma, immediately hyped as a government attack on
civilians
but soon apparent as likely staged . Trump, though, dutifully took the bait, tweeting that
Assad was an "animal." Putin, Russia, and Iran were "responsible" for "many dead, including
women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack" – "Big price to pay." He then for the
second time launched cruise missiles against Syrian targets. A
confrontation loomed in the eastern Med that could to have led to war with Russia. Now, in
light of Trump's restated determination to get out,
is MI6 already ginning up their White Helmet assets for a repeat ?
Trump's claim that the US has completed its only mission, to defeat ISIS, is being compared
to George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner following defeat of Iraq's army and the
beginning of the occupation (and, as it turned out, the beginning of the real war). But if it
helps get us out, who cares if Trump wants to take credit? Whatever his
terrible, horrible, no good, very bad national security team told him, the US presence in
Syria was never about ISIS. We are there as Uncle Sam's Rent-an-Army for the Israelis and
Saudis to block Iranian influence and especially an overland route between Syria and Iran (the
so-called
"Shiite land bridge" to the Mediterranean ).
For US forces the war against ISIS was always a sideshow, mainly carried on by the Syrians
and Russians and proportioned about like the war against the Wehrmacht: about 20% "us," about
80% "them." The remaining pocket ISIS has
on the Syria-Iraq border has been deliberate ly left alone, to keep handy as a lever to
force Assad out in a settlement (which is not going to happen). Thus the claim an American
pullout will
lead to an ISIS "resurgence " is absurd. With US forces ceasing to play dog in the manger,
the Syrians, Russians, Iranians, and Iraqis will kill them. All of them.
If Trump is able to follow through with the pullout, will the Syrian war wind down? It needs
to be kept in mind that the whole conflict has been because we (the US, plus Israel, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, the United Kingdom, etc) are the aggressors. We sought to use
al-Qaeda and other jihadis to effect regime change via the tried and true method. It
failed.
Regarding Trump's critics' claim that he is turning over Syria to the Russians and Iranians,
Assad is nobody's puppet. He can be allied with a Shiite theocracy but not controlled by it;
Iran, likewise, can also have mutually beneficial ties with an ideologically dissimilar
country, like it does with Christian Armenia. The Russians will stay and expand their presence
but unlike our presence in many countries – which seemingly never ends, for example in
Germany, Japan, and Korea, not to mention Kosovo – they'll be there only as long and to
the extent the Syrians want them. (Compare our eternal occupations with the Soviets' politely
leaving Egypt when Anwar Sadat asked them, or leaving Somalia when Siad Barre wanted them out.
Instead of leaving, why didn't Moscow just do a " Diem " on them?) It
seems that American policymakers have gotten so far down the wormhole of their paranoid
fantasies about the rest of the world – and it can't be overemphasized, concerning areas
where the US has no actual national interests – that we no longer recognize classic
statecraft when practiced by other powers defending genuine national interests (which of course
are legitimate only to the extent we say so).
Anyway, if this week's developments are the result of someone putting something into
Donald's morning Egg
McMuffin , America and the world owe him (or her) a vote of thanks. Let's see more of
the wrecking ball we Deplorables voted for !
Trump thought that by bringing the swamp into his fold he might be able to defang it. He
bent the knee, played nice and kissed the ring but still they kept at him. I think Trump has
had enough of giving a mile for getting an inch. I like Trump when he presents himself as a
human wrecking ball to all the evil plans of the Washington establishment and if he continues
like this I honestly believe he will be reelected in 2020, and one day will be acknowleged as
a true chapion for every day Americans but if he shrinks back into his shadow and gives the
likes of Bolton and Pompeo free reign to **** all over the globe with their insane scheming
he will be a one term failure.
Don't get too excited about the possibility that there may be more kinds of viagra to try
out, Jattras. If Trump recently seems to be more like the candidate we voted for, the real
reason for his reversion back is because the midterm elections are over and Trump kept the
Senate.
Check with me before you start making a lot of crack-pot statements
America's
trade policy is in incoherent shambles. Decades of neoliberal "free trade" pacts -- which as
often as not simply gave corporations an end run around the state, or their very own rigged,
pseudo-legal system -- have created terrible social carnage around the world and a furious
political backlash. And President Trump's incoherent, haphazard response has done little to
change the system, let alone reform it in a sensible fashion.
Overhauling such a gargantuan, world-spanning system is a dizzying task. But Timothy Meyer
and Ganesh Sitaraman at the Great Democracy Initiative have a
new paper that presents a solid starting point for developing a fundamental reform of
American trade structure.
Meyer and Sitaraman identify three large problems with the status quo, and propose policy
solutions for each:
The complicated and unbalanced structure of the bureaucracy that oversees trade
policy
The enormous pro-rich bias that is built into trade deals
How the inequality resulting from trade routinely goes totally unaddressed
Let's take these in turn.
The extant trade bureaucracy -- as usual for the American state -- is highly fragmented and
bizarrely structured. There is the Department of Commerce, the United States Trade
Representative, the Export-Import Bank, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, plus the
International Development Finance Corporation coming soon. Then there are a slew of other
agencies that have some bearing on trade-related security or economic development.
Meyer and Sitaraman logically suggest combining most of these functions into a single
Department of Economic Growth and Security. The point is not just to streamline the trade
oversight structure, but also to make it consider a broader range of objectives. Neoliberals
insist that trade is simply about making the self-regulating market more "efficient," but trade
very obviously bears on employment, domestic industry, and especially security.
For instance, for all its other disastrous side effects, Trump's haphazard tax on aluminum
has dramatically
revived the American aluminum industry . Ensuring a reasonable domestic supply of key
metals like that is so obviously a security concern -- for military and consumer uses
alike -- that it wouldn't have even occurred to New Deal policymakers to think otherwise. It
takes a lot of ideological indoctrination to think there's no problem when a small price
disadvantage causes a country to lose its entire supply chain of key industrial
commodities.
Then there is the problem of pro-rich bias. Put simply, the last few decades of trade deals
have been outrageously biased towards corporations and the rich. They have powerfully enabled
the growth of
parasitic tax havens , which allow companies to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions,
starving countries of rightful revenue (and often leading to companies piling up gargantuan
dragon hoards of cash they don't know what to do with).
Corporations, meanwhile, have gotten their own fake legal system in the form of
Investor-State Dispute Settlement trade deal stipulations. As I have written before ,
the point of these arbitration systems is to create a legal system ludicrously slanted in favor
of the corporation -- allowing them not just to win almost every time, but to sue over
nonsensical harms like "taking away imaginary future profits."
Meyer and Sitaraman suggest renegotiating the tax portions of trade deals to enforce a
"formulary" tax system -- in which profits are taxed where they are made, not where they are
booked. This would go a considerable distance towards cracking down on tax havens -- who knows,
perhaps Luxembourg might even develop some productive business.
Finally, there is the problem of distributive justice. Again contrary to neoliberal dogma,
trade very often creates winners and losers -- witness the wreckage of Detroit and the fat
salaries of the U.S. executive class. Meyer and Sitaraman suggest new mechanisms to consider
the side effects of trade deals (and ways to compensate the losers), to take action against
abusive foreign nations (for example, by dumping their products below cost, or violating
environmental or labor standards), and finally directly taxing the beneficiaries.
Something the authors don't discuss is the
problem of trade imbalances . When one country develops a surplus (that is, it exports more
than it imports), another country must of necessity be in a deficit. The deficit country in
turn must finance its imports, usually by borrowing. That can easily create a severe economic
crisis if the deficit country suddenly loses access to loans -- which then harms the exporting
country, though not as much. This has been a disastrous problem in the eurozone.
The U.S. does have extremely wide latitude to run a trade deficit, because it controls the
global reserve currency, meaning a strong
demand for dollar-denominated assets so other countries can settle their international
accounts. But this creates its own problems, as discussed above.
To be fair, this is not exactly an omission for a paper focused on domestic policy. Creating
a specifically international trade architecture would require an entire paper of its own, if
not a book or three. But it would be something future trade policymakers will have to
consider.
At any rate, it's quite likely that trade policy will be a major topic of discussion in 2020
-- if for no reason other than Trump's ridiculous shenanigans in the area. However, even that
demonstrates an important fact: The U.S. president has a great deal of unilateral authority
over trade. Democrats should be thinking hard about how they would change things.
This paper is a great place to start.
President Donald Trump is planning on using his executive powers to cut food stamps for more
than 700,000 Americans.
The United States Department of Agriculture is proposing that states should only be allowed
to waive a current food stamps requirement -- namely, that adults without dependents must work
or participate in a job-training program for at least 20 hours each week if they wish to
collect food stamps for more than three months in a three-year period -- on the condition that
those adults live in areas where unemployment is above 7 percent,
according to The Washington Post . Currently the USDA regulations permit states to waive
that requirement if an adult lives in an area where the unemployment rate is at least 20
percent greater than the national rate. In effect, this means that roughly 755,000 Americans
would potentially lose their waivers that permit them to receive food stamps.
The current unemployment rate is 3.7 percent.
The Trump administration's decision to impose the stricter food stamp requirements through
executive action constitutes an end-run around the legislative process. Although Trump is
expected to sign an $870 billion farm bill later this week -- and because food stamps goes
through the Agriculture Department, it contains food stamp provisions -- the measure does not
include House stipulations restricting the waiver program and imposing new requirements on
parents with children between the ages of six and 12. The Senate version ultimately removed
those provisions, meaning that the version being signed into law does not impose a conservative
policy on food stamps, which right-wing members of Congress were hoping for.
"Congress writes laws, and the administration is required to write rules based on the law,"
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told The New York Times (Stabenow is the top Democrat on the
Senate's agriculture committee). "Administrative changes should not be driven by ideology. I do
not support unilateral and unjustified changes that would take food away from families."
Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from
Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His
work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.
So at the moment when everybody assumed that Trump lost control of the foreign policy, he
does this. It's a real surprise. Kind of Christmas gift to his voters. And that's with neocon
Pompeo as his State Secretary and neocon Bolton as his national security advisor.
The War Party project of regime change in Tehran suffered a severe setback with the U.S.
pullout from Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... Forced to choose between Turkey, with 80 million people and the second-largest army in NATO, which sits astride the Dardanelles and Bosphorus entrance to the Black Sea, and the stateless Kurds with their Syrian Democratic Forces, or YPG, Trump chose Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ..."
"... And Erdogan regards the YPG as kinfolk and comrades of the Kurdish terrorist PKK in Turkey. A week ago, he threatened to attack the Kurds in northern Syria, though U.S. troops are embedded alongside them. What kind of deal did Trump strike with Erdogan? Turkey will purchase the U.S. Patriot anti-aircraft and missile defense system for $3.5 billion, and probably forego the Russian S-400. Trump also told Erdogan that we "would take a look at" extraditing Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen whom the Turkish president says instigated the 2016 coup attempt that was to end with his assassination. ..."
"... The war party project, to bring about regime change in Tehran through either crippling sanctions leading to insurrection or a U.S.-Iranian clash in the Gulf, will suffer a severe setback with the U.S. pullout from Syria. ..."
"We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there," wrote President Donald
Trump as he ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, stunning the U.S. foreign
policy establishment.
Trump overruled his secretaries of state and defense, and jolted this city and capitals
across NATO Europe and the Middle East.
Yet Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do in his campaign. And what his decision
seems to say is this:
We are extricating America from the forever war of the Middle East so foolishly begun by
previous presidents. We are coming home. The rulers and peoples of this region are going to
have to find their own way and fight their own wars. We are not so powerful that we can fight
their wars while also confronting Iran and North Korea and facing new cold wars with Russia and
China.
As for the terrorists of ISIS, says Trump, they are defeated.
Yet despite the heavy casualties and lost battles ISIS has suffered, along with the collapse
of the caliphate and expulsion from its Syrian capital Raqqa and Iraqi capital Mosul and from
almost all territories it controlled in both countries, the group is not dead. It lives on in
thousands of true believers hidden in those countries. And like al-Qaeda, it has followers
across the Middle East and inspires haters of the West living in the West.
The U.S. pullout from Syria is being called a victory for Vladimir Putin. "Russia, Iran,
Assad are ecstatic!" wailed Senator Lindsey Graham.
Graham was echoed by Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse who called the withdrawal a "retreat" and
charged that Trump's generals "believe the high-fiving winners today are Iran, ISIS and
Hezbollah."
But ISIS is a Sunni terrorist organization. And as such, it detests the Alawite regime of
Bashar Assad, and Hezbollah and Iran, both of which are viewed by ISIS as Shiite heretics.
"Russia, Iran, Syria are not happy about the US leaving," Trump tweeted, "despite what the Fake
News says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others, who they hate, without us."
If Putin, victorious in the Syrian civil war, wishes to fight al-Qaeda and ISIS, the last
major enemies of Assad in Syria, why not let him?
The real losers?
Certainly the Kurds, who lose their American ally. Any dream they had of greater autonomy
inside Syria, or an independent state, is not going to be realized. But then, that was never
really in the cards.
Forced to choose between Turkey, with 80 million people and the second-largest army in
NATO, which sits astride the Dardanelles and Bosphorus entrance to the Black Sea, and the
stateless Kurds with their Syrian Democratic Forces, or YPG, Trump chose Recep Tayyip
Erdogan.
And Erdogan regards the YPG as kinfolk and comrades of the Kurdish terrorist PKK in
Turkey. A week ago, he threatened to attack the Kurds in northern Syria, though U.S. troops are
embedded alongside them. What kind of deal did Trump strike with Erdogan? Turkey will purchase
the U.S. Patriot anti-aircraft and missile defense system for $3.5 billion, and probably forego
the Russian S-400. Trump also told Erdogan that we "would take a look at" extraditing Muslim
cleric Fethullah Gulen whom the Turkish president says instigated the 2016 coup attempt that
was to end with his assassination.
National security advisor John Bolton, who said U.S. troops would remain in Syria until all
Iranian forces and Iran-backed militias have been expelled, appears not to have been speaking
for his president. And if the Israelis were relying on U.S. forces in Syria to intercept any
Iranian weapons shipments headed to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Damascus, then they are going
to have to make other arrangements.
The war party project, to bring about regime change in Tehran through either crippling
sanctions leading to insurrection or a U.S.-Iranian clash in the Gulf, will suffer a severe
setback with the U.S. pullout from Syria.
However, given the strength of the opposition to a U.S. withdrawal -- Israel, Saudi Arabia,
the GOP foreign policy establishment in Congress and the think tanks, liberal interventionists
in the Beltway press, Trump's own national security team of advisors -- the battle to overturn
Trump's decision has probably only just begun.
From FDR's abandonment of 100 million East Europeans to Stalin at Yalta in 1945 to the
abandonment of our Nationalist Chinese allies to Mao in 1949 and of our South Vietnamese allies
in 1975, America has often been forced into retreats leading to the deaths of allies. Senator
Sasse says Trump is risking the same outcome: "A lot of American allies will be slaughtered if
this retreat is implemented."
But is that true?
Trump's decision to pull out of Syria at least has assured us of a national debate on what
it will mean to America to extricate our country from these Mideast wars. It is the kind of
debate we have not had in the 15 years since we were first deceived into invading Iraq.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and
read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com .
I believe "Syria" is a war crime planned and plotted by some western governments and their
allies. They are even reportedly financing and assisting terrorists. Which is criminal and
treasonous
-- -- --
"With their command and control centre based in Istanbul, Turkey, military supplies from
Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular were transported by Turkish intelligence to the border
for rebel acquisition. CIA operatives along with Israeli and Jordanian commandos were also
training FSA rebels on the Jordanian-Syrian border with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.
In addition, other reports show that British and French military were also involved in these
secret training programmes. It appears that the same FSA rebels receiving this elite training
went straight into ISIS – last month one ISIS commander, Abu Yusaf, said, 'Many of the
FSA people who the west has trained are actually joining us.'" Nafeez Ahmed http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/12/how-the-west-created-the-islamic-state/
-- -- -- -- --
"Under U.S. law it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda,
ISIS or other terrorist groups. If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or
ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the U.S. government has been violating this law for
years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and
other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to
overthrow the Syrian government.[i] Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, December 8, 2016,Press Release.
https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/video-rep-tulsi-gabbard-introduces-legislation-stop-arming-terrorists
-- -- -- -- --
There is further abundant evidence available at links below: http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-christmas-report-on-crimes-of-war.html
"At the very least, America will have its first serious debate on its Mideast wars since 2003
. It is the kind of debate we have not had in the 15 years since we were first deceived into
invading Iraq."
Finally Mr Buchanan and I agree on something of substance. And I cannot believe I am in
agreement with Trump on this too (even though it was quite clumsy). Will wonders never
cease?
I hate that Trump will probably throw the Kurds under the bus since they acted as our
allies and suffered for it. And if I was Mr Fethullah Gulen I would be packing my bags for
Canada.
However, well done, sir. Now let the debate begin.
I think what is to be accomplished by the US staying in the Middle East? Hasn't over 17 years
and $600 billion spent and over a million dead been price enough? Hopefully, Syria is the 1st
step in ending American military involvement in the Middle East. America has enough to do in
taking care of serious issues here at home. As for the Middle East, let Israel, Saudia
Arabia, Turkey, Iran and other countries and ethnic groups who reside there solve their own
damn problems.
As a European it feels strange to feel this pro-Trump all of a sudden. Before you know it,
I'll order a MAGA cap (I'm always safe with that because carnaval is coming).
Russia just landed a nuclear bomber in Venezuela. Russia and China are making SIGNIFICANT
inroads in the Caribbean, Central America, South America and Africa.
If Israel comes under serious threat, the US will be there to assist in its defense but
the time has come when the US has to admit that the parasite freeloader nations like Europe
and Israel are coming at to high a cost a cost that is both distracting and obstructing the
US from being where it is really needed to deal with China and Russia.
People sit on their collective fat asses inside The Beltway within the confines of some book
lined conference room and make decisions involving the lives of thousands of young men and
women–other people's sons and daughters (never their own)– who may be dispatched
to take a bullet in anger. And over what? Making the MidEast "free for democracy"?
I dislike Trump even though I reluctantly voted for him only to keep the Congenital Liar
out of the White House. One of the few positives he exhibited was a desire to extricate the
United States from that MidEast hell-hole. For once at least he has delivered. Whether he
will succeed, however, remains to be seen. After all, the Beltway is swarming with chicken
hawks.
Very zero sum gain way of thinking. How can the US not spending hundreds of billions on a
lost cause be a win for Russia? Sounds more like a win for the US. I think the Syrian
government with Russia and Iran should be enough to demolish the physical caliphate.
Destroying ISIS ? Good luck with that suppress it OK but destroy easier said then done. How
have we done against, the Mafia? the IRA? drug cartels and so on and so forth. For those who
want to stay is there ever a set of conditions which would be satisfied allowing you to
leave? We are still in Germany, I think the Nazis are gone you can relax, if it was the
Soviets you worry about also gone by about 3 decades. If we can't accept that Germany is
sufficiently stable to no longer be blessed with our presence when oh when would Syria be
viewed as stable?
I have regretted voting for trump for many reasons. I concede that IF USA military leaves
Syria, this is a very positive development. He should now do the same for Afghanistan and
many other places around the world.
Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian military have done a fine job of keeping IS on the
run. Let's hope they can finish the job.
In this issue at least I support Trump a hundred percent, and I think a lot of Americans
agree.
He's finally doing what he promised to do during the campaign.
I have been very unhappy with him, but if he follows through on this I'll give him credit.
Given the lock that the elites and establishment have on the media, it took guts. It's good
to see he has some.
While I didn't vote for this excrescence in The White House, I will give credit where credit
is due. Hillary's neocon impulses would have been infinitely worse here.
Still, looking at this past week, I can't help thinking about that whole Flight 93 thing.
But two years into The Trump presidency, it's starting to look more like that disaster movie
camp-fest Airport 1975, where we have crossed-eyed stewardess Karen Black trying to land the
stricken 747. In her immortal words to flight control: "Something hit us! There's no one left
to fly the plane! HELP US! OH MY GOD HELP US!!!"
ISIS was created by the US as a part of its divide and conquer strategy. General Flynn blew
the whistle on it which is why he has been vilified. Flynn spoke the truth on ISIS and lied
to the FBI! Horrors.
Now ISIS has been "defeated" and the US Quixote can focus on other windmills.
Except now comes the Syria encore, Afghanistan. Chalk up another loss for team USA.
Flynn "treason" is not related to Russia probe and just confirm that Nueller in engaged in witch hunt.
I believe half of Senate and House of Representative might go to jail if they were dug with the ferocity Mueller digs Flynn's past.
So while Flynn behavior as Turkey lobbyist (BTW Turkey is a NATO country and not that different int his sense from the US -- and you
can name a lot of UK lobbyists in high echelons of the US government, starting with McCabe and Strzok) is reprehensible, this is still a witch hunt
When American law enforcement and intelligence officials, who carry Top Secret clearances and authority to collect intelligence
or pursue a criminal investigation, decide to employ lies and intimidation to silence or intimidates those who worked for Donald
Trump's Presidency, we see shadow of Comrage Stalin Great Terror Trials over the USA.
Former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn passes by members of the
media as he departs after his sentencing was delayed at U.S. District Court in
Washington, U.S., December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
By Jan Wolfe and Ginger Gibson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge fiercely criticized President Donald
Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday for lying to
FBI agents in a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and
delayed sentencing him until Flynn has finished helping prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan told Flynn, a retired U.S. Army
lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
that he had arguably betrayed his country. Sullivan also noted that Flynn had
operated as an undeclared lobbyist for Turkey even as he worked on Trump's
campaign team and prepared to be his White House national security adviser.
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his December 2016
conversations with Sergei Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador in Washington,
about U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow by the administration of Trump's
Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, after Trump's election victory but before
he took office.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, leading the investigation into possible
collusion between Trump's campaign team and Russia ahead of the election, had
asked the judge not to sentence Flynn to prison because he had already
provided "substantial" cooperation over the course of many interviews.
But Sullivan sternly told Flynn his actions were abhorrent, noting that
Flynn had also lied to senior White House officials, who in turn misled the
public. The judge said he had read additional facts about Flynn's behavior
that have not been made public.
At one point, Sullivan asked prosecutors if Flynn could have been charged
with treason, although the judge later said he had not been suggesting such a
charge was warranted.
"Arguably, you sold your country out," Sullivan told Flynn. "I'm not hiding
my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense."
Flynn, dressed in a suit and tie, showed little emotion throughout the
hearing, and spoke calmly when he confirmed his guilty plea and answered
questions from the judge.
Sullivan appeared ready to sentence Flynn to prison but then gave him the
option of a delay in his sentencing so he could fully cooperate with any
pending investigations and bolster his case for leniency. The judge told Flynn
he could not promise that he would not eventually sentence him to serve prison
time.
Flynn accepted that offer. Sullivan did not set a new date for sentencing
but asked Mueller's team and Flynn's attorney to give him a status report by
March 13.
Prosecutors said Flynn already had provided most of the cooperation he
could, but it was possible he might be able to help investigators further.
Flynn's attorney said his client is cooperating with federal prosecutors in a
case against Bijan Rafiekian, his former business partner who has been charged
with unregistered lobbying for Turkey.
Rafiekian pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to those charges in federal court
in Alexandria, Virginia. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 11. Flynn is
expected to testify.
Prosecutors have said Rafiekian and Flynn lobbied to
have Washington extradite a Muslim cleric who lives in the United States
and is accused by Turkey's government of backing a 2016 coup attempt. Flynn
has not been charged in that case.
'LOCK HER UP!'
Flynn was a high-profile adviser to Trump's campaign team. At the
Republican Party's national convention in 2016, Flynn led Trump's
supporters in cries of "Lock her up!" directed against Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton.
A group of protesters, including some who chanted "Lock him up,"
gathered outside the courthouse on Tuesday, along with a large inflatable
rat fashioned to look like Trump. Several Flynn supporters also were there,
cheering as he entered and exited. One held a sign that read, "Michael
Flynn is a hero."
Flynn became national security adviser when Trump took office in January
2017, but lasted only 24 days before being fired.
He told FBI investigators on Jan. 24, 2017, that he had not discussed
the U.S. sanctions with Kislyak when in fact he had, according to his plea
agreement. Trump has said he fired Flynn because he also lied to Vice
President Mike Pence about the contacts with Kislyak.
Trump has said Flynn did not break the law and has voiced support for
him, raising speculation the Republican president might pardon him.
"Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting
to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him,
about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful
political campaign. There was no Collusion!" Trump wrote on Twitter on
Tuesday morning.
After the hearing, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters
the FBI had "ambushed" Flynn in the way agents questioned him, but said his
"activities" at the center of the case "don't have anything to do with the
president" and disputed that Flynn had committed treason.
"We wish General Flynn well," Sanders said.
In contrast, Trump has called his former long-time personal lawyer
Michael Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to separate charges, a "rat."
Mueller's investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election and
whether Trump has unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe has cast a shadow
over his presidency. Several former Trump aides have pleaded guilty in
Mueller's probe, but Flynn was the first former Trump White House official
to do so. Mueller also has charged a series of Russian individuals and
entities.
Trump has called Mueller's investigation a "witch hunt" and has denied
collusion with Moscow.
Russia has denied meddling in the election, contrary to the conclusion
of U.S. intelligence agencies that have said Moscow used hacking and
propaganda to try to sow discord in the United States and boost Trump's
chances against Clinton.
Lying to the FBI carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in
prison. Flynn's plea agreement stated that he was eligible for a sentence
of between zero and six months.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Ginger
Gibson; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Kieran Murray and
Will Dunham)
"... christophere steele admitted before a british court today that he was hired by the clintons/obama/DNC to make up the dossier as a weapon to use against trump as a backup plan in case he won the election.. this proves the DNC lied, paid for a fake dossier, and comey admitted he knew the fake dossier was false before using it to get a FISC warrant and to spy on trump, which was used as an excuse for the mueller investigation.. yahoo news and leftwing media arent covering the story.. educate yourselves ..."
1 hour ago
When I read articles like this I look to see who wrote it, printed it etc. When I see
Bloomberg, Yahoo, HuffPo I approach it as fake news. Now I no longer watch any of Fox news
as they are fast becoming just like the rest of the propaganda outlets. This is just
inflammatory anti Trump drivel with no basis in fact.
O 1 hour
ago Was this the interview report that was written 7 months after the interview?
R 44 minutes ago
Actually this story is not accurate. Mueller released copies of the 302 memos, which are in
effect official documentation to a case file. The 302 was dated seven months after the
interview, when the FBI policy requires such reports to be filed within five days. The
judge will ask tomorrow for copies of agent's contemporaneous interview notes and any other
documents supporting what is written in the 302, as well as an explanation for the delay in
filing the memo. 1
hour ago You mean the notes the FBI, in the person of one Peter Strzok, (yes that Strozk)
made seven months after he was interviewed? with the required 302 documents that are either
to be taken extemporaneously or done within days of the interview being dated months later?
You mean those notes?!!!! Nice try Bloomberg, but no amount of yellow journalism spin will
stop this case from being thrown out! 15 minutes ago christophere steele
admitted before a british court today that he was hired by the clintons/obama/DNC to make
up the dossier as a weapon to use against trump as a backup plan in case he won the
election.. this proves the DNC lied, paid for a fake dossier, and comey admitted he knew
the fake dossier was false before using it to get a FISC warrant and to spy on trump, which
was used as an excuse for the mueller investigation.. yahoo news and leftwing media arent
covering the story.. educate yourselves 1 hour ago Not so bias garbage news .. they
entrapped him what 302 form you want to go with .. FBI doctored the original.. FBI
curuption runs rampant.. comey lied so much about knowing about fake dossier.. then what
the hell was he doing.. comey the tall guy phony
On Friday, 14 December 2018, the office of "special counsel" Robert Mueller filed a reply to Gen. Michael Flynn's sentencing
memorandum by the court's deadline, as noted on the court clerk's docket sheet--
"12/14/2018 56 REPLY by USA as to MICHAEL T. FLYNN to Defendant's Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing (Attachments: # 1 Attachment
A, # 2 Attachment B)(Van Grack, Brandon) (Entered: 12/14/2018)".
Judge Emmet Sullivan in an order on 12 December stated: "In 50 defendant's memorandum in aid of sentencing, the
defendant quotes and cites a 'Memorandum dated Jan. 24, 2017.' See page 8 n. 21, 22. The defendant also quotes and cites a 'FD-302
dated Aug. 22, 2017.' See page 9 n. 23-27. The defendant is ORDERED to file on the docket FORTHWITH the cited Memorandum and FD-302.
The Court further ORDERS the government to file on the docket any 302s or memoranda relevant to the circumstances discussed on
pages 7-9 of the defendant's sentencing memorandum by no later than 3:00 p.m. on December 14, 2018."
In response to Judge Sullivan's order, the Mueller group attached to its reply memo two noticeably blacked out (redacted) documents,
which turned out to be the same ones that were referred to in Flynn's memo raising the issue of FBI conduct surrounding his interview,
and were nothing additional or new!
The government's reply and two documents that were filed are here--
The two redacted documents are the "January 24, 2017" memo and the "FD-302 dated Aug. 22, 2017", which were cited in the court's
order and which Flynn's lawyers apparently already had, or knew what they were about. Judge Sullivan ordered the Mueller
group to produce "any 302s or memoranda relevant to the circumstances discussed on pages 7-9
of the defendant's sentencing memorandum", not just the two that were already known [emphasis added]. The "Attachment B"
is not the form 302 by an agent who interviewed Flynn on 24 January 2017, but rather is a 302 report by an unknown person of an
interview of now former FBI agent Peter Strzok on 20 July 2017, in which Strzok allegedly talks about some things that happened
on 24 January.
Unless the "special counsel" filed a complete set of unredacted documents with a motion (request) for leave to file them under
seal, the reply is on its face a violation of the court's disclosure order.
As 'blue peacock' said in a comment to the posting
on this issue of 14 December, it will be interesting to see what Judge Sullivan does about the response by the Mueller group.
Both documents are heavily blacked out. The form 302 does include the language that the agents at the Flynn interview
"had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying". Since this had already been
revealed in news and mass media reports, they basically had to disclose that little part, otherwise it probably would have
been redacted as well.
On the bottom right corner of each page is a number, which is usually referred to as a "Bates stamp", after the name of
the numbering machines that are often used to number and identify documents that are produced in a lawsuit [1]. The pages
on the form 302 are numbered DOJSCO-700021201 to 05. The one-page typed paper (Attachment A) has number DOJSCO-700021215.
There are nine pages between those pages, but what those might be is not disclosed.
The Justice Department, FBI, and other federal departments are capable of trying to play semantic word games with requests
for information, such that if the exact name or abbreviation of the document or class of documents is not requested, they will
leave them out of their response. In this instance, the judge asked for "any 302s or memoranda" relevant to the circumstances.
The FBI has guidelines about the different types of records it keeps and they can have different names, such as LHM (letterhead
memorandum), EC (electronic communication), original note material, the FD-302, and so forth. There are also different
types of files and records systems. Thus, there may be some ducking and dodging of the court's order on the theory that
the exact types of records were not in the order.
Documents and records may also be generated when any investigative activity is started or requires approval, such as an
assessment, preliminary investigation, or a full investigation. Furthermore, an interesting issue is the type of authorized
activity the Flynn interview was part of: an assessment, preliminary investigation, or full investigation. Although
it is significantly redacted (in this instance whited out instead of blacked out), the FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations
Guide contains some useful information for trying to figure out what is going on with this issue [2].
If this problem with disclosure is not bad enough, on 11 December the Justice Department Inspector General (OIG) issued
a report with the bland title, "Report of Investigation: Recovery of Text Messages from Certain FBI Mobile Devices"-- https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2018/i-2018-003523.pdf
The OIG investigation began when it was discovered that there was a "gap in text message data collection during the period
December 15, 2016, through May 17, 2017, from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) mobile devices assigned to FBI employees
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page relevant to a matter being investigated by the OIG's Oversight and Review Division". Those
names are familiar. Thousands of the text messages were recovered.
In addition, the report states: "In view of the content of many of the text messages between Strzok and Page, the
OIG also asked the Special Counsel's Office (SCO) to provide to the OIG the DOJ issued iPhones that had been assigned to Strzok
and Page during their respective assignments to the SCO".
The result? After Strzok was forced to leave the special counsel's office, his iPhone was given to another FBI agent
and reset, wiping out the data. The Mueller group's "records officer" told the inspector general's office that "as part
of the office's records retention procedure, the officer reviewed Strzok's DOJ issued iPhone after he returned it to the SCO
and determined it contained no substantive text messages". In other words, after the Strzok and Page scandal erupted
because of text messages while Strzok was at the special counsel's office, the Mueller group decided itself that his other
cellular phone issued to him by the Department of Justice for the special counsel's office had no "substantive" messages on
it.
Strzok's paramour, Lisa Page, also had an iPhone issued to her by the Justice Department while she was at the special counsel's
office. The Mueller group said it could not find her phone, but it eventually was located at the DOJ's Justice Management
Division. It had been reset, wiping out the data, on 31 July 2017.
"...the officer reviewed Strzok's DOJ issued iPhone after he returned it to the SCO and determined it contained no substantive
text messages"..."
So what is the officer's name, what criterea was used in the review and just what relationship to the extended cast of characters
does this individual have?
It seems to me that this is very big news. Can it be that the Straight Arrow is bent, after all? This is amazing. There is
an article in the Daily Caller: "Powell: New Facts Indicate Mueller Destroyed Evidence..."
dailycaller.com/2018/12/16/...
As a former/retired Agent, I have combed through every piece of information regarding Mike's case, as if I was combing through
evidence in the hundreds of cases I have successfully handled while in the FBI.
The publicly reported Brady material alone, in this case, outweighs any statement given by any FBI Agent (we now know
at least one FD-302 was changed), Special Prosecutor investigator report, and any other party still aggressively seeking
that this case remain and be sentenced as a felony. Quite simply, I cannot see justice being served by branding LtG. Michael
Flynn a convicted felon, when the truth is still being revealed while policies, ethics, and laws have been violated by those
pursuing this case.
We now know all FBI employees involved in Mike Flynn's case have either been fired, forced to resign or forced to retire
because of their excessive lack of candor, punitive biases, leaking of information, and extensive cover-up of their deeds.
Michael Flynn has always displayed overwhelming candor and forthrightness.
The decision to indict Flynn ruins " esprit de corps " in the USA intelligence community. So
Partaigenosser Mulkler trying to depose Trump oversteped the "norms" of intelligence community.
And if CIA allied with FBI against DIA that's a bad sign. It looks like the US elite was split
into two warring camps that will fight for power absolutely ruthlessly.
As for "In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn 'clearly saw the FBI agents
as allies.' " the question arise how he got the to position of the head of DIA with such astounding level of naivety.
If anyone from FBI does not want your lawyer to be present you should probably have a lawyer present.
Notable quotes:
"... "The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview," the Flynn memo says. ..."
"... According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed , and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport." ..."
"... McCabe, who has since been fired for lying to the DOJ's Office of Inspector General about leaking information to the media, also asked Flynn not to have his lawyer present during the initial meeting with the FBI agents. ..."
"... On Thursday, FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com that Sullivan must also request all the communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017 time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request "the workflow chart, which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a supervisor and who approved them." ..."
"... Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI. Supporters of Flynn have questioned Mueller's tactics in getting the retired three-star general to plead guilty to this one count of lying. ..."
"... In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn "clearly saw the FBI agents as allies." Flynn is described as discussing a variety of "subjects." The report includes his openness regarding Trump's "knack for interior design," the hotels he stayed at during his campaign, as well as other issues. ..."
"... It would appear that the branch of government that may be out of control (by the Supreme Court) is the judiciary. It is the court rules and failure of the Supreme Court to act and weed its subordinate courts, that allowed much of this to happen. The FISA Court has been a rubber stamp. No judge is held accountable for failure to obtain justice in their court. ..."
"... Could Mueller's whole appointment be meant to protect the Clinton empire? ..."
The Special Counsel's Office released key documents related to former National Security
Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn Friday. Robert Mueller's office had until 3 p.m. to get the
documents to Judge Emmet Sullivan, who demanded information Wednesday after
bombshell information surfaced in a memorandum submitted by Flynn's attorney's that led to
serious concerns regarding the FBI's initial questioning of the retired three-star general.
The highly redacted documents included notes from former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
regarding his conversation with Flynn about arranging the interview with the FBI. The initial
interview took place at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017.
The documents also include the FBI's "302" report regarding Flynn's interview with
anti-Trump former FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka when they met with him at
the White House. It is not, however, the 302 document from the actual January, 2017 interview
but an August, 2017 report of Strzok's recollections of the interview.
Flynn's attorney's had noted in their memorandum to the courts that the documents revealed
that FBI officials made the decision not to provide Flynn with his Miranda Rights, which
would've have warned him of penalties for making false statements.
"The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false
statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview," the Flynn memo
says.
According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials "decided the
agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they
wanted Flynn to be relaxed , and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely
affect the rapport."
McCabe, who has since been fired for lying to the DOJ's Office of Inspector General about
leaking information to the media, also asked Flynn not to have his lawyer present during the
initial meeting with the FBI agents.
The July 2017 report, however, was the interview with Strzok. It described his interview
with Flynn but was not the original Flynn interview.
Apparent discrepancies within the 302 documents are being questioned by may former senior
FBI officials, who state that there are stringent policies in place to ensure that the
documents are guarded against tampering.
On Thursday, FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com that Sullivan must also request all the
communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017
time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an
expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request "the workflow chart,
which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a
supervisor and who approved them."
He stressed, "the bureau policy – the absolute FBI policy – is that the notes
must be placed in the system in a 1-A file within five days of the interview." Danik said that
the handwritten notes get placed into the FBI Sentinel System, which is the FBI's main record
keeping system. "Anything beyond five business days is a problem, eight months is a disaster,"
he added.
In the redacted 302 report Strzok and Pientka said they "both had the impression at the time
that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying." Information that Flynn was not lying
was first published
and reported by SaraACarter.com.
Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI. Supporters of Flynn have
questioned Mueller's tactics in getting the retired three-star general to plead guilty to this
one count of lying.
In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn
"clearly saw the FBI agents as allies." Flynn is described as discussing a variety of
"subjects." The report includes his openness regarding Trump's "knack for interior design," the
hotels he stayed at during his campaign, as well as other issues.
"Flynn was so talkative, and had so much time for them, that Strzok wondered if the
national security adviser did not have more important things to do than have a such a
relaxed, non-pertinent discussion with them," it said.
The documents turned over by Mueller also reveal that other FBI personnel "later argued
about the FBI's decision to interview Flynn." Tags Law Crime
Basically McCabe and others in his unit are totally discredited. He should have this
quashed and the case thrown out of court. No Miranda rights, therefore no lying to FBI.
Why didn't Flynn demand his day in court? He would have won. I am not buying the ********
argument about him being run into bankruptcy. Hell, he could have represented himself and
still won the case at trial. In addition, I am not buying this ******** argument that he
agreed to plead guilty because he was afraid the Mueller would go after his son. Does anyone
know what Flynn's son does for a living? Why would he be afraid?
Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI.
No! Flynn was not f ound guilty by Mueller on one count of lying. The FBI is an
investigative body (at best) not a judicial body. Only a jury or a judge acting in lieu of a
jury can find someone guilty of anything.
Flynn plead guilty to one count of lying because to have plead innocent would have
bankrupted him in legal fees. However, it's interesting that this ZH article stated that
Mueller found Flynn guilty. In federal courts these days, once you're charged with a crime
you will be found guilty. FBI, DEA, BATF, IRS...whoever, you do not get a fair trial. Federal
judges are hard-wired to find guilt. Vicious and ambitious federal prosecutors have only one
interest, to rack up successful prosecutions. Federal juries are intimidated by the brute
force of the federal system and, I suspect, fear that if they don't bring in a verdict
satisfactory to the prosecutor, they may be investigated themselves. "Investigation" in the
federal sense means that they will be relentlessly harassed forever by the federal
government
My small experience as a juror is that state prosecutors and judges are no different than
what you describe for the federal system. We found a guy non-guilty (not a close call either)
that the judge wanted convicted, and he came back and questioned us about our logic. Casually
of course. I just said the guy was innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge wasn't
pleased.
Flynn is an idiot.... why agree to talk to the FBI at all.... as Martha Stewart found
out.... if they can't make the case for what they're investigating... they'll just find some
statement in your "interview" that they claim was not true.... no matter if it was your
intention to lie or just a recollection that was wrong... and charge you with that!
Simple answer is that if law enforcement wants to "talk" to you they're looking to get
information to charge you.... simple reply.... FU... I want a lawyer!
The compromise of classified docs was really sort of candy-assed, everybody knew it . .
.
Rewind the tape, and you will find the contrite Petreaus in front of any and all
microphones confessing to his affair with Broadwell, which he repeatedly stated began on some
certain date . . .conveniently AFTER his confirmation as CIA director . . .
. . .certainly Petreaus was asked in his FBI background interview if he was involved in
any affairs. And he certainly said no.
So, Paula, since I'm on all the networks at the moment, I know you can hear me, our affair
started on X date, in case the FBI gets a notion to ask you (which they did not.)
See, the FBI takes lying seriously. But somebody must have said something along the lines
of: hey, Petreaus is a good guy, I hope you can find a way to let him off easy.
But when faced with financial destruction, your kids being threatened, and false evidence
against you, you sometimes admit to the charges to make a deal...
The military is realizing they are not on the same team with FBI, CIA, DOJ.
Why do you think they have tried so hard to keep NSA under military leadership? Wink,
wink...
Leguran
It would appear that the branch of government that may be out of control (by the Supreme Court) is the judiciary. It
is the court rules and failure of the Supreme Court to act and weed its subordinate courts, that allowed much of this to
happen. The FISA Court has been a rubber stamp. No judge is held accountable for failure to obtain justice in their court.
The Chief Justice has refused to accept that judges can employ personal poliltical beliefs in court. All courts are
subordinate to the US Supreme Court and therefore the Supreme Court has a duty to ensure justice not just to decide whether
cases are 'sufficiently mature' to come before the Supreme Court. In other words, the Judiciary needs to be disturbed from
their lifetime appointments and made conditional appointments. The Supreme Court needs to deal with incapacity within its own
ranks. All told, this shocking miscarriage of justice came about because the Judicial Branch of government allowed it to
happen. The Judicial Branch has run amok.
lizzie dw
IMO, Judge Emmet Sullivan needs to demand and receive the original UNREDACTED 302 about the Strzok/Pientka interview with
General Flynn. But, really, just by reading the pre-interview discussions of the FBI members involved, the whole thing sounds
fishy.
Caloot
Hedge headline:
Could Mueller's whole appointment be meant to protect the Clinton empire?
Like Trump or not, there are serious cracks appearing in the Clintons foundation.
Two days ago, federal judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington D.C.
ordered the "special counsel" Robert Mueller group to do the following by 3:00 p.m. eastern
time today, as shown on the court clerk's docket sheet--
"12/12/2018 MINUTE ORDER as to MICHAEL T. FLYNN. In 50 defendant's memorandum in aid of
sentencing, the defendant quotes and cites a 'Memorandum dated Jan. 24, 2017.' See page 8 n.
21, 22. The defendant also quotes and cites a 'FD-302 dated Aug. 22, 2017.' See page 9 n.
23-27. The defendant is ORDERED to file on the docket FORTHWITH the cited Memorandum and
FD-302. The Court further ORDERS the government to file on the docket any 302s or memoranda
relevant to the circumstances discussed on pages 7-9 of the defendant's sentencing memorandum
by no later than 3:00 p.m. on December 14, 2018. Should the parties seek to file such material
under seal, the parties may file motions for leave to do so. The government is also ORDERED to
file its reply to the defendant's sentencing memorandum by no later than 3:00 p.m. on December
14, 2018. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on 12/12/2018. (lcegs3) (Entered: 12/12/2018)"
Judge Sullivan is a Black lawyer who came up the hard way, going to Washington D.C. public
schools and Howard University and its law school. Howard University has been a reputable
university with a full curriculum as it provided education to Black Americans from the time of
segregation. He was appointed by three different U.S. presidents to judicial positions, by
Reagan, Bush sr, and Bill Clinton [1].
The actions and investigation regarding Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) beginning when he was
removed as National Security Advisor to president Trump have seemed odd and not to square with
past behavior and the normal course of things. With little information available publicly it is
very difficult to look at the issue and pick through information, since it has been mainly
hidden behind the skirts of the Mueller "investigation", which was supposed to look at
"interference" by the Russian government in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Flynn's sentencing is set for next Tuesday, 18 December. However, that is subject to change,
depending on what is filed today. I will try to provide some relevant items from the court
clerk's file that you can read to bring yourself up to date about the court case from what is
available; some items are still filed under seal, and the probation office presentence
investigation report (PSI) is kept private as a matter of federal judicial policy.
That defense would be more effective if Flynn was a bewildered youth or someone with
diminished mental capacities being badgered in a police interrogation room.
Flynn certainly acted like a bewildered, naive person.
Did he think that the FBI was showing up to ask about his health?
Was he really the Director of DIA......or did he just stay in a Holiday Inn?
Thank you Robert. It's good to have someone like judge Sullivan presiding over this case.
We'll have to wait and see, but a lot of what I have gathered so far suggests Gen. Flynn is a
man of honorable character who has been raked over for mostly political reasons.
In the meantime, has anyone investigated the leak that supposedly caught Flynn talking to the
Russian Amb?
That apparently did harm sources and methods.
But,noooooooooo, no investigation.
The swamp cares not a whit for national security, but yet constantly lectures us
"deplorables" about their great talent and dedication - they'd all be Fortune 500 CEO's if
they weren't so dedicated.
There are probably a few dedicated talented people trying to do the right thing, but the
bureaucracy - including the Intel. agencies/FBI (VERY important people "risking" their lives,
BTW) - has shown over and over to be populated mostly by self-enriching slugs.
The leak was that USI and LE were listening in on the Russian Ambassador's conversations by
turning his smartphone into a hot mic by exploiting well-known SS7 vulnerabilities. This
hardly reveals anything new about sources and methods. Any one who wants to keep secrets
shouldn't be carrying a smartphone and any ambassador who thinks the host government doesn't
keep him under surveillance is hopelessly naive.
Was it a leak or was it just an assumption of the obvious surveillance of Kislyak? Pence is
the one who confirmed Flynn talked to Kislyak about lifting sanctions and lied to him about
it.
Former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz has asked SaraACarter.com to post her letter to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan
in support of her friend and colleague retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who will be
sentenced on Dec. 18. The Special Counsel's Office has requested that Flynn not serve any
jail time due to his cooperation with Robert Mueller's office. Based on new information
contained in a memorandum submitted to the court this week by Flynn's attorney, Sullivan has
ordered Mueller's office to turn over all exculpatory evidence and government documents on
Flynn's case by mid-day Friday. Sullivan is also requesting any documentation regarding the
first interviews conducted by former anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka
-known by the FBI as 302s- which were found to be dated more than seven months after the
interviews were conducted on Jan. 24, 2017, a violation of FBI policy, say current and former
FBI officials familiar with the process. According to information contained in Flynn's
memorandum, the interviews were dated Aug. 22, 2017.
Read Gritz's letter below... (emphasis added)
The Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan. December 5, 2018 U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20001
Re: Sentencing of Lt. General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.)
Dear Judge Sullivan:
I am submitting my letter directly since Mike Flynn's attorney has refused to submit it as
well as letters submitted by other individuals. I feel you need to hear from someone who was an
FBI Special Agent who not only worked with Mike, but also has personally witnessed and reported
unethical & sometimes illegal tactics used to coerce targets of investigations externally
and internally.
About Myself and FBI Career
For 16 years, I proudly served the American people as a Special Agent working diligently on
significant terrorism cases which earned noteworthy results and fostered substantial
interagency cooperation. Prior to serving in the FBI I was a Juvenile Probation Officer in
Camden, NJ. Currently, I am a Senior Information Security Metrics and Reporting Analyst with
Discover Financial Services in the Chicago Metro area. I have recently been named as a Senior
Fellow to the London Center for Policy Research.
While in the FBI, I served as a Special Agent, Supervisory Special Agent, Assistant
Inspector, Unit Chief, and a Senior Liaison Officer to the CIA. I served on the NSC's Hostage
and Personnel Working Group and brought numerous Americans out of captivity and was part of the
interagency team to codify policies outlining the whole of government approach to hostage
cases.
In November 2007, I was selected over 26 other candidates to become the Supervisory Special
Agent, CT Extraterritorial Squad; Washington Field Office (WFO) in Washington, DC. At WFO, I
led a squad of experts in extraterritorial evidence collection, overseas investigations,
operational security during terrorist attacks/events, and overseas criminal investigations. I
coordinated and managed numerous high profile investigations (Blackwater, Chuckie Taylor,
Robert Levinson, and other pivotal cases) comprised of teams from US and foreign intelligence,
military, and law enforcement agencies. I was commended for displaying comprehensive leadership
performance under pressure, extensive teamwork skills, while conducting critical investigative
analysis within and outside the FBI.
In December 2009, I was promoted to GS-15 Unit Chief (UC) of the Executive Strategy Unit,
Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD). While the UC, I codified the WMDD five-year
strategic plan, formulated goals and objectives throughout the division, while translating the
material into a directorate scorecard with cascading measurements reflecting functional and
operational unit areas. This was the only time in Washington, DC when I did not work with of
for McCabe.
From September to December 2010, I was selected as the FBI's top candidate to represent the
FBI, and the USG in a rigorous, intellectually stimulating; 12 week course for civilian
government officials, military officers, and government academics at the George C. Marshall
Center in Garmisch, Germany, Executive Program in Advanced Security Studies. The class was
comprised of 141 participants from 43 countries.
I have received numerous recommendations and commendations for my professionalism, liaison
and interpersonal ability and experience . Additionally, I have been rated Excellent or
Outstanding for my entire career, to include by Andrew McCabe when I was stationed at the
Washington Field Office. Further, other awards of note are: West Chester University 2005 Legacy
of Leadership recipient, Honored with House of Representatives Citation for Exemplary record of
Service, Leadership, and Achievements: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Awarded with a framed
Horn of Africa blood chit from the Department of Defense and Office of the DASD (POW/MPA/MIA)
for my work in bringing Americans Out of captivity, "Patriot, Law Enforcement Warrior, and
Friend."
Length of Association with Flynn, McCabe, and Mueller
I met Michael Flynn in 2005, while working in the Counterterrorism Division (CTD) at FBI
Headquarters (FBIHQ).
I met then Supervisory Special Agent Andrew McCabe, when he reported to CTD at FBIHQ, around
the same time. McCabe subsequently was the Assistant Section Chief over my unit, my Assistant
Special Agent in Charge at the Washington Field Office, and the Assistant Director (AD) over
CTD when I encountered the discrimination and McCabe spearheaded the retaliation personally
(according to documentation) against me.
I have known both men for 12-13 years and worked directly with both throughout my career.
They are on the opposite spectrum of each other with regard to truthfulness, temperament, and
ethics, both professionally and personally.
I regularly briefed former FBI Director and Special Prosecutor Mueller on controversial and
complex cases and attended Deputies meetings at the White house with then Deputy Director
Pistole. I got along with both and trusted both. Watching what has been done to Mike and
knowing someone on the 7th floor had to have notified Mueller of my situation (Pistole had
retired), has been significantly distressing to me.
Lt.G. Michael T. Flynn:
Mike and I were counterparts on a DOJ-termed ground-breaking initiative which served as a
model for future investigations, policies, legislation and FBI programs in the Terrorist Use of
the Internet. For this multi-faceted and leading-edge joint operation, I was commended by Gen.
Stanley McChrystal, Gen. Keith Alexander (NSA Director), and LtG. Michael Flynn as well as
others for leading the FBI's pivotal participation in this dynamic and innovative interagency
operation. I received two The National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation (NIMUC) I for my
role in this operation. The NIMUC is an award of the National Intelligence Awards Program, for
contributions to the United States Intelligence Community.
Mick Flynn has consistently and candidly been honest and straightforward with me since the
day I met him in 2005. He has been a mentor and someone I trust to give me frank advice when I
ask for his opinion. His caring nature has shown through especially when he saw me being torn
apart by the FBI and he felt compelled to write a letter in support of me. He further took the
extra step to comment on my character in an NPR article and interview exposing the wrongdoings
in my case and others who have stood up for truth and against discrimination/retaliation.
Senator Grassley also commented on my behalf. NPR characterized this action against me as a
"warning shot" to individuals who stood up to individuals such as McCabe.
The day after I resigned from the FBI, while I was crying, Mike reached out and
congratulated me on my early retirement. I really needed to hear that from someone I respected
so much. His support for the last 13 years has been unparalleled and extremely valuable in
helping me get through the trauma of betrayal, unethical behavior, illegal activity executed
against me and to rebuild my life. Additionally, his support has helped my family in dealing
with their painful emotions regarding my situation. My parents wanted me to pass on to you that
they are blessed that I have had a compassionate and supportive individual on my side
throughout this trying time.
Mike has been a respected leader by his peers and by FBI Agents and Analysts who have
interacted with him. I personally feel he is the finest leader I have ever worked with or for
in my career. Our continued friendship and subsequent friendship with his family has helped all
of us cope with the stress a situation like this puts on individuals and families.
It is so very painful to watch an American hero, and my friend, torn apart like this. His
family has had to endure what no family should have to. I know this because of the damaging
effect my case had on my parent's health, finances, and emotional well-being. Mike and I both
had to sell our houses due to legal fees, endured smear campaigns (mostly by the same
individual, McCabe). I ended up being deemed homeless by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was
on public assistance and endured extensive health and emotional damage due to the retaliation.
Mike kept in touch and kept me motivated. He has always reached out to help me with whatever he
could.
The Process is the Punishment
Thomas Fitton of Judicial Watch commented to me that the "Process is the punishment." This
is the most accurate description I have heard regarding the time Mike has gone through with
this process and the year and a half I was ostracized and idled before I resigned. This process
is one which many FBI employees, current, retired and former, feel was brought to the FBI by
Mueller and he subsequently brought this to the Special Prosecutor investigation.
It also fostered the behavior among FBI "leadership" which we find ourselves shocked at when
revealed on a daily basis. Is this the proper way to seek justice? I say no. I swore to uphold
the Constitution while protecting the civil rights of the American people. I believe many
individuals involved in Mike's case have lost their way and could care less about protection of
due process, civil and legal rights of who they are targeting. Mike has had extensive
punishment throughout this process. This process has punished him harder than anyone else
could.
Andrew McCabe
I believe I have a unique inside view of the mannerisms surrounding Andrew McCabe, other FBI
Executive Management and Former Director Mueller, as well as the unethical and coercive tactics
they use, not to seek the truth, but to coerce pleas or admissions to end the pain, as I call
it. They destroy lives for their own agendas instead of seeking the truth for the American
people. Candor is something that should be encouraged and used by leadership to have necessary
and continued improvement. Under Mueller, it was seen as a threat and viciously opposed by
those he pulled up in the chain of command.
I am explaining this because numerous Agents have expressed the need for you to know
McCabe's and Mueller's pattern of "target and destroy" has been utilized on many others,
without regard for policies and laws. I, myself, am a casualty of this reprehensible behavior
and I have spoken to well over 150 other FBI individuals who are casualties as well.
I am the individual who filed the Hatch Act complaint against McCabe and provided
significant evidentiary documents obtained via FOIA, open source, and information from current,
former, and retired Special Agents. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) asked why my filing of
the complaint was delayed from the actual acts. I said I personally thought I was providing
additional information to what should have been an automatic referral to OSC by FBI OPR. I was
notified I was the only complainant. This illustrates not only a fatal flaw in OPR AD Candice
Will not making the appropriate and crucial referral, but also shows the fear of those within
the FBI to report individuals like McCabe for fear of retaliation.
While serving at the CIA, detailed by the FBI in January 2012, I was responsible for
overseas investigations, as opposed to Continental United States-based (CONUS) cases.
Unfortunately, during my assignment at the CIA, I encountered extensive discrimination by two
FBI Special Agents and subsequently, in 2012, I filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO)
complaint. Instead of addressing the issues, then CTD Assistant Director Andrew McCabe chose to
authorize a retaliatory Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigation against me,
five days after my EEO contact. The OPR referral he signed was authored by the two individuals
I had filed the EEO complaint against. In his signed sworn statement, McCabe admitted he knew I
had filed or was going to file the EEO.
Numerous members of my department at the CIA requested to be spoken with by CTD executive
management, regarding my work ethic and accomplishments. However, CTD, Inspection Division, and
OPR disregarded the list of names and contact numbers I submitted. This is an example of
knowing you are being targeted and the truth is not being sought.
Although my time at this position was short, I was commended by my CIA direct supervisor
for: "having already contributed more than your predecessor in the short time you have been
here." My predecessor had been assigned to the post for 18 months; I had been there four
months.
In contrast and showing lack of candor, McCabe wrote on official documents the following
statement, contradicting the actual direct supervisor I worked with daily:
"SA Gritz had to be removed from a prior position in an interagency environment, due to
inappropriate communications and general performance issues"
This is one of many comments McCabe used to discredit my reputation and to ostracize me.
McCabe knew me as someone who told the truth, worked hard, got results, and was always willing
to be flexible when needed. He was also acutely aware of the excellent relationships I had
formed in the USG interagency due to comments made by individuals from numerous agencies. Yet,
he continued to make false statements on official documents. He has done this to numerous other
very valuable FBI employees, destroying their careers and lives. He used similar tactics of
lies against Flynn. It should be noted, McCabe was very aware of my professional association
with Mike Flynn.
In July 5, 2012, I was involuntarily pulled back to CTD from the CIA. I was told McCabe made
the decision. A year and a month later, I resigned from the job I absolutely loved and was good
at. All because of the lack of candor of numerous individuals within the FBI.
Unethical and
dishonest investigative tactics
Throughout the last year, I have kept abreast of the revelations surrounding anything
related to Mike's case. I believe, from my years at the FBI and in exposing corruption and
discrimination, the circumstances surrounding the targeting, investigation, leaking, and
coercion of him to plea are all consistent with the unethical process I and many others have
witnessed at the FBI. The charge which Mike Flynn plead to was the result of deception,
intimidation, and bias/agenda. Simply, Mike is being branded a convicted felon due to an
unethical and dishonest investigation by people who were malicious, vindictive, and corrupt.
They wished to silence Mike, like they had once silenced me.
The American people have read the Strzok/Page text messages, the conflicting testimony and
lack of candor statements of former Director Comey, the perceived overstepping of the
reasonable scope of the Special Prosecutor's investigation, the extensive unethical,
untruthful, and outright illegal behavior of Andrew McCabe, to include slanderous statements
against Flynn, and the facts found within FOIA released documents and Congressional testimony.
As a former/retired Agent, I have combed through every piece of information regarding Mike's
case, as if I was combing through evidence in the hundreds of cases I have successfully handled
while in the FBI.
The publicly reported Brady material alone, in this case, outweighs any statement given by
any FBI Agent (we now know at least one FD-302 was changed), Special Prosecutor investigator
report, and any other party still aggressively seeking that this case remain and be sentenced
as a felony. Quite simply, I cannot see justice being served by branding LtG. Michael Flynn a
convicted felon, when the truth is still being revealed while policies, ethics, and laws have
been violated by those pursuing this case.
We now know all FBI employees involved in Mike Flynn's case have either been fired, forced
to resign or forced to retire because of their excessive lack of candor, punitive biases,
leaking of information, and extensive cover-up of their deeds.
Summation
Michael Flynn has always displayed overwhelming candor and forthrightness. One of the main
individuals involved in his case is Andrew McCabe, who used similar tactics against me in my
case, of which Mike Flynn defended me by penning a letter of character reference and is a
witness. Seeing McCabe was named as a Responding Management Official in my case, he should have
recused himself with anything having to do with a character witness on my behalf against him
and DOJ.
I'm told by numerous people, but have been unable to confirm, that McCabe was asked why he
was so viciously going after Flynn; my name was mentioned. I do know, from experience with
McCabe, he is a vindictive individual and I have no doubt Mike's support of me fueled McCabe's
disdain and personally vindictive aggressive unethical activities in this case . It matches his
behavior in my case.
Reliable fact-finding is essential to procedural due process and to the accuracy and
uniformity of sentencing. I'm unsure if the fact-finding in this case is reliable, nor do I
think we currently have all the facts.
The punishment which LtG. Flynn has already endured this past year, due to the nature of the
case, legal fees and reputation damage, is punishment enough. He is a true patriot, a loving
husband and father, a devoted grandfather, a trusted friend, and has a close knit family made
up of compassionate and honest individuals. To be branded a felon, is a major hit to a hero who
protected the American people for 33 years. I do not think society would benefit from Mike
Flynn going to jail nor being branded as a convicted felon. Not knowing the sentencing
guidelines for this charge but if there is any chance that the case can be downgraded to a
misdemeanor, this would be an act of justice that numerous Americans need to see to stay
hopeful for further justice.
This lady is seriously brave. She confirms one more reason i strongly support our Second
Amendment; it's to protect us from tyrants and corrupt people like McCabe, Ohr, Comey and
Mueller. Oh yes. I almost forget Rosenstein who should be hung for treason also.
WOW...all this time I had been asking where are the whistle blowers and kept saying,
certainly not all the FBI are this corrupt -and further asked are they being threatened to
not come forward?"
Well, the later sure seems true when you consider Ms. Gristz statements, particularly "
the fear of those within the FBI to report individuals like McCabe for fear of retaliation.
"
This is the level of corruption that ought to bring this entire cabal to their knees and
place them behind bars. Hopefully Judge Sullivan's intuitions will be bolstered by Ms.
Gristz' letter.
The FBI is corrupt to the core...from top to bottom. If she joined the FBI to "uphold the
Constitution" or "serve the American People" or some other horseshit then that was her first
mistake. The FBI is a completely corrupt & unconstitutional organization that protects
only the (((globalists))) and other enemies of freedom. The Hoover Buliding should be
padlocked and all of the agents of evil put on trial for treason.
Flynn was an example to the rest of the Trump supporters. His guilt or innocense was/is
meaningless and irrlevant to the Prog Attack Dogs. The message was/is clear:
"We are the Power. Resistance is futile. Bend your knee or we will destroy you."
It is prudent for reasonable people to believe that the Progs have spent the past couple
years destroying evidence that can be used against their gods (Obama, Clinton, Soros, etc.)
and their cohorts.
There is no penalty or negative consequence for the Mueller team who engaged in
"unethical" activity. None of them will have to answer to anyone or disgorge the millions of
dollars in "fees" they have been paid by the Sheeple.
All Progs must hang.
Christopher Wray must hang next.
"... Brexit can be considered as the rebuilding of the old nation state wall between England and the Continent. To an extent, this is a repudiation of the Globalist Movement, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Neo-Liberal Experiment. In it's essence, Trumps Wall is a repudiation of the NAFTA Consensus. The American 'deplorables' support it because they see it as a means of defending their livelihoods from those hordes of 'foreign' low wage workers. In both cases, it is a looking inwards. ..."
Brexit can be considered as the rebuilding of the old nation state wall between
England and the Continent. To an extent, this is a repudiation of the Globalist Movement, a
wholly owned subsidiary of the Neo-Liberal Experiment. In it's essence, Trumps Wall is a
repudiation of the NAFTA Consensus. The American 'deplorables' support it because they see it
as a means of defending their livelihoods from those hordes of 'foreign' low wage workers. In
both cases, it is a looking inwards.
Arguably, May is one of a generation of politicos in decline. Macron, (perhaps Merkel's
hope of having a posterity,) has caved. Merkel has seen the face of her political mortality
recently. May has her Pyrrhic victory.
The Clintons cannot even give tickets to their road show away. In all of these examples,
the replacements waiting in the wings are, to be charitable about it, underwhelming. Brexit
is but the opening act of a grand, worldwide crisis of governance.
How England muddles through this will be an object lesson for us all. We had better take
notes, because there will be a great testing later.
While the UK has rightly been the focus, I can't help wondering what the deeper feelings
are across Europe. It's very hard to gauge how much thought the rest of Europe is giving to
Brexit at this stage. The average punter seems very uninterested at this point, while a
growing number (from what I'm reading from other sources) just wish they'd get it over with
so the rest of Europe could be allowed to get on with its own internal concerns. I suspect
the rest of the EU economies most affected must be putting their 'crash-out' plans into
over-drive after this week's continuing escapades.
(Re: Sinn Féin. I was wondering if there was the remotest possibility that they
would cross their biggest line just to help a Tory government, and a particularly vile Tory
government from their standpoint. When speaking to veteran Belfast Republican during
negotiations on the GFA (Good Friday Agreement), their viewpoint was that nearly everything
could be negotiated but one thing was impossible: entering into a foreign London parliament.
Symbolically and practically, it was a step beyond the pale. I also noticed lately that a
couple of older Sinn Féin Republicans, who had to be persuaded into the negotiation
camp all those years ago, are again contemplating running for local government positions in
the North.)
Everything I've read indicates that the rest of Europe has simply given up on Brexit
– they are unwilling to expend any more energy or political capital on it. The leaders
have much bigger things on their plates than Brexit, and the general population have lost
interest – I'm told it rarely features much in reporting on the major media. I think
they'll grant an extension purely to facilitate another couple of months preparation for a
crash out, and thats it.
As for Sinn Fein, I get the feeling that after been caught on the hop by Brexit, they now
see a crash out as an opportunity. NI looks likely to suffer more than anywhere else if there
is a no-deal – there is hardly a business there that won't be devastated. But they are
caught between trying to show their soft face in the south and their hardliner face in the
North, and I think they are having difficulty deciding how to play it.
The British circus attracts interest and there is coverage on the motions and so on
treated as UK internal politics. May and the ultra-brexiteers get almost all the attention.
The only options mentioned are no deal and May's agreement.
" European diplomats in London watching the government's Brexit agony have conveyed a
mixture of despair, and almost ghoulish fascination, at the state of British politics, with
one saying it is as melodramatic as a telenovela, full of subplots, intrigue, tragedy and
betrayal
Although privately many diplomats would love Brexit to be reversed, and believe it could
mark a turning point against populism, there was also a wariness about the disruption of a
second referendum. One ambassador suggested the French realised that European parliamentary
election campaign of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, would be damaged by the sight of
furious British leave campaigners claiming they had been cheated of their democratic rights
by an arrogant elite who refused to listen: "What is happening in France is potentially
momentous. The social fabric is under threat, and this anger could spread across the
continent," the ambassador said, referring to the gilets jaunes protests ."
"... Apologies, but Neoliberalism is far from 'dead'. But of course it should never have given 'life'. However, if it were 'dead' why did Labor vote with the Coalition to ratify the ultra-Neoliberal TPP??? The TPP is the penultimate wet dream of all neoliberal multinational vulture corporations. Why???? Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) Under these rules, foreign investors can legally challenge host state regulations outside that country's courts. A wide range of policies can be challenged. ..."
Apologies, but Neoliberalism is far from 'dead'. But of course it should never have given
'life'. However, if it were 'dead' why did Labor vote with the Coalition to ratify the
ultra-Neoliberal TPP??? The TPP is the penultimate wet dream of all neoliberal multinational
vulture corporations. Why???? Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) Under these rules,
foreign investors can legally challenge host state regulations outside that country's courts.
A wide range of policies can be challenged.
Yeah! Philip Morris comes to mind. "The cost to taxpayers of the Australian government's
six-year legal battle with the tobacco giant Philip Morris over plain packaging laws can
finally be revealed, despite the government's efforts to keep the cost secret.
The commonwealth government spent nearly $40m defending its world-first plain packaging
laws against Philip Morris Asia, a tobacco multinational, according to freedom of information
documents.
Documents say the total figure is $38,984,942.97."
No-deal Brexit: Disruption at Dover 'could
last six months' BBC. I have trouble understanding why six months. The UK's customs IT
system won't be ready and there's no reason to think it will be ready even then. I could
see things getting less bad due to adaptations but "less bad" is not normal
The
Great Brexit Breakdown Wall Street Journal. Some parts I quibble with, but generally
good and includes useful historical detail.
"... I've come to believe that Trump's role is not as a conventional president who promises to get certain things achieved to the
Congress and then does. I don't think he's capable. I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the
system. I don't think the Congress is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him. He's not going to do that. ..."
"... I think Trump's role is to begin the conversation about what actually matters. We were not having any conversation about immigration
before Trump arrived in Washington. ..."
"... Trump asked basic questions like' "Why don't our borders work?" "Why should we sign a trade agreement and let the other side
cheat?" Or my favorite of all, "What's the point of NATO?" The point of NATO was to keep the Soviets from invading western Europe but
they haven't existed in 27 years, so what is the point? These are obvious questions that no one could answer. ..."
"... I mean let me just be clear. I'm not against an aristocratic system. I'm not against a ruling class. I think that hierarchies
are natural, people create them in every society. I just think the system that we have now the meritocracy, which is based really on
our education system, on a small number of colleges has produced a ruling class that doesn't have the self-awareness that you need to
be wise. ..."
"... it was only after the financial crisis of 08 that I noticed that something was really out of whack, because Washington didn't
really feel the crisis. ..."
"... If you leave Washington and drive to say Pittsburgh, which is a manufacturing town about three and a half hours to the west,
you drive through a series of little towns that are devastated. There are no car dealerships, there are no restaurants. There's nothing.
They have not recovered. I remember driving out there one day, maybe eight or nine years ago and thinking, boy, this is a disaster.
..."
"... That's kind of strange since we're the capital city in charge of making policy for everybody else... Massive inequality does
not work in a democracy... ..."
"... If you make above a certain income, or if you live in my neighborhood, you have zero physical contact with other Americans.
In other words, the elite in our country is physically separated in a way that's very unhealthy for a democracy, very unhealthy. ..."
"... The Democratic Party, which for 100 years was the party of average people is now the party of the rich. ..."
"... He served the purpose of bringing the middle class into the Republican Party, which had zero interest, no interest in representing
them at all. Trump is intuitive, he felt, he could smell that there was this large group of voters who had no one representing them
and he brought them to the Republican side, but the realignment is still ongoing. ..."
"... In other words, the Democratic Party used to represent the middle class, it no longer does, it now hates the middle class.
..."
"... I do think, going forward the Republican Party will wake up and realize these are our voters and we're going to represent them
whether we want it or not. ..."
"... I am deeply suspicious of foreign adventurism, voluntary wars, wars of self-defense are not controversial, I'm for them completely,
there's an invasion repellent. The idea that you would send 100,000 troops to a country to improve its political system is grotesque
to me. It would've been grotesque to them. ..."
"... The Vietnam War was horrifying to them because it was a voluntary war, waged for theoretical reasons, geostrategic reasons
which they rejected, and I do too. ..."
"... We can make autonomous choices about how we respond to market forces. People get crushed beneath its wheels. ..."
"... Capitalism drives change, innovation change, the old ways give way to new ways of doing things, and in the process of change
the weak get hurt always, this was true in industrialization 100 years ago and it's true in the digital revolution now. What's changed
is that nobody is standing up on behalf of the people who are being crushed by the change. ..."
"... In your book, you say they've vanishing but they seem to come back again. ..."
"... Have you ever seen this amount of discontent and aggression here in your lifetime? ..."
"... How close to a revolution is your country? ..."
"... The country is getting redder and bluer. ..."
"... Do you think that Europe will get in control of the migration? ..."
The Swiss are very suspicious of anybody who is boastful. That's why I have a question about Trump
I hate that about him. I hate that it's not my culture. I didn't grow up like that.
In your book you speak a lot about people who attack Trump, but you actually don't say very much about Trump's record.
That's true.
Do you think he has kept his promises? Has he achieved his goals?
No. He hasn't?
No. His chief promises were that he would build the wall, de-fund planned parenthood, and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn't done
any of those things. There are a lot of reasons for that, but since I finished writing the book, I've come to believe that Trump's
role is not as a conventional president who promises to get certain things achieved to the Congress and then does. I don't think
he's capable. I don't think he's capable of sustained focus. I don't think he understands the system. I don't think the Congress
is on his side. I don't think his own agencies support him. He's not going to do that.
I think Trump's role is to begin the conversation about what actually matters. We were not having any conversation about immigration
before Trump arrived in Washington. People were bothered about it in different places in the country. It's a huge country, but
that was not a staple of political debate at all. Trump asked basic questions like' "Why don't our borders work?" "Why should
we sign a trade agreement and let the other side cheat?" Or my favorite of all, "What's the point of NATO?" The point of NATO was
to keep the Soviets from invading western Europe but they haven't existed in 27 years, so what is the point? These are obvious questions
that no one could answer.
Apart from asking these very important questions has he really achieved nothing?
Not much. Not much. Much less than he should have. I've come to believe he's not capable of it.
Why should he be not capable?
Because the legislative process in this country by design is highly complex, and it's designed to be complex as a way of diffusing
power, of course, because the people who framed our Constitution, founded our country, were worried about concentrations of power.
They balanced it among the three branches as you know and they made it very hard to make legislation. In order to do it you really
have to understand how it works and you have to be very focused on getting it done, and he knows very little about the legislative
process, hasn't learned anything, hasn't and surrounded himself with people that can get it done, hasn't done all the things you
need to do so. It's mostly his fault that he hasn't achieved those things. I'm not in charge of Trump.
The title of your book is "Ship of Fools". You write that an irresponsible elite has taken over America. Who is the biggest
fool?
I mean let me just be clear. I'm not against an aristocratic system. I'm not against a ruling class. I think that hierarchies
are natural, people create them in every society. I just think the system that we have now the meritocracy, which is based really
on our education system, on a small number of colleges has produced a ruling class that doesn't have the self-awareness that you
need to be wise. I'm not arguing for populism, actually. I'm arguing against populism. Populism is what you get when your leaders
fail. In a democracy, the population says this is terrible and they elect someone like Trump.
When did you first notice that this elite is getting out of touch with the people?
Well, just to be clear, I'm not writing this from the perspective of an outsider. I mean I've lived in this world my whole life.
Which world exactly?
The world of affluence and the high level of education and among-- I grew up in a town called La Jolla, California in the south.
It was a very affluent town and then I moved as a kid to Georgetown here in Washington. I've been here my whole life. I've always
lived around people who are wielding authority, around the ruling class, and it was only after the financial crisis of 08 that
I noticed that something was really out of whack, because Washington didn't really feel the crisis.
If you leave Washington and drive to say Pittsburgh, which is a manufacturing town about three and a half hours to the west,
you drive through a series of little towns that are devastated. There are no car dealerships, there are no restaurants. There's nothing.
They have not recovered. I remember driving out there one day, maybe eight or nine years ago and thinking, boy, this is a disaster.
Rural America, America outside three or four cities is really falling apart. I thought if you're running the country, you should
have a sense of that. I remember thinking to myself, nobody I know has any idea that this is happening an hour away. That's kind
of strange since we're the capital city in charge of making policy for everybody else... Massive inequality does not work in a democracy...
You become Venezuela.
You write about vanishing middle class. When you were born over 60 % of Americans ranked middle class. Why and when did
it disappear?
If you make above a certain income, or if you live in my neighborhood, you have zero physical contact with other Americans.
In other words, the elite in our country is physically separated in a way that's very unhealthy for a democracy, very unhealthy.
The Democratic Party is out of touch with the working class.
Well, that's the remarkable thing. For 100 years the Democratic Party represented wage earners, working people, normal people,
middle class people, then somewhere around-- In precisely peg it to Clinton's second term in the tech boom in the Bay Area in Francisco
and Silicon Valley, the Democratic Party reoriented and became the party of technology, of large corporations, and of the rich. You've
really seen that change in the last 20 years where in the top 10 richest zip codes in the United States, 9 of them in the last election
just went for Democrats. Out of the top 50, 42 went for Democrats. The Democratic Party, which for 100 years was the party of
average people is now the party of the rich.
Donald Trump, who is often seen as this world-changing figure is actually a symptom of something that precedes him that I sometimes
wonder if he even understands which is this realignment. He served the purpose of bringing the middle class into the Republican
Party, which had zero interest, no interest in representing them at all. Trump is intuitive, he felt, he could smell that there was
this large group of voters who had no one representing them and he brought them to the Republican side, but the realignment is still
ongoing.
In other words, the Democratic Party used to represent the middle class, it no longer does, it now hates the middle class.
The Republican Party which has never represented the middle class doesn't want to. That is the source of really all the confusion
and the tension that you're seeing now. I do think, going forward the Republican Party will wake up and realize these are our
voters and we're going to represent them whether we want it or not.
They have to, or they will lose.
They have to, or they will die. Yes.
You're writing in an almost nostalgic tone about the old liberals? People like Miss Raymond, your first-class teacher. You
describe her wonderfully in the book. You say that they have vanished. What happened?
I find myself in deep sympathy with a lot of the aims of 1970s liberals. I believe in free speech, and I instinctively side with
the individual against the group. I think that the individual matters, I am deeply suspicious of foreign adventurism, voluntary
wars, wars of self-defense are not controversial, I'm for them completely, there's an invasion repellent. The idea that you would
send 100,000 troops to a country to improve its political system is grotesque to me. It would've been grotesque to them.
The Vietnam War was horrifying to them because it was a voluntary war, waged for theoretical reasons, geostrategic reasons
which they rejected, and I do too. They were also suspicious of market capitalism. They thought that somebody needed to push
back against the forces of the market, not necessarily because capitalism was bad, capitalism is not bad, it's also not a religion.
We don't have to follow it blindly. We can make autonomous choices about how we respond to market forces. People get crushed
beneath its wheels.
Capitalism drives change, innovation change, the old ways give way to new ways of doing things, and in the process of change
the weak get hurt always, this was true in industrialization 100 years ago and it's true in the digital revolution now. What's changed
is that nobody is standing up on behalf of the people who are being crushed by the change.
Is that really so? Look at the grassroot movement on the left: Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and her socialist group. It is probably
a 100 years ago when Americans last saw a socialist movement of substance emerging?
Yes. You're absolutely right. That's the future.
In your book, you say they've vanishing but they seem to come back again.
Well, you're absolutely right. You're incisive correct to say that the last time we saw this was 100 years ago, which was another
pivot point in our economic and social history. Where, after 10,000 years of living in an Agrarian society, people moved to the cities
to work in factories and that upended the social order completely. With that came huge political change and a massive reaction.
In the United States and in Western Europe labor unions moderated the forces of change and allowed us to preserve capitalism in
the form that we see it now... You're seeing the exact same dynamic play out today, we have another, as I said, economic revolution,
the digital age, which is changing how people work, how they make money, how families are structured. There is a huge reaction to
that, of course, because there always is, because normal people can't handle change at this pace. People are once again crying out
for some help. They feel threatened by the change. What bothers me is that there is no large group of sensible people asking, how
can we buffer this change? How can we restrain it just enough, not to stop it, but to keep people from overreacting and becoming
radical?
Talking about radical. Recently, a radical left-wing group have threatened to storm your Washington home. How is your wife?
How is your family?
They are fine, they're pretty tough. They're rattled.
The Antifa-mob came right to the door of your home?
Yes, they did and threatened my wife.
Which must have been absolutely scary?
Yes, it was. My wife was born in the city, my four children were born here, we're not moving.
Your attackers have a goal, they're trying to silence you.
Of course. I would never, of course, that's a cornerstone of Western civilization is expression and freedom of conscience. You
can tell me how to behave, you can force me not to sleep or take my clothes off in public, that's fine. Every society has the right
to control behavior. But no one has the right to control what you believe. You can't control my conscience, that's mine alone. Only
totalitarian movements do that, and that's what they're attempting. Of course, I would die first I'm never going to submit to that.
Have you ever seen this amount of discontent and aggression here in your lifetime?
No, I've never seen anything like this. What's so striking is that [chuckles] this is really... The radicalism is not on behalf
of people who are actually suffering, fellow Americans who are suffering, on behalf of the 70,000 people who died of drug ODs last
year, or on behalf of the people displaced by automation in GM, or whatever, on behalf of those dying American low class, it's really
on behalf of theoretical goals.
They're saying that I [Tucker Carlson] am saying naughty things that shouldn't be allowed to be expressed in public. Basically,
it's a totalitarian movement. Totally unhelpful. I would say childish. What they're really doing is defending the current order.
They're the shock troops of the elites actually. Actually, what you're seeing is something amazing, you're seeing for the first time
in history a revolution being waged against the working class. When does that happen?
Your way of debating is very tough. You're sitting there, hammering your guests. Sometimes we have a bit of a problem to
understand that. For us it's a bit disturbing.
Of course, it is. It's disturbing for me too!
How tough do you need to be nowadays to have an audience?
Less, I think than sometimes we put into it or I put into it. I'm actually, in my normal life, I think a pretty gentle person.
I've never had a yelling fight with my wife in 34 years. I mean, I've never yelled at my children. No, I don't ever.
Never?
Not one time. No, it's not how I communicate. I never want to be impolite. I have been impolite. I've lost my temper a couple
times, but I don't want to. I don't like that. I believe in civility.
... ... ...
How close to a revolution is your country?
By revolution, let me be clear, I don't think that we're anywhere near an outbreak of civil war, armed violence between two sides
for a bunch of different reasons... Testosterone levels are so low and marijuana use is so high that I think the population is probably
too ... What you don't have, prerequisite fall revolution, violent revolution, is a large group of young people who are comfortable
with violence and we don't have that. Maybe that will change. I hope it doesn't. I don't want violence for violence. I appall violence,
but I just don't see that happening. What I see happening most likely is a kind of gradual separation of the states.
If you look at the polling on the subject, classically, traditionally, Americans had antique racial attitudes. If you say, "Would
you be okay with your daughter marrying outside her race?" Most Americans, if they're being honest, would say, "no, I'm not okay
with that. I'm not for that." Now the polling shows people are much more comfortable with a child marrying someone of a different
race than they are marrying someone of a different political persuasion.
"I'd rather my daughter married someone who's Hispanic than liberal", someone might say. That is one measure. There are many measures,
but that's one measure of how politically divided we are and I just think that over time, people will self-segregate. It's a continental
country. It's a very large piece of land and you could see where certain states just become very, very different. Like if you're
Conservative, are you really going to live in California in 10 years? Probably not.
Orange County is now purely Democrat.
That's exactly right. You're going to move and if you're very liberal, are you really going to want to live in Idaho? Probably
not.
The country is getting redder and bluer.
Exactly.
This revolution you are warning about - What needs to be done to stop it from happening?
Just the only thing you can do in a democracy which is address the legitimate concerns of the population and think more critically
and be more wise in your decision making. Get a handle on technology. Technology is the driver of the change, so sweep aside the
politics, the fundamental fact about people is they can't metabolize change at this pace because as an evolutionary matter, they're
not designed to, they're not. If you asked your average old person what's the most upsetting thing about being old? You expect them
to say, "Well, my friends are dead". But that's not what they say. Or "I have to go to the bathroom six times a night". That's not
what they say.
You know what they say? "Things are too different. This is not the country I grew up in. I don't recognize this." All people hate
that. It doesn't mean you're a bigot, it means you're human. Unless you want things to fall apart, become so volatile that you can't
have a working economy, you need to get a handle on the pace of change. You have to slow it down.
How important is migration in terms of change?
It's central because nothing changes the society more quickly or more permanently than bringing in a whole new population and
that's not an attack on anybody. There are lots of populations- there are lots of immigrants who are much more impressive than I
am. I have no doubt about that. I'm not attacking immigrants. I'm merely saying that the effect on the people who already live here
is real and they're not bigots for feeling that way.
You come from an ancient country with a series of ancient cultures within it and if you woke up one morning and everyone was speaking
Amharic and you didn't recognize any of your surroundings, that would be deeply upsetting to you.
What you saying, it's necessary to slow it down, control it?
You have to slow it down. Look at the Chinese. I abhor, I despise the Chinese government. However, I'm willing to acknowledge
wise behavior when I see it. The Chinese would never accept this pace of demographic change not simply because they're racist, though
of course, they are, but that's not the point. The point is because they don't want their society to fall apart because they're in
charge of it.
The childlike faith that we have in America, and America is the worst at this, that all change is good and that progress is inevitable
and if something is new and fresh and more expensive, it's got to be better.
It is kind of refreshing for Europeans that even Hillary Clinton tells Europeans, "You have got to stop this. You've got
to get control of migration or you disintegrate."
John Kerry said the same thing, amazingly. They're telling the truth.
Do you think Europe is going to be able to get in control of that? We have 28 countries in the EU. And Switzerland is not
a member?
So smart, so smart... You know why? Because they're mountain people. Love them. You know why? Because they're suspicious, that's
what I like about them.
[laughter]
Do you think that Europe will get in control of the migration?
The EU has been doomed since the first day because it's inconsistent with human nature. The reason we have nation states is because
people wanted them, it's organic. A nation-state is just a larger tribe and it's organized along lines that make sense. They evolved
over thousands of years. To ignore it and destroy it because you think that you've got a better idea, is insane!
[And with that, our interview concludes. It has already run far past the allotted 40 minutes. I offer to take Carlson, who seems
to be very passionate about Switzerland, on a ski run in our Alps soon. Perhaps a smoke in one of the outdoor saunas I tell him smell
like rotten eggs. Ambassador Grenell is on the phone line patiently waiting.]
It has become all too easy for democracy to be turned on its head and popular nationalist
mandates, referenda and elections negated via instant political hypocrisy by leaders who show
their true colours only after the public vote. So it has been within the two-and-a-half year
unraveling of the UK Brexit referendum of 2016 that saw the subsequent negotiations now provide
the Brexit voter with only three possibilities. All are a loss for Britain.
One possibility, Brexit, is the result of Prime Minister, Theresa May's negotiations- the
"deal"- and currently exists in name only. Like the PM herself, the original concept of Brexit
may soon lie in the dust of an upcoming UK Parliament floor vote in exactly the same manner as
the failed attempt by the Greeks barely three years ago. One must remember that Greece on June
27, 2015 once voted to leave the EU as well and to renegotiate its EU existence as well in
their own "Grexit" referendum. Thanks to their own set of underhanded and treasonous
politicians, this did not go well for Greece. Looking at the Greek result, and understanding
divisive UK Conservative Party control that exists in the hearts of PMs on both sides of the
House of Commons, this new parliamentary vote is not looking good for Britain. Brexit:
Theresa May Goes Greek! "deal" -- would thus reveal the life-long scars of their true
national allegiance gnawed into their backs by the lust of their masters in Brussels. Brexit:
Theresa May Goes Greek!, by Brett Redmayne-Titley - The Unz Review
Ironically, like a cluster bomb of white phosphorous over a Syrian village, Cameron's Brexit
vote blew up spectacularly in his face. Two decades of ongoing political submission to the EU
by the Cons and "new" labour had them arrogantly misreading the minds of the UK
voter.
So on that incredible night, it happened. Prime Minister David Cameron the Cons New Labour
The Lib- Dems and even the UK Labour Party itself, were shocked to their core when the
unthinkable nightmare that could never happen, did happen . Brexit had passed by popular
vote!
David Cameron has been in hiding ever since.
After Brexit passed the same set of naïve UK voters assumed, strangely, that Brexit
would be finalized in their national interest as advertised. This belief had failed to
read
Article 50 - the provisos for leaving the EU- since, as much as it was mentioned, it was
very rarely linked or referenced by a quotation in any of the media punditry. However, an
article published four days after the night Brexit passed,
" A Brexit Lesson In Greek: Hopes and Votes Dashed on Parliamentary Floors," provided
anyone thus reading Article 50, which is only eight pages long and double-spaced, the info to
see clearly that this never before used EU by-law would be the only route to a UK exit.
Further, Article 50 showed that Brussels would control the outcome of exit negotiations along
with the other twenty-seven member nations and that effectively Ms May and her Tories
would be playing this game using the EU's ball and rules, while going one-on-twenty-seven
during the negotiations.
In the aftermath of Brexit, the real game began in earnest. The stakes: bigger than
ever.
Forgotten are the hypocritical defections of political expediency that saw Boris Johnson and
then Home Secretary Theresa May who were, until that very moment, both vociferously and very
publicly against the intent of Brexit. Suddenly they claimed to be pro- Brexit in their quest
to sleep in Cameron's now vacant bed at No. 10 Downing Street. Boris strategically dropped out
to hopefully see, Ms May, fall on her sword- a bit sooner. Brexit: Theresa May Goes Greek!, by
Brett Redmayne-Titley - The Unz Review
So, the plucky PM was left to convince the UK public, daily, as the negotiations moved on,
that "Brexit means Brexit!" A UK media that is as pro-EU as their PM chimed in to help
her sell distortions of proffered success at the negotiating table, while the rise of "old"
Labour, directed by Jeremy Corbyn, exposed her "soft" Brexit negotiations for the
litany of failures that ultimately equaled the "deal" that was strangely still called
"Brexit."
Too few, however, examined this reality once these political Chameleons changed their
colours just as soon as the very first results shockingly came in from Manchester in the wee
hours of the morning on that seemingly hopeful night so long ago: June 23, 2016. For thus would
begin a quiet, years-long defection of many more MPs than merely these two opportunists.
What the British people also failed to realize was that they and their Brexit victory would
also be faced with additional adversaries beyond the EU members: those from within their own
government. From newly appointed PM May to Boris Johnson, from the Conservative Party to the
New Labour sellouts within the Labour Party and the Friends of Israel , the
quiet internal political movement against Brexit began. As the House of Lords picked up their
phones, too, for very quiet private chats within House of Commons, their minions in the British
press began their work as well.
Brexit: Theresa May Goes Greek!, by Brett Redmayne-Titley -
The Unz Review
This article by Brett Redmayne is certainly right re the horrific sell-out by the Greek
government of Tsipras the other year, that has left the Greek citizenry in enduring political
despair the betrayal of Greek voters indeed a model for UK betrayal of Brexit voters
But Redmayne is likely very mistaken in the adulation of Jeremy Corbyn as the 'genuine
real deal' for British people
Ample evidence points to Corbyn as Trojan horse sell-out, as covered by UK researcher
Aangirfan on her blogs, the most recent of which was just vapourised by Google in their
censorship insanity
Jeremy Corbyn was a childhood neighbour of the Rothschilds in Wiltshire; with Jeremy's
father David Corbyn working for ultra-powerful Victor Rothschild on secret UK gov scientific
projects during World War 2
Jeremy Corbyn is tied to child violation scandals & child-crime convicted individuals
including Corbyn's Constituency Agent; Corbyn tragically ignoring multiple earnest complaints
from child abuse victims & whistleblowers over years, whilst "child abuse rings were
operating within all 12 of the borough's children's homes" in Corbyn's district not very
decent of him
And of course Corbyn significantly cucked to the Israel lobby in their demands for purge
of the Labour party alleged 'anti-semites'
The Trojan Horse 'fake opposition', or fake 'advocate for the people', is a very classic
game of the Powers That Be, and sadly Corbyn is likely yet one more fake 'hero'
My theory is, give "capitalism" and financial interests enough time, they will consume any
democracy. Meaning: the wealth flows upwards, giving the top class opportunity to influence
politics and the media, further improving their situation v.s. the rest, resulting in ever
stronger position – until they hold all the power. Controlling the media and therefore
the narrative, capable to destroy any and all opposition. Ministers and members of
parliaments, most bought and paid for one way or the other. Thankfully, the 1% or rather the
0.1% don't always agree so the picture can be a bit blurred.
You can guess what country inspired this "theory" of mine. The second on the list is
actually the U.K. If a real socialist becomes the prime minister of the U.K. I will be very
surprised. But Brexit is a black swan like they say in the financial sector, and they tend to
disrupt even the best of theories. Perhaps Corbin is genuine and will become prime minister!
I am not holding my breath.
However, if he is a real socialist like the article claims. And he becomes prime minister
of the U.K the situation will get really interesting. Not only from the EU side but more
importantly from U.K. best friend – the U.S. Uncle Sam will not be happy about this
development and doesn't hesitate to crush "bad ideas" he doesn't like.
Case in point – Ireland's financial crisis in 2009;
After massive expansion and spectacular housing bubble the Irish banks were in deep
trouble early into the crisis. The EU, ECB and the IMF (troika?) met with the Irish
government to discuss solutions. From memory – the question was how to save the Irish
banks? They were close to agreement that bondholders and even lenders to the Irish banks
should take a "haircut" and the debt load should be cut down to manageable levels so the
banks could survive (perhaps Michael Hudson style if you will). One short phone call from
the U.S Secretary of the treasury then – Timothy Geithner – to the troika-Irish
meeting ended these plans. He said: there will be no haircut! That was the end of it.
Ireland survived but it's reasonable to assume this "guideline" paved the road for the
Greece debacle.
I believe Mr. Geithner spoke on behalf of the financial power controlling – more or
less-our hemisphere. So if the good old socialist Corbin comes to power in the U.K. and
intends to really change something and thereby set examples for other nations – he is
taking this power head on. I think in case of "no deal" the U.K. will have it's back against
the wall and it's bargaining position against the EU will depend a LOT on U.S. response. With
socialist in power there will be no meaningful support from the U.S. the powers that be will
to their best to destroy Corbin as soon as possible.
My right wing friends can't understand the biggest issue of our times is class war. This
article mentions the "Panama papers" where great many corporations and wealthy individuals
(even politicians) in my country were exposed. They run their profits through offshore tax
havens while using public infrastructure (paid for by taxpayers) to make their money. It's
estimated that wealth amounting to 1,5 times our GDP is stored in these accounts!
There is absolutely no way to get it through my right wing friends thick skull that
off-shore accounts are tax frauds. Resulting in they paying higher taxes off their wages
because the big corporations and the rich don't pay anything. Nope. They simply hate taxes
(even if they get plenty back in services) and therefore all taxes are bad. Ergo tax evasions
by the 1% are fine – socialism or immigrants must be the root of our problems.
MIGA!
Come to think of it – few of them would survive the "law of the jungle" they so much
desire. And none of them would survive the "law of the jungle" if the rules are stacked
against them. Still, all their political energy is aimed against the ideas and people that
struggle against such reality.
I give up – I will never understand the right. No more than the pure bread
communist. Hopeless ideas!
" This is because the deal has a provision that would still keep the UK in the EU Customs
Union (the system setting common trade rules for all EU members) indefinitely. This is an
outrageous inclusion and betrayal of a real Brexit by Ms May since this one topic was the
most contentious in the debate during the ongoing negotiations because the Customs Union is
the tie to the EU that the original Brexit vote specifically sought to terminate. "
Here I stopped reading, maybe later more.
Nonsense.
What USA MSM told in the USA about what ordinary British people said, those who wanted to
leave the EU, I do not know, one of the most often heard reasons was immigration, especially
from E European countries, the EU 'free movement of people'.
"Real' Britons refusing to live in Poland.
EP member Verhofstadt so desperate that he asked on CNN help by Trump to keep this 'one of
the four EU freedoms'.
This free movement of course was meant to destroy the nation states
What Boris Johnson said, many things he said were true, stupid EU interference for example
with products made in Britain, for the home market, (he mentioned forty labels in one piece
of clothing), no opportunity to seek trade without EU interference.
There was irritation about EU interference 'they even make rules about vacuum cleaners', and,
already long ago, closure, EU rules, of village petrol pumps that had been there since the
first cars appeared in Britain, too dangerous.
In France nonsensical EU rules are simply ignored, such as countryside private sewer
installations.
But the idea that GB could leave, even without Brussels obstruction, the customs union,
just politicians, and other nitwits in economy, could have such ideas.
Figures are just in my head, too lazy to check.
But British export to what remains of the EU, some € 60 billion, French export to GB,
same order of magnitude, German export to GB, far over 100 billion.
Did anyone imagine that Merkel could afford closing down a not negligible part of Bayern car
industry, at he same time Bayern being the Land most opposed to Merkel, immigration ?
This Brexit in my view is just the beginning of the end of the illusion EU falling
apart.
In politics anything is connected with anything.
Britons, again in my opinion, voted to leave because of immigration, inside EU
immigration.
What GB will do with Marrakech, I do not know.
Marrakech reminds me of many measures that were ready to be implemented when the reason to
make these measures no longer existed.
Such as Dutch job guarantees when enterprises merged, these became law when when the merger
idiocy was over.
The negative aspects of immigration now are clear to many in the countries with the imagined
flesh pots, one way or another authorities will be obliged to stop immigration, but at that
very moment migration rules, not legally binding, are presented.
As a Belgian political commentator said on Belgian tv 'no communication is possible
between French politicians and French yellow coat demonstrators, they live in completely
different worlds'.
These different worlds began, to pinpoint a year, in 2005, when the negative referenda about
the EU were ignored. As Farrage reminded after the Brexit referendum, in EP, you said 'they
do not know what they're doing'
But now Macron and his cronies do not know what to do, now that police sympathises with
yellow coat demonstrators.
For me THE interesting question remains 'how was it possible that the Renaissance
cultures manoevred themselves into the present mess ?'.
@Digital
Samizdat Corbyn, in my opinion one of the many not too bright socialists, who are caught
in their own ideological prison: worldwide socialism is globalisation, globalisation took
power away from politicians, and gave it to multinationals and banks.
@niceland The
expression class war is often used without realising what the issue is, same with tax
evasion.
The rich of course consume more, however, there is a limit to what one can consume, it takes
time to squander money.
So the end of the class war may make the rich poor, but alas the poor hardly richer.
About tax evasion, some economist, do not remember his name, did not read the article
attentively, analysed wealth in the world, and concluded that eight % of this wealth had
originated in evading taxes.
Over what period this evasion had taken place, do not remember this economist had reached a
conclusion, but anyone understands that ending tax evasion will not make all poor rich.
There is quite another aspect of class war, evading taxes, wealth inequality, that is
quite worrying: the political power money can yield.
Soros is at war with Hungary, his Open University must leave Hungary.
USA MSM furious, some basic human right, or rights, have been violated, many in Brussels
furious, the 226 Soros followers among them, I suppose.
But since when is it allowed, legally and/or morally, to try to change the culture of a
country, in this case by a foreigner, just by pumping money into a country ?
Soros advertises himself as a philantropist, the Hungarian majority sees him as some kind of
imperialist, I suppose.
For me THE interesting question remains 'how was it possible that the Renaissance cultures
manoevred themselves into the present mess ?'.
Well , I am reading " The occult renaissance church of Rome " by Michael Hoffman ,
Independent History and research . Coeur d`Alene , Idaho . http://www.RevisionistHistory.org
I saw about this book in this Unz web .
I used to think than the rot started with protestantism , but Hoffman says it started with
catholic Renaissance in Rome itself in the XV century , the Medici , the Popes , usury
This whole affair illustrates beautifully the real purpose of the sham laughingly known as
"representative democracy," namely, not to "empower" the public but to deprive it of
its power.
With modern means of communication, direct democracy would be technically feasible even in
large countries. Nevertheless, practically all "democratic" countries continue to delegate
all legislative powers to elected "representatives." These are nothing more than consenting
hostages of those with the real power, who control and at the same time hide behind those
"representatives." The more this becomes obvious, the lower the calibre of the people willing
to be used in this manner – hence, the current crop of mental gnomes and opportunist
shills in European politics.
I would only shout this rambling ignoramus a beer in the pub to stop his mouth for a while.
Some of his egregious errors have been noted. and Greece, anyway, is an irrelevance to the
critical decisions on Brexit.
Once Article 50 was invoked the game was over. All the trump cards were on the EU side.
Now we know that, even assuming Britain could muster a competent team to plan and negotiate
for Brexit that all the work of proving up the case and negotiating or preparing the ground
has to be done over years leading up to the triggering of Article 50. And that's assuming
that recent events leave you believing that the once great Britain is fit to be a sovereign
nation without adult supervision.
As it is one has to hope that Britain will not be constrained by the total humbug which
says that a 51 per cent vote of those choosing to vote in that very un British thing, a
referendum, is some sort of reason for not giving effect to a more up to date and better
informed view.
@Digital
Samizdat Hypothesis: The British masses would fare better without a privatized
government.
"Corbyn may prove to be real .. .. old-time Labour platform [leadership, capable to]..
return [political, social and financial] control back to the hands of the UK worker".. [but
the privateers will use the government itself and mass media to defeat such platforms and to
suppress labor with new laws and domestic armed warfare]. Why would a member of the British
masses allow [the Oligarch elite and the[ir] powerful business and foreign political
interests restrain democracy and waste the victims of privately owned automation revolution?
.. ..
[Corbyn's Labour platform challenges ] privatized capitalist because the PCs use the
British government to keep imprisoned in propaganda and suppressed in opportunity, the
masses. The privateers made wealthy by their monopolies, are using their resources to
maintain rule making and enforcement control (via the government) over the masses; such
privateers have looted the government, and taken by privatization a vast array of economic
monopolies that once belonged to the government. If the British government survives, the
Privateers (monopoly thieves) will continue to use the government to replace humanity, in
favor of corporate owned Robots and super capable algorithms.
Corbyn's threat to use government to represent the masses and to suppress or reduce
asymmetric power and wealth, and to provide sufficient for everyone extends to, and alerts
the masses in every capitalist dominated place in the world. He (Corbyn) is a very dangerous
man, so too was Jesus Christ."
There is a similar call in France, but it is not yet so well led.
Every working Dutch person is "owed" 50k euro from the bailout of Greece, not that Greece
will ever pay this back, and not as if Greece ever really got the money as it just went
straight to northern European banks to bail them out. Then we have the fiscal policy creating
more money by the day to stimulate the economy, which also doesn't reach the countries or
people just the banks. Then we have the flirting with East-European mobsters to pull them in
the EU sphere corrupting top EU bureaucrats. Then we have all of south Europe being extremely
unstable, including France, both its populations and its economy.
It's sad to see the British government doesn't see the disaster ahead, any price would be
cheaper then future forced EU integration. And especially at this point, the EU is so
unstable, that they can't go to war on the UK without also committing A kamikaze attack.
@Brabantian
Thank you for your comment and addition to my evaluation of Corbyn. I do agree with you that
Corbyn has yet to be tested for sincerity and effectiveness as PM, but he will likely get his
chance and only then will we and the Brits find out for sure. The main point I was hoping to
make was that: due to the perceived threat of Labour socialist reform under Corbyn, he has
been an ulterior motive in the negotiations and another reason that the EU wants PM May to
get her deal passed. Yes, I too am watching Corbyn with jaundiced optimism. Thank you.
I agree Jilles, and with many other of the commenters.
Read enough to see that the article has many errors of fact and perception. It is bad
enough to suspect *propaganda* , but Brett is clearly not at that level.
An important point that you hint at is that the Brits were violently and manipulatively
forced to accept mass immigration for many years.
Yet strangely, to say anything about it only became acceptable when some numbers of the
immigrants were fellow Europeans from within the EU, and most having some compatibility with
existing ethnicity and previous culture.
Even people living far away notice such forced false consciousness.
As for Corbyn, he is nothing like the old left of old Labour. He tries to convey that
image, it is a lie.
He may not be Blairite-Zio New Labour, and received some influence from the more heavily
Marxist old Labour figures, but he is very much a creature of the post-worst-of-1968 and
dirty hippy new left, Frankfurt School and all that crap, doubt that he has actually read
much of it, but he has internalised it through his formal and political education.
By the way, the best translation of the name of North Korea's ruling party is 'Labour
Party'. While it is a true fact, I intend nothing from it but a small laugh.
"... Everything Flynn had to say implicated Obama, Clapper & Brennan but the corrupt cabal isn't subject to the laws of unwashed inbreds like you and I and the other 320 million Americans (including those who THINK they're part of the club because they virtue signal so well). ..."
You realize 2 years of Flynn under Mueller's microscope yielded nothing? And the fact he's
facing sentencing means he's not going to be called as a witness to anything.
Everything Flynn had to say implicated Obama, Clapper & Brennan but the corrupt cabal
isn't subject to the laws of unwashed inbreds like you and I and the other 320 million
Americans (including those who THINK they're part of the club because they virtue signal so
well).
Says Summer Sausage who was of course not in the room. You think you know stuff? You know
stuff from the koolaide you've swallowed for the past 20 years...
The author is tried to deceive: Flynn lobbed Russians on behave of Israel.
Muller dirty trick with Flynn (entrapment during the FBI interview) will eventually backfire
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's memo noted that federal investigators' curiosity about Flynn's role in the presidential transition seemed to have been sparked by a Washington Post account of a conversation he had with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in December 2016 ..."
"... But the meat of what should worry Team Trump is in Mueller's disclosure that Flynn has provided firsthand information about interactions between the transition team and Russian government officials -- including, as was already known, several conversations with Kislyak in December 2016. Those included a discussion about lifting economic sanctions the Obama administration had imposed on Russia and about a separate matter involving a United Nations resolution on Israel. ..."
All of that, plus Flynn's "substantial assistance," early cooperation, and acceptance of "responsibility for his unlawful conduct,"
led Muller's team to ask the court to grant Flynn a lenient sentence that doesn't include prison time, according to
a highly anticipated sentencing memo the special counsel's office filed Tuesday night.
And there wasn't much more than that in 13 concise and heavily redacted pages that let down anyone expecting the document to be
another public narrative fleshing out lots of fresh detail about Mueller's investigation. Still, the filing, and some new details
in it, should give pause to members of Trump's inner circle -- especially the president's son-in-law and senior White House adviser,
Jared Kushner.
Mueller's memo noted that federal investigators' curiosity about Flynn's role in the presidential transition seemed to have
been sparked by a Washington Post account of a conversation he had with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in December
2016 . The filing also detailed a series of lies Flynn told about his contacts with and work for the Turkish government while
serving in the Trump campaign. (Given that Trump and a pair of his advisers had been pursuing
a real estate deal in Moscow during the first half of 2016, Flynn might mistakenly have seen wearing two hats as noncontroversial.)
But the meat of what should worry Team Trump is in Mueller's disclosure that Flynn has provided firsthand information about
interactions between the transition team and Russian government officials -- including, as was already known, several conversations
with Kislyak in December 2016. Those included a discussion about lifting economic sanctions the Obama administration had imposed
on Russia and about a separate matter involving a United Nations resolution on Israel.
Flynn lied to federal agents who questioned him about those chats on Jan. 24, 2017, and that was a crime (as, possibly, were his
efforts as a private citizen to meddle with a sitting government's foreign policy). The former general
acknowledged lying ,
pleaded guilty a year ago, and
then began cooperating with Mueller's
probe.
The timeline around Flynn's conversations
is crucial because it shows what's still in play for the president and Kushner -- and why Mueller may have been content to lock
in a cooperation agreement that carried relatively light penalties, as well as why Flynn's assistance seems to have subsequently
pleased the veteran prosecutor so much.
Kushner's actions are also interesting because the Federal Bureau of Investigation has examined
his
own communications with Kislyak -- and Kushner reportedly encouraged Trump to fire his FBI director,
James Comey , in the
spring of 2017, when Comey was still in the early stages of digging into the Trump-Russia connection.
Comey, and his successor, Mueller, have been focused on possible favor-trading between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. We
know that Russian hackers directed by Russian intelligence operatives penetrated Democrat computer servers in 2016 and gave that
information and email haul to WikiLeaks to disseminate as part of an effort to undermine Hillary Clinton's presidential bid. Trump
was also pursuing that
business deal in Moscow in 2016 and had other projects over the years
with a Russian presence . What might the Kremlin have been expecting in return? A promise to lift U.S. economic sanctions?
Kushner also had personal financial issues weighing on his mind at the time. He had spent much of 2016 trying to bail out his
family from his ill-considered and pricey purchase of a Manhattan skyscraper,
666 Fifth
Avenue .
After a meeting in Trump Tower with Kislyak on Dec. 1, 2016, which Flynn and Kushner
attended together ,
the ambassador arranged another gathering on Dec. 13 for Kushner and a
senior Russian
banker with Kremlin ties, Sergei Gorkov. The White House has
said that meeting was
innocent and part of Kushner's diplomatic duties. In a
statement
following his testimony before Congress in the summer of 2017, Kushner said that his interactions with Flynn and Kislyak on Dec.
1 only involved a discussion of Syria policy, not economic sanctions. He said that his discussion with Gorkov on Dec. 13 lasted less
than 30 minutes and only involved an exchange of pleasantries and hopes for better U.S.-Russian relations -- and didn't include any
discussion of recruiting Russians as lenders or investors in the Kushner family's
real estate business .
Kislyak enjoyed continued lobbying from the White House after his meetings with Kushner. On Dec. 22, Flynn asked Kislyak to delay
a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in Palestinian territory. Flynn later told the FBI that
he didn't ask Kislyak to do that, which wasn't true.
Court documents filed last year
said that a "very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team" directed Flynn to make an overture to Kislyak about the sanctions
vote. According to reporting from my
Bloomberg Opinion colleague Eli Lake and
NBC News , Kushner was that "senior member."
Bloomberg News reported that former Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus also pushed Flynn to lobby Kislyak on the
U.N. vote. (Kushner didn't discuss pressing Flynn to contact Kislyak in his statement last summer and instead noted how infrequent
his direct interactions were.)
Kushner's role in these events isn't discussed in Mueller's sentencing memo for Flynn. The absence of greater detail might cause
Kushner to worry: If Flynn offered federal authorities a different version of events than Kushner -- and Flynn's version is buttressed
by documentation or federal electronic surveillance of the former general -- then the president's son-in-law may have to start scrambling
(a possibility
I flagged
when Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017).
Other portions of the 2016 and early 2017 timelines still matter, too.
On Dec. 28, less than a week after Flynn called Kislyak about the U.N. vote, the ambassador contacted Flynn, according to court
documents. The Obama administration had just imposed economic sanctions on Russia because of the Kremlin's effort to sabotage the
2016 election. Kislyak apparently told Flynn that Russia would retaliate because Flynn asked him to "moderate" Russia's response.
Flynn
reportedly discussed these conversations with a former Trump adviser, K.T. McFarland, on Dec. 29.
In the weeks that followed, Sally Yates, then acting U.S. attorney general, warned the Trump administration about Flynn's duplicity
and said he was a national security threat. She was fired days after that for refusing to enforce Trump's executive order seeking
to ban immigration from seven Islamic nations. The White House forced Flynn out in February of last year, and Trump fired Comey three
months later. The president subsequently began using "witch hunt" to describe the investigation that Mueller inherited from Comey.
Since then, as the White House and Trump have surely absorbed and as Flynn's sentencing memo reinforces, Mueller's hunt has now
ensnared a number of witches.
When people who voted for Obama realized the Obama is a fraud with strong CIA connections it
was too late...
When people who voted for Trump realized that Trump was a fraud with strong Israeli
connections it was too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Nor does the caravan 'fix' or even illuminate decades of US abuses in Central and South America. It simply gives Trump an opportunity to grandstand and urge his voters to go to the polls. ..."
...And it seems likely, if not certain, that the caravan is a political stunt that will
end in disappointment for the caravan migrants. So I fail to see why you are so angry Debs.
Our discussion doesn't ignore the realities. Nor does the caravan 'fix' or even
illuminate decades of US abuses in Central and South America. It simply gives Trump an
opportunity to grandstand and urge his voters to go to the polls.
We are being played by an establishment that wants to move the country to the right. MAGA!
is a bi-partisan effort fueled by the challenge from China and Russia. This is clear from
Democratic Party priorities and actions as well as what they don't say or do.
"... Trump has succeeded in implementing some of his campaign ideas and not all of them are 100% evil or wrongheaded. He has shaken the long term calcification of the US foreign and trade policy, has introduced tariffs especially to combat clearly unfair Chinese trade practices while demanding European and Asian allies pay more for their defense of empire. ..."
"... As b stated recently, Trump is an astute salesman (unfortunately, that is all he is) but what is left unmentioned is that he is of the sales school that is totally unmoored for any sense of ethical, moral or legal responsibility. ..."
"... The US political system was invested with an ability to self-correct, or self-police through separation of powers within the tripartite political system. It is hardly news this system is about dead, starting not with Trump of course, but now reaching its absolute low point under his rule and the acquiescence of the spineless GOP. ..."
That is, he started off on the wrong foot. Campaigning as a populist who eschewed accepted
mainstream "progressive" and "conservative" political positions, he completely cratered the
unpopular Republican orthodoxy during the 2016 primaries by promising such heretical ideas as
a non-interventionist foreign policy, protection for Medicare/Medicaid and social security,
improvement on Obamacare, higher taxes on the wealthiest and a massive infrastructure program
to rebuild the decaying facilities of this so-called once grate nation.
These are all ideas that gained the support of enough Obama voters and independents in
just the right flyover states to lead Trump to an improbable victory while being soundly
thrashed in the popular voting nationwide. A stunning, historical accomplishment as much as
and as much in reaction too, the 2008 Obama victory.
Of course, to those of us who understand the modern GOP and the history of the lying-ass
self promotion of the Trump entertainment spectacle its own self, we were neither duped nor
surprised when the initial 2017 legislative agenda items proferred were none of the populist
agenda but instead were the repeal of Obamacare, massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the
reversal of all Obama executive orders, most notably in the areas of refugee resettlement and
immigration.
Trump, the so-called change agent who in fact was and still is clueless regarding how to
function as President simply let the craven Obama opposition leaders of the prior 8 years,
McConnell and Ryan set out the typical GOP legislative agenda, which is opposed by a
majority, in some cases overwhelming majority, of Amerikkkans.
Obamacare repeal failed memorably based on but one late night thumb's down taken more out
of personal revenge than the ideology of a very soon to be dead Senator.
Trump's ruling style in large part has substituted for any sense of a coherent agenda in
that he obviously cares only about his base (an obdurate block of 36% of the electorate
consisting almost entirely of white, entitled, racist baby boomers who have devolved into
anti-democratic fascists now that they no longer represent a majority of the US population
and believe (falsely) they have something to protect).
Trump has succeeded in implementing some of his campaign ideas and not all of them are
100% evil or wrongheaded. He has shaken the long term calcification of the US foreign and
trade policy, has introduced tariffs especially to combat clearly unfair Chinese trade
practices while demanding European and Asian allies pay more for their defense of
empire.
While I have my own view of whether any of Trump's policies contain great value from a
long term historical perspective, I do recognize Trump's appeal to certain sectors of the
internet, including most obviously certain useful idiots of the ultra left.
I do not believe his victory to be a fluke of nature but rather in keeping with the
current worldwide trend borne of aging whitebread fear, cyncism and disenchantment with
elitist political/economic establishments and which has been amped to a viral degree by a
staggering wealth disparity, but only as it impacts the formerly entitled feeling, aging
white people situated in western countries.
The natural response to any socially or cultural threat is to band together tribally and
fight back. And the main threat, when it is boiled down, is the fear of overpopulation (and
its accompnaying unstoppable environmental degradation) driven by what is viewed
through the Trump voter political lens as non-white, primitive, illsuited people from
shithole countries who are and will continue to ruin Amerikkka and Western Europe.
As perfectly illustrated by the migrant caravan heading to Tijuana.
Unfortunately, Trump through disinterest or incompetence or both hasn't followed through
either with enough of the promises he made that are actually meaningful to most people,
whether GOP or Democratic. He has been able to bind his tribe to him and conquer the GOP
political apparatus simply because the Party platform was already so badly decayed
(overcooked Reagan leftovers) and out of touch with reality pre-Trump that the Donald could
bend delusional conservative tropes in any way he saw fit to his electoral advantage. As long
as he infotained well, and he has indeed, he would dominate.
As b stated recently, Trump is an astute salesman (unfortunately, that is all he is)
but what is left unmentioned is that he is of the sales school that is totally unmoored for
any sense of ethical, moral or legal responsibility.
In other words, Trump is that quintessential Amerikkkan salesman: the grifter. This
particular breed of business person is not an exception in the US but rather the rule. In
fact, the US system has devolved to the point where laws and regulations now enfranchise what
previously had been considered illegal activity. Amerikkkans are heavily incentivised these
days by the call to a form of monopolistic, crony capitalism and institulionised rigged
gambling ("Wall Street"), which in more quaint times was considered mobsterism.
Institutions have been purposefully compromised so they no longer support whatever
criminal laws still exist. It is not by accident that the IRS is now chronically understaffed
and has no effective way to stop income tax cheating or collection of the minimal taxes now
due.
It is not by accident that Trump's main role as President is to weaken institutions such
as the media, to further debase language and kill whatever generally accepted objective truth
remain extant in the land. He is recognisable to all Amerikkkans as a CEO in support of this
ongoing wave of legal criminality through which the 1% and their lackeys section have
prospered at the expense of the 99%.
The US political system was invested with an ability to self-correct, or self-police
through separation of powers within the tripartite political system. It is hardly news this
system is about dead, starting not with Trump of course, but now reaching its absolute low
point under his rule and the acquiescence of the spineless GOP.
And no, I don't believe the Demotardic Party to be absolved of blame in any way. Rather,
the Demotards have entirely gone along to get along with this same trend because of course
the Party leaders have been able to criminally enrich themselves and their cronies along the
way too.
However, let's be real for minute and drop all pretense of holier than thou keyboard
revolutionism. The ultimate solution of the world's disease is not going to be resolved in
2018 through a political revolution, especially one inspired by the disharmony and fraud of
internet based social media and its acolytes. D'uh.
Look around. Since we have been blogging our lives away the world has only grown further
away from leftism. We live in a fascist police state owned and operated by teh ultra wealthy
who have dropped pretense of any humanitarian or religious concern for those less firtunated
than themselves.
Donald Trump has one more chance to make himself truly into the transformational leader he
believes himself to be in his degraded soul.
The first bill on the 2019 legislative needs to be a bipartisan infrastructure bill of
such scope and magnitude that it will serve not only a political change of direction but also
redirect the economy in such way that wealth is re-directed from the wealthy to the rest of
us, particularly those able bodied non-college educated people who have suffered through the
last several decades without hope or gain.
Trump must dictate to his party that Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security will not only
be maintained but strengthened through improved benefits.
Am I dreaming? Yes, I admit that I am. But I'm also calling out to the criminal conman in
chief: it's not too late to reclaim your own legacy.
"... Her announcement on Monday that she will vacate the leadership of Germany's ruling center-right Christian Democrats marks the culmination of what has been a slow denouement of Merkelism. ..."
"... Long the emblematic figure of "Europe," hailed by the neoliberal Economist as the continent's moral voice, long the dominant decider of its collective foreign and economic policies, Merkel will leave office with border fences being erected and disdain for European political institutions at their highest pitch ever. In this sense, she failed as dramatically as her most famous predecessors, Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl, succeeded in their efforts to make Germany both important and normal in the postwar world. ..."
"... "We can do this!" she famously declared. Europe, she said, must "show flexibility" over refugees. Then, a few days later, she said there was "no limit" to the number of migrants Germany could accept. At first, the burgeoning flood of mostly young male asylum claimants produced an orgy of self-congratulatory good feeling, celebrity posturing of welcome, Merkel greeting migrants at the train station, Merkel taking selfies with migrants, Merkel touted in The Economist as "Merkel the Bold." ..."
"... The euphoria, of course, did not last. Several of the Merkel migrants carried out terror attacks in France that fall. (France's socialist prime minister Manuel Valls remarked pointedly after meeting with Merkel, "It was not us who said, 'Come!'") Reports of sexual assaults and murders by migrants proved impossible to suppress, though Merkel did ask Mark Zuckerberg to squelch European criticism of her migration policies on Facebook. Intelligent as she undoubtedly is (she was a research chemist before entering politics), she seemed to lack any intellectual foundation to comprehend why the integration of hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim world might prove difficult. ..."
"... Merkel reportedly telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to ask how Israel had been so successful in integrating so many immigrants during its brief history. There is no record of what Netanyahu thought of the wisdom of the woman posing this question. ..."
"... In any case, within a year, the Merkel initiative was acknowledged as a failure by most everyone except the chancellor herself. ..."
Drop of Light/Shutterstock Whatever her accomplishments
as pathbreaking female politician and respected leader of Europe's dominant economic power, Angela Merkel will go down in history
for her outburst of naivete over the issue of migration into Europe during the summer of 2015.
Her announcement on Monday that she will vacate the leadership of Germany's ruling center-right Christian Democrats marks
the culmination of what has been a slow denouement of Merkelism.
She had seen the vote share of her long dominant party shrink in one regional election after another. The rebuke given to her
last weekend in Hesse, containing the Frankfurt region with its booming economy, where she had campaigned extensively, was the final
straw. Her CDU's vote had declined 10 points since the previous election, their voters moving toward the further right (Alternative
fur Deutschland or AfD). Meanwhile, the further left Greens have made dramatic gains at the expense of Merkel's Social Democrat coalition
partners.
Long the emblematic figure of "Europe," hailed by the neoliberal Economist as the continent's moral voice, long the
dominant decider of its collective foreign and economic policies, Merkel will leave office with border fences being erected and disdain
for European political institutions at their highest pitch ever. In this sense, she failed as dramatically as her most famous predecessors,
Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl, succeeded in their efforts to make Germany both important and normal
in the postwar world.
One can acknowledge that while Merkel never admitted error for her multiculti summer fling (beyond wishing she had communicated
her goals better), she did manage to adjust her policies. By 2016, Germany under her watch was paying a healthy ransom to Turkey
to keep would-be migrants in camps and preventing them from sailing to Greece. Merkel's departure will make the battle to succeed
her one of the most watched political contests in Europe. She has turned migration into a central and quite divisive issue within
the CDU and Germany, and the party may decide that it has no choice but to accommodate, in one way or another, the voters who have
left them for the AfD.
Related to the issue of who should reside in Europe (objectively the current answer remains anyone who can get there) is the question
of how are such questions decided. In July 2015, five years after asserting in a speech that multiculturalism has
"utterly failed" in Germany (without addressing what policies should be pursued in an increasingly ethnically diverse society)
and several weeks after reducing a young Arab girl to tears at a televised forum by telling her that those whose asylum claims were
rejected would "have to go back" and that "politics is hard," Merkel changed course.
For those interested in psychological studies of leadership and decision making, it would be hard to imagine a richer subject.
Merkel's government first announced it would no longer enforce the rule (the Dublin agreement) that required asylum claimants to
be processed in the first country they passed through. Then she doubled down. The migrants fleeing the Syrian civil war, along with
those who pretended to be Syrian, and then basically just anyone, could come to Germany.
"We can do this!" she famously declared. Europe, she said, must "show flexibility" over refugees. Then, a few days later,
she said there was "no limit" to the number of migrants Germany could accept. At first, the burgeoning flood of mostly young male
asylum claimants produced an orgy of self-congratulatory good feeling, celebrity posturing of welcome, Merkel greeting migrants at
the train station, Merkel taking selfies with migrants, Merkel touted in The Economist as
"Merkel the Bold."
Her words traveled far beyond those fleeing Syria. Within 48 hours of the "no limit" remark, TheNew York Times
reported a sudden stirring of migrants from Nigeria. Naturally Merkel boasted in a quiet way about how her decision had revealed
that Germany had put its Nazi past behind it. "The world sees Germany as a land of hope and chances," she said. "That wasn't always
the case." In making this decision personally, Merkel was making it for all of Europe. It was one of the ironies of a European arrangement
whose institutions were developed in part to transcend nationalism and constrain future German power that 70 years after the end
of the war, the privately arrived-at decision of a German chancellor could instantly transform societies all over Europe.
The euphoria, of course, did not last. Several of the Merkel migrants carried out terror attacks in France that fall. (France's
socialist prime minister Manuel Valls remarked pointedly after meeting with Merkel, "It was not us who said, 'Come!'") Reports of
sexual assaults and murders by migrants proved impossible to suppress, though Merkel did ask Mark Zuckerberg to squelch European
criticism of her migration policies on Facebook. Intelligent as she undoubtedly is (she was a research chemist before entering politics),
she seemed to lack any intellectual foundation to comprehend why the integration of hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim
world might prove difficult.
Merkel reportedly telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to ask how Israel had been so successful in integrating so many immigrants
during its brief history. There is no record of what Netanyahu thought of the wisdom of the woman posing this question.
In any case, within a year, the Merkel initiative was acknowledged as a failure by most everyone except the chancellor herself.
Her public approval rating plunged from 75 percent in April 2015 to 47 percent the following summer. The first electoral rebuke came
in September 2016, when the brand new anti-immigration party, the Alternative fur Deutschland, beat Merkel's CDU in Pomerania.
In every election since, Merkel's party has lost further ground. Challenges to her authority from within her own party have become
more pointed and powerful. But the mass migration accelerated by her decision continues, albeit at a slightly lower pace.
Angela Merkel altered not only Germany but the entire European continent, in irreversible ways, for decades to come.
Scott McConnell is a founding editor ofand the author of Ex-Neocon: Dispatches From the Post-9/11 Ideological Wars
.
"... On the other hand, President Trump is pushing Merkel on policy on Russia and Ukraine that furthers the image that she is simply a stooge of U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Don't ever forget that Germany is, for all intents and purposes, an occupied country. So, what the U.S. military establishment wants, Merkel must provide. ..."
"... But Merkel, further weakened by another disastrous state election, isn't strong enough to fend off her emboldened Italian and British opposition (and I'm not talking about The Gypsum Lady, Theresa May here). ..."
"... Merkel is a lame-duck now. Merkelism is over. Absentee governing from the center standing for nothing but the international concerns has been thoroughly rebuked by the European electorate from Spain to the shores of the Black Sea. ..."
"... Germany will stand for something other than globalism by the time this is all over. There will be a renaissance of culture and tradition there that is similar to the one occurring at a staggering pace in Russia. ..."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stepped down as the leader of the Christian Democratic
Union, the party she has led for nearly two decades. Yesterday's election in Hesse, normally a
CDU/SPD stronghold was abysmal for them.
She had to do something to quell the revolt brewing against her.
Merkel knew going in what the polls were showing. Unlike American and British polls, it
seems the German ones are mostly accurate with pre-election polls coming close to matching the
final results.
So, knowing what was coming for her and in the spirit of trying to maintain power for as
long as possible Merkel has been moving away from her staunch positions on unlimited
immigration and being in lock-step with the U.S. on Russia.
She's having to walk a tightrope on these two issues as the turmoil in U.S. political
circles is pulling her in, effectively, opposite directions.
The globalist Davos Crowd she works for wants the destruction of European culture and
individual national sovereignty ground into a paste and power consolidated under the rubric of
the European Union.
They also want Russia brought to heel.
On the other hand, President Trump is pushing Merkel on policy on Russia and Ukraine that
furthers the image that she is simply a stooge of U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Don't ever
forget that Germany is, for all intents and purposes, an occupied country. So, what the U.S.
military establishment wants, Merkel must provide.
So, if she rejects that role and the chaos U.S. policy engenders, particularly Syria, she's
undermining the flow of migrants into Europe.
This is why it was so significant that she and French President Emmanuel Macron joined this
weekend's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan in Istanbul.
It ended with an agreement on Syria's future that lies in direct conflict with the U.S.'s
goals of the past seven years.
It was an admission that Assad has prevailed in Syria and the plan to atomize it into yet
another failed state has itself failed. Merkel has traded 'Assad must go' for 'no more
refugees.'
To President Trump's credit he then piggy-backed on that statement announcing that the U.S.
would be pulling out of Syria very soon now. And that tells me that he is still coordinating in
some way with Putin and other world leaders on the direction of his foreign policy in spite of
his opposition.
But the key point from the Istanbul statement was that Syria's rebuilding be prioritized to
reverse the flow of migrants so Syrians can go home. While
Gilbert Doctorow is unconvinced by France's position here , I think Merkel has to be
focused on assisting Putin in achieving his goal of returning Syria to Syrians.
Because, this is both a political necessity for Merkel as well as her trying to burnish her
crumbling political throne to maintain power.
The question is will Germans believe and/or forgive her enough for her to stay in power
through her now stated 'retirement' from politics in 2021?
I don't think so and it's obvious Davos Crowd boy-toy Macron is working overtime to salvage
what he can for them as Merkel continues to face up to the political realities across Europe,
which is that populism is a natural reaction to these insane policies.
Merkel's job of consolidating power under the EU is unfinished. They don't have financial
integration. The Grand Army of the EU is still not a popular idea. The euro-zone is a disaster
waiting to happen and its internal inconsistencies are adding fuel to an already pretty hot
political fire.
On this front, EU integration, she and Macron are on the same page. Because 'domestically'
from an EU perspective, Brexit still has to be dealt with and the showdown with the Italians is
only just beginning.
But Merkel, further weakened by another disastrous state election, isn't strong enough to
fend off her emboldened Italian and British opposition (and I'm not talking about The Gypsum
Lady, Theresa May here).
And Macron should stop looking in the mirror long enough to see he's standing on a quicksand
made of blasting powder.
This points to the next major election for Europe, that of the European Parliament in May
where all of Merkel's opposition are focused on wresting control of that body and removing
Jean-Claude Juncker or his hand-picked replacement (Merkel herself?) from power.
The obvious transition for Merkel is from German Chancellor to European Commission
President. She steps down as Chancellor in May after the EPP wins a majority then to take
Juncker's job. I'm sure that's been the plan all along. This way she can continue the work she started
without having to face the political backlash at home.
But, again, how close is Germany to snap elections if there is another migrant attack and
Chemnitz-like demonstrations. You can only go to the 'Nazi' well so many times, even in
Germany.
There comes a point where people will have simply had enough and their anger isn't born of
being intolerant but angry at having been betrayed by political leadership which doesn't speak
for them and imported crime, chaos and violence to their homes.
And the puppet German media will not be able to contain the story. The EU's speech rules
will not contain people who want to speak. The clamp down on hate speech, pioneered by Merkel
herself is a reaction to the growing tide against her.
And guess what? She can't stop it.
The problem is that Commies like Merkel and Soros don't believe in anything. They are
vampires and nihilists as I said over the
weekend suffused with a toxic view of humanity.
Oh sure, they give lip service to being inclusive and nice about it while they have
control over the levers of power, the State apparatus. But, the minute they lose control of
those levers, the sun goes down, the fangs come out and the bloodletting begins.
These people are vampires, sucking the life out of a society for their own ends. They are
evil in a way that proves John Barth's observation that "man can do no wrong." For they never
see themselves as the villain.
No. They see themselves as the savior of a fallen people. Nihilists to their very core
they only believe in power. And, since power is their religion, all activities are justified
in pursuit of their goals.
Their messianic view of themselves is indistinguishable to the Salafist head-chopping
animals people like Hillary empowered to sow chaos and death across the Middle East and North
Africa over the past decade.
Add to this Merkel herself who took Hillary's empowerment of these animals and gave them a
home across Europe. At least now Merkel has the good sense to see that this has cost her nearly
everything.
Even if she has little to no shame.
Hillary seems to think she can run for president again and win with the same schtick she
failed with twice before. Frankly, I welcome it like I welcome the sun in the morning, safe in
the knowledge that all is right with the world and she will go down in humiliating defeat yet
again.
Merkel is a lame-duck now. Merkelism is over. Absentee governing from the center standing
for nothing but the international concerns has been thoroughly rebuked by the European
electorate from Spain to the shores of the Black Sea.
Germany will stand for something other than globalism by the time this is all over. There
will be a renaissance of culture and tradition there that is similar to the one occurring
at a staggering pace in Russia.
Among the many untruths told about Donald Trump is the claim that his is not a movement of
ideas. As a candidate in 2016, Trump may not have spoken the language of the policy wonks. But
unlike those Republicans who did, his view of the world was not a stale ideological cliche. It
was instead refreshingly frank: about a foreign policy that couldn't win the wars it waged, an
economy that imperiled middle- and working-class America, and an immigration regime only the
employers of illegal nannies could love. Trump recognized reality, and that drew to his cause
independent-minded intellectuals who had also done so. The Trump movement suffers not from a
dearth of ideas or thinkers, but a dearth of institutions. It has thinkers but no think
tank.
F.H. Buckley, Foundation Professor at George Mason University's Scalia School of Law, is one
of its thinkers. His new book, The Republican Workers Party , comes from a publisher --
Encounter -- led by another, Roger Kimball. Buckley is no relation to William F., who as
writer, editor, and Firing Line host did more than anyone to make conservatism a byword
for eloquence in the latter half of the 20th century. But much as the other Buckley remade the
Right by founding National Review in 1955, this one aims to bring about a profound
change of heart and mind among conservatives. He wants to make good on the promise of the GOP
as a party for American workers.
It was a promise made right from the beginning, when in the mid-19th century the Republicans
were the party of free labor against the slavocracy. But the GOP and the country lost their
way. Today, in Buckley's telling, a self-perpetuating "New Class" of administrators and
mandarins runs the country from perches of privilege in the academy and nonprofit sector, as
well as the media, government, and much of the business world. Republicans of the Never Trump
variety are as much a part of this ruling caste as Clinton-Schumer-Pelosi Democrats are. And if
you might wonder whether someone in Buckley's position isn't part of the same professional
stratum, his answer is that he very much aspires to be a traitor to his class, just as Donald
Trump is.
Trump, writes Buckley, is "unlike anything we've seen before, for the simple reason that
he's up against something that we've never seen before: a liberalism that has given up on the
American Dream of a mobile and classless society." Those who today style themselves as
progressives are nothing of the sort -- they are not revolutionaries but the new aristocrats:
"They are Bourbons who seek to pass themselves off as Jacobins. They have bought into a radical
leftism, while resisting the call to unseat a patrician class that leftists in the past would
have opposed."
This is an eloquent explanation for an inversion that has puzzled many observers. Today's
Left, at least the mainstream Left represented by the Democratic Party, is now
establishmentarian. The Republican Right is now populist, if not downright revolutionary. "When
the upper class is composed of liberals who support socialist measures to keep us immobile and
preserve their privileged position," Buckley argues, "class warfare to free up our economy by
tearing down an aristocracy is conservative and just, as well as popular."
Buckley came to these conclusions before the rise of Donald Trump. They are at the heart of
his last two books, The Way Back and The Republic of Virtue . He recognized in
Trump a force for salutary change. So in early 2016, he signed up as a speechwriter for the
candidate and his family. At one point, this attracted unwanted attention: a speech delivered
by Donald Trump Jr. was found to have plagiarized an article in . Except it wasn't plagiarism:
Buckley was the author of both. I was editor of the magazine at the time, and Buckley is
correct when he says in The Republican Workers Party that I enjoyed the non-scandal --
because it brought attention to an essay I thought deserved a brighter spotlight than it had
initially received.
A further disclosure or two is in order: I also published some of the material that appears
in The Republican Workers Party in the journal I now edit, Modern Age , and I'm
thanked in the book's acknowledgments. My warm words for Buckley's last volume are quoted on
the dust jacket of this one. The review you're reading now is honest, but subjective -- I'm a
part of the story. Only a small one, however: Buckley reveals many details of the Trump
campaign and post-election transition that I had never heard before, including how Michael
Anton came to be hired and fired.
The campaign memoir is intriguing in its own right, but it's in the service of the book's
larger purpose. I've known Buckley to refer to himself as an economic determinist, and he's
also said that the future will be decided by a fight between the right-wing Marxists and the
left-wing Marxists. But those are exaggerations, and The Republican Workers Party isn't
primarily about economics: quite the contrary, it's about solidarity, humanity, and the
Christian spirit of brotherhood. The book is informed by a religious sensibility as much as it
is by policy acumen. But it's a religious sensibility that addresses the soul through material
conditions. Buckley is critical of attempts at a "moral rearmament crusade" that amounts to
shaming the poor and blaming them for their own condition.
On this, Buckley is at odds with what movement conservatism has promoted over the last
30-odd years, which is a pure moralism alongside a theoretically pure free-market economism,
each restricted to its own categorical silo. An economic conservative or libertarian might thus
approach Buckley's book with the trepeditation of a holy Inquisitor fearful that a friend will
be found committing heresy. But there is little in these pages that a free-market conservative
can quibble with at the policy level: rather it is the spirit in which economic conservatives
conduct politics that Buckley criticizes. He is even on the side of conservative orthodoxy,
more or less, when it comes to tariffs. He's a free trader at heart, though not a dogmatic
one.
On immigration, he favors a more Canadian-like, points-based system that would prioritize
skills, with a view toward providing maximum benefit for our current citizens, especially the
least well off among them. The present system "admits people who underbid native-born Americans
for low-skill jobs, while refusing entry to people with greater skills who would make life
better for all Americans." Canada lets in many more immigrants in proportion to its population
than the United States does, but "Canadians see an immigration policy designed to benefit the
native-born, so they don't think their government wants to stick it to them," even when it
comes to generous admission of refugees.
Buckley speaks from experience about immigration and Canada -- he was born, brought up, and
lived most of his life there before becoming a U.S. citizen in 2014. Like Alexander Hamilton,
whose Caribbean origins gave him a view of America's national economy unprejudiced by sectional
interests, Buckley's Canadian background gives him an independent vantage from which to
consider our characteristic shibboleths unsparingly. The separation of powers, for one, is a
dismal failure that "has given us two or more different Republican parties: a presidential
party, which today is the Republican Workers Party, but also congressional Republican parties
rooted in the issues and preference of local members. There's the Freedom Caucus composed of
Tea Party members, the more moderate Main Street Partnership and whatever maverick senators
were thinking this morning." Federalism too is a mixed bag. These are themes touched lightly
upon here but worked out in detail in such earlier Buckley books as The Once and Future
King .
That's not to say there's something alien about Buckley's ideas. He's an heir to Viscount
Bolingbroke, as were many of the Founding Fathers. (He contrasts Bolingbroke's disinterested
ideal of a patriot king, for example, with the identity-driven politics of the Democratic
Party.) But Buckley is also an heir to George Grant and the Anglo-Canadian tradition of Red
Toryism, a form of conservatism that does not bother itself with anti-government formulas that
never seem to reduce the size of government one iota anyway. Buckley's heroes are "leaders such
as Disraeli, Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston's father) and even Winston Churchill himself."
"They were conservative" but "they supported generous social welfare policies."
The policies that Buckley is most concerned about, however, are those that generate social
mobility. Education is thus high on his agenda. He is a strong supporter of vouchers and school
choice and points again to Canada as a success story for private schools receiving public
funds. But America is a rather different country, and as popular as vouchers are on the Right,
some of us can't help but wonder whether they would lead to the same outcome in primary and
secondary education that federal financial aid has produced in higher education. With the money
comes regulation, and usually soaring prices, too.
But Buckley is right that the defects of our present education system go a long way toward
explaining the rise of the new status class, and other countries have found answers to the
questions that perplex American politics -- or some of them at least. More adventurous thinking
is required if anything is to be saved of the American dream of mobility, in place of the
nightmare of division into static castes of winners and losers.
Libertarian economists and blame-the-poor moralizers are not the only figures on the Right
Buckley criticizes. He has no patience for the barely disguised Nietzscheanism of certain "East
Coast" Straussians, who imagine themselves to be philosopher-princes, educating a class of
obedient gentlemen who will in turn dominate a mass of purely appetitive worker bees and cannon
fodder.
Buckley's book is an argument against right-wing heartlessness. Its title may conjure in
some minds phantoms of the National Socialist German Workers Party or America's own penny-ante
white nationalist Traditionalist Workers Party, on which the media has lavished a certain
amount of attention in recent years. But fascists are not traditionalists, workers, or even,
properly speaking, socialists -- they simply steal whatever terms happen to be popular. Buckley
refuses to concede their claims and appease them.
He is eloquent in his American -- not white -- nationalism. "There isn't much room for white
nationalism in American culture," he writes, "For alongside baseball and apple pie, it includes
Langston Hughes and Amy Tan, Tex-Mex food and Norah Jones. You can be an American if you don't
enjoy them, but you might be a wee bit more American if you do." It's populism, not
nationalism, that he considers a toxic term, its genealogy tracing to figures like "Pitchfork
Ben" Tillman, a Jim Crow proponent and defender of lynch mobs.
He is right to defend the honor of nationalism, but Buckley may be mistaken in his animus
toward "populism," a word that for most people is more likely to bring to mind William Jennings
Bryan than the Ku Klux Klan.
Buckley's project in The Republican Workers Party parallels on the Right the task
taken up by Mark Lilla on the Left in last year's The Once and Future Liberal . Like
Lilla, Buckley wants to see a revival of mid-20th-century liberalism. For both, politics is
ultimately class-based, not identity-based. Lilla trains his fire on the identity-parsing Left,
while Buckley rebukes the Right for failing to fight the class war -- or rather, for fighting
on the wrong side, that of the self-serving New Class, the aristocracy of education,
connections, and right-thinking opinion.
This may seem nostalgic, but it's not: Buckley does not expect a return to JFK or Camelot,
even if, like Lilla, he once borrowed a title from T.H. White. The 21st century can only give
us a new and very different Kennedy or Disraeli -- an insurgent from the Right to retake the
center. In Donald Trump, F.H. Buckley found such a figure, but a movement needs a program as
well as a leader, and the program has to be grounded in an idea of humanity and the limits of
politics. The nation defines those limits, and while not every Trump supporter will agree with
Buckley's policy thought in all its specifics, the spirit of Buckley's endeavor represents what
is finest in the Trump moment, and what is best in conservatism, too.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
"... As to your question about who votes for Bolsonaro, I think we can break this down into three or four categories. His hard core is the sort of middle class of small business owners, plus members of the police and the armed forces. This would be, I guess, your classic fascist constituency, if you want to call it that. But you know, that's a very small proportion. ..."
"... Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is a former academic sociologist who was exiled during the military dictatorship and was president of Brazil in the late '90s. He has yet to endorse Haddad, despite the fact that Bolsonaro previously said something about 10 years ago that Fernando Henrique Cardoso should have been killed by the military dictatorship. This is a real, in my opinion, a real failure of character, a real cowardice from the Brazilian supposedly-centrist elite to defend democracy against the very obvious threat that Bolsonaro poses. ..."
As to your question about who votes for Bolsonaro, I think we can break this down into
three or four categories. His hard core is the sort of middle class of small business owners,
plus members of the police and the armed forces. This would be, I guess, your classic fascist
constituency, if you want to call it that. But you know, that's a very small proportion.
And certainly in terms of his voters, in terms of his voter base, that's a small proportion.
What you have, then, is the rich, amongst whom he has a very significant lead. He polls 60-65
percent amongst the rich. And these people are motivated by what is called [inaudible]machismo,
which is anti-Worker's Party sentiment, which is really a sort form of barely-disguised class
loathing which targets the Worker's Party, rails against corruption, but of course turns a
blind eye to corruption amongst more traditional right-wing politicians.
These are the people who, at the end of the day, are quite influential, and have probably
proved decisive for Bolsonaro. But that isn't to say that he doesn't have support amongst the
poor, and this is the real issue. Bolsonaro would not win an election with just the support of
the reactionary middle class and the rich. He needs the support amongst the broad masses, and
he does have that to a significant degree, unfortunately.
What are they motivated by? They're motivated by a sense that politics has failed them, that
their situation is pretty hopeless. The security situation is very grave. And Bolsonaro seems
to be someone who might do something different, might change things. It's a bit of a rolling of
the dice kind of situation. And you know, here the Worker's Party does bear some blame. They've
lost a large section of the working class. A large section of the poor feel like they were
betrayed by the Worker's Party, who didn't stay true to its promises. The Worker's Party
implemented the austerity in its last government under Dilma, which led to a ballooning of
unemployment. And you know, there's a sense that- well, what have you done for us? A lot of
people don't want to return to the path. They want something better, and kind of roll the dice
hoping that maybe Bolsonaro does something, even though all evidence points to the fact that
he'll be a government for the rich, and the very rich, and for the forces of repression.
GREG WILPERT: So finally, in the little time that we have remaining, what is
happening to Brazil's left? Is it supporting the Haddad campaign wholeheartedly?
ALEX HOCHULI: Yes, absolutely. It's pretty much uniform amongst the left. Certainly
in terms of, you know, in terms of individuals, in terms of groups, in terms of movements.
Everyone, from even the kind of far-left Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party who
hate PT have told its members that they should vote for Fernando Haddad who, it should be
noted, is a figure to the right of that of PT, I guess, within the party. He's a much more
centrist figure. So that's kind of notable.
What hasn't happened is a broad front against fascism. That hasn't really materialized,
because the Brazilian center has failed to defend its democratic institutions against the very
obvious threat that Bolsonaro represents. You know, just to highlight one thing, Eduardo
Bolsonaro, who is Jair Bolsonar's son and a congressman, has threatened the Supreme Court,
saying that you could close down the Supreme Court. All you have to do is send one soldier and
one corporal, and they'll shut down the Supreme Court. I mean, this is a pretty brave threat
against Brazilian institutions. And a lot of the center has failed to really manifest itself,
really failed to take a stand. Marina Silva, who was at one point polling quite high about six
months ago, who is a kind of an environmentalist and an evangelical and a centrist, and who is
known for always in her speeches talking about doing things democratically, even she- it took
her until this week to finally endorse Haddad, lending Haddad critical support.
The center right, which should be the, you know, the Brazilian establishment, the ones
upholding the institutions, have broadly failed to endorse Haddad as the democratic candidate.
Which is really, really striking. I mean, just to give you one example, probably the best known
figure for your viewers outside of Brazil who might not know the ins and outs and all the
players involved, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who is a former academic sociologist who was
exiled during the military dictatorship and was president of Brazil in the late '90s. He has
yet to endorse Haddad, despite the fact that Bolsonaro previously said something about 10 years
ago that Fernando Henrique Cardoso should have been killed by the military dictatorship. This
is a real, in my opinion, a real failure of character, a real cowardice from the Brazilian
supposedly-centrist elite to defend democracy against the very obvious threat that Bolsonaro
poses.
GREG WILPERT: Wow. Amazing. We'll definitely keep our eyes peeled for what happens on
Sunday. We'll probably have you back soon. I'm speaking to Alex Hochuli, researcher and
communication consultant based in Sao Paulo. Thanks again, Alex, for having joined us
today.
Not to worry. Brexit is rather a textbook example of the political/economic dichotomy to
which I speak @ 5.
There will be no Brexit in economic or political reality. It isn't even remotely possible,
even in the unlikely event the EU collapses in the short term. There may be a pseudo "Brexit"
for political face-saving purposes, true, which will consist of a similar sales effort as
Trump is making to hold onto his own age-depressed plebes in flyover USArya.
"Brexit is coming! Brexit is coming! Tariffs are easy! Tariffs are easy! Hold on a bit
longer, we are just trying to get it right for you little people not to suffer anymore."
Lol.
@6 "Sadly many left wing ppl prefer EU neoliberal anti democratic, corrupt rule over their
own sovereign democratic institutions."
I see it more as a neoliberal desire to belong to some vague bigger global entity. Plus
the fact that since WW2 nationalism has become equated with fascism.
Britain has never been totally part of Europe....geographically or politically.
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Oct 21, 2018 10:16:20 AM |
link
@dh-mtl: True that. Sadly many left wing ppl prefer EU neoliberal anti democratic, corrupt
rule over their own souvereign democratic institutions. It was the national state (with its
additional regional democratic institutions) that brought us democracy, not the neolibs EU.
But that truth hurts, and many prefer empty slogans against the evil national state over a
honest analysis.
@B: Inoreader cant find new feeds for some days, something is broken!
With Brexit, the U.K. is trying to save itself before it collapses to a state similar to
Greece.
The E.U., because it is essentially a financially based dictatorship, and is fatally
flawed, will break apart. And, in this sense, I agree with you that the U.K. is ahead of the
curve.
Abandoning nuclear treaty is just a diversion to steer away eyes off Khashoggi case, latter
being even more important as it wedges in the very depth of an internal US political
demise.
UK barks there on Russia to steer its own downfall into spotlight of an importance on a world
stage that is close to null. UK didn't even sign anything with Russia as basically nobody
else did from within NATO, so one can render that INF as outdated and stale.
Will they come up with a new one that suits all or we will just let it go and slip into
unilateral single polarity downfall of West? Answers are coming along real soon.
Right now US and a few vasal allies left are getting into dirty set of strategic games
opposing far more skilled opponents and it will come around at a really high price. EU has
lost many contracts lately in mid east due to America First, so a lots of sticks in US wheels
are coming up. It is going to be a real fun watching all that and reading b. and others on
MoA..
The UK will most likely crash out of the EU. Of course, one can't exclude that some
last minute holding action, temp. solution, or reversal can be found - but I doubt it.
Northern Ireland will break away. The analysis of the vote has been very poor, and based
on an 'identity politics' and slice-n-dice views. Pensioners afraid to lose their pension,
deplorables, victims of austerity, lack of young voter turnout, etc.
NI and Scotland are ruled by a tri-partite scheme: 'home rule', 'devolution' - Westminster
- and the EU. The two peripheral entities prefer belonging to and participating in the larger
group (see also! reasons historical and of enmity etc.) which has on the whole been good for
them. England prefers a return to some mythical sovereignity / nationalism, getting rid of
the super-ordinate power, a last desperate stab at Britannia (hm?) rules the waves or at
least some bloody thing like traffic on the Thames, labor law, etc. The UK had no business
running that referendum - by that I mean that in the UK pol. system Parliament rules supreme,
which is antithetical to the referendum approach (in any case the result is only advisory)
and running it was a signal of crack-up. By now, it is clear that the UK political / Gvmt.
system is not fit for handling problems in the years 2000.
Why NI and not Scotland (which might split as well ..)? From a geo-political pov, because
geography bats last - yes. And also because NI is the much weaker entity. EU has stated (Idk
about texts etc.): if and when a EU member conquers, annexes, brings into the fold some
'other' territory, it then in turn becomes part of the EU. Ex. If Andorra chose to join Spain
it would meld into Eurolandia, with time to adjust to all the rules. Perhaps Macron would no
longer be a Prince!
However, Catalonia *cannot* be allowed to split from Spain (affecting Spanish integrity
and the EU) and if it did it would crash out of the EU, loosing all, so that doesn't work.
Scotland is not Catalonia. NI has had a special status in many ways for a long time so it is
easier to tolerate and imagine alternatives. The EU will pay for NI...
The UK is losing power rapidly and indulging in its own form of 're-trenchment' (different
from the Trumpian desired one) - both are nostalgic, but the British one is more
suicidal.
The only alternative interpretation I can see (suggested by John Michael Greer) is that
the UK is ahead of the curve: a pre-emptive collapse (rather semi-collapse) now would put it
in a better position than others 20 years or so hence. That would also include a break-up
into parts.
"... Another year wouldn't be enough additional time to achieve a trade agreement unless the UK capitulated to EU terms. And a big motivation for this idea seemed to be to try to kick the Irish border can down the road. ..."
"... Theresa May is facing the most perilous week of her premiership after infuriating all sections of her party by making further concessions to Brussels. Her offer to extend the transition period after Brexit -- made without cabinet approval -- enraged Remain and Leave Tory MPs alike. ..."
"... DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has rejected calls for the post-Brexit transition period to be extended, claiming it would cost the UK billions and not break the Irish border deadlock . ..."
"... Theresa May has conceded the Irish backstop cannot have an end date, risking the threat of fresh Cabinet resignations. The PM told Leo Varadkar she accepted Brussels' demands that any fallback border solution cannot be "time-limited". ..."
"... Merkel's effort at an intervention came off like a clueless CEO telling subordinates who have been handed a nearly-impossible task that they need to get more creative ..."
"... Emmanuel Macron, the French president, struck a more uncompromising tone. "It's not for the EU to make some concessions to deal with a British political issue. I can't be more clear on this," he said. "Now the key element for a final deal is on the British side, because the key element is a British political compromise." ..."
"... Article 50 – Treaty on European Union (TEU) 1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. ..."
"... It is accepted that all of the institutional and constitutional arrangements – an Assembly in Northern Ireland , a North/South Ministerial Council, implementation bodies, a British-Irish Council and a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference and any amendments to British Acts of Parliament and the Constitution of Ireland – are interlocking and interdependent and that in particular the functioning of the Assembly and the North/South Council are so closely inter-related that the success of each depends on that of the other. ..."
Another year wouldn't be enough additional time to achieve
a trade agreement unless the UK capitulated to EU terms. And a big motivation for this idea
seemed to be to try to kick the Irish border can down the road.
As we'll get to later in this post, the press has filed more detailed reports on the EU's
reactions to May's "nothing new" speech at the European Council summit on Wednesday. The
reactions seem to be more sober; recall the first takes were relief that nothing bad happened
and at least everyone was trying to put their best foot forward. Merkel also pressed Ireland
and the EU to be more flexible over the Irish border question but Marcon took issue with her
position. However, they both
then went to a outdoor cafe and had beers for two hours .
May's longer transition scheme vehemently criticized across Tory factions and by the DUP .
Even pro-Remain Tories are opposed. The press had a field day.
From the Telegraph :
Theresa May was on Thursday evening increasingly isolated over her plan to keep Britain
tied to the EU for longer as she was savaged by both wings of her party and left in the cold
by EU leaders
The move enraged Brexiteers who said it would cost billions, and angered members of the
Cabinet who said they had not formally agreed the plan before she offered it up as a
bargaining chip. Mrs May also faced a potential mutiny from Tory MPs north of the border,
including David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, who said the proposal was "unacceptable"
because it would delay the UK's exit from the hated Common Fisheries Policy.
Theresa May is facing the most perilous week of her premiership after infuriating all
sections of her party by making further concessions to Brussels. Her offer to extend the
transition period after Brexit -- made without cabinet approval -- enraged Remain and Leave
Tory MPs alike.
DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has rejected calls for the post-Brexit transition period
to be extended, claiming it would cost the UK billions and not break the Irish border
deadlock .
His comments came after Tory MPs on all wings of the party also rejected extending the
transition period.
Former minister Nick Boles, who campaigned for Remain in the 2016 referendum, told the
Today programme: "I'm afraid she's losing the confidence now of colleagues of all shades of
opinion – people who've been supportive of her throughout this process – they are
close to despair at the state of this negotiation."
Brexiteer MP Andrea Jenkyns tweeted: "Back in July, myself and 36 colleagues signed a
letter to the Prime Minister setting out our red lines – and that was one of them. It's
completely ridiculous."
Scottish Tories say they would veto an extension to the Brexit transition period in
support of their fisherman.
And members of the hard-core Brexit faction are also up in arms about May conceding that an
Irish border backstop can't be time limited. From The
Sun :
Theresa May has conceded the Irish backstop cannot have an end date, risking the
threat of fresh Cabinet resignations. The PM told Leo Varadkar she accepted Brussels' demands
that any fallback border solution cannot be "time-limited".
But a fudge could cost Mrs May two eurosceptic Cabinet ministers, with Esther McVey and
Andrea Leadsom threatening to resign if there's not a set end date.
Merkel pushes for more Brussels-Ireland flexibility while Macron disagrees . I am at risk of
seeming unduly wedded to my priors, but Merkel's effort at an intervention came off like a
clueless CEO telling subordinates who have been handed a nearly-impossible task that they need
to get more creative . While Merkel is correct to point out that no-deal = hard Irish
border, an outcome no one wants, she does not appear to comprehend that the "sea border," which
is politically fraught for the UK, is the only alternative that does not create ginormous
problems for the EU. Merkel's seeming lack of comprehension may reflect the fact that EU
nations don't handle trade negotiations. From the Financial Times
:
At an EU summit dinner and in later public remarks, the German chancellor expressed
concerns about the bloc's stand-off with the UK over the Irish "backstop", a fallback measure
intended to ensure no hard border divides Ireland if other solutions fail. This has become
the biggest outstanding issue in the talks.
Three diplomats said that at the Wednesday night dinner Ms Merkel indicated that the EU
and the Republic of Ireland should rethink their approach on Northern Ireland to avoid a
fundamental clash with London.
Ms Merkel also signaled her concerns in a press conference on Thursday, highlighting that
if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal a hard border for Northern Ireland could be
inevitable.
"If you don't have an agreement you don't have a satisfactory answer [to the border issue]
either," she said, noting that on Northern Ireland "we all need an answer" .
Diplomats said the German chancellor was more forceful about the issue at the Brexit
dinner, although some other leaders remained puzzled about the chancellor's intentions.
The Financial Times also said that the UK and Germany would meet Thursday to "discuss a way
out of the Brexit impasse." Given that Barnier has offered a lot of new ideas in last month, it
is hard to see how anything new could be cooked up, unless the UK hopes to sell Germany on its
already-rejected techno vaporware idea.
Macron made clear he was not on the same page. Again from the Financial Times:
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, struck a more uncompromising tone. "It's not
for the EU to make some concessions to deal with a British political issue. I can't be more
clear on this," he said. "Now the key element for a final deal is on the British side,
because the key element is a British political compromise."
Vardakar also made a statement after the dinner that reaffirmed the importance of the EU
affirming the principles of the single market. From
The Times :
The European Union would have "huge difficulties" in agreeing to extend the Northern Irish
backstop to the rest of the UK, the taoiseach has warned. Leo Varadkar said he did not think
"any country or union" would be asked to sign up to an agreement that would give the UK
access to the single market while also allowing it to "undercut" the EU across a range of
areas including state aid competition, labour laws and environmental standards.
"I would feel very strongly about this, as a European as well as an Irishman: you couldn't
have a situation whereby the UK had access to the single market -- which is our market -- and
at the same time was able to undercut us in terms of standards, whether they were
environmental standards, labour laws, or state aid competition. I don't think any country or
any union would be asked to accept that," Mr Varadkar said in Brussels.
Robert Peston deems odds of crash out high; sees only escape route as "customs union Brexit"
. Robert Peston, who is one of the UK's best connected political reporters, described in a new
piece at ITV how May has at best a narrow path to avoiding a disorderly Brexit, and that is
what he calls a "customs union" Brexit. I am sure if Richard North saw that, he'd be tearing
his hair, since he has been describing for months why a customs union does not solve the
problem that virtually everyone who talks in up in UK thinks it solves, namely, conferring
"frictionless trade".
One key point in his analysis is that the UK will also have to accept "a blind Brexit,"
meaning a very fuzzy statement of what the "future relationship" will be. The EU had offered
that in the last month or so, presumably as a fudge to allow May to get the various wings of
her coalition to agree to something. But Peston says it's too late to do anything else.
From ITV :
Hello from Brussels and the EU Council that promised a Brexit breakthrough and delivered
nothing.
So on the basis of conversations with well-placed sources, this is how I think the Brexit
talks are placed (WARNING: if you are fearful of a no-deal Brexit, or are of a nervous
disposition, stop reading now):
1) Forget about having any clue when we leave about the nature and structure of the UK's
future trading relationship with the EU. The government heads of the EU27 have rejected
Chequers. Wholesale. And they regard it as far too late to put in place the building blocks
of that future relationship before we leave on 29 March 2019. So any Political Declaration on
the future relationship will be waffly, vague and general. It will be what so many MPs
detest: a blind Brexit. The PM may say that won't happen. No one here (except perhaps her own
Downing St team) believes her.
Erm, that alone may be a deal killer. We quoted this section of a Politico article
on October
10 :
5. Future relationship – Blind Brexit
Opposed: Brexiteers, Tory Remainers, the Labour Party, Theresa May
I'll let our astute readers give their reactions to Peston's recommendation to May:
3) There is no chance of the EU abandoning its insistence that there should be a backstop
– with no expiry date – of Northern Ireland, but not Great Britain, remaining in
the Customs Union and the single market. That would involve the introduction of the
commercial border in the Irish Sea that May says must never be drawn.
4) All efforts therefore from the UK are aimed at putting in place other arrangements to
make it impossible for that backstop to be introduced.
5) Her ruse for doing this is the creation of another backstop that would involve the
whole of the UK staying in something that looks like the customs union.
6) But she feels cannot commit to keeping the UK in the customs union forever, because her
Brexiter MPs won't let her. So it does not work as a backstop. And anyway the Article 50
rules say that the Withdrawal Agreement must not contain provisions for a permanent trading
relationship between the whole of the UK and the EU. Which is a hideous Catch 22.
7) There is a solution. She could ignore her Brexiter critics and announce the UK wanted
written into the Political Declaration – not the Withdrawal Agreement – that we
would be staying permanently in the customs union. This is one bit of specificity the rest of
the EU would allow into the Political Declaration. And it could be nodded at in the
Withdrawal Agreement.
8) But if she announces we are staying in the Customs Union she would be crossing her
reddest of red lines because she would have to abandon her ambition of negotiating free trade
deals with non-EU countries. Liam Fox would be made redundant.
9) She knows, because her Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins has told her, that her best
chance – probably her only chance of securing a Brexit deal – is to sign up for
the customs union.
10) In its absence, no-deal Brexit is massively in play.
11) But a customs-union Brexit deal would see her Brexiter MPs become incandescent with
fury.
12) Labour of course would be on the spot, since its one practical Brexit policy is to
stay in the Customs Union.
13) This therefore is May's Robert Peel moment. She could agree a Customs Union Brexit and
get it through Parliament with Labour support – while simultaneously cleaving her own
party in two.
Finally, in an elegiac piece, Richard North contends that the UK didn't need to wind up
where it is:
A reader takes me to task for making comparisons between the Brexit negotiations and the
Allied invasion of Normandy
Yet it is precisely because Mrs May seems to have chosen an adversarial route rather than
a consensual process that I have projected her failings in militaristic terms..
In reality, it would have been best to approach the Brexit process not so much as the end
of a relationship as a redefinition, where the need to continue close cooperation continues,
even if it is to be structured on a different basis
Here, though, lies the essential problem. The EU, as a treaty-based organisation, does not
have the flexibility to change its own rules just to suit the needs of one member, and
especially one which is seeking to leave the Union. Yet, on the other hand, the UK government
has political constraints which prevent it making concessions which would allow the EU to
define a new relationship
But, having put herself in a position where she is demanding something that the EU cannot
give, she herself has no alternative but to adopt an adversarial stance – if for no
other reason than to show her own political allies and critics that she is doing her best to
resolve an impossible situation.
If there is a light at the end of this tunnel, it sure looks like the headlight of an
oncoming train, the Brexit end date bearing down on the principals.
I can't help but wonder whether the proposed time extension was proposed mischievously by
EU negotiators precisely to set off divisions among the Tories. While Barniers no.1 aim is a
deal, the close to no.2 aim must surely be to ensure that in the event of no deal (or a
clearly clapped together bad interim deal), 100% of the blame goes to London. So far, they
are doing a good job with that.
Its a little concerning that Merkel was so off-message, even though she is obviously
correct that a no-deal means a hard border, which is a failure by any standard. I'm pretty
sure we won't see any overt disagreements among the EU 27 as they won't want to give the UK
the satisfaction of having sown dissent. However, that doesn't mean there won't be frantic
background pressure from some (probably pushed by business) to do some sort of deal, even a
bad one. That will inevitable mean leaning heavily on Dublin, if it is seen as the last
obstacle. Any such pressure will be private, not public I'm sure.
The damage limitation is there, for sure, but it's always aimed on rest of the world (i.e.
all but the UK, where the EU will be target in any outcome). TBH, I'm not sure how much
that's needed now..
I wonder if the various negotiating teams are reminded of that nursery rhyme I learned as
a child -- "and the wheels on the bus go round and round ".
As line one of section one of Article 50 explicitly states (and would therefore be given
substantial weight in any reading of the Article itself):
Article 50 – Treaty on European Union (TEU)
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own
constitutional requirements.
The U.K. government cannot change the constitutional settlement for Northern Ireland
without the agreement of the people of the six counties and the Republic and the rest of the
U.K. "Nothing about us, without us" in popular parlance. And Republicans need to give their
consent for any change affecting devolved matters (which is enforceable via a Petition of
Concern). EU laws and directives are devolved matters. Constitutionally, no one can force
anything on anyone in the province.
What the EU is asking the U.K. to do is impossible.
What the U.K. is asking the EU to do is impossible.
A hard border is also impossible, both as an outcome of treaty obligations and also as a
practical matter.
Therefore a no-deal Brexit is inevitable. Therefore, so is a hard border. Which is an
impossibility -- politically and operationally.
No wonder this can got kicked down the road last December. But now we have, oh, look,
what's this here? Who left this can lying around?
I'm not sure. I had always read that sentence as meaning "in accordance with its own
constitutional requirements for withdrawing from treaties in general" ie much more narrowly
focused. Normally, any government has a sovereign right to withdraw from treaties, but it
could be the case, for example, that in some countries parliament has to be informed, debates
have to be held etc, and that's the case that's being covered here. Not to say that my
interpretation (if correct) makes the situation any easier.
I posted a long comment on the French media reporting of Wednesday's talks yesterday. If I
have a moment, I'll look to see if there's anything fresh today. One thing to look out for
will be signs of tension between Paris and Brussels.
I would need a lawyer well versed in international treaty interpretations to give a proper
opinion and ultimately a court to rule on this.
What the wording definitely does not say (we can all read it for ourselves) is anything
along the lines of " may initiate " or " may invoke its right to withdraw " or
suchlike followed by the bit about constitutional adherences. Thus the requirements to act
constitutionally must likely be expected to apply to Article 50 in their entirety. Apart from
any lawyerly parsing, this is also common sense.
The section says a Member State may withdraw and it has to (this is so stating the obvious
the treaty drafting must have had this specifically in mind to mention it) be constitutional
about it. The EU cannot ask a Member State to conduct its withdrawal unconstitutionally.
No, that's not what it means – what it means is that as far as EU law is concerned,
EU law ends there. It's wholly up to the withdrawing state to define and consider.
Yes, and the Member State can't act unconstitutionally in respect of its own withdrawal
proceedings. The EU is reserving the right not to accept any instruction in the matter of a
withdrawal from the EU from the said Member State which is unconstitutional
for that Member State. Nor can the EU foist unconstitutional acts onto a Member
State in respect of the withdrawal. Its a basic principle of any legal system and any law and
any jurisprudence that Party A cannot induce Party B to break the law as a result of an
agreement between them and for that agreement to then remain valid.
As a simpler example, I draw up an agreement that says you'll pay me £100 in a
week's time and you must get the money by whatever means possible. Fast forward a week and
you don't have the £100. I can't use our agreement as an excuse for you to commit an
unlawful act (say, go and steal someone's wallet) "because we've got an agreement you'll pay
me, so that makes it okay no matter what, so long as you give me the money". Nor can you use
your being party to the agreement to say "sorry, I don't have the money, but you can steal it
from my Aunt Flossie, she's never gonna know you took it".
I have a suspicion we are (nearly) saying the same thing. See the separate thread below. A
country that signs the Lisbon Treaty accepts that any decision to withdraw will have to be
taken according to its own constitutional arrangements. This is a national obligation, but I
don't see how the EU could refuse to accept the notification on the basis that it had been
unconstitutionally arrived at, or what standing they would have. I've never heard of anything
similar happening elsewhere.
To rephrase your example. My partner and I lend you £100 and you say that we can have
it back any time we want. I ask for it back, and you refuse to give it to me on the basis
that, in your view, this has to be a joint request from my partner and me.
I buy this only partially, as Scotland has some freedom to set taxes, and NI has also
diverged from other UK laws (the infamous abortion rights).
Of course, from that, to staying in single market is quite a jump, but one could argue
that since majority of the NI voted "remain" (by some margin) they clearly DO wish to stay in
the single market.
Also the "the rest of the UK" is dubious – it's really "without the say so from the
Westminster Parliament". See Scottish Indy referendum – I didn't notice they run it in
England as well? (if they did, I suspect Scots could have been independend by now).
That said, even the above can still be done by a single poll that NI republicans actually
already called for i.e. if there's a hard-border Brexit, NI should get a reunification
vote.
TBH, that's MY suggestion to the impasse. The backstop becomes a reunification referendum.
Not time limited – once the transition period is done, it's done, nor really
challengable. You want SM, you go European, or you stay within the UK. I'd like to see DUP to
froth on that..
It's stated right at the top of the Good Friday Agreement absolutely explicitly:
It is accepted that all of the institutional and constitutional arrangements –
an Assembly in Northern Ireland , a North/South Ministerial Council, implementation bodies,
a British-Irish Council and a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference and any amendments
to British Acts of Parliament and the Constitution of Ireland – are interlocking and
interdependent and that in particular the functioning of the Assembly and the North/South
Council are so closely inter-related that the success of each depends on that of the
other.
Treaty texts rarely get so unarguably clear.
This is why I suspect there was such a push in February to get Stormont up and running
again. Without it, everything was stuck in constitutional limbo and lacking any possibility
of constitutionally-authenticated approvals. Similar any possibility of a border poll.
Without a vote in the Assembly, how can the U.K. government have any pretence (that would
withstand a UKSC challenge) that it was responding to a democratic imperative issued by
NI?
Of course, the U.K. government could do whatever the heck it likes by a reintroduced
Direct Rule. At which point the Good Friday Agreement is toast (and the Republic would have
to explicitly buy-in to Direct Rule being initiated). This must be one of the DUP's main game
plans. They really don't care that much about borders in the Irish Sea if they can get rid of
the Good Friday Agreement. The DUP would be quite happy to paint the Garvaghy Road emerald
green from end to end if they could rip that up for good.
An additional complication to this though is the British
Irish Intergovernmental Conference , which explicitly gives the Irish government a say in
non-devolved matters, including the Common Travel area and EU matters. So at least in theory,
the British government must (if the Irish government insists on reconstituting the Council,
which they haven't so far) engage with the Irish government for any change – including
Brexit – to be constitutional.
Its been speculated here that Varadkar has not called for the BIIC to be held in order not
to inflame matters with the DUP.
Yes, I think this holds a lot of water. Especially since the Republic amended its
constitution to facilitate the GFA, it shows how seriously it took the matter. While
politically it may be gruesome for the U.K. to contemplate that it would not be possible to
leave the EU without as a minimum consulting the Republic, I too think there is at least a
possibility it was in fact legally obligated via the GFA to do exactly that.
I read that entirely differently again – my (completely laymans) interpretation is
that it means a countries request for withdrawal must be internally constitutionally based.
In other words, a rogue leader can't simply say 'I'm launching A.50' in defiance of his own
Parliament or courts. Or put another way – the EU can refuse to accept an A.50
application if it can be argued that it was not generated legally in the first place.
I think that's right, though most treaties like this contain some ambiguity in their
wording. Interestingly, the French text gives a slightly different impression.
"Tout État membre peut décider, conformément à ses règles
constitutionnelles, de se retirer de l'Union," which would be translated as "Any member state
may decide, in accordance with its constitutional provisions, to leave the Union." The commas
make it clear that, in French at least, the only decision that has to be taken
constitutionally under the Treaty, is the decision to leave (alinea 1). Once that decision is
taken the states has to inform the EU (alinea 2). Of course, there's a standing general
requirement on governments to behave constitutionally, but that would be a matter for the
domestic courts, not the EU. It must also be true that they should respect their
constitutional rules during the negotiation process. Interestingly, Art 46 of the Vienna
Convention on Treaties deals exactly with your point from the other end – what happens
if a state signs a treaty without going through the proper procedures. I've seen some
suggestions on specialist blogs that Art 50 of the Lisbon Treaty was inspired by the
arguments about this point.
Rubbish. The U.K. government had every right to hold a referendum. It was advisory of
course. But Parliament had every right to invoke A50 as a result of the result.
What the U.K. government had no right whatsoever to do was to pretend that the Good Friday
Agreement obligations could or should be fudged away. Nor that the EU or the Republic should
tolerate this or go along with it. The fact that they did is, well, their bad. I'm still
shaking my head as to why Barnier et al were dumb enough to go along with it at the time.
There's probably a good reason we're not privy to.
A year or so ago there was a little discussion of this in some parts of the Irish media.
The thinking seemed to be that the government at the time (pre-Varadkar) had calculated that
it was too divisive (in terms of the potential impact on NI politics) to be seen to be taking
too aggressive a stance over Brexit (with hindsight, this was very naive, the DUP don't need
outside help to be divisive).
FG was also very worried about giving any electoral help to Sinn Fein.
With hindsight, I think this was a major miscalculation on a number of levels – I
don't think they anticipated that the stupidity of the London government would force them to
take such a strong stance on the border issue, they thought it could be finessed by way of
taking a more neutral stance.
I think these are May's options:
1. Canada+++ with backstop – the DUP say NO! and she loses a vote of confidence.
2. EFTA + EEA without CU – she comes back in triumph – "No CU!" – but she
loses DUP and Ultras so needs Corbyn, who will probably cry "No CU!" with contrary
sentiment.
3. CU with backstop – Labour says it fails test #2 (at least), but she hopes their
remainers defy the whip.
Labour could help vote through a {blind brexit' with an extended Transition} in exchange
for a post-deal General Election. This could suit May in that it would be risky for the
Tories to change leaders in an election atmosphere. The British Public can then decide WHO
best can negotiate the future Trade relationship (though sadly not the WHAT as it must be
negotiated).
You wonder what is in it for May to stay in her job as Prime Minister. All indications are
that she is a perfect example of the Peter Principle which is how she ended up with the job.
You think too that she would be tempted to chuck the whole business and say "Here Boris
– it's all yours!" with all the joy of throwing a live grenade. Maybe, in the end, it
is like Milton had Satan say once – "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven".
I don't believe it has occurred to May for one minute to resign or step aside. Power is
what drives people like her (i.e. almost all politicians). Its the nature of the beast.
Macron's official statement after the European Council is here Interestingly, only
about a third of the text was devoted to Brexit, and much of that was in turn a restatement
of EU priorities – especially unity and the Single Market – and confidence in
Barnier. All the technical solutions are known, said Macron, and it is for the UK to come up
with some new ideas for compromises. The hope was to reach an agreement in the next few
weeks, including "necessary guarantees for Ireland." The French media has essentially
confined itself to reporting what Macron said.
What this shows, I think, is an increasing irritation among European leaders that Brexit,
which should have been sorted out long ago, has been taking up the time that should really
have been devoted to more important subjects, like migration and the deepening of economic
and financial cooperation The British are regarded as a major irritant, incapable of behaving
like a great power, paralysed by internal political splits and capable of doing a lot of
collateral damage. The EU seems increasingly unwilling to devote any more time to Brexit
until the UK comes up with some genuinely useful ideas – hence the cancellation of the
November summit.
Thats probably true, but if so, its very shortsighted. If the UK crashes out, for several
months there will be nothing else on the plate of western Europe to deal with, there will be
deep implications certainly from Germany to Spain. And if it causes more wobbles in the
already very wobbly Italian banks, it'll be even more of a headache, to put it mildly.
I agree, but I think it's at least partly the UK's doing. A modicum of common sense and
political realism could have avoided this situation. The problem is that Brexit, as a
subject, has the nasty twin characteristics of being at once extremely complicated and
politically lunatic. I think EU leaders are focusing on the second, and in some ways May has
become almost light relief. But jokes stop being funny after a while, and I think Macron is
reflecting a wider belief among national leaders that only the UK can sort this out: you
broke it, you fix it.
If there were issues which, whilst difficult, were potentially fixable then I think a lot
more effort would have gone into the negotiations from EU leaders. But they must feel they
are trapped in some Ionesco farce or (to vary the metaphor) trying to negotiate with the
Keystone Cops.
Except the Keystone Cops happen to be playing with hand grenades. There's no doubt that
European leaders are taking a crash-out seriously (the French have published a draft bill
giving the government emergency powers to deal with such a situation) but I think there's a
also widespread sense of helplessness. What can the EU actually do that it hasn't already
done? All they can hope for is an outbreak of common sense in London, and I think we all know
how likely that is. In the circumstances, you might as well concentrate on subjects where
progress is actually possible.
Fascism is always eclectic and its doctrine is composed of several sometimes contradicting each other ideas. "Ideologically speaking,
[the program] was a wooly, eclectic mixture of political, social, racist, national-imperialist wishful thinking..." (Ideologically speaking,
[the program] was a wooly, eclectic mixture of political, social, racist, national-imperialist wishful thinking..."
)
Some ideas are "sound bite only" and never are implemented and are present only to attract sheeple (looks
National Socialist Program ). he program championed
the right to employment , and called for the institution of
profit sharing , confiscation of
war profits , prosecution of usurers and profiteers,
nationalization of trusts , communalization of department stores,
extension of the old-age pension system, creation of a
national education program of all classes, prohibition
of child labor , and an end to the dominance of
investment capital "
There is also "bait and switch" element in any fascism movement. Original fascism was strongly anti-capitalist, militaristic and
"national greatness and purity" movement ("Make Germany great again"). It was directed against financial oligarchy and anti-semantic
element in it was strong partially because it associated Jews with bankers and financial industry in general. In a way "Jews" were codeword
for investment bankers.
For example " Arbeit Macht Frei " can be viewed as
a neoliberal slogan. Then does not mean that neoliberalism. with its cult of productivity, is equal to fascism, but that neoliberal
doctrine does encompass elements of the fascist doctrine including strong state, "law and order" mentality and relentless propaganda.
The word "fascist" is hurled at political / ideological opponents so often that it lost its meaning. The Nazi Party (NSDAP) originated
as a working-class political party . This is not true about
Trump whom many assume of having fascist leanings. His pro white working class rhetoric was a fig leaf used for duration or elections.
After that he rules as a typical Republican president favoring big business. And as a typical neocon in foreign policy.
From this point of view Trump can't be viewed even as pro-fascist leader because first of all he does not have his own political
movement, ideology and political program. And the second he does not strive for implementing uniparty state and abolishing the elections
which is essential for fascism political platform, as fascist despise corrupt democracy and have a cult of strong leader.
All he can be called is neo-fascist s his some of his views do encompass ideas taken from fascist ideology (including "law and order";
which also is a cornerstone element of Republican ideology) as well as idealization and mystification of the US past. But with Bannon
gone he also can't even pretend that he represents some coherent political movement like "economic nationalism" -- kind of enhanced
mercantilism.
Of course, that does not mean that previous fascist leaders were bound by the fascism political program, but at least they had one.
Historian Karl Dietrich Bracher writes that, "To [Hitler,
the program] was little more than an effective, persuasive propaganda weapon for mobilizing and manipulating the masses. Once it had
brought him to power, it became pure decoration: 'unalterable', yet unrealized in its demands for nationalization and expropriation,
for land reform and 'breaking the shackles of finance capital'. Yet it nonetheless fulfilled its role as backdrop and pseudo-theory,
against which the future dictator could unfold his rhetorical and dramatic talents."
Notable quotes:
"... Fascist politics invokes a pure mythic past tragically destroyed. Depending on how the nation is defined, the mythic past may be religiously pure, racially pure, culturally pure, or all of the above. But there is a common structure to all fascist mythologizing. In all fascist mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme, even just a few generations ago. ..."
"... Further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation, with wars of conquest led by patriotic generals, its armies filled with its countrymen, able-bodied, loyal warriors whose wives were at home raising the next generation. In the present, these myths become the basis of the nation's identity under fascist politics. ..."
"... In the rhetoric of extreme nationalists, such a glorious past has been lost by the humiliation brought on by globalism, liberal cosmopolitanism, and respect for "universal values" such as equality. These values are supposed to have made the nation weak in the face of real and threatening challenges to the nation's existence. ..."
"... fascist myths distinguish themselves with the creation of a glorious national history in which the members of the chosen nation ruled over others, the result of conquests and civilization-building achievements. ..."
"... The function of the mythic past, in fascist politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology -- authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle. ..."
It's in the name of tradition that the anti-Semites base their "point of view." It's in the name of tradition, the long, historical
past and the blood ties with Pascal and Descartes, that the Jews are told, you will never belong here.
-- Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
It is only natural to begin this book where fascist politics invariably claims to discover its genesis: in the past. Fascist
politics invokes a pure mythic past tragically destroyed. Depending on how the nation is defined, the mythic past may be religiously
pure, racially pure, culturally pure, or all of the above. But there is a common structure to all fascist mythologizing. In all fascist
mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme, even just a few generations ago.
Further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation, with wars of conquest led by patriotic generals,
its armies filled with its countrymen, able-bodied, loyal warriors whose wives were at home raising the next generation. In the present,
these myths become the basis of the nation's identity under fascist politics.
In the rhetoric of extreme nationalists, such a glorious past has been lost by the humiliation brought on by globalism, liberal
cosmopolitanism, and respect for "universal values" such as equality. These values are supposed to have made the nation weak in the
face of real and threatening challenges to the nation's existence.
These myths are generally based on fantasies of a nonexistent past uniformity, which survives in the traditions of the small towns
and countrysides that remain relatively unpolluted by the liberal decadence of the cities. This uniformity -- linguistic, religious,
geographical, or ethnic -- can be perfectly ordinary in some nationalist movements, but fascist myths distinguish themselves
with the creation of a glorious national history in which the members of the chosen nation ruled over others, the result of conquests
and civilization-building achievements. For example, in the fascist imagination, the past invariably involves traditional, patriarchal
gender roles. The fascist mythic past has a particular structure, which supports its authoritarian, hierarchical ideology. That past
societies were rarely as patriarchal -- or indeed as glorious -- as fascist ideology represents them as being is beside the point.
This imagined history provides proof to support the imposition of hierarchy in the present, and it dictates how contemporary society
should look and behave.
In a 1922 speech at the Fascist Congress in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared:
We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality. . . . Our myth is
the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total
reality, we subordinate everything.
The patriarchal family is one ideal that fascist politicians intend to create in society -- or return to, as they claim. The patriarchal
family is always represented as a central part of the nation's traditions, diminished, even recently, by the advent of liberalism
and cosmopolitanism. But why is patriarchy so strategically central to fascist politics?
In a fascist society, the leader of the nation is analogous to the father in the traditional patriarchal family. The leader is
the father of his nation, and his strength and power are the source of his legal authority, just as the strength and power of the
father of the family in patriarchy are supposed to be the source of his ultimate moral authority over his children and wife. The
leader provides for his nation, just as in the traditional family the father is the provider. The patriarchal father's authority
derives from his strength, and strength is the chief authoritarian value. By representing the nation's past as one with a patriarchal
family structure, fascist politics connects nostalgia to a central organizing hierarchal authoritarian structure, one that finds
its purest representation in these norms.
Gregor Strasser was the National Socialist -- Nazi -- Reich propaganda chief in the 1920s, before the post was taken over by Joseph
Goebbels. According to Strasser, "for a man, military service is the most profound and valuable form of participation -- for the
woman it is motherhood!" Paula Siber, the acting head of the Association of German Women, in a 1933 document meant to reflect official
National Socialist state policy on women, declares that "to be a woman means to be a mother, means affirming with the whole conscious
force of one's soul the value of being a mother and making it a law of life . . . the highest calling of the National Socialist
woman is not just to bear children, but consciously and out of total devotion to her role and duty as mother to raise children for
her people." Richard Grunberger, a British historian of National Socialism, sums up "the kernel of Nazi thinking on the women's question"
as "a dogma of inequality between the sexes as immutable as that between the races." The historian Charu Gupta, in her 1991 article
"Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany," goes as far as to argue that "oppression of women in Nazi Germany in fact furnishes
the most extreme case of anti-feminism in the 20th century."
Here, Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical. The function of the mythic past, in fascist
politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology -- authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity,
and struggle.
With the creation of a mythic past, fascist politics creates a link between nostalgia and the realization of fascist ideals. German
fascists also clearly and explicitly appreciated this point about the strategic use of a mythological past. The leading Nazi ideologue
Alfred Rosenberg, editor of the prominent Nazi newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter, writes in 1924, "the understanding of and the
respect for our own mythological past and our own history will form the first condition for more firmly anchoring the coming generation
in the soil of Europe's original homeland." The fascist mythic past exists to aid in changing the present.
Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Before coming to Yale in 2013, he was Distinguished
Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Stanley is the author of Know How; Languages in Context;
More about Jason Stanley
This could have been such a helpful, insightful book. The word "fascist" is hurled at political / ideological opponents so
often that it has started to lose its meaning. I hoped that this book would provide a historical perspective on fascism by examining
actual fascist governments and drawing some parallels to the more egregious / worrisome trends in US & European politics. The
chapter titles in the table of contents were promising:
- The Mythic Past
- Propaganda
- Anti-Intellectual
- Unreality
- Hierarchy
- Victimhood
- Law & Order
- Sexual Anxiety
- Sodom & Gomorrah
- Arbeit Macht Frei
Ironically (given the book's subtitle) the author used his book divisively: to laud his left-wing political views and demonize
virtually all distinctively right-wing views. He uses the term "liberal democracy" inconsistently throughout, disengenuously equivocating
between the meaning of "representative democracy as opposed to autocratic or oligarchic government" (which most readers would
agree is a good thing) and "American left-wing political views" (which he treats as equally self-evidently superior if you are
a right-thinking person). Virtually all American right-wing political views are presented in straw-man form, defined in such a
way that they fit his definition of fascist politics.
I was expecting there to be a pretty heavy smear-job on President Trump and his cronies (much of it richly deserved...the man's
demagoguery and autocratic tendencies are frightening), but for this to turn into "let's find a way to define virtually everything
the Republicans are and do as fascist politics" was massively disappointing. The absurdly biased portrayal of all things conservative
and constant hymns of praise to all things and all people left-wing buried some good historical research and valid parallels under
an avalanche of partisanism.
If you want a more historical, less partisan view of the rise of fascist politics, I would highly recommend Darkness Over Germany
by E. Amy Buller (Review Here). It was written during World War II (based on interviews with Germans before WWII), so you will
have to draw your own contemporary parallels...but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
At a minimum, it show that the EU's thumping of May at last month's Salzburg conference has
led to an uptick in activity, as the EU27 leaders set an earlier deadline for the UK to serve
up something realistic than the UK had previously thought it had (October versus November).
But it's far from clear that all the thrashing around and messaging amounts to progress. As
we'll discuss, some press reports claim the EU is showing more flexibility, but the changes
appear to be almost entirely cosmetic. If so, it would represent a cynical calculation that MPs
are so illiterate about technical details that adept repackaging will get the dog to eat the
dog food.
Another thing to keep in mind is that negotiators are always making progress until a deal is
dead. The appearance of momentum can create actual momentum, or at least buy time. But here,
time is running out, so the question is whether either side has made enough of a shift so as to
allow for a breakthough.
One thing that may have happened, and again this is speculative, is that more key players in
the EU are coming to realize that a crash out will inflict a lot of damage on the EU. A
transition period is actually much more beneficial to the EU than the UK. It would not only
allow the EU more time to prepare, but also enable it to better pick the UK clean of personnel
and business activities that can move to the Continent in relatively short order.
By contrast (and not enough people in the UK appear to have worked this out), the UK will
crash out with respect to the EU in either March 2019 or the end of December 2020. There's no
way the UK will have completed a trade deal with the EU by then, unless it accedes to every EU
demand. Recall that the comparatively uncomplicated Canada trade agreement took seven years to
negotiate and another year to obtain provisional approval. And Richard North points out another
impediment to negotiations: " .the Commission has to be re-appointed next year and, after
Brexit, it will not be fully in operation until the following November." Now there are still
some important advantages to securing a transition agreement, and they may be mainly political
(who wants to be caught holding that bag?) but the differences may not be as significant for
the EU as the UK. The UK will wind up having the dislocations somewhat spread out, first having
to contend with falling out of all the trade deals with third countries that it now has through
the EU in March 2019, and then losing its "single market" status with the EU at the end of
2020. But will the UK also be so preoccupied with trying to stitch up deals with the rest of
the world that it loses its already not great focus on what to do with the EU?
That isn't to say there won't be meaningful benefits to the UK if it can conclude a
Withdrawal Agreement with the EU and win a transition period. For instance, it has a dim hope
of being able to get its border IT systems upgraded so as to handle much greater transaction
volumes, a feat that seems pretty much unattainable by March 2019.
Two more cautionary note regarding these divergent news stories. The first is that we've
seen this sort of thing before and generally, the optimistic reports have not panned out.
However, they have generally ben from unnamed sources. While we do have a very thin BBC article with Jean-Claude
Junkcer saying the odds of a deal had improved and Tusk making cautiously optimistic noises,
Leo Vardarkar was more sober and the piece even admitted, "However, there is still no agreement
on some issues, including how to avoid new checks on the Irish border."
Second, they appear to be mainly about claimed progress or deadlocks on the trade front.
Recall that Article 50 makes only a passing reference to "the future relationship," which is
only a non-binding political declaration. However, these issue seems to have assumed more
importance than it should on the UK end, because it has become a forcing device for the
coalition to settle on what sort of Brexit it wants .and it remains fundamentally divided, as
demonstrated by last week's Conservative Party conference. By contrast, there seems to be
little news on the real sticking point, the Irish border.
First, recall that "Canada plus plus plus" has long been derided by the EU as yet another
way for the UK to try to cherry pick among the possible post-Brexit arrangements. Boris Johnson
nevertheless talked it up as a preferred option to May's too-soft Chequers scheme at the Tory
conference .
and May did not mention Chequers . Did EU pols take that to mean May had abandoned Chequers
to appease the Ultras?
However, as we read things (and we need to watch our for our priors), Donald Tusk appears to
be mouthing a pet UK expression to convey a different idea:
Tusk said the EU remained ready to offer the UK a "Canada-plus-plus-plus deal" – a
far-reaching trade accord with extra agreements on security and foreign policy.
That reads as a Canada style free trade agreement plus additional pacts on non-trade
matters. That is not what "Canada plus plus plus" signified on the UK side: it meant the UK
getting a free trade deal with other (typically not specified) goodies so as to make it
"special" and more important, reduce friction.
The Ultras were over the moon to have Tusk dignify Johnson's blather, even as the very next
paragraph of the Guardian story revealed the outtrade over what "Canada plus plus plus" stands
for:
Boris Johnson and other hard Brexit Tories seized on Tusk's remarks, arguing they showed
it was time for May to immediately switch tack and abandon her Chequers proposals for
remaining in a customs union for food and goods. "Tusk's Canada-plus-plus-plus offer shows
there is a superb way forward that can solve the Irish border problem and deliver a
free-trade-based partnership that works well for both sides of the channel," Johnson
said.
If you managed to get further into the story, it sounded more cautionary notes:
Some Brexiters overlook that the EU's version of a so-called Canada deal incorporates a
guarantee to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, which would keep Northern
Ireland in the EU customs union and single market. "Canada plus-plus-plus" is also a fuzzy
concept that has no formal status in EU negotiating documents. Michel Barnier, the bloc's
chief negotiator, mentioned the idea in an interview with the Guardian and other papers last
year.
"I don't know what Canada-plus-plus-plus means, it is just a concept at this stage,"
Varadkar said, adding that it did not negate the need for a "legally binding backstop"
– a guarantee to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland if there is no agreement
on the future trading relationship.
EU to let UK super fudge on "future relationship." Another Guardian story reported that the
EU might let the UK sign an even less committal version of the "future relationship"
section , allowing the UK to "evolve" [gah] its position during the transition period.
Frankly, this seems to be allowing for a change in government. I don't see this as that
meaningful a concession, since this statement was never legally binding. However, given that
Parliament must ratify the final agreement, formally registering that that section isn't set in
stone probably would facilitate passage as well as any future change in direction. And if you
suspect this is a big dog whistle to Labour, you be right:
An EU source said: "The message to Labour is that the UK could move up Barnier's stairs if
the British government changes its position in the transition period. Voting in favour of the
deal now would not be the last word on it."
May whips Labour for Chequers . You thought May gave up on Chequers? Silly you! She just had
the good sense to go into her famed submarine mode while Boris was having yet another turn in
the limelight.
From the Telegraph :
Ministers are in talks with as many as 25 Labour MPs to force through Theresa May's
Chequers Brexit deal risking open warfare with the party's own MPs.
The Government's whips' office has spent recent months making contact with the MPs as a
back-up option for when Theresa May's Brexit deal is put to a vote in Parliament in early
December, The Daily Telegraph has been told.
News of the wooing operation has infuriated Eurosceptic Tory MPs who are now threatening
to vote against elements of the Budget and other "money bills" to force Mrs May to drop her
Chequers plan.
If true, this is very high stakes poker. Brexit Central says there are 34 Tory MPs who have
already declared they will oppose any "deal based on Chequers". And, to change metaphors, they
appear ready to go nuclear if they have to. From the Times:
Brexiteers have issued a last-ditch threat to vote down the budget and destroy the
government unless Theresa May takes a tougher line with Brussels -- amid signs that she is on
course to secure a deal with the European Union.
Leading members of the hardline European Research Group (ERG) last night vowed to vote
down government legislation after it was claimed the prime minister will use Labour MPs to
push her plan through the Commons.
Reporting of the key issue of our times gets more bizarre by the day. The latest
contribution to the cacophony is the Telegraph, telling us that Ministers are in talks with
as many as 25 Labour MPs "to force through Theresa May's Chequers Brexit deal".
That approaches are being made to Labour MPs is not news, but the idea that attempts to
sell them the Chequers deal confounds recent indications that the prime minister is preparing
to roll out "Chequers II", with enough concessions to all the Commission to conclude a
withdrawal agreement.
If we are looking at such a new deal, then it cannot be the case that anyone is attempting
to convince Labour MPs of the merits of the old deal. And, even if Ministers succeeded in
such a task, it would be to no avail. Chequers, as such, will never come to parliament for
approval because it will never form the basis of a deal that can be accepted by Brussels.
That should consign the Telegraph story to the dustbin now piled high with incoherent
speculation, joining the steady flow of reports which are struggling – and failing
– to bring sense to Brexit.
EU to announce "minimalist" no-deal emergency plans . Interestingly, the Financial Times has
not had any articles in the last few days on the state of UK/EU negotiations. It instead
depicted the EU as about to turn up the heat on the UK by publishing a set of "no deal" damage
containment plans. I've never understood the line of thought, which seems to be taken seriously
on both sides of the table, that acting like a responsible government and preparing for a
worst-case scenario was somehow an underhanded negotiation ploy. 1 The pink paper
nevertheless pushes that notion:
Brussels is planning to rattle the UK by unveiling tough contingency measures for a
no-deal Brexit that could force flight cancellations and leave exporters facing massive
disruption if Britain departs the EU without an exit agreement in March.
Subtext: it's the EU's fault all those bad things could happen .when it is the UK that is
suing for divorce. Back to the story:
Against expectations in London, the plan is likely to encompass a limited number of
initiatives over a maximum of eight months, diplomats who have seen the document told the
Financial Times.
Notably, the EU is not planning special arrangements for customs or road transport and
only limited provisions for financial services -- a decision that, if seen through, would
cause long queues and operational difficulties at ports and airports.
The minimalist emergency plan, designed to be rolled out should there be no breakthrough
in Brexit talks, would increase the pressure over already fraught negotiations between the UK
and the EU ahead of a summit on 17 October. EU plans would then be firmed up by December
.
The commission has thus far resisted outlining details of its plans for a no-deal Brexit
for fear it would disrupt tense negotiations. But with just six months to go before Brexit,
EU member states have pressed Brussels to speed up its preparations in case no deal is agreed
in time.
Brussels will outline general principles for deciding the fields requiring special
measures, which must only mitigate significant disruptions in areas of "vital union
interest". The measures would be applied by the EU until the end of 2019 on a unilateral
basis. They could be revoked with no notice, according to diplomats.
The plans are intended to enable basic air services, allowing flights to land and fly
straight back to the UK, and to extend air safety certificates and security exemptions for UK
travellers in transit. Visa-free travel is envisaged for British citizens, as long as it is
reciprocated
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The commission has thus far resisted outlining details of its plans for a no-deal Brexit
for fear it would disrupt tense negotiations. But with just six months to go before Brexit,
EU member states have pressed Brussels to speed up its preparations in case no deal is agreed
in time.
Brussels will outline general principles for deciding the fields requiring special
measures, which must only mitigate significant disruptions in areas of "vital union
interest". The measures would be applied by the EU until the end of 2019 on a unilateral
basis. They could be revoked with no notice, according to diplomats.
The plans are intended to enable basic air services, allowing flights to land and fly
straight back to the UK, and to extend air safety certificates and security exemptions for UK
travellers in transit. Visa-free travel is envisaged for British citizens, as long as it is
reciprocated.
Hopes of progress have been fuelled by expectations that Theresa May has come forward with
a compromise solution to the Irish border.
The PM will propose keeping the whole of the UK in a customs union as a final fallback but
allowing Northern Ireland to stick to EU regulations.
The EU has rejected having the UK collect EU customs post Brexit. Moreover, a customs union,
as we've said repeatedly, does not give the UK its keenly-sounght frictionless trade. Making
Northern Ireland subject to EU regulations means accepting the jurisdiction of the ECJ, since
compliance is not a matter of having a dusty rule book, but of being part of the same
regulatory apparatus. Aside from the fact that this solution won't be acceptable to the DUP, it
would also result in a hard land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
So are we to take this as incomprehension on the part of the Sun's reporters, or that the
Government's negotiators continue to be as thick as a brick? Sadly,
the Guardian tells a similar tale :
Ministers expect to discuss Brexit in a week's time when some hope that officials will
have clarified how the UK proposes to handle cross-border regulatory checks if no progress is
made on agreeing a free trade deal with the EU.
There has been speculation that this solution could involve the whole of the UK agreeing
to be part of a common customs area with the EU in order to avoid the possibility of an
invisible border separating Northern Ireland from Great Britain, in the event that no
long-term deal is signed.
Richard North has the best take. He points the rumors from the UK side come from people who
present themselves as being on the inside but probably aren't, or not enough to have a good
feel, and
continues :
Yet nothing seems to be leaking from No.10, with officials saying merely that proposals
would emerge "soon". Says the Guardian, these are likely to form the basis of technical
negotiations with Brussels "as officials scramble to find a form of words for the withdrawal
agreement that the UK proposes to sign with the EU".
Any such timing will, of necessity, rule out any formal consideration by the October
European Council. Those who understand the detail will know that, before anything can be
considered by the European Council, it must first be agreed by the General Affairs Council,
meeting as 27.
Currently, this is scheduled for 16 October (Tuesday week) – a day before the
Article 50 European Council which starts its two-day session on the 17th. On the face of it,
there doesn't seem to be enough time to factor in any last-minute proposals from London,
especially as details must first be circulated to Member State capitals for comment.
This does nothing, though, but confirm that which we already know – that if there is
to be a final showdown, then it is going to come at the special meeting in November (if this
actually happens), or even the meeting scheduled for 13-14 December.
Even the rumor mills don't give much reason to think there is a solution to the Irish
border. If May really hasn't abandoned Chequers, all the fudging to come up with a content-free
"future relationship" section will be to the detriment of UK citizens, since the Government
will keep holding on to a Brexit plan that the EU will never accept. But the best interests of
ordinary people have gotten short shrift all along.
strip away the right of Corprati0ns to have the legal standing of a person in a Court of
Law .
when we could just abolish the institution of incorporation without remorse? This
would like treating a cause of widespread disease with an ounce of inexpensive
prevention.
Buh-bye limited liability parasitism. Buh-bye rootless, world-wandering capital with scant
interest in the hosts' long-term wellbeing.
I suppose that there would be a shrill outcry of protest from the many little fire teams,
squads, and platoons of mind rapists (e.g. A. Cockburn) who have a career interest in
complaining for a living. But so what? It would be fun to watch "social justice" factions
twist and squirm as a chorus of abolitionists asks why the "Resistance" never resisted
"corporatocracy" with abolitionism. The rapists will "spew" much sanctimonious b.s.
defensively between artful meals in nice restaurants, but the chorus will know a real
reason. Lefty humanist finds incorporation very useful for cultivating the intense
concentration of wealth and power which he pretends to oppose.
Eventually the chorus will get around to asking lefty internationalist about his
contemporary plans to merge every firm with government without looking like an old fashioned
commie expropriationist. The chorus might ask the mind rapists still more embarassing
questions:
Righteous Lefty, why would you establish incorporation now if it wasn't a feature of
commerce already? Because you would not then have a little handful of company shares to
trade in a stock exchange? Nor be planning to exploit a stock tip from an ally who is
married to a corporate go-getter with C-level knowledge of plans?
Traditional labor unions, TOO, have been involved with the racketeering of incorporation.
Take the UMWA, for example. Where in the eleven points of its constitution is there any hint
that labor organizers and their Blair Mountain warriors were thinking about abolishing a
pernicious institution which had done so much to slant market power in favor of neverlaboring
mine operators?
It's been obvious for some time that the allegedly right wing "ALT RIGHT" is another
faction with little interest in getting rid of the corporation. It is sympathetic,
however, to old fashioned communist schemes like "Social Security" and communist health care
finance. So what, um, pecuniary interest does its leading lights have in maintaining the
incorporated status quo? Explain, please.
Well, I don't know. My sister is an executive assistant. I thought I knew what that meant and
you probably do too. But then one day I sat down with her and we actually talked about her
job, and I quickly realized that not only was my understanding of her job so shallow as to be
effectively meaningless, but it was so shallow that I didn't even understand how much I was
missing. I'd just glanced at the title and said to myself "yep, executive assistant, assist
executives, that's what she does" and at no point had it ever even occurred to me that there
was anything past that. In fact, it was even worse than that, because half the stuff I
imagined she might do wasn't part of her job at all (hint, if you think "executive assistant"
and "secretary" are remotely similar you are just as far off track as I was).
I still don't understand what she does but at least now I know how little I know. If she
came to me for career advice there's no chance I'd be able to offer her anything other than
meaningless platitudes, because I don't even know enough right now to know if her current job
is a good one or a bad one. If she'd asked me before I realized how much I don't know I'd be
in the same boat, only probably rolling my eyes that she would get so worked up over x, y, or
z when her job was so simple and straightforward that there's no possible way it could be
that stressful.
Yeah.
All of this is to say that unless your friends are on a career path similar to yours they
probably not only fail to understand your job, but they probably fail so bad that they don't
even know how far off they are. That's not because your friends are stupid or because IT is
so impenetrably complex that only the chosen few can grasp it; its just that most of us don't
have a lot of expertise in careers outside of our own. Lacking context, we turn to pop
culture for reference. Picture the stereotypical Hollywood "computer guy" (or, if you must,
"hacker"). That's probably what your friends think your job is like. Now imagine that guy
coming to you complaining about how hard and stressful his job is. How hard could it be
anyway? I have a computer at home and don't have to do much to keep it running. These things
all basically run themselves, don't they?
So, point is his friends aren't necessarily assholes or in denial. They probably just
don't know enough to understand how little they know, as is true for all of us, and are
trying to give well-intentioned advice; OP asked, after all, and they want to help their
friend. But you can't give good advice if you don't have all the facts, and especially not if
you don't even know how much you're missing.
The executive assistants I know (to VPs, presidents, CEOs) practically run the company. Not
entirely, but a good chunk of it.
Filter what their executive knows and doesn't know, what meetings that take and don't,
and what their priorities are. If the EA isn't on your side, you're not getting to their
exec.
This influences strategy for the company, which means the EA is often helping direct
strategy.
Because they are spending 100% of their time with the exec (compared to the, say, 2
hours I get every other month as one of the department heads), they have a huge amount of
influence. They are trusted. And they have heard about everything that is happening at the
company. They know more than I do about what's really happening.
As to what they do, on the surface, it does look like secretary work. Schedule
appointments. Schedule venues for meetings/conferences. Book travel. Make sure the exec is
prepared for the appointments (knows what they need to know; has met with the right people in
advance to get briefed; leaves on time to get to the appointment). Answer emails and phone
calls.
But the level of knowledge they need to perform those tasks for an executive is much
higher.
Well, sure, that's an unfortunate commute. You're basically saying "I would take getting paid
for X for y hours of work over getting paid (x - costs of transportation ) for y + 4.5 or
more hours of work.
It's a decent jumping-off point for a middle management role of your own, if one opens up at
the same company. You're playing a huge role in running your exec's department
already, so you've got the lay of the land and you're clearly a competent wrangler of humans.
Who promoted herself from Harvey's legal secretary to the COO in a span of two episodes,
didn't skip a beat, and kept doing exactly what she was doing before.
Well, seeing as my last post was a big long thing about how I don't fully understand what
they do this is a limited view, but a short pithy summary would be that she handles all the
stuff her boss should be doing but doesn't have time to actually do. That's everything from
negotiating phone plans and insurance rates to making sure all the certifications and permits
they need to function are taken care of to planning and booking meetings and seminars. It's
very wide ranging and is a ton of responsibility. As noted elsewhere a good EA practically
runs the company.
I work from home 2 days a week. My wife thought I was nuts when I brought home a gaming
headset and 2nd monitor for the PC I use at home.
She thought I was sitting at home playing minecraft all day.
The reality is I need lots of screen space to doy job and I have conference call meetings
several times a day. I can actually hear and be heard with the headset.
I agree the downside is getting tagged for late day or after hours emergency work because
I can respond quickly.
I ended up buying an egpu so I could hook up a third monitor to my laptop. Currently trying
to figure out how to arrange stuff on my desk to fit a fourth; may have to start mounting
them on swivel arms. I want as much screen space as I can get when I doy job.
I also have an hdmi switch to change the monitors to my gaming machine when it's Minecraft
time. Tax deductible 4k 27 " monitors are good for that too.
Got a stud above/behind your desk? The fourth one on the wall angled down can work pretty
well, throw your notifications bar up there, calendar, anything you rarely glance at but
should be able to see without moving another program or window.
All of these makes sense, but I am just going to add the following: - Your friends should
recognize if you are yourself or if you are frustrated, close to being burned out. That is a
clear indicator if you are at right job or not. - Your friends should also be able to help
you figure out if you are appreciated and in a company with good culture
Good companies/management do everything they can to empower employees, provide adequate
training, and set realistic expectations. All of that increases employees' morale and
confidence. Without those two, company is bound to fail sooner or later.
Your friends should recognize if you are yourself or if you are frustrated, close to
being burned out. That is a clear indicator if you are at right job or not.
Your friends should also be able to help you figure out if you are appreciated and in
a company with good culture
And, as your friend, you might want to listen to us if we point out these things more than
a few times. There are one off vent sessions over a beer then there are long-term, consistent
complaints.
Yes, sometimes you just want to vent, but if someone is pointing out the same thing
constantly, they may have a point and it's up to you to start on a path to changing the
situation.
This. Many resources out there clearly state that your friends either support your success or
place negative labels on your success.
Go check out 7 habits of highly effective peeps. Will give you a completely new
perspective. Not just about friends but yourself and how you interact with others.
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No, he just needs to understand that people give generic advice that they think sounds good
but they really don't understand your job or have never been in your situation. And he does.
Being able to empathize with your friends concerns, to understand their feelings without
understanding exactly what they're going through, is a talent that not everybody has. Neither
is being self-aware enough to recognize when you lack such a talent and instead say "wow,
that sounds tough, I don't have any advice, but good luck." But these are not the only
attributes that make someone friend-worthy.
On the other hand, not everybody can tolerate having friends that lack empathy and
understanding. So for some the answer "they need new friends" may be true, I just don't think
OP necessarily does. In fact, I think it's the same kind of generic, bad advice that I'm
talking about to say that he does.
Neither is being self-aware enough to recognize when you lack such a talent and instead
say "wow, that sounds tough, I don't have any advice, but good luck."
When I'm in situations like this (I can't advise because I lack context or experience) I
advise flipping a coin. Quit after finding a new job or stay and keep trying to change the
place, heads or tails. After you've flipped the coin and seen the result, examine your
feeling... disappointed or relieved? There's your answer regardless of the coin toss you know
how you really feel, and should trust your gut.
This! When my friend(s) complain about their current workplace/position/etc I always
recommend they get their feelers out and start looking. It may take a while but you'll
eventually find something.
It took me almost a year to find something comparable or better but didn't land the final
interview this past year. But, my old job lost our largest client and I am now working for
said client. Couldn't be happier!
You don't know what someone deals with & those people may want to bend over backward to
help this person if they could. Don't automatically label them shitty friends. You don't even
know them.
No. I trust them and usually come to them when I'm emotionally invested/upset and yelling
about a situation at work. Making decisions in this mindset is always a bad idea. I was
talked off a ledge long enough to make a smart, calculated decision.
You probably figured this out already, but the whole "go hire someone" thing was a ploy to
keep you around a little longer. They gave you permission to recruit, not authority to hire.
They were never going to green light the position.
You also facilitated management's bad behavior by putting too much effort into doing the
right thing. You weren't valued or appreciated, you were just taken advantage of.
Spot on. I was given the illusion of great authority, but in the end - not on the things that
matter. I borderline want to say the word 'budget' doesn't exist here.
This. Why would they hire someone when you're doing it all. IT employees have a much better
stress level, work life balance, and career when they learn how to say no or "that's not my
role". Unless you're trying to get into that area, never volunteer you do work that should be
done by another area. It'll start becoming the norm and will never stop. Good luck on your
next gig though!
Yeah. I learned at my old job that the "what can we do to keep you?" question is bullshit.
It's a way for them to determine what they can lie to your face about to string you along as
far as possible. I asked for a team change, and they managed to string me along saying I was
approved for almost 9 months, until suddenly I'm not approved anymore and there's not even a
spot open for me.
Never again will I attempt to be honest with my manager. You can know that I'm thinking
about leaving when I give you my 2 weeks notice.
Thanks for the story, and the perspective. I'm the sole SA at a smallish entertainment-based
development studio, didn't understand half the tech you reference and I do have a senior
network architect I can (remotely) fall back on, but many days I'm totally overwhelmed. We
had a major product success last year and we've been ramping up like crazy. More office
rollout, more servers, more users, more developers (so like users but worse), more backup
needs, more bandwidth, more "and can you get better teleconference speakers for the meeting
rooms", more baroque software licensing to figure out, also do I have batteries? Mouse pads?
Highlighters? Why are you asking me for highlighters? No I can't fix your chair. Etc etc. And
I'm waiting for that one crucial system to break that I won't know how to fix.
I guess I'm just saying your post gave me some much-needed perspective. Cheers.
The best time to look for a job is when you don't need a job
Hell yeah! I quit about 6 months ago and don't even look. I get sporadic emails from
LinkedIn and other avenues and if things look good, I'll apply, otherwise the hell with it.
I've had a few interviews but sadly most places look like they have issues with
understaffing, overworked, etc.
Ah well, in the next few years I'm sure something good comes up.
Had my jr get assigned 2 more standing desks this week (about 8 installed in the last 2
months and I guess we literally can't trust someone to unplug their 3 cables from the little
NUC...). I wrote him an email discussing the core parts of his job and how no one cares about
how many standing desks are or are not installed at any given time. Focus on doing your job
well, please talk to me or CIO if you are getting stressed by any workload (we all know that
sometimes it feels like the tickets just stream in and you make no headway no matter what you
do). We'll do whatever is needed to either take care of em.
I have also done some stand up desk troubleshooting and installation, if it has a wire in it
or on it, or even holds something with a sufficient number of wires people can claim it is
confusing, it's your problem. 15 years of working in the IT/SA field and I'm unboxing a desk
because 'my computer has all the wires and I'll probably just mess it up if I try to move
everything myself'. Fortunately our users are very reasonable in general.
How about one of those tiny space heaters? A user asked me if I could figure out why it
wasn't working, and all I did was flip a big red switch marked "ON."
Start to say no. Do the hours in your contract and go home. When stuff doesn't get done tell
them you need more people. Either they get more people or you search for a new job. But if
they don't get more people you would search for a new job anyway. Just burned out.
Seems to me like a lot of horror stories here are because people either care too much or
are deeply afraid of looking for a new job. These conditions exist because you let them.
Years ago a manager from a different department (non IT obviously) walked over to us to let
us know a toilet was clogged. We all just looked at him and laughed. I was also yelled at
once for not helping someone move a file cabinet during an office move, while we still had
tons of PC's left to setup.
IT has always been the "well, we don't have above whose responsibility it is to take care
of this, so IT can do it" field.
I'm going through a similar situation to you OP but for a different reason.
I left a good MSP job (busy and at times frustrating) for a larger employer and the job I
was expecting to have is not at all like the one I applied for it's very boring and quite
slow with too much idle time sometimes which is weird since it's an operations roles for a
billion dollar business but probably half of the "work" I'm doing now is "hey sorry to wake
you but we got this alarm and we've raised an incicent can you take a look" when I used to
design and manage environments end to end.
My job for some people would be the jackpot but for me it's awful and I'm considering
leaving to go back to my way more stressful MSP job.
My problem is I have too many resources to call on (multiple teams to escalate to) and I'm
just left watching the screens because of it.
This is what I'm afraid of as well but I need more friggin money. The screen watchers
actually make more because they exist in big companies with lots of money.
We definantely do some automation but maybe not enough.
The alarms are mostly validation checks (is it actually p1? Is that event due to a
change?) and anything that can be automated is and we don't get alerts for it.
Our alarm dashboard is an aggregator of a ton of systems that all send their alarms to
it.
Unfortunately once the infrastructure and databases become self healing we're all out of a
job.
Same boat here. "is this really going to happen again before this system is decommed?" Should
I spend a few hours making a good test that will determine if its really this problem again
and fixing it + reporting the result of the fix? Or should I spend the 6 minutes it takes to
fix this and move on with my life.
Re: Self healing - out of a job. Oh PLEASE! We're not out of a job when stuff is self
healing; we're into a new one. I'm just a regular sys admin and even I am starting to think
about how I can use machine learning to solve issues I face or to improve our business. It'll
be QUITE some time before I actually start doing anthing with ML, let alone something useful.
I'd LOVE to have more time to play with new stuff.
We use ansible for automation. I do love it but it's fairly time consuming to setup (half the
stuff is in a txt doc waiting for a playbook to be built)
Management jobs usually require some management experience and I have a little bit of team
leading experience but not the sort of "manage this budget and this department" management
experience I'm also torn between making that jump to management and getting "off the tools"
or doing a deep dive into a specific set of technical tools.
My dad was an engineer for various semiconductor factories for years. He hit that same point
in his role - but there was a much bigger push to go to management, which he did. after about
5 years of that he quit - he was way to burnt out and hasn't returned to corporate life
since. The money was good but the job wasn't worth it.
Hell, the only job he's had in years was as a general contractor putting in sinks and
stuff making what I do as a help desk monkey.
I'm sort of going into a remote management position. Working for a MSP as problem escalation
for 8 techs. Finding 'teachable moments' (probably all of them!) to train on troubleshooting
process. In my spare time I'll be getting amazon aws certs and I'll eventually move into a
different role. Sounds challenging enough not to be bored :)
Oh I can do their jobs they're like "tier 3" while we're "tier 2" and we can do actual work
(permissions allowing) our team holds the same level of certs they do (MCSA, MCSE etc) were
just in at a different layer of the business which is changing.
I don't just watch for alarms and escalate it's just a small part of the role really but
it's the most prominent part when you're on the graveyards which always makes me a bit
resentful of my own choice to come here.
No, he said he had to sweep snow off a satellite dish because it's heater was broke. He said
nothing about being on the roof. Sweeping dishes after a heavy snowfall is not uncommon. I
had to do the same thing this morning while on-call.
I work in a small environment incredibly similar to OP's, Calix, Metaswitch, etc. We have
a SME for each area; one for voice, one for IP/IT systems (me), one for video, and two
outside plant guys. We cover/triage each others duties during on-call rotation. It works well
enough for us, but sounds like OP is doing it all. It would be one thing if he had to only
deal with the non-IT stuff on occasion, but if all those responsibilities are solely his,
thats untenable.
If it's a small company everyone needs to chip in beyond their official responsibility to
make things work, but they also need to be compensated at the rate of their top skills and
not driven into the ground. IMO
The problem here is that you kept the ship running, even though you told management you
needed help, things were still getting done.
Management will not do anything about thing until they break, so while you bust your ass
keeping things going they don't care how you did it. All they know is things are still
running.
You either have to show them things breaking or put your foot down negotiate a commitment to
hire a hand.
Just out of interest what was their reaction when you handed in your notice? Did they counter
or they simply decided to hire a replacement. They must have been in a world of hurt if it
was the latter and you were the only one doing that role.
Yep, a recruiter bringing someone in will cost 15-25k. Giving someone an internal referral
for 7k is comparative peanuts, AND you get two happy employees because of that.
Heya, I don't know how far into your career you are, but I'm 45, pretty senior level (I've
been a c-level exec) and wanted to tell you:
Don't ever compromise. Ever.
I am in a similar situation at an MSP (I'm in a leadership role) and have the same kinds
of conversations about resources and losing valuable workers because there's no help. The
management above me isn't listening and we are going to lose a very fine employee (like
yourself -- someone with skill who is trying to make it better but is not being
heard -- and it's because management don't know how to run an ITIL-based shop and hire to
that kind of skill set. I put toghether a framework to measure qualifications of our
employees and they all measure up to Tier 1 analysts/engineers (in both experience and quals)
and some of them are considered Tier 3 employees and they can't do something as simple as
read and interpret a Wireshark packet capture. And I keep being told either "we have to make
do with what we have" or "you're not seeing what good they can do". So clearly in my case
there's a division in vision for leadership and I'm giving up and probably moving on. In your
case, you tried, gave your input, and, if they're not gonna listen to you, move on. Your
expectations are NOT too high. Their expectations aren't high enough. Move on to somewhere
there's a fit. You can only help someone from burning their hand on the stove so many times
before you give up and go watch TV.
Yes. They all are 6 months to 1 year out of technical school. They are able to accomplish
SOME tasks. They are unskilled at anything above Tier 1 despite someone saying "you know
about X. Here, go do it."
For instance, a windows admin should be able to implement GPO and know what it's about.
Maybe have an MS cert. but our main windows admin is working towards his CCNA and has been
out of school for 6 months. Not exactly a right fit for that job.
I've been in a similar situation, the problem is not necessarily an issue with vision. More
than likely upper management have been given the mandate to keep costs down or at least
same.
So they will come up with any excuse not to hire more people or if someone of good quality
leaves they will only hire someone lower quality i.e. lower pay.
That is the problem with corporate culture everyone is there looking only after number one,
as long as the job is getting done they don't care how much those doing it care about the
company or that they are doing their jobs efficiently, cost effective or to a high
standard.
All they care about is that the job is getting done.
Stories like this is why I gave up trying. Used to, I would change my plans to do a last
minute cutover on the weekend because you changed the date 3 different times. These days, my
response is always, "I have an opening 3 weeks from now".....because I don't let it fuck up
my life anymore. Frankly, nothing has happened since I started giving those answers. What are
they going to do anyways? Hire someone else? pffft.
Christ, I felt bad for myself when I quit MY job but goddamn, you were in a
shithole! Glad you found something better.
I still hear from people at my old job that nothing has changed. They hire someone else
but never fix the problems. Overworked, understaffed, complaints are listened too with great
concern and then ignored.
It does sound very much like they're, perhaps unwittingly, taking advantage of you and you're
right to want to leave a job that's damaging your life so terribly.
I mean, works sucks most of the time, but it doesn't have to suck ALL the time and there
should be at least enough people to have the work ease off from time to time or you just go
manic from the stress.
Everybody expects different things from their job and not all jobs are right for all
people. IMO, life is too short to spend it doing a job you hate or working in a toxic
environment. I applaud your efforts to try and improve things but ultimately you've got to
draw a line where enough is enough and just move on. Do what's right by you, because your
company is working every day to do what's right by them and not necessarily what's good for
you.
Something sounds off. You talked to the ceo about what they can do, and they have their own
headend, but won't outsource the printers? That's always the first thing that needs to be
sourced out because it's petty shit like toner or pain in ass like the fuser.
Sounds like they needed someone to streamline the processes, and have 2-3 more people on
board. A senior network guy and two more minions eager to learn and take those 'patch cable
broken' or port security tickets.
You were used hard and long and have been fed bad advice. You should have left that place
long ago and hopefully this lesson will stick with you forever.
The same two questions, every time, before you go looking. And then the third, when you have
an offer on the table (sometimes it's one you went looking for, sometimes it's one that just
appeared in your inbox).
Are you happy? If not, why not?
Will a different job make you happier?
Will this opportunity make you happier?
Sometimes the problem is at home, and changing your work life might help (if it brings
more money or a shorter commute), and sometimes it won't. Sometimes the problem is at work,
and you can influence change either within the organization or within yourself (changing your
expectations, adjusting your work schedule to be earlier or later, discussing with your
management group about changes to your role, etc) in order to improve the situation. Or you
improve your work situation by leaving it behind, if there is no way to improve it or the
people who can help improve it are unwilling (or themselves unable) to do so.
Yes, sometimes the easy opportunities for change just aren't there, and you need to make
harder decisions about the change your life needs. In those moments one should be grateful
for what they have, but it doesn't necessarily mean they should accept that this is their lot
in life. Maybe you need to move. Maybe you're looking for a remote position. Maybe you take
the plunge and live off savings for a few months -- though unless you're on the verge of a
breakdown, this can cause complications later; it's generally true that it is easier to find
a job if you have a job. Not universally, but generally. Maybe you give up IT and become a
Birthday Clown, because you enjoy making children happy more than you enjoy clicking buttons
anymore.
Best of luck to you in your new place, hopefully it works out!
Are your friends in IT in any way? I find that most people have no idea what IT means, or the
individual fields. They expect the same person who helps them with spreadsheets also
makes/updates the websites, sets up the phone system, maintains the network.. and may even
think they plug in their power bar. Most people can't discern the difference between
facilities, an electrician and someone in one of the many fields of IT in my experience.
Heck, at my company the executives have no idea what I do. They ask me to do things from
investigate and roll out MDM.. to go to one of our communities and setup one of the
resident's televisions. I've even been asked to install generator power outlets.. I've just
learned to say "no" and explain to them who's responsibility it is. If they are unwilling to
hire someone or even just bring the proper person from within the organization, the problem
can stay a problem.
Your friends may not be crappy, they might just be clueless.
The CEO found out and we sat down ... He puts that responsibility on me.
I've seen my own managers do the same, and still am thinking through if, when and how it's
a mistake. Managers are there to support and enable important things happening. If it's a
small thing then all they need to do is give you permission to do it. But if it's a big thing
then they need to mange it, e.g track it, ask how it's going, ask what you need, get
other people involved, set priorities etc. Not just give a pep talk, say "it's on you now"
and wash hands of it. That basically means, "cheer up, but I don't care". If I wanted someone
to listen carefully and then do nothing about it I'd go to therapy, thanks.
Being that IT is generally a self-taught field, where we can play around with and test things
before doing them in production...
I recommend sticking to jobs where you're doing commonly reproducible/testable software
stuff. i.e. standard Windows/Linux servers + standard software. Basically things that can be
completely learned and tested in virtual machines, without needing any special hardware at
all.
I reckon all the proprietary "black box" / vendor specific devices etc you mentioned make
working in "IT" much much more stressful. You basically have to learn a whole heap of
different systems where what you learn is only applicable to one device. And you can't easily
play around with them like you can with pure software and virtual machines etc. So you're
often learning & testing in production, and even then, only once something has already
failed. And you're likely not going to have spare parts, or even be able to get them easily.
The same goes for network engineers dealing with lots of cisco routers etc to a certain
degree. Basically anything that involves hardware except for standard PCs and servers running
Windows or Linux.
I worked for a post-production company for a while, and yeah it was similar. I was busy as
fuck with the regular standard everyday IT shit, yet still had the responsibly to figure out
all there proprietary devices etc that I'd never even heard of before. And because they're
not commonplace IT stuff, there's fuckall information on the internet to learn about them and
troubleshoot etc. And of course learning about that shit doesn't translate into useful skills
you can take elsewhere in other IT jobs.
So yeah these days, I'm 100% software. I actually do IT consulting part time, and even
when my clients want to buy hardware, I just give them some recommendations and get them to
order it directly from Dell or whoever. I don't want to be responsible for hardware failures,
of which I have zero control over.
OP I'm in the same boat. COO found out that my medial issues I may jump ship. Had a chat and
he said he would do everything to get people hired. My boss has had approval for hiring for
weeks now and not one person has been interviewed. I have also been thinking about getting
medicated because I'm in denial with work. I'm going to jump ship soon take time off and see
what happens.
That is what MSP is. MSP is the environment where self-driven, stoic people survive and other
people crumble. MSP is especially tough in the role like yours as you have no one to rely on
anymore, but everyone else is coming to you to fix a problem they can't figure out. I am
there, been there for awhile. People think you are smarter than them, but all you are is more
persistent and willing to sacrifice your sanity and your free time to figure out a problem by
going to 10th page of google and performing advanced search queries on reddit.
I think MSP life after age of 35 is impossible to do unless you are crazy. :)
You were in an impossible situation with really shit poor management. Don't waste a second
thought. They'll either figure out why they can't keep people or they'll fail in spectacular
fashion. The bottom line is you have to protect yourself and your interests, you owe that
company nothing. The only time you owe a company that isn't your own is if the company makes
significant investment in your and your career, which your former company clearly didn't.
Good for you on recognizing that you had options. In many ways in that former situation you
were the one with the power and its great that you exercised it.
I went through practically the same thing. Found a nice job down the street from my house I
could just walk to. They had a full web team to handle all their websites and web problems,
but their skills were about 20 years old. At first I didn't notice because I would handle IT
/ network problems all day.
Then eventually I started getting web site issues pushed to me, then web design issues.
Eventually I was building all their web sites and running their entire web platform while
everyone else on that team just sat around all day making emails. All this extra work never
came with any pay increase and everyone would always say "You do everything here, if you
leave we're screwed".
A day came when there was a landslide of issues combined with an HR nightmare and nobody
seemed to wanted to handle anything. By the end of the day I realized I had wanted to leave
the job for over a year and I was only staying to keep things together until I got everything
to a stable point. Unfortunately this place could never reach a stable point because their
management was an absolute shit show and never wanted to step up to face any big
problems.
This seems really common after reading some stories here. A good amount of IT people
probably feel obligated to keep things running even when they hate their job.
I also found a remote job with a ridiculous salary increase after going through so many
interviews to the point of utter mental exhaustion. The grass definitely can be greener
sometimes its just much harder to find than you would ever think.
Iberiano says:
September 29, 2018 at 11:47 am GMT 300 Words Looking at that photo of the former primary
contenders, reminded me of all the holier-than-though talk we got from the right-of-center,
about how Trump was too gruff, and crass, about everything, including sexual topics,
interactions with women, etc.
What these hearings demonstrated, that we already knew, was that the Puritan-Jew alliance is
obsessed with all things sexual, perverted, distasteful theirs is a world of, as you
point out, "preppy white boy" fantasies, where the bad guys look like the blond jock in Karate
Kid, and drive around in their Dad's 1982 Buick Regal or their own '79 Camero, looking to
"score" with virginal know-nothing, Red Riding Hoods, that happen to find themselves at 'gang
rape parties' (?), out of nowhere. Who go on to have Leftist careers only to resurrect
repressed memories 35 years later–projected in front of the world
It's a silly framework from which they obsess, but it's similar to Kinsey, Mead and others
of the Left. Sex. Projection, doubling-down, and an absence of due process to punish people for
the very things that actually occupy their minds. Even in her advanced age, you could
tell, Feinstein was enjoying the open air discussions regarding sexual topics.
Let the Right / Never-Trumpers be on notice–Trump is light fare compared to where the
Left will go and has been, regarding women, sex, and all things crass.
"UK Prime Minister Theresa May suffered political humiliation in Salzburg, when European
Union (EU) leaders rebuffed her appeal to give at least conditional support to her Chequers
proposal for a "soft Brexit."
May was given only 10 minutes to address EU heads of state Wednesday, after dinner at the
informal summit, during which she appealed to her audience, "You are participants in our
debate, not just observers."
She said she had counted on at least supportive noises for her "serious and workable"
plan, given that she was seeking to head off a potential challenge from the
"hard-Brexit"/Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party. She warned that the UK could be
torn apart -- with respect to Northern Ireland and Scotland, as well as by social tensions;
that if her government fell, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party could win a general election; and
cited the potential damage to the EU itself of lost trade, investment and military support
from the UK.
Instead, her address was met with silence and her implied threats were stonewalled, as the
main players within the EU combined the next day to declare her proposals to be
"unworkable.
No matter how these conflicts play out, Britain and the whole of Europe face a worsening
crisis that threatens to tear the EU apart. The growth of both inter-imperialist and social
antagonisms found dramatic form in Brexit, which the dominant sections of the City of London,
big business, all the major parties and Britain's allies in the US and Europe all opposed.
Yet two years later, May is fighting a desperate struggle against her anti-EU "hard-Brexit"
faction, the US is led by a president who has declared his support for the breakup of the EU,
and numerous far-right governments have taken power in part by exploiting popular hostility
to EU-dictated austerity."
"worsening crisis that threatens to tear the EU-(and hence NATO)- apart. " .
A confidential report by Belgian investigators confirms that British intelligence services
hacked state-owned Belgian telecom giant Belgacom on behalf of Washington, it was revealed on
Thursday (20 September).
The report, which summarises a five-year judicial inquiry, is almost complete and was
submitted to the office of Justice Minister Koen Geens, a source close to the case told AFP,
confirming Belgian press reports
The matter will now be discussed within Belgium's National Security Council, which
includes the Belgian Prime Minister with top security ministers and officials.
Contacted by AFP, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office and the cabinet of Minister
Geens refused to comment .
####
NO. Shit. Sherlock.
So the real question is that if this has known since 2013, why now? BREXIT?
"... The EU is not perfect and has costs, but measured against what it has achieved, it is a great success. ..."
"... The EU has brought peace to Europe for the longest period since Pax Romana (and that was not entirely peaceful). ..."
"... You're funny. The EU makes war by other means. The burden of disease in Greece, health loss, risk factors, and health financing, 2000–16: an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanpub/PIIS2468-2667(18)30130-0.pdf ..."
"... The mortality rate for Greece is up approximately 50,000. All so Merkel in Germany, and Sarkozy and Hollande didn't have to go before their electorates and admit they were bailing out French and German banks through the backdoor. ..."
"... I guess all those little Balkan unpleasantnesses, the former Czechoslovakia and Bosnia and such, are not wars -- but then those are layable at the feet of NATO (that collection, as I recall it, of what, now, 29 member countries including all the Great Powers of the West) and the US imperium. ..."
"... The NATO establishment is about "making war," ..."
"... All of which is linked in significant ways to the economic "health" of the EU, from which lots of weapons flow in exchange for favors and money from the Destabilizers. ..."
"... In the meantime, the various stages are set, the players in the game of statism and nationalism and authoritarianism and neoliberalism are on their marks, the house lights are going out, and the long slow rise of the curtain is under way ..."
"... The period from the end of WWII to the Balkan Wars is still the longest period of peace since the Romans. I doubt you have ever lived through a war so I can't expect you to appreciate the difference between the Horrors of the Brussels Bureaucracy and the Horrors of Shelling and Bombing. ..."
"... I am not defending poor governance per se for the sake of defending the EU. But it is facile and fun to criticize it because one can make up all kinds of counter fantasies about how wonderful life would be without it. ..."
"... in the real world ..."
"... in the real world ..."
"... Ultimately, it's that simple. Merkel, Sarkozy, Hollande, and whoever else among the EU elites who chose to be complicit in killing substantial numbers of people so they could maintain themselves in power are scum. They are scum. They are scum. ..."
"... Fine, our elected leaders are all scum, but why does this mean that the EU is evil specifically. Why single it out? Why not advocate the overthrow of all centralized or unifying government? Move out to Montana to a cult and buy lots of guns or something. ..."
"... Ons should be very aware that EU directives comes mainly from the member states and that especially bad things that would never fly past an election could – and often is – spun by local government as "Big Bad Bruxelles is forcing poor little us to do this terrible thing to you poor people". Ala the British on trade deal with India and immigration of east-european workers. ..."
"... The EU does not have that much in the way of enforcement powers, that part is down-sourced to the individual member states. When a member state doesn't give a toss, it takes forever for some measure of sanctioning to spin up and usually it daily fines unto a misbehaving government, at the taxpayers expense (which of course those politicians who don't give a toss, are fine with since most of their cronies are not great taxpayers anyway). ..."
"... The solution is, patently, Tories out of power. Which I think will happen, certainly between now and 31 March 2019. Now would be better. Anyone thinking strategically in other parties in the UK (an oxymoron of a formulation, to be sure) would call for a no confidence vote the instant May's feet are on British soil. ..."
"... I doubt that this is personal, but what do I know. May is a nincompoop. The other heads of state patently, and quite rightly, don't respect her. Her presence has been useful to them only insofar as she could deliver a deal. ..."
"... I'd agree with your analysis of what happened – just glancing through the news today it seems that Macron in particular just lost patience, and the other leaders were happy to help him put the boot in. The EU has been trying to shore May up for a long time – the December agreement was little more than an attempt to protect her from an internal heave. This is a common dynamic in the EU – however much the leaders may dislike each other, they will usually prefer the person at the seat than the potential newcomer. ..."
"... But I think the EU has collectively decided that May is simply incapable of delivering any type of agreement, so there is no point in mincing words. They simply don't care any more if the Tory government collapses, or if they put Rees Mogg or Johnson in power. It makes absolutely zero difference to them. In fact, it might make it easier for the EU if the UK goes politically insane as they can then wash their hands of the problem. ..."
"... A colleague told me today he knows of several Northern Irish Republicans who voted leave, precisely because they thought this would create constitutional havoc and lead to a united Ireland. It seems at least some people were thinking strategically . ..."
"... British politicians apparently were supposed to negotiate Brexit among themselves. And once they had reached a (tentative) consensus the foreigners (the EU) were apparently supposed to bow down and accept the British proposal. ..."
"... Which means I never understood why the British media was treating the Chequers proposal as a serious proposal? And spending lots of time and articles discussing on how to convince the EU / the member states. ..."
"... As a Scot can I point out that it is English politicians who are responsible for this mess? ..."
Posted on
September 20, 2018 by Yves Smith Yves here. While the
specific observations in this post will be very familiar to readers (you've said the same
things in comments!), I beg to differ with calling the Government's Brexit negotiating stance a
strategy. It's bad habit plus lack of preparation and analysis.
And the UK's lack of calculation and self-awareness about how it is operating means it will
be unable to change course.
By Benjamin Martill, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Dahrendorf Forum where he focuses on
Europe after Brexit. He is based at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics's foreign policy
think tank. The Dahrendorf Forum is a joint research venture between LSE and the Hertie School
of Governance in Berlin. Originally published at
openDemocracy
But is this the best strategy for advancing British interests? Here is the argument based on
the findings of a recent Dahrendorf
Forum working paper .
All eyes in British politics are on the negotiations between the UK and the EU over the
terms of the forthcoming British withdrawal from the Union, or Brexit. Surprisingly, questions
of bargaining strategy – once the preserve of diplomats and niche academic journals
– have become some of the most defining issues in contemporary British politics.
The New Politics of Bargaining
Cabinet disagreements over the conduct of the negotiations led to the resignation of David
Davis and Boris Johnson in early July 2018 and the issue continues to divide the ruling
Conservative party. Theresa May's most recent statements have all addressed the question of how
hard she has pushed Brussels in the talks.
But is the hard bargaining strategy appropriate, or will it ultimately harm the UK? The
salience of this question should occasion deeper analysis of the fundamentals of international
bargaining, given the extent to which the course of British politics will be determined by the
government's performance (or perceived performance) in the Brexit talks.
Driving a Hard Bargain
A hard-bargaining strategy isn't necessarily a poor one. To the extent it is workable, it
may even represent the sensible option for the UK.
Hard bargaining is characterised by negative representations of negotiating partners,
unwillingness to make concessions, issuance of unrealistic demands, threats to damage the
partner or exit the negotiations, representations of the talks in zero-sum terms, failure to
provide argumentation and evidence, and withholding of information. From diplomats' portrayal
of the EU as an uncooperative and bullying negotiating partner to a set of demands recognised
as unrealistic in Brussels and Britain alike, the UK's approach to the Brexit negotiations
scores highly on each of these measures.
The consensus in the academic literature is generally that hard bargaining works only
where a given party has a relative advantage . Powerful states have an incentive to engage
in hard bargaining, since by doing so they will be able to extract greater concessions from
weaker partners and maximise the chance of achieving an agreement on beneficial terms.
But weaker actors have less incentive to engage in hard bargaining, since they stand to lose
more materially if talks break down and reputationally if they're seen as not being backed by
sufficient power,
So which is Britain?
Power Distribution
The success of hard bargaining depends on the balance of power. But even a cursory
examination would seem to confirm that the UK does not hold the upper hand in the negotiations.
Consider three standard measures of
bargaining power: a country's economic and military capabilities, the available alternatives to
making a deal, and the degree of constraint emanating from the public.
When it comes to capabilities, the UK is a powerful state with considerable economic clout
and greater military resources than its size would typically warrant. It is the second-largest
economy in the EU (behind Germany) and its GDP is equal to that of the smallest 19 member
states. And yet in relative terms, the combined economic and military power of the EU27 dwarves
that of the UK: the EU economy is five times the size of the UK's.
Next, consider the alternatives. A 'no deal' scenario would be damaging for both the UK and
the EU, but the impact would be more diffuse for the EU member states. They would each lose one
trading partner, whereas the UK would lose all of its regional trading partners. Moreover, the
other powers and regional blocs often cited as alternative trading partners (the US, China, the
Commonwealth, ASEAN) are not as open as the EU economy to participation by external parties,
nor are they geographically proximate (the greatest determinant of trade flows), nor will any
deal be able to replicate the common regulatory structure in place in the EU. This asymmetric
interdependence strongly suggests that the UK is in greater need of a deal than the EU.
Finally, consider the extent of domestic constraints. Constraint enhances power by
credibly preventing a leader from offering too generous a deal to the other side. On the EU
side the constraints are clear: Barnier receives his mandate from the European Council (i.e.
the member states) to whom he reports frequently. When asked to go off-piste in the
negotiations, he has replied that he does not have the mandate to do so. On the UK side, by
contrast, there is no such mandate. British negotiators continually cite Eurosceptic opposition
to the EU's proposals in the cabinet, the Conservative party, and the public, but they are
unable to guarantee any agreement will receive legislative assent, and cannot cite any unified
position.
Perceptions of Power
But the real power distribution is not the only thing that matters. While the EU is the more
powerful actor on objective criteria, a number of key assumptions and claims made by the
Brexiteers have served to reinforce the perception that Britain has the upper hand.
First, on the question of capabilities, the discourse of British greatness (often based on
past notions of power and prestige) belies the UK's status as a middle power (at best) and
raises unrealistic expectations of what Britain's economic and military resources amount to.
Second, on the question of alternatives, the oft-repeated emphasis on 'global Britain' and the
UK's stated aim to build bridges with its friends and allies around the globe understates the
UK's reliance on Europe, the (low) demand for relations with an independent Britain abroad, and
the value of free trade agreements or other such arrangements with third countries for the UK.
Third, on the question of domestic constraint, the post-referendum discourse of an indivisible
people whose wishes will be fulfilled only through the implementation of the Brexit mandate
belies the lack of consensus in British politics and the absence of a stable majority for
either of the potential Brexit options, including the 'no deal', 'hard', or 'soft' variants of
Brexit. Invoking 'the people' as a constraint on international action, in such circumstances,
is simply not credible.
Conclusion
Assumptions about Britain's status as a global power, the myriad alternatives in the wider
world, and the unity of the public mandate for Brexit, have contributed to the overstatement of
the UK's bargaining power and the (false) belief that hard bargaining will prove a winning
strategy.
Britain desperately needs to have an honest conversation about the limits of the UK's
bargaining power. This is not 'treasonous', as ardent Brexiteers have labelled similar nods to
reality, but is rather the only way to ensure that strategies designed to protect the national
interest actually serve this purpose. Power is a finite resource that cannot be talked into
existence. Like a deflating puffer fish, the UK's weakness will eventually become plain to see.
The risk is that before this occurs, all bridges will be burned, all avenues exhausted, and all
feathers ruffled.
The opinions expressed in this blog contribution are entirely those of the author and do
not represent the positions of the Dahrendorf Forum or its hosts Hertie School of Governance
and London School of Economics and Political Science or its funder Stiftung Mercator.
I tend to agree that there is no real strategy on the UK's part. May resembles a broken
record, where she says much the same thing over and over again, seemingly expecting a
different response each time. Although Einstein said that he probably never made the claim
about what insanity consists of, it is often attributed to him -- doing the same thing over
and over expecting different results is the very definition of insanity. How the government
expects that this sort of behavior will bring desirable results is beyond me.
Both UK and EU politicians are talking past each other. Neither side understands there are
two key issues. Firstly, not understanding the economic effects stemming from the failure to
understand how money is created and how it can be manipulated for global trading advantage.
Secondly, that the UK is high up the list for "cultural tightness" and the reasons for
this.
The other element of course of a negotiation is getting potential allies to roll up behind
you. At the start of this the UK had a series of potential 'friends' it could call on –
eurosceptics governments in Eastern Europe, close historic friends and political like minded
governments in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland. And of course non-EU countries
like India or the US with historic links.
They somehow managed to anger or frustrate nearly all of those though its heavy handed
negotiations or laughable lack of political empathy.
It must be emphasised that the current Irish government is ideologically and instinctively
very pro-London. And yet, today RTE is
reporting about the latest meeting between May and Varadkar:
The source said there was "an open exchange of views" between both sides, with the Irish
delegation emphasising that the time was short and "we need to get to the stage where we
can consider a legal text" on the backstop.
The source described British proposals so far as "only an outline, and we haven't seen
specific proposals from the British side."
This can only be translated as 'what the hell are they playing at?'
The Indians of course were amusedly baffled by the British assumption that they would
welcome open trade (without lots of new visas for Indian immigrants). Trump just smelt the
blood of a wounded animal. The Russians are well
The British cited the EU's inability to conclude a free-trade agreement with India as one
example of the EU's failings a revitalized Global Britain would no longer be shackled by.
That's quite rich considering the FTA was torpedoed when the British Home Secretary vetoed
increased visas for the Indians. Her name was Theresa May.
They somehow managed to anger or frustrate nearly all of those
Somehow?
The brits basically said: We are special people, much, much better, richer and stronger
than you sorry lot of Peons to Brussels(tm), so now you shall see sense and give us what we
want this week; you can call it your tribute if you like (because we don't care what you like
:)
Half the Danes are fed up with the whole thing and the other half would be egging on a
hard Brexit if only they could – knowing it will likely take out at least some of the
worst and most overleveraged (and gorged with tax-paid subsidies) Anti-Environmentalist
Danish industrial farmers, their bankers too. And diminish the power of their lobbyists:
"Landbrug & Fødevarer"!
The good part is that: the British and the Danish governments have managed to make "being
ruled by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels" look like a pretty much OK & decent deal,
considering the alternative options: Being ruled by our local crazies, straight-up nutters
and odious nincompoops (a word i like), half of whom, to top it up, are probably mere
soulless proxies for those ghouls that are running Washington DC.
It seems more and more to me, that never ending class warfare, and its current emphasis on
austerity, leaves us unable to envision alternate routes to economic health.
The neo-liberal consensus mandates that our ruling class never questions its own tactics,
ie dog-whistle racism to distract and divide the lower classes to enable all the looting.
So on both sides of the Atlantic, the rulers of English speakers stir up resentment
amongst those at the bottom in order to secure votes, and maintain power, while never
intending to follow through on promises to provide tangible material benefits to their
constituents.
The looting goes on, the trail of broken promises grows longer, and the misery
deepens.
The issue being ignored is that the folks at the bottom have reached the limit of their
ability to maintain life and limb in the face of downward economic pressure.
We've finally reached the end game, we in America have been driven to Trumpism, and in
Britain they've been driven to Brexit by the clueless efforts of pols to maintain power in
the face of electorates who have decided they have had enough, and will absolutely not take
the SOS anymore.
So we have the nonsensical situation of pols on both sides of the Atlantic flirting with
economic collapse, and even civil war rather than moderate their irrational fixation on
making the insanely rich even richer.
In both cases we have a cast of alternating villains robbing and beating us while waving
flags and loudly complaining that we aren't showing the proper level of enthusiasm.
Which leaves me with one question for those villains;
Why no one, especially the punditocracy seems to realize this, is astonishing.
I also cannot believe the Old Gray Lady killing millions of trees in its shrill efforts to
prove the Russians cost Hilary the election and nary a word about how totally fed up and
voiceless (with the exception of a single presidential vote) are those in the Great
Flyover.
Also find it amazing that the Beeb with rudimentary linguistic forensic analysis
identified Mike Pence as almost certainly the author of the scathing anti-Trump memo the NYT
published anonymously, without a single mention of this now widely-known fact.
On a related note, while this was about the tactics of leaving, there has been some
movement on the end state front, though not by the UK. Rather it seems that the EU has made
up it's mind, and in my mind definitively scrapped the EEA option.
Several EU leaders (Pms of Malta and the Czech republic) have clearly stated that they wish
to see a new referendum, and Macron said the following:
"Brexit is the choice of the British people pushed by those who predicted easy solutions.
Those people are liars. They left the next day so they didn't have to manage it," Macron said
on Thursday, vowing to "never" accept any Brexit deal, which would put the EU's integrity at
risk.
I think the bridges have been burned, now it's surrender or revocation that's left to the
UK, or stepping off the cliff edge.
It is astonishing to see that the UK still does not accept that the EU doesn't want it to
go on principle more than for practical reasons. May and the others cling to the notion that
without Great Britain, the EU will collapse or something. This is the same nation that has
been foot-dragging on everything about Europe and slagging off the continent at every turn
while pretending they are a Great Power and the BFF of the US. Trump does not care about
Great Britain unless he needs some sort of zoning permission for his gold course, in which
case he will cut a deal on trade or arms with May.
The Irish Border, assuming it remains open, is a massive concession and likely to lead to
future problems as other EU nations try to have open borders or trade with their pet
countries.
Brits on the Continent are worried about many things ranging from driver's licenses to
residency visas! Not every Brit wants to live on that damp little island! Some like the sun
and Continental cuisine.
Is the EU a Great Idea to be Protected and Advanced, one that will inexorably result in
ever greater benefits for the common people of the fainting nations that have been cat-herded
into submitting to the "political union" that many very personally interested parties are
always working toward? Like NATO is a Great Idea, not just a mechanism for global mischief
and chaos? NATO gives "warfighters" a place to sit and play their games. Brussels gives
"rules," at least some of which are sort of for public benefit, until the regulatory
capturers work their magic. Profit and impunity, always for the few.
What is the organizing principle in all this? Likely can't be stated. Just a lot of
interested parties squabbling over gobbets from the carcass torn from the planet
Maybe the 14th Century was not so very horrible after all? If one looks in "A Distant
Mirror" at it, given where humanity seems to be, on the increasingly fleshed-out timeline of
collapse?
OF course, one can always summon up the demoness TINA, to trump any efforts to take
different paths
NATO was created to make war. The EU was created to make peace and prosperity. Comparing
one to the other is unjust.
The EU is not some sacrosanct construct that must be worshiped, but it has brought peace
to Europe for the longest period since Pax Romana (and that was not entirely peaceful). It
has also promoted trade and prosperity. Europe has been even farther ahead of economic and
regulatory integration than the US (phones and credit cards come to mind). Free movement of
labor and travel have dropped costs for businesses and individuals immensely.
Now, whether or not human foibles enter into it is really another discussion. Is Brussels
at times a giant Interest Machine and Bureaucratic Nightmare? Yes, but that is the negative
face we see portrayed by anti-Europeans like the Brexiteers. The EU does a terrible job of
self-promotion; citizens rarely know just how much the EU contributes to their lives. Perhaps
the EU is afraid of drawing attention to itself. But the people making up the EU are not
extraterrestrials; they are Europeans who make the same mistakes and commit the same fraud on
a national level.
Many Americans criticize Europe while vaunting their own Federation. Why should California
and Alabama share a currency, a passport and a Congress? There are more differences between
those states than between France and Belgium or Italy and Spain.
The EU is not perfect and has costs, but measured against what it has achieved, it is a
great success.
The mortality rate for Greece is up approximately 50,000. All so Merkel in Germany, and
Sarkozy and Hollande didn't have to go before their electorates and admit they were bailing
out French and German banks through the backdoor.
If you want to start accounting for economic death by economic war, we can look at the US
as recently as the financial crisis, though I doubt there are studies on the Homeland of this
sort. Or US embargoes of vital medication and food in Iraq which led to hundreds of thousands
of deaths. And so on.
My point is not that the EU is perfect, but there has not been a war in Western Europe since
1945. You are welcome to spin and fiddle and search for anything you like (Gosh, all that
free travel led to increases in traffic deaths! Ban the EU!). Of course, we would also need
to examine what the EU has done for Europe and how many lives have been saved by improved
infrastructure and exchange of information.
I am not defending poor governance per se for the sake of defending the EU. But it is facile
and fun to criticize it because one can make up all kinds of counter fantasies about how
wonderful life would be without it. Let's see how Great Britain does and then we can discuss
this in a few years.
I guess all those little Balkan unpleasantnesses, the former Czechoslovakia and Bosnia and
such, are not wars -- but then those are layable at the feet of NATO (that collection, as I
recall it, of what, now, 29 member countries including all the Great Powers of the West) and
the US imperium.
The NATO establishment is about "making war," largely now displaced to other Woggish and Hajji places where the huge number of refugees that are moving into Eurospace are
coming from (as a result of the largely economically driven (oil and other extraction
interests) and Israeli and Saudi-enhanced large scale destabilizing war prosecution.
All of
which is linked in significant ways to the economic "health" of the EU, from which lots of
weapons flow in exchange for favors and money from the Destabilizers.
Yes, the EU notion of reducing the conflict generators of the past seems to be a good one.
But surprise! In practice, you got your German hegemon and your French strutters and now of
course the British bomb throwers pointing out, along with the renascent nationalism triggered
in part by the hegemon's bleeding of other nations via Brussels and EU institutions, like
Greece and Spain and Italy and so forth.
And of course the warring that the seamless
economies of the EU (that includes their particpation in NATO) foster and participate in that
drives the exodus of mopes from the Mideast and Africa. And how about the fun and games, with
possible nuclear war consequences, that are playing out with EU and NATO and of course US
Imperial Interests activity in Ukraine? And I see that the Krupp Werks has delivered a bunch
of warships to various places (hasn't that happened a couple of times in the past? Thinking
how particularly of Dolphin-class submarines paid for by Uncle Sucker, as in the US, and
delivered to the Israel -ites who have equipped them with many nuclear-warhead cruise
missiles? And thanks to the French, of course, and other Great Nations, the Israelis have
nuclear weapons in the first place.
It's nice that the science parts of the EU structure are sort of working to keep US-made
toxins and genetically modified crap and other bad stuff out of the Holy EU Empire. But hey,
how many VW diesel vehicles on the road (thanks to some combination of corruption and
incompetence on the part of the EU?) equals how much glyphosate and stacked-GM organisms
barred by EU regulations? Lots of argument possible around the margins and into the core of
the political economy/ies that make up the EU/NATO, and the Dead Empire across the Channel,
and of course the wonderful inputs from the empire I was born into.
I guess the best bet
would be to program some AI device to create a value structure (to be democratically studied
and voted on, somehow?) and measure all the goods and bads of the EU, according to some kind
of standard of Goodness to Mope-kind? Naw, power trumps all that of course, and "interests"
now very largely denominated and dominated by supranational corporations that piss on the EU
when not using its institutions as a means to legitimize their looting behaviors that sure
look to me like an expression of a death wish from the human species.
There are always winners and losers in any human game, because at anything larger than the
smallest scale, we do not appear wired to work from comity and commensalism. You sound from
the little one can see of you from your comment as a person among the winners. Which is fine,
all well and good, because of that "winners and losers" thing. Until either the mass vectors
of human behavior strip the livability out of the biosphere, or some provocation or mischance
leads to a more compendious and quicker, maybe nuclear, endpoint. Or maybe, despite the
activities of the Panopticon and the various powers with forces in the polity to tamp it
down, maybe there will be a Versailles moment, and "Aux Armes, Citoyens" will eventuate.
In the meantime, the various stages are set, the players in the game of statism and
nationalism and authoritarianism and neoliberalism are on their marks, the house lights are
going out, and the long slow rise of the curtain is under way
I suggest you read up on your recent European history. Czechoslovakia split entirely
peacefully and it had exactly zero to do with either NATO or USA.
Yugoslavia had its problems ever since it was Yugoslavia in early 20th century – all
Tito managed was to postpone it, and once he was gone, it was just a question of when, and
how violent it would be. Serbian apologistas like to blame NATO, conveniently ignoring any
pre-existing tensions between Croats and Serbs (not to mention ex-Yugoslavian muslims). Did
NATO help? No. But saying it was the cause of the Serbo-Croat war and all the Yugoslavian
fallout is ignorance.
What gets my goat is when someone blames everything on CIA, USA, NATO (or Russia and China
for the matter), denying the small peoples any agency. Especially when that someone tends to
have about zilch understanding of the regions in question, except from a selective
reading.
Yep, CIA and NATO and the Illuminati (and Putin, to put it on both sides) are the
all-powerful, all seeing, all-capable forces. Everyone else is a puppet. Right.
The period from the end of WWII to the Balkan Wars is still the longest period of peace
since the Romans. I doubt you have ever lived through a war so I can't expect you to
appreciate the difference between the Horrors of the Brussels Bureaucracy and the Horrors of
Shelling and Bombing. From your lofty armchair, they might be the same but then again,
perhaps you blame the socialists when your caramel latte is cold.
Lofty armchair? I actually volunteered and got the opportunity to go be a soldier in an
actual war, the Vietnam one. So I have a darn good idea what War is in actuality and from
unpleasant personal experience. And I don't have either the taste or the wealth for lattes.
And forgive my aging failure of typing Czech instead of Yugo -- my point, too, is that the
nations and sets of "peoples" living and involved in United Europe do in fact have "agency,"
and that is part of the fractiousness that the proponents of a federated Europe (seemingly
under mostly German lead) are working steadily at suppressing. Not as effectively as a
Federalist might want, of course.
TheScream wrote: I am not defending poor governance per se for the sake of defending
the EU. But it is facile and fun to criticize it because one can make up all kinds of counter
fantasies about how wonderful life would be without it.
Wake up. I'm talking about what the European elite in the real world deliberately
chose to do.
They chose to do a backdoor bailout of German and French banks specifically so
Merkel, Sarkozy and Hollande and the governments they led didn't have to go to their
electorates and tell them the truth. Thereby, they maintained themselves in power, and German
and French wealth structures -- the frickin', frackin banks -- as they were. And they did
this in the real world knowing that innocent people in Greece would die in
substantial numbers consequently.
This is not a counterfactual. This happened.
There's a technical term for people who plan and execute policies where many thousands of
people die so they themselves can benefit. That term is 'scum.'
Ultimately, it's that simple. Merkel, Sarkozy, Hollande, and whoever else among the EU
elites who chose to be complicit in killing substantial numbers of people so they could
maintain themselves in power are scum. They are scum. They are scum.
Don't get me started on people who defend such scum with threadbare waffle about 'I am not
defending poor governance per blah blah it is facile and fun to criticize blah blah.' Nor
interested in whataboutery about US elites, who as the main instigators of this 21st century
model of finance as warfare are also scum.
Fine, our elected leaders are all scum, but why does this mean that the EU is evil
specifically. Why single it out? Why not advocate the overthrow of all centralized or
unifying government? Move out to Montana to a cult and buy lots of guns or something.
My point is not that EU leaders are charming people working exclusively for the good of the
people. My point is that the EU is not as bad as most of you believe and no worse than most
other governments. It is simply an easy target because it is extra or supra-national. We can
get all frothy at the mouth blaming Nazis and Frogs for our woes and ignore our personal
failures.
I would love to insult you personally as you have insulted me, but I sense you are just
ranting out of frustration. You hate the EU (are you even European or just some right-wing
nutcase from America involving yourself in other's business?) and take it out on me. Go for
it. Your arguments are irrelevant and completely miss the point of my comments.
The EU does a terrible job of self-promotion; citizens rarely know just how much the EU
contributes to their live
The EU is, very simplistically, set up like a shared Civil Service. Civil Services are to
be seen rarely and never heard, less they take shine and glamour from the Government they
serve.
What "Bruxelles" can do is to advise and create Directives, which are instructions to
local government to create and enforce local legislation. The idea is that the legislation
and enforcement will be similar in all EU member states.
Ons should be very aware that EU directives comes mainly from the member states and that
especially bad things that would never fly past an election could – and often is
– spun by local government as "Big Bad Bruxelles is forcing poor little us to do this
terrible thing to you poor people". Ala the British on trade deal with India and immigration
of east-european workers.
The EU does not have that much in the way of enforcement powers, that part is down-sourced
to the individual member states. When a member state doesn't give a toss, it takes forever
for some measure of sanctioning to spin up and usually it daily fines unto a misbehaving
government, at the taxpayers expense (which of course those politicians who don't give a
toss, are fine with since most of their cronies are not great taxpayers anyway).
"Maybe the 14th Century was not so very horrible after all?"
Hopefully sarcastic?
Dude -- black plague! 75 to 200 million dead! At a tie with a world population of 400
million, and 40 million of those may as well have been on Mars! China, ME, North Africa and
Europe depopulated!
Time to really reconsider one's assumptions when one wonders whether the 14th century was
"that bad".
Dude, yes, sarcastic. And ironic. Doesn't change the horribleness of the present, does it
now? Or the coming horrors (say some of us) that may have been inevitably priced in to the
Great Global Market, does it
Donald Tusk, the European council president, has ratcheted up the pressure on Theresa
May by rejecting the Chequers plan and warning of a breakdown in the Brexit talks unless
she delivers a solution for the Irish border by October – a deadline the British
prime minister had already said she will not be able to meet.
The stark threat to unravel the talks came as the French president, Emmanuel Macron,
broke with diplomatic niceties and accused those of backing Brexit of being liars. "Those
who explain that we can easily live without Europe, that everything is going to be all
right, and that it's going to bring a lot of money home are liars," he said.
"It's even more true since they left the day after so as not to have to deal with it."
The comments came at the end of a leaders' summit in Salzburg, where May had appealed
for the EU to compromise to avoid a no-deal scenario. She had been hoping to take warm
words over Chequers into Conservative party conference.
Tusk, who moments before his comments had a short meeting with the prime minister, told
reporters that he also wanted to wrap up successful talks in a special summit in
mid-November.
But, in a step designed to pile pressure on the prime minister, he said this would not
happen unless the British government came through on its commitment to finding a "precise
and clear" so-called backstop solution that would under any future circumstances avoid a
hard border on the island of Ireland.
"Without an October grand finale, in a positive sense of this word, there is no reason
to organise a special meeting in November," Tusk said. "This is the only condition when it
comes to this possible November summit."
It seems the EU leaders aren't even pretending anymore. Its pretty clear they have run out
of patience, and May has run out of options. I wonder if they'll even bother with having the
November summit.
If there's no November summit (which would make no-deal Brexit almost certainty), then the
game becomes fast a and furious, as sterling will drop like a stone – with all sorts of
repercussions. TBH, that can already be clear after the Tory party conference, it's entirely
possible that that one will make any October Brexit discussions entirely irrelevant.
I think that EU overestimated May in terms of sensibility, and now accept that there's no
difference between May and Johnson (in fact, with Johnson or someone like that, they will get
certainy, so more time to get all ducks in row. Entirely cynically, clear no-deal Brexit
Johnson would be better for EU than May where one has no idea what's going to happen).
Either way, this crop of politicians will make history books. Not sure in the way they
would like to though.
Announced post-summit in Salzburg: no November summit absent a binding exit deal on the
table by the end of October. So no: no November dealing.
I don't know that EU politicos overestimated May. She is what they had, and all they had,
so they did their absolute best to prop up Rag Sack Terry as a negotiating partner, hoping
that they could coax her to toddle over their red lines with enough willingness to listen to
her hopeless twaddle first. She just shuffled and circled in place. So they've given up on
her ability to deliver anything of value to them. One could see this coming in June, when she
couldn't even get the sound of one hand clapping to her chipper nonsense over dinner.
I think that deciding heads in Europe have accepted the probability that crashout is
coming. That was clear also in June. If something better happens, I suppose that they would
leap at it. Nothing in the last two years engenders any hope in that regard, so hard heads
are readying the winches to hoist the drawbridge on We're Dead to You Day.
If the Tories fall, which I think and have long thought is probable, it would be up to a
'unity government' to either initial a settlement surrender and keep the sham going, or
flinch. My bet has been on pulling together some kind of flinch mechanism on aborting exit.
It's the kind of year, as I model these, where wild swings of such kind are possible, but I
couldn't predict the outcome anymore than anyone else.
My feeling for a while is that the government would never fall, whatever happened, simply
because the Tories (and DUP) fear a Corbyn government too much, so would never, ever pull the
trigger, no matter how bad things got. But if May falls at the Party Conference and is
replaced with a hard Brexiter, I don't think its impossible that there may be a temptation
that to see if they could whip up a nationalistic mood for a snap election. Some of them are
gamblers by instinct. Anything could happen then.
I think Tory Remainers bolt, choosing keeping their own wallets rather than handing those
over to the worst of their lot with everything else. But they would find a unity coalition
more palatable than passing the microphone to Jerry the Red, yeah, so that's a bit sticky. A
snap election is the worst kind of crazy town, and wolldn't improve negotiating or decision
outcomes in the slightest -- so of course that may be the likeliest near term course! Won't
get settled in a few weeks. Probably not until 20 March 2019.
This is just wowsers. Tusk, Macron, and Merkel baldly state that Chequers is mated --
"unacceptable" -- and furthermore gave the Tories a drop-dead date of 31 October to initial
the divorce settlement. The process is a flat abandonment of Theresa May, concluding the
obvious, that she and her government are incapable of negotiating exit. Going over her head
to Parliament and public, in fact if not in pre-consisdered intent. -- And about time. I was
worried that the EU would eat fudge in November with the Brits again on another
pretend-to-agree accord like that of December 2017, which, as we have seen did nothing to
induce the Tories to negotiate a viable outcome.
What was May's reaction? That she's perfectly prepared to lead Britain over the crashout
cliff if the EU doesn't see fit to capitulate. I'd roll on the floor laughing but I can't
catch my breath.
The next two weeks are going to be lively times in Britain indeed. I can't see how
'Suicide Terry's' government can survive this situation. -- And about high time. Put the poor
brute out of her misery; she's delusional, can't they see how she's suffering? Push has come,
so it's time to shove. Crashout or Flinch, those are the outcomes, now plainer than ever. All
May can do is thrash and fabulate, so time to bag the body and swear in another fool; lesser
or greater, we shall see.
Yes, I wonder was that planned, or (as is suggested in the
latest Guardian articl e), motivated by anger at Mays criticism of Barnier?
EU sources said the move had been made on the bidding of Macron, who urged taking a hard
line over lunch. The French president had been infuriated by May's warning earlier in the
day to Varadkar that she believed a solution on the issue could not be found by October,
despite previous promises to the contrary.
The tone of the prime minister's address to the EU leaders on Wednesday night, during
which she attacked Michel Barnier, is also said by sources to have been the cause of
irritation.
This obviously makes her very vulnerable at the party conference. Its hard to see what she
can do now. She is toast I think.
I can only think of two reasons that they've closed the door firmly in her face. Either
they have simply lost patience and now accept there is nothing can be salvaged, or they have
lost patience with May personally, and hope that a new leader might do a deal out of
desperation. The latter seems highly unlikely – a sudden Tory challenge is more likely
to bring a hardliner into power.
Whichever way you look at it, things look certain to come to a head very soon now. The EU
may have a hope that the UK will blink when staring into the abyss and agree to the backstop,
but I don't see how politically this a capitulation is possible, at least with the Tories in
power.
The solution is, patently, Tories out of power. Which I think will happen, certainly
between now and 31 March 2019. Now would be better. Anyone thinking strategically in other
parties in the UK (an oxymoron of a formulation, to be sure) would call for a no confidence
vote the instant May's feet are on British soil.
I doubt that this is personal, but what do I know. May is a nincompoop. The other heads of
state patently, and quite rightly, don't respect her. Her presence has been useful to them
only insofar as she could deliver a deal. Macron looked at his watch and the date said, non on that. Just looking at his ambitions and how he operates, I would think he
wanted to go this route quite some time ago, but the 'softly, softly' set such as the Dutch
and Merkel wouldn't back that, and he was too smart to break ranks alone. That the Germans
have given up on May is all one really needs to know. This was May's no confidence vote by
the European Council, and she lost it over lunch.
I'd agree with your analysis of what happened – just glancing through the news today
it seems that Macron in particular just lost patience, and the other leaders were happy to
help him put the boot in. The EU has been trying to shore May up for a long time – the
December agreement was little more than an attempt to protect her from an internal heave.
This is a common dynamic in the EU – however much the leaders may dislike each other,
they will usually prefer the person at the seat than the potential newcomer.
But I think the EU has collectively decided that May is simply incapable of delivering any
type of agreement, so there is no point in mincing words. They simply don't care any more if
the Tory government collapses, or if they put Rees Mogg or Johnson in power. It makes
absolutely zero difference to them. In fact, it might make it easier for the EU if the UK
goes politically insane as they can then wash their hands of the problem.
At this point it might actually be a blessing if that happened. There is likely to be a
great deal of practical difference between a no-deal Brexit with six months of planning and
preparation and a no-deal Brexit that takes everyone by surprise at the very last minute.
(Yes, they will both be a nightmare, but some nightmares are worse than others). All this
pretense that the other side is bluffing and will roll over at the 11th hour is starting to
look like a convenient excuse for not facing reality. I don't think either side is
bluffing.
Comments like "Britain desperately needs to have an honest conversation about the limits
of the UK's bargaining power" might very well be true, but they're also irrelevant at this
point. Certainly it would have been very useful if it had happened two years ago. Right now
it's time to break out the life jackets.
Most Brits don't seem capable of mentally accepting how irrelevant they actually are
internationally. They are NOT a 'power' in any other respect than that they have nuclear
weapons under their launch authority (which they are never going to use). They have no
weight. The City is, really other people's money that predominantly foreign nationals at
trading desks play with, loose, steal, hide, and occasionally pay out. The UK economy isn't
of any international consequence. Brits are embedded in the international diplomatic
process, in a dead language speakers kind of way, which makes them seem important. But they
are not.
So there was never going to be a reassessment of the weaknesses of Britain's negotiating
position, nor will there be now exactly, because most in Britain cannot get their heads
around the essential premise to such a discussion, the Britain is now essentially trivial on
the power scale rather than of any real consequence. The Kingdom of Saud has more real power.
Turkey is a more consequential actor. Mexico has more people. &etc.
If one is to accept the convictions of master bloviator Niall Ferguson and other
Brexiteers, the issue is issue. Brexit is about immigration, period. The EU claims it will
not bend on free movement of people, Brexiteers will not accept anything less. There was such
a huge outcry when May mentioned the possibility of 'preferential' treatment for EU citizens
back in July she threatened any further public dissent in the party would result in sackings.
The EU insists there can be no trade deals, no freed movement of goods without free movement
of people, for good reasons. Hard to imagine them climbing down.
There's about as many reasons why people voted Brexit as there's different Brexits they
wanted. Immigration is just one of the convenient scapegoats peddled by both sides, although
for different reasons.
If you want a better (but still not complete) reason, try decreasing real income.
I'd like to know what those "many different reasons" are. Sovereignty? Well, that rolls
off the tongue more easily than "immigration" which, leavers know, sounds a bit racist.
"Control of borders" works for leavers like Nigell, although he went on at great length about
how it's all about immigration, after talking to all the 'real' folks in the provinces.
My Irish/Brit family's Own Private Brexit: the grandparents are entitled to naturalisation
and voted Leave, the children are subjects/citizens and voted Remain (and almost all vote
Tory), the grandchildren are compromised subjects/citizens and didn't have a vote. Everyone's
happy to be entitled to an EU passport. The Pakistan offshoot has a less complex variation
(fewer rights), but I believe their family voted Leave on balance. Life.
A colleague told me today he knows of several Northern Irish Republicans who voted leave,
precisely because they thought this would create constitutional havoc and lead to a united
Ireland. It seems at least some people were thinking strategically .
Majority of the drop in real income is NOT driven by immigration. You may find it
surprising, but there were times with large (relatively speaking) immigration and the real
incomes going up.
I don't believe it is either, you seem to think these views are my own. I am speculating,
with some basis, that a majority of leavers think so. Anti-immigration attitudes are
entrenched and growing. Just the other day a teacher, no less, spouted off about how
immigrants were causing crime and stealing jobs. This is in a blue city in a blue state. I
was shocked.
People come up with fantasy explanations when they've been reduced from realistic
assessments to fantastic ideologies. If there's a clear answer but you are ideologically
constrained from considering it, you need to invent some answer, the nuttier the better.
I think a major part of the problem is that British politicians and media seem to believe
that Brexit is mainly (or exclusively) a British topic.
One British politician publishes one proposal, another British politician shoots it down.
With the British media reporting about it gleefully for days. Newspaper articles, opinion
pieces. Without even mentioning what the EU might think about it. The EU seems to not exist
in this bubble.
Just remember the more than 60 "notices to stakeholders" published by the EU months ago.
And freely available for reading on the Internet. I´ve read British media online for a
long time now but somehow these notices never made any impact. It was only when the first
British impact assessments were published (not that long ago) that British media started to
report about possible problems after a no-deal Brexit. Problems / consequences that were
mentioned in the EU notices months ago.
It´s almost unbelievable. It looks like if something isn´t coming from London (or
Westminster) then it doesn´t exist in the British media.
And it´s the same with British politicians.
David Davis and the back-stop deal in late 2017?. He agreed with it during the negotiations,
returned home and then said that it wasn´t binding, just a letter of intent. Or Michael
Gove a few days ago? Regardless of what agreement PM T. May negotiates now with the EU, a new
PM can simply scrap it and negotiate a new deal? Or send government members to the EU member
states to try and undermine Barnier as reported in British media? How exactly is that
building trust?
Have they never heard about the Internet? And that today even foreigners might read British
media?
Brexit supporter Jacob Rees-Mogg might be the MP for the 18th century but surely they know
that today there are faster methods for messages than using pigeons?
What about foreign investment in the UK? The gateway to the EU? Japanese car
companies?
The drop in foreign investment was reported, to be sure. But after a few days it was
immediately forgotten.
T. May according to British media articles apparently developed her Brexit strategy (and
her red lines) together with her two closest political advisers back in late 2016 / early
2017. No cabinet meeting to discuss the strategy, no ordering of impact assessments which
might have influenced the strategy (and the goals). And apparently – in my opinion
– no detailed briefing on how the EU actually works. What might be realistically
possible and what not.
The resignation of Ivan Rogers seems to support my speculations. Plus the newspaper
articles in early 2017 which mentioned that visitors to certain British government ministries
were warned not to criticize Brexit or warn about negative consequences. Such warnings would
result in no longer being invited to visit said ministry and minister.
If they actually went through with that policy they created an echo chamber with no
dissenting voices allowed.
Which might explain why they had no plan to deal with the EU.
British politicians apparently were supposed to negotiate Brexit among themselves. And once
they had reached a (tentative) consensus the foreigners (the EU) were apparently supposed to
bow down and accept the British proposal.
And now when the EU hasn´t followed the script they don´t know what to do?
I´m not an expert but it was pretty clear to me that the Chequers deal would never
work. It was pretty obvious even when EU politicians were somewhat polite about it when T.
May proposed it.
It might have been a good starting point for negotiations if she had introduced it in 2017.
But in July 2018? Just a few months before negotiations were supposed to be concluded? And
then claiming it´s the only realistic proposal? It´s my way or the highway?
It was obvious.
Which means I never understood why the British media was treating the Chequers proposal as a
serious proposal? And spending lots of time and articles discussing on how to convince the EU
/ the member states.
I really think the EU member states have finally concluded that T. May is incapable of
producing (and getting a majority in the House of Commons) for any realistic solution.
Therefore helping her with statements to keep her politically alive doesn´t make sense
any longer. The EU would probably really, really like a solution that gives them at least the
transition period. Another 21 months to prepare for Brexit. But fudging things only get you
that far .
The UK apparently never understood that it´s one thing to bend rules or fudge things to
get the agreement of a member state. It´s quite another thing with a soon -to-be
ex-member state.
I am a German citizen, living in Germany.
The (German weekly printed newspaper) Zeit Online website did have three articles about
Brexit in the last few days. Which is noteworthy since they normally have 1-2 articles per
month.
And the comments were noteworthy too.
Almost all of them now favor a hard-line approach by the EU.
The UK lost a lot of sympathy and support in the last two years. Not because of the
referendum result itself but because of the actions and speeches of British politicians
afterwards.
The UK had a rebate, opt-outs and excemptions. All because successive British governments
pointed to their EU-sceptic opposition. Now the population voted for Brexit the British want
a deal that gives them all (or most) of the advantages of EU membership without any of the
obligations. To reduce the economic consequences of their decision.
No longer.
Actions have consequences.
And if it means we´ll have to support Ireland, we´ll do it.
The German commentators quite obviously have lost their patience with the UK.
This is the first article that I have seen that talks about power. The ability to
influence or outright control the behavior of people. Money has power. It is needed to eat,
heal and shelter in the West. But, it is never talked about. This is because it would raise
inconvenient truths. The wealthy are accumulating it and everyone else in the West is losing
it. The neo-liberal/neo-conservative ideologies are the foundation of this exploitation. It
is the belief that markets balance and there is no society. "Greed is good. Might is right."
Plutocrats rule the west. Democracy died. There are two versions of similar corporate
political parties in the USA. The little people matter not. Politicians are servants of the
oligarchs. Global trade is intertwined and not redundant. What will happen will be to the
benefit of the very few in power. Donald Trump is raising the price of all Chinese goods
shipped into the USA and sold at Walmart and Amazon. A Brexit crash seems inevitable.
Amen! It is ALWAYS about power. And the only way to deal with the elites is "Lord of the
Rings" style:
their money must be cast into a financial version of Mount Doom, breaking their power once
and for all. You folks in the UK need to make douchebag Brexiteers like Nigel Farrage suffer
total loss of power for forcing this disaster on you.
There is a huge source of wealth that UK monopolises from Treasure Islands that operate
the City's tax havens. That money goes straight back to City banks and flows into the market
economy, independently of trade and commerce. It underwrites the derivatives biz that keeps
the market economy afloat, paying pensions and profits and Directors' options.
Leaving the EU might have an effect but not a big one. Is that why UK seems so blithely
unconcerned?
The offshore wealth is certainly why the core hard Brexiters are unconcerned, because
thats where they store their cash. They don't care if the UK goes down.
But in the longer term, they are under threat – within the EU the UK consistently
vetoed any attempts to crack down on internal tax havens. The internal political balance of
the EU is now much more firmly anti tax avoidance with the UK gone, so there would be little
to stop a series of Directives choking off the Channel Island/Isle of Man option for money
flows.
Split Brain Syndrome: They seem think that the EU is Lucifer's Army Incarnate and then
they apparently also think at the same time, that "The Army of Darkness" once unleashed from
the responsible British leadership into the hands of those per-definition also demonic French
and Germans will still "play cricket" and not come after their tax-havens ASAP, like in 2020
or so.
May now demanding that the EU respect Great Britain. We are back to the beginning again.
May has no leverage beyond the EU wanting Britain to stay in . But if Britain goes out, then
it's out. The only way for May to get any concessions would be to offer to stay in! And even
then I am not sure the EU would accept since it would simply open the way for any member to
have a tantrum and demand better terms.
GB should leave, wallow in their loneliness a while and then ask to come back. I suspect
that the EU would reinstate them fully without the usual processes. Check back here in 24-36
months.
This is a very weak article, but it raises several important questions such as the role or neoliberal MSM in color revolution
against Trump and which social group constituted the voting block that brought Trump to victory. The author answers incorrectly on
both those questions.
I think overall Tremblay analysis of Trump (and by extension of national neoliberalism he promotes) is incorrect. Probably the largest group
of voters which voted for Trump were voters who were against neoliberal globalization and who now feel real distrust and aversion to
the ruling neoliberal elite.
Trump is probably right to view neoliberal journalists as enemies: they are tools of intelligence agencies which as agents of
Wall Street promote globalization
At the same time Trump turned to be Obama II: he instantly betrayed his voters after the election. His
election slogan "make Ameraca great again" bacem that same joke as Obama "Change we can believe in". And he proved to be as
jingoistic as Obama (A Nobel Pease Price laureate who was militarists dream come true)
In discussion of groups who votes for Trump the author forgot to mention part of professional which skeptically view neoliberal
globalization and its destrction of jobs (for example programmer jobs in the USA) as well as blue color
workers decimated by offshoring of major industries.
Notable quotes:
"... "Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people [journalists], the fake news Just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. " ..."
"... Donald Trump (1946- ), American President, (in remarks made during a campaign rally with Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Kansas City, July 24, 2018) ..."
"... "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." ..."
"... This is a White House where everybody lies ..."
"... I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power ..."
"... The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them into his own tools of propaganda. ..."
"... ad hominem' ..."
"... Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical showman diva , behaving in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians. ..."
"... He prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and emotions (as if he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel of communication. ..."
"... checks and balance ..."
"... The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political consequences, both for the current administration and for future ones. ..."
"Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people [journalists], the fake news Just remember, what
you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. "
Donald Trump (1946- ), American President, (in remarks made during a campaign rally with Veterans of Foreign Wars, in Kansas
City, July 24, 2018)
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) (1903-1950), English novelist, essayist, and social critic, (in '1984', Ch. 7, 1949)
" This is a White House where everybody lies ." Omarosa Manigault Newman (1974- ), former White House aide to President
Donald Trump, (on Sunday August 12, 2018, while releasing tapes recording conversations with Donald Trump.)
" I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power ." Benjamin Franklin (
1706 –
1790 ), American inventor and US Founding Father, (in 'Words of
the Founding Fathers', 2012).
***
In this day and age, with instant information, how does a politician succeed in double-talking, in bragging, in scapegoating and
in shamefully distorting the truth, most of the time, without being unmasked as a charlatan and discredited? Why? That is the mysterious
and enigmatic question that one may ask about U. S. President Donald Trump, as a politician.
The most obvious answer is the fact that Trump's one-issue and cult-like followers do not care what he does or says and whether
or not he has declared a
war on truth and reality , provided he delivers the political and financial benefits they demand of him, based on their ideological
or pecuniary interests. These groups of voters live in their own reality and only their personal interests count.
1- Four groups of one-issue voters behind Trump
There are four groups of one-issue voters to
whom President Donald Trump has delivered the goodies:
Christian religious right voters, whose main political issue is to fill the U. S. Supreme Court with ultra conservative
judges. On that score, Donald Trump has been true to them by naming one such judge and in nominating a second one.
Super rich Zionists and the Pro-Israel Lobby, whose obsession is the state of Israel. Again, on that score, President
Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to them and he has unilaterally moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in addition
to attacking the Palestinians and tearing up the 'Iran Deal'.
The one-percent Income earners and some corporate owners, whose main demand to Trump was substantial tax cuts and
deregulation. Once again, President Trump has fulfilled this group's wishes with huge tax cuts, mainly financed with future public
debt increases, which are going to be paid for by all taxpayers.
The NRA and the Pro-Gun Lobby, whose main obsession is to have the right to arm themselves to the teeth, including
with military assault weapons, with as few strings attached as possible. Here again President Donald Trump has sided with them
and against students who are increasingly in the line of fire in American schools.
With the strong support of these four monolithic lobbies -- his electoral base -- politician Donald Trump can count on the indefectible
support of between 35 percent and 40 percent of the American electorate. It is ironic that some of Trump's other policies, like reducing
health care coverage and the raising of import taxes, will hurt the poor and the middle class, even though some of Trump's victims
can be considered members of the above lobbies.
Moreover, some of Trump's supporters regularly rely on
hypocrisy and on excuses to exonerate their favorite
but flawed politician of choice. If any other politician from a different party were to say and do half of what Donald Trump does
and says, they would be asking for his impeachment.
There are three other reasons why Trump's rants, his
record-breaking lies , his untruths, his deceptions and his dictatorial-style attempts to
control information , in the eyes of his fanatical supporters, at least, are like water on the back of a duck. ( -- For the record,
according to the
Washington Post , as of early August, President Trump has made some 4,229 false claims, which amount to 7.6 a day, since his
inauguration.)
The first reason can be found in Trump's view that politics and even government business are first and foremost another form
of
entertainment , i.e. a sort of TV reality show, which must be scripted and acted upon. Trump thinks that is
OK to lie
and to ask his assistants to
lie
. In this new immoral world, the Trump phenomenon could be seen a sign of
post-democracy .
The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and
manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them into his own tools of propaganda.
When Trump attacks the media, he is in fact coaxing them to give him free coverage to spread his
insults , his fake accusations, his provocations, his constant
threats , his denials or reversals, his convenient
changes of subject or his political spins. Indeed, with his outrageous statements, his gratuitous accusations and his attacks
' ad hominem' , and by constantly bullying and insulting adversaries at home and foreign heads of states abroad, and
by issuing threats in repetition, right and left, Trump has forced the media to talk and journalists to write about him constantly,
on a daily basis, 24/7.
That suits him perfectly well because he likes to be the center of attention. That is how he can change the political rhetoric
when any negative issue gets too close to him. In the coming weeks and months, as the Special prosecutor
Robert Mueller's report is likely to be released, Donald Trump is not above resorting to some sort of "
Wag the Dog " political trickery, to change the topic and to possibly push the damaging report off the headlines.
In such a circumstance, it is not impossible that launching an illegal war of choice, say against Iran (a
pet
project of Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton), could then look very convenient to a crafty politician like Donald
Trump and to his warmonger advisors. Therefore, observers should be on the lookout to spot any development of the sort in the
coming weeks.
That one man and his entourage could whimsically consider launching a
war of aggression is a throwback to ancient times
and is a sure indication of the level of depravity to which current politics has fallen. This should be a justified and clear
case for impeachment .
Finally, some far-right media outlets, such as
Fox News and
Sinclair Broadcasting , have taken it upon themselves to systematically present Trump's lies and misrepresentations as some
'alternative' truths and facts.
Indeed, ever since 1987, when the Reagan administration abolished the
Fairness Doctrine for licensing public radio
and TV waves, and since a Republican dominated Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for the
mass conglomeration of local broadcasting
in the United States, extreme conservative news outlets, such as the Fox and Sinclair networks, have sprung up. They are well
financed, and they have essentially become powerful
political propaganda machines , erasing the line between facts and fiction, and regularly presenting fictitious alternative
facts as the truth.
In so doing, they have pushed public debates in the United States away from facts, reason and logic, at least for those listeners
and viewers for whom such outlets are the only source of information. It is not surprising that such far-right media have also
made Donald Trump the champion of their cause, maliciously branding anything inconvenient as 'fake' news, as Trump has done in
his own anti-media campaign and his sustained assault on the free press.
2- Show Politics and public affairs as a form of entertainment
Donald Trump does not seem to take politics and public affairs very seriously, at least when his own personal interests are involved.
Therefore, when things go bad, he never volunteers to take personal responsibility, contrary to what a true leader would do, and
he conveniently
shifts the blame on somebody else. This is a sign of immaturity or cowardice. Paraphrasing President Harry Truman, "the buck
never stops at his desk."
Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical
showman diva , behaving
in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than
a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians.
3- Trump VS the media and the journalists
Donald Trump is the first U.S. president who rarely holds scheduled press conferences. Why would he, since he considers journalists
to be his "enemies"! It doesn't seem to matter to him that freedom of the press is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution by the First
Amendment. He prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and emotions (as if
he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel of communication.
The ABC News network
has calculated that, as of last July, Trump has tweeted more than 3,500 times, slightly more than seven tweets a day. How could he
have time left to do anything productive! Coincidently, Donald Trump's number of tweets is not far away from the number of outright
lies and misleading claims that he has told and made since his inauguration.
The Washington Post has counted no less than 3,251 lies or misleading claims of his, through the end of May of this year, --
an average of 6.5 such misstatements per day of his presidency. Fun fact: Trump seems to accelerate the pace of his lies. Last year,
he told 5.5 lies per day, on average. Is it possible to have a more cynical view of politics!
The media in general, (and
not only American ones), then serve more or less voluntarily as so many resonance boxes for his daily 'tweets', most of which
are often devoid of any thought and logic.
Such a practice has the consequence of demeaning the public discourse in the pursuit of the common good and the general welfare
of the people to the level of a frivolous private enterprise, where expertise, research and competence can easily be replaced by
improvisation, whimsical arbitrariness and charlatanry. In such a climate, only the short run counts, at the expense of planning
for the long run.
Conclusion
All this leads to this conclusion: Trump's approach is not the way to run an efficient government. Notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution
and what it says about the need to have " checks and balance s" among different government branches, President Donald Trump
has de facto pushed aside the U.S. Congress and the civil servants in important government Departments, even his own
Cabinet
, whose formal meetings under Trump have been little more than photo-up happenings, to grab the central political stage for himself.
If such a development does not represent an ominous threat to American democracy, what does?
The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political consequences, both for the current
administration and for future ones.
"... Serious border enforcement, demanding our wealthy allies do more for their own security, infrastructure investment, the (campaign's) refutation of Reaganomics, acknowledging the costs of globalism, calling BS on all of the dominant left PC pieties and lies, were themes of Trump's campaign that were of value. ..."
Serious border enforcement, demanding our wealthy allies do more for their own security,
infrastructure investment, the (campaign's) refutation of Reaganomics, acknowledging the
costs of globalism, calling BS on all of the dominant left PC pieties and lies, were themes
of Trump's campaign that were of value.
Trump was able to harness and give voice to some very important energies. But being Trump,
he's poisoned these issues for a couple of generations. No serious leader will be able to
touch these things.
Add this to all the institutional and political ruin he has created.
"... he has brought North Korea away from the edge of nuclear war and established at least tentative diplomatic relations with that nation, something no president has done before him. Against frenzied opposition from the American Establishment, he has somewhat softened U.S. relations with Russia. ..."
"... On domestic and environmental matters, Trump is pro-plutocrat, a climate change denier, and the installer of arch-reactionary Supreme Court justices. But this is more a function of the current national Republican party than of Trump himself. Any of Trump's opponents in the 2016 primaries would have followed the same policies. ..."
Trump is not crazy at all. He is the proponent of a particular philosophy, Trumpism, which
he follows very clearly and consistently.
As president, he has had significant successes. Notably, he has brought North Korea away
from the edge of nuclear war and established at least tentative diplomatic relations with
that nation, something no president has done before him. Against frenzied opposition from the
American Establishment, he has somewhat softened U.S. relations with Russia.
On domestic and environmental matters, Trump is pro-plutocrat, a climate change denier,
and the installer of arch-reactionary Supreme Court justices. But this is more a function of
the current national Republican party than of Trump himself. Any of Trump's opponents in the
2016 primaries would have followed the same policies.
Trumpism is undeniably a form of near-fascism. Trump has followed viciously anti-immigrant
tendencies, and this, along with his ties to out-and-out racists, is the worst part of his
presidency. But these horrible aspects do not at all show that he is crazy. He has used them
coldly and calculatedly to gain power.
And while his schtick and bluster are indeed bizarre, he has used them very consistently
to keep a 40%-plus approval rating in the face of an Establishment opposition the like of
which has used against a president at least in our lifetimes.
As I have commented here before, except for Trump's disgusting anti-immigration policies,
George W. Bush was on balance a far worse president.
The powerful always want more power.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
June 26, 2016
"Brexit: Are The Serfs Finally Rebelling"?
The establishment are shocked that the ordinary people want out of the European Union
(EU). They just don't realize that people are fed up being used, abused, dictated to, lied
to, manipulated, and forced into an EU dictatorship by treacherous politicians.
These are some of the same politicians who scurry to the meetings of the so-called elites
in Davos, and also attend Bilderberg meetings. And many of them, when they leave politics,
finish up on the boards of banks and multi-national corporations with the rest of the
money-manipulating bandits that got bailed out with taxpayers' dollars, some of whom, I
believe, should be in jail .
This is partially incorrect view on Trump foreign policy. At the center of
which is careful retreat for enormous expenses of keeping the global neoliberal
empire, plus military Keyseanism to revive the us economy. Which means
tremendous pressure of arm sales as the only way to improve trade balance.
NATO was always an instrument of the USA hegemony,
so Trump behavior is perfectly compatible with this view -- he just downgraded vassals
refusing usual formal respect for them, as they do no represent independent nations.
That's why he addressed them with the contempt. He aptly remarked that German stance
of relying on Russia hydrocarbons and still claiming the it needs the USA defense
is pure hypocrisy. On the other side china, Russia and North Korea can't be considered
the USA vassals.
China is completely dependent on the USA for advanced technologies so their
dreams of becoming the world hegemon is such exist are premature.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington's dominance over the world economy had begun to wither and its once-superior work force to lose its competitive edge. ..."
"... By 2016, in fact, the dislocations brought on by the economic globalization that had gone with American dominion sparked a revolt of the dispossessed in democracies worldwide and in the American heartland, bringing the self-proclaimed "populist" Donald Trump to power. ..."
"... Determined to check his country's decline, he has adopted an aggressive and divisive foreign policy that has roiled long-established alliances in both Asia and Europe and is undoubtedly giving that decline new impetus. ..."
"... On the realpolitik side of that duality, Washington constructed a four-tier apparatus -- military, diplomatic, economic, and clandestine -- to advance a global dominion of unprecedented wealth and power. This apparatus rested on hundreds of military bases in Europe and Asia that made the U.S. the first power in history to dominate (if not control) the Eurasian continent. ..."
"... Instead of reigning confidently over international organizations, multilateral alliances, and a globalized economy, Trump evidently sees America standing alone and beleaguered in an increasingly troubled world -- exploited by self-aggrandizing allies, battered by unequal trade terms, threatened by tides of undocumented immigrants, and betrayed by self-serving elites too timid or compromised to defend the nation's interests. ..."
"... Instead of multilateral trade pacts like NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or even the WTO, Trump favors bilateral deals rewritten to the (supposed) advantage of the United States. ..."
"... As he took office, the nation, it claimed, faced "an extraordinarily dangerous world, filled with a wide range of threats." ..."
"... Despite such grandiose claims, each of President Trump's overseas trips has been a mission of destruction in terms of American global power. Each, seemingly by design, disrupted and possibly damaged alliances that have been the foundation for Washington's global power since the 1950s ..."
"... Donald Trump acted more like Argentina's former presidente Juan Perón, minus the medals. ..."
"... Beijing's low-cost infrastructure loans for 70 countries from the Baltic to the Pacific are already funding construction of the Mediterranean's busiest port at Piraeus, Greece, a major nuclear power plant in England, a $6 billion railroad through rugged Laos, and a $46 billion transport corridor across Pakistan. If successful, such infrastructure investments could help knit two dynamic continents, Europe and Asia -- home to a full 70% percent of the world's population and its resources -- into a unified market without peer on the planet. ..."
"... In January, to take advantage of Arctic waters opened by global warming, Beijing began planning for a "Polar Silk Road," a scheme that fits well with ambitious Russian and Scandinavian projects to establish a shorter shipping route around the continent's northern coast to Europe. ..."
"... Financial Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Yet neither China nor any other state seems to have the full imperial complement of attributes to replace the United States as the dominant world leader. ..."
"... In addition to the fundamentals of military and economic power, "every successful empire," observes Cambridge University historian Joya Chatterji, "had to elaborate a universalist and inclusive discourse" to win support from the world's subordinate states and their leaders. ..."
"... China has nothing comparable. Its writing system has some 7,000 characters, not 26 letters. ..."
"... During Japan's occupation of Southeast Asia in World War II, its troops went from being hailed as liberators to facing open revolt across the region after they failed to propagate their similarly particularistic culture. ..."
"... A test of its attitude toward this system of global governance came in 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled unanimously that China's claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea "are contrary to the Convention [on the Law of the Sea] and without lawful effect." ..."
...Although they started this century on generally amicable terms, China
and the U.S. have, in recent years, moved toward military competition and open
economic conflict. When China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
in 2001, Washington was confident that Beijing would play by the established
rules and become a compliant member of an American-led international community.
There was almost
no awareness of what might happen when a fifth of humanity joined the world
system as an economic equal for the first time in five centuries.
By the time Xi Jinping became China's seventh president, a decade of rapid
economic growth averaging 11% annually and currency reserves surging toward
an unprecedented $4 trillion had created the economic potential for a rapid,
radical shift in the global balance of power. After just a few months in office,
Xi began tapping those vast reserves to launch a bold geopolitical gambit, a
genuine challenge to U.S. dominion over Eurasia and the world beyond. Aglow
in its status as the world's sole superpower after "winning" the Cold War, Washington
had difficulty at first even grasping such newly developing global realities
and was slow to react.
China's bid couldn't have been more fortuitous in its timing. After nearly
70 years as the globe's hegemon, Washington's dominance over the world economy
had begun to wither and its once-superior work force to lose its competitive
edge.
By 2016, in fact, the dislocations brought on by the economic globalization
that had gone with American dominion sparked a revolt of the dispossessed in
democracies worldwide and in the American heartland, bringing the self-proclaimed
"populist" Donald Trump to power.
Determined to check his country's decline, he has adopted an aggressive
and divisive foreign policy that has roiled long-established alliances in both
Asia and Europe and is undoubtedly giving that decline new impetus.
Within months of Trump's entry into the Oval Office, the world was already
witnessing a sharp rivalry between Xi's advocacy of a new form of global collaboration
and Trump's version of economic nationalism. In the process, humanity seems
to be entering a rare historical moment when national leadership and global
circumstances have coincided to create an opening for a major shift in the nature
of the world order.
Trump's Disruptive Foreign Policy
Despite their constant
criticism of Donald Trump's leadership, few among Washington's corps of
foreign policy experts have grasped his full impact on the historic foundations
of American global power. The world order that Washington built after World
War II rested upon what I've
called a "delicate duality": an American imperium of raw military and economic
power married to a community of sovereign nations, equal under the rule of law
and governed through international institutions such as the United Nations and
the World Trade Organization.
On the realpolitik side of that duality, Washington constructed a four-tier
apparatus -- military, diplomatic, economic, and clandestine -- to advance a
global dominion of unprecedented wealth and power. This apparatus rested on
hundreds of military bases in Europe and Asia that made the U.S. the first
power in history to dominate (if not control) the Eurasian continent.
Even after the Cold War ended, former national security adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski
warned that Washington would remain the world's preeminent power only as
long as it maintained its geopolitical dominion over Eurasia. In the decade
before Trump's election, there were, however, already signs that America's hegemony
was on a downward trajectory as its share of global economic power fell from
50% in 1950 to just
15% in 2017. Many financial forecasts now
project that China will surpass the U.S. as the world's number one economy
by 2030, if not before.
In this era of decline, there has emerged from President Trump's torrent
of tweets and off-the-cuff remarks a surprisingly coherent and grim vision of
America's place in the present world order. Instead of reigning confidently
over international organizations, multilateral alliances, and a globalized economy,
Trump evidently sees America standing alone and beleaguered in an increasingly
troubled world -- exploited by self-aggrandizing allies, battered by unequal
trade terms, threatened by tides of undocumented immigrants, and betrayed by
self-serving elites too timid or compromised to defend the nation's interests.
Instead of multilateral trade pacts like NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), or even the WTO, Trump favors bilateral deals rewritten to the (supposed)
advantage of the United States. In place of the usual democratic allies
like Canada and Germany, he is trying to weave a web of personal ties to avowedly
nationalist and autocratic leaders of a sort he clearly admires: Vladimir Putin
in Russia, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, Adel Fatah el-Sisi
in Egypt, and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Instead of old alliances like NATO, Trump favors loose coalitions of like-minded
countries. As he sees it, a resurgent America will carry the world along, while
crushing terrorists and dealing in uniquely personal ways with rogue states
like Iran and North Korea.
His version of a foreign policy has found its fullest
statement in his administration's December 2017 National Security Strategy.
As he took office, the nation, it claimed, faced "an extraordinarily dangerous
world, filled with a wide range of threats." But in less than a year of his
leadership, it insisted, "We have renewed our friendships in the Middle East
to help drive out terrorists and extremists America's allies are now contributing
more to our common defense, strengthening even our strongest alliances." Humankind
will benefit from the president's "beautiful vision" that "puts America First"
and promotes "a balance of power that favors the United States." The whole world
will, in short, be "lifted by America's renewal."
Despite such grandiose claims, each of President Trump's overseas trips
has been a mission of destruction in terms of American global power. Each, seemingly
by design, disrupted and possibly damaged alliances that have been the foundation
for Washington's global power since the 1950s. During the president's first
foreign trip in May 2017, he promptly
voiced withering complaints about the supposed refusal of Washington's European
allies to pay their "fair share" of NATO's military costs, leaving the U.S.
stuck with the bill and, in a fashion unknown to American presidents, refused
even to endorse the alliance's core principle of collective defense. It was
a position so extreme in terms of the global politics of the previous half-century
that he was later forced to formally
back down . (By then, however, he had registered his contempt for those
allies in an unforgettable fashion.)
During a second, no-less-divisive NATO visit in July, he charged that
Germany was "a captive of Russia" and pressed the allies to immediately
double their share of defense spending to a staggering 4% of gross domestic
product (a
level even Washington, with its monumental Pentagon budget, hasn't reached)
-- a demand they all ignored. Just days later, he again questioned the very
idea of a common defense,
remarking that if "tiny" NATO ally Montenegro decided to "get aggressive,"
then "congratulations, you're in World War III."
Moving on to England, he promptly kneecapped close ally Theresa May, telling
a British
tabloid that the prime minister had bungled her country's Brexit withdrawal
from the European Union and "killed off any chance of a vital U.S. trade deal."
He then went on to Helsinki for a summit with Vladimir Putin, where he visibly
abased himself before NATO's nominal nemesis, completely enough that there were
even brief, angry
protests
from leaders of his own party.
During Trump's major Asia tour in November 2017, he
addressed the Asian-Pacific Economic Council (APEC) in Vietnam, offering
an extended "tirade" against multilateral trade agreements, particularly the
WTO. To counter intolerable "trade abuses," such as "product dumping, subsidized
goods, currency manipulation, and predatory industrial policies," he swore that
he would always "put America first" and not let it "be taken advantage of anymore."
Having denounced a litany of trade violations that he termed nothing less than
"economic aggression" against America, he
invited everyone there to share his "Indo-Pacific dream" of the world as
a "beautiful constellation" of "strong, sovereign, and independent nations,"
each working like the United States to build "wealth and freedom."
Responding to such a display of narrow economic nationalism from the globe's
leading power, Xi Jinping had a perfect opportunity to play the world statesman
and he took it,
calling upon APEC to support an economic order that is "more open, inclusive,
and balanced." He spoke of China's future economic plans as an historic bid
for "interconnected development to achieve common prosperity on the Asian, European,
and African continents."
As China has lifted 60 million of its own people out of poverty in just a
few years and was committed to its complete eradication by 2020, so he urged
a more equitable world order "to bring the benefits of development to countries
across the globe." For its part, China, he assured his listeners, was ready
to make "$2 trillion of outbound investment" -- much of it for the development
of Eurasia and Africa (in ways, of course, that would link that vast region
more closely to China). In other words, he sounded like a twenty-first century
Chinese version of a twentieth-century American president, while Donald
Trump
acted
more like Argentina's former presidente Juan Perón, minus the medals. As
if to put another nail in the coffin of American global dominion, the remaining
11 Trans-Pacific trade pact partners, led by Japan and Canada,
announced major progress in finalizing that agreement -- without the United
States.
In addition to undermining NATO, America's Pacific alliances, long its historic
fulcrum for the defense of North America and the dominance of Asia, are eroding,
too. Even after 10 personal meetings and frequent phone calls between Japan's
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump during his first 18 months in office,
the president's America First trade policy has
placed a "major strain" on Washington's most crucial alliance in the region.
First, he ignored Abe's
pleas and cancelled the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact and then, as
if his message hadn't been strong enough, he promptly imposed heavy
tariffs on Japanese steel imports. Similarly, he's
denounced the Canadian prime minister as "dishonest" and
mimicked Indian Prime Minister Modi's accent, even as he made chummy with
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and then
claimed ,
inaccurately , that his country was "no longer a nuclear threat."
It all adds up to a formula for further decline at a faster pace.
Beijing's Grand Strategy
While Washington's influence in Asia recedes, Beijing's grows ever stronger.
As China's currency reserves
climbed rapidly from $200 billion in 2001 to a peak of $4 trillion in 2014,
President Xi launched a new initiative of historic import. In September 2013,
speaking in Kazakhstan, the heart of Asia's ancient Silk Road caravan route,
he
proclaimed a "one belt, one road initiative" aimed at economically integrating
the enormous Eurasian land mass around Beijing's leadership. Through "unimpeded
trade" and infrastructure investment, he suggested, it would be possible to
connect "the Pacific and the Baltic Sea" in a proposed "economic belt along
the Silk Road," a region "inhabited by close to 3 billion people." It could
become, he predicted, "the biggest market in the world with unparalleled potential."
Within a year, Beijing had
established a Chinese-dominated Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank
with 56 member nations and an impressive $100 billion in capital, while launching
its own $40 billion Silk Road Fund for
private equity projects. When China convened what it called a "belt and
road summit" of 28 world leaders in Beijing in May 2017, Xi could, with good
reason,
hail his initiative as the "project of the century."
Although the U.S. media has often described the individual projects involved
in his "one belt, one road" project as
wasteful ,
sybaritic ,
exploitative , or even
neo-colonial , its sheer scale and scope merits closer consideration. Beijing
is expected to
put a mind-boggling $1.3 trillion into the initiative by 2027, the largest
investment in human history, more than 10 times the famed American Marshall
Plan, the only comparable program, which
spent a more modest $110 billion (when adjusted for inflation) to rebuild
a ravaged Europe after World War II.
Beijing's low-cost infrastructure
loans for 70 countries from the Baltic to the Pacific are already funding
construction of the Mediterranean's
busiest port at Piraeus, Greece, a major nuclear power plant in England,
a $6 billion
railroad through rugged Laos, and a $46 billion transport
corridor across Pakistan. If successful, such infrastructure investments
could help knit two dynamic continents, Europe and Asia -- home to a full 70%
percent of the world's population and its resources -- into a unified market
without peer on the planet.
Underlying this flurry of flying dirt and flowing concrete, the Chinese leadership
seems to have a design for transcending the vast distances that have historically
separated Asia from Europe. As a start, Beijing is building a comprehensive
network of trans-continental gas and oil pipelines to import fuels from Siberia
and Central Asia for its own population centers. When the system is complete,
there will be an integrated inland energy grid (including Russia's extensive
network of pipelines) that will extend 6,000 miles across Eurasia, from the
North Atlantic to the South China Sea. Next, Beijing is working to link Europe's
extensive rail network with its own expanded high-speed rail system via transcontinental
lines through Central Asia, supplemented by spur lines running due south to
Singapore and southwest through Pakistan.
Finally, to facilitate sea transport around the sprawling continent's southern
rim, China has already bought into or is in the process of building more than
30 major port facilities, stretching from the Straits of Malacca across
the Indian Ocean, around Africa, and along
Europe's extended coastline. In January, to take advantage of Arctic waters
opened by global warming, Beijing began
planning for a "Polar Silk Road," a scheme that fits well with ambitious
Russian and
Scandinavian projects to establish a shorter shipping route around the continent's
northern coast to Europe.
Though Eurasia is its prime focus, China is also pursuing economic expansion
in Africa and Latin America to create what might be dubbed the strategy of the
four continents. To tie Africa into its projected Eurasian network, Beijing
already had doubled its
annual trade there by 2015 to $222 billion, three times that of the United
States, thanks to a massive infusion of capital expected to reach a trillion
dollars by 2025. Much of it is financing the sort of commodities extraction
that has already made the continent China's second largest source of crude oil.
Similarly, Beijing has
invested heavily in Latin America, acquiring, for instance, control over
90% of Ecuador's oil reserves. As a result, its commerce with that continent
doubled in a decade, reaching $244 billion in 2017, topping U.S. trade with
what once was known as its own "backyard."
A Conflict with Consequences
This contest between Xi's globalism and Trump's nationalism has not been
safely confined to an innocuous marketplace of ideas. Over the past four years,
the two powers have engaged in an escalating military rivalry and a cutthroat
commercial competition. Apart from a
shadowy struggle for
dominance in space and cyberspace, there has also been a visible, potentially
volatile naval arms race to control the sea lanes surrounding Asia, specifically
in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. In a 2015 white paper, Beijing
stated
that "it is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime military force
structure commensurate with its national security." Backed by lethal land-based
missiles, jet fighters, and a global satellite system, China has built just
such a modernized fleet of 320 ships, including nuclear submarines and its first
aircraft carriers.
Within two years, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson
reported
that China's "growing and modernized fleet" was "shrinking" the traditional
American advantage in the Pacific, and warned that "we must shake off any vestiges
of comfort or complacency." Under Trump's latest $700-billion-plus defense budget,
Washington has responded to this challenge with a crash program to build 46
new ships, which will
raise its total to 326 by 2023. As China builds new naval bases bristling
with armaments in the Arabian and South China seas, the U.S. Navy has begun
conducting assertive "freedom-of-navigation" patrols near many of those same
installations, heightening the potential for conflict.
It is in the commercial realm of trade and tariffs, however, where competition
has segued into overt conflict. Acting on his
belief that "trade wars are good and easy to win," President Trump
slapped heavy tariffs, targeted above all at China, on steel imports in
March and, just a few weeks later, punished that country's intellectual property
theft by
promising tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports. When those tariffs
finally hit in July, China immediately
retaliated against what it called "typical trade bullying" with similar
tariffs on U.S. goods. The Financial Times
warned that this "tit-for-tat" can escalate into a "full bore trade war
that will be very bad for the global economy." As Trump
threatened to tax $500 billion more in Chinese imports and
issued confusing, even contradictory demands that made it unlikely Beijing
could ever comply, observers became
concerned that a long-lasting trade war could destabilize what the New
York Times called the "mountain of debt" that sustains much of China's
economy. In Washington, the usually taciturn Federal Reserve chairman issued
an uncommon
warning that "trade tensions could pose serious risks to the U.S. and global
economy."
China as Global Hegemon?
Although a withering of Washington's global reach, abetted and possibly accelerated
by the Trump presidency, is already underway, the shape of any future world
order is still anything but clear. At present, China is the sole state with
the obvious requisites for becoming the planet's new hegemon. Its phenomenal
economic rise, coupled with its expanding military and growing technological
prowess, provide that country with the obvious fundamentals for superpower status.
Yet neither China nor any other state seems to have the full imperial complement
of attributes to replace the United States as the dominant world leader. Apart
from its rising economic and military clout, China, like its sometime ally Russia,
has a self-referential culture, non-democratic political structures, and a developing
legal system that could deny it some of the key instruments for global leadership.
In addition to the fundamentals of military and economic power, "every
successful empire,"
observes Cambridge University historian Joya Chatterji, "had to elaborate
a universalist and inclusive discourse" to win support from the world's subordinate
states and their leaders. Successful imperial transitions driven by the
hard power of guns and money also require the soft-power salve of cultural suasion
for sustained and successful global dominion. Spain espoused Catholicism and
Hispanism, the Ottomans Islam, the Soviets communism, France a cultural
francophonie , and Britain an Anglophone culture.
Indeed, during its century of global dominion from 1850 to 1940, Britain
was the exemplar par excellence of such soft power, evincing an enticing
cultural ethos of fair play and free markets that it propagated through the
Anglican church, the English language and its literature, and the virtual invention
of modern athletics (cricket, soccer, tennis, rugby, and rowing). Similarly,
at the dawn of its global dominion, the United States courted allies worldwide
through soft-power programs promoting democracy and development. These were
made all the more palatable by the appeal of such things as Hollywood films,
civic organizations like
Rotary International , and popular sports like basketball and baseball.
China has nothing comparable. Its writing system has some 7,000 characters,
not 26 letters. Its communist ideology and popular culture are remarkably, even
avowedly, particularistic. And you don't have to look far for another Asian
power that attempted Pacific dominion without the salve of soft power. During
Japan's
occupation of Southeast Asia in World War II, its troops went from being
hailed as liberators to facing open revolt across the region after they failed
to propagate their similarly particularistic culture.
As command-economy states for much of the past century, neither China nor
Russia developed an independent judiciary or the autonomous rules-based order
that undergirds the modern international system. From the foundation of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 1899 through the formation of
the International Court of Justice under the U.N.'s 1945 charter, the world's
nations have aspired to the resolution of conflicts via arbitration or litigation
rather than armed conflict. More broadly, the modern globalized economy is held
together by a web of conventions, treaties, patents, and contracts grounded
in law.
From its founding in 1949, the People's Republic of China gave primacy to
the party and state, slowing the growth of an autonomous legal system and the
rule of law. A test of its attitude toward this system of global governance
came in 2016 when the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague
ruled unanimously that China's claims to sovereignty in the South China
Sea "are contrary to the Convention [on the Law of the Sea] and without lawful
effect." Beijing's Foreign Ministry simply
dismissed the adverse decision as "invalid" and without "binding force."
President Xi
insisted China's "territorial sovereignty and maritime rights" were unchanged,
while the state Xinhua news agency
called the ruling "naturally null and void."
If Donald Trump's vision of world disorder is a sign of the American future
and if Beijing's projected $2 trillion in infrastructure investments, history's
largest by far, succeed in unifying the commerce and transport of Asia, Africa,
and Europe, then perhaps the currents of financial power and global leadership
will indeed transcend all barriers and flow inexorably toward Beijing, as if
by natural law. But if that bold initiative ultimately fails, then for the first
time in five centuries the world may face an imperial transition without a clear
successor as global hegemon. Moreover, it will do so on a planet where the "
new normal " of
climate change -- the heating of the atmosphere and the
oceans , the intensification of flood, drought, and
fire , the rising seas that will
devastate coastal cities, and the
cascading damage to a densely populated world -- could mean that the very
idea of a global hegemon is fast becoming a thing of the past.
Alfred W. McCoy, a
TomDispatch regular , is the Harrington professor of history at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity
in the Global Drug Trade , the now-classic book which probed the conjuncture
of illicit narcotics and covert operations over 50 years, and the recently published
In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global
Power (Dispatch Books).
That might have been true .then. However, Bannon was never the puppet master (Trump is a
capitalist who has never listened to anyone else apart from his own messy ego in his life: the
idea that he would be a puppet for anyone, Bannon, Putin or whatever, is risible). Without
wanting to raise from the dead the 'Trump is teh Hitler' meme: there is a very very tiny grain
of truth in it, just as there is a very very tiny grain of truth in the right wing idea that
Hitler was a socialist because his party had the word 'socialist' in it. Hitler's initial
programme really did have a tiny element of 'socialism' in it, and some elements of the working
class (shamefully) swallowed the lies and gained him votes.
But it was never real and Hitler was never going to deliver. He dealt with the Brownshirts
(the most authentically 'working class' and 'socialist' part of the Nazi movement) in the Night
of the Long Knives, and from that point on, the 'socialist' parts of the Nazi programme were
steadily ditched, as the regime became more and more strongly right wing throughout the
'30s.
Same with Trump (in this respect only). It's true that in the run up to the election he
threw some scraps to the working class, and some of his protectionist rhetoric swung him some
states in the Rust Belt. Some union supporters, to their shame, trooped along to the White
House soon after.
But Trump, a right wing Republican who is, as I've said, far more orthodox a Republican than
the media would have you believe, was never going to deliver. Bannon was the most 'left wing'
of Trump's circle (and as his admiration for Thatcher makes clear, he was never very left wing)
and he was quickly cast out. Trump did not, in fact, 'drain the swamp' and nor did he try. His
major economic policy has turned out to be .tax cuts for the rich. And he has totally failed to
follow through on the (interesting) isolationist rhetoric he used in his election campaign
(despite the fact that some of us hoped otherwise). He has turned out to be as much of a
warmonger as Obama or even Bush jr (even towards Russia, again despite what the media would
have you believe).
And we haven't heard too much about that 'trillion dollar' investment in infrastructure
recently have we?
The problem is that the Democrats have concentrated on the (mainly trivial and
uninteresting) ways in which Trump differs from previous Republican Presidents (the lies, the
silly tweets, the dubious rhetoric) and have therefore persuaded themselves that this
'unorthodox' President will have to be removed by 'unorthodox means'. 'Tain't so. Trump will be
removed the only way any President (except Nixon) has ever been removed since the dawn of the
Republic: by the opposing party organising, developing a strong program that people can believe
in, and getting out the core vote. No election has ever been won any other way. In the case of
the Democrats this means using the might and money of organised labour and activists to get
candidates who can inspire and who have a genuinely progressive message that resonates with
people.
Democrats, #Russiagate will not save you. Getting your core vote out to vote for a genuinely
progressive candidate, will.
Likbez
@Hidari 08.18.18 at 6:41 pm
Powerful post and a veryclear thinking. Thank you !
Also an interesting analogy with NSDAP the 25-point Plan of 1928
Hitler's initial programme really did have a tiny element of 'socialism' in it, and some
elements of the working class (shamefully) swallowed the lies and gained him votes.
But it was never real, and Hitler was never going to deliver. He dealt with the Brownshirts
(the most authentically 'working class' and 'socialist' part of the Nazi movement) in the Night
of the Long Knives, and from that point on, the 'socialist' parts of the Nazi programme were
steadily ditched, as the regime became more and more strongly right wing throughout the
'30s.
Same with Trump (in this respect only). It's true that in the run-up to the election he
threw some scraps to the working class, and some of his protectionist rhetoric swung him some
states in the Rust Belt. Some union supporters, to their shame, trooped along to the White
House soon after.
Actually NSAP program of 1928 has some political demands which are to the left of Sanders
such as "Abolition of unearned (work and labor) incomes", ".We demand the nationalization of
all (previous) associated industries (trusts)." and "We demand a division of profits of all
heavy industries."
7.We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood
and way of life for the citizens... ... ...
... ... ...
9.All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10.The first obligation of every citizen must be to productively work mentally or
physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality,
but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
Consequently, we demand:
11.Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
12.In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands
of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the
people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13.We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14.We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15.We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16.We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate
communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the
utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or
municipality.
17.We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free
expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and
prevention of all speculation in land.
18.We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the
general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be
punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
... ... ...
21.The state is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and
child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the
legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all
organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22.We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
23.We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press...
.... ... ...
24.We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as
they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race...
But I think Trump was de-facto impeached with the appointment of Mueller. And that was the
plan ( "insurance" as Strzok called it). Mueller task is just to formalize impeachment.
Pence already is calling the shots in foreign policy via members of his close circle (which
includes Pompeo). The recent "unilateral" actions of State Department are a slap in the face
and, simultaneously, a nasty trap for Trump (he can cancel those sanctions only at a huge
political cost to himself) and are a clear sign that Trump does not control even his
administration. Here is how <a
href="http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/august/17/america-the-punitive/">Philip
Giraldi</a> described this obvious slap in the face:
The most recent is the new sanctioning of Russia over the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury
England. For those not following developments, last week Washington abruptly and without any
new evidence being presented, imposed additional trade sanctions on Russia in the belief that
Moscow ordered and carried out the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March
4th. The report of the new sanctions was particularly surprising as Yulia Skripal has recently
announced that she intends to return to her home in Russia, leading to the conclusion that even
one of the alleged victims does not believe the narrative being promoted by the British and
American governments.
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded with restraint, avoiding a
tit-for-tat, he is reported to be angry about the new move by the US government and now
believes it to be an unreliable negotiating partner. Considering the friendly recent exchanges
between Putin and Trump, the punishment of Russia has to be viewed as something of a surprise,
suggesting that the president of the United States may not be in control of his own foreign
policy.
From the very beginning, any anti-globalization initiative of Trump was sabotaged and often
reversed. Haley is one example here. She does not coordinate some of her actions with Trump or
the Secretary of State unliterary defining the US foreign policy.
Her ambitions worry Trump, but he can so very little: she is supported by Pence and Pence
faction in the administration. Rumors "Haley/Pence 2020" surfaced and probably somewhat poison
atmosphere in the WH.
Add to this that Trump has hostile to him Justice Department, CIA, and FBI. He also does not
control some critical appointments such as the recent appointment of CIA director (who in no
way can be called Trump loyalist).
Which means that in some ways Trump already is a hostage and more ceremonial President than
a real.
"... By Sanjay Reddy, Associate Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website ..."
Grappling with the shock of Donald Trump's election victory, most analysts focus on his
appeal to those in the United States who feel left behind, wish to retrieve a lost social
order, and sought to rebuke establishment politicians who do not serve their interests. In this
respect, the recent American revolt echoes the shock of the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom,
but it is of far greater significance because it promises to reshape the entire global order,
and the complaisant forms of thought that accompanied it.
Ideas played an important role in creating the conditions that produced Brexit and Trump.
The 'social sciences' -- especially economics -- legitimated a set of ideas about the economy
that were aggressively peddled and became the conventional wisdom in the policies of mainstream
political parties, to the extent that the central theme of the age came to be that there was no
alternative. The victory of these ideas in politics in turn strengthened the iron-handed
enforcers of the same ideas in academic orthodoxy.
It is never clear whether ideas or interests are the prime mover in shaping historical
events, but only ideas and interests together can sustain a ruling consensus for a lengthy
interval, such as the historic period of financialization and globalization running over the
last 35 years. The role of economics in furnishing the now-rebuked narratives that have reigned
for decades in mainstream political parties can be seen in three areas.
First, there is globalization as we knew it. Mainstream economics championed
corporate-friendly trade and investment agreements to increase prosperity, and provided the
intellectual framework for multilateral trade agreements. Economics made the case for such
agreements, generally rejecting concerns over labor and environmental standards and giving
short shrift to the effects of globalization in weakening the bargaining power of workers or
altogether displacing them; to the need for compensatory measures to aid those displaced; and
more generally to measures to ensure that the benefits of growth were shared. For the most
part, economists casually waved aside such concerns, both in their theories and in their policy
recommendations, treating these matters as either insignificant or as being in the jurisdiction
of politicians. Still less attention was paid to crafting an alternate form of globalization,
or to identifying bases for national economic policies taking a less passive view of
comparative advantage and instead aiming to create it.
Second, there is financialization, which led to increasing disconnection between stock
market performance and the real economy, with large rewards going to firms that undertook asset
stripping, outsourcing, and offshoring. The combination of globalization and financialization
produced a new plutocratic class of owners, managers and those who serviced them in global
cities, alongside gentrification of those cities, proleterianization and lumpenization of
suburbs, and growing insecurity and casualization of employment for the bulk of the middle and
working class.
Financialization also led to the near-abandonment of the 'national' industrial economy in
favor of global sourcing and sales, and a handsome financial rentier economy built on top of
it. Meanwhile, automation trends led to shedding of jobs everywhere, and threaten far more.
All of this was hardly noticed by the discipline charged with studying the economy. Indeed,
it actively provided rationales for financialization, in the form of the efficient-markets
hypothesis and related ideas; for concentration of capital through mergers and acquisitions in
the form of contestable-markets theory; for the gentrification of the city through attacks on
rent control and other urban policies; for remaking of labor markets through the idea that
unemployment was primarily a reflection of voluntary leisure preferences, etc. The mainstream
political parties, including those historically representing the working and middle classes, in
thrall to the 'scientific' sheen of market fetishism, gambled that they could redistribute a
share of the promised gains and thus embraced policies the effect of which was ultimately to
abandon and to antagonize a large section of their electorate.
Third, there is the push for austerity, a recurrent trope of the 'neoliberal' era which,
although not favored by all, has played an important role in creating conditions for the rise
of popular movements demanding a more expansionary fiscal stance (though they can paradoxically
simultaneously disdain taxation, as with Trumpism). The often faulty intellectual case made by
many mainstream economists for central bank independence, inflation targeting, debt
sustainability thresholds, the distortive character of taxation and the superiority of private
provision of services including for health, education and welfare, have helped to support
antagonism to governmental activity. Within this perspective, there is limited room for fiscal
or even monetary stimulus, or for any direct governmental role in service provision, even in
the form of productivity-enhancing investments. It is only the failure fully to overcome the
shipwreck of 2008 that has caused some cracks in the edifice.
The dominant economic ideas taken together created a framework in which deviation from
declared orthodoxy would be punished by dynamics unleashed by globalization and
financialization. The system depended not merely on actors having the specific interests
attributed to them, but in believing in the theory that said that they did. [This is one of the
reasons that Trumpism has generated confusion among economic actors, even as his victory
produced an early bout of stock-market euphoria. It does not rebuke neoliberalism so much as
replace it with its own heretical version, bastard neoliberalism, an orientation without a
theory, whose tale has yet to be written.]
Still, to the extent that Trumpism has any economic policy content it's the idea that a
package of immigration restrictions and corporate tax cuts[1] will make workers better off by
reducing competition from migrants and increasing labor demand from corporations. The second
part of this claim has been pretty thoroughly demolished, so I want to look mainly at the
first. However, as we will see, the corporate tax cuts remain central to the argument.
Still, to the extent that Trumpism has any economic policy content it's the idea that a
package of immigration restrictions and corporate tax cuts[1] will make workers better off
by reducing competition from migrants and increasing labor demand from corporations.
The emergence of Trumpism signifies deepening of the ideological crisis for the
neoliberalism. Neoclassical economics fell like a house of cards. IMHO Trumpism can be viewed
as a kind of "national neoliberalism" which presuppose rejection of three dogmas of "classic
neoliberalism":
1. Rejection of neoliberal globalization including, but not limited to, free movement
of labor. Attempt to protect domestic industries via tariff barriers.
2. Rejection of excessive financialization and primacy of financial oligarchy.
Restoration of the status of manufacturing, and "traditional capitalists" status in
comparison with financial oligarchy.
3. Rejection of austerity. An attempt to fight "secular stagnation" via Military
Keysianism.
Trumpism sent "Chicago school" line of thinking to the dustbin of history. It exposed
neoliberal economists as agents of financial oligarchy and "Enemy of the American People"
(famous Trump phase about neoliberal MSM).
It is never clear whether ideas or interests are the prime mover in shaping historical
events, but only ideas and interests together can sustain a ruling consensus for a lengthy
interval, such as the historic period of financialization and globalization running over
the last 35 years. The role of economics in furnishing the now-rebuked narratives that have
reigned for decades in mainstream political parties can be seen in three areas.
First, there is globalization as we knew it. Mainstream economics championed
corporate-friendly trade and investment agreements to increase prosperity, and provided the
intellectual framework for multilateral trade agreements. ...
Second, there is financialization, which led to increasing disconnection between stock
market performance and the real economy, with large rewards going to firms that undertook
asset stripping, outsourcing, and offshoring. The combination of globalization and
financialization produced a new plutocratic class of owners, managers and those who
serviced them in global cities, alongside gentrification of those cities,
proletarianization and lumpenization of suburbs, and growing insecurity and casualization
of employment for the bulk of the middle and working class.
Financialization also led to the near-abandonment of the 'national' industrial economy
in favor of global sourcing and sales, and a handsome financial rentier economy built on
top of it. Meanwhile, automation trends led to shedding of jobs everywhere, and threaten
far more.
All of this was hardly noticed by the discipline charged with studying the economy.
Indeed, it actively provided rationales for financialization, in the form of the
efficient-markets hypothesis and related ideas; for concentration of capital through
mergers and acquisitions in the form of contestable-markets theory; for the gentrification
of the city through attacks on rent control and other urban policies; for remaking of labor
markets through the idea that unemployment was primarily a reflection of voluntary leisure
preferences, etc. The mainstream political parties, including those historically
representing the working and middle classes, in thrall to the 'scientific' sheen of market
fetishism, gambled that they could redistribute a share of the promised gains and thus
embraced policies the effect of which was ultimately to abandon and to antagonize a large
section of their electorate.
Third, there is the push for austerity, a recurrent trope of the 'neoliberal' era which,
although not favored by all, has played an important role in creating conditions for the
rise of popular movements demanding a more expansionary fiscal stance (though they can
paradoxically simultaneously disdain taxation, as with Trumpism). The often faulty
intellectual case made by many mainstream economists for central bank independence,
inflation targeting, debt sustainability thresholds, the distortive character of taxation
and the superiority of private provision of services including for health, education and
welfare, have helped to support antagonism to governmental activity. Within this
perspective, there is limited room for fiscal or even monetary stimulus, or for any direct
governmental role in service provision, even in the form of productivity-enhancing
investments. It is only the failure fully to overcome the shipwreck of 2008 that has caused
some cracks in the edifice.
The dominant economic ideas taken together created a framework in which deviation from
declared orthodoxy would be punished by dynamics unleashed by globalization and
financialization. The system depended not merely on actors having the specific interests
attributed to them, but in believing in the theory that said that they did. [This is one of
the reasons that Trumpism has generated confusion among economic actors, even as his
victory produced an early bout of stock-market euphoria. It does not rebuke neoliberalism
so much as replace it with its own heretical version, bastard neoliberalism, an orientation
without a theory, whose tale has yet to be written.]
Finally, interpretations of politics were too restrictive, conceptualizing citizens'
political choices as based on instrumental and usually economic calculations, while
indulging in a wishful account of their actual conditions -- for instance, focusing on low
measured unemployment, but ignoring measures of distress and insecurity, or the indignity
of living in hollowed-out communities.
Mainstream accounts of politics recognized the role of identities in the form of wooden
theories of group mobilization or of demands for representation. However, the psychological
and charismatic elements, which can give rise to moments of 'phase transition' in politics,
were altogether neglected, and the role of social media and other new methods in politics
hardly registered. As new political movements (such as the Tea Party and Trumpism in the
U.S.) emerged across the world, these were deemed 'populist' -- both an admission of the
analysts' lack of explanation, and a token of disdain. The essential feature of such
movements -- the obscurantism that allows them to offer many things to many people,
inconsistently and unaccountably, while serving some interests more than others -- was
little explored. The failures can be piled one upon the other. No amount of quantitative
data provided by polling, 'big data', or other techniques comprehended what might be
captured through open-eyed experiential narratives. It is evident that there is a need for
forms of understanding that can comprehend the currents within the human person, and go
beyond shallow empiricism. Mainstream social science has offered few if any resources to
understand, let alone challenge, illiberal majoritarianism, now a world-remaking
phenomenon.
Why, then, would a coalition of leftish and right-wing patriots not join in
denouncing a leader who seemed to put Russia's interests ahead of those of his own country?
Sorry to say, things are not so simple. Look a bit more closely at what holds the anti-Trump
foreign policy coalition together, and you will discover a missing reality that virtually no
one will acknowledge directly: the existence of a beleaguered but still potent American Empire
whose junior partner is Europe. What motivates a broad range of the President's opponents,
then, is not so much the fear that he is anti-American as the suspicion that he is
anti-Empire.
Of course, neither liberals nor conservatives dare to utter the "E-word." Rather, they argue
in virtually identical terms that Trump's foreign and trade policies are threatening the
pillars of world order: NATO, the Group of Seven, the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, the OSCE, and so forth. These institutions, they claim, along with
American military power and a willingness to use it when necessary, are primarily responsible
for the peaceful, prosperous, free, and democratic world that we have all been privileged to
inhabit since the Axis powers surrendered to the victorious Allies in 1945.
The fear expressed plainly by The New York Times 's David Leonhardt, a
self-described "left-liberal," is that "Trump wants to destroy the Atlantic Alliance." Seven
months earlier, this same fear motivated the arch-conservative National Review to
editorialize that, "Under Trump, America has retreated from its global and moral leadership
roles, alienated its democratic allies, and abandoned the bipartisan defense of liberal ideals
that led to more than 70 years of security and prosperity." All the critics would agree with
Wolfgang Ischinger, chair of the Munich Security Conference, who recently stated, "Let's face
it. Mr. Trump's core beliefs conflict with the foundations of Western grand strategy since the
mid-1940's."
"Western grand strategy," of course, is a euphemism for U.S. global hegemony – world
domination, to put it plainly. In addition to peace and prosperity (mainly for privileged
groups in privileged nations), this is the same strategy which since 1945 has given the world
the Cold War, the specter of a nuclear holocaust, and proxy wars consuming between 10 and 20
million lives in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
and Yemen. Its direct effects include the overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Iran,
Lebanon, Congo, Nigeria, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Granada, Ukraine, et al.;
the bribery of public officials and impoverishment and injury of workers and farmers world-wide
as a result of exploitation and predatory "development" by Western governments and
mega-corporations; the destruction of natural environments and exacerbation of global climate
change by these same governments and corporations; and the increasing likelihood of new
imperialist wars caused by the determination of elites to maintain America's global supremacy
at all costs.
It is interesting that most defenders of the Western Alliance (and its Pacific equivalent:
the more loosely organized anti-Chinese alliance of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand,
and South Korea) virtually never talk about American hegemony or the gigantic military
apparatus (with more than 800 U.S. bases in 60 or so nations and a military-industrial complex
worth trillions) that supports it. Nor is the subject of empire high on Mr. Trump's list of
approved twitter topics, even when he desecrates NATO and other sacred cows of the Alliance.
There are several reasons for this silence, but the most important, perhaps, is the need to
maintain the pretense of American moral superiority: the so-called "exceptionalist" position
that inspires McCain to attack Trump for "false equivalency" (the President's statement in
Helsinki that both Russia and the U.S. have made mistakes), and that leads pundits left and
right to argue that America is not an old-style empire seeking to dominate, but a new-style
democracy seeking to liberate.
The narrative you will hear repeated ad nauseum at both ends of the liberal/conservative
spectrum tells how the Yanks, who won WW II with a little help from the Russians and other
allies, and who then thoroughly dominated the world both economically and militarily,
could have behaved like vengeful conquerors, but instead devoted their resources and
energies to spreading democracy, freedom, and the blessings of capitalism around the world. Gag
me with a Tomahawk cruise missile! What is weird about this narrative is that it "disappears"
not only the millions of victims of America's wars but the very military forces that
nationalists like Trump claim deserve to be worshipfully honored. Eight hundred bases? A
million and a half troops on active duty? Total air and sea domination? I'm shocked . . .
shocked!
In fact, there are two sorts of blindness operative in the current U.S. political
environment. The Democratic Party Establishment, now swollen to include a wide variety of
Russia-haters, globalizing capitalists, and militarists, is blind (or pretends to be) to the
connection between the "Western Alliance" and the American Empire. The Trump Party (which I
expect, one of these days, to shed the outworn Republican label in favor of something more
Berlusconi-like, say, the American Greatness Party) is blind – or pretends to be –
to the contradiction between its professed
"Fortress America" nationalism and the reality of a global U.S. imperium.
This last point is worth emphasizing. In a recent article in The Nation , Michael
Klare, a writer I generally admire, claims to have discovered that there is really a method to
Trump's foreign policy madness, i.e., the President favors the sort of "multi-polar" world,
with Russia and China occupying the two other poles, that Putin and Xi Jinping have long
advocated. Two factors make this article odd as well as interesting. First, the author argues
that multi-polarity is a bad idea, because "smaller, weaker states, and minority peoples
everywhere will be given even shorter shrift than at present when caught in any competitive
jousting for influence among the three main competitors (and their proxies)." Wha? Even shorter
shrift than under unipolarity? I think not, especially considering that adding new poles (why
just three, BTW? What about India and Brazil?) gives smaller states and minority peoples many
more bargaining options in the power game.
More important, however, Trump's multi-polar/nationalist ideals are clearly contradicted by
his determination to make American world domination even more overwhelming by vastly increasing
the size of the U.S. military establishment. Klare notes, correctly, that the President has
denounced the Iraq War, criticized American "overextension" abroad, talked about ending the
Afghan War, and declared that the U.S. should not be "the world's policeman." But if he wants
America to become a mere Great Power in a world of Great Powers, Trump will clearly have to do
more than talk about it. He will have to cut the military budget, abandon military bases,
negotiate arms control agreements, convert military-industrial spending to peaceful uses, and
do all sorts of other things he clearly has no intention of doing. Ever.
No – if the Western Alliance, democratic values, and WTO trade rules provide
ideological cover and junior partners for American global hegemony, "go-it-alone" nationalism,
multi-polarity, and Nobel Peace Prize diplomatic efforts provide ideological cover for . . .
American global hegemony! This can be seen most clearly in the case of Iran, against whom Trump
has virtually declared war. He would like to avoid direct military involvement there, of
course, but he is banking on threats of irresistible "fire and fury" to bring the Iranians to
heel. And if these threats are unavailing? Then – count on it! – the Empire will
act like an empire, and we will have open war.
In fact, Trump and his most vociferous critics and supporters are unknowingly playing the
same game. John Brennan, meet Steve Bannon! You preach very different sermons, but you're
working for the same god. That deity's name changes over the centuries, but we worship him
every time we venerate symbols of military might at sports events, pay taxes to support U.S.
military supremacy, or pledge allegiance to a flag. The name unutterable by both Trump and his
enemies is Empire.
What do we do with the knowledge that both the Tweeter King and the treason-baiting
coalition opposing him are imperialists under the skin? Two positions, I think, have to be
rejected. One is the Lyndon Johnson rationale: since Johnson was progressive on domestic
issues, including civil rights and poverty, that made him preferable to the Republicans, even
though he gave us the quasi-genocidal war in Indochina. The other position is the diametric
opposite: since Trump is less blatantly imperialistic than most Democratic Party leaders, we
ought to favor him, despite his billionaire-loving, immigrant-hating, racist and misogynist
domestic policies. Merely to say this is to refute it.
My own view is that anti-imperialists ought to decline to choose between these alternatives.
We ought to name the imperial god that both Trump and his critics worship and demand
that the party that we work and vote for renounce the pursuit of U.S. global hegemony.
Immediately, this means letting self-proclaimed progressives or libertarians in both major
parties know that avoiding new hot and cold wars, eliminating nuclear weapons and other WMD,
slashing military spending, and converting war production to peaceful uses are top priorities
that must be honored if they are to get our support. No political party can deliver peace and
social justice and maintain the Empire at the same time. If neither Republicans nor Democrats
are capable of facing this reality, we will have to create a new party that can.
Notes.
[1]
The author is University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason
University. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts : How Violent
Systems Can Be Transformed (2017).
Why, then, would a coalition of leftish and right-wing patriots not join in
denouncing a leader who seemed to put Russia's interests ahead of those of his own country?
Sorry to say, things are not so simple. Look a bit more closely at what holds the anti-Trump
foreign policy coalition together, and you will discover a missing reality that virtually no
one will acknowledge directly: the existence of a beleaguered but still potent American Empire
whose junior partner is Europe. What motivates a broad range of the President's opponents,
then, is not so much the fear that he is anti-American as the suspicion that he is
anti-Empire.
Of course, neither liberals nor conservatives dare to utter the "E-word." Rather, they argue
in virtually identical terms that Trump's foreign and trade policies are threatening the
pillars of world order: NATO, the Group of Seven, the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, the OSCE, and so forth. These institutions, they claim, along with
American military power and a willingness to use it when necessary, are primarily responsible
for the peaceful, prosperous, free, and democratic world that we have all been privileged to
inhabit since the Axis powers surrendered to the victorious Allies in 1945.
The fear expressed plainly by The New York Times 's David Leonhardt, a
self-described "left-liberal," is that "Trump wants to destroy the Atlantic Alliance." Seven
months earlier, this same fear motivated the arch-conservative National Review to
editorialize that, "Under Trump, America has retreated from its global and moral leadership
roles, alienated its democratic allies, and abandoned the bipartisan defense of liberal ideals
that led to more than 70 years of security and prosperity." All the critics would agree with
Wolfgang Ischinger, chair of the Munich Security Conference, who recently stated, "Let's face
it. Mr. Trump's core beliefs conflict with the foundations of Western grand strategy since the
mid-1940's."
"Western grand strategy," of course, is a euphemism for U.S. global hegemony – world
domination, to put it plainly. In addition to peace and prosperity (mainly for privileged
groups in privileged nations), this is the same strategy which since 1945 has given the world
the Cold War, the specter of a nuclear holocaust, and proxy wars consuming between 10 and 20
million lives in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
and Yemen. Its direct effects include the overthrow of elected governments in Guatemala, Iran,
Lebanon, Congo, Nigeria, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Granada, Ukraine, et al.;
the bribery of public officials and impoverishment and injury of workers and farmers world-wide
as a result of exploitation and predatory "development" by Western governments and
mega-corporations; the destruction of natural environments and exacerbation of global climate
change by these same governments and corporations; and the increasing likelihood of new
imperialist wars caused by the determination of elites to maintain America's global supremacy
at all costs.
It is interesting that most defenders of the Western Alliance (and its Pacific equivalent:
the more loosely organized anti-Chinese alliance of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand,
and South Korea) virtually never talk about American hegemony or the gigantic military
apparatus (with more than 800 U.S. bases in 60 or so nations and a military-industrial complex
worth trillions) that supports it. Nor is the subject of empire high on Mr. Trump's list of
approved twitter topics, even when he desecrates NATO and other sacred cows of the Alliance.
There are several reasons for this silence, but the most important, perhaps, is the need to
maintain the pretense of American moral superiority: the so-called "exceptionalist" position
that inspires McCain to attack Trump for "false equivalency" (the President's statement in
Helsinki that both Russia and the U.S. have made mistakes), and that leads pundits left and
right to argue that America is not an old-style empire seeking to dominate, but a new-style
democracy seeking to liberate.
The narrative you will hear repeated ad nauseum at both ends of the liberal/conservative
spectrum tells how the Yanks, who won WW II with a little help from the Russians and other
allies, and who then thoroughly dominated the world both economically and militarily,
could have behaved like vengeful conquerors, but instead devoted their resources and
energies to spreading democracy, freedom, and the blessings of capitalism around the world. Gag
me with a Tomahawk cruise missile! What is weird about this narrative is that it "disappears"
not only the millions of victims of America's wars but the very military forces that
nationalists like Trump claim deserve to be worshipfully honored. Eight hundred bases? A
million and a half troops on active duty? Total air and sea domination? I'm shocked . . .
shocked!
In fact, there are two sorts of blindness operative in the current U.S. political
environment. The Democratic Party Establishment, now swollen to include a wide variety of
Russia-haters, globalizing capitalists, and militarists, is blind (or pretends to be) to the
connection between the "Western Alliance" and the American Empire. The Trump Party (which I
expect, one of these days, to shed the outworn Republican label in favor of something more
Berlusconi-like, say, the American Greatness Party) is blind – or pretends to be –
to the contradiction between its professed
"Fortress America" nationalism and the reality of a global U.S. imperium.
This last point is worth emphasizing. In a recent article in The Nation , Michael
Klare, a writer I generally admire, claims to have discovered that there is really a method to
Trump's foreign policy madness, i.e., the President favors the sort of "multi-polar" world,
with Russia and China occupying the two other poles, that Putin and Xi Jinping have long
advocated. Two factors make this article odd as well as interesting. First, the author argues
that multi-polarity is a bad idea, because "smaller, weaker states, and minority peoples
everywhere will be given even shorter shrift than at present when caught in any competitive
jousting for influence among the three main competitors (and their proxies)." Wha? Even shorter
shrift than under unipolarity? I think not, especially considering that adding new poles (why
just three, BTW? What about India and Brazil?) gives smaller states and minority peoples many
more bargaining options in the power game.
More important, however, Trump's multi-polar/nationalist ideals are clearly contradicted by
his determination to make American world domination even more overwhelming by vastly increasing
the size of the U.S. military establishment. Klare notes, correctly, that the President has
denounced the Iraq War, criticized American "overextension" abroad, talked about ending the
Afghan War, and declared that the U.S. should not be "the world's policeman." But if he wants
America to become a mere Great Power in a world of Great Powers, Trump will clearly have to do
more than talk about it. He will have to cut the military budget, abandon military bases,
negotiate arms control agreements, convert military-industrial spending to peaceful uses, and
do all sorts of other things he clearly has no intention of doing. Ever.
No – if the Western Alliance, democratic values, and WTO trade rules provide
ideological cover and junior partners for American global hegemony, "go-it-alone" nationalism,
multi-polarity, and Nobel Peace Prize diplomatic efforts provide ideological cover for . . .
American global hegemony! This can be seen most clearly in the case of Iran, against whom Trump
has virtually declared war. He would like to avoid direct military involvement there, of
course, but he is banking on threats of irresistible "fire and fury" to bring the Iranians to
heel. And if these threats are unavailing? Then – count on it! – the Empire will
act like an empire, and we will have open war.
In fact, Trump and his most vociferous critics and supporters are unknowingly playing the
same game. John Brennan, meet Steve Bannon! You preach very different sermons, but you're
working for the same god. That deity's name changes over the centuries, but we worship him
every time we venerate symbols of military might at sports events, pay taxes to support U.S.
military supremacy, or pledge allegiance to a flag. The name unutterable by both Trump and his
enemies is Empire.
What do we do with the knowledge that both the Tweeter King and the treason-baiting
coalition opposing him are imperialists under the skin? Two positions, I think, have to be
rejected. One is the Lyndon Johnson rationale: since Johnson was progressive on domestic
issues, including civil rights and poverty, that made him preferable to the Republicans, even
though he gave us the quasi-genocidal war in Indochina. The other position is the diametric
opposite: since Trump is less blatantly imperialistic than most Democratic Party leaders, we
ought to favor him, despite his billionaire-loving, immigrant-hating, racist and misogynist
domestic policies. Merely to say this is to refute it.
My own view is that anti-imperialists ought to decline to choose between these alternatives.
We ought to name the imperial god that both Trump and his critics worship and demand
that the party that we work and vote for renounce the pursuit of U.S. global hegemony.
Immediately, this means letting self-proclaimed progressives or libertarians in both major
parties know that avoiding new hot and cold wars, eliminating nuclear weapons and other WMD,
slashing military spending, and converting war production to peaceful uses are top priorities
that must be honored if they are to get our support. No political party can deliver peace and
social justice and maintain the Empire at the same time. If neither Republicans nor Democrats
are capable of facing this reality, we will have to create a new party that can.
Notes.
[1]
The author is University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason
University. His most recent book is Resolving Structural Conflicts : How Violent
Systems Can Be Transformed (2017).
"... As widely loathed as the Democratic establishment is, it has been remarkably adept at engineering a reactionary response in favor of establishment forces. Its demonization of Russia! has been approximately as effective at fomenting reactionary nationalism as Mr. Trump's racialized version. Lest this be overlooked, the strategy common to both is the use of oppositional logic through demonization of carefully selected 'others.' ..."
"... What preceded Donald Trump was the Great Recession, the most severe capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Great Recession followed approximately three decades of neoliberal de-industrialization, of policies intended to reduce the power of organized labor, reduce working class wages and raise economic insecurity under the antique capitalist theory that destitution motivates workers to produce more for less in return. ..."
"... The illusion / delusion that these problems -- lost livelihoods, homes, social roles, relationships, sense of purpose and basic human dignity -- were solved, or even addressed, by national Democrats, illustrates the class divide at work. The economy that was revived made the rich fabulously rich, the professional / managerial class comfortable and left the other 90% in various stages of economic decline. ..."
"... Asserting this isn't to embrace economic nationalism, support policies until they are clearly stated or trust Mr. Trump's motives. But the move ties analytically to his critique of neoliberal economic policies. As such, it is a potential monkey wrench thrown into the neoliberal world order. ..."
"... Democrats could have confronted the failures of neoliberalism without resorting to economic nationalism (as Mr. Trump did). And they could have confronted unhinged militarism without Mr. Trump's racialized nationalism. But this would have meant confronting their own history. And it would have meant publicly declaring themselves against the interests of their donor base. ..."
"... Mr. Trump's use of racialized nationalism is the primary basis of analyses arguing that he is fascist. Left unaddressed is the fact the the corporate-state form that is the basis of neoliberalism was also the basis of European fascism. Recent Left analysis proceeds from the premise that Trump control of the corporate-state form is fascism, while capitalist class control -- neoliberalism, is something else. ..."
"... Lest this not have occurred, FDR's New Deal was state capitalism approach within the framework of the corporatism (merge of corporations and a state) social formation. The only widely known effort to stage a fascist coup in the U.S. was carried out by Wall Street titans in the 1930s to wrest control from FDR before the New Deal was fully implemented. Put differently, the people who caused the Great Depression wanted to control its aftermath. And they were fascists. ..."
"... As political scientist Thomas Ferguson has been arguing for decades and Gilens and Page have recently chimed in, neither elections nor the public interest hold sway in the corridors of American power. The levers of control are structural -- congressional committee appointments go to the people with lots of money. Capitalist distribution controls the politics. ..."
"... The best-case scenario looking forward is that Donald Trump is successful with rapprochement toward North Korea and Russia and that he throws a monkey wrench into the architecture of neoliberalism so that a new path forward can be built when he's gone. If he pulls it off, this isn't reactionary nationalism and it isn't nothing. ..."
"... Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book ..."
The election of Donald Trump fractured the American Left. The abandonment of class analysis
in response to Mr. Trump's racialized nationalism left identity politics to fill the void. This
has facilitated the rise of neoliberal nationalism, an embrace of the national security state
combined with neoliberal economic analysis put forward as a liberal / Left response to Mr.
Trump's program. The result has been profoundly reactionary.
What had been unfocused consensus around issues of economic justice and ending militarism
has been sharpened into a political program. A nascent, self-styled socialist movement is
pushing domestic issues like single payer health care, strengthening the social safety net and
reversing wildly unbalanced income and wealth distribution, forward. Left unaddressed is how
this program will move forward without a revolutionary movement to act against countervailing
forces.
As widely loathed as the Democratic establishment is, it has been remarkably adept at
engineering a reactionary response in favor of establishment forces. Its demonization of
Russia! has been approximately as effective at fomenting reactionary nationalism as Mr. Trump's
racialized version. Lest this be overlooked, the strategy common to both is the use of
oppositional logic through demonization of carefully selected 'others.'
This points to the most potent fracture on the Left, the question of which is the more
effective reactionary force, the Democrats' neoliberal nationalism or Mr. Trump's racialized
version? As self-evident as the answer apparently is to the liberal / Left, it is only so
through abandonment of class analysis. Race, gender and immigration status are either subsets
of class or the concept loses meaning.
By way of the reform Democrat's analysis , it was the shift of
working class voters from Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016 that swung the election
in Mr. Trump's favor. To the extent that race was a factor, the finger points up the class
structure, not down. This difference is crucial when it comes to the much-abused 'white
working-class' explanation of Mr. Trump's victory.
What preceded Donald Trump was the Great Recession, the most severe capitalist crisis
since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Great Recession followed approximately three
decades of neoliberal de-industrialization, of policies intended to reduce the power of
organized labor, reduce working class wages and raise economic insecurity under the antique
capitalist theory that destitution motivates workers to produce more for less in
return.
The illusion / delusion that these problems -- lost livelihoods, homes, social roles,
relationships, sense of purpose and basic human dignity -- were solved, or even addressed, by
national Democrats, illustrates the class divide at work. The economy that was revived made the
rich fabulously rich, the professional / managerial class comfortable and left the other 90% in
various stages of economic decline.
Left apparently unrecognized in bourgeois attacks on working class voters is that the
analytical frames at work -- classist identity politics and liberal economics, are ruling class
ideology in the crudest Marxian / Gramscian senses. The illusion / delusion that they are
factually descriptive is a function of ideology, not lived outcomes.
Here's the rub: Mr. Trump's critique of neoliberalism can ] accommodate class analysis
whereas the Democrats' neoliberal nationalism explicitly excludes any notion of economic power,
and with it the possibility of class analysis. To date, Mr. Trump hasn't left this critique
behind -- neoliberal trade agreements are currently being renegotiated.
Asserting this isn't to embrace economic nationalism, support policies until they are
clearly stated or trust Mr. Trump's motives. But the move ties analytically to his critique of
neoliberal economic policies. As such, it is a potential monkey wrench thrown into the
neoliberal world order. Watching the bourgeois Left put forward neoliberal trade theory to
counter it would seem inexplicable without the benefit of class analysis.
Within the frame of identity politics rich and bourgeois blacks, women and immigrants have
the same travails as their poor and working-class compatriots. Ben Carson (black), Melania
Trump (female) and Melania Trump (immigrant) fit this taxonomy. For them racism, misogyny and
xenophobia are forms of social violence. But they aren't fundamental determinants of how they
live. The same can't be said for those brutalized by four decades of neoliberalism
The common bond here is a class war launched from above that has uprooted, displaced and
immiserated a large and growing proportion of the peoples of the West. This experience cuts
across race, gender and nationality making them a subset of class. If these problems are
rectified at the level of class, they will be rectified within the categories of race, gender
and nationality. Otherwise, they won't be rectified.
Democrats could have confronted the failures of neoliberalism without resorting to
economic nationalism (as Mr. Trump did). And they could have confronted unhinged militarism
without Mr. Trump's racialized nationalism. But this would have meant confronting their own
history. And it would have meant publicly declaring themselves against the interests of their
donor base.
Mr. Trump's use of racialized nationalism is the primary basis of analyses arguing that
he is fascist. Left unaddressed is the fact the the corporate-state form that is the basis of
neoliberalism was also the basis of European fascism. Recent Left analysis proceeds from the
premise that Trump control of the corporate-state form is fascism, while capitalist class
control -- neoliberalism, is something else.
Lest this not have occurred, FDR's New Deal was state capitalism approach within the
framework of the corporatism (merge of corporations and a state) social formation. The only
widely known effort to stage a fascist coup in the U.S. was carried out by Wall Street titans
in the 1930s to wrest control from FDR before the New Deal was fully implemented. Put
differently, the people who caused the Great Depression wanted to control its aftermath. And
they were fascists.
More recently, the effort to secure capitalist control has been led by [neo]liberal
Democrats using Investor-State Dispute Resolution (ISDS) clauses in trade agreements. So that
identity warriors might understand the implications, this control limits the ability of
governments to rectify race and gender bias because supranational adjudication can overrule
them.
So, is race and / or gender repression any less repressive because capitalists control the
levers? Colonial slave-masters certainly thought so. The people who own sweatshops probably
think so. Most slumlords probably think so. Employers who steal wages probably think so. The
people who own for-profit prisons probably think so. But these aren't 'real' repression, are
they? Where's the animosity?
As political scientist Thomas Ferguson
has been arguing for decades and
Gilens and Page have recently chimed in, neither elections nor the public interest hold
sway in the corridors of American power. The levers of control are structural -- congressional
committee appointments go to the people with lots of money. Capitalist distribution controls
the politics.
The liberal explanation for this is 'political culture.' The liberal solution is to change
the political culture without changing the economic relations that drive the culture. This is
also the frame of identity politics. The presence of a desperate and destitute underclass
lowers working class wages (raising profits), but ending racism is a matter of changing
minds?
This history holds an important lesson for today's nascent socialists. The domestic programs
recently put forward, as reasonable and potentially useful as they are, resemble FDR's effort
to save capitalism, not end it. The time to implement these programs was when Wall Street was
flat on its back, when it could have been more. This is the tragedy of betrayal by Barack Obama
his voters.
Despite the capitalist rhetoric at the time, the New Deal wasn't 'socialism' because it
never changed control over the means of production, over American political economy. Internal
class differences were reduced through redistribution, but brutal and ruthless imperialism
proceeded apace overseas.
The best-case scenario looking forward is that Donald Trump is successful with
rapprochement toward North Korea and Russia and that he throws a monkey wrench into the
architecture of neoliberalism so that a new path forward can be built when he's gone. If he
pulls it off, this isn't reactionary nationalism and it isn't nothing.
Otherwise, the rich have assigned the opining classes the task of defending their realm.
Step 1: divide the bourgeois into competing factions. Step 2: posit great differences between
them that are tightly circumscribed to prevent history from inconveniently intruding. Step 3:
turn these great differences into moral absolutes so that they can't be reconciled within the
terms given. Step 4: pose a rigged electoral process as the only pathway to political
resolution. Step 5: collect profits and repeat. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Rob Urie
Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His bookZen Economicsis
published by CounterPunch Books.
We are in the point when capitalist system (which presented itself as asocial system that created a large middle class)
converted into it opposite: it is social system that could not deliver that it promised and now want to distract people from this
sad fact.
The Trump adopted tax code is a huge excess: we have 40 year when corporation paid less taxes. This is last moment when they
need another gift. To give them tax is crazy excess that reminding
Louis XV of France. Those gains are going in buying of socks. And real growth is happening elsewhere in the world.
After WW2 there were a couple of decades of "golden age" of US capitalism when in the USA middle class increased considerably.
That was result of pressure of working class devastated by Great Depression. Roosevelt decided that risk is too great and he
introduced social security net. But capitalist class was so enraged that they started fighting it almost immediately after the
New Deal was introduced. Business class was enrages with the level of taxes and counterattacked. Tarp act and McCarthyism were
two successful counterattacks. McCarthyism converting communists and socialists into agents of foreign power.
The quality of jobs are going down. That's why Trump was elected... Which is sad. Giving your finger to the
neoliberal elite does not solve their problem
Notable quotes:
"... Finally, if everybody tries to save themselves (protection), we have a historical example: after the Great Depression that happened in Europe. And most people believe that it was a large part of what led to WWII after WWI, rather than a much saner collective effort. But capitalism doesn't go for collective efforts, it tends to destroy itself by its own mechanisms. There has to be a movement from below. Otherwise, there is no counter force that can take us in another direction. ..."
"... When Trump announced his big tariffs on China, we saw the stock market dropped 700 points in a day. That's a sign of the anxiety, the danger, even in the minds of capitalists, about where this is going. ..."
"... Everything is done to avoid asking the question to what degree the system we have in place - capitalism is its name - is the problem. It's the Russians, it's the immigrants, it's the tariffs, it's anything else, even the pornstar, to distract us from the debate we need to have had that we haven't had for a half a century, which puts us in a very bad place. We've given a free pass to a capitalist system because we've been afraid to debate it. And when you give a free pass to any institution you create the conditions for it to rot, right behind the facade. ..."
"... The Trump presidency is the last gasp, it's letting it all hang out. A [neoliberal] system that's gonna do whatever it can, take advantage of this moment, grab it all before it disappears. ..."
In another interesting interview with Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff explains why the Trump presidency is the last resort of a system
that is about to collapse:
Finally, if everybody tries to save themselves (protection), we have a historical example: after the Great Depression that happened
in Europe. And most people believe that it was a large part of what led to WWII after WWI, rather than a much saner collective effort.
But capitalism doesn't go for collective efforts, it tends to destroy itself by its own mechanisms. There has to be a movement from
below. Otherwise, there is no counter force that can take us in another direction.
So, absent that counter force we are going to see this system spinning out of control and destroying itself in the very way its
critics have for so long foreseen it well might.
When Trump announced his big tariffs on China, we saw the stock market dropped 700 points in a day. That's a sign of the anxiety,
the danger, even in the minds of capitalists, about where this is going. If we hadn't been a country with two or three decades of
a middle class - working class paid really well - maybe we could have gotten away with this. But in a society that has celebrated
its capacity to do what it now fails to do, you have an explosive situation.
Everything is done to avoid asking the question to what degree the system we have in place - capitalism is its name - is the problem.
It's the Russians, it's the immigrants, it's the tariffs, it's anything else, even the pornstar, to distract us from the debate we
need to have had that we haven't had for a half a century, which puts us in a very bad place. We've given a free pass to a capitalist
system because we've been afraid to debate it. And when you give a free pass to any institution you create the conditions for it
to rot, right behind the facade.
The Trump presidency is the last gasp, it's letting it all hang out. A [neoliberal] system that's gonna do whatever it can, take advantage
of this moment, grab it all before it disappears.
In France, it was said
'Après moi, le déluge' (after me the
catastrophe). The storm will break.
"... A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order ..."
"... The American ruling class turned to neoliberalism after the failure of Keynesianism -- with its emphasis on state intervention and state-led development -- to overcome the economic crisis of the 1970s and restore profitability and growth in the system. Neoliberalism was not a conspiracy hatched by the Chicago School of Economics, but a strategy that developed in response to globalization and the end of the long postwar boom. ..."
"... For a period, the United States did indeed superintend a new global structure of world imperialism. It integrated most of the world's states into the neoliberal order it dubbed the Washington Consensus, using its international financial and trade institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization to compel all nations to adopt neoliberal policies that benefited a handful of powerful players. It used international loans and debt restructuring not only to remove trade and investment restrictions, but also to impose privatization and cuts in health, education, and other vital social services in states all over the world. The Pentagon deployed its military might to police and crush any so-called rogue states like Iraq. ..."
"... The Making of Global Capitalism ..."
"... Washington's attempt to lock in its dominance through its 2003 war and occupation of Iraq backfired. Even before launching the invasion, Bush recognized that the United States needed to do something to contain China and other rising rivals. In a sign of this growing awareness, he and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, rebranded China, which Clinton had called a strategic partner, as a strategic competitor. ..."
"... Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, as part of a plan for serial "regime change" in the region. If it succeeded, the United States hoped it would be able to control rivals, particularly China, which is dependent on the region's strategic energy reserves. Instead, Washington suffered, in the words of General William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency, its "greatest strategic disaster in American history." ..."
"... Iran, one of the projected targets for regime change in Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil," emerged as a beneficiary of the war. It secured a new ally in the form of the sectarian Shia fundamentalist regime in Iraq. And while the United States was bogged down in Iraq, China became increasingly assertive throughout the world, establishing new political and economic pacts throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and a number of African countries. ..."
"... Finally, the Great Recession of 2008 hammered the United States and its allies in the EU particularly hard. By contrast, Beijing's massive state intervention in the economy sustained its long boom and lifted the growth rates of countries in Latin America, Australia, Asia, and sections of Africa that exported raw materials to China. ..."
"... Trump's strategy to restore American dominance in the world is economic nationalism. This is the rational kernel within his erratic shell of bizarre tweets and rants. He wants to combine neoliberalism at home with protectionism against foreign competition. It is a position that breaks with the American establishment's grand strategy of superintending free-trade globalization. ..."
"... Demagogic appeals to labor aside, Trump is doing none of this for the benefit of American workers. His program is intended to restore the competitive position of American capital, particularly manufacturing, against its rivals, especially in China but also in Germany. ..."
"... This economic nationalism is paired with a promise to rearm the American military, which he views as having been weakened by Obama. Thus, Trump has announced plans to increase military spending by $54 billion. He wants to use this 9 percent increase in the military budget to build up the Navy and to modernize and expand the nuclear arsenal, even if that provokes other powers to do the same. As he quipped in December, "Let it be an arms race." 21 Trump's fire-breathing chief strategist, former Brietbart editor Steve Bannon, went so far as to promise, "We're going to war in the South China Sea in five to ten years. There's no doubt about that." 22 ..."
"... Trump threatens a significant break with some previously hallowed institutions of US foreign policy. He has called NATO outdated. This declaration is really just a bargaining position to get the alliance's other members to increase their military spending. Thus, both his secretary of state and defense secretary have repeatedly reassured European states that the United States remains committed to NATO. More seriously, he denounced the EU as merely a vehicle for German capital. Thus, he supports various right-wing populist parties in Europe running on a promise to imitate Britain and leave the EU. ..."
"... Trump's "transactional" approach comes out most clearly in his stated approach to international alliances and blocs. He promises to evaluate all multilateral alliances and trade blocs from the standpoint of American interests against rivals. He will scrap some, replacing them with bilateral arrangements, and renegotiate others. Much of the establishment has reacted in horror to these threats, denouncing them as a retreat from Washington's responsibilities to its allies. ..."
"... Hoping that he can split Russia away from China and neutralize it as a lesser power, Trump then wants to confront China with tariffs and military challenges to its assertion of control of the South China Sea. Incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has already threatened to deny China access to its newly-built island bases in the South China Sea. ..."
"... On top of all this, multinational capital opposes his protectionism. Of course almost all capital is more overjoyed at his domestic neoliberalism, a fact demonstrated in the enormous stock market expansion, but they see his proposals of tariffs, renegotiation of NAFTA, and scrapping of the TPP and the TTIP as threats to their global production, service, and investment strategies. They consider his house economist, Peter Navarro, to be a crackpot. ..."
"... Beneath the governmental shell, whole sections of the unelected state bureaucracy -- what has been ominously described as the "deep state" -- also oppose Trump as a threat to their interests. He has openly attacked the CIA and FBI and threatens enormous cuts to the State Department as well as other key bureaucracies responsible for managing state policy at home and abroad. Many of these bureaucrats have engaged in a campaign of leaks, especially of Trump's connections with the Russian state. ..."
"... One of Trump's key allies, Newt Gingrich, gives a sense of how Trump's backers are framing the dispute with these institutions. "We're up against a permanent bureaucratic structure defending itself and quite willing to break the law to do so," he told the New York Times ..."
"... The Democratic Party selectively opposes some of Trump's program. But, instead of attacking him on his manifold reactionary policies, they have portrayed him as Putin's "Manchurian Candidate," posturing as the defenders of US power willing to stand up to Russia. ..."
"... Even if Trump weathers the storm of this resistance from above and below, his foreign policy could flounder on its own internal conflicts and inconsistencies. To take one example: his policy of collaboration with Russia in Syria could flounder on his simultaneous commitment to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Why? Because Iran is a Russian ally in the region. Most disturbingly, if the Trump administration goes into a deeper crisis, it will double down on its bigoted scapegoating of immigrants and Muslims to deflect attention from its failures. ..."
"... China is accelerating the transformation of its economy. It seeks to push out multinationals that have used it as an export-processing platform and replace them with its own state-owned and private corporations, which, like Germany, will export its surplus manufactured goods to the rest of the world market. 31 No wonder, then, that a survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce found that 80 percent of American multinationals consider China inhospitable for business. ..."
"... China is also aggressively trying to supplant the United States as the economic hegemon in Asia. Immediately after Trump nixed the TPP, China appealed to states in the Asia Pacific region to sign on to its alternative trade treaty, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). China is determined to challenge American imperial rule of the Asia Pacific. Though its navy is far smaller than Washington's, it plans to accelerate efforts to build up its regional naval power against Trump's threats to block Chinese access to the strategic islands in the South China Sea. ..."
"... Financial Times ..."
"... Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy ..."
"... Wall Street's Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order ..."
"... International Socialism Journal ..."
"... Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance ..."
"... International Socialist Review ..."
"... Imperialism and World Economy, ..."
"... International Socialist Review ..."
"... A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and the State in a Transitional World ..."
The neoliberal world order of free-trade globalization that the United States has pioneered
since the end of the Cold War is in crisis. The global slump, triggered by the 2007 Great
Recession, has intensified competition not only between corporations, but also between the
states that represent them and whose disagreements over the terms of trade have paralyzed the
World Trade Organization. Similar conflicts between states have disrupted regional free-trade
deals and regional blocs. Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement failed to come to a
vote in Congress, and now Trump has scrapped it. The vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom is a
precedent that could lead other states to bolt from the European Union. Rising international
tensions, especially between the United States, China, and Russia, fill the daily
headlines.
Indeed, the world has entered a new period of imperialism. As discussed in previous articles
in this journal, the unipolar world order based on the dominance of the United States, which
has been eroding for some time, has been replaced by an asymmetric multipolar
world order. The United States remains the only superpower, and possesses by far the largest
military reach, but it faces a global rival in China and a host of lesser rivals like Russia.
And the competition between nation-states over the balance of geopolitical and economic power
is intensifying.
The multiple crises and conflicts have also confronted all the world's states with the
largest migration crisis in history. Over fifty million migrants and refugees are fleeing
economies devastated by neoliberalism, the economic crisis, political instability, and in the
case of the Middle East -- especially Syria -- counterrevolution against the Arab Spring
uprisings. The bourgeois establishment and their right-wing challengers have scapegoated these
migrants in country after country.
All of this has destabilized bourgeois politics throughout the world, opening the door to
both the Left and the Right posing as alternatives to the establishment. In the United States,
Donald Trump won the presidency with the promise to "Make America Great Again" by putting
"America First." He threatens to retreat from the post-Cold War grand strategy of the United
States overseeing the international free-trade regime, in favor of economic nationalism and
what has been described as a "transactional" approach to international politics.
While Trump aims to continue certain neoliberal policies at home (such as deregulation,
privatization, and tax cuts for the wealthy), his international policies represent a
significant shift away from global "free trade." He has promised to rip up or renegotiate
free-trade deals and impose protectionist tariffs on economic competitors. To enforce this, he
wants to rearm the American military to push back against all rivals -- China in particular --
and conduct what he depicts in racist fashion a civilizational war against Islam in the Middle
East. He marries this militaristic nationalism to a bigoted campaign of scapegoating against
immigrants, Muslims, Blacks, women, and all other oppressed groups.
Panic in the imperial brain trust
The architects and ideologues of American imperialism recognize that their grand strategy is
in crisis, and worry that Trump's new stand will only magnify it. The Financial Times
' Martin Wolf declares,
We are, in short, at the end of both an economic period -- that of western-led
globalization -- and a geopolitical one -- the post-cold war "unipolar moment" of a US-led
global order. The question is whether what follows will be an unraveling of the post-second
world war era into de-globalization and conflict, as happened in the first half of the 20th
century, or a new period in which non-western powers, especially China and India, play a
bigger role in sustaining a co-operative global order. 1
Obama's favorite neocon Robert Kagan warns that Washington's retreat from managing the world
system risks "backing into World War III," the title of the piece in which he writes:
Think of two significant trend lines in the world today. One is the increasing ambition
and activism of the two great revisionist powers, Russia and China. The other is the
declining confidence, capacity, and will of the democratic world, and especially of the
United States, to maintain the dominant position it has held in the international system
since 1945. As those two lines move closer, as the declining will and capacity of the United
States and its allies to maintain the present world order meet the increasing desire and
capacity of the revisionist powers to change it, we will reach the moment at which the
existing order collapses and the world descends into a phase of brutal anarchy, as it has
three times in the past two centuries. The cost of that descent, in lives and treasure, in
lost freedoms and lost hope, will be staggering. 2
In somewhat more measured tones, the imperial brain trust of American imperialism, the
Council on Foreign Relations, is using their journal, Foreign Affairs , to oppose
Trump and defend the existing neoliberal order with minor modifications. 3 Stewart
Patrick, for example, worries that Trump has laid-out
no broader vision of the Unites States' traditional role as defender of the free world,
much less outline how the country play that part. In foreign policy and economics, he has
made clear that the pursuit of narrow national advantage will guide his policies --
apparently regardless of the impact on the liberal world order that the United States has
championed since 1945. That order was fraying well before November 8. It had been battered
from without by challenges from China and Russia and weakened from within by economic malaise
in Japan and crises in Europe, including the epochal Brexit vote last year. No one knows what
Trump will do as president. But as a candidate, he vowed to shake up world politics by
reassessing long-standing U.S. alliances, ripping up existing U.S. trade deals, raising trade
barriers against China, disavowing the Paris climate agreement, and repudiating the nuclear
accord with Iran. Should he follow through on these provocative plans, Trump will unleash
forces beyond his control, sharpening the crisis of the Western-centered order.
The Council's Gideon Rose fears that Trump is introducing "damaging uncertainty into
everything from international commerce to nuclear deterrence. At worst, it could cause other
countries to lose faith in the order's persistence and start to hedge their bets, distancing
themselves from the Unites States, making side deals with China and Russia, and adopting
beggar-thy-neighbor programs." 4
But the Council and the rest of the foreign policy establishment have little to offer as a
solution to the crisis they describe. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations' president,
Richard Haass's, new book, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of
the Old Order , produces little more than tactical maneuvers designed to incorporate
America's rivals into the existing neoliberal order. 5 But it is within that very
order that the United States has undergone relative decline against its increasingly assertive
rivals, especially China.
Neoliberalism's solution to the crisis last time
The American ruling class turned to neoliberalism after the failure of Keynesianism -- with
its emphasis on state intervention and state-led development -- to overcome the economic crisis
of the 1970s and restore profitability and growth in the system. Neoliberalism was not a
conspiracy hatched by the Chicago School of Economics, but a strategy that developed in
response to globalization and the end of the long postwar boom.
The US ruling class adopted what later came to be known as neoliberalism in coherent form
under the regimes of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain.
6 Neoliberalism had domestic and international dimensions. At home, the mantra was
privatization and deregulation. The ruling class got rid of regulations on capital and launched
a war against workers. They privatized state-run businesses as well as traditionally state-run
institutions like prisons and schools. They busted unions, drove down wages, and cut the
welfare state to ribbons.
Abroad, the United States expanded the program of "free trade" they had pursued since the
end of World War II. Seeking cheap labor, resources, and markets, Washington used its dominance
of international institutions to pry open national economies throughout the world. It aimed
first to incorporate its allies, then its antagonists in this neoliberal world order, with the
promise that it would work in the interests of "the capitalist class" around the world. As
Henry Kissinger once remarked, "What is called globalization is really another name for the
dominant role of the United States." 7 These domestic and international policies
overcame the crises of the 1970s and ushered in a period of economic expansion (interrupted by
a few recessions) that lasted from the early 1980s through to the early 2000s. 8
The brief unipolar moment
Unable to keep pace with the West's economic expansion and the Reagan administration's
massive rearmament program, and beset by its own internal contradictions, the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991, and the Cold War's bipolar geopolitical order came to an end. The United
States hoped to establish a new unipolar world order in which it would solidify its position as
the world's sole remaining, and unassailable, superpower.
For a period, the United States did indeed superintend a new global structure of world
imperialism. It integrated most of the world's states into the neoliberal order it dubbed the
Washington Consensus, using its international financial and trade institutions like the IMF,
World Bank, and the World Trade Organization to compel all nations to adopt neoliberal policies
that benefited a handful of powerful players. It used international loans and debt
restructuring not only to remove trade and investment restrictions, but also to impose
privatization and cuts in health, education, and other vital social services in states all over
the world. The Pentagon deployed its military might to police and crush any so-called rogue
states like Iraq.
Amidst the heady days of this unipolar moment, much of the left abandoned the classical
Marxist theory of imperialism developed chiefly by the early twentieth century Russian
revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Nikolai Bukharin. In brief, Lenin and Bukharin argued that
capitalist development transformed economic competition into interstate rivalry and war for the
political and economic division and redivision of the world system between the dominant
capitalist powers vying for hegemony. 9
"The development of world capitalism leads," wrote Bukharin, "on the one hand, to an
internationalization of the economic life and, on the other, to the leveling of economic
differences, and to an infinitely greater degree, the same process of economic development
intensifies the tendency to 'nationalize' capitalist interests, to form narrow 'national'
groups armed to the teeth and ready to hurl themselves at one another at any moment."
10
Imperialism was a product of the interplay between the creation of a world market and the
division of the world between national states, and as such was a product of the system rather
than simply a policy of a particular state or party. This was in contrast to the German
socialist Karl Kautsky, who argued that imperialism was a policy favored by some sections of
the capitalists but which ran against the interests of ruling classes as a whole, which, as a
result of the economic integration of the world market, had a greater interest in peaceful
competition.
The new period of globalized capitalism produced new theories that rejected Lenin and
Bukharin's approach. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argued in their 2000 book that
globalization had replaced imperialism with a new structure of domination they termed empire.
Nonstate networks of power, like international financial institutions such as the IMF and the
World Bank, were now, in an era where states were increasingly powerless, the dominant world
players. 11 "The United States does not, and indeed no nation-state can today, form
the center of an imperialist project," they famously wrote in the preface. 12 Others
took the argument further, maintaining that a system of globalized transnational production and
trade was fast displacing states, including Washington, as influential centers of power.
13
On the other extreme, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin argue in their 2012 book The Making of
Global Capitalism that the American state organized globalization and integrated all the
world's states as vassals of its informal empire. 14 Though diametrically opposed at
the start, these arguments ended with the same conclusion -- inter-imperial rivalries between
the world's leading states, including the potential for them to spill over into military
conflict -- are not a necessary outcome of capitalism; and today those rivalries are a thing of
the past.
The return of rivalry in an asymmetric world order
Developments in the real world -- such as the Bush administration's 2001 invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan, and two years later of Iraq -- viscerally disproved these arguments.
Indeed, changes in the real world were already undermining the foundations of the postwar world
order that Kagan and others are frantically holding up against Trump's "America First"
nationalism.
Washington's drive to cement its hegemony in a unipolar world order was undermined in
several ways. The neoliberal boom from the early 1980s to the 2000s produced new centers of
capital accumulation. China is the paradigmatic example. After it abandoned autarkic state
capitalism in favor of state-managed production for the world market, it transformed itself
from a backwater producer to the new workshop of the world. It vaulted from producing about 1.9
percent 15 of global GDP in 1979 to about 15 percent in 2016. 16 It is
now the second-largest economy in the world and predicted to overtake the United States as the
largest economy in the coming years.
But China was not the sole beneficiary of the neoliberal expansion. Brazil and other
regional economies also developed. And Russia, after suffering an enormous collapse of its
empire and its economic power in the 1990s, managed to rebuild itself as a petro-power with
disproportionate geopolitical influence because of its nuclear arsenal. Of course, whole
sections of the world system did not develop at all, but instead suffered dispossession and
economic catastrophe.
Washington's attempt to lock in its dominance through its 2003 war and occupation of Iraq
backfired. Even before launching the invasion, Bush recognized that the United States needed to
do something to contain China and other rising rivals. In a sign of this growing awareness, he
and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, rebranded China, which Clinton had called a
strategic partner, as a strategic competitor.17
Bush used 9/11 as an opportunity to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in
Iraq, as part of a plan for serial "regime change" in the region. If it succeeded, the United
States hoped it would be able to control rivals, particularly China, which is dependent on the
region's strategic energy reserves. Instead, Washington suffered, in the words of General
William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency, its "greatest strategic disaster
in American history."18
Iran, one of the projected targets for regime change in Bush's so-called "Axis of Evil,"
emerged as a beneficiary of the war. It secured a new ally in the form of the sectarian Shia
fundamentalist regime in Iraq. And while the United States was bogged down in Iraq, China
became increasingly assertive throughout the world, establishing new political and economic
pacts throughout Latin America, the Middle East, and a number of African countries.
Russia also took advantage of American setbacks to reassert its power against EU and NATO
expansionism in Eastern Europe. It went to war against US ally Georgia in 2008. In Central
Asia, China and Russia came together to form a new alliance, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization. They postured against American imperialism in their own imperial interests.
Finally, the Great Recession of 2008 hammered the United States and its allies in the EU
particularly hard. By contrast, Beijing's massive state intervention in the economy sustained
its long boom and lifted the growth rates of countries in Latin America, Australia, Asia, and
sections of Africa that exported raw materials to China.
This was the high-water mark of the so-called BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
South Africa. The lesser powers in this bloc hitched their star to Chinese imperialism,
exporting their commodities to fuel China's industrial expansion. Together they launched the
BRICS bank, officially known as the New Development Bank, and China added another, the Asian
Infrastructure Development Bank, as alternatives to the IMF and World Bank. The recent Chinese
slowdown and the consequent drop in commodity prices have, however, hammered the economies of
many of the BRICS.
These developments cracked the unipolar moment and replaced it with today's asymmetric world
order. The United States remains the world's sole superpower; but it now faces an international
rival in China and in lesser powers like Russia. It must also wrestle with regional powers that
pursue their own interests, sometimes in sync with Washington and other times at odds with
it.
Obama's failure to restore dominance
The Obama administration came to power with the hopes of restoring the credibility and
standing of American power in the wake of Bush's disasters in the Middle East. It implemented a
combined program of stimulus and austerity to restore growth and profitability. By imposing a
two-tier wage structure on the auto industry, it set a precedent for competitive
reindustrialization in the United States, and launched the massive fracking expansion to
provide cheap domestic energy to US corporations.
Intending to extract the United States from its costly and inconclusive ground wars in the
Middle East, Obama turned to air power, shifting the focus of the so-called War on Terror to
drone strikes, Special Force operations, and air support for US proxy forces in different
countries.
Once disentangled from Bush's occupations, Obama planned to conduct the ballyhooed "pivot to
Asia" to contain China's ongoing rise, bolster Washington's political and military alliance
with Japan and South Korea, and prevent their economic incorporation into China's growing
sphere of influence. The now dead Trans-Pacific Partnership was meant to ensure American
economic hegemony in the region, which would then be backed up militarily with the deployment
of 60 percent of the US Navy to the Asia Pacific region. 19 Obama also began to push
back against Russian opposition to the EU and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe -- hence the
standoff over Ukraine.
But Obama was unable to fully implement any of this because US forces remained bogged down
in the spiraling crisis in the Middle East. Retreating from the Bush administration's policy of
regime change to balancing between the existing states, Obama, while continuing to support
historic US allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, at the same time struck a deal with Iran
over its nuclear program. But this strategy was undermined by the Arab Spring, the regimes'
counterrevolutions, attempts by regional powers to manipulate the rebellion for their own ends,
and the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The United States has been unable to resolve many of
these developing crises on its own terms.
Now Russia, after having suffered a long-term decline of its power in the region, has
managed to reassert itself through its intervention in Syria in support of Assad's
counterrevolution. It is now a broker in the Syrian "peace process" and a new player in the
broader Middle East.
While the United States continued to suffer relative decline, China and Russia became even
more assertive. Russia took Crimea, which provoked the United States and Germany to impose
sanctions on the Kremlin. China intensified its economic deal making throughout the world,
increasing its foreign direct investment from a paltry $17.2 billion in 2005 to $187 billion in
2015. 20 At the same time, it engaged in a massive buildup of its navy and air force
(though its military is still dwarfed by the US) and constructed new military bases on various
islands to control the shipping lanes, fisheries, and potential oil fields in the South China
Sea.
Obama did manage to oversee the recovery of the US economy, and China has suffered an
economic slowdown. That has dramatically reversed the economic fortunes of the BRICS, in
particular Brazil, which has experienced economic collapse and a right-wing governmental coup.
The drop in oil prices that accompanied the Chinese slowdown also hammered the OPEC states as
well as Russia.
But China's slowdown has not reversed Beijing's economic and geopolitical ascension. In
fact, China is in the process of rebalancing its economy to replace multinational investment,
expand its domestic market, and increase production for export to the rest of the world. The
aim is to increase its ability to compete with the United States and the EU at all levels.
Thus, well before Trump's election, the United States had been mired in foreign policy
problems that it seemed incapable of resolving.
Trump's break with neoliberalism
Trump's strategy to restore American dominance in the world is economic nationalism. This is
the rational kernel within his erratic shell of bizarre tweets and rants. He wants to combine
neoliberalism at home with protectionism against foreign competition. It is a position that
breaks with the American establishment's grand strategy of superintending free-trade
globalization.
Inside the United States, Trump aims to double down on some aspects of neoliberalism. He
plans to cut taxes on the rich, rip up government regulations that "hamper" business interests,
expand Obama's fracking program to provide corporations cheaper energy, and to go after public
sector unions. He also wants to invest $1 trillion to modernize the country's decrepit
infrastructure. While his Gestapo assault on immigrants is less popular among the business
class, they are salivating over the tax and regulatory cuts. Trump hopes with these economic
carrots to lure American manufacturing companies back to the United States.
At the same time, however, Trump wants to upend the neoliberal Washington Consensus. He is
threatening to impose tariffs on American corporations that move their production to other
countries. He has already nixed the TPP and intends to do the same to the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Europe. He promises to renegotiate NAFTA with Mexico and
Canada to secure better terms, and, in response to Chinese and EU protectionism, he threatens
to impose a border tax of 45 percent on Chinese and others countries' exports to the United
States. These measures could trigger a trade war.
Demagogic appeals to labor aside, Trump is doing none of this for the benefit of American
workers. His program is intended to restore the competitive position of American capital,
particularly manufacturing, against its rivals, especially in China but also in Germany.
This economic nationalism is paired with a promise to rearm the American military, which he
views as having been weakened by Obama. Thus, Trump has announced plans to increase military
spending by $54 billion. He wants to use this 9 percent increase in the military budget to
build up the Navy and to modernize and expand the nuclear arsenal, even if that provokes other
powers to do the same. As he quipped in December, "Let it be an arms race." 21
Trump's fire-breathing chief strategist, former Brietbart editor Steve Bannon, went so far as
to promise, "We're going to war in the South China Sea in five to ten years. There's no doubt
about that." 22
Trump also plans to intensify what he sees as a civilizational war with Islam. This will
likely involve ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran, intensifying the war on ISIS in Iraq and
Syria, and conducting further actions against al Qaeda internationally. It will also likely
involve doubling down on Washington's alliance with Israel. Trump's appointment as ambassador
to Israel, David Friedman, is actually to the right of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. 23 Trump has already begun escalating the ongoing war on Muslims
conducted by the last two administrations, with his executive orders that are in effect an
anti-Muslim ban and have increased the profiling, surveillance, and harassment of Muslims
throughout the country.
To pay for this military expansion, the Trump administration, in Bannon's phrase, plans to
carry out the "deconstruction of the administrative state." Thus, the administration has
appointed heads of departments, like Ed Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, whose
main purpose is to gut them. 24 No doubt this will entail massive cuts to social
programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump threatens a significant break with some previously hallowed institutions of US foreign
policy. He has called NATO outdated. This declaration is really just a bargaining position to
get the alliance's other members to increase their military spending. Thus, both his secretary
of state and defense secretary have repeatedly reassured European states that the United States
remains committed to NATO. More seriously, he denounced the EU as merely a vehicle for German
capital. Thus, he supports various right-wing populist parties in Europe running on a promise
to imitate Britain and leave the EU.
Trump's "transactional" approach comes out most clearly in his stated approach to
international alliances and blocs. He promises to evaluate all multilateral alliances and trade
blocs from the standpoint of American interests against rivals. He will scrap some, replacing
them with bilateral arrangements, and renegotiate others. Much of the establishment has reacted
in horror to these threats, denouncing them as a retreat from Washington's responsibilities to
its allies.
In a departure from Obama's policy toward Russia, Trump intends to create a more
transactional relationship with the Kremlin. He does not view Russia as the main threat; he
believes that is China. In addition to considering cutting a deal with Russia to drop sanctions
over its seizure of Crimea, he wants to collaborate with Putin in a joint war against ISIS in
Syria.
Hoping that he can split Russia away from China and neutralize it as a lesser power, Trump
then wants to confront China with tariffs and military challenges to its assertion of control
of the South China Sea. Incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has already threatened to
deny China access to its newly-built island bases in the South China Sea.
Trump's economic nationalism leads directly to his "fortress America" policies. These
policies chiefly target Muslims and immigrants, but they should not be seen in isolation from
other domestic policies. With the wave of protests against his attacks that emerged from the
moment he stepped into office, Trump and his allies in state governments have introduced bills
that impose increasing restrictions on the right to protest and give the police a license for
repression with impunity. Thus the corollary of his "America First" imperialism abroad is
authoritarianism at home.
Can Trump succeed?
Trump faces a vast array of obstacles that could stop him from implementing his new
strategy. To begin with, he is an unpopular president with an approval rating hovering below 40
percent in his first months in office. He and his crony capitalist cabinet will no doubt face
many scandals, compromising their ability to push through their agenda.
He may be his own biggest obstacle. His 6 A.M. tweets are signs of someone more concerned
with his celebrity status than imperial statecraft. He has already lost his national security
adviser, Michael Flynn, due to Flynn's failure to disclose his communication with Russian
diplomats during the campaign, and his Attorney General Jeff Sessions took heat on similar
charges, forcing him to recuse himself from any investigations of the Trump campaign with the
Kremlin.
There are also real economic challenges to his ability to follow through on his economic
program. He simultaneously promises to cut taxes for the wealthy, spend hundreds of millions on
domestic infrastructure (not to mention the billions it would cost to build a wall along the
US–Mexico border), and cut the deficit. This does not square with economic reality.
On top of all this, multinational capital opposes his protectionism. Of course almost all
capital is more overjoyed at his domestic neoliberalism, a fact demonstrated in the enormous
stock market expansion, but they see his proposals of tariffs, renegotiation of NAFTA, and
scrapping of the TPP and the TTIP as threats to their global production, service, and
investment strategies. They consider his house economist, Peter Navarro, to be a crackpot.
25
Even his cabinet opposes much of his program. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified
that he supports the TTP and American obligations to its NATO allies in Europe, including
recent deployments of American troops to Poland. And Trump's Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog"
Mattis disagrees with Trump's proposal to rip up the nuclear treaty with Iran.
Beneath the governmental shell, whole sections of the unelected state bureaucracy -- what
has been ominously described as the "deep state" -- also oppose Trump as a threat to their
interests. He has openly attacked the CIA and FBI and threatens enormous cuts to the State
Department as well as other key bureaucracies responsible for managing state policy at home and
abroad. Many of these bureaucrats have engaged in a campaign of leaks, especially of Trump's
connections with the Russian state.
One of Trump's key allies, Newt Gingrich, gives a sense of how Trump's backers are framing
the dispute with these institutions. "We're up against a permanent bureaucratic structure
defending itself and quite willing to break the law to do so," he told the New York
Times . 26 Thus, the core of the capitalist state is at least attempting to
constrain Trump, bring down some of his appointees and may, if they see it as necessary, do the
same to Trump himself. At the very least, these extraordinary divisions at the top create a
sense of insecurity, and open up space for questioning and struggle from below.
The Democratic Party selectively opposes some of Trump's program. But, instead of attacking
him on his manifold reactionary policies, they have portrayed him as Putin's "Manchurian
Candidate," posturing as the defenders of US power willing to stand up to Russia. As Glenn
Greenwald writes, the Democrats are
not "resisting" Trump from the left or with populist appeals -- by, for instance, devoting
themselves toprotection ofWall Street and environmental regulations
under attack , or supporting the revocation of jobs-killing free trade
agreements, or demanding that Yemini civilians not be massacred. Instead, they're attacking him
on the grounds of insufficient nationalism, militarism, and aggression: equating a desire to
avoid confrontation with Moscow as a form of treason (just like they did when they were the
leading Cold Warriors).
This is why they're finding such common cause with the
nation's most bloodthirsty militarists -- not because it's an alliance of convenience but
rather one of shared convictions (indeed, long before Trump,
neocons were planning a re-alignment with Democrats under a Clinton presidency).
27
Republicans also object to many of Trump's initiatives. For example, John McCain has
attacked his cozy relationship with the Kremlin. And neoliberals in the Republican Party
support the TPP and free trade globalization in general. The neocon Max Boot has gone so far as
to support the Democrat's call for a special counsel to investigate Trump's collusion with
Putin. He explains,
There is a good reason why Trump and his partisans are so apoplectic about the prospect of
a special counsel, and it is precisely why it is imperative to appoint one: because otherwise
we will never know the full story of the Kremlin's tampering with our elections and of the
Kremlin's connections with the president of the United States. As evidenced by his desperate
attempts to change the subject, Trump appears petrified of what such a probe would reveal.
28
Even if Trump weathers the storm of this resistance from above and below, his foreign policy
could flounder on its own internal conflicts and inconsistencies. To take one example: his
policy of collaboration with Russia in Syria could flounder on his simultaneous commitment to
scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Why? Because Iran is a Russian ally in the region. Most
disturbingly, if the Trump administration goes into a deeper crisis, it will double down on its
bigoted scapegoating of immigrants and Muslims to deflect attention from its failures.
Economic nationalism beyond Trump?
While Trump's contradictions could stymie his ability to impose his economic nationalist
program, that program is not going to disappear any more than the problems it is intended to
address. The reality is that the United States faces continued decline in the neoliberal world
order. China, even taking into account the many contradictions it faces, continues to benefit
from the current setup.
That's why, in an ironic twist of historic proportions, Chinese premier Xi Jing Ping
defended the Washington Consensus in his country's first address at the World Economic Forum in
Davos Switzerland. He even went so far as to promise to come to the rescue of free-trade
globalization if the Trump administration abandoned it. "No one will emerge as a
winner in a trade war ," he declared. "Pursuing protectionism is just like locking one's
self in a dark room. Wind and rain may be kept outside, but so are light and air."
29
One of his underlings, Zhang Jun, remarked, "If anyone were to say China is playing a
leadership role in the world I would say it's not China rushing to the front but rather the
front runners have stepped back leaving the place to China. If China is required to play that
leadership role then China will assume its responsibilities." 30
China is accelerating the transformation of its economy. It seeks to push out multinationals
that have used it as an export-processing platform and replace them with its own state-owned
and private corporations, which, like Germany, will export its surplus manufactured goods to
the rest of the world market. 31 No wonder, then, that a survey conducted by the
American Chamber of Commerce found that 80 percent of American multinationals consider China
inhospitable for business.32
China is also aggressively trying to supplant the United States as the economic hegemon in
Asia. Immediately after Trump nixed the TPP, China appealed to states in the Asia Pacific
region to sign on to its alternative trade treaty, the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP). China is determined to challenge American imperial rule of the Asia
Pacific. Though its navy is far smaller than Washington's, it plans to accelerate efforts to
build up its regional naval power against Trump's threats to block Chinese access to the
strategic islands in the South China Sea.
All of this was underway before Trump. That's why Obama was already inching toward some of
Trump's policies. He initiated the pivot to Asia, deployed the US Navy to the region, and
imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and tires. He also complained about NATO countries and others
freeloading on American military largesse. He thus encouraged Japan's rearmament and
deployments of its forces abroad. He also began the move to on-shoring manufacturing based on a
low-wage America with cheap energy and revitalized infrastructure.
So it's imaginable that another figure could take up and repackage Trump's economic
nationalism. Regardless of whether this happens or not, it is clear that there is a trajectory
deep in the dynamics of the world system toward interimperial rivalry between the United States
and its main imperialist challenger, China. Obviously there are countervailing forces that
mitigate the tendency toward military conflict between them. The high degree of economic
integration makes the ruling classes hesitant to risk war. And, because all the major states
are nuclear powers, each is reluctant to risk armed conflicts turning into mutual
annihilation.
For background on this key institution of American imperialism see Laurence H. Shoup and
William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States
Foreign Policy (New York: Authors Choice Press, 2004), and Laurence H. Shoup, Wall
Street's Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal
Geopolitics (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2015).
Gideon Rose, "Out of Order," Foreign Affairs (January–February,
2017).
Richard Haass, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old
Order (New York: Penguin Press, 2017).
For one of the best accounts of neoliberalism as a response to globalization and a
strategy to overcome the crisis of the 1970s, see Neil Davidson, "The Neoliberal Era in
Britain: Historical Developments and Current Perspectives," International Socialism
Journal , no. 139 (2013),
http://isj.org.uk/the-neoliberal-era-in-... .
Lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, Oct. 12, 1999, cited by Sam Gindin in "Social Justice
and Globalization: Are They Compatible?" Monthly Review , June 2002, 11.
For an account of the neoliberal boom and consequent crisis and slump, see David McNally,
Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance (Oakland, CA: PM
Press, 2010).
For a summary of the classical theory of imperialism, see Phil Gasper, "Lenin and
Bukharin on Imperialism," International Socialist Review , no. 100 (May 2009),
http://isreview.org/issue/100/lenin-and-...
.
For a summary and critique of Hardt and Negri's ideas see Tom Lewis, "Empire strikes
out," International Socialist Review , no. 24 (July–August 2002), www.isreview.org/issues/24/empire_strike...
.
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2000),
xiii–xiv.
See, for example, William Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class,
and the State in a Transitional World (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins, 2004).
See Ashley Smith, "Global empire or imperialism?" International Socialist Review
, no 92 (Spring 2014), http://isreview.org/issue/92 .
Justin Yifu Lin, "China and the Global Economy," Remarks at the Conference "Asia's Role
in the Post-Crisis Global Economy," November 29, 2011,
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/s... .
Ed Pilkington and Martin Pengelly, "'Let it Be an Arms Race': Donald Trump Appears to
Double Down on Nuclear Expansion," The Guardian , December 24, 2016, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/23/...
.
Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa, "Bannon Vows Daily Fight for the "Deconstruction of the
Administrative State," Washington Post , February 23, 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-wh-s... .
Julie Hirschfeld Davis, "Rumblings of a 'Deep State' Undermining Trump? It Was Once a
Foreign Concept," New York Times , March 6, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/po... .
Stephen Fidler, Te-Ping Chen, and Lingling Wei, "China's Xi Jingping Seizes Role as
Leader of Globalization," Wall Street Journal , January 17, 2017, www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-xi-jinping-d...
.
For further discussion of this point, see Ashley Smith, "Anti-imperialism and the Syrian
Revolution," Socialist Worker , August 25, 2016, https://socialistworker.org/2016/08/25/a...
.
"... Through neoliberal rationales, they are able to reach many of their social objectives even if they fall short of their policy goals ..."
"... The belief that Trump would alter American conservativism away from neoliberal economics is not without its basis. ..."
"... The marriage between neoliberalism and Christian nationalism that neo-conservatives pursued during the George W. Bush era was going to experience a soft separation under Trump. The pursuit of neoliberalism policies would be relegated in importance, if not abandoned completely, and there would be doubling down on Christian nationalism, with a tripling down on the nationalist element. Unsurprisingly, the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reveals that Trump is ready to renege on his end of this bargain with the hope that poor whites will still be willing to keep up their end. ..."
"... The argument that Trump would somehow overturn America's neoliberal economic order myopically focused on Trump's trade policy. In doing so, it both misunderstood what Trump represented and the ideological framework of neoliberalism. Trump's fever pitch agonizing over the United States' trade deficit with China and Mexico are both the wallowing of an economic idiot and the maneuvering of a political savant. ..."
"... The insinuation was for average Americans to take back what was rightfully theirs by engaging in a new round of economic bargaining with these two nations, if not an open trade war. ..."
"... As the latest tax bill has shown, Trump is dedicated to weakening the ability of the government to extract wealth from the rich. This supreme goal takes priority over the Republican gospel of balance budgets. ..."
"... The Right Nation: Conservative Power in ..."
"... The United States now has an Americanized version of European style far Right politics, and its xenophobic ambitious has come about through a constant assertion of neoliberal values. ..."
"... Understood in proper terms, "economic nationalism" is best described as "market statism" -- where, in Milton Friedman's words, the purpose of the state should be "to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets" but nothing else. ..."
The passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has refuted any notion that
Trump's ascension to the White House would mark an end to neoliberalism. Poor whites who
supported Trump expected him to offer America a new version of conservativism that would break
with neoliberalism. Instead, furthering neoliberal policies has become a critical objective
that works in tandem with Trump's xenophobic rhetoric
With the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, President Trump secured his first major
policy victory. Despite their federal dominance, the Republican Party has proven to be
legislatively constipated. Below the surface of party unity, sectarian differences between the
competing strains of American conservatism have hindered it from taking advantage of its
historical positioning. Nevertheless, tax cuts proved to be a workable common ground that Trump
was able to take advantage of. While commentary of the passage has tended to focus on this
Republican unity, the most significant aspect of the Act's passage is the refutation that
Donald Trump's ascension to the White House would somehow mark an end to the era of neoliberal
economics. Furthering neoliberal policies has not only been an aspect of Trump's agenda but a
critical goal that works in tandem with his xenophobic rhetoric. Far from being opposed by the
Bannon faction of Trump's coalition, neoliberalism has provided a comforting aerie for their
fascist inclinations to develop. Through neoliberal rationales, they are able to reach many
of their social objectives even if they fall short of their policy goals .
The belief that Trump would alter American conservativism away from neoliberal economics
is not without its basis. In a bizarre case of enveloping ironies, Trump's presidential
campaign was successful in portraying him as both a billionaire business wizard and as an
example of an American everyman. He advocated for "draining the swamp" of corrupt Wall Street
executives, while at the same time paraded his practice of tax evasion has an example of his
shrewd financial acumen. The incompatibility of these two personas is obvious, but it has a
certain appeal within the context of America's poor whites. Poor white Americans are both
spiteful toward and enamored by capitalism. They are spiteful because it retards their own
social mobility, but enamored with it because it provides a basis for their own privilege over
racial minorities. Unlike their counterparts among racial minorities, poor whites do not
consider themselves poor by class, but poor by temporary misfortune. They are not poor per se,
but rather down-on-their-luck millionaires whose are unjustly treated by liberal elites and
coddled minorities. For these people, Trump represented an enchanting example of uncouth
success. The fact that he was crass and despised only reinforced the notion that it is not
connections and education that made a person wealthy, but hard work and an intuition for
affluence. Culturally speaking, these are traits are considered innate to white Americans. Of
course, to believe this mythology, many of Trump's low-class acolytes were only willing to
support his campaign under the pretext of an unspoken bargain: they would ignore the reality
that his wealth was inherited and not earned, and he would refrain from the usual Republican
claptrap about the virtues of privatizing Social Security and Medicare. That way both partners
could remain comfortable in their delusions that all their current and potential future wealth
was a product of their own doing. The result of this unspoken bargain was that Trump was
supposed to offer America a new version of conservativism. The marriage between
neoliberalism and Christian nationalism that neo-conservatives pursued during the George W.
Bush era was going to experience a soft separation under Trump. The pursuit of neoliberalism
policies would be relegated in importance, if not abandoned completely, and there would be
doubling down on Christian nationalism, with a tripling down on the nationalist element.
Unsurprisingly, the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reveals that Trump is ready to renege
on his end of this bargain with the hope that poor whites will still be willing to keep up
their end.
Astute observers saw this betrayal coming. The argument that Trump would somehow
overturn America's neoliberal economic order myopically focused on Trump's trade policy. In
doing so, it both misunderstood what Trump represented and the ideological framework of
neoliberalism. Trump's fever pitch agonizing over the United States' trade deficit with China
and Mexico are both the wallowing of an economic idiot and the maneuvering of a political
savant. The issue was always economically inane. A trade deficit in-and-of-itself reveals
very little about the overall health of an economy. Whether a nation should strive for or
against a trade deficit is more dependent on that nation's strategic position within the global
economy, and not necessarily an indicator of the health of domestic markets. But, trade proved
to be a salient issue for symbolic purposes. Stagnation and automation have compelled American
middle and lower classes to accept an economic torpor. Making trade deficits a central campaign
tenant provided these people with an outlet for their class anxieties without having to
question the nature of class itself. Lethargic economic growth was blamed on Mexicans and the
Chinese. The insinuation was for average Americans to take back what was rightfully theirs
by engaging in a new round of economic bargaining with these two nations, if not an open trade
war.
While Trump's criticism of Mexico and China seemed to imply an undoing of international
market liberalization and a return to an age of greater protectionism, in reality, Trump very
rarely recommended such policies. Instead, he made vague references to "good people" who will
make "good deals" for American workers and openly preferred lowering America's corporate tax
rate in order to encourage businesses to reinvest in the United States. The first proposal was
always understood as meaningless. Its value was in showmanship. A person can hoodwink the world
into thinking that they are a genius just by referring to everyone around them as a moron.
However, the second proposal not only does not overturn the reigning neoliberal order, it
strengthens it. As the latest tax bill has shown, Trump is dedicated to weakening the
ability of the government to extract wealth from the rich. This supreme goal takes priority
over the Republican gospel of balance budgets. The deficit be damned if preventing it
smacks of any hint of expropriation of the wealthy. But, the deficit is not entirely damned. It
is an open secret that Republicans are salivating for a fiscal crisis that will provide them
with a pretext for cutting Social Security and Medicare. It was only a matter of time before
Trump's administration wholeheartedly joins them.
The fact that the real potential for cutting favored government programs has not resulted in
the same outcry among Trump's supporters, even among low-class demographics, as his suggestion
that he might soften his position on immigration is a grave concern. Social Security and
Medicare are extremely popular in the United States among poor and working people regardless of
ethnicity and political ideology. Nevertheless, tolerance for their obliteration has become
palatable to the majority of white Americans. In 2004, journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian
Wooldridge published their exhaustive history of the American Right, The Right Nation: Conservative Power
inAmerica . At the time, Michlethwait and Wooldridge could accurately claim
that "in no other country is the Right defined so much by values rather than class Yet despite
the importance of values, America has failed to produce a xenophobic 'far Right' on anything
like the same scale as Europe has." A little over a decade later, Michlethwait's and
Wooldridge's observation has become obsolete. Trump is inept at policy and governance, but he
is a skilled mobilizer and has managed to shift the American Right into a new direction.
The United States now has an Americanized version of European style far Right politics, and
its xenophobic ambitious has come about through a constant assertion of neoliberal
values.
Trump has not only furthered the neoliberal doctrine of privatization, but also that of the
economization of everyday life, and specifically, the economization of American racism. While
fear of cultural differences between "the west" and "the rest" has always been front and center
for the Bannon wing of Trump's coalition, more tactical voices find economic justifications for
their xenophobia: immigrants steal jobs, freeride on welfare benefits, and don't pay taxes. The
image that emerges when these talking points converge is a political system enamored with
quantifying and dispensing material goods between those who deserve and those who do not. For
most modern conservatives, opposition to immigration is not based on an open fear of
differences; rather, it is a feeling that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are
unwilling to accept a free market economic system that treats all Americans on fair and equal
terms. Unlike average Americans, who work hard and thus deserve their market remunerations,
immigrants -- and by implication other minorities -- rely on a mixture of government handouts
and liberal acquiescence to the rules. Immigrants cash their welfare checks because liberal
elites look the other way on law enforcement. This worldview suggests that the government
should not only be redirected to strenuous law enforcement but also that it should not be in
the business of providing society with social welfare in the first place. Doing so only creates
an impetus for illegal immigration and lazy minorities. In this manner, Bannon's cheerleading
of "economic nationalism" was always a rhetorical mirage. Understood in proper terms,
"economic nationalism" is best described as "market statism" -- where, in Milton Friedman's
words, the purpose of the state should be "to preserve law and order, to enforce private
contracts, to foster competitive markets" but nothing else.
There is no fundamental difference in the terms of the realpolitik outcomes between
Friedman's neoliberalism and Bannon's economic nationalism, even if they begin from separate
economic philosophies. The only difference is in what should be considered preferable within
market configurations. In Capitalism and Freedom ,
Friedman emphasizes his personal objections to racist ideologies but sees no need for a
government to ensure racial equality. According to Friedman, racism is to be overcome through
individual argumentation, not political struggle; it is the changing of tastes within the
marketplace that will provide the liberation of ethnic minorities, not the paternal hand of the
government preventing discrimination. Friedman's de-politicizing of racial anxieties to mere
matters of "taste," provides an opening for those -- like Bannon -- who are eager to engage in
a culture war, but are well aware of the potentially alienating effects of actually taking up
arms. If racial discrimination is only a matter of "taste," similar to other desires within the
marketplace, then the maintenance of white supremacy is predicated on its profitability. As
long as whiteness can maintain its social hegemony, then Friedman's governmental obligations
"to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets," will
serve to reinforce it. The neoliberal economizing of American racism allows for many of the
effects of white supremacy without necessarily the adoption of any of its core premises.
Trump's coalition of white nationalists and free-market ideologues thus become comfortable
bedfellows, even while maintaining a rhetorical mistrust of each other.
The question is can Trump maintain his coalition of realigned conservatives in time for the
next election cycle? While his low polling numbers and recent Democratic Party successes are
encouraging, they are not foolproof. The destabilizing of the narrative on American racism can
only occur through a refusal to accept the economization of the debate. The exclusion of racial
minorities from social welfare and the utter bureaucratic madness of the United States'
immigration policies have a moral dimension that has to take precedence over concerns regarding
job stealing and tax burdens, no matter how fallacious such arguments are to begin with.
Expecting the Democratic Party's leadership to play a leading role in this de-economization of
the debate is not impossible, but unlikely. Along with Republicans, Democrats have been
complicit in the framing social issues in relations to the economy, and the economy as merely
working in the service of private interests. Only recently has the leftwing of the Democratic
Party been organized and energized enough to counter this influence and return the party to its
New Deal orientation. Whatever its limitations, Roosevelt's "freedom from want" provides a
moral framework for economic policy. It is a reasonable and familiar starting point to break
with a neoliberal credo that economizes all morality within a capitalist framework.
While the left-wing of the Democratic Party has seen tremendous progress, it is still far
from overturning the organization's centrist leadership. In many ways, the passage of the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act is a painful reminder of how weak the American Left is once Republicans are
able to stay united. Like with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
is extremely unpopular. The trickledown theory of economics that the act is based on is rightly
seen a convenient canard for the rich. So much so, that it has been reduced to a cliché
joke among late night talk show hosts. With the exception of Fox News, the mainstream press has
frequently commented on the nearly universal consensus among economists that the Act will
result in a massive transfer of wealth to the upper class. Intellectually, there is no place
for defenders of the Act to hide. However, unlike opposition to repealing the Affordable Care
Act, opposition to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has been somewhat muted. While Americans still are
seething from the injustices of the 2007-2008 economic collapse, ten years on, they still have
not found a tangible political venue to express their frustrations. This means that regardless
of the outcome of the next election cycle the American Left is going to have to play a
persistent role creating a meaningful outlet for people's dismay, and fostering a political
discourse that recognizes that the Trump phenomenon is rooted in the neoliberal age that
preceded it. The dangerous tantrum-prone child of Trumpism will only be forced off the
playground when its neoliberal parents no longer own the park.
Yes he is a libral domestcally and nationalsit in forign policy -- that's why the term "national neoliberalism" looks appropriate
for definition of his policies
Notable quotes:
"... When one compares these 10 neoliberal commandments with Trump's policy agenda, it is clear that the president is far more neoliberal than his populist rhetoric would suggest. ..."
"... Trump is clearly and consistently positioning himself to cut taxes on the wealthy, deregulate big business and the financial industry, and pursue a wide range of privatization plans and public-private partnerships that will further weaken American unions. In short, he will govern like the neoliberals who came before him and against whom he campaigned so ardently. ..."
"... In fact, Trump's agenda aims to realize the foremost goals of neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, tax-cutting, anti-unionism, and the strict enforcement of property rights. For example, in his address to Congress , Trump promised "a big, big cut" for American companies and boasted about his administration's "historic effort to massively reduce job-crushing regulations." Ironically, Trump then asserted that he will reduce regulations by "creating a deregulation task force inside of every government agency," itself a contradictory expansion of the administrative state he had just sworn to shrink. ..."
"... Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Trump was correct to criticize the Obama administration, whose economic team was for a time staffed by neoliberal Democrats like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, for saving Wall Street after the financial collapse of 2008 while allowing Main Street to go under. Trump's victory is the direct result of the fact that American workers have not been well served by the country's policymaking elites. ..."
"... Yet the resistance that Trump's presidency has inspired across the country must also learn from the contradictions between his economic nationalism and neoliberalism. Those who reject his phony populism must be careful not to dismiss the concerns of Trump's voters, which has unfortunately been the response of too many who console themselves by deriding Trump's supporters as ignorant "deplorables" who deserve what they will get. ..."
"... The problem with the last paragraph is that it tries once again to put the election in purely economic terms. It wasn't. It was largely white cultural backlash. Much of his vote was driven by bans on immigration and a promise to maintain a white rural/suburban culture by bringing jobs back like coal mining or manufacturing jobs to Northwood Michigan. ..."
In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, President Trump promised to deliver on his populist campaign pledges to protect
Americans from globalization. "For too long," he bemoaned, "we've watched our middle class shrink as we've exported our jobs and
wealth to foreign countries." But now, he asserted, the time has come to "restart the engine of the American economy" and "bring
back millions of jobs." To achieve his goals, Trump proposed mixing massive tax-cuts and sweeping regulatory rollbacks with increased
spending on the military, infrastructure and border control.
This same messy mix of free market fundamentalism and hyper-nationalistic populism is presently taking shape in Trump's proposed
budget. But the apparent contradiction there isn't likely to slow down Trump's pro-market, pro-Wall Street, pro-wealth agenda. His
supporters may soon discover that his professions of care for those left behind by globalization are -- aside from some mostly symbolic
moves on trade -- empty.
Just look at what has already happened with the GOP's
proposed
replacement for Obamacare , which if enacted would bring increased pain and suffering to the anxious voters who put their trust
in Trump's populism in the first place. While these Americans might have thought their votes would win them protection from the instabilities
and austerities of market-led globalization, what they are getting is a neoliberal president in populist clothing.
Neoliberalism is a term most often used to critique market-fundamentalism rather than to define a particular policy agenda. Nonetheless,
it is most useful to understand neoliberalism's policy implications in terms of 10 norms that have defined its historical practice.
These norms begin with
trade liberalization and extend to
the encouragement of exports;
enticement of foreign investment;
reduction of inflation;
reduction of public spending;
privatization of public services;
deregulation of industry and finance;
reduction and flattening of taxes;
restriction of union organization;
and, finally, enforcement of property and land ownership.
Politicians don't necessarily have to profess faith in all of these norms to be considered neoliberal. Rather, they have to buy
into neoliberalism's general market-based logic and its attendant promise of opportunity.
When one compares these 10 neoliberal commandments with Trump's policy agenda, it is clear that the president is far more
neoliberal than his populist rhetoric would suggest. This conclusion will likely surprise his supporters, especially in light
of Trump's assaults on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite these attacks, however,
Trump is clearly and consistently positioning himself to cut taxes on the wealthy, deregulate big business and the financial
industry, and pursue a wide range of privatization plans and public-private partnerships that will further weaken American unions.
In short, he will govern like the neoliberals who came before him and against whom he campaigned so ardently.
In fact, Trump's agenda aims to realize the foremost goals of neoliberalism: privatization, deregulation, tax-cutting, anti-unionism,
and the strict enforcement of property rights. For example, in his
address
to Congress , Trump promised "a big, big cut" for American companies and boasted about his administration's "historic effort
to massively reduce job-crushing regulations." Ironically, Trump then asserted that he will reduce regulations by "creating a deregulation
task force inside of every government agency," itself a contradictory expansion of the administrative state he had just sworn to
shrink.
Since so much of Trump's agenda aligns with the long-standing ambitions of the Republican Party, it is likely that Trump will
be able to work with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to pass strictly neoliberal
legislation. Unlike his approach to trade, which congressional Republicans will probably scuttle, there is little reason to doubt
that we will see new legislation that privatizes public lands, overturns Dodd-Frank and other Wall Street regulations, cuts taxes
on business, makes organizing unions difficult, and allows big landowners to develop, mine, log, and shoot without restraint. For
all the animosity that may exist between the Trump administration and Republican congressmen, the two groups share a neoliberal vision
of the world.
From his new budget proposal we also know that Trump plans to continue the neoliberal assault on social service provisions --
such as the subsidies in the Affordable Care Act -- as well as public broadcasting, arts funding, scientific research and foreign
aid. As Trump vowed to Congress, he intends to implement a plan in which "Americans purchase their own coverage, through the use
of tax credits and expanded health savings accounts." Moreover, the money he does want to spend will be expended on military and
infrastructure projects that will almost certainly be organized around public-private partnerships that will fill the coffers of
Trump's business cronies.
What does Trump's neoliberal agenda mean for those whose discontent with globalization gave him the presidency? Nothing good.
The irony here is that the same neoliberalism that Trump plans to strengthen created the conditions that allowed him to enter the
White House. Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Trump was correct to criticize the Obama administration, whose economic team was
for a time staffed by neoliberal Democrats like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, for saving Wall Street after the financial
collapse of 2008 while allowing Main Street to go under. Trump's victory is the direct result of the fact that American workers have
not been well served by the country's policymaking elites.
Yet the resistance that Trump's presidency has inspired across the country must also learn from the contradictions between
his economic nationalism and neoliberalism. Those who reject his phony populism must be careful not to dismiss the concerns of Trump's
voters, which has unfortunately been the response of too many who console themselves by deriding Trump's supporters as ignorant "deplorables"
who deserve what they will get. Going forward, all of those who want to resist the President's agenda must engage those left
behind by neoliberalism and provide them with an economic vision that addresses their very real concerns. After all, Trump's administration
will probably strengthen the forces that have hurt these citizens, and they will need representatives who are genuinely concerned
with their well-being if our political turmoil is to be put to rest.
Don't let his trade policy fool you: Trump is a neoliberal
(2/2) I think the truth is that many of these people are too far gone mentally and emotionally to ever come around to the "correct"
way of thinking (which is to say, they have been so brainwashed by reacting to facile nonsense like "liberty" and "freedom" that
they will believe anything as long as the argument is couched in those terms, despite the fact that when they vote they are indeed
consigning themselves and the rest of the country to a world without those very freedoms for anybody who's not supposedly "one
of them").
A great man once famously said "Conscience do cost." And boy, does it. Liberals need to get over their conscience once and
for all, and push back against conservatives the way conservatives have been for decades, but that can only happen if we are honest
about who we are arguing with, and call them out, boldly and proudly, on their intellectual failings.
(1/2) It's clear the authors don't expose themselves to right-wing news outlets. Far too much is made in liberal media about the
"deplorables" and how they feel suffocated by the economy (or more realistically, by the natural ebb and flow of capitalism),
but they belie the fact that so much of modern conservatism is more about being anti-liberal than it is about any sort of pro-conservative
ideology. The "deplorable" moniker has been adapted and co-opted by conservatives and is now worn proudly as a badge of honor
(in the same way "fake news" began as a liberal criticism of specific, deliberately-misleading media targeted towards the right,
but is now a term used almost exclusively by the right to blanket-describe literally any media that they disagree with). Any criticisms
of Trump are immediately met with criticisms of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Democrats in general. Bring up the KKK's support
of Trump 3 months ago? They'll bring up how the KKK was invented by Democrats 150 years ago.
The authors are too nice/professional to say it, but liberals need to stop handling conservatives with kid gloves and start
calling them what they are: rubes. Because it's not enough that they vote against their own self-interest and the interests of
the country, they take it one further and are actively gleeful in depriving liberals of anything liberals might value. Conversely,
most liberals I know and read online don't have an active hatred of conservatives, instead they have compassion and want to educate
them, and I suppose the thought is that if only enough of these articles get written, they'll eventually come around.
Like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Trump was correct to criticize the Obama administration, whose economic team was for a
time staffed by neoliberal Democrats like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, for saving Wall Street after the financial
collapse of 2008 while allowing Main Street to go under.
And here you have it. This is how Trump got elected. The Bernibots are the unwitting agent that gave us Trump. And they
are planing on doubling down
The problem with the last paragraph is that it tries once again to put the election in purely economic terms. It wasn't. It
was largely white cultural backlash. Much of his vote was driven by bans on immigration and a promise to maintain a white rural/suburban
culture by bringing jobs back like coal mining or manufacturing jobs to Northwood Michigan.
It is quite possible that Trump can win again in these areas despite implementing neoliberal policies. And it isn't that Democrats
don't have an economic message, they do. But it is one that includes and supports a much wider cultural base and one that many
of that WWC that voted for Trump don't want to hear.
I-Myslef 3/22/2017 1:37 PM EDT
NO. The Rust Belt was handed over to him by Bernie and non stop assault on Clinton and trade ...
THERESA May's new soft Brexit blueprint would "kill" any future trade deal with the United
States, Donald Trump warns today.
Mounting an extraordinary attack on the PM's exit negotiation, the President also reveals
she has ignored his advice on how to toughen up the troubled talks.
Instead he believes Mrs May has gone "the opposite way", and he thinks the results have been
"very unfortunate".
His fiercest criticism came over the centrepiece of the PM's new Brexit plan -- which was
unveiled in full yesterday.
It would stick to a common rulebook with Brussels on goods and agricultural produce in
a bid to keep customs borders open with the EU.
But Mr Trump told The Sun: "If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the
European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.
Special counsel Robert
Mueller is again asking for a delay in the sentencing of former national security adviser
Michael Flynn, according to court documents filed Friday.
The special counsel and attorneys for Flynn are asking for two more months before scheduling
his sentencing, requesting to file another status report by Aug. 24.
"Due to the status of the Special Counsel's investigation, the parties do not believe that
this matter is ready to be scheduled for a sentencing hearing at this time," states a joint
status report filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
This is the third time that prosecutors have asked to delay sentencing for Flynn, who
pleaded
guilty in December to lying to FBI agents investigating Russian interference in the 2016
election.
The trend is definitely against EU. But Britain may be crushed, like Brazil and Argentina into accepting neoliberal world order
for longer.
Notable quotes:
"... Maybe Johnson the Brexiter can now launch an inner party coup and push Theresa May out. According to a YouGov poll she lost significant support within her conservative party. Besides the Brexit row she botched a snap election, lost her party's majority in parliament and seems to have no clear concept for anything. It would not be a loss for mankind to see her go. ..."
"... Boris the clown, who wins within his party on 'likability' and 'shares my political outlook', would then run the UK. A quite amusing thought. Johnson is a man of no principles. While he is currently pretending to hold a pro-Brexit position he would probably run the same plan that May seems to execute: Delay as long as possible, then panic the people into a re-vote, then stay within the EU. ..."
"... There is an excellent piece in the Boston Review on the EU- https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/j-w-mason-market-police ..."
"... Iy makes the point that "The European Union offers the fullest realization of the neoliberal political vision. Its incomplete integration -- with its confusing mix of powers -- is precisely the goal." ..."
"... It traces the neo-liberal project, designed to prevent democracy from controlling economic policy, back to von Mises and Hayek. Nothing is more mistaken for critics of imperialism than to buy the line that the EU represents internationalism in any sense. The fact that some racists oppose the EU-just as others support it as a 'white" bastion -- is no reason to give an institution which is profoundly and purposefully undemocratic the benefit of the doubt. ..."
"... It is a wondrous sight to see Western [neo]Liberal Democracy crumbling before our eyes. Have a look at the very founders and protectors of "freedom" corrupt to the very marrow of their bones. ..."
"... Anything bad that can happen to the UK is well-deserved. The home, the womb of Russophobia, lies and illegal wars, as well as the hub of spying against American citizens, is exposed as thoroughly bankrupt politically. ..."
"... EU is bound to collapse but Britain might be tempted to wait it out, and maybe it is the game in London: not to be the first. The most dynamic destructive work in progress is the Euro that benefit to none of its 18 members (the euro-zones) but Geramny and Nederland. Italy has understood it but is using the refugees crisis to enlarge the contestation to non-euro zone countries (Visegrad group and more). ..."
"... As Nato is the real and only cement in this enlarged un-united Europe, in an epoch of accelerating change (collapse maybe) the famous Wait and see of the Brits has just muted in a slow fox-trot. ..."
"... But the puffed up Brits do not even see this danger and would blithely fall into the arms of the mafiosi from across the pond. ..."
"... Brexit is rebellion against the US imposed world order. London money has gone along and profited from the US imposed order, but the ordinary Brits may not have. They may not know where they are going, but they do know where they do not want to be. ..."
"... ditto... status of colony... isn't that what the globalists, corporations, neo liberals and etc want? get rid of any national identity as it gets in the way of corporations having the freedom to rape and pillage as needed.. ..."
"... Trump has reversed some 70 years of US strategy to gain nothing. It is quite remarkable. Strategic vandalism is a good description. ..."
"... The thing about UK and the EU is the UK is basically the US 51st state and the US is a defacto commonwealth nation. The colonization of Europe by the US was never meant to encompass the UK and the City. As they are basically one and the same. ..."
"... EU could not possibly have been a US/CIA idea as it actually works. Yes it is undemocratic, usurps national aspirations, perverts local economies, coddles oligarchs, and all that. But that does not mean it is a US idea. ..."
"... Single union political aspirations have been around for centuries and in many countries. Dare I suggest that it is actually based on the Soviet Union of peoples and most likely a Leninist or Trotskyist plot!! :)))) ..."
"... What do the City of London, the Vatican and Washington DC have in common? Actually, Jerusalem shares many of the same traits. Bonus points for the most creative euphemism for "usurious bank." ..."
"... From my perspective, Nation-States have not been the loci of power for some time (if they ever really were). The US, with its awesome military might and (former) industrial capabilities has served as the enforcement arm of that usurious supra-national cabal throughout "the American Century." ..."
"... Obtainimg strong mandate Cameron went to Brussels to supposedly negotiate better deal with EU ESPECIALLY for security while in fact he went there trying to bully the shape future EU integration especially in political realm and even more in realm of banking Union and integration and coordination of banking rules, laws and unified controlling authorities, via threatening Brexit which would be a deadly blow to EU propaganda glue that holds together this melting pot of divided as never before nations and never since medieval times united national elites integrated in EU ruling bureaucracy. ..."
"... First it was devastating impact of further EU integration on UK banking as London has become legal under U.K. law illegal in EU, money laundering capital of the world and criminal income is huge part of the revenue of the City , US is second. ..."
"... At the passage of Brexit I believed the purpose to be to allow the City of London (the bankers) unlimited financial freedom, perhaps especially in their entering into agreements with the Chinese. This could not be the case under the original EU rules. It will be interesting to see how this works out. ..."
"... The reality of the brexit which the Tory government is determined to raiload through has been designed by elites to better oppress the hoi polloi and to sell it to the masses it has been marketed as a means of restoring 'white power'. ..."
"... That is really saying something because the current version of the UK is one of the sickest, greed is good and devil take the hindmost societies I have ever experienced -- up there with contemporary israel and the US, 1980's South Africa and by the sound of it (didn't experience it firsthand like the other examples, all down to not existing at the time) 1940's Germany. ..."
"... Brexit is nether the problem or the solution, it was just another distraction to keep the mass occupied, whilst they assist stripped the uk and a large part of the world! ..."
"... Every brexiteer I've asked why they voted for out, begins by saying "For once they had to listen to us" and that's usually followed by "there's too many people here" or "it's the E.Europeans". (My response to the europhiles is that you knew the EU was finished a dozen years ago, when all the Big Issue sellers turned into Romanian women.) UK cities are thick with destitute E.Europeans. ..."
...Hours before Boris Johnson quit his position, Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned from Prime Minister May's cabinet.
On July 6 the British government held a cabinet meeting at Chequers, the private seat of the prime minister. Following the meeting
it published
a paper (pdf) that took a weird position towards exiting the European Union. If it would be followed, Britain would practically
end up with staying in the EU, accepting nearly all its regulations and court decisions, but without any say over what the EU decides.
The paper was clearly written by the 'Remain' side. The two top Brexiters in May's cabinet felt cheated and resigned. More are likely
to follow.
The majority of the British people who voted to leave the EU must feel duped.
My hunch is that Prime Minister Theresa May was tasked with 'running out the clock' in negotiations with the EU. Then, shortly
before the March 2019 date of a 'hard Brexit' would arrive without any agreement with the EU, the powers that be would launch a panic
campaign to push the population into a new vote. That vote would end with a victory for the 'Remain' side. The UK would continue
to be a member of the European Union.
No matter how the Brexit vote will go, the powers that are will not allow Britain to exit the European Union.
Is that claim still justified?
Maybe Johnson the Brexiter can now launch an inner party coup and push Theresa May out. According to a YouGov poll she
lost significant
support within her conservative party. Besides the Brexit row she botched a snap election, lost her party's majority in parliament
and seems to have no clear concept for anything. It would not be a loss for mankind to see her go.
Boris the clown, who wins within his party on 'likability' and 'shares my political outlook', would then run the UK. A quite
amusing thought. Johnson is a man of no principles. While he is currently pretending to hold a pro-Brexit position he would probably
run the same plan that May seems to execute: Delay as long as possible, then panic the people into a re-vote, then stay within the
EU.
Then again - Boris may do the unexpected.
How do the British people feel about this?
Posted by b on July 9, 2018 at 11:43 AM |
Permalink
Did you notice how quickly th E U sided with the U K over Salisbury ? That was the deal.
Remain in EU and we're back you!
Then again could have been we'l create a false flag you back us and we'll stay , a suttle nuonce.
The likelihood is that the blairite faction in the Parliamentary Labour Party-which has no real political differences with the
Tories and is fanatically pro EU, as all neo-liberals are- will prop up the May government. Or a Tory government headed by another
Remainer, with Blairites in the Cabinet.
This will prevent the General Election which Tories of all parties fear.
Iy makes the point that "The European Union offers the fullest realization of the neoliberal political vision. Its incomplete
integration -- with its confusing mix of powers -- is precisely the goal."
It traces the neo-liberal project, designed to prevent democracy from controlling economic policy, back to von Mises and
Hayek. Nothing is more mistaken for critics of imperialism than to buy the line that the EU represents internationalism in any
sense. The fact that some racists oppose the EU-just as others support it as a 'white" bastion -- is no reason to give an institution
which is profoundly and purposefully undemocratic the benefit of the doubt.
@Jeff - #1 - You are correct. There will not be another referendum.
I would add that there is some chance, however small, that on March 29th the British government will tell the EU that they
just have no way to meet the requirements of Article 50 and would the EU please allow them to continue as a member of the EU and
forget about all the shenanigans of the past 2 years. The EU has said previously that they will accept such a result and allow
the UK to continue as a member. The Brexiteers will have a total meltdown, and May will most likely be thrown out of office, but
most businesses and many individuals will be quite happy for this whole thing to just go away.
It is a wondrous sight to see Western [neo]Liberal Democracy crumbling before our eyes. Have a look at the very founders
and protectors of "freedom" corrupt to the very marrow of their bones.
In the US Trump, in the UK the Torys the democracies are now openly imperial and openly corrupt. Rule of law - ask the Skripals.
Brexit, Russia, Skripals, Russia, junkies and poisons Russians - minority government - ministers resigning right and left deadlines
looming no solutions in sight.
Western civilization is based on the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment and all its ideas of "democracy" are failing. Democracy
is not a religion, it is not the end of history, it is not sacred and immutable - checks and balances have failed utterly. This
sweetly written little essay says it all.
Look for countries to unilaterally bail from the EU with little or no advance notice. They will simply abrogate and that will
trigger an avalanche of others joining in. There are various good economic reasons why they would do that, but I think the groundswell
of populism fueled by anger over the open borders cataclysm will be the prime driver.
Anything bad that can happen to the UK is well-deserved. The home, the womb of Russophobia, lies and illegal wars, as well
as the hub of spying against American citizens, is exposed as thoroughly bankrupt politically.
The current path to chaos
is well-trod. Now, we can expect national attention is on the team in Russia in the semi-finals, while the government crumbles
and tumbles. But afterward, especially if Kane fails to bring the Cup home? Oh, the chaos. Of course, it will all be Putin and
Russia's fault.
UK. Despicable. How long it has taken for folks to realize Theresa May always has been a stalking horse. Highly Likely the
UK will stew in its own piss. Put that in their White Hall dossiers, and stamp it "Kremlin Plot".
Britain won't be staying in the EU and nor will the EU be accepting May's fantasy ideas for a future relationship giving the UK
free trade on everything it needs. There's a remote possibility that a new UK government could begin working on re-joining the
EU (Article 49), but there are plenty in Europe who would not let the UK re-join, at least not in the near future.
Friday the
13th is coming soon, scary stuff ?
The "Don't take No for an answer" is rather misleading. Made to vote again ..only after changes to the Treaty. France's vote
against the EU Constitution was accepted and when the Dutch also rejected it, it didn't happen.
EU is bound to collapse but Britain might be tempted to wait it out, and maybe it is the game in London: not to be the first.
The most dynamic destructive work in progress is the Euro that benefit to none of its 18 members (the euro-zones) but Geramny
and Nederland. Italy has understood it but is using the refugees crisis to enlarge the contestation to non-euro zone countries
(Visegrad group and more).
Now we have this Nato meeting coming and the abomination of Donald meeting Vlad that scares the whole neo-lberals, borgists,
russian haters, warmongers.
As Nato is the real and only cement in this enlarged un-united Europe, in an epoch of accelerating change (collapse maybe)
the famous Wait and see of the Brits has just muted in a slow fox-trot.
Brits, especially the Leave voters, have no real idea what the consequences of leaving the EU are, nor do they care that much.
What is uppermost in their minds is they do not want is to be in a union with "losers". Every single country on the Continent
is a loser and thus the object of contempt. The only country in Europe that is not a loser (meaning they have never lost a war)
is the United Kingdom of Roast Beef and God Save The Queen.
This British loser-phobia also explains the island nation's guttural hatred of Russia, which has bailed out Europe, and so
by definition the Brits as well, twice, thereby taking away some of the British luster. (OK the last time around they got a bit
of help from their old colonies, the Yanks, but its all the same. Yanks and Brits are the same stock.) As far as EU goes the Brits
can leave, no problem. Except that what the Continent would then be faced with was an American armed camp a few miles off shore,
not an appealing prospect to say the least. But the puffed up Brits do not even see this danger and would blithely fall into
the arms of the mafiosi from across the pond.
Boris Johnson's resignation letter. Well written.
Makes the same argument over the Checkers paper that I made above. If Johnson gets 48 back benchers on his side he could launch
a vote on no-confidence against May and possibly become PM. The Conservatives in Parliament seem quite upset over all of this.
Brexit is rebellion against the US imposed world order. London money has gone along and profited from the US imposed
order, but the ordinary Brits may not have. They may not know where they are going, but they do know where they do not want to
be.
@20 Not sure who qualifies as an 'ordinary Brit' these days. They come in all shapes and colours. I think the ones who moved to
Spain are fairly happy with the EU status quo.
Dominic Raab is the new UK Brexit point-man. The previous guy, Davies, just resigned. But Raab's appointment, I think, points
to what Brexit has been about all along -- namely, labour market reform beyond the rest of Europe, and to do this the UK must
be free of the European Human Rights council and other protections it provides for workers in the member states.
@23 psychohistorian... ditto... status of colony... isn't that what the globalists, corporations, neo liberals and etc want?
get rid of any national identity as it gets in the way of corporations having the freedom to rape and pillage as needed..
it was interesting reading near the end of bjs comments "Over the last few months they have shown how many friends this country
has around the world, as 28 governments expelled Russian spies in an unprecedented protest at the attempted assassination of the
Skripals." Guilty first - we will prove it later... maybe he really ought to consider rule from Brussels or where ever, if he
can't fathom the concept of innocent until proven guilty...
The French populace rejected the EU Constitution in 2005 during the Chirac years, and you are correct that after some changes
it was accepted under the Sarkozy government.But that happened because it was the Assembly (the parliament, i.e., the political
class) that voted on it, not the people. Can't have those deplorable citizens deciding important matters like that, now can we?
@51 pft... in so far as the cia work for the financial complex - yeah, probably.. how to create a currency - the eu - that no
one has any real control over, to compete with the us$ and yen... makes sense on that level..
Western civilization is based on the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment and all its ideas ...
When we discuss ALL ideas of the Enlightenment, we must remember this:
Wikipedia: "Enlightened absolutism is the theme of an essay by Frederick the Great, who ruled Prussia from 1740 to 1786, defending
this system of government.[1]
When the prominent French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire fell out of favor in France, he eagerly accepted Frederick's invitation
to live at his palace. He believed that an enlightened monarchy was the only real way for society to advance.
Frederick the Great was an enthusiast of French ideas. Frederick explained: "My principal occupation is to combat ignorance
and prejudice ..."
In relatively short time, the List of enlightened despots included almost all absolute monarchs in Europe.
The awful truth for the Leave campaign is that the governing establishment of the entire Western world views Brexit as strategic
vandalism. Whether fair or not, Brexiteers must answer this reproach. A few such as Lord Owen grasp the scale of the problem.
Most seemed blithely unaware until Mr Obama blew into town last week.
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has come out in support of Brexit, saying the UK would be "better
off" outside of the European Union and lamenting the consequences of migration in the continent.
The billionaire, who secured the backing of Republican voters on a staunchly anti-immigration platform, said that his support
for the UK leaving the EU was a personal belief and not a "recommendation".
"I think the migration has been a horrible thing for Europe," Trump told Fox News late on Thursday. "A lot of that was pushed
by the EU. I would say that they're better off without it, personally, but I'm not making that as a recommendation. Just my
feeling."
Donald Trump accuses Angela Merkel of making 'catastrophic mistake' on refugees. President-elect tells The Times and Bild that
EU has become 'a vehicle for Germany'.
US President-elect Donald Trump said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had
made a "catastrophic mistake" with a policy that let a wave of more than one million migrants into her country.
In a joint interview with The Times and the German newspaper Bild, Trump also said the European Union had become "a vehicle
for Germany" and predicted that more EU member states would vote to leave the bloc as Britain did last June.
"I think she made one very catastrophic mistake, and that was taking all of these illegals," Trump said of Merkel, who in
August 2015 decided to keep Germany's borders open for refugees, mostly Muslims, fleeing war zones in the Middle East.
Trump has reversed some 70 years of US strategy to gain nothing. It is quite remarkable. Strategic vandalism is a good
description.
Even when the 'light' (read truth about Brexit) is revealed, many here choose to ignore it out of sheer ignorance. For a good
description of the MOA comment section, one should consult Plato's Allegory of the Cave. And the 'left' blames external elements
for its inaptitude and demise when many it has only itself to blame.
The thing about UK and the EU is the UK is basically the US 51st state and the US is a defacto commonwealth nation. The
colonization of Europe by the US was never meant to encompass the UK and the City. As they are basically one and the same.
Its presence in the EU was never really a problem though and was useful in terms of providing a guiding hand, so long as it remained
free of the Eurozone. So I am not really sure its a change in strategy. Just another fork in the road.
It remains to be seen how it all works out. Perhaps the UK Brexit is meant to send a message to the other EU states as to the
consequences of leaving. One benefit to the US neoliberals might be that UK scraps or at least scales back its NHS due to the
economic consequences of a hard Brexit. The 0.1% will be fine at the end of the day and they are the only group that matters .
The rest are just pawns on the board.
As for Germany. Immigration in the EU was all about divide and rule and leaving fewer Euros for social programs. All part of
the neoliberal blueprint. Divide and rule is an age old tactic perfected by the British to rule the colonies. The EU and Germany
being controlled by the Anglo-American ruling elite , and basically occipied by US controlled NATO opened the doors. Reversing
this immigration can provide a plausible reason for more terrorism in Europe to empower the EU to become more of a security-police
state like US and UK.
On a side note its interesting the head of the ECB and BOE are both former Goldman Sachs employees.
Another related link suggesting the EU also serves a purpose of isolating Russia economically.
EU could not possibly have been a US/CIA idea as it actually works. Yes it is undemocratic, usurps national aspirations,
perverts local economies, coddles oligarchs, and all that. But that does not mean it is a US idea.
Zero Hedge is polishing turds now it seems.
Single union political aspirations have been around for centuries and in many countries. Dare I suggest that it is actually
based on the Soviet Union of peoples and most likely a Leninist or Trotskyist plot!! :))))
"The Marshall Plan also established the creation of the Organization for European economic cooperation. It did this in a
number of ways:
promote co-operation between participating countries and their national production programmes for the reconstruction
of Europe,
develop intra-European trade by reducing tariffs and other barriers to the expansion of trade,
study the feasibility of creating a customs union or free trade area,
study multi-lateralisation of payments, and
Achieve conditions for better utilisation of labour.
It was arguably through this persistent interlinking of many European countries economic affairs that to not cooperate would
simply be too risky.
This provided the basis for European cooperation and this was favoured by many people because cooperation was seen as a
fundamental building block in the establishment of long term European Peace."
"In relatively short time, the List of enlightened despots included almost all absolute monarchs in Europe."
You are right, and that included Catherine the Great for whom Samuel Bentham worked for some years. His brother Jeremy spent
some time with him there and was a great admirer of Catherine and Potemkin. He was a key figure in the development of liberal
ideology and political economy.
'The Enlightenment' is an historical concept which obscures more than it explains. To suggest that representative democracy's
origins lie in this nebulous thing is completely misleading -- the truth is that democracy is as old as community. If anything
'The Enlightenment' movements are the beginning of the current system whereby the trappings of popular government are hung on
the reality of a kleptocrats' oligarchy.
Just in time for Emperor Trump's arrival in Britain! I do not understand Great Britain's "democracy," (the very concept
of an aristocratic House of Lords Peerage makes my head explode... and what's this about the Monarch having the authority to appoint
a Prime Minister if he/she doesn't like the one selected?). But doesn't the party with the majority get to anoint the Prime Minister?
Wouldn't that be Labour right now if Missy May is shown the door?
Furthermore, the assertion that the UK will stay in the EU is entirely plausible. I heard, early in the days after the vote, that
the govt had not expected it to go the way it did. Plans were made for a show of Brexit but that 'the idea is that everything
stays the same' , i.e., no change. Sadly for the UK, the EU will not allow that to happen. In all probability, another vote
will indeed be called. Otherwise, it's going to be a disaster for an already divided UK for many, many years to come!
The main problem with Brexit is that it is so complex that neither the officials who were set the task of drafting it knew
little more than the Ministers themselves! NOBODY knew what the fuck to do! And they still don't!
There is every chance a Vote of No Confidence is going to be called on May's government and she will finally fall, as she must
as she is the most inept PM there has probably ever been!
What do the City of London, the Vatican and Washington DC have in common? Actually, Jerusalem shares many of the same traits.
Bonus points for the most creative euphemism for "usurious bank."
Are terms such as "The Five Eyes" and "The AZ Empire"
'trumped' by all this nationalistic furor?
From my perspective, Nation-States have not been the loci of power for some time (if they ever really were). The US, with
its awesome military might and (former) industrial capabilities has served as the enforcement arm of that usurious supra-national
cabal throughout "the American Century."
But really, does anyone here really believe that a New York City conman or the latest British "mophead" is more powerful than
the dynastic power of the Rothschilds, Warburgs or Morgans... or even the nouveau riche like the Rockefellers or Carnegies?
These are dynasties so wealthy and powerful that they don't even appear on Forbes lists of "The Richest" and no one dare mention
their names when plotting the next global conflagration.
Since David Cameron used Jimmy Cliff's " You Can Get It
If You Really Want " for his campaign,
Afshin Rattansi's interview
with that truly revolutionary artist is not so off topic. And it's well worth 12 minutes to enter a worldview we Westerners rarely
live.
I and I say "Ja Mon!"
OK. I can't post Jimmy without " The Harder They Come,
" especially as that seems to be the root of most of the comments here.
@33 -- "...and Western Australia were separate British colonies that all began as penal settlement."
Not entirely correct. Western Australia started as a capitalist investment venture (c. 1828) but suffered chronic labor shortages
as slavery was closed down (c. 1833). The colony then resorted to convict imports for a time. Much of the myth about 'criminal'
can be re-framed as political prisoners such as the Welsh Chartists (see Chartism in Wales).
One can only be confused if one ignores public and secret reasons while Cameron threatened Brexit vote already in 2015 and went
through it in 2016. Officially it was about antiterrorism, security and hence controlling immigration flagship of Tory political
campaign that brought them overwhelming electoral win as well as some noises that EU rules and laws stifle economic development
and the British lose more in EU payments than they gain.
Obtainimg strong mandate Cameron went to Brussels to supposedly
negotiate better deal with EU ESPECIALLY for security while in fact he went there trying to bully the shape future EU integration
especially in political realm and even more in realm of banking Union and integration and coordination of banking rules, laws
and unified controlling authorities, via threatening Brexit which would be a deadly blow to EU propaganda glue that holds together
this melting pot of divided as never before nations and never since medieval times united national elites integrated in EU ruling
bureaucracy.
What Cameron was scared of as far as direction of future of EU?
First it was devastating impact of further EU integration on UK banking as London has become legal under U.K. law illegal
in EU, money laundering capital of the world and criminal income is huge part of the revenue of the City , US is second.
And second point is future of British monarchy which further integration of EU into superstate would require to be abandoned
in UK as elsewhere as states were to loose all even symbolic sovereignty and turn into regions and provinces as in Roman Empire
. Needles to say that UK still powerful landed aristocracy want nothing of that sort.
Hence Cameron went to Brussels make special deal for UK and was essentially, with some meaningless cosmetic changes, rebuked
into binary decision in EU or out of it no special deal and hence he escalated with calling Brexit vote as a negotiating tool
only to increase political pressure to rig elections toward remain if deal reached . In fact as latest scandal revealed results
of exit polls were released to stock market betting hedge funds just minutes before polls were closed concluding guess what, that
remain campaign won while electoral data in hours showed Brexiters wining simply because to the last moment before closing polls
they expected EU to cave in, they did not so they continued pressure by closing openly pro Brexit win.
The pressure continues now while Cameron had to pay political price as he openly advocated staying in EU under phony deal even
Tory did not buy, and hence this seeming chaos now fooling people that there is other way but hard Brexit to keep monarchy sovereignty
and profits from global money laundering or surrender and humiliation degradation U.K. into EU colony as BJ just said.
Of course which way it goes ordinary Brits will pay but also big crack will widen in EU as national movements will have impact
of shattering dreams of quit ascending to EU superstate.
At the passage of Brexit I believed the purpose to be to allow the City of London (the bankers) unlimited financial freedom,
perhaps especially in their entering into agreements with the Chinese. This could not be the case under the original EU rules.
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
The Chinese, as they are intended to be the regional governor of Asia under the evolving global governance are key to the entire
tyrannical plan. The AGW hoax, paid for by Western oligarchs, is the public relations for the UN's Agenda 21, currently being
enforced at the local level in many parts of the US.
The Chinese oligarchs are so delighted with its tyrannical land-use provisions that they are actually calling their projects
"China's Agenda 21". You may search for it.
@ 62: Thanks for the Pilger article, a good read. There are many today, who would return us all to those days.
Herman J Kweeblefezer , Jul 10, 2018 1:05:09 AM |
72
The reality of the brexit which the Tory government is determined to raiload through has been designed by elites to better
oppress the hoi polloi and to sell it to the masses it has been marketed as a means of restoring 'white power'. Bevin
& co can whine on about the injustices of the eu for as long as their theoretical view of the world sustains them, but the brexit
which will be delivered is based on 'pragmatic realism' developed by a really nasty gang of avaricious lying c**tfaces and will
create a society far more unjust, divided and impoverished than the one that currently exists.
That is really saying something
because the current version of the UK is one of the sickest, greed is good and devil take the hindmost societies I have ever experienced
-- up there with contemporary israel and the US, 1980's South Africa and by the sound of it (didn't experience it firsthand like
the other examples, all down to not existing at the time) 1940's Germany.
Jezza was great in the house last night but he didn't
call for an immediate general election which would be pretty much SOP for any opposition facing as tattered a government (Seven
cabinet 'resignations') as bereft of ideas as the Maybot machine.
The reason he didn't - couldn't in fact, is that the UK left is as divided and dug into their positions as that tory bunch
of bastards. Far too many opposition politicians insist that a 'deal' on brexit comes first ahead of sorting out poverty and homelessness,
woeful education outcomes (unless you believe wildly juked stats) and the horror show that has been created by three decades of
relentless attacks on the health service.
We see it here from the brexiters so convinced of the rightness of their cause they ignore the institutionalised racism that
will certainly follow a tory brexit. Or the remoaners who also ignore the unsavory aspects of eu policy to try and render the
labour left impotent. Those latter types simply don't give a damn about anything which flows from this debate and division other
than killing momentum, they consider even losing the next 5 elections to tories an agreeable sacrifice for ridding the party of
Corbyn and co.
Corbyn has recognized the destructive divisiveness of Brexit and tries to ignore it because he holds with fixing the mess so
many people are in as being much more important than theoretical arguments which will change nothing for the better regardless
of impassioned exhortations by ninnies on both sides of the argument.
The thing which really pisses me off about the lefty brexiters, is that they behave as if it is a now or never situation, when
it is anything but. There is nothing to prevent a more united Labour Party who have got their mandate by actually delivering a
better life for people rather than irrelevant concepts, returning to sorting out the UK's position in the EU at a later date,
ideally at a time when the EU's intransigent support for corporate welfare has run bang smack into a leftist UK Labour government's
determination to restore public ownership of natural monopolies (rail, water, power, mail delivery etc).
The lefty brexiters claim the lefty remainers won't allow it, while the lefty remainers claim it is the lefty brexiters clogging
the works. In fact it is both gangs of selfish egotistical assholes.
NotBob @ 35.
The EU Constitution never happened. The Lisbon Treaty came along a couple of years later and this time round the Irish people
voted against it. It got amended and the Irish people accepted it. The French and Dutch (and every other EU) country chose not
to "ask the people" and left the decision to the peoples' chosen represtentatives.
The Irish Constitution has a bit in it making
it necessary to ask the people before any changes can be made to that Constitution, so every time the EU adds some bits to the
EU Treaty that require the Irish to change their own Constitution there's trouble, as those 3 million or so Irish people have
the power to scupper anything and everything for the other 500 million EU citizens. Holding a national referendum to make decisions
affecting the entire Union doesn't seem to be either fair or democratic. A single EU-wide referendum could be held when there's
a major change to the Treaties.
Political correctness is a social disease very similar to syphilis - it fucks with the brain. You really should take precautions
if socializing in those circles. Precautionary measures are available at all chemists and most public toilets.
I click on MoA now and see a pic of Boris the clown hanging from a rope. If the Brits were smart, they would connect that rope
to a weather balloon and allow Boris to ascend to the stratosphere and cruise the jet stream.
The EU is first and foremost a massive attack on democracy. At the same time it attempts to establish technocracy as the mode
of government of the future. But right only racists and overly idealistic assholes oppose the EU...
"Democracy" only being possible locally? Numbers I posted on another thread:
Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation - population of 3 Billion+
EU Members - population of 500 million.
United States - population of 326 million
GDP of United States - 18.57 trillion USD
GDP of European Union - 17.1 trillion USD
GDP China, India, Russia combined (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) -
- close to 15 trillion
You think EU countries have got a competitive chance if on their own? Or - democracy in Switzerland enables them to decide
on their relations with the outside world? Like not being part of the "single market" - they are -including free movement of people
- yes you can live and work in Switzerland if you are a EU citizen.
But right only racists and overly idealistic assholes oppose the EU
Brexit is nether the problem or the solution, it was just another distraction to keep the mass occupied, whilst they assist
stripped the uk and a large part of the world! The people we are scared to mention are the true people killing and oppressing
us. I thank Daniel@66 for naming them ! Rothchild family ect ect I would add the Rothermere family and Murdoch ! Politics are
debated, but history is made on the streets. We need to regain our sense of moral outrage (where did that go ?) there are 70 million
displaced people in the world ! It could be. You or I next !
Peter AU 1 @ 83: I agree with ADKC and IMO. There were convicts transported to the Australian colonies whose crimes can be considered
political crimes. The Tolpuddle Martyrs who came to the Sydney colony in the 1830s are one example: they were transported for
the crime of demanding an extension of voting rights to all men, among other demands. Such convicts were a small minority though.
As for Germany. Immigration in the EU was all about divide and rule and leaving fewer Euros for social programs.
"The demonization of Muslim immigration to the EU ...." - fixed it for you.
The stuff about leaving fewer euros for social programmes is propaganda. Social programmes are designed to force people to
work - they are pegged below the minimum wage.
In the case of Germany costs for refugees were accounted to the 0.7 percent of GDP Germany is supposed to spend for development
aid by the UN, thereby effectively developing Germany instead.
Alan @ 88
I am in total agreement with you on your comment regarding Boris Johnson ! His childish buffoonery, is a commen system / tactic
of a psychopath . It hides a callous disregard for human life , wins gullible friends which the psychopath manipulates to exploit
there power and influence! They are very good at scheming there own self interested plan. But (and here's the crunch ) are totally
useless at for seeing the consequences of there actions . And no regard for the victim of there actions!!! Do we want that in
charge of the nuclear button ?
There is nothing wrong/inconsistent with the idea of an interconnected world of sovereign (independent) states. The idea that
a treaty or a trade agreement means that a state is no-longer independent is ridiculous. As ridiculous as believing that an individual
who purchases a pack of polo mints is no longer free because of the need of a local shop and a manufacturer.
You are basically pushing the idea that there should be no nation states, no borders and all trade free and therefore no need
for treaties. From this comes no regulation, a poisoned environment, uncontrolled and rapacious capitalism, no rights for people,
no benefits, no protection, just work til' you die and polished off sharpish if you are no longer productive.
I don't object to an EU as a grouping of independent states acting collectively. I do object to an EU that erodes and undermines
the nation state, that seeks to remove state leaders and interfere in state elections/policies. The EU that we have is the latter
and there is no practical way to reform it to the former.
@ B. You have too high an opinion of the competence of the main political figures in the UK Governing Party.
Boris Johnson has
never been a serious contender for PM. He's good at giving a rousing speech to the Party faithful but that's it. The blue rinses
enjoy the titillation of his infidelities but they don't want someone so amoral coming anywhere near their daughters, or representing
their principles.
You knew Theresa May had no judgment the first day of her premiership, when she made BoJo her Foreign Secretary. A selection
that could kindly be described as risible. He indicated no suitability for the role before his appointment nor has since. Quite
the opposite. It was at that decision you knew all was hopeless. Brexit was going to be hopeless. Everything she was going to
be involved in was hopeless.
And so it has proved.
The vox pop that I encounter ..... the Remainers are reconciled to Brexit and just want to get on with it. The Brexiteers are
sick to death with hearing about it but not seeing anything done. Everyone had made their minds up before the election in 2015.
The Referendum campaign was a few weeks of premium entertainment watching the most reviled political figures in the land trying
to tear each others' throats out.
Every brexiteer I've asked why they voted for out, begins by saying "For once they had to listen to us" and that's usually
followed by "there's too many people here" or "it's the E.Europeans". (My response to the europhiles is that you knew the EU was
finished a dozen years ago, when all the Big Issue sellers turned into Romanian women.) UK cities are thick with destitute E.Europeans.
There's a huge disconnect between Parliament (+ media) and the people. A further example of this is the official narrative
on the Salisbury poisonings. Ask people in the street and they say "yeah, it was Vlad with the doorknob" and then they crease
up laughing. The Govt has no credibility with its "only plausible explanation".
My prediction, since the day BoJo was appointed minister for the exterior, is that the situation is so catastrophic the EU
will have to lead us by the hand through the process of brexit. The EU's priority will be the stability of the Euro. They won't
want us beggared on their doorstep and as they export 15% of their stuff to us they'll want to keep on doing that. We'll have
to have what we're given and be grateful.
The political situation in the UK is so far beyond surreal that a man dragging a piano with a dead horse on it would appear
mundane.
- It doesn't matter who the prime minister is. The UK has already adopted A LOT OF EU regulations/laws and that will make it nearly
impossible to perform a "Hard Brexit". The UK still exports A LOT OF stuff to the Eurozone and then it simply has to follow EU
regulations, no matter what the opinion of the government is. In that regard, the current EU regulation simply provides a good
framework, even for the UK. No matter what one Mrs. May or Mr. Johnson.
- As time goes by the UK can change parts of the EU
regulations to what the UK thinks those regulations should be.
- And do I think that Mrs. May and her ministers have drawn that same conclusion.
The much anticipated resignation letter penned by the former UK Foreign Minister Boris
Johnson has been released, and in as expected, he does not mince his words in unleashing a
brutal attack on Thersa May, warning that "we have postponed crucial decisions -- including the
preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November -- with the result
that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in
the EU system, but with no UK control over that system ."
He then adds that while "Brexit should be about opportunity and hope" and "a chance to do
things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of
the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy", he warns that the " dream is dying,
suffocated by needless self-doubt. "
He then compares May's proposal to a submission even before it has been received by the EU,
noting that "what is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how
we see the end state for the UK -- before the other side has made its counter-offer . It is as
though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them."
And his punchline: the UK is headed for the status of a colony:
In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony -- and many will struggle to
see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement
Explaining his decision to resing, he then says that "we must have collective
responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly
concluded that I must go."
It remains to be seen if his passionate defense of Brexit will stir enough MPs to indicate
they are willing to back a vote of no confidence, and overthrow Theresa May in what would be
effectively a coup, resulting in new elections and chaos for the Brexit process going
forward.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg adds, the fact that Boris Johnson, or those around him, made sure
his resignation statement came out in time for the evening news - before it was formally issued
in the traditional way by May's office, hints at his continued interest in leading the
Conservative Party.
His full letter is below (highlights ours):
Dear Theresa,
It is more than two years since the British people voted to leave the European Union on an
unambiguous and categorical promise that if they did so they would be taking back control of
their democracy.
They were told that they would be able to manage their own immigration policy, repatriate
the sums of UK cash currently spent by the EU, and, above all, that they would be able to
pass laws independently and in the interests of the people of this country.
Brexit should be about opportunity and hope. It should be a chance to do things
differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the
UK as an open, outward-looking global economy.
That dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.
We have postponed crucial decisions -- including the preparations for no deal, as I argued
in my letter to you of last November -- with the result that we appear to be heading for a
semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK
control over that system.
It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves accepting that we are not
actually going to be able to make our own laws. Indeed we seem to have gone backwards since
the last Chequers meeting in February, when I described my frustrations, as Mayor of London,
in trying to protect cyclists from juggernauts. We had wanted to lower the cabin windows to
improve visibility; and even though such designs were already on the market, and even though
there had been a horrific spate of deaths, mainly of female cyclists, we were told that we
had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.
So at the previous Chequers session we thrashed out an elaborate procedure for divergence
from EU rules. But even that now seems to have been taken off the table, and there is in fact
no easy UK right of initiative. Yet if Brexit is to mean anything, it must surely give
Ministers and Parliament the chance to do things differently to protect the public. If a
country cannot pass a law to save the lives of female cyclists -- when that proposal is
supported at every level of UK Government -- then I don't see how that country can truly be
called independent.
Conversely, the British Government has spent decades arguing against this or that EU
directive, on the grounds that it was too burdensome or ill-thought out. We are now in the
ludicrous position of asserting that we must accept huge amounts of precisely such EU law,
without changing an iota, because it is essential for our economic health -- and when we no
longer have any ability to influence these laws as they are made.
In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony -- and many will struggle to
see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement.
It is also clear that by surrendering control over our rulebook for goods and agrifoods
(and much else besides) we will make it much more difficult to do free trade deals. And then
there is the further impediment of having to argue for an impractical and undeliverable
customs arrangement unlike any other in existence.
What is even more disturbing is that this is our opening bid. This is already how we see
the end state for the UK -- before the other side has made its counter-offer. It is as though
we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them. Indeed, I
was concerned, looking at Friday's document, that there might be further concessions on
immigration, or that we might end up effectively paying for access to the single market.
On Friday I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail, and
congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. As I said then,
the Government now has a song to sing. The trouble is that I have practised the words over
the weekend and find that they stick in the throat.
We must have collective responsibility. Since I cannot in all conscience champion these
proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go.
I am proud to have served as Foreign Secretary in your Government. As I step down, I would
like first to thank the patient officers of the Metropolitan Police who have looked after me
and my family, at times in demanding circumstances.
I am proud too of the extraordinary men and women of our diplomatic service. Over the last
few months they have shown how many friends this country has around the world, as 28
governments expelled Russian spies in an unprecedented protest at the attempted assassination
of the Skripals. They have organised a highly successful Commonwealth summit and secured
record international support for this Government's campaign for 12 years of quality education
for every girl, and much more besides. As I leave office, the FCO now has the largest and by
far the most effective diplomatic network of any country in Europe -- a continent which we
will never leave.
"Immigration" has become the dominant issue dividing Europe and the US, yet the most important matter which is driving millions
to emigrate is overlooked is wars.
In this paper we will discuss the reasons behind the massification of immigration, focusing on several issues, namely (1) imperial
wars (2) multi-national corporate expansion (3) the decline of the anti-war movements in the US and Western Europe (4) the weakness
of the trade union and solidarity movements.
We will proceed by identifying the major countries affected by US and EU wars leading to massive immigration, and then turn to
the western powers forcing refugees to 'follow' the flows of profits.
Imperial Wars and Mass Immigration
The US invasions and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq uprooted several million people, destroying their lives, families, livelihood,
housing and communities and undermining there security.
As a result, most victims faced the choice of resistance or flight. Millions chose to flee to the West since the NATO countries
would not bomb their residence in the US or Europe.
Others who fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East or Latin America were persecuted, or resided in countries too poor
to offer them employment or opportunities for a livelihood.
Some Afghans fled to Pakistan or the Middle East but discovered that these regions were also subject to armed attacks from the
West.
Iraqis were devastated by the western sanctions, invasion and occupation and fled to Europe and to a lesser degree the US , the
Gulf states and Iran.
Libya prior to the US-EU invasion was a 'receiver' country accepting and employing millions of Africans, providing them with citizenship
and a decent livelihood. After the US-EU air and sea attack and arming and financing of terrorist gangs, hundreds of thousands of
Sub-Sahara immigrants were forced to flee to Europe. Most crossed the Mediterranean Sea to the west via Italy, Spain, and headed
toward the affluent European countries which had savaged their lives in Libya.
The US-EU financed and armed client terrorist armies which assault the Syrian government and forced millions of Syrians to flee
across the border to Lebanon,Turkey and beyond to Europe, causing the so-called 'immigration crises' and the rise of rightwing anti-immigrant
parties. This led to divisions within the established social democratic and conservative parties,as sectors of the working class
turned anti-immigrant.
Europe is reaping the consequences of its alliance with US militarized imperialism whereby the US uproots millions of people and
the EU spends billions of euros to cover the cost of immigrants fleeing the western wars.
Most of the immigrants' welfare payments fall far short of the losses incurred in their homeland. Their jobs homes, schools, and
civic associations in the EU and US are far less valuable and accommodating then what they possessed in their original communities.
Economic Imperialism and Immigration: Latin America
US wars, military intervention and economic exploitation has forced millions of Latin Americans to immigrate to the US.. Nicaragua,
El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras engaged in popular struggle for socio-economic justice and political democracy between 1960 –
2000. On the verge of victory over the landed oligarchs and multinational corporations, Washington blocked popular insurgents by
spending billions of dollars, arming, training, advising the military and paramilitary forces. Land reform was aborted; trade unionists
were forced into exile and thousands of peasants fled the marauding terror campaigns.
The US-backed oligarchic regimes forced millions of displaced and uprooted pr unemployed and landless workers to flee to the US.
US supported coups and dictators resulted in 50,000 in Nicaragua, 80,000 in El Salvador and 200,000 in Guatemala. President Obama
and Hillary Clinton supported a military coup in Honduras which overthrew Liberal President Zelaya -- which led to the killing and
wounding of thousands of peasant activists and human rights workers, and the return of death squads, resulting in a new wave of immigrants
to the US.
The US promoted free trade agreement (NAFTA) drove hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers into bankruptcy and into low wage
maquiladoras; others were recruited by drug cartels; but the largest group was forced to immigrate across the Rio Grande. The US
'Plan Colombia' launched by President Clinton established seven US military bases in Colombia and provided 1 billion dollars in military
aid between 2001 – 2010. Plan Colombia doubled the size of the military.
The US backed President Alvaro Uribe, resulting in the assassination of over 200,000 peasants, trade union activists and human
rights workers by Uribe directed narco-death squad.Over two million farmers fled the countryside and immigrated to the cities or
across the border.
US business secured hundreds of thousands of Latin American low wages, agricultural and factory workers almost all without health
insurance or benefits – though they paid taxes.
Immigration doubled profits, undermined collective bargains and lowered US wages. Unscrupulous US 'entrepreneurs' recruited immigrants
into drugs, prostitution, the arms trade and money laundering.
Politicians exploited the immigration issue for political gain – blaming the immigrants for the decline of working class living
standards distracting attention from the real source : wars, invasions, death squads and economic pillage.
Conclusion
Having destroyed the lives of working people overseas and overthrown progressive leaders like Libyan President Gadhafi and Honduran
President Zelaya, millions were forced to become immigrants.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Colombia, Mexico witnessed the flight of millions of immigrants -- all victims of US and EU wars. Washington
and Brussels blamed the victims and accused the immigrants of illegality and criminal conduct.
The West debates expulsion, arrest and jail instead of reparations for crimes against humanity and violations of international
law.
To restrain immigration the first step is to end imperial wars, withdraw troops,and to cease financing paramilitary and client
terrorists.
ORDER IT NOW
Secondly, the West should establish a long term multi-billion-dollar fund for reconstruction and recovery of the economies, markets
and infrastructure they bombed The demise of the peace movement allowed the US and EU to launch and prolong serial wars which led
to massive immigration – the so-called refugee crises and the flight to Europe. There is a direct connection between the conversion
of the liberal and social democrats to war -parties and the forced flight of immigrants to the EU.
The decline of the trade unions and worse, their loss of militancy has led to the loss of solidarity with people living in the
midst of imperial wars. Many workers in the imperialist countries have directed their ire to those 'below' – the immigrants – rather
than to the imperialists who directed the wars which created the immigration problem. Immigration, war , the demise of the peace
and workers movements, and left parties has led to the rise of the militarists, and neo-liberals who have taken power throughout
the West. Their anti-immigrant politics, however, has provoked new contradictions within regimes,between business elites and among
popular movements in the EU and the US. The elite and popular struggles can go in at least two directions – toward fascism or radical
social democracy.
Teh author stated: "The story of the Trump collusion plot started with an intelligence
fabrication scheme hatched by US and British Government officials and their agents, including
journalists in Washington, New York and London. This started with the Golden Showers
dossier ; the sequel can be followed here . "
Over weeks and months of last year, Adam Waldman (lead image, left), a Washington lobbyist
with ties to the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, tried to lure Julian Assange (second
from left) into making incriminating admissions to benefit the Democrats' campaign alleging
Russian collusion in Clinton's defeat by President Donald Trump. Assange tried to use Waldman
for a deal with the US Department of Justice, exchanging an offer to withhold disclosure of
classified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents and trade other secrets, some Russian,
in exchange for a grant of immunity from US prosecution.
At the same time, Oleg Deripaska (third from left), the oligarch in control of the Russian
aluminium industry, paid Waldman to offer US prosecutors information about the Trump election
campaign manager Paul Manafort and others connected to the Trump campaign, including Russians,
in exchange for a US Government promise not to impose sanctions on Deripaska. Last week Luke
Harding (right), a reporter for the Guardian, a London newspaper, sold the story of Waldman's
meetings with Assange and Deripaska as a conspiracy to advance a scheme by President Vladimir
Putin to control the US Government.
Four plotters; more than four schemes; money in Waldman's and Harding's pockets; not a shred
of truth.
The story of the Trump collusion plot started with an intelligence fabrication scheme
hatched by US and British Government officials and their agents, including journalists in
Washington, New York and London. This started with the Golden Showers
dossier ; the sequel can be followed here .
The story of Deripaska's engagement of Waldman as his lobbyist with Hillary Clinton at the
State Department and other officials in the Obama Administration has been running for nine
years. Deripaska's payments to Waldman have averaged half a million dollars a year; that's a
total to date of about $5 million. The failure of every one of Waldman's operations on
Deripaska's behalf can be read at this click .
A semi-annual report of Waldman's lobbying activities for Deripaska is required to be
disclosed by the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA); the record is accessible at the
FARA unit of the Justice
Department in Washington. For example, details of which US officials Waldman met and what he
wanted them to do for Deripaska were accessible in the FARA filings for 2011
here .
Since then the filings can be followed at six-monthly intervals through December 15, 2017.
In last December's filing Waldman claimed to the Justice Department that, among the purposes of
Deripaska's engagement, he was being paid for selecting animal welfare charities and promotion
of a Russian vaccine for ebola.
Waldman claims on his company website that "Endeavor acts as a core member of its Client's
[Deripaska] holding company executive team, and is the sole representative of its Client's
myriad interests before the U.S. government." Today the FARA dossier on Waldman's Russian
clients shows this:
Source:
https://efile.fara.gov/ When Waldman registered himself as lobbying for the Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov, he was doing Deripaska's bidding; Lavrov usually
does .
This means that Waldman's registration as Deripaska's agent in Washington remains active and
he continues to be paid, even though the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
ordered all US individuals and institutions to cease doing business with Deripaska and his
companies from April 6.
The US Treasury did not sanction Deripaska for supporting animal welfare and an ebola
vaccine. The reasons for Deripaska's sanction, according to the Treasury, were that "having
acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the
Government of the Russian Federation, as well as pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the
energy sector of the Russian Federation economy. Deripaska has said that he does not separate
himself from the Russian state. He has also acknowledged possessing a Russian diplomatic
passport, and claims to have represented the Russian government in other countries. Deripaska
has been investigated for money laundering, and has been accused of threatening the lives of
business rivals, illegally wiretapping a government official, and taking part in extortion and
racketeering. There are also allegations that Deripaska bribed a government official, ordered
the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group." For more on the
US action against Deripaska, read
this .
Waldman has sidestepped the ban on taking money from Deripaska by changing his registration
from Endeavor Group -- a lobbying company covered by the OFAC sanction – to "Endeavor Law
Firm PC". That's a one-man company whose only employee is Waldman; it isn't mentioned by the
Endeavor Group's website. As a law firm acting for Deripaska, Waldman isn't banned by the new
sanction.
In February of this year the Murdoch media reported that on Deripaska's instructions,
Waldman was attempting to arrange appearances before the US Senate Intelligence Committee for
Deripaska and for Christopher Steele, one of the authors of the Golden Showers dossier. Both of
them wanted the Democratic minority on the committee to issue the invitations and secure
advance undertakings in writing from the Committee, including immunity from
US prosecution .
Waldman's telephone texts were exchanged with Senator Mark Warner, a former governor of
Virginia; Democratic Party runner for president; and at present vice-chairman of the
Intelligence Committee. The messages were leaked by Republicans in Congress to the Murdoch
media, and then confirmed by Warner himself.
Deripaska, Waldman told Warner, was trying to negotiate his testimony at the Intelligence
Committee against Manafort and the Trump presidential campaign in exchange for protection from
US Government sanctions. Exactly what Deripaska told Waldman he was ready to tell the Senate
Committee about Russian Government involvement with Manafort and the Trump election campaign
has not been disclosed because Waldman failed to get any concession for Deripaska from either
the Senators or from the Justice Department officials whom he was lobbying at the same
time.
Interpreting the series, a Fox News reporter claimed: "Over the course of four months
between February and May 2017, Warner and Waldman also exchanged dozens of [telephone] texts
about possible testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee from Deripaska, Waldman's primary
Russian billionaire client .In the dozens of text messages between February 2017 and May 2017,
Waldman also talked to Warner about getting Deripaska to cooperate with the intelligence
committee. There have been reports that Deripaska, who has sued Manafort over a failed business
deal, has information to share about the former Trump aide. In May 2017, the Senate and House
intelligence committees decided not to give Deripaska legal immunity in exchange for testimony
to the panels. The text messages between Warner and Waldman appeared to stop that month." Trump
responded by tweeting: "All tied into Crooked Hillary."
For the full story of Deripaska's relationship with Manafort, read this .
Assange was first mentioned by Waldman in a message to Warner on February 15, 2017. By then,
according to Ecuadorian Embassy meeting logs exposed only now, Waldman had met Assange
three times in January, and was planning to meet him again in March. Waldman told Warner that
for this he was acting "pro bono"; that's to say, Assange wasn't paying Waldman's bill. To
protect himself, Waldman also claimed that if US officials, including Warner, didn't appreciate
the value of Waldman's negotiations with Assange, he would stop them. In retrospect, Waldman
continued meeting Assange for another nine months. Waldman's trips to London and his expenses
there for at least some of those occasions were charged to other clients of Waldman's.
The significance of Waldman's messages about Assange were ignored in the US at the time of
their first release because US reporters were focused on Waldman's Russian connexion, and the
potential for damage the reporters believed this might do to Trump. Likewise, Waldman's reports
of what Assange told him have been ignored in the London media until the Guardian revealed the
Ecuadorian government reports on Assange and the visit logs. The Guardian's purpose, like the
earlier Murdoch media reporting, was to find a Kremlin connection.
In retrospect, the Waldman-Warner texts reveal that it was Assange's intention to use
Waldman to make a connection, not to the Kremlin, but to the US Government, trading Wikileaks
for Assange's freedom. Assange was requesting, so Waldman told Warner, safe passage to
Washington and release from threats of US prosecution in return for information regarding
"future leaks" and a promise not "to do something catastrophic for the dems, Obama, CIA and
national security". Waldman wrote that to Warner on February 16, 2017, adding: "I hope someone
will consider getting him to the US to ameliorate the damage".
On March 7, 2017, Wikileaks released publicly what Assange had already described to Waldman.
This was the start of publication of the CIA's Vault-7 and Vault-8 files. The files, claimed
Wikileaks, were "the largest ever publication of confidential documents by the agency." They
revealed the extent, cost and penetration, inside the US as well as globally, of CIA
cyber-warfare operations of many kinds, including hacker attacks which the CIA created as false
flags, making them appear to originate from Russian sources.
"Since 2001," Wikileaks announced , "the CIA has gained political and budgetary
preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not
just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force --
its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency's hacking division freed it from having to
disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in
order to draw on the NSA's hacking capacities. By the end of 2016, the CIA's hacking division,
which formally falls under the agency's Center for Cyber Intelligence (CCI), had over 5000
registered users and had produced more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses, and
other 'weaponized' malware."
Assange was quoted in the Wikileaks release as saying: "There is an extreme proliferation
risk in the development of cyber 'weapons'. Comparisons can be drawn between the uncontrolled
proliferation of such 'weapons', which results from the inability to contain them combined with
their high market value, and the global arms trade. But the significance of 'Year Zero' goes
well beyond the choice between cyberwar and cyberpeace. The disclosure is also exceptional from
a political, legal and forensic perspective."
This was what Assange had told Waldman, days earlier, was the "something catastrophic" he
was planning. But Assange told Waldman more. He was willing to deal if the Justice Department
would agree to a quid pro quo. Waldman's messages to Warner confirm this; they also reveal that
Waldman got no swift response from Justice Department officials, so he asked Warner for his
help. Assange then started his slow release of the Vault-7 archive, one week at a time:
Assange's last publication in the CIA Vault series was on November 9. Waldman's last
meetings with Assange were in the same month.
What exactly were the terms Assange asked Waldman to trade with the Justice Department and
Warner's Intelligence Committee? Was he telling Waldman that he would stop the release of more
CIA Vault-7 documents in return for immunity from prosecution? Did he reveal to Waldman enough
information for the CIA and Justice Department to identify the source of the CIA documents?
Last week, on June 18, the US Attorney's office in Manhattan
announced that it had indicted a former CIA software engineer,
Joshua Schulte (right), as the source of the Wikileaks releases. Read the 14-page indictment
here .
Schulte, 29, had worked in the CIA's Engineering Development Group, which designed the hacking
tools used by its Center for Cyber Intelligence. In late 2016, he left the Agency and moved to
New York to work for Bloomberg. The prosecutors have charged thirteen counts against Schulte;
nine of them relate to the Wikileaks releases, and carry a total of 90 years' imprisonment on
conviction. Schulte has pleaded not guilty.
Bloomberg has
reported Schulte's indictment and court appearance, noting that after he left the CIA in
November 2016 he "worked briefly for Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News,
leaving the company in March 2017." Bloomberg has not been charged with gaining unlawful
advantage from Schulte's expertise. US media reporting the Schulte charges claim his
disclosures were one of the worst losses of classified documents in the CIA's history. Earlier
document releases through Wikileaks by Edward Snowden in 2013 came for the most part from the
National Security Agency (NSA), for which Snowden had been a contractor. He has been charged by
US prosecutors with espionage, and been granted asylum in Russia.
Wikileaks isn't named in the Schulte indictment; instead, it is referred to as
"Organization-1 which posted the Classified Information online". Schulte, the court papers
imply, obtained the classified information during 2016, in the months leading up to his
departure from the CIA in November of that year. Two months later Assange had the files,
because he told Waldman about them during their January meetings.
By the time in March, when Assange started publishing from Vault-7, investigators from the
CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already identified Schulte as their
suspect. In last week's court papers it is revealed that Schulte was first interrogated by the
FBI within days of the first Wikileaks publication.
How did the FBI find its way so swiftly to Schulte? Had Waldman's contacts with the Justice
Department in February, relaying what Assange had told him, helped pinpoint Schulte as the
Wikileaks source?
Assange's current barrister in London is Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers . She and a press spokesman,
Elina Gibbons-Plowright, were asked to clarify the meetings between Waldman and Assange which
had taken place in 2017. In addition to multiple telephone-calls to their offices, the
questions were recorded on Robinson's answer-phone and emailed. She and Gibbons-Plowright were
initially reluctant to respond.
Julian Assange and Jennifer Robinson during London court proceedings in 2011. Assange
took refuge at the Ecuador Embassy in June 2012; he was granted diplomatic asylum by the
Ecuador Government in August 2012, and Ecuadorian citizenship in December 2017. US threats to
have the UK Government arrest him and extradite him have been renewed by the Schulte indictment
of last week.
Then on Friday Robinson replied by email: "Mr Assange is cut off from phone and internet,
and is only permitted legal visits, so the only way I can put your questions to him is to
physically go into the embassy. I have no scheduled visits until next week. I trust you
understand the difficulties of his current circumstances and the impact of this in terms of
ability to provide comment and will acknowledge this in however you report this story."
I replied: "The Waldman-Assange meetings commenced, with your knowledge and counsel for your
client, more than a year ago. The SMS texts were published four months ago. Consequently, the
questions are for you to answer. You will know that Mr Waldman purports to be the one-man
employee of the Endeavor Law Firm PC, as well as the principal of Endeavor Group, a lobbying
firm. You knew that he and Mr Assange discussed matters of law and proposals for the US
Department of Justice."
The questions for Robinson were: 1. After meeting with Mr Assange in mid-February 2017, Mr
Waldman sent an SMS to Senator Mark Warner saying Mr Assange wanted "safe passage from the USG
to discuss the past and future leaks". Please explain what "safe passage" meant then. 2. In
February Mr Assange told Mr Waldman that he was planning "something catastrophic for the dems,
Obama, CIA and national security" – was that the Vault 7 disclosure? 3. Mr Waldman also
quoted Mr Assange as saying he wanted to go to the US "to ameliorate the damage" – what
did Mr Assange mean by "ameliorate the damage"? 4. Mr Waldman says Mr Assange agreed to
"serious and important concessions" for Mr Waldman to take directly to the US Department of
Justice and discuss with those officials. What were these concessions? 5. Within hours or days
of the first Wikileaks publication of the Vault 7 files, the FBI went to interview Joshua
Schulte. Did Mr Assange give Mr Waldman information or promise information about Mr Schulte to
help the FBI and CIA to identify him as a source for the Vault 7 files?
Robinson has not answered.
In Washington Waldman hides from email and telephone contact. His website contact email
address is secured behind a password barrier set up in Germany. His office telephone number
202-715-0966 provides an extension number 1006 for Waldman, but no message can be left on the
answer-phone. Waldman himself does not pick up during office hours. Neither is there an office
receptionist. The telephone directory number, like the email address, is a blind.
Questions were sent to Waldman's personal email address, which he has used to communicate
with me in the past. Waldman was asked to "clarify what were the client relationships and
purposes you held out to Mr Assange which the latter believed to be in his interest to pursue
as often with you as he appears to have done?" Waldman refuses to answer.
Harding, a Guardian correspondent in Moscow between 2007 and 2011, reported last week that
"US intelligence agencies concluded with 'high confidence' last year, in an unclassified
intelligence assessment, that the Kremlin shared hacked emails with WikiLeaks that undermined
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign as part of its effort to sway the 2016 election in
favour of Donald Trump." For identification of the faults of the US intelligence agency report,
read
this .
For months after the election in November 2016, Harding has suggested by innuendo, the
visits Waldman made to Assange from January to November 2017 – ten reportedly counted
from secret logs
obtained from the Ecuadorian Government -- indicate that Waldman, Assange and Deripaska
were scheming to advance Russian interests in the defeat of the Democratic Party campaign
against Trump.
"It is not clear why Waldman went to the WikiLeaks founder or whether the meetings had any
connection to the Russian billionaire, who is now subject to US sanctions", Harding reported,
then drawing his own conclusion: "But the disclosure is likely to raise further questions about
the extent and nature of Assange's alleged ties to Russia." This was Harding's cue for the
answer he has already decided – Waldman was Assange's back-channel to the Kremlin. In
November 2017, Harding had published a book with this conclusion in the
title, "Collusion – How Russia [sic] Helped [sic] Trump [sic] Win the White House". The
Latin qualifier has been added to identify the innuendoes for which Harding has reported no
conclusive evidence.
The headline claims the Ecuadorian surveillance reports on Assange count nine visits by
Waldman. In Harding's text, he reports three Waldman visits to Assange in January 2017; two in
March; three in April; and two in November. If accurately counted, they add up to ten. Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/ The Waldman telephone texts to Senator Warner which have been
published start in February 2017, and refer to contact with Assange which Waldman had had
already. In March, when Waldman met Assange twice, he told Warner he had "convinced him to make
serious and important concessions and am discussing those w/DOJ [with US Department of
Justice]."
The web and print displays of the story don't provide evidence for the reported connection
between Deripaska and Assange on which Harding sets store. Assange refused to reply to the
questions Harding had sent him; Waldman and Deripaska likewise.
Harding believes Assange met Waldman as a go-between through Deripaska to Moscow. It did not
occur to Harding that Assange was negotiating with Waldman for a deal with Washington.
Got my Economics Degree in 1971 – when they still taught the stuff. Maybe I
shouldn't, but I still go nuts when educated writers like yourself distort the origins of
Fascism. It was a three legged stool consisting of government, industry and labor. Taking
care of the working class was a key element. Also, being socialist, it was not market
oriented. Neoliberalism is exactly the opposite with it's 'lump of labor' and unregulated
markets. It arose in defense of the crushing fist of western capitalism and, had it not
been taken over by dictators, might have done the world a lot of good. Other than that you
wrote a nice piece. Keep it up
"... Trump's vision would seem to include protection of core industries, existing demographics and cultural institutions combined with an end of "democratization," which will result in an acceptance of foreign autocratic or non-conforming regimes as long as they do not pose military or economic threats. ..."
"... Sounds good, I countered but there is a space between genius and idiocy and that would be called insanity, best illustrated by impulsive, irrational behavior coupled with acute hypersensitivity over perceived personal insults and a demonstrated inability to comprehend either generally accepted facts or basic norms of personal and group behavior. ..."
"... Trump's basic objections were that Washington is subsidizing the defense of a wealthy Europe and thereby maintaining unnecessarily a relationship that perpetuates a state of no-war no-peace between Russia and the West. ..."
"... And the neoconservatives and globalists are striking back hard to make sure that détente stays in a bottle hidden somewhere on a shelf in the White House cloak room. Always adept at the creation of new front groups, the neocons have now launched something called the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), with the goal of "uni[ting] the center-left and the center-right." Its founders include the redoubtable Max Boot, The Washington Post's Anne Appelbaum, the inevitable Bill Kristol, and Richard Hurwitz of Council on Foreign Relations. RDI's website predictably calls for "fresh thinking" and envisions "the best minds from different countries com[ing] together for both broad and discrete projects in the service of liberty and democracy in the West and beyond." It argues that "Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces. Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right and left." ..."
"... There are also the internal contradictions in what Trump appears to be doing, suggesting that a brighter future might not be on the horizon even if giving the Europeans a possibly deserved bloody nose over their refusal to spend money defending themselves provides some satisfaction. In the last week alone in Syria the White House has quietly renewed funding for the so-called White Helmets, a terrorist front group. It has also warned that it will take action against the Syrian government for any violation of a "de-escalation zone" in the country's southwest that has been under the control of Washington. That means that the U.S., which is in Syria illegally, is warning that country's legitimate government that it should not attempt to re-establish control over a region that was until recently ruled by terrorists. ..."
"... In Syria there have been two pointless cruise missile attacks and a trap set up to kill Russian mercenaries. Washington's stated intention is to destabilize and replace President Bashar al-Assad while continuing the occupation of the Syrian oil fields. And in Afghanistan there are now more troops on the ground than there were on inauguration day together with no plan to bring them home. It is reported that the Pentagon has a twenty-year plan to finish the job but no one actually believes it will work. ..."
"... The United States is constructing new drone bases in Africa and Asia. It also has a new military base in Israel which will serve as a tripwire for automatic American involvement if Israel goes to war and has given the green light to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. ..."
"... And then there are the petty insults that do not behoove a great power. A friend recently attended the Russian National Day celebration at the embassy in Washington. He reported that the U.S. government completely boycotted the event, together with its allies in Western Europe and the anglosphere, resulting in sparse attendance. It is the kind of slight that causes attitudes to shift when the time comes for serious negotiating. It is unnecessary and it is precisely the sort of thing that Russian President Vladimir Putin is referring to when he asks that his country be treated with "respect." The White House could have sent a delegation to attend the national day. Trump could have arranged it with a phone call, but he didn't. ..."
"... Winston Churchill once reportedly said that to "Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war." As one of the twentieth century's leading warmongers, he may not have actually meant it, but in principle he was right. So let us hope for the best coming out of Singapore and also for the G-7 or what replaces it in the future. But don't be confused or diverted by presidential grandstanding. Watch what else is going on outside the limelight and, at least for the present, it is not pretty. ..."
"... Phil nails it as usual. Like him, I'm not very optimistic. Whether overall one approves or disapproves of Trump (and count me as a disapprover), it is obvious that most of the government is operating outside his control and this includes many of his own appointees. The continuities of US policy are far deeper than the apparent discontinuities. ..."
I had coffee with a foreign friend a week ago. The subject of Donald Trump inevitably came
up and my friend said that he was torn between describing Trump as a genius or as an idiot, but
was inclined to lean towards genius. He explained that Trump was willy-nilly establishing a new
world order that will succeed the institutionally exhausted post-World War 2 financial and
political arrangements that more-or-less established U.S. hegemony over the "free world." The
Bretton Woods agreement and the founding of the United Nations institutionalized the spread of
liberal democracy and free trade, creating a new, post war international order under the firm
control of the United States with the American dollar as the benchmark currency. Trump is now
rejecting what has become an increasingly dominant global world order in favor of returning to
a nineteenth century style nationalism that has become popular as countries struggle to retain
their cultural and political identifies. Trump's vision would seem to include protection of
core industries, existing demographics and cultural institutions combined with an end of
"democratization," which will result in an acceptance of foreign autocratic or non-conforming
regimes as long as they do not pose military or economic threats.
Sounds good, I countered but there is a space between genius and idiocy and that would be
called insanity, best illustrated by impulsive, irrational behavior coupled with acute
hypersensitivity over perceived personal insults and a demonstrated inability to comprehend
either generally accepted facts or basic norms of personal and group behavior.
Inevitably, I have other friends who follow foreign policy closely that have various
interpretations of the Trump phenomenon. One sees the respectful meeting with Kim Jong-un of
North Korea as a bit of brilliant statesmanship, potentially breaking a sixty-five year logjam
and possibly opening the door to further discussions that might well avert a nuclear war. And
the week also brought a Trump welcome suggestion that Russia should be asked to rejoin the G-7
group of major industrialized democracies, which also has to be seen as a positive step. There
has also been talk of a Russia-U.S. summit similar to that with North Korea to iron out
differences, an initiative that was first suggested by Trump and then agreed to by Russian
President Vladimir Putin. There will inevitably be powerful resistance to such an arrangement
coming primarily from the U.S. media and from Congress, but Donald Trump seems to fancy the
prospect and it just might take place.
One good friend even puts a positive spin on Trump's insulting behavior towards America's
traditional allies at the recent G-7 meeting in Canada. She observes that Trump's basic
objections were that Washington is subsidizing the defense of a wealthy Europe and thereby
maintaining unnecessarily a relationship that perpetuates a state of no-war no-peace between
Russia and the West. And the military costs exacerbate some genuine serious trade imbalances
that damage the U.S. economy. If Trumpism prevails, G-7 will become a forum for discussions of
trade and economic relations and will become less a club of nations aligned military against
Russia and, eventually, China. As she put it, changing its constituency would be a triumph of
"mercantilism" over "imperialism." The now pointless NATO alliance might well find itself
without much support if the members actually have to fully fund it proportionate to their GDPs
and could easily fade away, which would be a blessing for everyone.
My objection to nearly all the arguments being made in favor or opposed to what occurred in
Singapore last week is that the summit is being seen out of context, as is the outreach to
Russia at G-7. Those who are in some cases violently opposed to the outcome of the talks with
North Korea are, to be sure, sufferers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, where they hate
anything he does and spin their responses to cast him in the most negative terms possible. Some
others who choose to see daylight in spite of the essential emptiness of the "agreement" are
perhaps being overly optimistic while likewise ignoring what else is going on.
And the neoconservatives and globalists are striking back hard to make sure that
détente stays in a bottle hidden somewhere on a shelf in the White House cloak room.
Always adept at the creation of new front groups, the neocons have now launched something
called the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), with the goal of "uni[ting] the center-left and
the center-right." Its founders include the redoubtable Max Boot, The Washington Post's Anne
Appelbaum, the inevitable Bill Kristol, and Richard Hurwitz of Council on Foreign Relations.
RDI's website predictably calls for "fresh thinking" and envisions "the best minds from
different countries com[ing] together for both broad and discrete projects in the service of
liberty and democracy in the West and beyond." It argues that "Liberal democracy is in crisis
around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces.
Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia
and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right
and left."
There are also the internal contradictions in what Trump appears to be doing, suggesting
that a brighter future might not be on the horizon even if giving the Europeans a possibly
deserved bloody nose over their refusal to spend money defending themselves provides some
satisfaction. In the last week alone in Syria the White House has quietly renewed funding for
the so-called White Helmets, a terrorist front group. It has also warned that it will take
action against the Syrian government for any violation of a "de-escalation zone" in the
country's southwest that has been under the control of Washington. That means that the U.S.,
which is in Syria illegally, is warning that country's legitimate government that it should not
attempt to re-establish control over a region that was until recently ruled by
terrorists.
And then there is also Donald Trump's recent renunciation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), eliminating a successful program that was preventing nuclear proliferation on
the part of Iran and replacing it with nothing whatsoever apart from war as a possible way of
dealing with the potential problem. Indeed, Trump has been prepared to use military force on
impulse, even when there is no clear casus belli. In Syria there have been two pointless
cruise missile attacks and a trap set up to kill Russian mercenaries. Washington's stated
intention is to destabilize and replace President Bashar al-Assad while continuing the
occupation of the Syrian oil fields. And in Afghanistan there are now more troops on the ground
than there were on inauguration day together with no plan to bring them home. It is reported
that the Pentagon has a twenty-year plan to finish the job but no one actually believes it will
work.
The United States is constructing new drone bases in Africa and Asia. It also has a new
military base in Israel which will serve as a tripwire for automatic American involvement if
Israel goes to war and has given the green light to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians.
In Latin America, Washington has backed off from détente with Cuba and has been
periodically threatening some kind of intervention in Venezuela. In Europe, it is engaged in
aggressive war games on the Russian borders, most recently in Norway and Poland. The
Administration has ordered increased involvement in Somalia and has special ops units operating
– and dying – worldwide. Overall, it is hardly a return to the Garden of Eden.
And then there are the petty insults that do not behoove a great power. A friend recently
attended the Russian National Day celebration at the embassy in Washington. He reported that
the U.S. government completely boycotted the event, together with its allies in Western Europe
and the anglosphere, resulting in sparse attendance. It is the kind of slight that causes
attitudes to shift when the time comes for serious negotiating. It is unnecessary and it is
precisely the sort of thing that Russian President Vladimir Putin is referring to when he asks
that his country be treated with "respect." The White House could have sent a delegation to
attend the national day. Trump could have arranged it with a phone call, but he didn't.
Winston Churchill once reportedly said that to "Jaw, jaw, jaw is better than war, war, war."
As one of the twentieth century's leading warmongers, he may not have actually meant it, but in
principle he was right. So let us hope for the best coming out of Singapore and also for the
G-7 or what replaces it in the future. But don't be confused or diverted by presidential
grandstanding. Watch what else is going on outside the limelight and, at least for the present,
it is not pretty.
The Establishment (which includes both major political parties) is furious that Trump may be
defusing the (very real) nuclear threat from Kim for the price of a few plane tickets and
dinners, while the Establishment was gung-ho for throwing away a few trillion dollars,
hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, and our nation's once-good reputation in the process
of neutralizing Saddam Hussein, who didn't even have any nukes to begin with. Yep, they're
sore all right.
Phil nails it as usual. Like him, I'm not very optimistic. Whether overall one approves or
disapproves of Trump (and count me as a disapprover), it is obvious that most of the
government is operating outside his control and this includes many of his own appointees. The
continuities of US policy are far deeper than the apparent discontinuities.
As we await info on Kim-Trump, I think it wise to examine what Trump's outbursts at and
beyond the G6+1 are based upon--his understanding of Economic Nationalism. Fortunately,
we have
an excellent, recent, Valdai Club paper addressing the topic that's not too technical or
lengthy. The author references two important papers by Lavrov and Putin that ought to be read
afterwards. Lavrov's
is the elder and ought to be first. Putin's Belt & Road International Forum
Address, 2017 provides an excellent example of the methods outlined in the first paper.
I
could certainly add more, but IMO these provide an excellent basis for comprehending Trump's
motivations as he's clearly reacting to the Russian and Chinese initiatives. Furthermore, one
can discover why Russia now holds the EU at arms length while
Putin's "I told
you so" reminder had to sting just a bit.
Then to recap it all, I highly suggest reading Pepe Escobar's excellent article I linked to yesterday higher up in the thread.
From comments: "Putin, if people would listen, proposes a model that I find acceptable. Respect for
national sovereignty and government institutions. In this model, yes, we would tolerate
authoritarian governments as long as they respect the sovereignty and stability of other
countries." But the problem with this statement is the dynamics of American Imperialism, which would not tolerate any
government which is not a vassal.
Notable quotes:
"... Idealism in foreign policy is, by definition, the pursuit of a dreamy vision of a better world that does not seriously ask whether the ideal is actually compatible with reality. Illusions set idealists up for terrible surprises. Addressing problems through, for example, the lens of Fukuyama-style Hegelian idealism, according to which the world is inexorably progressing toward liberal democratic values, would in today's world be not only absurd but dangerous. ..."
"... When realist thinkers -- from Machiavelli to Kissinger -- prick the bubbles of the dreamers, they incur only wrath. For idealists, it is the height of cynicism and bad manners to point out that cunning and force are what actually dominate world affairs. ..."
"... For Kissinger, peace depends upon "a system of independent states refraining from interference in each other's domestic affairs and checking each other's ambitions through a general equilibrium of power." The Peace of Westphalia and, to some degree, the Congress of Vienna embodied such an arrangement, offering the lesson that balance-of-power theory is indispensable in analyzing world events. ..."
"... However, Kissinger was intellectually astute enough to recognize that, in order to create and maintain this equilibrium of power, something more than a mechanical balance is required: enlightened statesmen. Kissinger states explicitly that balance-of-power "does not in itself secure peace." If world leaders refuse to play by Westphalian rules, the system will break down. He warns of the rise of radical Islamists, for example, who refuse to think in Westphalian terms. ..."
"... Morality in foreign affairs, then, is not found in a set of abstract rules of behavior for nation-states, nor is it found in deploying military power to advance some progressive, idealistic cause. Morality can be found only in the souls of righteous statesmen who, under complex international circumstances, act not out of malice or hatred, nor out of greed or pure self-interest, but who find a path to peace that is compatible not only with the interest of their own nations but that of the others. ..."
"... Just had to correct that one sentence, there. Kissinger had no problem intervening in the affairs of "independent states" that posed little military or political threat to the United States, but perhaps threatened the commercial interests, profits or market share of American companies and capitalists. ..."
"... The record of the foreign policy realists, Republican or Democratic, is drenched in blood, from Afghanistan, Indonesia and Angola to Chile, Nicaragua and Guatemala, not to mention Cambodia from Nixon to Carter to Reagan. And the long-term consequences of their decisions (Iran in 1953, Afghanistan under Carter and Brezinski) can bite the rest of us pretty hard, too. Hell, George H.W. Bush and James Baker brought us the first Iraq War, which should have been left to the Arab League to solve (and, frankly, I give not a whit for the independence of the Emirs of Kuwait). ..."
"... An American imperialist is still, when all is said and done, an American imperialist, and woe be to any small, non-nuclear independent state that gets in the way of said imperialist making the world safe for ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs or Citibank. ..."
"... What Machiavelli wrote is that statesmen should advocate conventional religious morality as the default position in most circumstances but when faced with an existential emergency they must sacrifice their soul to not do good and use evil but only as an occasion calls for it to protect the nation. ..."
"... Putin, if people would listen, proposes a model that I find acceptable. Respect for national sovereignty and government institutions. In this model, yes, we would tolerate authoritarian governments as long as they respect the sovereignty and stability of other countries. ..."
"... Kissinger is famous for his attachment to the balance of power concept, particularly in relation to the Congress of Vienna, but I always think that he leaves out the main point. The balance of power wasn't an end in itself. It was a means to the end that the European powers wanted to achieve, namely, the restoration of the "ancien régime". The idea of the balance of powers was to prevent the Great Powers getting into fights with each other, leading to mutual destruction, which, indeed, is what ultimately happened in 1914. ..."
"... There are countless examples where realists cherry-picked the facts (variables). ..."
"... Good discussion. Machiavelli's central insight is that a national leader must get their hands dirty, even to the point of committing evil, to protect the nation from disaster, to reform corruption, to remove internal insurrectionists. But using evil for good is limited to only those real (realistic) threats against the nation. According to Machiavelli in his Discourses, glory is reserved for those who are the founders of republics, reformers or religious leaders of a nation, military leaders followed by literature writers and artists who reflect republican virtues. Contra William Smith, foreign policy can not ALWAYS be "just and moral", which is an idealistic a notion. ..."
Great power competition is everywhere these days -- in Syria, Ukraine, the South China Sea,
North Korea. With the rise of China and the rejuvenation of Russian military power, realist
thinking is suddenly back in vogue, as it should be.
Idealism in foreign policy is, by definition, the pursuit of a dreamy vision of a better
world that does not seriously ask whether the ideal is actually compatible with reality.
Illusions set idealists up for terrible surprises. Addressing problems through, for example,
the lens of Fukuyama-style Hegelian idealism, according to which the world is inexorably
progressing toward liberal democratic values, would in today's world be not only absurd but
dangerous. The liberal idea that the UN can foster world order through international
institutions is likewise naïve and perilous. Fantasy lands in art and literature can be
wonderful divertissements , but using them as the basis for great nation's foreign
policy can produce nightmares.
George W. Bush created a dream world in his mind where it seemed plausible for American
military power to end "tyranny in our world." Tyranny, as anyone who has not slipped the bonds
of reality knows, is rooted in the human soul and cannot be "ended." Tyranny can be checked and
mitigated, but only through extraordinary effort and with the help of a rich tradition.
But it is always easier to assign oneself virtue based on self-applauding and unrealistic
notions about world peace. When realist thinkers -- from Machiavelli to Kissinger -- prick the
bubbles of the dreamers, they incur only wrath. For idealists, it is the height of cynicism and
bad manners to point out that cunning and force are what actually dominate world affairs.
Yet for all their sagacity, realist thinkers are not without their problems either. They
tend to deny the moral nature of human beings and the role that this may play in world events.
Because they have seen the great danger of moralistic idealism in foreign policy, they
sometimes don't think morality should be considered at all. Realist theory has a cold, inhumane
quality that makes it inattentive to the moral dimension of human existence.
The failure of realists to incorporate moral considerations into their thinking has made
realism unpopular with the American people, who historically believe that their nation's
foreign policy should have at least some moral content. They, after all, send their own boys
and girls to war, and they would like to think that those sacrifices are not made for some
mechanistic balance of power. They know that statesmen must often make cold calculations in the
national interest, but surely somewhere in there must be right and wrong, as in all human
endeavors.
Because some realists have adopted the philosophically untenable position that morality has
no role in world affairs, many Americans have signed on with the moralists' disastrous crusades
instead. The realists have the stronger policy case, but they have ceded the moral ground to
the idealists.
Ironically, it may be the work of Henry Kissinger that can show realists an intellectual
path toward restoring a sense of morality in foreign policy.
For Kissinger, peace depends upon "a system of independent states refraining from
interference in each other's domestic affairs and checking each other's ambitions through a
general equilibrium of power." The Peace of Westphalia and, to some degree, the Congress of
Vienna embodied such an arrangement, offering the lesson that balance-of-power theory is
indispensable in analyzing world events.
However, Kissinger was intellectually astute enough to recognize that, in order to
create and maintain this equilibrium of power, something more than a mechanical balance is
required: enlightened statesmen. Kissinger states explicitly that balance-of-power "does not in
itself secure peace." If world leaders refuse to play by Westphalian rules, the system will
break down. He warns of the rise of radical Islamists, for example, who refuse to think in
Westphalian terms.
Kissinger also says that enlightened leaders must not only recognize the realities of power
politics and the hard Machiavellian truths of international competition, but possess a certain
moral quality that he calls "restraint." Without a willingness to restrain themselves and to
act dispassionately, world leaders will be incapable of building an international order. When
facing difficult challenges, enlightened diplomats and statesmen must have the moral courage to
accept certain "limits of permissible action." Implicit in Kissinger's thought is that
morality, though of a realistic kind, is essential in foreign policy. Only statesmen of a
certain temperament and moral character can support the Westphalian model.
Morality in foreign affairs, then, is not found in a set of abstract rules of behavior
for nation-states, nor is it found in deploying military power to advance some progressive,
idealistic cause. Morality can be found only in the souls of righteous statesmen who, under
complex international circumstances, act not out of malice or hatred, nor out of greed or pure
self-interest, but who find a path to peace that is compatible not only with the interest of
their own nations but that of the others. Such a policy cannot be sketched out in the
abstract in advance; it can emerge only through the moral leadership of genuine statesmen who
act to find a specific solution in a set of complex, concrete circumstances. This is one of the
great lessons of classical political philosophy: justice is not an abstraction but found
concretely in the soul of the just man.
The answer to the question of what a just and moral foreign policy might look like is that
it's the kind that truly just and moral, but also supremely realistic, statesmen will adopt.
That such statesmen are rare is what has caused the great philosophers to lament that only the
dead have seen the end of war.
William S. Smith is managing director and research fellow at the Center for the Study of
Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America.
Implicit in Kissinger's thought is that morality, though of a realistic kind, is essential
in foreign policy. Only statesmen of a certain temperament and moral character can support
the Westphalian model.
1) In 1971, the government of Pakistan carried out a genocide of its Hindu minority in
what is now Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). Somewhere between 1 and 3 million Hindus were
killed, and many thousands of Bengali Muslim leaders and intellectuals were murdered by the
Pakistani regime.
Kissinger and Nixon supported Yahya Khan's government, and even shipped weapons to
Pakistan while the genocide was going on.
From Gary Bass's article in the New Yorker:
While the slaughter in what would soon become an independent Bangladesh was underway,
the C.I.A. and State Department conservatively estimated that roughly two hundred thousand
people had died (the official Bangladeshi death toll is three million). Some ten million
Bengali refugees fled to India, where untold numbers died in miserable conditions in refugee
camps. Pakistan was a Cold War ally of the United States, and Richard Nixon and his
national-security advisor, Henry Kissinger, resolutely supported its military dictatorship;
they refused to impose pressure on Pakistan's generals to forestall further
atrocities.
2) Kissinger was one of key organizers of the 1973 coup against the democratically elected
Allende government in Chile. When Allende was elected, this moral stalwart told his staff "I
don't see any reason why we should stand around and do nothing when a country goes communist
because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
In the first months after the coup d'état, the military killed thousands of
Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their "disappearance". The military
imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile In October 1973, the
Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara, and 70 other political killings were perpetrated by
the death squad, Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte).
The government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period; the dead and
disappeared numbered thousands.
****************
Tom Lehrer once said that satire died when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fortunately William Smith's article about Kissinger's "morality" shows that comedy is not yet
dead, even if the comic relief is inadvertent.
For Kissinger, peace depends upon "a system of MAJOR POWERS refraining from interference in
each other's domestic affairs and checking each other's ambitions through a general
equilibrium of power."
Just had to correct that one sentence, there. Kissinger had no problem intervening in the
affairs of "independent states" that posed little military or political threat to the United
States, but perhaps threatened the commercial interests, profits or market share of American
companies and capitalists.
The record of the foreign policy realists, Republican or Democratic, is drenched in blood,
from Afghanistan, Indonesia and Angola to Chile, Nicaragua and Guatemala, not to mention
Cambodia from Nixon to Carter to Reagan. And the long-term consequences of their decisions
(Iran in 1953, Afghanistan under Carter and Brezinski) can bite the rest of us pretty hard,
too. Hell, George H.W. Bush and James Baker brought us the first Iraq War, which should have
been left to the Arab League to solve (and, frankly, I give not a whit for the independence
of the Emirs of Kuwait).
Would the realists have responded to the 2009 coup in Honduras with any more morality than
Hilary Clinton did? Would the economic war upon Venezuela be any less damaging than it has
been under Bush II, Obama or Trump? Yes, some of the realists would not have launched the
invasion of Iraq, but would they have lifted the sanctions regime on Iraq? Would they have
restrained the Saudis in Yemen?
An American imperialist is still, when all is said and done, an American imperialist, and
woe be to any small, non-nuclear independent state that gets in the way of said imperialist
making the world safe for ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs or Citibank.
Dr. Smith apparently has a misunderstanding about Machiavelli's realism being devoid of
morality.
What Machiavelli wrote is that statesmen should advocate conventional religious morality
as the default position in most circumstances but when faced with an existential emergency
they must sacrifice their soul to not do good and use evil but only as an occasion calls for
it to protect the nation.
Example: Truman authorizing the dropping on A-bombs on Japan;
Churchill not warning the City of Coventry they were to be bombed by the Luftwaffe in WW II
because to warn them would have revealed that the Brits had cracked the German secret codes;
and Pres. Reagan freeing American hostages in Iran in exchange for drug money to fund the
Contras in Nicaragua.
This is in sharp contrast to statesmen (women) such as Hillary Clinton
who used evil gratuitously by taking bribes from foreign nations to fund her foundation; or
Pres. Bill Clinton who "wagged the dog" by bombing a drug factory in Sudan to divert
attention away from a sex scandal.
Machiavelli was not anti-religious or anti-morality,
contrary to pop explanations by liberal media, novels and academics (read Erica Benner's book
Machiavelli's Ethics).
Henry Kissinger as a moral man? I really wish you had a better example to prove your valid
point. The man who was responsible for the murder of millions in Indo China including the
bombing of non combatant countries like Laos is hardly qualified to talk about morality of
anything.
Im not sure morality is even possible. I wonder if it ever was possible.
Everyone in the west is taught the values of multicultural and diversity while the rest of
the world is still tribal. It is those tribes who we (US) considers allies which are
controlling much of our foreign policy. The other constituency is just as old and its the
monied class or the corporations whose only goal is to maintain and grow revenue.
Thank god we have domestic and international law which constrains our foreign policy to
moral issues.
These terms get murky.
Neocons are idealists but most definitely believe in great power competition and dominance.
U.S. interests can only be protected if authoritarian regimes are replaced by pro-U.S.
Democratic govts which is why we were so aggressive in expanding our influence in Eastern
Europe, often through covert means and by force in the M.E. I never had much use for the term 'realism'.
Putin, if people would listen, proposes a model that I find acceptable. Respect for
national sovereignty and government institutions. In this model, yes, we would tolerate
authoritarian governments as long as they respect the sovereignty and stability of other
countries.
We have been brainwashed to consider him an offender in this model because of Ukraine but
his response was a minimalist response to a crisis on his border. We go on crusades and
experiment on other countries thousands of miles away from our shores.
Kissinger is famous for his attachment to the balance of power concept, particularly in
relation to the Congress of Vienna, but I always think that he leaves out the main point. The
balance of power wasn't an end in itself. It was a means to the end that the European powers
wanted to achieve, namely, the restoration of the "ancien régime". The idea of the
balance of powers was to prevent the Great Powers getting into fights with each other,
leading to mutual destruction, which, indeed, is what ultimately happened in 1914.
Westphalia
was a slightly different situation. A 30-year, on again–off again, triangular German
"civil war" between Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists, with much foreign interference, had
reached a stalemate, which, in practice, amounted to a Catholic defeat. The only way out was
to let everybody keep what they had and agree not to try to take more. It was forced
forbearance rather than balance.
In Europe, at least, peace certainly depends upon "a system of independent states refraining
from interference in each other's domestic affairs and checking each other's ambitions
through a general equilibrium of power". The European Union is the modern expression of that
principle.
That's why Putin's interferences in Ukraine's domestic affairs and his undisguised
attempts to destroy the EU have set off alarm bells all across Europe and why US
unwillingness to check his ambitions is making the EU the only viable option to ensure peace
in Europe.
Kissinger is an extremely bad person to cite on the subject of morality in a realist foreign
policy. John Quincey Adam's would be better. Coincidentally, TAC printed him on this very
subject --
"Idealism in foreign policy is, by definition, the pursuit of a dreamy vision of a better
world"
It need not be that. The "vision thing" that Bush I famously did not do could well be a
part of our national interest, one of the things coldly evaluated, and contributing to our
strength when done correctly.
Of Wayne Lusvardi's examples of "existential" emergencies for which evil can be done to
"protect the nation," "Truman authorizing the dropping on A-bombs on Japan" is at best
debatable given the evidence that the Japanese were willing to surrender as long as they
could keep their emperor, and especially to keep the Soviets from declaring war on them,
while "Churchill not warning the City of Coventry they were to be bombed by the Luftwaffe in
WW II" is legitimate, in my opinion.
But "Reagan freeing American hostages in Iran in exchange for drug money to fund the
Contras in Nicaragua" is laughable. American pride may have needed protection from the
hostage "crisis," but the American nation certainly did not, as it was not threatened in any
way. American foreign policy continued on its way, funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan,
backing the Khmer Rouge against the Vietnamese Stalinists who drove them from power in
Cambodia, and buying off Egypt, so you can't even say that America's "standing in the world"
particularly suffered from the hostage "crisis."
And as for "Pres. Bill Clinton who 'wagged the dog' by bombing a drug factory in Sudan to
divert attention away from a sex scandal," I'll trump that shameful episode with Pres. Ronald
Reagan invading Grenada two days after the Beirut barracks bombing.
Our D.I. In basic training in his frustration to turn raw recruits into soldiers would raise
his arms to the sky imploring the aid of the Commander-in-Chief in the heavens and holler,
"Dear Lord, give'em books and all they do is eat'em!" That's the way I viewed William Smith's
essay on the need for an infusion of a reconstituted morality in our foreign policy.
After
basic training, I then served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam, where I was confronted with
the grim and brutal reality of that quagmire and learned that the road to hell is paved with
good intentions. LBJ would come to regret calling South Vietnam President Ndo Dinh Diem the
"Churchill of Asia." There lies the dilemma when idealism confronts reality.
More generally,
I disagree with the centrality of the Westphalian concept of what constitutes a nation in the
post-modern world. Smith mentions the influence of non-actors such as jihadists to alter our
foreign policy goals but overlooks how corporations have also altered that concept with their
doctrine of globalization for profits which undercuts national sovereignty established in
Westphalia. Smith seems to be wandering between two worlds, "one dead / The other peerless to
be born" as Mathew Arnold lamented in his poem "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse."
Smith is
trying to promote a revisionist history of the last fifty years just as Niall Ferguson did in
the first volume of his authorized biography of Henry Kissinger as an idealist. Ferguson
notes even Kissinger obviously knew the war was a lost cause after he did two fact-finding
tours in South Vietnam early in the war but thought the war was still necessary to prosecute
to save a vestige of our credibility as policeman to the world. Ken Burns also attempts a
revisionist coup of the Vietnam War when he editorialized in his documentary that our
fearless leaders prosecuted that war with the best intentions. So unfortunately, I view this
essay as a current trend to to promote revisionism in our history of the last fifty years
despite the contrary conclusions of the historical facts.
But as John Adams, a foundering
father, once observed "facts are stubborn things."
I agree-Putin's response to our actions is often not even considered: The biggest flaw with realism that it's like a multivariate experiment
-- with everyone
having different variables they think to be relevant. For instance, Kissinger thought Vietnam would fall under Chinese influence under Communist
NVA, yet he ignored the variable of ethnic rivalries between Chinese and Vietnamese. GWB ignored the variables of Iran -- how it would swoop in and nurture newly Shia Iraq..
There are countless examples where realists cherry-picked the facts (variables).
Vietnam: perhaps the only conflict fought on half of another of but minor, if any real
benefit to the US. That with or without Sec. Kissinger is clear as day. As for quagmires --
it seems that all ward have them. Vietnam was a quagmire because our policy was one of
protect and hold as opposed to invade and conquer -- an unfortunate choice. In the world of a
realist, we should have killed any and all Vietcong, raced up to Hanoi and ended the matter.
'nough said.
I am not sure many here are reading the same article, because my take is that the author
is claiming that Sec Kissinger was a realist -- practical – what needed to be done to
accomplish task A -- morality doesn't enter into it. That explains why he found Pres Nixon's
faith amusing. So all of the comments bemoaning the Sec lack of moral attend, only confirms
the realists perspective.
Nonetheless,
I disagree with your version of the last seventeen years. it has not been orchestrated or
led by realists. Quite the opposite. The rhetoric may be couched in all manner of idealism ,
but so was their application of force.
A realist would not give a lick aboy religious affiliation to the aims of regime chang,
cpital market or democracy creation. The onlu factor that would have mattered is who was on
board, or not in the way -- all challengers regardless of their faith, political agendas,
personality, or concerned about symbols as nonsensical historical artifacts would moved aside
by any means necessary. A realist so engaging such large opposition would decided the matter
-- to utter destruction to complete compliance – period.
In fact, I will contend that these pseudo realists, were thwarted by their own bouts if
idealist moral relativity and were the worst sort for the job at hand.
What a joke of an article, Kissinger as a moralist. He is one of the major war criminals of
the second half of the 20th Century. He has the blood of hundreds of thousands if not
millions on his hands, as others above have details. And not all foreigners. Lest we forget
the part he played in Nixon's great lies about Vietnam that delayed a peace settlement to
help Nixon get elected. 30,000 dead Americans later we got pretty much the same settlement.
The author of this article has entered into the realm of the absurd.
Wow, I thought I wasn't ever going to read anything on economic war on Venezuela! Finally,
even if it is from the comments.
There is an article about not to support/encourage a cup here, but obviously, when it is
about the bad economic situation, only the leftish govenrments are blamed, as if Venezuela
wasn't thoroughly dependet on debt.
Besides of that, even if that mention weren't thre, I agree and thanks most of the
comments in this article.
Good discussion. Machiavelli's central insight is that a national leader must get their
hands dirty, even to the point of committing evil, to protect the nation from disaster, to
reform corruption, to remove internal insurrectionists. But using evil for good is limited to
only those real (realistic) threats against the nation. According to Machiavelli in his
Discourses, glory is reserved for those who are the founders of republics, reformers or
religious leaders of a nation, military leaders followed by literature writers and artists
who reflect republican virtues. Contra William Smith, foreign policy can not ALWAYS be "just
and moral", which is an idealistic a notion.
If, as Samuel Johnson is reputed to have said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
then using Kissinger as an example of realism is the last refuge of a fantasist.
Questionable but interesting. "Trump's "policy" is simply a reflection of his character as a narcissistic, arrogant
bully.
To "make America great again" means for him "make America the Global Bully" again." Trump really believe like a typical bully.
In case of tough resistance he folds and appologize. Otherwise he tries to press opooneent into complete submission.
Notable quotes:
"... The underlying assumption of Trump's strategic thinking is that 'power works': the more intransigent his posture, the greater his belief in a unipolar world based on US power. As a corollary, Trump interprets any ally, adversary, competitor who seeks negotiations, reciprocity or concessions is 'weak' and should be pressured or forced to concede greater concessions and further retreats and sacrifices, up to the ultimate goal of surrender and submission. ..."
"... Trump views President Rohani as a rug seller not a military strategist. Trump believes that an economic squeeze will lead President Rohani to sacrifice his allies in Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthi), Palestine (Hamas) and Iraq (Shia)and to dismantle its ICBM defense strategy. ..."
"... Trump pursues the strategic goal of weakening Iran and preparing a regime change, reverting Iran into a client state – as it was prior to the 1979 revolution under the Shah. ..."
"... Trump recognizes and submits to Zionist-Israeli dictates because they have unprecedented power in the media, real estate, finance and insurance (FIRE). Trump recognizes the ZPC's power to buy Congressional votes, control both political parties and secure appointments in the executive branch. ..."
"... Trump is the typical authoritarian: at the throat of the weak, citizens, allies and adversaries and on his knees before the powerful ZPC, the military and Wall Street. ..."
"... Trump's unilateral declaration of a trade war against China accompanied his belief that military threats led to North Korea's "capitulation" – its promise to end its nuclear program. ..."
"... Is Trump playing the Nixon-Kissinger 'madman' tactic, in which the Secretary of State tells adversaries to accept his 'reasonable' demands or face the worst from the President? I don't think so. ..."
"... China got Trumps to waiver ZTE ruling, with Huawei declared no longer a threat to US security. ..."
"... "Speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday, Tillerson dropped this truth bomb: "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom." Woof. ..."
For some time, critics of President Trump's policies have attributed them to a mental
disorder; uncontrolled manic-depression, narcissus bullying and other pathologies. The question
of Trump's mental health raises a deeper question: why do his pathologies take a specific
political direction? Moreover, Trump's decisions have a political history and background, and
follow from a logic and belief in the reason and logic of imperial power.
We will examine the reason why Trump has embraced three strategic decisions which have
world-historic consequences, namely: Trump's reneging the nuclear accord with Iran ;Trump's
declaration of a trade war with China; and Trump's meeting with North Korea.
In brief we will explore the political reasons for his decisions; what he expects to gain;
and what is his game plan if he fails to secure his expected outcome and his adversaries take
reprisals.
Trump's Strategic Framework
The underlying assumption of Trump's strategic thinking is that 'power works': the more
intransigent his posture, the greater his belief in a unipolar world based on US power. As a
corollary, Trump interprets any ally, adversary, competitor who seeks negotiations, reciprocity
or concessions is 'weak' and should be pressured or forced to concede greater concessions and
further retreats and sacrifices, up to the ultimate goal of surrender and submission. In
other words, Trump's politics of force only recognizes counter-force: limitations in Trump's
policies will only result when tangible economic and military losses and costs in US lives
would undermine US imperial rule.
Reasons Why Trump Broke the Peace Accord with Iran
Trump broke the accord with Iran because the original agreement was based on retaining US
sanctions against Iran; the total dismantling of its nuclear program and calling into question
Iran's limited role on behalf of possible allies in the Middle East.
Iran's one-sided concessions; trading military defense for market opportunities encouraged
Trump to believe that he could intimidate Iran militarily by closing all its markets.
Trump views President Rohani as a rug seller not a military strategist. Trump believes
that an economic squeeze will lead President Rohani to sacrifice his allies in Syria, Lebanon
(Hezbollah), Yemen (Houthi), Palestine (Hamas) and Iraq (Shia)and to dismantle its ICBM defense
strategy.
Trump pursues the strategic goal of weakening Iran and preparing a regime change,
reverting Iran into a client state – as it was prior to the 1979 revolution under the
Shah.
The second reason for Trump's policy is to strengthen Israel's military power in the Middle
East. The Trump regime is deeply influenced by the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) in the US,
dubbed 'the Lobby'.
Trump recognizes and submits to Zionist-Israeli dictates because they have unprecedented
power in the media, real estate, finance and insurance (FIRE). Trump recognizes the ZPC's power
to buy Congressional votes, control both political parties and secure appointments in the
executive branch.
Trump is the typical authoritarian: at the throat of the weak, citizens, allies and
adversaries and on his knees before the powerful ZPC, the military and Wall Street.
Trump's submission to Zionist power reinforces and even dictates his decision to break the
peace accord with Iran and his willingness to pressure. France, Germany, the UK and Russia to
sacrifice billion-dollar trade agreements with Iran and to pursue a policy of pressuring
Teheran to accept part of Trump's agenda of unilateral disarmament and isolation. Trump
believes he can force the EU multi-nationals to disobey their governments and abide by
sanctions.
Reasons for Trump's Trade War with China
Prior to Trump's presidency, especially under President Obama, the US launched a trade war
and 'military pivot' to China. Obama proposed the Trans-Pacific Pact to exclude China and
directed an air and naval armada to the South China Sea. Obama established a high-powered
surveillance system in South Korea and supported war exercises on North Korea's border. Trump's
policy deepened and radicalized Obama's policies.
Trump extended Obama's bellicose policy toward North Korea, demanding the de-nuclearization
of its defense program. President Kim of North Korea and President Moon of South Korea reached
an agreement to open negotiations toward a peace accord ending nearly 60 years of
hostility.
However, President Trump joined the conversation on the presumption that North Korea's peace
overtures were due to his threats of war and intimidation. He insisted that any peace
settlement and end of economic sanctions would only be achieved by unilateral nuclear
disarmament, the maintenance of US forces on the peninsula and supervision by US approved
inspectors.
Trump's unilateral declaration of a trade war against China accompanied his belief that
military threats led to North Korea's "capitulation" – its promise to end its nuclear
program.
Trump slapped a trade tariff on over $100 billion dollars of Chinese exports in order to
reduce its trade imbalance by $200 billion over two years. He demanded China unilaterally end
industrial 'espionage', technological 'theft' (all phony accusations) and China's compliance
monitored quarterly by the US. Trump demanded that China not retaliate with tariffs or restrictions or face bigger
sanctions. Trump threatened to respond to any reciprocal tariff by Beijing, with greater tariffs, and
restrictions on Chinese goods and services.
Trump's goals seek to convert North Korea into a military satellite encroaching on China's
northern border; and a trade war that drives China into an economic crisis. Trump believes that as China declines as a world economic power, the US will grow and
dominate the Asian and world economy.
Trump believes a successful trade war will lead to a successful military war. Trump believes
that a submissive China, based on its isolation from the 'dynamic' US market, will enhance
Washington's quest for uncontested world domination.
Trump's Ten Erroneous Thesis
Trump's political agenda is deeply flawed! Breaking the nuclear agreement and imposing harsh
sanctions has isolated Trump from his European and Asian allies. His military intervention will
inflame a regional war that would destroy the Saudi oil fields. He will force Iran to pursue a
nuclear shield against US-Israeli aggression and lead to a prolonged, costly and ultimately
losing war.
Trump's policies will unify all Iranians, liberals and nationalist, and undermine US
collaborators. The entire Muslim world will unify forces and carry the conflict throughout
Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Tel Aviv's bombing [of Iran] will lead to counter-attacks
in Israel.
Oil prices will skyrocket, financial markets will collapse, industries will go bankrupt.
Trump's sanctions and military aggression against Iran will lead to mutual economic
destruction.
Trump's trade war with China will lead to the disruption of the supply chain which sustains
the US economy and especially the 500 US multi-nationals who depend on the Chinese economy for
exports to the US. China will increase domestic consumption, diversify its markets and trading
partners and reinforce its military alliance with Russia. China has greater resilience and
capacity to overcome short-term disruption and regain its dominant role as a global economic
power house.
Wall Street will suffer a catastrophic financial collapse and send the US into a world
depression.
Trump's negotiations with North Korea will go nowhere as long as he demands unilateral
nuclear disarmament, US military control over the peninsula and political isolation from
China.
Kim will insist on the end of sanctions, and a mutual defense treaty with China. Kim will
offer to end nuclear testing but not nuclear weapons. After Trump's reneged on the Iran deal,
Kim will recognize that agreements with the US are not trustworthy.
Conclusion
Trump's loud, threatening gestures are a real danger to world peace and justice. But his
assumptions about the consequences of his policy are deeply flawed. There is no basis to think
his sanctions will topple the Iranian regime; that Israel will survive unscathed from a war
with Iran: that an oil war will not undermine the US economy; that Europe will allow its
companies to be frozen out of the Iran market.
Trump's trade war with China is dead in the water. He cannot find alternative production
sites for US multi-nationals. He cannot freeze China out of the world market, since they have
links with five continents. Trump cannot dominate North Korea and force it to sacrifice its
sovereignty on the basis of empty economic promises to lift sanctions. Trump is heading for
defeats on all counts. But he may take the American people into the nuclear abyss in the
process.
Epilogue
Are Trump's threats of war part of a strategy of bluff and bombast designed to intimidate,
in order to secure political advantages? Is Trump playing the Nixon-Kissinger 'madman'
tactic, in which the Secretary of State tells adversaries to accept his 'reasonable' demands or
face the worst from the President? I don't think so.
Nixon unlike Trump was not led by the nose by Israel. Nixon unlike Trump was not led by
pro-nuclear war advisers. Nixon in contrast to Trump opened the US to trade with China and
signed nuclear reduction agreements with Russia. Nixon successfully promoted peaceful
co-existence.
"Trump's sanctions and military aggression against Iran will lead to mutual economic
destruction."
indeed they will, and sadly it well deserved after the last 20yrs off US terrorism.
the US hubris will soon meet karma, and we all know karma is a bitch..
You didn't have to be genius to see this coming. In fact, NK played Trump as
expected. Anything else would have been gross negligence by their diplomatic
negotiators. Getting Trump to speculate about a prospective Nobel (for himself) for bringing nuclear
peace to the Pacific was baiting the hook nicely.
The US is now dealing from a position of weakness. Let's see what NK can extract in terms of
keeping their weapons and gaining economic assistance in return for getting the meetings back
on track.
This theory is the opposite of what I suppose is the right explanation, the explanation also
given by prof Laslo Maracs, UVA Amsterdam, that Trump and his rich friends understand that
the USA can to longer control the world, conquering the rest of the world totally out of the
question.
The end of the British empire began before 1914, when the twe fleet standard had to lowered
to one fleet.
Obama had to do something similar, the USA capability of fighting two wars at the time was
lowered to one and half.
What half a war accomplishes we see in Syria.
In the thirties the British, some of them, knew quite well they could no longer defend their
empire, at the time this meant controlling the Meditarranean and the Far East.
Lawrence R. Pratt, 'East of Malta, West of Suez', London, 1975
The British guarantees to Poland and countries bordering on the Med lighted the fuse to the
powder keg that had been standing for a long time.
Churchill won, the British thought, and some of them think it still, WWII.
But shortly after WWII some British understood 'we won the war, but lost the peace'.
I still have the idea that Trump has no intention of losing the peace, but time will tell.
I suppose Trump just is buying time against Deep State and Netanyahu.
The fool Netanyahu is happy with having got Jerusalem, he does not see the cost in increased
hatred among Muslims, and Israel having won the Eurovision Song Festival.
Trump's "policy" is simply a reflection of his character as a narcissistic, arrogant
bully.
To "make America great again" means for him "make America the Global Bully" again.
However, behind the facade of all his bravado hides a puppet of the Jewish Power Structure,
which is even more dangerous than Trump himself. "Make Zion Great Again" would be a more
apposite slogan.
Wall Street collapsing will not cause a world depression, but will reflect the very real
depression that will arise from huge disruptions to the US supply chain and energy costs and
the knock-on effect that will have on the global economy.
A strike on Iran won't by itself be enough to cripple the US economy, but the loss of a
single aircraft carrier might be enough of a pull on a thread that unravels the magical
mantle of military force that currently holds the empire together and keeps the vassal-states
in line to cause things to go pear-shaped quickly.
Nobody can accuse Donald of not being obedient executioner of tasks given by his Masters.
You don't have to be dark skinned to reside in Masters quarters, orange haired and white is
ok too..
Overall a good analysis, but as far as his support of Israel is concerned, his family
connections with the most ultra-Zionist factions should not be overlooked.
Trump believes that as China declines as a world economic power, the US will grow and
dominate the Asian and world economy.
On what basis does the author say that? Trump is smart enough to know that China is
growing as an economic and military power, not declining.
A fairly poorly (and likely hastily) written article.
Trump is under the control of Zionists just as is the U.S. gov with Zionist dual citizens in
control of every facet and has been since 1913 when the Zionists created the FED and the IRS.
Trump is like the Roman emperor Caligula and is a Trojan Horse for the Zionist agenda of a
NWO and is continuing the tradition of the U.S. gov breaking its word about everything, just
ask the native American Indians.
The nuke agreement with Iran was a sham. Iran lied about what they were doing. The agreement
had never been submitted to the Senate and so was never ratified. Our "allies" in Europe and
Asia knew that and their reaction has not been nearly as negative as the author of this
column has claimed.
I continue to admire President Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi of China. WHY? .because
RESULTS matter more than opinions on internet websites, T.V., or in printed publications.
N. Korea has stopped performing ICBM or nuke tests, a less extremist regime change "coup"
took place in Saudi Arabia, financing/ weapons flows / intelligence to Syrian terrorists has
dried up with resulting collapse of ISIS, Iran is threatening to release the names of
European & American politicians who previously made millions / billions off the Iran nuke
deal if it is dropped, Harvey Weinstein, Allison Mack, and "Weiner" were untouchable before
Trump, the list just goes on and continues to get bigger.
A major reason for admiration of Putin is that the Mainstream Media (MSM) can't stop
demonizing him. So of course I'm logically led to believe that he is mostly a good guy since
the MSM has proven itself repeatedly to distort the Truth. Putin also largely ended the
oligarchs power, doubled Russian citizens income, used an tiny Russian military in Syria to
gradually reverse ISIS expansion there, improved Russia's internal manufacturing,
agricultural, mining, and technological research/ development, intellectually crushed
international debate opponents repeated using only logic and facts (You should watch the
videos!), built / rebuilt over 10 thousand churches, has patriotic Muslims (Crimea) fighting
for Russia in Syria, etc. etc.
Xi of China has pretty impressive creditials but this post is
overly long anyway.
RESULTS COUNT MORE THAN WORDS!
Of course they do this, they would be stupid if they didn't.
• Agree: CalDre
I like your frankness. Every countries is into this at different degree, with ZUS the
apex. But been leading in most tech area currently & lazy to produce any useful things,
ZUS is very unhappy that their esponage net result is negative, hence the continuous
whining.
When tide reverse with China leading in most tech, ZUS will complaint about complex patent
system as been flawed in exploitating & suppressing of weaker country innovation, juz as
it did for WTO & Globalization now.
Of course any moronic comments about only China is espionaging US IPR & rise purely due
to US FDI & Tech transfer will resonate CalDre into high chime.
Well, he is not meeting with North Korea either, since Kim didn't chicken out, and is not
that stupid as to offer his head on the plate! Bolton made sure of that.
Hastily written article cobbled by bits of public info here & there without deep
analysis.
1. Today NK declared they have indefinitely terminate all high level exchange with SK. If
Trumps insisted on another Libya & Iraq defank & ending model advocate by Bolton,
meeting with Trumps will be cancelled. Trumps needs the Korea peace credit to get his Nobel
Prize, so as to booster his coming Nov election win. Kim has baited Trumps to put him in
tight corner now, hence WH still insisting to go ahead prepare for the meeting.
If venue does changed to Beijing from Trumps' choice of Spore (Kim's cargo plane can't fly
his limousine so far, also a risk of him as Spore is US vassal), we will see Kim has K.O.
Trumps in another round. Kim will get to keep its nuke weapon until USM remove its Korea
present, clear all sanctions, with UNSC guaranteed its safety. If Trumps has the meeting
cancelled, then China can roll out its own play book as unchallenged leader in solving Korea
crisis. Either way, Trumps will lost influence to China.
2. Trade war with China has exposed ZUS deep weakness in its brinkmanship when china
retaliated with no compromise. Four most senior trade & treasury secs scrambled 10,000
miles to Beijing to seek detente, but return empty handed in 2 days with their ridiculous
demands in hubris. Still China got Trumps to waiver ZTE ruling, with Huawei declared no
longer a threat to US security.
Btw, this author has wrongly written about the $100B trade tariff, its only $50B so far.
Another additional $100B is only a empty threat ZUS dare not release to avoid China
retaliation.
3. JCPOA cancelling is godsend move.
First, EU with Germany & France having huge investments in Iran is crying loud that they
have to be free from been ZUS vassal. If they caved in to ZUS sanction threat, then EU bosses – Macron & Merkel will
face revolt from Europe business sector. China & Russia will be happy to pick up whatever
investments in fire sales.
If EU decided to rebel & chart its own destiny with a little spine, then ZUS has lost
its tight clutch over EU. EU has juz announced to trade Iran oil in Euro, hasten
de-dollarization. The geopolitical game is changing tide. In either way of EU decision, China
& Russia win.
Now Iran will continue to enjoy free trades with everyone except ZUS that it dislike most,
& win moral high ground in international standing by keeping to JCPOA.
ZUS has juz ordered Trumps to shoot its own foot. It pay the high price of losing every
credibility in international agreement, forced EU into seeking independency, have EU trade in
Euro, with Iran, China & Russia all smiling.
Of course, but I just wanted to make a point not write a book or even a PhD thesis. thanks
for the supplementary material though. Your comments about oil are spot on as you know. The wars were about smashing some real
competition.
Somebody has to shovel the BS occasionally, to keep the smell down here. I guess it's my
turn today, sigh.
The nuke agreement with Iran was a sham. Iran lied about what they were doing.
Then the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and many of the major European
countries must also be lying when they say that Iran is fully complying with the JCPOA.
The agreement had never been submitted to the Senate and so was never ratified.
The United Nations Security Council endorsed the JCPOA; see UNSC resolution 2231.
According to the UN treaty, UNSC resolutions are automatically the law of the land,
even in the USA -- no Senate ratification needed.
Have you ever made a comment that was other than your mere and clearly biased opinion? Try
it sometime; it would be interesting to see what evidence you provide to support such
transparently erroneous ideas.
Trump's only strategy is to do what Israel orders him to do. The Neocon Jews and their friends including the Jew In Chief of
the White House Jared Kushner are running the show. You can easily see this in ... Niki Haley's presentation before the UN including
walking out before the Palestinian Rep had a chance to speak.
Trump is up to his arms in shady deals with Jewish financiers of his properties and they
will get what they want from him politically. It's Israel against the world and the US is
nothing more than their war whore. More people will die for this strategy that comes from
formerly Tel Aviv and now from the Magic Jewish Capital called Jerusalem.
New York City's Hip Hop station Hot 97's morning show, "Ebro in the Morning," dedicated an
entire segment to yesterday's demonstration in Gaza where the two blasted Israel and
President Donald Trump http://pic.twitter.com/43XIqhKFWZ
-- Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) May 15, 2018
Hadid posted screen shots of Al Jazeera's coverage alongside an image of the Nakba with text
written by a relative,
"Almost One Million Palestinians were violently forced out of their country and never allowed
back to Palestine. The Hadid family was amongst them and they fled in fear to Syria where
they became refugees."
Why are these important? Because they have millions of followers on social media .because
their audience and followers are the coming voter and leadership force .for better or worse
..and for Israel its the 'worse'.
Gigi Hadid for instance has 9 million followers on twitter.
Giuliani: Mueller's team told Trump's lawyers they can't indict a president
This true. BUT ..'if' any criminal wrong doing by Trump before he was president is revealed in the
course of the Russia investigation he can be indicted for that after he is out of office. IN ADDITION ..'if' any criminal wrong doing is revealed in Trump's businesses then any
persons involved in it within his businesses including his sons or daughter can be indicted. And now, as they have no presidential protection.
imo .this is what Trump is most afraid of ..some criminal business like money laundering
being exposed. not that Mueller will find Russian election collusion.
"Speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday,
Tillerson dropped this truth bomb:
"If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative
realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway
to relinquishing our freedom."
Woof.
..
Why is this important? Because the graduating class of VMI selects its speakers so that
tells you where the minds of the elite military schools are on Trumpism.
Working-class white people may claim to be against identity politics, but they actually
crave identity politics.
I think they probably see it more of a "if you can't beat them, join them" scenario. They
see the way the wind is blowing and decide if they want representation, they have to play the
game, even if they don't really like the rules.
They know enough about the EU to know that it isn't one of their patrons and sponsors.
They also know that Westminster have been systematically misrepresenting the EU for their own
purposes for decades, and they can use the same approach.
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Not a fool and I don't hate anyone at 55 I have 1.2M in investments, I make 165k a year and
pay 40k+ a year in taxes. I to come across people who live off of we everyday and expect to
free load. I am not a blowhard just an engineer who pays for sloth.
I've met many fools like you in my over 50 years on the planet, blowhards parading their
ignorance as a badge of pride, thinking that their hatred of anyone not exactly like them is
normal, mistaking what some cretin says on the far right radio for fact.
You people would be comical if not for the toxicity that your stupidity engenders.
Al Jazeera tries to do a better job, at least providing a spectrum of opinion and a lot of
depth in quite a few issues, something most other networks fail to do these days.
Don't fall into the associated trap either, of the false equation between STATED and ACTUAL
goals.
Fox and Hunt are fully aware that to actually admit their actual goal, would be (probably)
just about the only thing which would provoke an electoral backlash which would sweep the
Conservatives from office. The NHS is proverbially "the nearest thing the English have, to a
religion" and is a profoundly dangerous subject for debate.
Fox and Hunt may be weaving an incomprehensible web of sophistry and misdirection, but no
part of it is accidental.
Please, please don't make the unfounded assumption that people like Fox, Johnson, Cameron et
al are as stupid as they sometimes appear.
Fox and Hunt, in particular, know exactly what they are engaged in - a hard-right coup
designed to destroy government control over the NHS and route its enormous cash flows into
the pockets of their private, mostly American sponsors. It isn't necessary to look far, to
discover their connections and patronage from this source.
Johnson is consumed by ambition, as was Cameron before him; like Cameron, he makes much of
his self-presumed fitness for the role, whilst producing no supporting evidence of any
description.
Brexit, as defined by its advocates, CANNOT be discussed precisely because no rational
debate exists. It hinges upon the Conservative Party's only fear, that of disunity leading to
Opposition. They see that Labour are 50-odd seats short of a majority, and that's ALL they
see.
What in God's green world are you talking about? Did you read that before pressing "Post"?
It's obvious that you have no knowledge whatsoever of the subject.
The "race riots" of the 1940s and 1950s were essentially about employment protection (the
first, regarding the importation of Yemeni seamen into the North-East of England). The mostly
Pakistani influx into the North-West of England was an attempt to cut labour costs and prop
up a dying, obsolete industry, mortally wounded by the loss of its business model in the
aftermath of Empire; an industry whose very bricks and mortar are long since gone, but the
imported labour and their descendants remain... the influx of Caribbean labour into London
and the South-East was focussed around the railways and Underground, to bolster the local
labour force which had little interest in dead-end shift-work jobs in the last days of steam
traction and the increasingly run-down Underground.
Labour, in those days, was strongly anti-immigration precisely because it saw no value in
it, to their unionised, heavy-industry voter base.
Regarding the ideological, anti-British, anti-democratic nature of Labour's conversion to
mass immigration, you need only read the writings and speeches of prominent figures of the
day such as Roy Hattersley and Harriet Harman, who say exactly this, quite clearly and in
considerable detail. Their ideological heirs, figures like Diane Abbot (who is stridently
anti-white and anti-British), Andrew Neather and Hazel Blears, can speak for themselves.
I was recently struck by this part of the Guardian obituary of Lady Farrington of Ribbleton:
' she possessed the important defining characteristic that, above others, wins admiration
across all the red leather benches in the House of Lords: she knew what she was talking
about'
Too often these days we are governed by people who don't know what they are talking about.
Never has this been truer than the likes of Fox, Davis, Johnson, and other Brexiteers.
But this doesn't seem to matter much anymore. At times it seems that anyone can make
generised assertions about something, without having to back them up with evidence, and then
wave away questions about their veracity.
Opinion now trumps evidence regularly, even on the BBC where Brexit ideology is often now
given a free pass. The problem for those of us who value expertise is that with the likes of
Trump, and some EU Leavers, we are up against a bigotry which is evangelical in nature. A
gospel that cannot be questioned, a creed that allows no other thinking.
The best you can do is complain about "this?" This WHAT? Try a noun. You're being an
embarrassment to troglodytes everywhere. Don't just point and leap up and down. Your
forefathers died in bringing you a language. Be an expressive hominid and name the thing that
hurts.
It seems at the moment the Guardian also suffers from a glut of experts without expertise.
Not a day goes by that my jaw doesn't drop at some inane claim made by what seems to be a
retinue of contributors who have neither good writing skills nor a particularly wide look on
things. An example today: "Unlike Hillary Clinton, I never wanted to be someone's wife". How
extraordinary. Who says she ever 'wanted to be someone's wife'? Maybe she fell in love with
someone all those years ago and they decided to get married? Who knows. But sweeping
statements like that do not endear you to quite a few of your once very loyal readers. It's
annoying.
I think this posits an overriding explanation for people's actions that doesn't exist. Even
the idea that immigration is a new liberal plot. Take the wind rush generation of immigrants
while there was a Tory government at the time I think the idea this was an attempt to
undermine white working class gains is provably nonsensical
The problem with this article, and the numerous other similar pieces which appear in the
various editions of the Guardian on a "regular-and-often" basis, is that it completely avoids
a very basic point, because it has no answer to it.
It is this.
The white British (and by extension, Western) populations never wanted mass immigration
because they knew from the outset, that its purpose was to undermine the social and political
gains they had wrested from the political and financial elite after 1945. They cared not at
all for the fratricidal conflicts between alien religions and cultures, of which they knew
little and regarded what they did know as unacceptable.
The US achieved a huge economic boom without it. Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the
USA were popular destinations for the British population whose goal and mantra was "no return
to the thirties" and who emigrated in large numbers.
White semi-skilled and unskilled (and increasingly, lower middle class) populations
everywhere reject, and have always rejected third world mass immigration (and more recently,
in some areas, mass emigration from the former Soviet Union) for the simple, and sufficient
reason that they have no possible reason or incentive to support or embrace it. It offers
them nothing, and its impact on their lives is wholly negative in practical terms - which is
how a social group which lives with limited or no margins between income and outgoings,
necessarily
perceives life.
Identity politics has no roots amongst them, because they correctly perceive that whatever
answer it might produce, there is no possible outcome in which the preferred answer will be a
semi-skilled, white family man. They inevitably pick up a certain level of the constant blare
of "racist bigot, homophobe, Islsmophobia" from its sheer inescapability, but they aren't
COMPLETELY stupid.
Yet here is the even more unexplainable part of this sorry episode that amounts to the Deep
State waging the Donald. The remaining rebels capitulated on Sunday and the government re-upped
the evacuation deal. That is, the remnants of Jaish al-Islam are now all dead or have boarded
busses--along with their families---and are already in Idlib province.
That's right. There is no opposition left in Douma and it has been liberated by the Syrian
army, including release of the 3,200 pro-government hostages who had been paraded around the
town in cages by the Saudi Arabia funded warriors of Islam who had terrorized it.
According to the Syrian government, no traces of chemicals or even bodies have been found.
They could be lying, of course, but with the OPCW investigators on the way to Douma who in
their right mind would not wait for an assessment of what actually happened last Saturday?
That is, if you are not caught up in the anti-Russian hysteria that has engulfed official
Washington and the mainstream media. Indeed, the Syrian government has now even welcomed the
international community to come to Douma, where the Russians claim there is absolutely nothing
to see:
Speaking with EuroNews, Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov, said "Russian
military specialists have visited this region, walked on those streets, entered those houses,
talked to local doctors and visited the only functioning hospital in Douma, including its
basement where reportedly the mountains of corpses pile up. There was not a single corpse and
even not a single person who came in for treatment after the attack."
"But we've seen them on the video!" responds EuroNews correspondent Andrei Beketov.
"There was no chemical attack in Douma, pure and simple," responds Chizov. "We've seen
another staged event. There are personnel, specifically trained - and you can guess by whom -
amongst the so-called White Helmets, who were already caught in the act with staged
videos."
In short, if they are lying, it would not be hard to ascertain. Presumably, the Donald could
even send Jared Kushner--flack jacket and all---to investigate what actually happened at
Douma.
Alas, the Donald has apparently opted for war instead in a desperate maneuver to keep the
Deep State at bay.
Either way, we think he's about done, and in Part 2 we will explore why what's about to
happen next should be known to the history books, if there are any, as "Mueller's War".
"... The UK is clearly past the point where it could undo Brexit . There was pretty much no way to back out of Brexit, given the ferocious support for it in the tabloids versus the widespread view that a second referendum that showed that opinion had changed was a political necessity for a reversal. Pundits and politicians were cautious about even voicing the idea. ..."
"... The UK still faces high odds of significant dislocations as of Brexit date . All sorts of agreements to which the UK is a party via the EU cease to be operative once the UK become a "third country". These other countries have every reason to take advantage of the UK's week and administratively overextended position. Moreover, these countries can't entertain even discussing interim trade arrangements (new trade deals take years) until they have at least a high concept idea of what the "future relationship" with the EU will look like. Even though it looks likely to be a Canada-type deal, no one wants to waste time negotiating until that is firmed up. ..."
"... On the World Service this morning, the BBC reported from the "cultural front line against Putin". A playwright (perhaps a member of playwrights against Putin) was given half an hour from 5 am to witter on. This is half an hour more than what Brexit will get on the airwaves today. ..."
"... I think the key thing that is driving the politics for the moment is that May has shown an absolute determination to hold on to power at any cost, and she realises that having a transition agreement is central to this. ..."
"... I think you are right that the main political priority now in London is preserving May in her position. ..."
A
reader was kind enough to ask for a Brexit update. I hadn't provided one because truth be told,
the UK press has gone quiet as the Government knuckled under in the last round of
negotiations.
It is a mystery as to why the hard core Brexit faction and the true power brokers, the press
barons, have gone quiet after having made such a spectacle of their incompetence and refusal to
compromise. Do they not understand what is happening? Has someone done a whip count and
realized they didn't have the votes if they tried forcing a crisis, and that the result would
probably be a Labour government, a fate they feared far more than a disorderly Brexit?
As we've pointed out repeatedly, the EU has the vastly stronger negotiating position. The UK
could stomp and huff and keep demanding its super special cherry picked special cake all it
wanted to. That was a fast track to a crash-out Brexit. But it seems out of character for the
Glorious Brexit true believers to sober up suddenly.
Some observations:
The transition deal is the much-decried "vassal state ". As we and others pointed out, the
only transition arrangement feasible was a standstill with respect to the UK's legal
arrangements with the EU, save at most some comparatively minor concessions on pet issues. The
UK will remain subject to the authority of the ECJ. The UK will continue to pay into the EU
budget. As we'd predicted, the transition period will go only until the end of 2020.
The UK couldn't even get a break on the Common Fisheries Policy.
From the Guardian :
For [fisherman Tony] Delahunty's entire career, a lopsided system of quotas has granted up
to 84% of the rights to fish some local species, such as English Channel cod, to the French,
and left as little as 9% to British boats. Add on a new system that bans fishermen from
throwing away unwanted catch and it becomes almost impossible to haul in a net of mixed fish
without quickly exhausting more limited quotas of "choke" species such as cod .
Leaving the EU was meant to change all that .Instead, growing numbers of British fishermen
feel they have been part of a bait-and-switch exercise – a shiny lure used to help reel
in a gullible public. Despite only recently promising full fisheries independence as soon as
Brexit day on 29 March 2019, the UK government this week capitulated to Brussels' demand for it
to remain part of the common fisheries system until at least 2021, when a transition phase is
due to end. Industry lobbyists fear that further cave-ins are now inevitable in the long run as
the EU insists on continued access to British waters as the price of a wider post-Brexit trade
deal.
The one place where the UK did get a win of sorts was on citizen's rights, where the
transition deal did not make commitments, much to the consternation of both EU27 and UK
nationals. Curiously, the draft approved by the EU27 last week dropped the section that had
discussed citizens' rights. From
the Express :
Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Angelino Alfano,
demands EU citizens' rights be protected after Brexit .
The comments from Italy's foreign minister come after the draft Brexit agreement struck
between Britain and the EU on Monday was missing "Article 32", which in previous drafts
regulated the free movement of British citizens living in Europe after Brexit.
The entire article was missing from the document, which goes straight from Article 31 to
Article 33.
MEPs from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru have
written to Brexit Secretary David Davis for clarification about the missing article, while
citizens' group British in Europe said the document failed to provide them with "legal
certainty".
A copy of the letter sent to Mr Davis seen by the Independent said: "As UK MEPs we are
deeply worried about what will happen to British citizens living in EU27 member states once
we leave the EU.
This issue has apparently been pushed back to the April round of talks. I have not focused
on the possible points of contention here. However, bear in mind that EU citizens could sue if
they deem the eventual deal to be too unfavorable. Recall that during the 2015 Greece-Troika
negotiations, some parties were advocating that Greece leave the Eurozone. A counterargument
was that Greek citizens would be able to sue the Greek government for their loss of EU
rights.
The UK is backing into having to accept a sea border as the solution for Ireland. As many
have pointed out, there's no other remedy to the various commitments the UK has already made
with respect to Ireland, as unpalatable as that solution is to the Unionists and hard core
Brexiters. The UK has not put any solutions on the table as the EU keeps working on the
"default" option, which was included in the Joint Agreement of December. The DUP sabre-rattled
then but was not willing to blow up the negotiations then. It will be even harder for them to
derail a deal now when the result would be a chaotic Brexit.
The UK is still trying to escape what appears to be the inevitable outcome. The press of the
last 24 hours reports that the UK won't swallow the "backstop" plan that the EU has been
refining, even though it accepts the proposition that the
agreement needs to have that feature . The UK is back to trying to revive one of its barmy
ideas that managed to find its way into the Joint Agreement, that of a new super special
customs arrangement.
Politico gives an outline below. This is a non-starter simply because the EU will never
accept any arrangement where goods can get into the EU without there being full compliance with
EU rules, and that includes having them subject to the jurisdiction of the ECJ and the various
relevant Brussels supervisory bodies. Without even hearing further details, the UK's barmy
"alignment" notions means that the UK would somehow have a say in these legal and regulatory
processes. This cheeky plan would give the UK better rights than any EU27 member. From
Politico :
The key issues for debate, according to one senior U.K. official, is how the two sides can
deliver "full alignment" and what the territorial scope of that commitment will be -- the U.K.
or Northern Ireland.
The starting point of the U.K.'s position will be that "full alignment" should apply to
goods and a limited number of services sectors, one U.K. official said.
On the customs issue, the proposal that Northern Ireland is subsumed into the EU's customs
territory is a non-starter with London
The alternative would be based on one of the two customs arrangements set out by the
government in August last year and reaffirmed by May in her Mansion House speech. They are
either a customs partnership -- known as the "hybrid" model internally -- or the "highly
streamlined customs arrangement" known by officials as "max-fac" or maximum facilitation.
The hybrid model would mean the U.K. continuing to police its border as if it were the
EU's customs border, but then tracking imports to apply different tariffs depending on which
market they end up in -- U.K. or EU. Under this scenario, because Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland would share an external EU customs border, as they do now, it would
remove the need for checks on the land border between the two.
The complexity and unprecedented nature of this solution has led to accusations from the
Brussels side that it amounts to "magical thinking."
The "max-fac" model is simpler conceptually but would represent a huge logistical effort
for U.K. customs authorities. It would involve the use of technological and legal measures
such as electronic pre-notification of goods crossing the border and a "trusted trader"
status for exporters and importers, to make customs checks as efficient as possible.
While the U.K. will present both customs arrangements as possible ways of solving this
aspect of the Irish border problem, one senior official said that the "hybrid" model was
emerging as the preferred option in London.
The UK is already having trouble getting its customs IT upgrade done on time, which happens
to be right before Brexit. As we wrote early on, even if the new programs are in place, they
won't be able to handle the increased transactions volume resulting from of being outside the
EU, and I haven't seen good figures as to what the impact would be of the UK becoming a third
country but having its transition deal in place. In other words, even if the "mac-fac" scheme
were acceptable to the EU (unlikely), the UK looks unable to pull off getting the needed
infrastructure in place. Even for competent shops, large IT projects have a high failure rate.
And customs isn't looking like a high capability IT player right now.
So the play for the EU is to let the UK continue to flail about and deliver Ireland
"solutions" that are dead on arrival because they violate clearly and consistently stated EU
red lines. The UK will then in say September be faced with a Brexit deal that is done save
Ireland, and it then have to choose between capitulating (it's hard to come up with any way to
improve the optics, but we do have a few months for creative ideas) or plunging into a chaotic
Brexit.
6.The approach outlined below reflects the level of rights and obligations compatible with
the positions stated by the UK
7. In this context, the European Council reiterates in particular that any agreement with
the United Kingdom will have to be based on a balance of rights and obligations, and ensure a
level playing field. A non-member of the Union, that does not live up to the same obligations
as a member, cannot have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as a member.
The European Council recalls that the four freedoms are indivisible and that there can be
no "cherry picking" through participation in the Single Market based on a sector-by-sector
approach, which would undermine the integrity and proper functioning of the Single
Market.
The European Council further reiterates that the Union will preserve its autonomy as
regards its decision-making, which excludes participation of the United Kingdom as a
third-country in the Union Institutions and participation in the decision-making of the Union
bodies, offices and agencies. The role of the Court of Justice of the European Union will
also be fully respected.
8. As regards the core of the economic relationship, the European Council confirms its
readiness to initiate work towards a balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging free trade
agreement (FTA) insofar as there are sufficient guarantees for a level playing field. This
agreement will be finalised and concluded once the UK is no longer a Member State.
The EU also reaffirmed the obvious, "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
The EU nevertheless has relented in its negotiating tactics . The EU's initial approach was
to put the most contentious issues up front: the exit tab, Ireland, freedom of movement. You
will notice it has achieved closure only only one of those issues where the EU's initial
position had been that they had to be concluded before the two sides would discuss "the future
relationship," as in trade. This is the opposite of the approach that professional negotiators
use, that of starting with the least contentious issues first to establish a working
relationship between both sides and create a sense of momentum, and then tackling the difficult
questions later. The EU has now allowed the UK to defer resolving the messy issue of Ireland
twice, and it is not clear if any progress has been made on the citizens' rights matter.
The UK is clearly past the point where it could undo Brexit . There was pretty much no way
to back out of Brexit, given the ferocious support for it in the tabloids versus the widespread
view that a second referendum that showed that opinion had changed was a political necessity
for a reversal. Pundits and politicians were cautious about even voicing the idea.
As we've pointed out, coming up with the wording of the referendum question took six months.
In the snap elections last year, the Lib Dems set forth the most compact timeline possible for
a Brexit referendum redo which presupposed that the phrasing had been settled. That was eight
months. And you'd have to have a Parliamentary approval process before and a vote afterwards
(Parliament is sovereign; a referendum in and of itself is not sufficient to change
course).
Spain has been making noises about Gibraltar but they aren't likely to mean much . I could
be proven wrong, but I don't see Spain as able to block a Brexit deal. Article 50 says that
only a "qualified majority" vote is required to approve a Brexit agreement. Spain as a lone
holdout couldn't keep a deal from being approved. And I don't see who would join Spain over the
issue of Gibraltar. In keeping, Spain joined with the rest of the EU27 in approving the latest
set of texts.
The UK still faces high odds of significant dislocations as of Brexit date . All sorts of
agreements to which the UK is a party via the EU cease to be operative once the UK become a
"third country". These other countries have every reason to take advantage of the UK's week and
administratively overextended position. Moreover, these countries can't entertain even
discussing interim trade arrangements (new trade deals take years) until they have at least a
high concept idea of what the "future relationship" with the EU will look like. Even though it
looks likely to be a Canada-type deal, no one wants to waste time negotiating until that is
firmed up.
May has lasted in office longer than many pundits predicted she would because, weak as her
grip on power may have been since she lost her parliamentary majority last year, she has
timed her surrenders cleverly.
It looks chaotic and undignified, but the prime minister has hunkered down and let pro-
and anti-Brexit factions in her party shout the odds in the media day and night, squabble
publicly about acceptable terms for a deal, leak against each other and publish Sunday
newspaper columns challenging her authority.
Then in the few days before a European summit deadline for the next phase of a deal, she
has rammed the only position acceptable to Brussels through her Cabinet and effectively
called the hard Brexiteers' bluff.
But what kind of leader marches her country into at worst an abyss and at best a future of
lower prosperity, less clout, and no meaningful increase in autonomy? Like it or not, the UK is
a small open economy, and its leaders, drunk on Imperial nostalgia, still can's stomach the
idea that the UK did better by flexing its muscle within the EU that it can ever do solo.
I'm curious as to the ramifications of the Northern Ireland sea border. Is reunification
possible with the ROI, given that the Unionists have been completely castrated?
I'm a Californian so am not one that is tuned into the history.
Theoretically, there is no fundamental problem with a NI sea border and NI remaining
within the UK. Northern Ireland already has its own Assembly and its own laws (the Assembly
is suspended at the moment), so it can, if the EU agreed, stay within the EU (albeit without
a separate vote or voice at the table). There are precedents for this, such as the
dependant territories of France . It would be constitutionally messy, but if authorized
by Parliament in London and in the EU itself, it would likely be legally watertight so far as
I am aware.
Hardline Unionists oppose this partly because they are ideologically opposed to the EU
anyway (although its highly likely many of their constituents don't agree), but also because
they see this as a 'thin end of the wedge' leading to a United Ireland. More thoughtful
Unionists realise that a sort of 'foot in both camps' approach might actually be an economic
boon to Northern Ireland – it could attract a lot of investment from companies wishing
easy access to both the internal UK market and Europe.
"The UK press has gone quiet as the Government knuckled under in the last round of
negotiations." The MSM, corporate or government (BBC and Channel 4), are under orders to go
quiet. In any case, it's easier and more fun to cover the anti-semites and anti-transgender
whatever in the Labour Party, Trump's extra-marital goings-on and whatever dastardly plot
Putin has come up with.
On my 'phone's news feed yesterday and today, the Corbyn's anti-Semitism is not shifting
from the top line. The only change is from where the latest article is sourced.
On the World Service this morning, the BBC reported from the "cultural front line against
Putin". A playwright (perhaps a member of playwrights against Putin) was given half an hour
from 5 am to witter on. This is half an hour more than what Brexit will get on the airwaves
today.
How are things playing out locally, Buckinghamshire in my case? The economy is slowing
down. More shops are closing. Some IT contractors report contracts not being renewed and
having to look for business outside the UK. East Europeans working in farming, care and
social services have been replaced in many, but not all, cases by immigrants from south Asia.
An cabbie and restaurateur report the worst festive season and first quarter of the year for
many, many years.
At Doncaster races last Saturday, the opening day of the flat season, some bookies were
offering odds of Tory victory in 2022, if not an earlier khaki one. It seems that May is a
survivor and Corbyn's Labour has peaked. All very depressing.
I think the key thing that is driving the politics for the moment is that May has shown an
absolute determination to hold on to power at any cost, and she realises that having a
transition agreement is central to this. I've also been puzzling over the relative
acquiescence of the hard Brexiteers – I think they've been told by their paymasters
that accepting a lousy transitional deal is the key to a 'clean' and firm Brexit. I believe
the phrase Gove was reported as using was that they should 'keep their eye on the prize'. I
think, as Yves says, the Tory establishment fears a move against May will precipitate a
Corbyn government, so they see it as a strategic necessity to keep her in position, and
postpone the main Brexit fallout for later.
Of lesser importance, but also I think a relevant consideration given the strong support
given by Merkel, Barnier and Tusk to the Irish PM, Varadkar, is that he is rumoured to be
planning a snap election in the autumn. His stance on Brexit has proven popular and he sees
the time as ripe to go for an overall majority (he is currently leading a minority
government). He is very much an EU establishment favourite, so I don't doubt that some of the
motivation is to help his domestic politics by giving him what are perceived as 'wins' over
Brexit.
If this is the case, then barring an unexpected event, I think there will be a strong
political push on both sides to sign off a transition deal which would be both a complete
surrender by the UK, but with sufficient spin by a supportively dim witted UK press will
allow her to push the whole Brexit issue politically to one side for a year or two. The
Tories will be hoping that this can be sold to the public as a success for long enough for
them to work out how to stop Corbyn.
I'm taking the liberty of re-posting a comment I made yesterday on one of the links
– a Richard North piece – to which none of the usual Brexit scholars responded
(Sunday .). It bears very much on this discussion and echoes a number of points made
above.
"Richard North's Brexit article is well informed as one would expect, but I think that, like
a lot of other commentators, he's missing something. May is a post-modern politician, ie
there is no particular link between what she says and does, and her understanding of its
impact on the real world. Only her words and actions actually count, and, whether it's
threatening Russia or threatening Brussels, real-world consequences don't form part of the
calculation, insofar as they actually exist. Her only concern (and in this she is indeed
post-modernist) is with how she is perceived by voters and the media, and as a consequence
whether she can hang onto her job. I think May has decided that she will have an agreement at
any cost, no matter if she has to surrender on every single issue, and throw Northern Ireland
to the wolves. She wants to be seen as the Prime Minister who got us "out of Europe," just as
Ted Heath got us in. The content of the final deal is secondary: not that she wouldn't prefer
to please the City and the Brexit ultras if she could, but if there's a choice she will
sacrifice them for a picture of her shaking hands with Barnier and waving the Union Jack with
the other hand. The resulting chaos can then be blamed on a treacherous Europe. Indeed, if
May can stick it out until next year, I think she'll keep her job. What a thought." I think
many of the hardline Brexiters have the same idea – the political prize is exiting the
EU: the damage is a secondary consideration. Any deal, no matter how humiliating, can be spun
in the end as a triumph because we will have broken the shackles of Brussels.
I'd add that the EU's emphasis on the priority to give to NI was an each-way bet, as I argued
at the time. Either the Tory government collapsed, and something more reasonable took its
place, or May gave way on everything else, in the hope of surviving and somehow finding a NI
solution later. This has indeed proved to be the case.
Finally, I wouldn't put too much store by the imperial nostalgia argument, not least because
few Brexiters were even alive then. The real nostalgia is for an independent Britain capable
of playing a role on the world stage, perhaps at the head of a coalition of likeminded
nations. The idea of a Commonwealth Free Trade area, for example, was raised in the 1975 EU
referendum debate, and has its ultimate origins in the ideas of Mill and others in the 19th
century for a kind of British superstate, incorporating Australia, New Zealand, Canada and
perhaps South Africa. Its ghost still walks.
Finally, let's not get too carried away with the small size of the British economy. It's the
fifth or sixth largest economy in the world, depending on how you calculate it, ahead of
Russia, India, Italy and Spain.
I think you are right that the main political priority now in London is preserving May in
her position. Whether or not she does a good deal (or any other good policy work) has become
irrelevant. Its all about survival, and keeping Corbyn at bay.
Who are the 'wolves' to whom NI may be thrown?
More interesting, who are the strange Tory Brexiteers, not exactly in sync with the needs and
expectations of the City of London, big business in Britain, etc? The people for whom an
imperial past is still a ghost that walks? A possible answer here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n05/william-davies/what-are-they-after
Thank you David. I agree with your definition of the present Brexit set-up and May herself
as post-modernist . The same could be said even more so about Trump . They have in their very
different ways taken politics to a place beyond policies and even identities ( it's most
recent iteration ) to this very new place where the public ( translation : American people )
simply roll over and get out of bed the next day to whatever is new and move on whether it be
bombing in Syria, or Trump and a prostitute . I think the technology of the smart phone and
everything that emanates from it is the handmaiden to this change . The speed of daily life
as orchestrated by the smart phone has brought us all , whether we like it or not, to this
post-modern , everything is a cultural construct , position which is possibly the most
terrifying reality the West has ever had to face and yet it barely registers .
On your last point – it used to be larger. It would have been inconcievable even 50
years ago that the UK's economy could be compared with Spain's.
The point being that the correlation of physical closeness and trade is about as close as
you get in economics to a natural law. The UK is now spurning (wilfully limiting its access
to) the closest and the richest markets it has. That will have impact – and no amount
of Brexiter's wishful thinking will replace it – if for nothing else, the likelyhood of
the UK SMEs suddenly wanting to export to China/India/NZ/whatever is not going to grow with
Brexit. Those who wanted and could, already do. The other don't want and are unlikely to want
to in a new world.
Vlade, 50 years ago Africa still started at the Pyrenées, as the saying was in
France. It is not that the UK has shrunk so much as that Spain has dramatically improved its
position. So, unhelpful comparison. How the UK fared over those 50 years relative to, say,
France and Germany or even Italy, would be more instructive.
In relation to France it stayed roughly the same. But actually the share of British GDP to
world GDP is much smaller and international specialisation and globalisation is much
increased. For the question if the UK can act as a "big" economy in relation to economic
policy the latter is more important.
You watch. About the same time that the British wake to find that the elites have sold
them down the river through devastating incompetence and sheer bloodymindedness, they will
find that in the transition to Brexit that the government would have voted themselves all
sorts of laws that will give them authoritarian powers. And then it will be too late.
It won't matter how bad May is at that point and she might just resign and let somebody else
deal with all the fallout over the new regulations at which time she will be kicked upstairs
to the House of Lords. Isn't the way that it works in practice? Don't make any preparations,
tell the people that they have got it all organized, then when it all hits they start pumping
out emergency orders and the like.
It all seems quite curious does it not (curiouser and curiouser?). I wonder if I smell a
rat? Forgive me; I have a suspicious nature. I was thinking partly of the role of Gove, which
prompted some idle musings.
Gove is reportedly telling people who support Brexit to keep their eyes on the prize, by
which he is said to mean letting the clock run down to 29 March 2019 at which time the UK is
officially out of the EU. When I read Gove, I tend to think Murdoch, who pulls Gove's
strings. Yves quite rightly asks what the press barons are about; that is generally worth
knowing when it comes to UK politics. Is Murdoch playing a longer game?
The argument goes that once the UK is out of the EU it will be much harder to get support
for it to go back in again as the UK would only be allowed back in without the special
privileges it had negotiated for itself over the decades : opt out from Euro, Schengen,
various justice issues, the budget rebate. Is this determining Murdoch's approach at the
moment – ensure that the UK is outside the EU at almost any cost before proceeding to
the next stage, when Ministers will be largely unable to call Brussels in to help them
against him and his allies?
Why might Murdoch want to do that? There is talk that May will be ditched once she does a
deal. If it is seen as a bad deal then she becomes the scapegoat (and Gove steps in to her
shoes?). Post March 2019, it might then be the plan to seek to undercut the effect of any
deal struck now by, for example, pulling out of the Good Friday Agreement if that proves to
be an obstacle to the trade deals Fox is so keen to sign (is he expecting kickbacks?). At
that point the UK might declare that with the demise of the GFA it was no longer constrained
by the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement with regards to the Irish Border and with one leap
the UK would be free. I have seen cynics suggest that the men of violence in Northern Ireland
might be encouraged to go on a bit if a spree to justify claims that the GFA had failed.
I hope I am wrong but as I said I have a suspicious nature and, having watched more of
Murdoch's machinations than I have ever wished, know that he is very capable of playing a
long game.
I'm loath to indulge in conspiracy theorising, but when it comes to Brexit (and Northern
Ireland) conspiracies are legion and real.
I'm sure in any spiders web Murdoch will be found in the middle of it, and there is
certainly something up, thats the only explanation for the low key response of the hard
Brexiters. It wouldn't surprise me if he has realised that a tanking UK economy isn't exactly
good for his investments (its also worth noting that it seems to have belatedly been realised
by the UK media economy that many of them will have to up sticks to Europe if they are to
keep broadcasting rights).
My guess is that they 'have a plan' which will involve Gove playing middle man, but
actually working for a decisive Brexit doing his duty for the country at some stage to step
into Mays shoes. All sorts of behind the scenes promises (mostly jobs, no doubt) have
probably been made. I suspect a centre piece of it would be a dramatic repudiation of any
deal, supposedly on the UK's terms.
As for Northern Ireland, anything is possible. Several of the
Loyalist terrorist groups have been shown over the years to be little more than puppets
of the security forces, they will do what they are told. And there have long been rumours
that at least one of the fringe Republican groups is so completely infiltrated that they are
similarly under control. There have been nearly 50 years of shady assassinations and bombings
in NI and the Republic which have the fingerprints of intelligence services, so quite
literally, I could believe almost anything could happen if it was in their interest. People
who c ould
maintain a boys home as the centre of a paedophile ring for political purposes are
capable of almost anything.
Oh yes, this is a big part of the history of "the troubles". So much of what went on in
that conflict was beneficial to the U.K. government. Budget, manpower, little oversight,
draconian powers and a lot more besides was enabled merely because of the paramilitary
activities. It's not hard to look for well documented examples -- such as the mass
warrantless surveillance of all U.K.- Republic telecommunications http://www.lamont.me.uk/capenhurst/original.html
by the U.K. security services.
And, there's more, a lot of provisional activity was just your common or garden organised
crime -- protection rackets, kidnapping and bribery.
To say that the troubles were merely to do with republicanism and unionism is like saying
US Civil War was only about racism and ignoring the politics and the economics.
I think that we should remember how much the anti-EU fraternity in politics and the media
have had a symbiotic, if not downright parasitic, relationship with the EU itself. Much of
their commerce depended on us being members, and so being able to strike poses and make cheap
cracks about Europe and Brussels. I have a feeling that reality is starting to dawn, and they
are standing to understand that politics will be a great deal more complicated, and probably
nastier, after Brexit than even it is now.They'll have to find something else to complain
about for easy applause instead of just bashing Brussels.
As for conspiracy theories, well I have the same skepticism about them of most people who've
worked in government, and I happen to have been reasonably close to a number of people who
had to deal with these issues in the 1970s and 1980s. There was certainly complicity in some
cases, and some of the actors involved broke the rules badly , but it's a stretch from that
to talk of conspiracies. With what objective? And what objective would such conspiracies have
today, and how could they be implemented? The universal refrain among everyone I knew
involved in the security forces at the time was Get Us Out of Here.
It'll put a cat amongst the pigeons and no mistake. If I may put in a word from the
deplorables who voted Brexit, there's a lot which -- for both the UK and the EU -- was made a
whole lot easier because a problem issue could simply be labelled as the British complaining
and not understanding The Project.
Take energy. It was probably energy supply as much as Greece and the Ukraine which tipped
me over into Brexit. At the behest of the U.K., the European energy industry became, at least
in theory, a pan-continental endeavour free from national restrictive practices. Well, a fat
lot of good that turned out to be. As exemplified by the recent cold weather snap, UK
wholesalers when faced with a shortfall in natural gas supplies spiked the offer price into
the stratosphere
http://mip-prod-web.azurewebsites.net/PrevailingViewGraph/ViewReport?prevailingViewGraph=ActualPriceGraph&gasDate=2018-03-26
. No -- and I mean no -- EU suppliers made any bids. Now, it's either a Single
Market or it isn't. It either looks and acts like it's subject to market forces or it
doesn't. The rules are either enforced properly amongst all participants or they aren't.
Irony's of irony's, when the U.K. needed an augmented natural gas input to match system
demand, the only country to answer their doorbell was Russia. That, and some U.K. big
capacity users releasing stocks from storage.
Now, the smell of the nationalist pulling up the drawbridge in energy supply is causing
the Commission to try to document how in fact the Single Market sometimes isn't a market at
all but just a token gesture and is working on the usual eurofudge
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2018.032.01.0052.01.ENG&toc=OJ:L:2018:032:TOC
(the contortions of which did genuinely have me laughing out loud). There's going to be a lot
more of this to come once the U.K. can't be the donkey this kind of tail is routinely pinned
on.
And it'll be the same in the U.K. of course. Without the EU ready to play it's role of
perpetual bogeyman, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. And I still cannot, in all
honesty, say anything other than bring it on.
People have avoided the difficulty of reciprocal citizen's rights. How can the UK
reciprocate with all the EU countries? Simultaneously? Where UK non-citizen residents can
relocate for 30 years to an EU country then relocate back in the same way that a Brit in
France can move to Germany for 30 years and then move back under current rules? It's even
worse if you consider reciprocity to include the rights of all people outside their
citizenship country's right to relocate.
The only obvious solution is to reduce Brits to the same status of any immigrant to a EU
country. That means not being able to shift your permanent residency without applying for
immigration.
Unless you are blue card eligible that's non-trivial.
Robert Bartley, the late editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, was a free trade
zealot who for decades championed a five-word amendment to the Constitution: "There shall be
open borders."
Bartley accepted what the erasure of America's borders and an endless influx or foreign
peoples and goods would mean for his country.
Said Bartley, "I think the nation-state is finished."
His vision and ideology had a long pedigree.
This free trade, open borders cult first flowered in 18th-century Britain. The St. Paul of
this post-Christian faith was Richard Cobden, who mesmerized elites with the grandeur of his
vision and the power of his rhetoric.
In Free Trade Hall in Manchester, Jan. 15, 1846, the crowd was so immense the seats had to
be removed. There, Cobden thundered:
"I look farther; I see in the Free Trade principle that which shall act on the moral world
as the principle of gravitation in the universe -- drawing men together, thrusting aside the
antagonisms of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal
peace."
Britain converted to this utopian faith and threw open her markets to the world. Across the
Atlantic, however, another system, that would be known as the "American System," had been
embraced.
The second bill signed by President Washington was the Tariff Act of 1789. Said the Founding
Father of his country in his first address to Congress: "A free people should promote such
manufactures as tend to make them independent on others for essential, particularly military
supplies."
In his 1791 "Report on Manufactures," Alexander Hamilton wrote, "Every nation ought to
endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the
means of subsistence, habitat, clothing and defence."
This was wisdom born of experience.
At Yorktown, Americans had to rely on French muskets and ships to win their independence.
They were determined to erect a system that would end our reliance on Europe for the
necessities of our national life, and establish new bonds of mutual dependency -- among
Americans.
Britain's folly became manifest in World War I, as a self-reliant America stayed out, while
selling to an import-dependent England the food, supplies and arms she needed to survive but
could not produce.
America's own first major steps toward free trade, open borders and globalism came with
JFK's Trade Expansion Act and LBJ's Immigration Act of 1965.
By the end of the Cold War, however, a reaction had set in, and a great awakening begun.
U.S. trade deficits in goods were surging into the hundreds of billions, and more than a
million legal and illegal immigrants were flooding in yearly, visibly altering the character of
the country.
Americans were coming to realize that free trade was gutting the nation's manufacturing base
and open borders meant losing the country in which they grew up. And on this earth there is no
greater loss.
The new resistance of Western man to the globalist agenda is now everywhere manifest.
We see it in Trump's hostility to NAFTA, his tariffs, his border wall.
We see it in England's declaration of independence from the EU in Brexit. We see it in the
political triumphs of Polish, Hungarian and Czech nationalists, in anti-EU parties rising
across Europe, in the secessionist movements in Scotland and Catalonia and Ukraine, and in the
admiration for Russian nationalist Vladimir Putin.
Europeans have begun to see themselves as indigenous peoples whose Old Continent is mortally
imperiled by the hundreds of millions of invaders wading across the Med and desperate come and
occupy their homelands.
Who owns the future? Who will decide the fate of the West?
The problem of the internationalists is that the vision they have on offer -- a world of
free trade, open borders and global government -- are constructs of the mind that do not engage
the heart.
Men will fight for family, faith and country. But how many will lay down their lives for
pluralism and diversity?
Who will fight and die for the Eurozone and EU?
On Aug. 4, 1914, the anti-militarist German Social Democrats, the oldest and greatest
socialist party in Europe, voted the credits needed for the Kaiser to wage war on France and
Russia. With the German army on the march, the German socialists were Germans first.
Patriotism trumps ideology.
In "Present at the Creation," Dean Acheson wrote of the postwar world and institutions born
in the years he served FDR and Truman in the Department of State: The U.N., IMF, World Bank,
Marshall Plan, and with the split between East and West, NATO.
We are present now at the end of all that.
And our transnational elites have a seemingly insoluble problem.
To rising millions in the West, the open borders and free trade globalism they cherish and
champion is not a glorious future, but an existential threat to the sovereignty, independence
and identity of the countries they love. And they will not go gentle into that good night.
"... Based on historical evidence, to believe that Trump (with his party - Republican control of House and Senate) will change our course is naive. By contrast, Obama D had both houses also - we got WAR, cash for clunkers, foreclosures, bank bailouts and health care by AHIP with runaway costs. ..."
In fifty years, very little has been done by US Federal Government which benefits the common citizen. A great deal has been done
to facilitate the degradation of the common citizen by the global one percent. We have a new world order as called for by GHW
Bush.
Based on historical evidence, to believe that Trump (with his party - Republican control of House and Senate) will change
our course is naive. By contrast, Obama D had both houses also - we got WAR, cash for clunkers, foreclosures, bank bailouts and
health care by AHIP with runaway costs.
Trump is and has been carrying out his own policies to enrich those that already have everything and to repeal any regulations
that were put into place to protect the people. Have you not noticed that he lined his cabinet with Goldman Sachs (which he blasted
HRC for associating her self with.
Like I said he and his gang are doing what they want to help enrich themselves on the backs of the rest of us. Wake up and
quit upholding these lying pieces of excrement they are no different than the ones before them.
Trump is a dirty businessman the things that he is doing are to benefit him and his family and to screw the rest of us and
tell us how great it is for us. You my man have drank from the Trump cup and think that anything that speaks against him is "fake
news" when in reality Trump and the likes of Breitbart are the "fake news" a little truth but a bunch of spin
In this state the current war between factions of the US elite reminds Stalin fight against "globalists" like Trotsky, who were
hell-bent of the idea of world revolution.
Notable quotes:
"... I would define Trump_vs_deep_state as "bastard neoliberalism" which tries to combine domestic "100% pure" neoliberalism with the rejection of neoliberal globalization as well as partial rejection of expensive effort for expansion of US led neoliberal empire via color revolutions and military invasions, especially in the Middle East. ..."
"... That makes screams of "soft neoliberals" from Democratic Party at "hard neoliberals" at Republican Party really funny indeed. Both are essentially "latter-day Trotskyites", yet they scream at each other, especially Obama/Clinton supporters ;-) ..."
"... But in reality Democratic sheeple are just a different type of wolfs -- wolfs in sheep clothing. And Hillary was an old, worn "classic neoliberal" shoe, which nobody really wants to wear. ..."
"... Trump does not intend to change the neoliberal consensus of what government should do domestically, and what should be the relationship between US government and business community. ..."
I would define Trump_vs_deep_state as "bastard neoliberalism" which tries
to combine domestic "100% pure" neoliberalism with the rejection of neoliberal globalization as well
as partial rejection of expensive effort for expansion of US led neoliberal empire via color revolutions
and military invasions, especially in the Middle East.
That's what seems to be the key difference of Trump_vs_deep_state from "classic neoliberalism" or as Sklar
called it "corporate liberalism".
From Reagan to Obama all US governments pray to the altar of classic neoliberalism. Now we have
a slight deviation.
That makes screams of "soft neoliberals" from Democratic Party at "hard neoliberals" at Republican
Party really funny indeed. Both are essentially "latter-day Trotskyites", yet they scream at each
other, especially Obama/Clinton supporters ;-)
In this sense Krugman recent writings are really pathetic and signify his complete detachment
from reality, or more correctly attempt to create an "artificial reality" in which bad wolf Trump
is going to eat Democratic sheeple. And in which media, FBI, and Putin are responsible entirely for
Hillary's loss.
But in reality Democratic sheeple are just a different type of wolfs -- wolfs in sheep clothing.
And Hillary was an old, worn "classic neoliberal" shoe, which nobody really wants to wear.
Trump does not intend to change the neoliberal consensus of what government should do domestically,
and what should be the relationship between US government and business community.
But the far right movement that he created and led has different ideas.
But Trump himself was quickly neutered (in just three month) and now does not represents
"Trumpism" (rejection of neoliberal globalization, unrestricted immigration for suppression of
wages, rejection of elimination of jobs via outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing,
rejection of wars for enlargement and sustaining of neoliberal empire, especially NATO role as
global policemen and wars for Washington client Israel in Middle east, detente with Russia etc)
in any meaningful way. He is just an aging Narcissist in power.
Looks like Trump became a variant of Hillary minus sex change operation.
Notable quotes:
"... He supports same sex relations and marriage of the same. ..."
"... He is by nature a situational leader -- not typically a conservatives methodology of leadership ..."
"... . He mistakes support and loyalty for agreement. ..."
"... He seems too weak to stand his ground on key issues. Syria, (missile attack) ..."
"... His willingness to ignore -- Israel-US problematic relationship. ..."
"... I am leary of anyone who says tough things about immigration, but quietly backpedals or openly does the same -- DACA. ..."
it's easy to come away from CPAC energy and enthusiasm thinking your headline is an accurate
description of what is happening in the GOP. I am more conservative thankfully in my views
than most members at CPAC. And while I may not be the typical voter. I can say categorically,
that :trumoing" is not in my blood. Let's look what a consevative had to consider when
evaluating Pres Trump:
3. He supports same sex relations and marriage of the same.
... ... ...
5. He is by nature a situational leader -- not typically a conservatives methodology
of leadership
... ... ...
8 . He mistakes support and loyalty for agreement.
9. He seems too weak to stand his ground on key issues. Syria, (missile
attack)
10. His willingness to ignore -- Israel-US problematic relationship.
11. He thinks that Keynesian policy is a substitute for economic growth. monetary
policy.
12. I am leary of anyone who says tough things about immigration, but quietly
backpedals or openly does the same -- DACA.
"Note about Miss Mona Charin: the two agree on so many points on foreign policy, especially
Israel, it's hard to see her disdain. I think she rejects his troublesome demeanor and attitude.
Presidential decorum is a big deal to many."
Notable quotes:
"... The sixty plus millions of people who voted Trump are politically diverse. They have one thing in common. They were not persuaded by the loud, continuous and shameless lying of the corporate media. Rather they were motivated by it. ..."
Now his other supporters might say, considered against all the other candidates -- he's
better. Hmmmm, well, that's why I voted for him.
Thank you. My bullet points would differ from yours but in the end I also voted for Trump.
The sixty plus millions of people who voted Trump are politically diverse. They have one
thing in common. They were not persuaded by the loud, continuous and shameless lying of the
corporate media. Rather they were motivated by it.
The deplorables, having found one another, need to hang together until we find real
leadership. Trump, whatever he is, is not a leader.
"... he Dems disgust me with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations). ..."
"... Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns this around and I doubt it's even possible. ..."
"... The Real Reason Establishment Frauds Hate Trump and Obsess About Russia https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/02/20/the-real-reason-establishment-frauds-hate-trump-and-obsess-about-russia/ ..."
"... Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy. Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party. ..."
"... he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit. ..."
"... I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all. ..."
"... My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg ..."
jsn @16 & 40, in complete agreement with you. Great comments! T he Dems disgust me
with their neo-McCarthyism and the Repubs disgust me because of the way they are playing out
their hand right now as well. Games within corrupt games, and yet normal behavior especially
in waning empires (or other types of polities, including powerful int'l corporations).
Chapter 14 of Guns, Germs and Steel is titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" and
it used to be available online but my old link is dead and I couldn't find a new one. But a
basic definition should suffice: "Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, is a
form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the
personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of
the wider population, often without pretense of honest service." I have no idea how one turns
this around and I doubt it's even possible.
Back when I used to subscribe to STRATFOR, founder George Friedman always made a point of
evaluating the elites of whatever country he was analyzing and how they operated amongst
themselves and relative to the people and how effective they were or were not in governing a
country. But he never did that for the US. I would have paid extra for that report! But of
course he could not stay in business if he did such a thing as those people are his
clients.
I think Mike Krieger over at Liberty Blitzkrieg nails it from another perspective with
this post:
Blaming Russia for all the nation's problems serves several key purposes for various
defenders of the status quo. For discredited neocons and neoliberals who never met a failed
war based on lies they didn't support, it provides an opportunity to rehabilitate their
torched reputations by masquerading as fierce patriots against the latest existential enemy.
Similarly, for those who lived in denial about who Obama really was for eight years, latching
on to the Russia narrative allows them to reassure themselves that everything really was fine
before Trump and Russia came along and ruined the party.
By throwing every problem in Putin's lap, the entrenched bipartisan status quo can tell
themselves (and everybody else) that it wasn't really them and their policies that voters
rejected in 2016, rather, the American public was tricked by cunning, nefarious Russians.
Ridiculous for sure, but never underestimate the instinctive human desire to deny
accountability for one's own failures. It's always easier to blame than to accept
responsibility.
That said, there's a much bigger game afoot beyond the motivations of individuals looking
to save face. The main reason much of the highest echelons of American power are united
against Trump has nothing to do with his actual policies. Instead, they're terrified that --
unlike Obama -- he's a really bad salesman for empire. This sort of Presidential instability
threatens the continuance of their well oiled and exceedingly corrupt gravy train. Hillary
Clinton was a sure thing, Donald Trump remains an unpredictable wildcard.
... Obama said all the right things while methodically doing the bidding of oligarchy. He
captured the imagination of millions, if not billions, around the world with his soaring
rhetoric, yet rarely skipped a beat when it came to the advancement of imperial policies. He
made bailing out Wall Street, droning civilians and cracking down on journalists seem
progressive. He said one thing, did another, and people ate it up. This is an extraordinarily
valuable quality when it comes to a vicious and unelected deep state that wants to keep a
corrupt empire together.
Trump has the exact opposite effect. Sure, he also frequently says one thing and then does
another, but he doesn't provide the same feel good quality to empire that Obama did. He's
simply not the warm and fuzzy salesman for oligarchy and empire Obama was, thus his inability
to sugarcoat state-sanctioned murder forces a lot of people to confront the uncomfortable
hypocrisies in our society that many would prefer not to admit.
------------
I can't stand Kushner's smirky face and got a good chuckle from this prince's fall as
I am not a fan of his passion for Israel. But I don't think he's a stupid idiot either. He's
probably very smart in business, but he seems to have no feel for politics. Trump is much
better at it than Kushner. Of course they are going after Kushner as a way to attack and
disadvantage Trump. Politics is a form of warfare after all.
My take is that Trump survives but mostly contained by the Borg
At the core of Trumpism is the rejection of neoliberalism
Pat Buchanan does not understand neoliberalism well and mixes apples with oranges, but the key idea expressed here stands: " Consider
this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants, not one of whom ever built
a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I. Our cities have
been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic independence Hamilton sought and Republican
presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history."
Notable quotes:
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." ..."
"I walk through this world with greater courage and hope when I find myself in a relation of friendship and intimacy with this
great man, whose fame has gone out not only over all Russia, but the world. We regard Marshal Stalin's life as most precious to the
hopes and hearts of all of us."
Returning home, Churchill assured a skeptical Parliament, "I know of no Government which stands to its obligations, even in its
own despite, more solidly than the Russian Soviet Government."
George W. Bush, with the U.S. establishment united behind him, invaded Iraq with the goal of creating a Vermont in the Middle
East that would be a beacon of democracy to the Arab and Islamic world.
Ex-Director of the NSA Gen. William Odom correctly called the U.S. invasion the greatest strategic blunder in American history.
But Bush, un-chastened, went on to preach a crusade for democracy with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
... ... ...
After our victory in the Cold War, we not only plunged into the Middle East to remake it in our image, we issued war guarantees
to every ex-member state of the Warsaw Pact, and threatened Russia with war if she ever intervened again in the Baltic Republics.
No Cold War president would have dreamed of issuing such an in-your-face challenge to a great nuclear power like Russia. If Putin's
Russia does not become the pacifist nation it has never been, these guarantees will one day be called. And America will either back
down -- or face a nuclear confrontation. Why would we risk something like this?
Consider this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants, not one
of whom ever built a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits since
Bush I. Our cities have been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic independence
Hamilton sought and Republican presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history.
But the greatest risk we are taking, based on utopianism, is the annual importation of well over a million legal and illegal immigrants,
many from the failed states of the Third World, in the belief we can create a united, peaceful and harmonious land of 400 million,
composed of every race, religion, ethnicity, tribe, creed, culture and language on earth.
Where is the historic evidence for the success of this experiment, the failure of which could mean the end of America as one nation
and one people?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and
Divided America Forever."
Pat Buchanan does not understand neoliberalism well and mixes apples with oranges, but the key idea expressed here stands:
" Consider this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants,
not one of whom ever built a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits
since Bush I. Our cities have been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic
independence Hamilton sought and Republican presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history."
The truth is that now Trump does not represent "Trumpism" -- the movement that he created which includes the following:
– rejection of neoliberal globalization;
– rejection of unrestricted immigration;
– fight against suppression of wages by multinationals via cheap imported labor;
– fight against the elimination of meaningful, well-paying jobs via outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing;
– rejection of wars for enlargement and sustaining of neoliberal empire, especially NATO role as global policemen and wars for
Washington client Israel in the Middle East;
– détente with Russia;
– more pragmatic relations with Israel and suppression of Israeli agents of influence;
– revision of relations with China and addressing the problem of trade deficit.
– rejection of total surveillance on all citizens;
– the cut of military expenses to one third or less of the current level and concentrating on revival on national infrastructure,
education, and science.
– abandonment of maintenance of the "sole superpower" status and global neoliberal empire for more practical and less costly "semi-isolationist"
foreign policy; closing of unnecessary foreign military bases and cutting aid to the current clients.
Of course, the notion of "Trumpism" is fuzzy and different people might include some additional issues and disagree with some
listed here, but the core probably remains.
Of course, Trump is under relentless attack (coup d'état or, more precisely, a color revolution) of neoliberal fifth column,
which includes Clinton gang, fifth column elements within his administration (Rosenstein, etc) as well from remnants of Obama
administration (Brennan, Comey, Clapper) and associated elements within corresponding intelligence agencies. He probably was forced
into some compromises just to survive. He also has members of the neoliberal fifth column within his family (Ivanka and Kushner).
So the movement now is in deep need of a new leader.
That's a good summary of what the public voted for and didn't get.
And whether Trump has sold out, or was blackmailed or was a cynical manipulative liar for the beginning is really irrelevant.
The fact is that he is not doing it – so he is just blocking the way.
At some point the US public are going to have to forget about their "representatives" (Trump and Congress and the rest of
them) and get out onto the street to make themselves heard. The population of the US is 323 million people and if just 1/2
of 1% (1,6 million) of them decided to visit Congress directly the US administration might get the message.
pyrrhus, March 3, 2018 at 2:15 am GMT
@anon
Finally, Pat understands that the American [Neoliberal] Empire and habit of intervention all over the world is a disaster.
it's easy to come away from CPAC energy and enthusiasm thinking your headline is an accurate
description of what is happening in the GOP. I am more conservative thankfully in my views
than most members at CPAC. And while I may not be the typical voter. I can say categorically,
that :trumoing" is not in my blood. Let's look what a consevative had to consider when
evaluating Pres Trump:
1. He has spent most of his life supporting the murder of children.
2. He supports a national healthcare policy
3. He supports same sex relations and marriage of the same.
4. He ha absolutely little or n o knowledge about scripture or its intent in practice.
5. He is by nature a situational leader -- not typically a conservatives methodology of
leadership
6. He can't reconcile historical criticism from deciphering a realistic image of the
country.
7. He thinks that the country has disadvantaged whites and the previous executive that
indication.
8. He mistakes support and loyalty for agreement.
9. He seems too weak to stand his ground on key issues. Syria, (missile attack)
10. His willingness to ignore – Israel-US problematic relationship.
11. He thinks that Keynesian policy is a substitute for economic growth. monetary
policy.
12. I am leary of anyone who says tough things about immigration, but quietly backpedals
or openly does the same -- DACA.
Now his other supporters might say, considered against all the other candidates -- he's
better. Hmmmm, well, that's why I voted for him. But that vote is not unconditional or
inconsiderate of where this executive and my conservative principles part company. On a
personal note -- someone who does not grasp celibacy in theory and practice -- is probably
not going to have a conservative bone in his core. There's one aspect of Pres. trump that
makes me leary -- but I will bite my tongue. What I have noted is on the record.
The fact that he says things that amount to standing up to democrats and liberals is one
thing, but what he engages in as to policy in many respects may not be that far off from
their own. Laugh -- he does think someone should stand up for people of faith -- that's a
relief.
Note about Miss Mona Charin: the two agree on so many points on foreign policy, especially
Israel, it's hard to see her disdain. I think she rejects his troublesome demeanor and
attitude. Presidential decorum is a big deal to many.
It wasn' t Trump who back pedaled on DACA. He issued the executive order that would
rescind it. But in accord with Marbury vs Madison 1804, just 2 low level judges, one in
Hawaii and one in Brooklyn NYC overturned the executive order.
The DoJ appealed it went to the Supreme court last week. The Supreme Court refused to hear
it.
So the rulings of just 2 low level judges prevailed over the executive order of an elected
president.
It wasn't Trump who back pedaled. It was our ridiculous judicial supremacy legal system
that ruled that the DACAs can stay. It's nothing new, it's been that way since 1804.
Only 2 presidents defied a Supreme Court ruling: Jackson in his order to expell Indians
and Lincon's Suspending haveas corpus for the 4 years of the civil war.
Face it, this country has been ruled by judges from the beginnning.
Abortion? If it were not for abortion the black criminal affirmative action neighborhood
and school destroying demographic would be at least 25 percent of the population instead of
12 percent.
No city or school has been able to withstand more than about a 10 percent black
population. 25 percent is totally destructive.
The anti homosexual thing is in the Jewish part of the Bible, not the Christian part. I
for one can't understand why so called Christians are so obsessed with the sex rape polygamy
lie cheat steal and massacre Jewish part of the Bible.
The 2 parts are total opposites. One is kill slay massacre lie cheat and steal. The other
is be good and generous sexually chaste virtuous and avoid war and massacring a defeated
enemy.
Don't blame Trump for losing on DACA. Blame our judicial supremacy system of
government
He backpedaled on DACA by not rescinding it on his first day in office like he promised.
He did so by creating a deadline and asking Congress do fix it rather than just take it apart
like he promised.
This district court judges do not have the power to tell a President that he must maintain
a clearly unconstitutional program that was created with nothing but the stroke of the
President's pen. He can and should simply ignore the lower courts ruling and force the
Supreme Court to get off their butts and reign in these lower courts that think they have the
power to make law.
The only reason the courts think they have this power is because everybody defers to them.
It is one thing for the court to rule that some law is unconstitutional but quite another for
courts to determine how those laws are implemented and what powers the executive has –
even when they have nothing to do with those enumerated in the Constitution.
The framers of the Constitution expected men, with all their lust for power, to jealously
guard their power and in so doing make it hard for any one part of the governmnt to get too
strong. However, now we have cowards in Congress ceding their power to the President so they
don't have to make tough decisions that they will be hels accountable for on election day and
we have weak Presidents hiding behind ridiculous rulings from unelected judges.
The betrayal has absolutely with a court ruling. His offered compromise is the issue and make
no mistake that was no compromise.
I could get in to some other choices the Pres could have chosen on the law created by DHS.
But we'd be having a discussion issues pertaining the use of government agencies to in effect
make laws without Congressional approval or the consent by the executive. Clearly with the
DACA memo, it's clear that its existence rests on the discretion of the executive's
enforcement of the law.
But as with most people, I get the excuse but the courts made me do it or wouldn't let me
do it. government. He could have issues his memo for his current DHS head to amend the
document, period. But I am dipping my toe where it need not be dipped to remain where I came
in -- this president caved as he has on several issues. His supposed deal is exemplary of his
choice to lob missiles and send troops into Syria.
He gets convinced he is being a "good guy". His hand ringing about a situation he himself
created is further indication of his willingness to betray principles come as to why people
like myself voted for him.
I have gone to bat for this executive even at the expense of my own moral codes for the
sake of fairness. No. His offerings were a betrayal with or without the cover of a court
ruling.
One year later we can say with confidence, yes he morphed into a neocon in foreign policy.
What is especially bad is that Trump executed "bait and switch" maneuver as smoothly as Obama. Devastating.
Notable quotes:
"... So now it gets me thinking like this: Who are Mr. Bandow's clients today? ..."
"... Some say that the reason for Trump's total reversal of his campaign-position on Russia is the American Deep State (the U.S. aristocracy and its agents). I agree with that view. ..."
"... I believe the American people are beginning to realize the CIA has the obsession for multiple, unending wars all for the benefit of Wall Street. ..."
"... It appears "military-industrial complex" or "deep state" refuses to take step back and insists on sucking more money from taxpayers. On first glance all is great for them, bombing of Middle East will continue, and so will military expansion at cost of civilian programs. However, ramifications to rest of the world should not be dismissed. EU countries are divided on following Washington hard line against Russia or diverge with USA. Currently, EU is cracking and might fall apart. Some in USA would cheer it but in long run it will mean loss of strongest US supporter against China. Regarding Middle East, Trump punished victims of AlQaeda and did nothing against financiers of AlQaeda, which will only increase local tensions. So indeed, not a great start... ..."
"... While I basically agree that Trump is not following through on his campaign, we must keep in mind that the campaign of his opponent was for MUCH more of the same, new wars, vastly increased fighting in current wars. So more of the same is in fact a big step down from the alternative. ..."
"... Stop those wars. They don't serve us. ..."
"... Trump's a liar, and his whole campaign was a calculated fraud from the beginning. We're the victims of a "bait-and-switch" scam. ..."
"... Because he lied. Just like he lied about draining the swamp and just restocked it with new varmints from Goldman Sachs and even an ex-Soros employee. Nothing new for me. Been watching elections for about 60 years and this is same ole. America can't take much more of this before it collapses and splits apart. The world isn't going to take much more from dc either. God help us. We are in a pickle! ..."
Candidate Donald Trump offered a sharp break from his predecessors. He was particularly critical of neoconservatives, who
seemed to back war at every turn.
Indeed, he promised not to include in his administration "those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except
responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war." And he's generally kept that commitment, for
instance rejecting as deputy secretary of state Elliot Abrams, who said Trump was unfit to be president.
Substantively candidate Trump appeared to offer not so much a philosophy as an inclination. Practical if not exactly realist, he
cared more for consequences than his three immediate predecessors, who had treated wars as moral crusades in Somalia, the
Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. In contrast, Trump promised: "unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and
aggression will not be my first instinct."
Yet so far the Trump administration is shaping up as a disappointment for those who hoped for a break from the liberal
interventionist/neoconservative synthesis.
The first problem is staffing. In Washington people are policy. The president can speak and tweet, but he needs others to turn
ideas into reality and implement his directives. It doesn't appear that he has any foreign policy realists around him, or anyone
with a restrained view of America's international responsibilities.
Rex Tillerson, James Mattis and H. R. McMaster are all serious and talented, and none are neocons. But all seem inclined toward
traditional foreign policy approaches and committed to moderating their boss's unconventional thoughts. Most of the names
mentioned for deputy secretary of state have been reliably hawkish, or some combination of hawk and centrist-Abrams, John Bolton,
the rewired Jon Huntsman.
Trump appears to be most concerned with issues that have direct domestic impacts, and especially with economic nostrums about
which he is most obviously wrong. He's long been a protectionist (his anti-immigration opinions are of more recent vintage). Yet
his views have not changed even as circumstances have. The Chinese once artificially limited the value of the renminbi, but
recently have taken the opposite approach. The United States is not alone in losing manufacturing jobs, which are disappearing
around the world and won't be coming back. Multilateral trade agreements are rarely perfect, but they are not zero sum games.
They usually offer political as well as economic benefits. Trump does not seem prepared to acknowledge this, at least
rhetorically. Indeed he has brought on board virulent opponents of free trade such as Peter Navarro.
The administration's repudiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was particularly damaging. Trump's decision embarrassed
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who had offered important economic concessions to join. More important, Trump has abandoned
the economic field to the People's Republic of China, which is pushing two different accords. Australia, among other U.S. allies,
has indicated that it now will deal with Beijing, which gets to set the Pacific trade agenda. In this instance, what's good for
China is bad for the United States.
In contrast, on more abstract foreign policy issues President Trump seems ready to treat minor concessions as major victories and
move on. For years he criticized America's Asian and European allies for taking advantage of U.S. defense generosity. In his
March foreign policy speech, he complained that "our allies are not paying their fair share." During the campaign he suggested
refusing to honor NATO's Article 5 commitment and leave countries failing to make sufficient financial contributions to their
fate.
Yet Secretaries Mattis and Tillerson have insisted that Washington remains committed to the very same alliances incorporating
dependence on America. Worse, in his speech to Congress the president took credit for the small uptick in military outlays by
European NATO members which actually began in 2015: "based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning" to "meet
their financial obligations." Although he declared with predictable exaggeration that "the money is pouring in," no one believes
that Germany, which will go from 1.19 to 1.22 percent of GDP this year, will nearly double its outlays to hit even the NATO
standard of two percent.
Trump's signature policy initiative, rapprochement with Russia, appears dead in the water. Unfortunately, the president's strange
personal enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin undercut his desire to accommodate a great power which has no fundamental, irresolvable
conflicts with the America. Contrary to neocon history, Russia and America have often cooperated in the past. Moreover, President
Trump's attempt to improve relations faces strong ideological opposition from neoconservatives determined to have a new enemy and
partisan resistance from liberal Democrats committed to undermining the new administration.
President Trump also appears to have no appointees who share his commitment on this issue. At least Trump's first National
Security Adviser, Mike Flynn, wanted better relations with Russia, amid other, more dubious beliefs, but now the president seems
alone. In fact, Secretary Tillerson sounded like he was representing the Obama administration when he demanded Moscow's
withdrawal from Crimea, a policy nonstarter. Ambassador-designate Huntsman's views are unclear, but he will be constrained by the
State Department bureaucracy, which is at best unimaginative and at worst actively obstructionist.
"Unfortunately, the president's strange personal enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin undercut his desire to accommodate a great power
which has no fundamental, irresolvable conflicts with the America."
I did my due diligence on the writer after this absolutely baffling argument that has no basis on certain fundamental laws
of geopolitics. Referring to this:
https://www.bloomberg.com/n...
So now it gets me thinking like this: Who are Mr. Bandow's clients today? Figures...
Some say that the reason for Trump's total reversal of his campaign-position on Russia is the American Deep State (the U.S.
aristocracy and its agents). I agree with that view.
And other say you're a sap for believing a bunch of half-baked one-liners that Trump often contradicted in the same sentence...
He never had a coherent policy on anything, no less foreign policy... so don't complain now that he's showing his true colors
The USA should FORCE other nations to use DIPLOMACY as a means to preventing wars. If they don't, they lose all support, financial
and otherwise, from the USA. This would include Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The only thing Trump should take a look at in all this
is the INHUMANE policies that previous administrations have used to placate the military/industrial clique's appetite for money
and blood! If it's going to be "America First" for Trump's administration, it better start diverting this blood money to shore
up America's people and infrastructures!
Most of these issues come down to the fact that President Trump doesn't have anything resembling a "grand strategy", or even
a coherent foreign policy. His views are often at odds with each other (his desire to counter China economically and his opposition
to the TPP, for example), and I suspect that most were motivated by a desire to get votes more than any kind of deep understanding
of global affairs.
Most of his supporters, at least from what I can tell, are actually quite resolutely against entering a new war, and are strongly
condemnatory of the neo-conservatism that involved the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In fact, according to the polls taken at the time, more Democrats favored military intervention in Syria than Republicans did.
It appears "military-industrial complex" or "deep state" refuses to take step back and insists on sucking more money from taxpayers.
On first glance all is great for them, bombing of Middle East will continue, and so will military expansion at cost of civilian
programs. However, ramifications to rest of the world should not be dismissed. EU countries are divided on following Washington
hard line against Russia or diverge with USA. Currently, EU is cracking and might fall apart. Some in USA would cheer it but in
long run it will mean loss of strongest US supporter against China. Regarding Middle East, Trump punished victims of AlQaeda and
did nothing against financiers of AlQaeda, which will only increase local tensions. So indeed, not a great start...
While I basically agree that Trump is not following through on his campaign, we must keep in mind that the campaign of his
opponent was for MUCH more of the same, new wars, vastly increased fighting in current wars. So more of the same is in fact a
big step down from the alternative.
That does not excuse doing more of the same, but just asserts that we did get some of what we voted for/against.
We should get the rest of it. Stop those wars. They don't serve us.
There are similarities between Trump and Putin . The GOP and its rich corporate members have decided to use Trump as the oligarchs
in Russia used Yeltsin. The oligarchs used a drunken Yeltsin to pry the natural resources out of the public commons for the grabbing
by the oligarchs. Likewise, our rich are going to use an unwitting Trump to lower their taxes to nothing while delivering austerity
to the 99%.
To the oligarchs' surprise and dismay, Yeltsin's incompetence led to Putin and his scourge of the oligarchs. So will Trump's incompetence
lead to the end of our system of crony capitalism and the rebirth of socialism such as the New Deal, and higher taxes.
The crooked bastards can never be satisfied even with 3/4 ths of the whole pie, so no-one should pity them for being hoisted on
their own petard.
I'm sorry --- Trump had a foreign policy? As near as I can tell, he just said whatever the crowd in front of him wanted to
hear. Or do you have evidence to the contrary? Remember that this is a man who can be shown, in his own words, to have been on
all sides of almost every issue, depending on the day of the week, and the phase of the moon.
He, they, the US, that is, must obey Israel. Israel wants Assad gone in the end for their territorial expansion. It also helps
the oil companies and isolates Russia further into a geostrategic corner.
This headline is way over the top. The first and foremost foreign policy statement which brought numerous voters to Trump was
the US-Mexico wall and at least some of that wall will be constructed. Hence it is the only promise which has not (yet) changed
except for who will pay for it.
Why must we give Trump the benefit of the doubt and assume that his campaign presentations were made in good faith? That is
a very generous assumption.
There's a simple and more logical explanation for what's going on with "foreign policy" in the "Trump" administration:
Trump's
a liar, and his whole campaign was a calculated fraud from the beginning. We're the victims of a "bait-and-switch" scam.
Because he lied. Just like he lied about draining the swamp and just restocked it with new varmints from Goldman Sachs and
even an ex-Soros employee. Nothing new for me. Been watching elections for about 60 years and this is same ole. America can't
take much more of this before it collapses and splits apart. The world isn't going to take much more from dc either. God help
us. We are in a pickle!
The fundamental problem of exonerating Trump and blaming this non-reversal on the non-existing "deep state" is believing that
anything a candidate said on the campaign trail can be executed when that candidate becomes president. Such reversal has happened
so frequently in our history that it is truly amazing that " he does not do what he promised" still has adherents.
There is no reversal. I see reality clashing with words. I do not blame Trump for reversals. I see some shift from unrealistic
to more realistic. It is called learning on the job.
Every political position on the planet is stuck in the 80s. There is no one with a will to change what is happening, mostly
because no one wants to get tarred and feathered once the:
a) economy implodes upon itself in the most glorious Depression to
ever happen, and;
b) world war 3 erupts but engaging such a variety of opponents, from Islam to China and Russia and even minor
trivial players such as North Korea, and;
c) civil disobedience in the western world rivals that of even third world revolutions
as people revolt against a failure to protect them from Islamic violence, to preserve their standard of living and their perceived
futures. Lots of change coming, but nothing that any politician is promising.
Politicians are dinosaurs. We are entering a world
where large numbers of people will make things happen. It's called Democracy.
Trump will remain close to Putin ideologically and he might continue to admire the man as a strong leader BUT there is one
thing that neither Putin nor Trump can change and it is that Russia and America are natural rivals. Geopolitics. Land vs Sea.
Eurasia vs Atlantic. Heartland vs Outer Rim.
Trump is hawk, don't be mislead. You cannot have a great country if you're not willing
to kill and die for it. Russia knows that. Which is why Putin made Russia great again after the horror of the Yeltsin years. Now
America knows that too.
Watch: Bernie Sanders' Response to Trump State of the Union
"Here's the story that Trump failed to mention "
Following President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a response.
"I want to take a few minutes of your time to respond to Trump's State of the Union speech," Sanders announced. "But I also want
to talk to you about the major crises facing our country that, regrettably, Trump chose not to discuss."
And, he added, "I want to offer a vision of where we should go as a nation which is far different than the divisiveness, dishonesty,
and racism coming from the Trump Administration over the past year."
Watch:
... ... ...
The complete text of Sanders' prepared remarks follow:
Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
Tonight , I want to take a few minutes of your time to respond to President Trump's State of the Union speech. But I want
to do more than just that. I want to talk to you about the major crises facing our country that, regrettably, President Trump chose
not to discuss. I want to talk to you about the lies that he told during his campaign and the promises he made to working people
which he did not keep.
Finally, I want to offer a vision of where we should go as a nation which is far different than the divisiveness, dishonesty,
and racism coming from the Trump Administration over the past year.
President Trump talked tonight about the strength of our economy. Well, he's right. Official unemployment today is 4.1 percent
which is the lowest it has been in years and the stock market in recent months has soared. That's the good news.
But what President Trump failed to mention is that his first year in office marked the lowest level of job creation since
2010. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 254,000 fewer jobs were created in Trump's first 11 months in office
than were created in the 11 months before he entered office.
Further, when we talk about the economy, what's most important is to understand what is happening to the average worker. And
here's the story that Trump failed to mention tonight .
Over the last year, after adjusting for inflation, the average worker in America saw a wage increase of, are you ready for
this, 4 cents an hour, or 0.17%. Or, to put it in a different way, that worker received a raise of a little more than $1.60 a week.
And, as is often the case, that tiny wage increase disappeared as a result of soaring health care costs.
Meanwhile, at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the rich continue to get much richer while millions of American
workers are working two or three jobs just to keep their heads above water. Since March of last year, the three richest people in
America saw their wealth increase by more than $68 billion. Three people. A $68 billion increase in wealth. Meanwhile, the average
worker saw an increase of 4 cents an hour.
Tonight , Donald Trump touted the bonuses he claims workers received because of his so-called "tax reform" bill. What he forgot
to mention is that only 2% of Americans report receiving a raise or a bonus because of this tax bill.
What he also failed to mention is that some of the corporations that have given out bonuses, such as Walmart, AT&T, General
Electric, and Pfizer, are also laying off tens of thousands of their employees. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex and Huggies,
recently said they were using money from the tax cut to restructure -- laying off more than 5,000 workers and closing 10 plants.
What Trump also forgot to tell you is that while the Walton family of Walmart, the wealthiest family in America, and Jeff
Bezos of Amazon, the wealthiest person in this country, have never had it so good, many thousands of their employees are forced onto
Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing because of the obscenely low wages they are paid. In my view, that's wrong. The taxpayers
of this country should not be providing corporate welfare to the wealthiest families in this country.
Trump's Broken Promises
Now, let me say a few words about some of the issues that Donald Trump failed to mention tonight , and that is the difference
between what he promised the American people as a candidate and what he has delivered as president.
Many of you will recall, that during his campaign, Donald Trump told the American people how he was going to provide "health
insurance for everybody," with "much lower deductibles."
That is what he promised working families all across this country during his campaign. But as president he did exactly the
opposite. Last year, he supported legislation that would have thrown up to 32 million people off of the health care they had while,
at the same time, substantially raising premiums for older Americans.
The reality is that although we were able to beat back Trump's effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, 3 million fewer Americans
have health insurance today than before Trump took office and that number will be going even higher in the coming months.
During his campaign, Trump promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
As president, however, he supported a Republican Budget Resolution that proposed slashing Medicaid by $1 trillion and cutting
Medicare by $500 billion. Further, President Trump's own budget called for cutting Social Security Disability Insurance by $64 billion.
During Trump's campaign for president, he talked about how he was going to lower prescription drug prices and take on the
greed of the pharmaceutical industry which he said was "getting away with murder." Tonight he said "one of my greatest priorities
is to reduce the price of prescription drugs."
But as president, Trump nominated Alex Azar, a former executive of the Eli Lilly Company -- one of the largest drug companies
in this country -- to head up the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump spoke about how in other countries "drugs cost far less," yet he has done nothing to allow Americans to purchase less
expensive prescription drugs from abroad or to require Medicare to negotiate drug prices – which he promised he would do when he
ran for president.
During the campaign, Donald Trump told us that: "The rich will not be gaining at all" under his tax reform plan.
Well, that was quite a whopper. As president, the tax reform legislation Trump signed into law a few weeks ago provides 83
percent of the benefits to the top one percent, drives up the deficit by $1.7 trillion, and raises taxes on 92 million middle class
families by the end of the decade.
During his campaign for president, Trump talked about how he was going to take on the greed of Wall Street which he said "has
caused tremendous problems for us.
As president, not only has Trump not taken on Wall Street, he has appointed more Wall Street billionaires to his administration
than any president in history. And now, on behalf of Wall Street, he is trying to repeal the modest provisions of the Dodd-Frank
legislation which provide consumer protections against Wall Street thievery.
What Trump Didn't Say
But what is also important to note is not just Trump's dishonesty. It is that tonight he avoided some of the most important
issues facing our country and the world.
How can a president of the United States give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change? No, Mr. Trump, climate
change is not a "hoax." It is a reality which is causing devastating harm all over our country and all over the world and you are
dead wrong when you appoint administrators at the EPA and other agencies who are trying to decimate environmental protection rules,
and slow down the transition to sustainable energy.
How can a president of the United States not discuss the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision which allows billionaires
like the Koch brothers to undermine American democracy by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates who will represent
the rich and the powerful?
How can he not talk about Republican governors efforts all across this country to undermine democracy, suppress the vote and
make it harder for poor people or people of color to vote?
How can he not talk about the fact that in a highly competitive global economy, hundreds of thousands of bright young people
are unable to afford to go to college, while millions of others have come out of school deeply in debt?
How can he not talk about the inadequate funding and staffing at the Social Security Administration which has resulted in
thousands of people with disabilities dying because they did not get their claims processed in time?
How can he not talk about the retirement crisis facing the working people of this country and the fact that over half of older
workers have no retirement savings? We need to strengthen pensions in this country, not take them away from millions of workers.
How can he not talk about the reality that Russia, through cyberwarfare, interfered in our election in 2016, is interfering
in democratic elections all over the world, and according to his own CIA director will likely interfere in the 2018 midterm elections
that we will be holding. How do you not talk about that unless you have a very special relationship with Mr. Putin?
What Trump Did Talk About
Now, let me say a few words about what Trump did talk about.
Trump talked about DACA and immigration, but what he did not tell the American people is that he precipitated this crisis
in September by repealing President Obama's executive order protecting Dreamers.
We need to seriously address the issue of immigration but that does not mean dividing families and reducing legal immigration
by 25-50 percent. It sure doesn't mean forcing taxpayers to spend $25 billion on a wall that candidate Trump promised Mexico would
pay for. And it definitely doesn't mean a racist immigration policy that excludes people of color from around the world.
To my mind, this is one of the great moral issues facing our country. It would be unspeakable and a moral stain on our nation
if we turned our backs on these 800,000 young people who were born and raised in this country and who know no other home but the
United States.
And that's not just Bernie Sanders talking. Poll after poll shows that over 80 percent of the American people believe that
we should protect the legal status of these young people and provide them with a path toward citizenship.
We need to pass the bi-partisan DREAM Act, and we need to pass it now.
President Trump also talked about the need to rebuild our country's infrastructure. And he is absolutely right. But the proposal
he is bringing forth is dead wrong.
Instead of spending $1.5 trillion over ten years rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, Trump would encourage states to
sell our nation's highways, bridges, and other vital infrastructure to Wall Street, wealthy campaign contributors, even foreign governments.
And how would Wall Street and these corporations recoup their investments? By imposing massive new tolls and fees paid for
by American commuters and homeowners.
The reality is that Trump's plan to privatize our nation's infrastructure is an old idea that has never worked and never will
work.
Tonight , Donald Trump correctly talked about the need to address the opioid crisis. Well, I say to Donald Trump, you don't
help people suffering from opioid addiction by cutting Medicaid by $1 trillion. If you are serious about dealing with this crisis,
we need to expand, not cut Medicaid.
Conclusion/A Progressive Agenda
My fellow Americans. The simple truth is that, according to virtually every poll, Donald Trump is the least popular president
after one year in office of any president in modern American history. And the reason for that is pretty clear. The American people
do not want a president who is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class,
who is anti-science, and who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender,
or our sexual orientation.
That is not what the American people want. And that reality is the bad news that we have to deal with.
But the truth is that there is a lot of good news out there as well. It's not just that so many of our people disagree with
Trump's policies, temperament, and behavior. It is that the vast majority of our people have a very different vision for the future
of our country than what Trump and the Republican leadership are giving us.
In an unprecedented way, we are witnessing a revitalization of American democracy with more and more people standing up and
fighting back. A little more than a year ago we saw millions of people take to the streets for the women's marches and a few weeks
ago, in hundreds of cities and towns around the world, people once again took to the streets in the fight for social, economic, racial
and environmental justice.
Further, we are seeing the growth of grassroots organizations and people from every conceivable background starting to run
for office – for school board, city council, state legislature, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
In fact, we are starting to see the beginning of a political revolution, something long overdue.
And these candidates, from coast to coast, are standing tall for a progressive agenda, an agenda that works for the working
families of our country and not just the billionaire class. These candidates understand that the United States has got to join the
rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare for All, single-payer
program.
They understand that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the top one-tenth of one percent now owns almost
as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, we should not be giving tax breaks for billionaires but demanding that they start paying
their fair share of taxes.
They know that we need trade policies that benefit working people, not large multi-national corporations.
They know that we have got to take on the fossil fuel industry, transform our energy system and move to sustainable energies
like wind, solar and geothermal.
They know that we need a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and universal
childcare.
They understand that it is a woman who has the right to control her own body, not state and federal governments, and that
woman has the right to receive equal pay for equal work and work in a safe environment free from harassment.
They also know that if we are going to move forward successfully as a democracy we need real criminal justice reform and we
need to finally address comprehensive immigration reform.
Yes. I understand that the Koch brothers and their billionaire friends are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars
in the 2018 mid-term elections supporting the Trump agenda and right-wing Republicans. They have the money, an unlimited amount of
money. But we have the people, and when ordinary people stand up and fight for justice there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.
That has been the history of America, and that is our future.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon once told Ivanka Trump: "You're just
another staffer who doesn't know what you're doing," according to a new book.
Related: Ivanka Trump's "special place in hell" for child predators comment trolls Roy Moore
rally
Bannon, who has long critiqued and clashed with Ivanka's and her husband Jared Kushner's
roles in the White House, tried to put the president's daughter in her place in one instance
detailed in the book.
"My daughter loves me as a dad...You love your dad. I get that. But you're just another
staffer who doesn't know what you're doing," Bannon said, The Washington Post reported when it
published excerpts on Monday.
The revelation is part of the latest book about life inside the White House. Howard Kurtz, host
of the Fox News show Media Buzz, wrote the book Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The
War Over The Truth, set to be released on January 29.
The new book, though perhaps not as sensational as the explosive tell-all Fire and Fury:
Inside the Trump White House, contains several new alleged revelations about the
administration. Along with reports of the turbulent relationship between Ivanka Trump and
Bannon, are claims that the president himself leaked information to journalists, that his aides
referred to his behavior as "defiance disorder" and that his staff was "blindsided" when he
accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones.
A more interesting question is how those testimonies might affect Bannon -- he is in a very hot water now. If he thought that the
meeting was so incriminating why he did not contact FBI and just decided to feed juicy gossip to Wolff?
Also he was not present at the meeting and was not a member of Trump team until two months later. From who he got all this information
? Was is just a slander by disgruntled employee?
Notable quotes:
"... To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr. ..."
"... Bannon has denied that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the election ..."
"... Wolff also quotes the former White House strategist as saying, "This is all about money laundering. [Robert] Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner . . . It's as plain as a hair on your face." ..."
"... Bannon then zeroed in on Kushner specifically, adding that "[i]t goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me." ..."
"The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the
conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn't have any lawyers," Bannon is quoted as saying in Fire and Fury.
"Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should
have called the F.B.I. immediately." Bannon reportedly speculated that the chance the eldest Trump son did not involve his father
in the meeting "is zero."
When Bannon's comments became public, Trump excoriated his former strategist, whom
he accused of having "lost his mind."
But while Bannon has since apologized for the remarks and sought to walk back a number of the quotes, he's stopped short of denying
that he viewed the Trump Tower meeting as treasonous. Instead, he's merely shifted the blame away from Trump Jr. and onto Manafort.
"My comments were aimed at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate.
He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning, and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr.
," Bannon said in
a statement to Axios. ( Bannon has denied that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government during the election
.)
... ... ...
Though the Trump Tower meeting took place before Bannon joined the Trump campaign, Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House
panel, told
CNN last week that he plans to question Bannon about "why this meeting at Trump Tower represented his treason and certainly unpatriotic
at a minimum."
Jared Kushner's "greasy shit"
Wolff also quotes the former White House strategist as saying, "This is all about money laundering. [Robert] Mueller chose
[senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul
Manafort, Don Jr., and Jared Kushner . . . It's as plain as a hair on your face." (Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort have all
denied wrongdoing.) Bannon then zeroed in on Kushner specifically, adding that "[i]t goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner
shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me
or trade me."
He and Trump's son-in-law have never seen eye to eye; their White House feuds were a poorly kept secret, and following his ouster,
Bannon has given numerous interviews knocking Kushner, including one to my colleague Gabriel Sherman in which he
questioned Kushner's
maturity level. If Bannon has dirt on Kushner, he will likely get his chance to reveal it; Schiff also
declared
his intent to question Bannon on "the basis of his concern over money laundering."
"... What do you think? Perhaps almost 60,000 Americans dying in Vietnam was a darker time. Or maybe when Hitler's armies rolled across Europe, Japan surprise attacked Pearl Harbor, and 400,000 American soldiers died World War II. ..."
"... Anyone who thinks Trump's Presidency is the darkest time in American history is a poor student of American history. And I must assume their lives are pretty amazing if this is the worst they have ever felt. ..."
I saw someone refer to the Trump Presidency as "possibly the darkest time in American
history." I've heard some iteration of that many times from people still in a frenzy over the
Trump Administration.
I'm not a big Trump fan. I wasn't a big Obama fan either. But their presence in office did
not and does not hang over my life like a dark cloud. They really aren't that important.
Yes, they have the ability to make life more difficult for many. It is unfortunate that any
politicians have that much control over our day to day lives.
But the darkest time in American history ?
What do you think? Perhaps almost 60,000 Americans dying in Vietnam was a darker time. Or
maybe when Hitler's armies rolled across Europe, Japan surprise attacked Pearl Harbor, and
400,000 American soldiers died World War II.
For Japanese Americans, FDR's
presidency was likely a darker time, as they sat in detainment facilities. Their crime was
having Japanese ancestors.
In 1918 the Spanish Flu swept across the globe killing at least 20 million people worldwide,
675,000 Americans. At the same time, soldiers were coming home from WWI blinded by chemicals
and mutilated by bombs.
And that is just going back one century. American history also includes the Civil War,
slavery, and
the Whiskey Rebellion .
Anyone who thinks Trump's Presidency is the darkest time in American history is a poor
student of American history. And I must assume their lives are pretty amazing if this is the
worst they have ever felt.
... ... ...
Look at where it left the global
warming alarmists . They wanted to reduce pollution, which is a noble cause. But they lied
about the goals, they lied about the causes, and they exaggerated the timetable. It's the
classic boy who cried wolf.
... ... ...
I used to be paranoid about the government. Obviously, some of that paranoia is well
founded. They do monitor communications and
disrupt online discourse . They do violate
rights . They are oppressive
in many ways.
"Mr. President," Acosta shouted three times, finally getting Trump's attention, "Did you say
that you want more people to come in from Norway? Did you say that you wanted more people from
Norway? Is that true Mr. President?" Acosta barked at Trump.
" I want them to come in from everywhere everywhere. Thank you very much everybody ," Trump
replied while Acosta continued to interject.
" Just Caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people to come in from other parts
of the world people of color ," Acosta asked - effectively calling Trump racist, to which Trump
looked Acosta directly in the eye and simply said:
Acosta spoke about the incident with Wolf Blitzer afterwards and said it was clear the
president was ordering him out of the room. Acosta said he tried to ask his questions again
when Trump and Nazarbayev gave a joint statement later on, but Deputy Press Secretary Hogan
Gidley "got right up in my face" and started shouting at him to block out any questions.
"It was that kind of a display," Acosta recalled. "It reminded me of something you might see
in less democratic countries when people at the White House or officials of a foreign
government attempt to get in the way of the press in doing their jobs."
Acosta and CNN were infamously humiliated after Trump called them "fake news" during a
January, 2017 press conference in which Acosta attempted to shoehorn a question in front of
another reporter:
Meanwhile, Acosta was shut down in December by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders
after he tried to grandstand during a press briefing over being called "Fake News," telling her
that sometimes reporters make "honest mistakes."
Sanders shot back; "When journalists make honest mistakes, they should own up to them.
Sometimes, and a lot of times, you don't," only to be temporarily cut off by Acosta.
"I'm sorry, I'm not finished," Sanders fired back, adding "There is a very big difference
between making honest mistakes and purposefully misleading the American people... you cannot
say it's an honest mistake when you're purposely putting out information you know is
false."
Bannon backed candidate later lost. So much for this Bannon "success".
This idea of Trump playing 6 dimensional chess is a joke. It's the same explanation that was pushed for Obama disastrous neocon
foreign policy. Here is one very apt quote: "What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars
of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis, killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to
Afghanistan..." What 6-dimetional chess?
According to Occam razor principle the simplest explanation of Trump behaviour is probably the most correct. He does not control
foright policy, outsourcing it to "generals" and be does not pursue domestic policy of creating jobs as he promised his
electorate. In other words, both in foreign policy and domestic policy, he became a turncoat,
betraying his electorate, much like Obama. kind of Republican Obama.
And as time goes by, Trump looks more and more like Hillary II or Republican Obama. So he might have problems with the candidates he supports
in midterm elections. His isolationism, if it ever existed, is gone. Promise of jobs is gone. Detente with Russia is gone.
What's left?
Note the level disappointment of what used to be Trump base in this site comment section...
Notable quotes:
"... In a serious rebuke for President Trump (and perhaps moreso for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), ousted judge and alt-right favorite Roy Moore has won the Alabama Republican Primary by a landslide ..."
"... The Steve Bannon-backed candidate, who defied court orders to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and refused to recognize gay marriage after the Supreme Court's June 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, is leading by 9.6 points with 92% of the votes counted... ..."
"... These attacks on Bannon were one of the most prominent news stories in the first week following Trump's election victory. It didn't take long, however, for a counter-attack to emerge - from the right-wing elements of the Jewish community. ..."
"... Bannon is a true fucking patriot trying to pull this once great country from the sinkhole. ..."
"... I think the reality is that this was a message to McConnell much more than Trump. That message is simple: I'm coming to kill your career. Bannon went out of his way to say he fully supports Trump (despite backing the opposite candidate). And, let's face it, if Bannon buries McConnell, he's doing everyone a service, Trump included. ..."
"... The echo chamber media "is so surprised" that in Germany and the US we are seeing a rising tide of pissed off people, well imagine fucking that? Leaving the echo chamber and not intellectually trying to understand the anger, but living the anger. ..."
"... Well, we can only hope that Trump gets the message. He was elected to be President of the USA, not Emperor of the World. Quote from that Monty Python film: "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" ..."
"... A cursory background reading on Roy Moore tells me that he is one of the worst types for public office. And he might just turn out to be like Trump -- act like an anti-swarm cowboy and promise a path to heaven, then show his real colors as an Establishment puppet once the braindead voters put him in office. ..."
"... When Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency it was because people were rebelling against the establishment rulers. There is considerable disgust with these big government rulers that are working for themselves and their corporate cronies, but not for the US population. ..."
"... Trump seems to have been compromised at this point, and his support of the establishment favourite, Luther Strange is evidence that he isn't really the outsider he claimed to be. Moore's victory in Alabama says the rebellion still has wheels, so there is some hope. ..."
"... In Missouri where I live, the anti-establishment Republican contender for the upcoming US Senatorial 2018 race is Austin Peterson. It will be interesting to see how he, and his counterparts in other states do in the primaries. Both of the current Missouri Senators are worthless. ..."
"... I remember well the last "3-Dimensional Chess master" Obama while he too was always out maneuvering his apponents, per the media reports... ..."
"... Every now and then Trump tends to make huge blunders, and sometimes betrayals without knowing what he is doing. "Champions"- (great leaders) do not do that. ..."
"... What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis, killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to Afghanistan... ..."
"... It is epitome of self-delusion to see people twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to justify/rationalize Trump's continuing display of disloyalty to America ..."
"... YOU CAN'T BE A ZIONIST AND AN AMERICAN FIRSTER, IT IS ONE OR THE OTHER. ..."
Congratulations to Roy Moore on his Republican Primary win in Alabama. Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race. Roy,
WIN in Dec!
In a serious rebuke for President Trump (and perhaps moreso for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), ousted judge and
alt-right favorite Roy Moore has won the Alabama Republican Primary by a landslide
The Steve Bannon-backed candidate, who defied court orders to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and refused to
recognize gay marriage after the Supreme Court's June 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, is leading by 9.6 points with 92%
of the votes counted...
... ... ...
However, as Politco
reported this evening, President Donald Trump began distancing himself from a Luther Strange loss before ballots were even cast,
telling conservative activists Monday night the candidate he's backing in Alabama's GOP Senate primary was likely to lose ! and suggesting
he'd done everything he could do given the circumstances.
Trump told conservative activists who visited the White House for dinner on Monday night that he'd underestimated the political
power of Roy Moore, the firebrand populist and former judge who's supported by Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, according
to three people who were there.
And Trump gave a less-than full-throated endorsement during Friday's rally.
While he called Strange "a real fighter and a real good guy," he also mused on stage about whether he made a "mistake" by backing
Strange and committed to campaign "like hell" for Moore if he won.
Trump was encouraged to pick Strange before the August primary by son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner as well as other aides,
White House officials said. He was never going to endorse Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, who has at times opposed Trump's agenda,
and knew little about Moore, officials said.
... ... ...
Déjà view -> Sanity Bear •Sep 26, 2017 11:19 PM
AIPAC HAS ALL BASES COVERED...MIGA !
On Sept. 11, the Alabama Daughters for Zion organization circulated a statement on Israel by Moore, which started by saying
the U.S. and Israel "share not only a common Biblical heritage but also institutions of representative government and respect
for religious freedom." He traced Israel's origin to God's promise to Abram and the 1948 creation of modern Israel as "a fulfillment
of the Scriptures that foretold the regathering of the Jewish people to Israel."
Moore's statement includes five policy positions, including support for U.S. military assistance to Israel, protecting Israel
from "Iranian aggression," opposing boycotts of Israel, supporting Israel at the United Nations, and supporting direct Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations without outside pressure. He added, "as long as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority wrongly refuse to recognize Israel's
right to exist, such negotiations have scant chance of success."
While those views would give Moore common ground with much of the Jewish community regarding Israel, most of the state's Jewish
community has been at odds with Moore over church-state issues, such as his displays of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and
his outspoken stance against homosexuality, both of which led to him being ousted as chief justice.
moore misreads the Bible as most socalled christians do. they have been deceived, they have confused the Israel of God( those
who have been given belief in Christ) with israel of the flesh. They cant hear Christs own words, woe is unto them. they are living
in their own selfrighteousness, not good. they are going to have a big surprise for not following the Word of God instead following
the tradition of men.
They were warned over and over in the Bible but they cant hear.
I Claudius -> VinceFostersGhost •Sep 27, 2017 6:27 AM
Forgive? Maybe. Forget? NEVER!! He tried to sell "US" out on this one. We now need to focus on bringing "Moore" candidates
to the podium to run against the RINO's and take out McConnell and Ryan. It's time for Jared and Ivanka to go back to NYC so Jared
can shore up his family's failing empire. However, if his business acumen is as accurate as his political then it's no wonder
the family needed taxpayer funded visas to sell the property. Then on to ridding the White House of Gen Kelly and McMaster - two
holdover generals from the Obama administration - after Obama forced out the real ones.
Clashfan -> Mycroft Holmes IV •Sep 26, 2017 11:33 PM
Rump has hoodwinked his supoprt base and turned on them almost immediately. Some refuse to acknowledge this.
These attacks on Bannon were one of the most prominent news stories in the first week following Trump's election victory.
It didn't take long, however, for a counter-attack to emerge - from the right-wing elements of the Jewish community. The
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) came to Bannon's defense and accused the ADL of a "character assassination" against Bannon.
The Wizard -> Oh regional Indian •Sep 26, 2017 10:12 PM
Trump should figure out the Deep State elites he has surrounded himself with, don't have control of the states Trump won. Trump
thought he had to negotiate with these guys and his ego got the best of him. Bannon was trying to convince him he should have
stayed the course and not give in.
~"American politics gets moore strange by the day..."~
Technically speaking OhRI, with Moore's win politics became less Strange, or "Strange less", or "Sans Luther", depending on
how one chose to phrase it [SMIRK]
Adullam -> Gaius Frakkin' Baltar •Sep 26, 2017 11:05 PM
Trump needs to fire Jared! Some news outlets are saying that it was his son in law who advised him to back Strange. He has
to quit listening to those who want to destroy him or ... they will.
overbet -> Killtruck •Sep 26, 2017 9:41 PM
Bannon is a true fucking patriot trying to pull this once great country from the sinkhole.
Juggernaut x2 -> overbet •Sep 26, 2017 10:07 PM
Trump better pull his head out of his ass and quit being a wishy-washy populist on BS like Iran- the farther right he goes
the greater his odds of reelection because he has pissed off a lot of the far-righters that put him in- getting rid of Kushner,
Cohn and his daughter and negotiating w/Assad and distancing us from Israhell would be a huge help.
The whole Russiagate ploy was a diversion from (((them)))
NoDebt -> Killtruck •Sep 26, 2017 9:42 PM
I think the reality is that this was a message to McConnell much more than Trump. That message is simple: I'm coming to
kill your career. Bannon went out of his way to say he fully supports Trump (despite backing the opposite candidate). And, let's
face it, if Bannon buries McConnell, he's doing everyone a service, Trump included.
Oldwood -> NoDebt •Sep 26, 2017 10:08 PM
I think it was a setup.
Bannon would not oppose Trump that directly unless there was a wink and a nod involved.
Trump is still walking a tightrope, trying to appease his base AND keep as many establishment republicans at his side (even
for only optics). By Trump supporting Strange while knowing he was an underdog AND completely apposed by Bannon/his base he was
able to LOOK like he was supporting the establishment, while NOT really. Trump seldom backs losers which makes me think it was
deliberate. Strange never made sense anyway.
But what do I know?
Urahara -> NoDebt •Sep 27, 2017 12:20 AM
Bannon is hardcore Isreal first. Why are you supporting the zionist? It's an obvious play.
general ambivalent -> Urahara •Sep 27, 2017 2:23 AM
People are desperate to rationalise their failure into a victory. They cannot give up on Hope so they have to use hyperbole
in everything and pretend this is all leading to something great in 2020 or 2024.
None of these fools learned a damn thing and they are desperate to make the same mistake again. The swamp is full, so full
that it has breached the banks and taken over all of society. Trump is a swamp monster, and you simply cannot reform the swamp
when both sides are monsters. In other words, the inside is not an option, so it has to be done the hard way. But people would
prefer to keep voting in the swamp.
Al Gophilia -> NoDebt •Sep 27, 2017 3:58 AM
Bannon as president would really have those swamp creatures squirming. There wouldn't be this Trump crap about surrounding
himself with likeminded friends, such as Goldman Sachs turnstile workers and his good pals in the MIC.
Don't tell me he didn't choose them because if he didn't, then they were placed. That means he doesn't have the clout he pretends
to have or control of the agenda that the people asked him to deliver. His backing of Stange is telling.
Bobbyrib -> LindseyNarratesWordress •Sep 27, 2017 5:38 AM
He will not fire Kushner or Ivanka who have become part of the swamp. I'm so sick of these 'Trump is a genius and planned this
all along.'
To me Trump is a Mr. Bean type character that has been very fortunate and just goes with the flow. He has nearly no diplomacy,
or strategic skills.
NoWayJose •Sep 26, 2017 10:35 PM
Dear President Trump - if you like your job, listen to these voters. Borders, Walls, limited immigrants (including all those
that Ryan and McConnell are sneaking through under your very nose), trade agreements to keep American jobs, and respect for our
flag, our country, and the unborn!
I had hope for Trump, but as someone who reads ZH often, and does not suffer from amnesia (like much of America), I knew he
was way too good to be true.
We all know his back tracking, his flip flops...and while the media and many paid bloggers like to spin it as "not his fault",
it actually is.
His sending DACA to Congress was the last straw. Obama enacted DACA with a stroke of his pen, but Trump "needed to send it
to Congress so they could "get it right". The only thing Congress does with immigration is try and get amnesty passed.
Of course while Trump sends DACA to Congress, he does not mind using the military without Congress, which he actually should
do.
Why is it when it's something American's want, it has to go through the "correct channels", but when its something the Zionists
want, he does it with the wave of his pen? We saw the same bull shit games with Obama...
Dilluminati •Sep 26, 2017 11:02 PM
Anybody surprised by this is pretending the civility at the workplace isn't masking anger at corporate America and Government.
I'll go in and put in the 8 hours, I'm an adult that is part of the job. However I'm actually fed up with allot of the stupid
shit and want the establishment to work, problem is that we are witnessing failed nations, failed schools, failed healthcare,
even failed employment contracts, conditions, and wages.
The echo chamber media "is so surprised" that in Germany and the US we are seeing a rising tide of pissed off people, well
imagine fucking that? Leaving the echo chamber and not intellectually trying to understand the anger, but living the anger.
You haven't seen anything yet in Catalonia/Spain etc, Brexit, or so..
This is what failure looks like: That moment the Romanovs and Louis XVI looked around the room seeking an understanding eye,
there was none.
Pascal1967 •Sep 26, 2017 11:19 PM
Dear Trump:
Quit listening to your moron son-in-law, swamp creature, Goldman Sachs douchebag son-in-law Kushner. HE SUCKS!! If you truly
had BALLS, you would FIRE his fucking ass. HE is The Swamp, He Is Nepotism! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HATE HIM.
MAGA! LISTEN TO BANNON, DONALD.
DO NOT FUCK THIS UP!
ROY MOORE, 100%!!!!
You lost, Trump ... get your shit together before it is too late!
ElTerco •Sep 26, 2017 11:28 PM
Bannon was always the smarts behind the whole operation. Now we are just left with a complete idiot in office.
Also, unlike Trump, Bannon actually gives a shit about what happens to the American people rather than the American tax system.
At the end of the day, all Trump really cares about is himself.
samsara •Sep 26, 2017 11:25 PM
I think most people get it backwards about Trump and the Deplorables.
I believed in pulling troops a from all the war zones and Trump said he felt the same
I believed in Legal immigration, sending people back if here illegal especially if involved in crime, Trump said he felt the
same.
I believed in America first in negotiating treaties, Trump said he felt the same.
I didn't 'vote' for Trump per se, he was the proxy.
We didn't leave Him, He left us.
BarnacleBill •Sep 26, 2017 11:31 PM
Well, we can only hope that Trump gets the message. He was elected to be President of the USA, not Emperor of the World.
Quote from that Monty Python film: "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" It's high time he turned back to the
job he promised to do, and drain that swamp.
napper •Sep 26, 2017 11:47 PM
A cursory background reading on Roy Moore tells me that he is one of the worst types for public office. And he might just
turn out to be like Trump -- act like an anti-swarm cowboy and promise a path to heaven, then show his real colors as an Establishment
puppet once the braindead voters put him in office.
America is doomed from top (the swarm) to bottom (the brainless voters).
Sid Davis •Sep 27, 2017 1:40 AM
When Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency it was because people were rebelling against the establishment
rulers. There is considerable disgust with these big government rulers that are working for themselves and their corporate cronies,
but not for the US population.
Trump seems to have been compromised at this point, and his support of the establishment favourite, Luther Strange is evidence
that he isn't really the outsider he claimed to be. Moore's victory in Alabama says the rebellion still has wheels, so there is some hope.
In Missouri where I live, the anti-establishment Republican contender for the upcoming US Senatorial 2018 race is Austin Peterson.
It will be interesting to see how he, and his counterparts in other states do in the primaries. Both of the current Missouri Senators
are worthless.
nevertheless -> pfwed •Sep 27, 2017 7:33 AM
I remember well the last "3-Dimensional Chess master" Obama while he too was always out maneuvering his apponents, per the
media reports...
LoveTruth •Sep 27, 2017 2:56 AM
Every now and then Trump tends to make huge blunders, and sometimes betrayals without knowing what he is doing. "Champions"-
(great leaders) do not do that.
nevertheless -> LoveTruth •Sep 27, 2017 7:16 AM
What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis,
killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to Afghanistan...
But most treasonous of all was his sending DACA to "get it right", really? Congress has only one goal with immigration, amnesty,
and Chump knows dam well they will send him legislation that will clearly or covertly grant amnesty for millions and millions
of illegals, dressed up as "security".
Obama enacted DACA with the stroke of a pen, and while TRUMP promised to end it, he did NOT. Why is it when it's something
Americans want, it has to be "Constitutional", but when it comes form his banker pals, like starting a war, he can do that unilaterally.
It is epitome of self-delusion to see people twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to justify/rationalize Trump's continuing
display of disloyalty to America, and loyalty to Zionism.
Trump should always have been seen as a likely Zionist shill. He comes form Jew York City, owes everything he is to Zionist
Jewish bankers, is a self proclaimed Zionist...
YOU CAN'T BE A ZIONIST AND AN AMERICAN FIRSTER, IT IS ONE OR THE OTHER.
Either Zero Hedge is over run with Zionist hasbara, giving cover to their boy Chump, or Americans on the "right" have become
as gullible as those who supported Obama on the "left".
"... As for Bannon himself, his downfall has been fast and unceremonious: trashed by the president after he gossiped to Michael Wolff, abandoned by his deep-pocketed Mercer family funders, sacked by Breitbart, and then forced to watch as Trump indicated in a meeting earlier this week that he could sign a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Marat's downfall saw him elevated into a revolutionary martyr; Bannon has been banished into exile. ..."
"... But revolutions don't die with their figureheads. Bannonism won't either because, unlike the ethereal ideas behind liberalism and conservatism, it's found visceral real-world resonance -- among blue collars who see economic nationalism as a glimmer of hope among boarded-up plants, service-members frustrated with fruitless wars, young men flummoxed by modern feminism, right-wing activists frustrated with their political party's perceived impotence. Taunt Bannon all you like, but the imprint he leaves behind will be far larger than one spurious tell-all. ..."
"... The last blast of paleconservatism was Perot and the strong late 1990s economy halted that movement. ..."
"... The biggest thing lacking of the Bannon/Trump movement is how push back against the economic elite. Trump is governing exactly like an establishment Republican. Look at Trump/Perry ideas on saving coal which was properly turned down. This plan was unbelievably awful and not the right way for a better electric system and was simply handing Murray and First Energy a bunch money. ..."
"... Conservatism stands for stability and community. The accretions of "limited government" and "lower taxes", charming they may be as mantras, are more libertarian (Classic Liberal) than they are conservative ..."
"... A bomb-throwing Bolshevik like Bannon truly belongs on The Left, but in these days of abysmal ignorance of civics, it doesn't matter. "Bannonism" may live on, but thanks to the crackpot nature of its cobbled-together ideology, will remain a niche religion much like hard-core anarcho-libertarianism. ..."
"... Given the current atmosphere of outrage porn, willful ignorance and gleeful brutality, I do not have much hope for a Burkean conservatism to thrive, at least until after the pending social collapse ..."
"... Bannon will likely fade into oblivion via the Bourbon barrel, and the name Trump may become synonymous with "traitor" (but not like the media elite would hope). These men did not create a movement nor inspire anything. They were both savvy enough to see the political reality in this country and to give it voice. They will go, but the reality will remain. Ironically, but predictably, both men will likely be laid low by their own egos. But, so it goes ..."
"... The reality that supersedes these egotistical, narcissistic men is the fact that the traditional core of the American people have "woke" to the fact of their betrayal by the elite class to whom they have entrusted the leadership of this country for decades. They have awakened to find decay and rot throughout every American institution and to discover that these elites have enriched themselves beyond measure with the wealth of the nation at the cost of the workers and taxpayers who make that wealth possible. They have awakened to their own replacement and now realize the disdain with which they are viewed by those who would be their "masters." ..."
"... These Deplorables, white, working, taxpaying, Bible-believing, gun-owning MEN(!), are not going back into the opioid sleep of blissed out suburbia. They are now aware of the ill-hidden hatred which the elite class has for them and the future of serfdom to which these elites have fated them and their children. Gentlemen, a beast is being born out here in the hinterlands. It will not be put back in the cage ..."
Bannon is an imperfect ideologue. He has a gargantuan ego that often leads him astray, perhaps lately towards the delusion that
he himself would be a better populist messenger than the man he helped elect. But he's also hit on a paradox at the core of today's
American conservatism. Conservatives, in theory at least, look with skepticism upon grand projects and giant leaps, which too often
end up rupturing with the societal traditions they hold dear. Yet much of what conservatives support today is actually quite radical:
banning all or most abortions, rolling back the regulatory state, rejecting decades of orthodoxy on the issue of climate change,
a massive downshift of power from the federal government to states and localities, a moral ethic rooted in Christianity rather than
identity politics -- and lately questioning the "liberal international order" in favor of something more nationalist and protectionist.
The enactment of such an agenda would cause a good deal of upheaval and uncertainty, exactly the sort of void conservatives' forebears
feared most.
Some have wrangled with this contradiction by scaling back their proposals, claiming great problems can be addressed with light-touch
solutions, like child tax credits to arrest sagging birth rates. Others, much of Conservative Inc. it seems, are fine pretending
this tension doesn't exist at all. Bannon's approach has been to gleefully embrace conservatism's radical side. Disagree with him
all you like (and I do), but his is a perfectly logical position. His ascent -- some would say his transformation -- is a predictable
consequence of conservatives yearning for something increasingly distant from the modern world, just as did young people in the quietly
simmering 1950s. Indeed, there are many stylistic similarities between the radicals of today and those half a century ago: the "for
the lulz" performance art of a Milo Yiannopoulos contains an echo of the prankster Yippies, for example. Those who lack cultural
power can sell out, they can evolve, they can retreat to the catacombs -- or they can take Bannon's approach, they can transgress
and pump their fists and try to burn it all down.
Bannon's digestible binaries -- establishment versus the people, globalists versus Americans -- are easily superimposed on an
electorate that's itself divided both economically and culturally. Red states and the Rust Belt have for decades been the victims
of bad federal policy; Bannonism gives them an abstract enemy to blame, a valve for their fury. The algorithmic and library-voiced
Mitt Romney and the earnest Paul Ryan seem woefully inadequate by comparison: have those praying they run for higher office again
learned nothing? In The Constitution of Liberty , F.A. Hayek critiques conservatism by defining it as "a brake on the vehicle
of progress" and observing that a mere decrease in speed "cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving." Likewise,
while conventional taxes-and-terrorism Republican rhetoric doesn't feel like much of a heave on the ship's wheel, Bannonism furnishes
a clear vision, a real change, swords to wield, dragons to slay. Guess which one has greater appeal right now?
The modern right has always had a whiff of radicalism about it, with origins in pushback against the 60s counterculture, a second
wind in Newt Gingrich's legislative reformation, and late-life vitality in the Saul Alinsky-invoking tea party. But it's with Bannon
that the odor has become most pungent. He is an unlikely revolutionary. An
early profile from Bloomberg Businessweek
in 2015 portrays him as more of an operative than anything, determined to professionalize a conservative movement that had made too
many unforced errors. Other pre-Trump appearances found Bannon worrying about the national debt and extolling his Catholic faith.
It's a windy road from there to storming the barricades under Donald Trump's sigil, but it's one many conservatives have traveled
in recent years. The challenge for more traditional Republicans will be fashioning a new politics that quenches voters' burning thirst
for change -- a position they've arrived at themselves, not been brainwashed into by Fox News -- while circumventing Bannonism's
conflagrations and The Camp of the Saints ugliness.
As for Bannon himself, his downfall has been fast and unceremonious: trashed by the president after he gossiped to Michael Wolff,
abandoned by his deep-pocketed Mercer family funders, sacked by Breitbart, and then forced to watch as Trump
indicated in
a meeting earlier this week that he could sign a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Marat's downfall saw him elevated into
a revolutionary martyr; Bannon has been banished into exile.
But revolutions don't die with their figureheads. Bannonism won't either
because, unlike the ethereal ideas behind liberalism and conservatism, it's found visceral real-world resonance -- among blue collars
who see economic nationalism as a glimmer of hope among boarded-up plants, service-members frustrated with fruitless wars, young
men flummoxed by modern feminism, right-wing activists frustrated with their political party's perceived impotence. Taunt Bannon
all you like, but the imprint he leaves behind will be far larger than one spurious tell-all.
Matt Purple is the managing editor of The American Conservative
There is always a level of Bannonism /Paleoconservatism in the US politics but who knows how impactful it will be.
Probably the biggest issue for Bannon was Trump was elected in 2016 and our nation did not want or need a Leninist. (It
wasn't 2008 anymore) Frankly most conservatives were satisfied that HRC and Obama were not President and did not want massive changes.
The whole the people and globalist division is too simplistic and there are a lot 'People' that support free trade or relatively
open borders. (For instance I don't see the economic benefit of steel tariffs at all.)
The last blast of paleconservatism was Perot and the strong late 1990s economy halted that movement.
We still don't know how much a pushback on Trump/Bannonism will be. Trump is not popular and the House is endangered.
5) The biggest thing lacking of the Bannon/Trump movement is how push back against the economic elite. Trump is governing
exactly like an establishment Republican. Look at Trump/Perry ideas on saving coal which was properly turned down. This plan was
unbelievably awful and not the right way for a better electric system and was simply handing Murray and First Energy a bunch money.
It is a cardinal error to confuse conservatism with The Right, as much as it is to conflate liberalism with The Left.
Conservatism stands for stability and community. The accretions of "limited government" and "lower taxes", charming they
may be as mantras, are more libertarian (Classic Liberal) than they are conservative. (Thanks loads, Frank Meyer.)
A bomb-throwing Bolshevik like Bannon truly belongs on The Left, but in these days of abysmal ignorance of civics, it doesn't
matter. "Bannonism" may live on, but thanks to the crackpot nature of its cobbled-together ideology, will remain a niche religion much
like hard-core anarcho-libertarianism.
Given the current atmosphere of outrage porn, willful ignorance and gleeful brutality, I do not have much hope for a Burkean
conservatism to thrive, at least until after the pending social collapse.
Bannon will likely fade into oblivion via the Bourbon barrel, and the name Trump may become synonymous with "traitor" (but
not like the media elite would hope). These men did not create a movement nor inspire anything. They were both savvy enough to
see the political reality in this country and to give it voice. They will go, but the reality will remain. Ironically, but predictably,
both men will likely be laid low by their own egos. But, so it goes.
The reality that supersedes these egotistical, narcissistic men is the fact that the traditional core of the American people
have "woke" to the fact of their betrayal by the elite class to whom they have entrusted the leadership of this country for decades.
They have awakened to find decay and rot throughout every American institution and to discover that these elites have enriched
themselves beyond measure with the wealth of the nation at the cost of the workers and taxpayers who make that wealth possible.
They have awakened to their own replacement and now realize the disdain with which they are viewed by those who would be their
"masters."
These Deplorables, white, working, taxpaying, Bible-believing, gun-owning MEN(!), are not going back into the opioid sleep
of blissed out suburbia. They are now aware of the ill-hidden hatred which the elite class has for them and the future of serfdom
to which these elites have fated them and their children. Gentlemen, a beast is being born out here in the hinterlands. It will
not be put back in the cage.
The writer's allusion to the French Revolution is somewhat telling. The history of the West is replete with moments of savagery
and destruction directed inwardly. It will be so again. When these Deplorables turn on their keepers, it will not be pretty. The
Progressive elites who believe that they can control and shape "narratives" to harness that power are fools. The cloistered intellectuals
who believe that they can "opt" out of the coming clash are dreaming.
The traditional core of the American people are no different than their ancestors. They just don't live as close to the edge
as those folks did. But when they are backed up to that edge, when betrayal has been made clear and the institutions are revealed
for the Oz that they have become, they will recall that old hatred that still courses in the Western man's veins and will react
in ways that will chill the blood. The imaginary "crimes" with which "privileged whites" are damned by the rioting Cultural Marxists
will escape imagination and leap into reality. God help us.
Re: The last blast of paleconservatism was Perot and the strong late 1990s economy halted that movement.
Perot, for whom I voted in 1992 but not 1996, was not a paleoconservative, but rather a pragmatic centrist. Compare his position
on social issues with Pat Buchanan's (Buchanan being Mr. Paleoconservative -- and who ran in 1992 too)
Looks like Bannon is really weak in political economy. He does not even use the term neoliberalism. Go
here to read the full transcript of his speech.
One very interesting quote is ""I believe we've come partly off-track in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we're
starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the
West, a crisis of capitalism."
Notable quotes:
"... That war triggered a century of barbaric -- unparalleled in mankind's history -- virtually 180 to 200 million people were killed in the 20th century, and I believe that, you know, hundreds of years from now when they look back, we're children of that: We're children of that barbarity. This will be looked at almost as a new Dark Age. ..."
"... I believe we've come partly offtrack in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we're starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism. ..."
"... I see that every day. I'm a very practical, pragmatic capitalist. I was trained at Goldman Sachs, I went to Harvard Business School, I was as hard-nosed a capitalist as you get. I specialized in media, in investing in media companies, and it's a very, very tough environment. And you've had a fairly good track record. So I don't want this to kinda sound namby-pamby, "Let's all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' around capitalism." ..."
"... One is state-sponsored capitalism. And that's the capitalism you see in China and Russia. I believe it's what Holy Father [Pope Francis] has seen for most of his life in places like Argentina, where you have this kind of crony capitalism of people that are involved with these military powers-that-be in the government, and it forms a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people. And it doesn't spread the tremendous value creation throughout broader distribution patterns that were seen really in the 20th century. ..."
"... The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I'm a big believer in a lot of libertarianism. I have many many friends that's a very big part of the conservative movement -- whether it's the UKIP movement in England, it's many of the underpinnings of the populist movement in Europe, and particularly in the United States. However, that form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I call the "enlightened capitalism" of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost -- as many of the precepts of Marx -- and that is a form of capitalism, particularly to a younger generation [that] they're really finding quite attractive. And if they don't see another alternative, it's going to be an alternative that they gravitate to under this kind of rubric of "personal freedom." ..."
Buzzfeed has the remarks of Stephen Bannon, former CEO of Breitbart News ,
and currently appointed by President Elect Trump to be his chief advisor, at a conference at
the Vatican in the summer of 2014:
Steve Bannon:
Thank you very much Benjamin, and I appreciate you guys including us in
this. We're speaking from Los Angeles today, right across the street from our headquarters in
Los Angeles. Um. I want to talk about wealth creation and what wealth creation really can
achieve and maybe take it in a slightly different direction, because I believe the world, and
particularly the Judeo-Christian west, is in a crisis. And it's really the organizing principle
of how we built Breitbart News to really be a platform to bring news and information to people
throughout the world. Principally in the west, but we're expanding internationally to let
people understand the depths of this crisis, and it is a crisis both of capitalism but really
of the underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian west in our beliefs.
It's ironic, I think, that we're talking today at exactly, tomorrow, 100 years ago, at
the exact moment we're talking, the assassination took place in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand that led to the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of the bloodiest century
in mankind's history. Just to put it in perspective, with the assassination that took place 100
years ago tomorrow in Sarajevo, the world was at total peace. There was trade, there was
globalization, there was technological transfer, the High Church of England and the Catholic
Church and the Christian faith was predominant throughout Europe of practicing Christians.
Seven weeks later, I think there were 5 million men in uniform and within 30 days there were
over a million casualties.
That war triggered a century of barbaric -- unparalleled in mankind's history --
virtually 180 to 200 million people were killed in the 20th century, and I believe that, you
know, hundreds of years from now when they look back, we're children of that: We're children of
that barbarity. This will be looked at almost as a new Dark Age.
But the thing that got us out of it, the organizing principle that met this, was not
just the heroism of our people -- whether it was French resistance fighters, whether it was the
Polish resistance fighters, or it's the young men from Kansas City or the Midwest who stormed
the beaches of Normandy, commandos in England that fought with the Royal Air Force, that fought
this great war, really the Judeo-Christian West versus atheists, right? The underlying
principle is an enlightened form of capitalism, that capitalism really gave us the wherewithal.
It kind of organized and built the materials needed to support, whether it's the Soviet Union,
England, the United States, and eventually to take back continental Europe and to beat back a
barbaric empire in the Far East.
That capitalism really generated tremendous wealth. And that wealth was really
distributed among a middle class, a rising middle class, people who come from really
working-class environments and created what we really call a Pax Americana. It was many, many
years and decades of peace. And I believe we've come partly offtrack in the years since the
fall of the Soviet Union and we're starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly,
is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of
capitalism.
And we're at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if
the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I
feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs,
but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that's starting, that will completely
eradicate everything that we've been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.
Now, what I mean by that specifically: I think that you're seeing three kinds of
converging tendencies: One is a form of capitalism that is taken away from the underlying
spiritual and moral foundations of Christianity and, really, Judeo-Christian belief.
I see that every day. I'm a very practical, pragmatic capitalist. I was trained at
Goldman Sachs, I went to Harvard Business School, I was as hard-nosed a capitalist as you get.
I specialized in media, in investing in media companies, and it's a very, very tough
environment. And you've had a fairly good track record. So I don't want this to kinda sound
namby-pamby, "Let's all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' around capitalism."
But there's a strand of capitalism today -- two strands of it, that are very
disturbing.
One is state-sponsored capitalism. And that's the capitalism you see in China and
Russia. I believe it's what Holy Father [Pope Francis] has seen for most of his life in places
like Argentina, where you have this kind of crony capitalism of people that are involved with
these military powers-that-be in the government, and it forms a brutal form of capitalism that
is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people. And it
doesn't spread the tremendous value creation throughout broader distribution patterns that were
seen really in the 20th century.
The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the
Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I'm a big believer in
a lot of libertarianism. I have many many friends that's a very big part of the conservative
movement -- whether it's the UKIP movement in England, it's many of the underpinnings of the
populist movement in Europe, and particularly in the United States.
However, that form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I
call the "enlightened capitalism" of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really
looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost -- as many of
the precepts of Marx -- and that is a form of capitalism, particularly to a younger generation
[that] they're really finding quite attractive. And if they don't see another alternative, it's
going to be an alternative that they gravitate to under this kind of rubric of "personal
freedom."
The other tendency is an immense secularization of the West. And I know we've talked
about secularization for a long time, but if you look at younger people, especially millennials
under 30, the overwhelming drive of popular culture is to absolutely secularize this rising
iteration.
"... "I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," Bannon told the news outlet earlier this week. "The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f -- ed over." ..."
"... "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe," Bannon told Mother Jones in August. "Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements." ..."
"... "It's everything related to jobs," Bannon said and seemingly bragged about how he was going to drive conservatives "crazy" with his "trillion-dollar infrastructure plan." ..."
"... "With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up," he proposed. "We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution -- conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ..."
"... Bannon, in the Reporter interview, also gave some insight into how he viewed his political foes (presumably, liberals and the media) -- and the "darkness" he touts in fighting against them. ..."
Steve Bannon, the chief strategist and right-hand man to President-elect Donald Trump,
denied in an interview that he was an advocate of white nationalism -- and gave hints instead
about how his brand of "economic" nationalism will shake up Washington.
In The Hollywood Reporter, Bannon, the controversial former head of Breitbart News who went
on to chair Mr. Trump's presidential campaign, discussed why he believed his candidate won the
election.
"I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," Bannon told
the news outlet earlier this week. "The globalists gutted the American working class and
created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f -- ed
over."
Bannon's appointment to the White House has drawn criticism from Democrats and several civil
liberties groups, in part because of his (and Breitbart's) strong association with
the alt-right , a political movement with strains of white supremacy.
In the past, the former Breitbart CEO has admitted the alt-right's connections to racist and
anti-Semitic agendas.
"Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the
philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe,"
Bannon told Mother Jones in August. "Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are
attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes,
right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard
left that attract certain elements."
In the Reporter interview, Bannon challenged the notion that racialized overtones dominated
the Trump campaign on the trail. He predicted that if the administration delivered on its
election promises, "we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and
Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years."
"It's everything related to jobs," Bannon said and seemingly bragged about how he was going
to drive conservatives "crazy" with his "trillion-dollar infrastructure plan."
"With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild
everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up," he proposed. "We're just going to
throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater
than the Reagan revolution -- conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist
movement."
Bannon, in the Reporter interview, also gave some insight into how he viewed his political
foes (presumably, liberals and the media) -- and the "darkness" he touts in fighting against
them.
"Darkness is good," Bannon said. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only
helps us when they...get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."
"... When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years." ..."
"... the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules -- for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final days. ..."
"... Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [ Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017] ..."
"... But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing. ..."
Throughout 2016, I would occasionally turn on the television to see how the punditocracy was
responding to the mounting
Trump tsunami . If you get most of your news online, watching cable news is frustrating.
The commentary is so dumbed down and
painfully
reflective of speaker's biases, you can always basically guess what's coming next. With a
few exceptions -- above all Ann Coulter 's famous June 19, 2015
prediction of a Trump victory on
Bill Maher -- these pundits again and again told us that Trump would eventually go away,
first after he made this or that gaffe, then after he "failed" in a debate, then after people
actually started voting in the primaries.
The most interesting cases to me: the "
Republican strategists ," brought on to CNN and MSNBC to give the audience the illusion
that they were hearing both sides: Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Ana Navarro, Rick Wilson,
Margaret Hoover, Todd Harris.
Mike Murphy even convinced donors to hand him over $100 million to make Jeb Bush the
next president -- [
Jeb's 2016 departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , By Maeve Reston, February 22,
2016]
With campaigns and donors throwing money at these people, and the Main Stream Media touting
them, it was easy to assume they must know what they were talking about. Significantly, each of
these pundits was a national security hawk, center-right on economic issues, and just as
horrified by "
racism " and " sexism
" as their
Leftist counterparts . By a remarkable coincidence, the "
strategic " advice that they gave to Republican candidates lined up perfectly with these
positions. Their prominence was a mirage created by the fact that the MSM
handed this token opposition the Megaphone
because they did not challenge the core prejudices of the
bipartisan Ruling Class.
And of course they were all humiliated in a spectacular fashion, November 8 being only the
climax.
Joshua Green begins his book Devil's
Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by giving us a
view inside the Trump campaign on election night, before tracing Steve Bannon's path up to that
point. Reliving the journey is one of the joys of Green's work, which is mostly an intellectual
biography of Steve Bannon,
with a special focus on his relationship with Trump and the election.
Bannon
joined the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016 without any previous experience in
electoral politics. But like the candidate himself, the Breitbart editor showed that he
understood the nature of American politics and the GOP base
better than Establishment Republicans. The "strategists'" supposed "expertise," "strategic
advice," and "analysis" was in reality built on a house of cards. (In fact, the
Bannon-Trump view of the electorate is closer to the consensus
among political scientists that, unlike more nationalist and populist policies,
Republican Establishment positions have relatively little popular support. [ Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyon d | Tensions Between and Within the Two
Parties, Voter Study Group, June 2017]).
Bannon at Breitbart.com gave the Republican base what it wanted. Moral: in a democracy, you
always have a chance at winning when public opinion (or at least intraparty opinion) is on your
side.
Green traces Bannon's journey from his Irish-Catholic
working-class roots and traditionalist upbringing, to his time in the Navy, at Harvard
Business School and Goldman Sachs, and finally Breitbart.com and the pinnacle of American
politics. The picture
that emerges is of a man with principles and vigor, refusing to submit to the inertia that
is part of the human condition, with enough confidence to realize that life is too short to not
make major changes when staying on the current path is not going to allow him to accomplish his
goals.
For example, Bannon originally wanted a career in defense policy, and took a job in the
Pentagon during the Reagan administration. Yet he was off to Harvard Business School when he
realized that the rigid bureaucracy
that he was a part of would not let him move up to a high-level position until he was
middle-aged. Decades later, after taking over his website upon the unexpected death of Andrew Breitbart in
2012, it would have been easy to go low-risk -- sticking to Establishment scripts, making life
comfortable for Republican elites, implicitly submitting to the taboos of the Left.
Instead , he helped turn Breitbart News into a major voice of the populist tide that has
been remaking center-right politics across the globe.
When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as
a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up
twenty years."
From Green, we learn much about Bannon's intellectual influences. Surprisingly, although he
was raised as a Roman Catholic and maintains that faith today, we find out that Bannon briefly
practiced Zen Buddhism while in the Navy. There are other unusual influences that make
appearances in the book, including Rightist philosopher Julius
Evola and
René Guénon, a French occultist who eventually became a Sufi Muslim. Although
not exactly my cup of tea, such eccentric intellectual interests reflect a curious mind that
refuses to restrict itself to fashionable influences.
It's incorrect to call Devil's Bargain a biography. There is practically no mention
of Bannon's personal life -- wives, children. I had to Google to find out that he has three
daughters. His childhood is only discussed in the context of how it may have influenced his
beliefs and political development.
Rather, we get information on Bannon's intellectual and career pursuits and his
relationships with consequential figures such as mega-donor Robert Mercer, Andrew Breitbart and
Donald Trump.
As Bannon exits the White House and returns to Breitbart, we must hope that Bannon and the
movement he's helped to create accomplish enough in the future to inspire more complete
biographies.
But the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them:
despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and
the people it rules -- for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this
Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have
been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of
effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that
undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump
presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing
a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final
days.
Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading
him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and
won, is over." [
Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017]
But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact
that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it
has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP
strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing.
In his memoir Nixon's White House Wars , Pat Buchanan writes about how, despite
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our
movement had exhibited real power in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping
Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and though we were
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our
movement had exhibited real power in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping
Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and though we were veterans
of a victorious presidential campaign, few of us had served in the executive branch. We
lacked titles, resumes, credentials Our pool of experienced public servants who could
seamlessly move into top positions was miniscule compared to that of the liberal Democrats
who had dominated the capital's politics since FDR arrived in 1933.
History repeated itself in 2016, when Donald Trump would win the presidency on a nationalist
platform but find few qualified individuals who could reliably implement his agenda.
If nationalists want to ensure that their next generation of leaders is able to effectively
implement the policies they run on, they are going to have to engage in the slow and tedious
project of working their way up through powerful institutions.
Bannon may have been and remains an "outsider" to the political Establishment. But
nonetheless, throughout his life he has leveraged elite institutions such as Harvard, Goldman
Sachs, the Republican Party, and even Hollywood in order to become financially independent and
free to pursue his political goals.
If enough of those on the Dissident Right forge a similar path, we can be sure that future
nationalist political victories will be less hollow. Jeremy Cooper is a specialist in
international politics and an observer of global trends. Follow him at @NeoNeoLiberal .
@Clyde
Wilson Is there any evidence that Trump even tried to find the right people to fill the
offices? Having dabbled ever so slightly in this process in the spring, my impression is that
there is a mechanism run largely by lawyers from the big DC law firms (presumably one for
each party) who are the gatekeepers for applicants. The result of this system, which I have
little doubt that the "Trump Team" did not try to take on (after all, they had only a couple
of months to put together the beginnings of a team, and that left little or no time replacing
The Swamp Machine ) is that the key positions throughout the administration are largely
filled with lawyers from connected law firms. After all, who better to administer the
government than lawyers -- ? -- ?
At any rate, my experience with the process was: on your marks, get set, nothing. 30 years
experience in and around federal government, but not a lawyer. Don't call us, we don't want
to talk to you. (I also made clear in my cover letter that the key motivator for my
application -- and first ever political contributions -- was Trump and his agenda. In
retrospect, this "admission" was probably a kiss of death. I was a Trumpite. Eeeewww -- -- --
(I may well not have been qualified for anything, but I'm SURE I was disqualified by my
support for Trump )
Too little, too late. Also Bannon by demonizing Russians has shown that his is a dangerous warmonger. And a weak
politician.
Notable quotes:
"... Bannon added that his comments to Wolff were "aimed at Paul Manafort," the former Trump campaign manager who has been charged as part of an investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and members of Trump's team. Manafort was also at the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Manafort, Bannon said, "should have known how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends. ..."
"... Bannon released the statement after a three-day barrage of criticism from Trump and his allies. The president dubbed Bannon "Sloppy Steve." Bannon's statement also followed a CNN appearance on Sunday by Stephen Miller, the president's senior policy adviser and former Bannon ally, who eviscerated his comments to Wolff as "grotesque." ..."
The former White House aide said Donald Trump Jr. is a "patriot and a good man."
Steve Bannon backpedaled on comments to journalist Michael Wolff, whose explosive new book
sparked
a backlash against the former top Donald Trump aide over his remarks about a meeting at
Trump Tower in June 2016. According to the book, released a week early due to high demand, the
former White House strategist called the infamous meeting in New York between Donald Trump Jr.
and Russian operatives at Trump Tower "treasonous."
In a
statement to Axios on Sunday, Bannon heaped praise on Trump and his agenda, and called Don
Jr. a "patriot and a good man." "My comments about the meeting with Russian nationals came from
my life experiences as a Naval officer stationed aboard a destroyer whose main mission was to
hunt Soviet submarines to my time at the Pentagon during the Reagan years when our focus was
the defeat of 'the evil empire' and to making films about Reagan's war against the Soviets and
Hillary Clinton's involvement in selling uranium to them, " Bannon said in the statement.
Bannon
added that his comments to Wolff were "aimed at Paul Manafort," the former Trump campaign
manager who has been charged as part of an investigation into possible collusion between the
Russian government and members of Trump's team. Manafort was also at the 2016 Trump Tower
meeting. Manafort, Bannon said, "should have known how the Russians operate. He should have
known they are duplicitous, cunning and not our friends.
To reiterate, those comments (about
the meeting with the Russians) were not aimed at Don Jr." In the statement, Bannon again denied
that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. And though he did not deny any of the remarks
that were attributed to him in the book, Bannon said he regretted "that my delay in responding
to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president's
historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency."
Bannon released the statement
after a three-day barrage of criticism from Trump and his allies. The president dubbed Bannon
"Sloppy Steve." Bannon's statement also followed a CNN appearance on Sunday by Stephen Miller,
the president's senior policy adviser and former Bannon ally, who eviscerated his comments to
Wolff as "grotesque."
Earlier Sunday, Trump railed about what he called Wolff's "Fake Book" on
Twitter:
"... Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of protecting domestic consumption, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods and capital. It is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted good of Free trade. It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution, Mercantilism and planned economies. ..."
"... Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers", Malaysia's imposition of currency controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs and devaluation in the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect domestic steel production. ..."
"... Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one possible scenario. ..."
"... Here is Bannon's latest: Bannon dismissed the far-right as irrelevant: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more." "These guys are a collection of clowns," he added. Bannon is no friend of White Nationalists. ..."
"... I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel on those matters. If this is so, then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China and the rest of the world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in negotiations for more investment by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well, not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan in the 80s nd 90s. ..."
"... Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they are to a large degree Globalists - they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist. ..."
"... Bannon does not seem himself as an "ethno-nationalist". Yet his slanderous contempt for the liberal ethos/values of many Americans would tend to make one question if he can be called a Nationalist. ..."
"... If Bannon was a Zionist, he would never make the comments he does against the financial sector ..."
"... Isn't exceptionalism the same as narcissism? ..."
"... At least the concern for 10 million in Seoul (mostly missing in the discussion of other leaders) show he is not a psychopath ..."
So lets start parsing this economic nationalism that Bannon is making happen with Trump.
Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of protecting domestic consumption, labor
and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods
and capital. It is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted good of Free trade.
It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution, Mercantilism and planned economies.
Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers", Malaysia's imposition of currency
controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs
and devaluation in the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect domestic steel production.
Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury
holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one possible scenario.
At least now, IMO, the battle for a multi-polar (finance) world is out in the open.....let the side taking by nations begin.
I hope Bannon is wrong about the timing of potential global power shifting and the US loses its empire status.
Here is Bannon's latest: Bannon dismissed the far-right as irrelevant: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element.
I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more." "These guys are a collection
of clowns," he added. Bannon is no friend of White Nationalists.
Bannon can be perfectly mature, adult and realist on some points and be totally blinded by biases on others - him wanting total
economic war against China is proof enough. So I don't rule out that he has a blind spot over Iran and wants to get rid of the
regime. I mean, even Trump is realist and adult in a few issues, yet is an oblivious fool on others.
Kind of hard to find someone who's always adult and realist, actually. You can only hope to pick someone who's more realist
than most people. Or build a positronic robot and vote for him.
I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel on those matters. If this is so,
then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China
and the rest of the world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in negotiations for more investment
by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well, not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan
in the 80s nd 90s.
@ Everybody who bought into the MSM Steve Bannon promoted white supremacy and through Breitbart. Suggested you read his world
view expressed in remarks at Human Dignity Institute, Vatican Conference 2014
Progressives and Steve Bannon have something surprising in common: hating Wall Street
Pop quiz! Which major American political figure said the following:
"The 2008 crisis is really driven I believe by the greed, much of it driven by the greed of the investment banks."
"I think the bailouts in 2008 were wrong."
"[N]ot one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis."
"The Republican Party "is really a collection of crony capitalists that feel that they have a different set of rules"
and are "the reason that the United States' financial situation is so dire."
In the Vatican talk, Bannon described in length and detail how he views the biggest issues of the day:
He wants to tear down "crony capitalism": "a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and
creating value for a very small subset of people.[.]
He is against Ayn Rand's version of libertarianism: "The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing,
is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism.[.]
He believes the West needs to wage "a global war against Islamic fascism": "They have a Twitter account up today,
ISIS does, about turning the United States into a "river of blood" if it comes in and tries to defend the city of Baghdad.
And trust me, that is going to come to Europe.[.]
He believes the capitalism of the "Judeo Christian West" is in crisis: "If you look at the leaders of capitalism
at that time, when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost
all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West.[.]
He believes the racists that are attracted to Trump will become increasingly irrelevant: [.]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
this recent Bannon interview with The American Prospect will now go viral. Drudgereport headlines the WAPO spin.
Except for the selective Zion-flavored warmongering, Bannon appears to be an intelligent and thoughtful person. Also crafty. Is
he not "Trump's Brain" in the way that Rove was Bush's Brain?
Agree. I think Bannon's quite bright and very very clever and crafty.
However, if anyone believes the lies he spewed yesterday about white supremacists, let me enlighten you that that's what's
called "good PR" or something. Bannon is someone whom I hold quite responsible for contributing to the rise of White Supremacy
in the USA, which I consider a clear and present danger. Bannon's dismissive hand waving yesterday is meant to dissemble. Guess
some are willing to buy what he was selling yesterday. Not me.
The first group to call themselves Progressives were the 19th century Populists. Their mantle was adopted by T. Roosevelt and
other like-minded Republicans. Lafollette and Wallace are perhaps the best remembered Progressives--yes, FDR is portrayed as one,
but when examined really isn't: Eleanor was far more Progressive and since she was people also thought he was too. Once Wallace
was ousted from government, Democrats reverted to their old ways, although Truman did order the military to desegregate--perhaps
his only Progressive act. JFK was in the process of becoming a Progressive in the months prior to his murder. LBJ very reluctantly
made some Progressive noises in his War on Poverty that he was essentially forced into thanks to massive ethnic strife and related
riots during the 60s. But essentially since the beginning of WW2, Progressives and their goals vanished from the political landscape.
Nader brought it back to the fringe from the wilderness, but the so-called Progressive Caucus really isn't Progressive thanks
to its war promotion.
Admittedly, I don't know much about Steve Bannon; he certainly isn't a Progressive, but he doesn't seem to be a Regressive
either. The points he made at the Vatican Talk supplied by likklemore @28 are rather encouraging in an anti-Deep State manner.
So, his interaction with The American Prospect I don't see as surprising--he's seeking allies: "'It's a great honor to
finally track you [Robert Kuttner] down. I've followed your writing for years and I think you and I are in the same boat when
it comes to China. You absolutely nailed it.'... Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration
while building an outside coalition of trade hawks that includes left as well as right. Hence the phone call to me." I think Kuttner
will discover Bannon will "still [be] there" after Labor Day, so he might as well make his travel plans.
I won't give you a pass. Your bias and lack of intelligence is on great display.
Read and understand as Bannon is proven right on events.
The $28 - trillion (US dollar) global bailouts in 2008 is proven to have failed. A handful on Wall Street became trillionaires
instead of being suited in special stripes.
Negative interest rates steal the retirement savings of seniors. Pensions and Insurance companies cannot meet promised payouts.
And all is fine. Corruption flourishes. Judeo-Christian moral values are not in crisis.
@12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an alliance of corporate and state powers...
but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they are to a large degree Globalists - they used
the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him
a Nationalist.
@ 8 as you say... Bannon does not seem himself as an "ethno-nationalist". Yet his slanderous contempt for the liberal ethos/values
of many Americans would tend to make one question if he can be called a Nationalist.
@ 9 If Bannon was a Zionist, he would never make the comments he does against the financial sector (see @28).
@28 Bannon would never call himself a Socialist, but the most logical expression of his individualist views when applied to
the business world are expressed by none other than Ayn Rand. The financial world simply got legal cover to act on the views that
he rails against. Bannon does not like what he sees when the rules he claims for himself are given to the rest of the world. Which
makes him an "Exceptionalist"??
Isn't exceptionalism the same as narcissism?
At least the concern for 10 million in Seoul (mostly missing in the discussion of other leaders) show he is not a psychopath.
"... Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked and ridiculed them. ..."
"... The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words. ..."
"... Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director, Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least. ..."
"... Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week, MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should be "investigated." ..."
"... I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in that during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill , in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything. . . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past." ..."
"... five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter . . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks. ..."
"... I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with that sentiment. ..."
Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the
CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked
and ridiculed them.
The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media
should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition
party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words.
Joel Simon, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told CNN that "this kind of speech not [only] undermines the work of the
media in this country, it emboldens autocratic leaders around the world." Jacob Weisberg, the head of the Slate Group, tweeted that
Bannon's comment was terrifying and "tyrannical."
Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director,
Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat
an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least.
Ever since Bannon's outburst, you can hear the media gears meshing in the effort to undermine him. In TV green rooms and at Washington
parties, I've heard journalists say outright that it's time to get him. Time magazine put a sinister-looking Bannon on its
cover, describing him as "The Great Manipulator." Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time , boasted to MSNBC that
the image was in keeping with a tradition of controversial covers that put leaders in their place. "Likewise, putting [former White
House aide] Mike Deaver on the cover, the brains behind Ronald Reagan, that ended up bringing down Reagan," he told the hosts of
Morning Joe . "So you've got to have these checks and balances, whether it's the judiciary or the press."
Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week,
MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in
the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should
be "investigated."
I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in
that during the Obama administration.
It wasn't until four years after the passage of Obamacare that a journalist reported on just how powerful White House counselor
Valerie Jarrett had been in its flawed implementation. Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill
, in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group
of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much
of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly
with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything.
. . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett
inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At
this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past."
Brill then bluntly told the president that five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter
. . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position
by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment
of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received
as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks.
I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that
if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with
that sentiment.
But the media's effort to turn Bannon into an enemy of the people is veering into hysterical character assassination. The Sunday
print edition of the New York Times ran an astonishing 1,500-word story headlined: "Fascists Too Lax for a Philosopher Cited
by Bannon." (The online headline now reads, "Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists.") The Times based this
headline on what it admits was "a passing reference" in
a speech by Bannon at a Vatican conference in 2014 . In that speech, Bannon made a single mention of Julius Evola, an obscure
Italian philosopher who opposed modernity and cozied up to Mussolini's Italian Fascists.
Trump's campaign to return manufacturing to America and repatriate profits held overseas
makes good business sense. The ravaging of America's once mighty industrial base to boost
corporate profits was a crime against the nation by unscrupulous Wall Street bankers and
short-sighted, greedy CEO's.
The basis of industrial power is the ability to make products people use. Shockingly, US
manufacturing has shrunk to only 14% of GDP. Today, America's primary business has become
finance, the largely non-productive act of paper-passing that only benefits a tiny big city
parasitic elite.
Trump_vs_deep_state is a natural reaction to the self-destruction of America's industrial base. But the
president's mania to wreck international trade agreements and impose tariff barriers will
result in diminishing America's economic and political influence around the globe.
Access to America's markets is in certain ways a more powerful political tool than
deployment of US forces around the globe. Lessening access to the US markets will inevitably
have negative repercussions on US exports.
Trump has been on a rampage to undo almost every positive initiative undertaken by the Obama
administration, even though many earned the US applause and respect around the civilized world.
The president has made trade agreements a prime target. He has targeted trade pacts involving
Mexico, Canada, the EU, Japan, China and a host of other nations by claiming they are unfair to
American workers. However, a degree of wage unfairness is the price Washington must pay for
bringing lower-cost nations into America's economic orbit.
This month, the Trump administration threatened new restrictions against 120 US trade
partners who may now face much higher tariffs on their exports to the US.
Trump is in a hurry because he fears he may not be re-elected. He is trying to eradicate all
vestiges of the Obama presidency with the ruthlessness and ferocity of Stalinist officials
eradicating every trace of liquidated commissars, even from official photos. America now faces
its own era of purges as an uneasy world watches.
I strongly doubt that there is a break from the principle that the United States of America was the world's only superpower
Notable quotes:
"... During the mandates of George Bush Jr. and Barack Obama, the documents defining their National Security Strategies were based on the principle that the United States of America was the world's only superpower. They could wage the " endless war " advocated by Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, in other words they could systematically destroy any political organisation in the already unstable areas of the planet, beginning with the " Greater Middle East ". The Presidents indicated their projects for every region of the world. All that the unified fighting Commands had to do was apply these instructions. ..."
"... He once again uses his slogan " America First! " and makes it his philosophical foundation. Historically, this formula is still associated with support for Nazism, but this is not its original meaning. It was initially a way of breaking with Roosevelt's Atlantist policy - the alliance with the British Empire in order to govern the world. ..."
During the mandates of George Bush Jr. and Barack Obama, the documents defining their National Security Strategies were
based on the principle that the United States of America was the world's only superpower. They could wage the " endless war " advocated
by Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, in other words they could systematically destroy any political organisation in the already unstable
areas of the planet, beginning with the " Greater Middle East ". The Presidents indicated their projects for every region of the
world. All that the unified fighting Commands had to do was apply these instructions.
Donald Trump's National Security
Strategy breaks almost entirely with this literature. It conserves certain of the mythological elements of these previous
mandates, but attempts above all to reposition the United States as the Republic it was in 1791 (which is to say at the moment of
compromise with the Bill of Rights ) and no longer as the Empire that it became on 11 September 2001.
The role of the White House, its diplomacy and its armed forces is no longer to rule the world, but to protect " the interests
of the people of the United States ".
In his introduction, Donald Trump marks his difference with his predecessors by denouncing the policies of " régime change " and
" world democratic revolution " adopted by Ronald Reagan and managed under successive administrations by Trotskyite senior civil
servants. He reaffirms the classic realpolitik as declared by Henry Kissinger for example, founded on the idea of " sovereign nations
".
The reader will however keep in mind that certain intergovernmental agencies of the " Five Eyes " group, (Australia, Canada, the
United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom), such as the National Endowment for Democracy, are still directed by Trotskyists.
Donald Trump distinguishes three types of difficulty that his country is going to have to face -
First of all, the rivalry with Russia and China;
Next, the opposition of " rogue states " (North Korea and Iran) in their respective regions;
Finally, the threat to international law embodied by the jihadist movements and transnational criminal organisations.
Although he too considers the United States to be the incarnation of Good, he does not diabolise his rivals, adversaries and enemies,
but attempts to understand them, unlike his predecessors.
He once again uses his slogan " America First! " and makes it his philosophical foundation. Historically, this formula is
still associated with support for Nazism, but this is not its original meaning. It was initially a way of breaking with Roosevelt's
Atlantist policy - the alliance with the British Empire in order to govern the world.
The reader will remember that the first cabinet of the Obama administration gave an excessive place to the members of the Pilgrim
Society (no connection with the Mont-Pelerin Society), in other words a very private club presided by Queen Elizabeth II. This was
the group which piloted the financial après-crise of 2008.
In order to guide this policy of returning to the Republican principles of 1791 and independence from British financial interests,
Donald Trump poses four pillars:
The protection
of the people of the United States, its homeland and its way of life; The prosperity of
the United States; The power of its
armies; The development
of its influence.
Thus, he does not imagine his strategy in opposition to his rivals, his adversaries and his enemies, but as a function of his
Republican and independent ideal.
In order to avoid misinterpretation, he specifies that while he may consider that the United States is an example for the world,
it is neither possible nor desirable to impose its way of life on others - particularly since this way of life could not be considered
as the " inevitable final outcome of progress ". He does not think of international relations as being the rule of the United States
over the world, but as the search for " reciprocal relations " with his partners.
The four pillars of the America First doctrine of National Security
The protection
of the people of the United States implies, above all, the restoration of the frontiers (terrestrial, aerial, maritime, spatial and
cyber-spatial) which have been progressively destroyed by the globalists.
These frontiers are intended to neutralise the use of weapons of mass destruction by terrorist and criminal groups, and also to
contain pandemics and prevent the entry of drugs or illegal immigrants. Concerning the cyber-spatial frontiers, Donald Trump notes
the necessity of securing the Internet by giving priority, successively, to National Security, Energy, the Banks, Health, Communications
and Transports. But all that remains rather theoretical.
While, since the presidency of Richard Nixon, the war against drugs had been selective, aimed not at drying up the flood of illegal
substances, but at directing it towards certain ethnic minorities, Donald Trump responds to a new need. Aware of the collapse of
life expectancy exclusively affecting white males under Barack Obama, the despair that it caused and the opioïd epidemic that ensued,
Trump considers that the fight against the cartels is a question of national survival.
Speaking of the war against terrorism, it is not clear whether he is referring to the " lone wolves " who continue to fight even
after the fall of the Caliphate, as was the case with certain groups of the Waffen SS after the fall of the Reich, or the maintenance
of the British system of jihadism. If the second hypothesis is correct, it would be a clear retraction of his declarations of intention
during his electoral campaign and the first months of his presidency. He would therefore be obliged to clarify the evolution of relations
between Washington and London, as well the consequences of this change concerning the management of NATO.
In any case, we note a strange passage from the text which states as follows - " The United States will work with their allies
and partners to dissuade and destabilise other groups which threaten the homeland - including the groups sponsored by Iran, like
the Lebanese Hezbollah ".
For all anti-terrorist actions, Donald Trump considers limited alliances with other powers, including Russia and China.
Finally, concerning the resilience of the United States, he validates the programme of " Continuity of Government ", although
it was the direct beneficiary of the coup d'Etat of 9/11. However, he states that citizens who are engaged and informed are the basis
of this system, which would seem to avert the danger of a replay of such an event.
Concerning the
prosperity of the United States , a condition for the development of his Defense programme, Donald Trump is a champion of the " American
dream ", the " minimal State ", and the theory of " trickle-down economics " (from top to bottom). He therefore conceives of an economy
based on free exchange and not financialisation. Taking the opposite point of view from the commonly-believed idea that free exchange
was an instrument of Anglo-Saxon imperialism, he affirms that it is only fair for the primary actors if the new actors accept the
rules. He claims that several states -- including China -- are profiting from this system without ever having entertained the intention
of adopting its values.
He bases himself on this idea -- and not on the analysis of the appearance of a transnational class of the super-rich -- in order
to denounce multilateral commercial agreements.
He continues by announcing the deregulation of all sectors where State intervention is unnecessary. At the same time, he is planning
the opposition to all interventions by foreign States and their nationalised businesses, which could distort fair exchanges with
the United States.
He intends to develop theoretical research and its technical applications, and to support invention and innovation. For that,
he plans for special and advantageous conditions of immigration in order to generate a " brain drain " towards the United States.
Considering the skills thus acquired, not as the means for establishing a toll-booth on the world economy via patents, but as the
motor of the US economy, he intends to create a National Security file of these techniques and to protect them in order to maintain
his advance.
Finally, on the subject of the access to sources of energy, he observes that for the first time, the United States is self-sufficient.
He warns against policies initiated in the name of global warming, which implies limiting the use of energy. Here, Donald Trump is
not talking about the financialisation of ecology, but is clearly lobbing a stone into the garden of France, promoter of the " greening
of finance ". Replacing this question in a more general context, he affirms that the United States will support any States which
are victims of energy blackmail.
Affirming that
while the United States is no longer the sole superpower, it is the dominant power, he states that his central security objective
is the maintenance of this military preeminence , in accordance with the Roman adage Si vis pacem, para bellum [
1 ].
He first observes that " China is attempting to exclude the United States from the Indo-Pacific region, to extend the reach of
its State-run economic model, and to reorganise the region to its own advantage ". According to Trump, Beijing is in the process
of building the world's second military capability (under the authority of General Xi Jinping) leaning for support on the skills
of the United States.
As for Russia, " it is seeking to re-establish its status as a great power and create spheres of influence at its borders ". To
that purpose, it is " attempting to weaken the influence of the United States in the world and separate the USA from its allies and
partners. It perceives NATO and the European Union as threats ".
This is the first analysis of the goals and means of the rivals of the United States. Contrary to the " Wolfowitz doctrine ",
the White House no longer considers the European Union as a competitor, but as the civilian wing of NATO. Breaking with the strategy
of economic sabotage of the European Union by George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, Donald Trump posits the possibility of cooperating
with his rivals (which are now Russia and China), but only from a " position of strength ".
The current period sees the return of military competition, with three players this time. Knowing the tendency of military men
to prepare for the last war, rather than trying to imagine the next, it is a good idea to rethink the organisation and allocation
of the armies while remembering that your rivals will position themselves in whatever sector they choose. We should note that it
is not in this chapter that Donald Trump evokes the Pentagon's Achilles heel, but much earlier in the text. It is in his introduction,
at a moment when the reader is absorbed in philosophical considerations, that he mentions the new breed of Russian weapons, and in
particular their capacity to inhibit the commands and controls of NATO equipment.
The Pentagon must renew its arsenal, both in quantity and in quality. It has to abandon the illusion that its technological superiority
(in reality, now overtaken by Russia) can make up for its inferiority in numbers. There follows a long study of the domains of armament,
including nuclear weapons, which have to be modernised.
Donald Trump intends to inverse the current functioning of the Defense industry. The industry currently tries to sell its products
to the Federal state -- Trump hopes that the Federal state will launch its own offers, and that the industrials will respond to these
new needs. We know that today, the Defense industry no longer has the engineers it needs to realise new projects. The failure of
the F-35 is the most striking example of this. The change for which the President is hoping therefore supposes the prior organisation
of the " brain drain " towards the United States which he has already evoked.
As far as Intelligence is concerned, he has adopted the theories of his ex-National Security advisor General Michael Flynn. He
wants to reposition not only the Defense Intelligence Agency, but the entire " Intelligence community ". The objective is no longer
being able to pinpoint, at any moment, one terrorist chief or another, but being able to anticipate the strategic evolutions of its
rivals, adversaries and enemies. This means abandoning the obsession with GPS and high-tech gadgets in order to rehabilitate analysis.
Finally, he considers the State Department to be a tool enabling the creation of a positive environment for his country, including
with his rivals. It is no longer the means of extending the interests of multinational companies, which it was under George Bush
Sr. and Bill Clinton, nor the organiser of the Empire which it became under Bush Jr. and Barack Obama. US diplomats therefore need
to regain a little political dexterity.
The chapter dedicated
to the influence of the United States clarifies the end of the " globalisation " of the " American way of life ". The United States
will not seek to impose their values on others. They will treat all people equally, and will valorise those who respect the rule
of law.
In order to encourage those countries who might wish to become partners, but whose investments are governed by the State, he plans
to offer them alternatives solutions which would facilitate the reform of their economy.
Concerning intergovernmental organisations, he announces that he will refuse to hand over the slightest part of sovereignty if
it must be shared with countries who question the constitutional principles of the USA - a direct allusion to the International Criminal
Court, for example. On the other hand, he says nothing about the extra-territoriality of US Justice, which violates the constitutional
principles of other countries.
Finally, reviewing the long tradition which came from the compromise of 1791, he affirms that the United States will continue
to support those who fight for human dignity or religious freedom (not to be confused with freedom of conscience).
It is only after this long exposé that Donald Trump addresses the regional application of his doctrine. Nothing new is announced,
apart from an alliance with Australia, India and Japan to contain China and combat North Korea.
At best we learn about two new approaches to the Middle East. Experience with Daesh has shown that the main problem is not the
Israëli question, but that of the jihadist ideology. And what Washington blames Iran for is the perpetuation of the cycle of violence
by its refusal to negotiate.
By default, the reader understands that the Pentagon has to abandon the project by Admiral Arthur Cebrowski that Donald Rumfeld
imposed on 11 September. The " endless war " is over. The tension should not only stop spreading throughout the world, but lessen
in the Greater Middle East.
Donald Trump's National Security doctrine is very solidly constructed, on the historical level (we can see the influence of General
Jim Mattis) and on the philosophical level (following ex-Special advisor Steve Bannon). It is based on a rigorous analysis of the
challenges to US power (in conformity with the work of General H. R. McMaster). It validates the State Department's budget cuts (operated
by Rex Tillerson). Contrary to the received wisdom of US journalists, the Trump administration has managed to develop a coherent
synthesis which clearly distances itself from previous visions.
However, the absence of an explicit regional strategy attests to the extent of the ongoing revolution. Nothing guarantees that
the military leaders will apply this new philosophy in their respective domains - particularly since we were able to note, only a
few days ago, the collusion between US Forces and the jihadists in Syria.
Thierry Meyssan
Also the concept of "Neoliberal jihad is valid, but it is better to call it Neoliberal World revolution as it was borrowed
from Trotskyism
Notable quotes:
"... Jihad vs. McWorld ..."
"... In the two decades since Barber's book, this conflict has seemed to play out along overtly cultural lines: with Islamic extremism representing jihad, in opposition to Western neoliberalism representing McWorld. ..."
"... Linking Brexit and Trump to global right-wing tribal nationalisms doesn't mean conflating them all, of course. ..."
"... Yet at the same time, we can't understand our 21st century world without a recognition of this widespread phenomenon of global, tribal nationalism. ..."
In his ground-breaking
1995 book Jihad vs. McWorld , political scientist Benjamin Barber posits that the
global conflicts of the early 21st century would be driven by two opposing but equally
undemocratic forces: neoliberal corporate globalization (which he dubbed "McWorld") and
reactionary tribal nationalisms (which he dubbed "Jihad"). Although distinct in many ways, both
of these forces, Barber persuasively argues, succeed by denying the possibilities for
democratic consensus and action, and so both must be opposed by civic engagement and activism
on a broad scale.
In the two decades since Barber's book, this conflict has seemed to play out along overtly
cultural lines: with Islamic extremism representing jihad, in opposition to Western
neoliberalism representing McWorld. Case in pitch-perfect point: the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center. Yet despite his use of the Arabic word Jihad, Barber is clear that
reactionary tribalism is a worldwide phenomenon -- and in 2016 we're seeing particularly
striking examples of that tribalism in Western nations such as Great Britain and the United
States.
Britain's vote this week in favor of leaving the European Union was driven entirely by such
reactionary tribal nationalism. The far-right United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and its
leader Nigel Farage
led the charge in favor of Leave , as exemplified by a recent UKIP poster featuring a photo
of Syrian refugees with the caption " Breaking point: the EU has failed
us ." Farage and his allies like to point to demographic statistics about how much the UK
has changed in the last few decades , and more
exactly how the nation's white majority has been somewhat shifted over that time by the
arrival
of sizeable African and Asian immigrant communities.
It's impossible not to link the UKIP's emphases on such issues of immigration and demography
to the presidential campaign of the one prominent U.S. politician who is
cheering for the Brexit vote : presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. From his
campaign-launching speech about Mexican immigrant "criminals and rapists" to his proposal to
ban Muslim immigration and his "Make American Great Again" slogan, Trump has relied on
reactionary tribal nationalism at every stage of his campaign, and has received the
enthusiastic endorsement
of white supremacist and far-right organizations as a result. For such American tribal
nationalists, the 1965 Immigration Act is the chief bogeyman, the origin point of continuing
demographic shifts that have placed white America in a precarious position.
The only problem with that narrative is that it's entirely inaccurate. What the 1965 Act did
was reverse a
recent, exclusionary trend in American immigration law and policy, returning the nation to
the more inclusive and welcoming stance it had taken throughout the rest of its history.
Moreover, while the numbers of Americans from Latin American, Asian, and Muslim cultures have
increased in recent decades, all of those
communities have been part of o
ur national community from its origin points . Which is to say, this right-wing tribal
nationalism isn't just opposed to fundamental realities of 21st century American identity -- it
also depends on historical and national narratives that are as mythic as they are
exclusionary.
Linking Brexit and Trump to global right-wing tribal nationalisms doesn't mean conflating
them all, of course. Although Trump rallies have featured troubling instances of violence, and
although the
murderer of British politican Jo Cox was an avowed white supremacist and Leave supporter,
the right-wing Islamic extremism of groups such as Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram rely far more
consistently and centrally on violence and terrorism in support of their worldview and goals.
Such specific contexts and nuances are important and shouldn't be elided.
Yet at the same time, we can't understand our 21st century world without a recognition of
this widespread phenomenon of global, tribal nationalism. From ISIS to UKIP, Trump to France's
Jean-Marie Le Pen, such reactionary forces have become and remain dominant players across the
world, influencing local and international politics, economics, and culture. Benjamin Barber
called this trend two decades ago, and we would do well to read and remember his analyses -- as
well as his call for civic engagement and activism to resist these forces and fight for
democracy.
"... The real story is that the FBI, the NSA and the CIA effectively conspired to try to destroy the Presidency of Donald Trump. Hardly anyone in the media, mainstream or fringe, are writing about this fact and trying to rally public support for action. What is one to say when confronted with the fact that the FBI paid money to a former British spy for alleged dirt on Donald Trump that was initially commissioned by the Clinton campaign. And who is the FBI Agent paying for the dossier? Why a fellow now revealed as a Clinton partisan. ..."
"... How much of what we see is the real DJT and how much is a projected public persona? ..."
"... DJT's threat to "drain the swamp" has created fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst the swamp folk. They naturally fight back. By definition, all swamp critters must toe the neocon line else they would have been fired by previous incumbents. They are all therefore fair game for DJT. ..."
"... I admire your persistence and agree with the points you make in this and your other posts on the topic of Trump. This is an extremely important subject matter. A President was elected, lawfully, and a bunch of stupid ninnies got their panties in a knot over that and are therefore more or less willing to support a Borgist ("deep state", if you prefer) coup d'état. Said ninnies are immune to the rational arguments you present because they are not intelligent, they are hyper emotional and many of them belong to a cult called "[neo]liberalism" (or the "progressive movement", if you prefer). ..."
"... You mention briefly the Steele affair. I still find it difficult to believe that an ex-UK Intelligence Officer can get mixed up in American politics to this extent and scarcely an eyebrow raised. Surely someone's asking questions somewhere about this? The facts are clear enough, for once. ..."
"... And, off stage, a slow but powerful campaign exposing many of Trumnp's enemies as corrupt, perverted hypocrites. And, from time to time, unexpected presents like Brazile's book. But faster please ..."
"... I agree about the Trump Derangement Syndrome that has afflicted the media. I think they are suffering from O.C.T.D.: Obsessive Compulsive Trump Disorder. There are some in the media who are of the opinion that this may not be working with most Americans. ..."
"... The crucial point is not about respect for the man. It is respect for the office. All men are flawed, and high position exposes additional flaws. It is evident, to this outside observer, that Trump won "fair and square" according to the established procedures. The variety of "dirty tricks" used against him, both before the election and after, is astounding. There was a "back room" negotiation on election eve, visible in public as the long delay in final over-the-top results, and Trump's apology to his supporters for the delay, "it was complicated". ..."
"... He was smart enough to get elected, defeating a dozen professional republicans and the Democratic machinery along with the MSM. "In the end you will see that he does not live up to your expectations." I thought he was a boor and a mediocre showman. In that regard he's exceeded mine by surviving this long. ..."
"... You are correct that there is no public source yet confirming the FBI paid Steele. However, the FBI's refusal to turn over relevant documents regarding their relationship with Steele tells me there was money paid. What is indisputable is that the information in the dossier was used as a predicate to seek permission from a FISA court to go after Trump and his team. That is outrageous. ..."
"... Hillary, Bush, Obama and "the establishment" knew unconsciously not to "rock the boat". Trump was seen as too independent and uneducated in the ways of The Borg to be trusted. He had un-borg-like views like "..what the hell are we doing supporting Al Quida?" "...grab her in the pussy.." "..lets make Jerusalem the capital of Israel.." "lets get along with Russia.." "..the Media is fake and biased.." all very un-PC and un-borg-like positions. Too disruptive of the status quo. Might actually solve some problems and reduce the importance of government. ..."
"... I think the Borg determined he was N.O.K. (Not Our Kind). And he has royally pissed off the Media and he is in a death fight with the Media. ..."
"... This is increasingly my take as well -- the FBI, CIA and NSA do seem to have "conspired" to destroy Donald Trump. I finger Brennan, Clapper, Susan Rice, Benjamin Rhodes, and maybe Samantha Power as being involved in the flood of illegal leaks earlier in the year that did so much to pave the way for Mueller's appointment. ..."
"... Are you aware that the Office of Inspector General has been investigating politicization of the FBI and DOJ for 11 months now? The investigation was brought about at the recommendation of certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I believe. Among the allegations being looked into is that DOJ/FBI have highly political agents that should have at least recused themselves from certain investigations and that their politics may have influenced the course of the investigations. ..."
"... Given the revelations around Strzok, Rhee and Weissman, on Mueller's team, you'd think we'd be hearing more about OIG case. IMO, we are about to though. ..."
"... I'm also stunned by the stupidity of the Democrats. Any liberal who believes the intelligence agencies is a fool. They've just shown us their true nature by blocking the release of several thousand pages of records relating to the assassination of President Kennedy. ..."
"... If someone had told me 5 years ago that I would in 2017 consider Fox News to be the most reliable MSM news outlet, I would have rolled around on the ground laughing hysterically. Yet it is true. I am not quite sure what I should deduce from this but I think it is something along the lines of "one cannot be too cynical about the news media". ..."
"... He certainly gives them plenty of ammunition. However, I believe a great deal of the vituperative outrage directed at him has much (possibly primarily) to do with exactly whom he bested in the general election. Not to pile on, but see David E. Solomon's comments on this thread. ..."
"... One can't underestimate the cult of personality that was so carefully crafted around Hillary Clinton for the past two decades. Their chosen strategy of identity politics only kicked it into hyper-drive over the past eight years. ..."
That sure sounds a lot like the current state of the media. We have witnessed this type of hysteria ourselves in just the last
two days. First there was the Brian Ross debacle, which entailed Ross peddling the lie that Trump ordered Flynn to contact the Russians.
That "fake news" elicited an emotional orgasm from Joy Behar on The View. She was on the verge of writhing on the floor as she prematurely
celebrated what she thought would seal the impeachment of Donald Trump. Whoops. Ross had to retract that story.
... ... ...
Watergate and "Russiagate" do share a common trope. During Watergate the Washington Post was mostly a lone voice covering the
story. Washington Post publisher at the time, Kate Graham, reportedly remarked that she was worried that none of the other papers
were covering the story. And it was an important story. It exposed political corruption and abuse of power and a threat to our democracy.
How is that in common with Russiagate? The real story is that the FBI, the NSA and the CIA effectively conspired to try to
destroy the Presidency of Donald Trump. Hardly anyone in the media, mainstream or fringe, are writing about this fact and trying
to rally public support for action. What is one to say when confronted with the fact that the FBI paid money to a former British
spy for alleged dirt on Donald Trump that was initially commissioned by the Clinton campaign. And who is the FBI Agent paying for
the dossier? Why a fellow now revealed as a Clinton partisan.
It is a shame you wanted to start the discussion with such a stupid comment. I have made no representation whatsoever about the
intelligence or lack of intelligence of Trump. I have expressed nothing regarding "my expectations" for him or his policies. I
get it. You don't like the man and want to grind a meaningless axe.
How much of what we see is the real DJT and how much is a projected public persona?
There's truth and lies, but then there's just plain old bullshit which has nothing to do with either. He seems to throw a ton
of it around as a diversionary tactic. I understand the technique, but I can't see through the smoke screen to divine what he's
up to or who he really is. So I continue to dispassionately observe.
DJT's threat to "drain the swamp" has created fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst the swamp folk. They naturally fight back.
By definition, all swamp critters must toe the neocon line else they would have been fired by previous incumbents. They are all
therefore fair game for DJT.
Maybe a citation could be offered here, but there does not appear to be any support for the assertion made by the author of this
piece that "...the FBI paid money to a former British spy for alleged dirt on Donald Trump...".There were reports that the FBI
'considered' paying Steele to continue his work, ( a not altogether uncommon practice), yet within the more responsibly researched
reports it was also clearly stated that in the end the FBI did not in fact pay Steele anything for any work at all.
PT, I admire your persistence and agree with the points you make in this and your other posts on the topic of Trump. This is an
extremely important subject matter. A President was elected, lawfully, and a bunch of stupid ninnies got their panties in a knot
over that and are therefore more or less willing to support a Borgist ("deep state", if you prefer) coup d'état. Said ninnies
are immune to the rational arguments you present because they are not intelligent, they are hyper emotional and many of them belong
to a cult called "[neo]liberalism" (or the "progressive movement", if you prefer).
When you belong to a cult, you must suspend reason; make it subordinate to the hive mind. You lose all perspective. They believe
all kids of ridiculous notions that fail to withstand the most basic rational scrutiny; like Islam and feminism can be allies,
socialism would work if only it were applied correctly, if a man puts on a dress he has actually become a woman and that such
a person would make a good 11 series in the military, low skill/low IQ immigrants - legal or otherwise - are actually good for
the country......so of course they believe that a coup d'état is appropriate when the target is Trump. In their madness they have
convinced themselves that Trump is uniquely dangerous. He is going to destroy the world via ignoring global warming, tax cuts,
immigration reform, pushing the nuclear button just for fun; all of the above and maybe more. You know this, of course. You did
mention "Trump Derangement Syndrome".
As for the rest of the subject matter, personally, I feel that what with all that has been revealed about the FBI, CIA and
NSA, someone should be bringing the involved members of these agencies up on charges related to treason, sedition or whatever
legal terms are correct. Actually, these people should have their doors kicked down and be brought out in hand cuffs. Death sentences
should be on the table and should be applied when legally possible.
This is no more Watergate than a man in a dress is a woman.
The depths to which the govt, populace and values of this country have degenerated have never been more on display than in
this witch hunt. We are in very bad shape. The media is thoroughly scurrilous. Officials in bureaucracies are treasonous and have
no respect for the rule of law. Half of the citizens are insane and support the media and the traitors.
If someone doesn't at least just pull the plug on this "investigation", it's going to ruin what's left of this country. It
may be too late. A lot of ninnies are going to wake up to a very harsh reality.
From day one the Republicans were trying to impeach Bill Clinton by investigating every dark corner of the Clintons' past and
present until they could find something that would stick. Same thing with Trump except this time it goes far beyond the opposition
party to include elements of the government, most of the media and even leading members of his own party. Elections be damned,
we have an empire to maintain and he is seen by the establishment as too impulsive, unstable and so far uncontrollable to be allowed
to stay in power. While no threat to the sacred cows of Wall Street and Israel or even to drain the swamp they are terrified of
his unpredictability, hence the full court press unprecedented in American history to remove him from office. My very low opinion
of Trump doesn't blind me to the dangers inherent in this effort. \
PT - Isn't the point you've just made central? The issues here are far more important than the personalities?
I like what I've seen of our PM, Mrs May. Nice person, to my outsider's way of thinking. Doesn't alter the fact that I consider
her policies and philosophy to be hopeless. And since we're never going to meet her in the pub that's what counts. Would it not
be possible to separate things out in the same way with Trump? Set on one side the partisan arguments about his personality -
politics is not a TV show - and consider him on the basis of what he may or may not do or be able to do?
You mention briefly the Steele affair. I still find it difficult to believe that an ex-UK Intelligence Officer can get
mixed up in American politics to this extent and scarcely an eyebrow raised. Surely someone's asking questions somewhere about
this? The facts are clear enough, for once.
Actually, I think he shares many of Bismark's qualities: "a political genius of a very unusual kind [whose success] rested on
several sets of conflicting characteristics among which brutal, disarming honesty mingled with the wiles and deceits of a confidence
man. He played his parts with perfect self-confidence, yet mixed them with rage, anxiety, illness, hypochrondria, and irrationality.
... He used democracy when it suited him, negotiated with revolutionaries and the dangerous Ferdinand Lassalle, the socialist
who might have contested his authority. He utterly dominated his cabinet ministers with a sovereign contempt and blackened their
reputations as soon as he no longer needed them. He outwitted the parliamentary parties, even the strongest of them, and betrayed
all those ... who had put him into power. By 1870 even his closest friends ... realized that they had helped put a demonic figure
into power.[6]"-wiki
I think, I hope, I believe, I persuade myself that all is unfolding as it should. Mueller turns up nothing but further examples
of officials pimping themselves out to foreign governments; meanwhile revelations of bias on his team; meanwhile chewing away
at the Fusion GPS thing (one of the key pillars); meanwhile investigation of the FBI. And, off stage, a slow but powerful
campaign exposing many of Trumnp's enemies as corrupt, perverted hypocrites. And, from time to time, unexpected presents like
Brazile's book. But faster please
I agree about the Trump Derangement Syndrome that has afflicted the media. I think they are suffering from O.C.T.D.: Obsessive
Compulsive Trump Disorder. There are some in the media who are of the opinion that this may not be working with most Americans.
I saw two pieces this morning from BBC and The New York Times:
Perhaps this is the start of a change or a recognition that the MSM's habitual crying wolf behavior is not resonating with
Main Street. I can only hope, but I stopped watching the national news long ago.
The crucial point is not about respect for the man. It is respect for the office. All men are flawed, and high position exposes
additional flaws. It is evident, to this outside observer, that Trump won "fair and square" according to the established procedures.
The variety of "dirty tricks" used against him, both before the election and after, is astounding. There was a "back room" negotiation
on election eve, visible in public as the long delay in final over-the-top results, and Trump's apology to his supporters for
the delay, "it was complicated".
That truly is water under the bridge, and at least must be so, if you wish to preserve
your republic. You all have the right to withhold consent and trash what you and your fathers and grandfathers have achieved.
Most will not like the outcome. But I sincerely hope that you, each and collectively, instead will choose the positive aspects
of this model:
"... that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed."
The ABC story had to be "clarified" given they originally reported Flynn had contacted the Russians DURING the election when in
fact it was AFTER the election. The story had consequences on the stock market:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4129355-cost-fake-news-s-and-p-500
This all happened on the eve of the passage of Trump's tax cuts and it seemed timed to hurt the stock market. It may even possibly
have torpedoed the tax cuts by putting into question Trump's legal standing as president.
I detest Trump as a person but still acknowledge that he is our current President. I will continue to fight against the implementation
of his policies and work hard to to try to insure he does not win a second term. Other than that in 3 more years the American
people will have an opportunity to judge his performance and make a decision on his worthiness to continue as President. That
is as it should be.
Trump has taken some hard shots, some deserved and some not. That is the nature of our current political system. When Trump
traveled the nation proclaiming Obama was not American born and thus an illegitimate President is also an example of "all is fair
in War and politics".
He was smart enough to get elected, defeating a dozen professional republicans and the Democratic machinery along with
the MSM. "In the end you will see that he does not live up to your expectations." I thought he was a boor and a mediocre showman.
In that regard he's exceeded mine by surviving this long.
You are correct that there is no public source yet confirming the FBI paid Steele. However, the FBI's refusal to turn over
relevant documents regarding their relationship with Steele tells me there was money paid. What is indisputable is that the information
in the dossier was used as a predicate to seek permission from a FISA court to go after Trump and his team. That is outrageous.
is this doom-and-gloom or hope-assaulting-experience? Am guessing that the only thing he has shares with Old Otto is a preference
for the classic method of donning trousers.
OOPS! there's this (was reminded of it by the hyperventilatory "breaking news" about Blackwater/Erik Prince):
Bismarck held von Holstein in high esteem, and when the latter went to him with his plan for establishing a vast organization
of almost universal spying, the Chancellor of the new German Empire immediately grasped the advantages he could obtain from
it. ....
Von Holstein ... had one great ambition; that of knowing everything about everybody and of ruling everybody through fear
of the disclosures he could make were he at any time tempted to do so. ....
The German Foreign Office knew everything and made use of everything .... In the Prussian Intelligence Department as Holstein
organized it there was hardly a person of note or consequence in Europe about whom everything was not known, including, of
course, his weaknesses and cupboard skeletons. And this knowledge was used when necessary without any compunction or remorse.
....
His first care, whenever an individual capable at a given moment of playing a part, no matter how humble, in the great drama
attracted his attention, was to ferret out all that could be learned about him or her. With few exceptions he contrived to
lay his finger on a hidden secret. Once this preliminary step had been performed to his satisfaction, the rest was easy. The
unfortunate victim was given to understand that he would be shamed publicly at any time, unless . . . unless . . .
As this has been the SOP of Karl Rove (presumably), of Jedgar, and before that [__fill in the blanks___], the only thing unprecedented
about the Prince/Blackwater story is the disregard for omerta.
DISCLAIMER: The Princess Radziwill who published the passage on von Holstein was an opportunistic swashbucklereuse type and
[guessing] would have been so even in less horrifically interesting times.
My humble opinion on what is going on. "The Borg" are individuals whose self-interest is tied to perpetuating "business as usual"
in Washington DC. FBI agents, CIA, NSA need domestic and foreign conflict to aggrandize and justify their positions. They do not
want our national problems solved...god forbid, budgets, salaries, bonuses, future contracting and consulting jobs might be reduced
or eliminated.
Hillary, Bush, Obama and "the establishment" knew unconsciously not to "rock the boat". Trump was seen as too independent
and uneducated in the ways of The Borg to be trusted. He had un-borg-like views like "..what the hell are we doing supporting
Al Quida?" "...grab her in the pussy.." "..lets make Jerusalem the capital of Israel.." "lets get along with Russia.." "..the
Media is fake and biased.." all very un-PC and un-borg-like positions. Too disruptive of the status quo. Might actually solve
some problems and reduce the importance of government.
I think the Borg determined he was N.O.K. (Not Our Kind). And he has royally pissed off the Media and he is in a death
fight with the Media.
I find the whole idea that "Deutsche Bank has branches in Russia and lends money to Russian borrowers, therefore Russians control
Deutsche Bank" idea to be comical.
I have clients who also regularly borrow money from Deutsche Bank. Are they now Russians? Are they controlled now by Russians?
Do Russians control them? What role does DB play in all this web of control?
If I have my mortgage at the same bank as a slum lord/toxic waste generator/adult bookstore owner/CIA operative, am I now his
puppet?
Asking for a friend.
Does nobody understand how banking law works? (in Germany and the US, banks are forbidden to lend to any client or client group
in an amount that would give the borrower de facto control over the operations of the bank). Of course the smarter conspiracy
theorists understand this. Any stick to beat a dog.
This is increasingly my take as well -- the FBI, CIA and NSA do seem to have "conspired" to destroy Donald Trump. I finger
Brennan, Clapper, Susan Rice, Benjamin Rhodes, and maybe Samantha Power as being involved in the flood of illegal leaks earlier
in the year that did so much to pave the way for Mueller's appointment.
What I fail to understand is why Democrats are
sitting back and cheering as these agencies work together to destroy a duly elected President of the USA. Does anyone really believe
that if these agencies get away with it this time they will stop with Trump?
All these agencies are out of control and are completely unaccountable.
Are you aware that the Office of Inspector General has been investigating politicization of the FBI and DOJ for 11 months
now? The investigation was brought about at the recommendation of certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I believe.
Among the allegations being looked into is that DOJ/FBI have highly political agents that should have at least recused themselves
from certain investigations and that their politics may have influenced the course of the investigations.
Given the revelations around Strzok, Rhee and Weissman, on Mueller's team, you'd think we'd be hearing more about OIG case.
IMO, we are about to though.
I'm also stunned by the stupidity of the Democrats. Any liberal who believes the intelligence agencies is a fool. They've
just shown us their true nature by blocking the release of several thousand pages of records relating to the assassination of
President Kennedy. If they can't allow the truth to come out after 54 years, they surely can't be trusted to be truthful
about today's information.
Fox News, which has been fairly reliable of late, reported last night that the FBI OIG report will be finalized and made public
sometime in the next 4-5 weeks.
If someone had told me 5 years ago that I would in 2017 consider Fox News to be the most reliable MSM news outlet, I would
have rolled around on the ground laughing hysterically. Yet it is true. I am not quite sure what I should deduce from this but
I think it is something along the lines of "one cannot be too cynical about the news media".
He certainly gives them plenty of ammunition. However, I believe a great deal of the vituperative outrage directed at him
has much (possibly primarily) to do with exactly whom he bested in the general election. Not to pile on, but see David E. Solomon's
comments on this thread.
One can't underestimate the cult of personality that was so carefully crafted around Hillary Clinton for the past two decades.
Their chosen strategy of identity politics only kicked it into hyper-drive over the past eight years.
Still, this phenomenon existed long before Trump, The Politician, and even before Obama and his own cult. Many of these
people were able to put their expectations on hold for eight long years. Obama was a result they could at least live with temporarily
- " Just eight more years, and then they owe her. "
They had their very structures of reality built around a certain outcome, which didn't come to pass. So, the disappointment
was all the more bitter when they realized that their waiting was in vain. That's a tidal wave of cognitive dissonance unleashed
by that unimaginable (for some) occurrence of her defeat. He didn't put paid to Martin O'Malley or even Bernie Sanders. He vanquished
The Queen. That sort of thing never goes down lightly.
" As I've said before, I think Trump only ran for President for 1) ego, and 2) he knows he will have access to billions
of dollars of business deals once he leaves office, with the cachet of having been President.
You might as well assert that lions only hang out around watering holes because 1) there's water there, and 2) gazelles and
zebras have to drink water. Can you point me to one President from living memory who did not 1) run for the Office at least partially
out of ego, and 2) take advantage in his subsequent "private life" of these exact perks of having held the Office? I ask seriously,
because it seems you are pining for a nobility in presidential politics which to my recollection hasn't existed for at least three
generations. Cincinnatus, they ain't. Maybe Ike, but anyone else is a real stretch.
"... What is your take on this fellow Peter P. Strzok II? His back history is purportedly Georgetown, Army Intelligence (his father PP Strzok I is Army Corp of Engineers), and was until recently deputy director of counterintelligence at FBI with focus on Russia and China. ..."
"... He is the fellow who altered Comey's draft to read "extremely careless" instead of "grossly negligent", he interviewed HRC, Mills, Abedin (and gave the latter two immunity); he pushed for the continued payment of Steele in the amount of $50,000 for further Dossier research in the face of some resistance (cf James Rosen); ..."
"... he also interviewed Flynn, and for most of the first half of 2017 and for all of 2016 appears to have been the most important and influential agent working on the HRC-Trump-Russia nexus. James Rosen suggests he has CIA connections as well. ..."
"... He certainly would have had CIA connections if he was involved in CI activities targeting Russian and China. ..."
What is your take on this fellow Peter P. Strzok II? His back history is purportedly Georgetown, Army Intelligence (his
father PP Strzok I is Army Corp of Engineers), and was until recently deputy director of counterintelligence at FBI with focus
on Russia and China.
He is the fellow who altered Comey's draft to read "extremely careless" instead of "grossly negligent", he interviewed
HRC, Mills, Abedin (and gave the latter two immunity); he pushed for the continued payment of Steele in the amount of $50,000
for further Dossier research in the face of some resistance (cf James Rosen);
he also interviewed Flynn, and for most of the first half of 2017 and for all of 2016 appears to have been the most important
and influential agent working on the HRC-Trump-Russia nexus. James Rosen suggests he has CIA connections as well.
The dude has also no internet presence. There is not much information out there on a person who seems to be pretty influential
in DC / FBI / Foreign Intel circles.
He screwed up, and a lawyer, sent texts, and now is gone. Does he strike you as fishy at all, or is this kind of stuff pretty
common for people in his field and position.
I know nothing of him other than what is in the press but his partisan interference in investigations appears to be a blot
on the honor of the FBI but then I am old fashioned. pl
WJ,
I first learned about this man from a comment of David Habakkuk (in an earlier post) and was curious to learn more about him.
As you point out, ´internet is not your friend´ in his case. Your comment gives so far the most information about his doings.
Thank you. According to David Habakkuk that surname is polish, but it possibly be other slavic origin as well ( possibly Jidish
?)
Given Strzok's career, I wouldn't expect to find much, if anything, about him on the internet. If he spent his career working
"in the shadows," he rightly would have stayed off the internet. He certainly would have had CIA connections if he was involved
in CI activities targeting Russian and China. Anyone actively working in a classified environment would be grossly negligent
to allow himself to be plastered all over the internet. Why do you think I still use a light cover of TTG just to post here years
after retiring? It's just force of habit.
I was glad to hear that Mueller banished him to HR as soon as his anti-Trump emails were discovered. If he stayed, he would
have cast an ugly shadow over the Mueller investigation. It's much like the partisan shadow extending over much of the NY FBI
office. Their pro-Trump/anti-Clinton stance was notorious. I also think the FBI should review the entire Clinton email server
file in light of this.
Don't know how bureaucracies work in DC. Remembering how placement in HR was a goal for activists. HR is obscure and unglamorous
- how is it banishment for someone with an agenda who works in the shadows?
An interesting article on John McCain. I disagree with the contention that McCain hid knowledge that many American POWs were left
behind (undoubtedly some voluntarily choose to remain behind but not hundreds ). However, the article touched on some ideas that
rang true:
Today when we consider the major countries of the world we see that in many cases the official leaders are also the leaders
in actuality: Vladimir Putin calls the shots in Russia, Xi Jinping and his top Politburo colleagues do the same in China, and
so forth. However, in America and in some other Western countries, this seems to be less and less the case, with top national
figures merely being attractive front-men selected for their popular appeal and their political malleability, a development that
may eventually have dire consequences for the nations they lead. As an extreme example, a drunken Boris Yeltsin freely allowed
the looting of Russia's entire national wealth by the handful of oligarchs who pulled his strings, and the result was the total
impoverishment of the Russian people and a demographic collapse almost unprecedented in modern peacetime history.
An obvious problem with installing puppet rulers is the risk that they will attempt to cut their strings, much like Putin
soon outmaneuvered and exiled his oligarch patron Boris Berezovsky.
One means of minimizing such risk is to select puppets who
are so deeply compromised that they can never break free, knowing that the political self-destruct charges buried deep within
their pasts could easily be triggered if they sought independence. I have sometimes joked with my friends that perhaps the best
career move for an ambitious young politician would be to secretly commit some monstrous crime and then make sure that the hard
evidence of his guilt ended up in the hands of certain powerful people, thereby assuring his rapid political rise.
The gist is that elite need a kill switch on their front men (and women).
Seems to be a series of pieces dealing with Vietnam POWs: the following linked item was interesting and provided a plausible explanation:
that the US failed to pay up agreed on reparations…
Remarkable and shocking. Wheels within wheels – this is the first time I have ever seen McCain's father connected with the infamous
Board of Inquiry which cleared Israel in that state's attack on USS LIBERTY during Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights.
Another stunning article in which the author makes reference to his recent acquisition of what he considers to be a reliably authentic
audio file of POW McCain's broadcasts from captivity. Dynamite stuff. The conclusion regarding aspiring untenured historians is
quite downbeat:
Also remarkable; fantastic. It's hard to believe, and a testament to the boldness of Washington dog-and-pony shows, because this
must have been well-known in insider circles in Washington – anything so damning which was not ruthlessly and professionally suppressed
and simply never allowed to become part of a national discussion would surely have been stumbled upon before now. Land of the
Cover-Up.
"... "President Trump instructed [his generals] in a very open way that the YPG will no longer be given weapons. He openly said
that this absurdity should have ended much earlier ," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters after the phone call. ..."
"... The YPG is the Syrian sister organization of the Turkish-Kurdish terror group PKK. Some weapons the U.S. had delivered to the
YPK in Syria to fight the Islamic State have been recovered from PKK fighters in Turkey who were out to kill Turkish security personal.
Despite that, supply for the YPG continued. In total over 3,500 truckloads were provided to it by the U.S. military. Only recently the
YPK received some 120 armored Humvees , mine clearance vehicles and other equipment. ..."
"... The generals in the White House and other parts of the administration were caught flat-footed by the promise Trump has made.
The Washington Post writes : "Initially, the administration's national security team appeared surprised by the Turks' announcement and
uncertain what to say about it. The State Department referred questions to the White House, and hours passed with no confirmation from
the National Security Council." ..."
"... The U.S. military uses the YPG as proxy power in Syria to justify and support its occupation of north-east Syria, The intent
of the occupation is , for now, to press the Syrian government into agreeing to a U.S. controlled "regime change": ..."
"... When in 2014 the U.S. started to use Kurds in Syria as its foot-soldiers, it put the YPG under the mantle of the so called
Syrian Democratic Forces and paid some Syrian Arabs to join and keep up the subterfuge. This helped to counter the Turkish argument
that the U.S. was arming and supporting terrorists. But in May 2017 the U.S. announced to arm the YPG directly without the cover of
the SDF. The alleged purpose was to eliminate the Islamic State from the city of Raqqa. ..."
"... A spokesperson of the SDF, the ethnic Turkman Talaf Silo, recently defected and went over to the Turkish side. The Turkish
government is certainly well informed about the SDF and knows that its political and command structure is dominated by the YPK. The
whole concept is a sham. ..."
"... Sometimes it's hard to see if Trump actually believed what he was saying about foreign policy on the campaign trail -- but
either way it doesn't matter much as he seems incapable of navigating the labyrinth of the Deep State even if he had in independent
thought in his head. I don't expect US weapons to stop making their way into Kurdish hands as they try to extend their mini-Israel-with-oil
foothold in Syria. But it would certainly be a welcome sight if the US left Syria alone for once! ..."
"... Trump personally sent General Flynn to recruit back Erdogan and the Turks right before the election. Flynn wrote his now infamous
editorial "Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support" and published in "The Hill". http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/305021-our-ally-turkey-is-in-crisis-and-needs-our-support
..."
"... But if you know the role he played for Trump in the campaign and then the post-election role as soon to be NSC advisor, you
will see that Trump was sending him to bring Turkey back into the fold after the coup attempt by CIA, Gulen and Turkey's AF and US State
Dept failed. ..."
"... Trump wanted to prevent the Turkish Stream. It was a huge rival to his LNG strategy. All these are why Flynn did what he did
for Trump. Now Trump has to battle CIA and State, as well as the CENTCOM-Israeli plans for insurgencies in Syria. It's not just the
Kurd issue or the other needs of NATO to hold the bases in Turkey. It's the whole southwest containment of Russian gas and Russian naval
power, and the reality of sharing the Mediterranean as well as MENA with the Bear. ..."
"... Furthermore, I've always been suspicious of Erdogan's 'turn' toward Russia. Many have suspected that the attempted coup was
staged by Erdogan (with CIA help?) so as to enable Erdogan to remain in office. IMO Erdogan joined the 'Assad must go!' effort not just
because he benefited from the oil trade but because he leans toward Sunnis (Surely he was aware of the thinking that: the road to Tehran
runs through Damascus .) ..."
President Trump is attempting to calm down the U.S.
conflict with Turkey . The
military junta in the White House has different
plans. It now attempts to circumvent the decision the president communicated to his Turkish counterpart. The result will be more
Turkish-U.S. acrimony.
Yesterday the Turkish foreign minister surprisingly
announced a phone call
President Trump had held with President Erdogan of Turkey.
United States President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke on the phone on Nov. 24 only days after
a Russia-Turkey-Iran summit on Syria, with Ankara saying that Washington has pledged not to send weapons to the People's Protection
Units (YPG) any more .
"President Trump instructed [his generals] in a very open way that the YPG will no longer be given weapons. He openly said
that this absurdity should have ended much earlier ," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters after the phone call.
Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited
in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!
12:04 PM - 24 Nov 2017
During the phone call Trump must have escaped his minders for a moment and promptly tried to make, as announced, peace with Erdogan.
The issue of arming the YPG is really difficult for Turkey to swallow. Ending that would probably make up for the
recent NATO blunder of presenting the founder of modern Turkey Kemal Atatürk and Erdogan himself as enemies.
The YPG is the Syrian sister organization of the Turkish-Kurdish terror group PKK. Some weapons the U.S. had delivered to
the YPK in Syria to fight the Islamic State have been
recovered from PKK fighters in Turkey who were out to kill Turkish security personal. Despite that, supply for the YPG continued.
In total over
3,500 truckloads
were provided to it by the U.S. military. Only recently the YPK received
some 120 armored Humvees ,
mine clearance vehicles and other equipment.
The generals in the White House and other parts of the administration were caught flat-footed by the promise Trump has made.
The Washington Post
writes : "Initially, the administration's national security team appeared surprised by the Turks' announcement and uncertain
what to say about it. The State Department referred questions to the White House, and hours passed with no confirmation from the
National Security Council."
The White House finally released what the Associated Presscalled :
a cryptic statement about the phone call that said Trump had informed the Turk of "pending adjustments to the military support
provided to our partners on the ground in Syria."
Neither a read-out of the call nor the statement AP refers to are currently available on the White House website.
The U.S. military uses the YPG as proxy power in Syria to justify and support
its
occupation of north-east Syria, The intent of the occupation is , for now,
to press the Syrian government into agreeing to a U.S. controlled "regime change":
U.S. officials have said they plan to keep American troops in northern Syria -- and continue working with Kurdish fighters --
to pressure Assad to make concessions during peace talks brokered by the United Nations in Geneva, stalemated for three years
now. "We're not going to just walk away right now," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said last week.
To solidify its position the U.S. needs to further build up and strengthen its YPG mercenary forces.
When in 2014 the U.S. started to use Kurds in Syria as its foot-soldiers, it put the YPG under the mantle of the so called
Syrian Democratic Forces and paid some Syrian Arabs to join and keep up the subterfuge. This helped to counter the Turkish argument
that the U.S. was arming and supporting terrorists. But in May 2017 the U.S.
announced
to arm the YPG directly without the cover of the SDF. The alleged purpose was to eliminate the Islamic State from the city of Raqqa.
The YPG had been unwilling to fight for the Arab city unless the U.S. would provide it with more money, military supplies and
support. All were provided. The U.S. special forces, who control the YPG fighters, directed an immense amount of aerial and artillery
ammunition against the city. Any potential enemy position was destroyed by large ammunition and intense bombing before the YPG infantry
proceeded. In the end few YPG fighters died in the fight. The Islamic State was let go or eliminated from the city but
so was the city of Raqqa . The intensity
of the bombardment of the medium size city was at times ten
times greater than the bombing in all of Afghanistan. Airwarsreported :
Since June, an estimated 20,000 munitions were fired in support of Coalition operations at Raqqa . Images captured by journalists
in the final days of the assault show a city in ruins
Several thousand civilians were killed in the indiscriminate onslaught.
The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is defeated. It no longer holds any ground. There is no longer any justification to further
arm and supply the YPG or the dummy organization SDF.
But the generals want to continue to do so to further their larger plans. They are laying grounds to circumvent their president's
promise. The Wall Street Journal seems to be the only outlet to
pick up on the subterfuge:
President Donald Trump's administration is preparing to stop sending weapons directly to Kurdish militants battling Islamic State
in Syria, dealing a political blow to the U.S.'s most reliable ally in the civil war, officials said Friday.
...
The Turkish announcement came as a surprise in Washington, where military and political officials in Mr. Trump's administration
appeared to be caught off-guard. U.S. military officials said they had received no new guidance about supplying weapons to the
Kurdish forces. But they said there were no immediate plans to deliver any new weapons to the group. And the U.S. can continue
to provide the Kurdish forces with arms via the umbrella Syrian militant coalition
The "military officials" talking to the WSJ have found a way to negate Trump's promise. A spokesperson of the SDF, the ethnic
Turkman Talaf Silo, recently
defected and went over to the Turkish side. The Turkish government is certainly well informed about the SDF and knows that its
political and command structure is dominated by the YPK. The whole concept is a sham.
But the U.S. needs the YPG to keep control of north-east Syria. It has to continue to provide whatever the YPG demands, or it
will have to give up its larger scheme against Syria.
The Turkish government will soon find out that the U.S. again tried to pull wool over its eyes. Erdogan will be furious when he
discovers that the U.S. continues to supply war material to the YPG, even when those deliveries are covered up as supplies for the
SDF.
The Turkish government released
a photograph showing
Erdogan and five of his aids taking Trump's phonecall. Such a release and the announcement of the call by the Turkish foreign minister
are very unusual. Erdogan is taking prestige from the call and the public announcement is to make sure that Trump sticks to his promise.
This wide publication will also increase Erdogan's wrath when he finds out that he was again deceived.
Posted by b on November 25, 2017 at 12:14 PM |
Permalink
Sometimes it's hard to see if Trump actually believed what he was saying about foreign policy on the campaign trail -- but
either way it doesn't matter much as he seems incapable of navigating the labyrinth of the Deep State even if he had in independent
thought in his head. I don't expect US weapons to stop making their way into Kurdish hands as they try to extend their mini-Israel-with-oil
foothold in Syria. But it would certainly be a welcome sight if the US left Syria alone for once!
Some
interpret this act on Election eve as a pecuniary fulfillment by Flynn of a lobbying contract (which existed).
But if you know the role he played for Trump in the campaign and then the post-election role as soon to be NSC advisor,
you will see that Trump was sending him to bring Turkey back into the fold after the coup attempt by CIA, Gulen and Turkey's AF
and US State Dept failed.
Flynn understood the crucial need for US and NATO to hold Turkey and prevent the Russians from getting Erdogan as an ally for
Syria and the Black Sea, the Balkans and Mediterranean as well as Iran, Qatar and Eurasia. Look at what has transpired between
Turkey and Russia since. Gas will be flowing through the Turkish Stream and Erdogan conforms to Putin's wishes.
Trump wanted to prevent the Turkish Stream. It was a huge rival to his LNG strategy. All these are why Flynn did what he
did for Trump. Now Trump has to battle CIA and State, as well as the CENTCOM-Israeli plans for insurgencies in Syria. It's not
just the Kurd issue or the other needs of NATO to hold the bases in Turkey. It's the whole southwest containment of Russian gas
and Russian naval power, and the reality of sharing the Mediterranean as well as MENA with the Bear.
Flynn was on it for Trump. And the IC and State want him prosecuted for defying their efforts to replace Erdogan with a stooge
like Gulen. It looks like Mueller is pursuing that against the General.
Its not a problem for US to drop Kurds if they are no longer needed, BUT for now they are essential for US/Israel/Saudi goals,
therefore you can bet 100% Kurds support will continue. Trump's order (he hasn't made it official either) will be easily circumvented.
The real question is, what Resistance will do with the backstabbing Kurds? It wont be easy to make a deal while Kurds
maintain absurd demands and as long as they have full Axis of Terror support.
Go Iraq's way like they reclaimed Kirkuk? US might have sitten out that one, I doubt they'll allow this to happen in Syria
as well, unless they get something in return.
While America's standard duplicity of saying one thing while doing the opposite has been known for decades, they have been able
to play games mainly because of the weakness of the other actors in the region.
The tables have turned now, but America still thinks it holds top dog position.
Wordplay, semantics and legal loopholes wont be tolerated for very long, and when hundreds of US boots return home in body bags
a choice will have to be made - escalate, or run away.
Previous behavior dictates run away, but times have changed.
A cornered enemy is the most dangerous, and the USA has painted itself into a very small corner...
Gee. While reading B's article what got to my mind is: "Turkey is testing the ground". Whatever Trump said to Erdogan on the phone,
it seems to me that the Turks are playing a card to see how the different actors in the US that seems to follow different agendas
will react. If Turkey concludes that the US will continue to back YPG, it's split from the US and will be definitive.
Erdogan is shifting away from US/NATO. He even hinted today that he might talk to Assad. That's huge! I wouldn't be surprised
if Turkey leaves NATO sooner than later. And if it's the case, it will be a major move of a tectonic amplitude.
Trump.. "Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited
in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!"
Surely by now Erdogan must realise that whatever the US President says and promises will be circumvented by the State Department,
the Pentagon, the 17 US intel agencies (including the CIA and the NSA) and rogue individuals in these and other US government
departments and agencies, and in Congress as well (Insane McCain comes to mind)? Not to mention the fact that the Israeli government
and the pro-Israeli lobby on Capitol Hill exercise huge influence over sections of the US government.
If Erdogan hasn't figured out the schizoid behaviour of the US from past Turkish experience and the recent experience of Turkey's
neighbours (and the Ukraine is one such neighbour), he must not be receiving good information.
Though as Jean says, perhaps Erdogan is giving the US one last chance to demonstrate that it has a coherent and reliable policy
towards the Middle East.
Well, the US policy has been coherent and reliable in the last years. It enhanced local conflicts, supported both sides at
the same time but with different intensities. Whoever wins would be "our man". Old stuff since the Byzantine period. It always
takes a lot of time to prove the single actions that were done. In most cases we learn about it years later. The delay is so big
and unpleasant that quite a number of folks escapes to stupid narratives that explain everything in one step, and therefore nothing.
By the way: is the interest of Kurds to remain under the umbrella of the Syrian state but not be governed by Baath type of Arabic
nationalism illegitimate?
The Kurds (PKK basically) are only necessary to give a "face" to the force the US is trying to align in E. Syria. The "fighting"
against ISIS (if there really was any) is coming to a close. The Chiefs of ISIS have been airlifted to somewhere nearby, and the
foreign mercenary forces sent elsewhere by convoy. ALL the valuable personnel have now become "HTS2" with reversible vests. These,
plus the US special forces are the basis of a new armed anti-Syrian force. (Note that one general let slip that there are 5'000
US forces in E-Syria - not the 500 spoken of in the MSM).
So Trump may well be correct in saying that the Kurds (specifically) will not get any more arms - because they have other demands
and might make peace with the Syrian Government, to keep at least some part of their territorial gains. The ISIS "bretheren" and
foreign mercenaries do not want any peaceful solution because it would mean their elimination.. So The CIA and Pentagon will probably
continue arms supplies to "HTS2" - but not the Kurds.
(ex-ISIS members; Some are from Saudi Arabia, Qatar - the EU and the US, as well as parts of Russia and China. They are not
farming types but will find themselves with some of the best arable land in Syria. Which belonged to Syrian-arabs-christians-Druzes-Yadzis
etc. Who wil want their properties back.)
Note that the US forces at Tanf are deliberately not letting humanitarian help reach the nearby refugee camp. Starvation and
deprivation will force many of the younger members to become US paid terrorists.
thanks b.. i tend to agree with @4 jean and @5 jen... the way i see it, there is either a real disconnect inside the usa where
the president gets to say one thing, but another part of the establishment can do another, or trump has made his last lie to turkey
here and turkey is going to say good bye to it's involvement with the usa in any way that can be trusted.. seems like some kind
of internal usa conflict to me at this point, but maybe it is all smoke and mirrors to continue on with the same charade.. i mostly
think internal usa conflict at this point..
Odd that no one has mentioned the fact the US was behind the attempted coup, where Erdogan was on a plane with two rogue Syrian
jets that stood down rather than execute the kill shot. I have read opinion that the fighter pilots were "lit up" by Russian missile
batteries and informed by radio they would not survive unless they shut down their weapons targeting immediately. This is probably
a favour Putin reminds Erdogan of on a regular basis, whenever Erdo tries to play Sultan. The attempted coup/asassination also
shows Erdogan exactly how much he can trust the US/Zionists at any level.
And Edrogan must also know Syria was once at least partly in the US-orbit, as Syria was the destination for many well-documented
US-ordered rendition/torture cases. It is probable Mossad (or their proxy thugs) killed Assad's father and older brother, so Erdo
knows he's better relying on Putin than Trumpty Dumbdy.
Erdogan is about to make a u-turn toward Syria. He is furious at Saudi Arabia for boycotting its ally Qatar, for talking about
owning Sunni Islam and by the continuous support of Islamists and Sunni Kurds in Syria.
Erdogan is preparing the turkish public opinion to a shift away from the USA-Israeli axis. This may get him many points in the
2019 election if the war in Syria is stopped, most Syrian refugees are back, Turkish companies are involved in the reconstruction
and the YPG neutralized. Erdogan has 1 year and half to make this to happen. For that he badly needs Bashar al Assad and his army
on his side.
Therefore he is evaluating what is the next move and he needs to know where the USA is standing about Turkey and Syria. Until
now the messages from the USA are contradictory yet Erdogan keeps telling his supporters that the USA is plotting against Turkey
and against Islam. Erdogan's reputation also is been threatened by the outcome of Reza Zarrab's trial in the US where the corruption
of his party may be exposed.
That is why Erdogan is making another check about the US intentions before Erdogan he starts the irreversible shift toward
the Iran-Russia (+Qatar and Syria) axis.
missing in this analysis is oil gas ... producers, refiners, slavers, middle crooks, and the LNG crowd :Israel, Fracking, LNG
and wall street... these are the underlying directing forces that will ultimately dictate when the outsiders have had enough fight
against Assad over Assad's oil and Assad's refusal to allow outsiders to install their pipelines. Until then, gangland intelligence
agencies will continue the divide, destroy and conquer strategies sufficient to keep the profits flowing. The politicians cannot
move until the underlying corruptions resolve..
The word 'byzantine' has been used for centuries to describe the intricate and multi-leveled forms of agreement, betrayal, treachery
and achievement among the shifting power brokers in the region. The US alone has three major and another three minor players at
work - often fighting each other. If however, it thinks it can outplay people whose lives are steeped in such a living tradition,
it is sadly deluded and will one day be in for a very rude surprise. Even the Russians have had difficulty navigating that maze.
When confronted with such a 'Gordian knot' of treachery and shifting alliances, Alexander the Great drew his sword and cut
through it with a vision informed by the sage Socrates as taught by Aristotle.
Despite claiming to represent such a western heritage, the US has no such Socratic wisdom, no Aristotelian logic, and no visionary
leadership that could enable it to do what Alexander did. Lacking this, it is destined to get lost in its' own hubris, and be
consumed by our current version of that region's gordian knot.
'...By the way: is the interest of Kurds to remain under the umbrella of the Syrian state but not be governed by Baath type
of Arabic nationalism illegitimate?..'
...showing that he either knows only the crap spouted by wikipedia...or nothing at all about the Baath party...
...which happens to be a socialist and secular party interested in pan-Arab unity...not nationalism...[an obvious oxymoron
to be pan-national and 'nationalist' at the same time...]
Of course there is always a 'better way'...right Hausmaus...?
The Baath socialism under Saddam in Iraq was no good for anyone we recall...especially women, students, sick people etc...
A 'better way' has since been installed and it is working beautifully...all can agree...
Same thing in Libya...where the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was no good for anyone...
Of course everyone wanted the 'Better Way'...all those doctoral graduates with free education and guaranteed jobs...a standard
of living better than some European countries...etc...
Again...removing the 'socialist' Kadafi has worked out wonderfully...
We now have black African slaves sold in open air markets...where before they did all the broom pushing that was beneath the
dignity of the Libyan Arabs...
...and were quite happy to stay there and have a job and paycheck...instead of now flooding the shores of Italy in anything
that can float...
Oh yes...why would anyone in Syria want to be governed by the socialist Baath party...?
...especially the Kurds...who just over the border in Turkey are not even recognized as humans...never mind speaking their
own language...
I'd really hoped that Donald Trump® would be the "outsider" that both the MSM and he have been insisting he is for the past couple
of years. Other than the Reality TV Show faux conflicts with which the MSM entertains us nightly, I see no such "rogue" Administration.
This say one thing, and do the other has been US foreign policy forever.
Recall, for instance that on February 21, 2014, Obama's State Department issued a statement hailing Ukrainian President Yanukovych
for signing an agreement with the "pro-democracy Maidan Protest" leaders in which he acquiesced to all of their demands.
Then, on February 22, 2014, the US State Department cheered the "peaceful and Constitutional" coup after neo-nazis stormed
the Parliament.
A few months later, Secretary of State Kerry hailed the Minsk Treaty to end the war in Ukraine. Later that day, Vickie Nuland
said there was no way her Ukies would stop shelling civilians, and sure enough they didn't (until they'd been on the retreat for
weeks, and came whimpering back to the negotiations table).
A couple years later, Kerry announced that the US and Russia would coordinate aerial assaults in Syria. The next day, "Defense"
Secretary Carter said, "no way," and within a week or so, we "accidentally" bombed Syrian forces at Deir ez Zoir for over an hour.
From my perspective, they keep us chasing the next squirrel, while bickering amongst each other about each squirrel. But the
wolves are still devouring the lambs, with only the Bear preventing a complete extinction.
What we know with at least some level of confidence...
Dump is not the 'decider'...the junta is...he's just a cardboard cutout sitting behind the oval office desk...
And he's got no one to blame but himself...he came in talking a big game about cleaning house and got himself cleaned out of
being an actual president...
This was inevitable from the moment he caved on Flynn...the only person he didn't need to vet with the senate...and a position
that wields a lot of power...
This was his undoing on many levels...not only because he faced a hostile deep state and even his own party in congress with
no one by his side [other than Flynn]...
...but because it showed that he had no balls and would not stand by his man...
This is not the stuff leaders are made of...
The same BS we see with Turkey is playing out with Russia on the Ukraine issue...
Now the junta and their enablers in congress want to start sending offensive arms to Ukraine...Dump and his platitudes to Putin...no
matter how much he may mean it...mean nothing...he's not in charge...
I think that Jean @4 has the best take on this: Erdoğan went very public on Trump's "promise" in a classic put-up-or-shut-up challenge
to the USA.
Either the word of a POTUS means something or it doesn't, and if it doesn't then Turkey is going to join Russia in concluding
that the USA as simply not-agreement-capable.
Erdoğan will then say "enough!!!", give the USA the two-finger-salute, and then take Turkey out of NATO.
And the best thing about it will be that McMaster, Kelly and Mathis will be so obsessed with playing their petty little games
that they won't see it coming.
It's hard to tell what Erdoğan is doing or intending other than that he is navigating something - objective TBD. It'll be interesting
to see if he constrains the use of Incirlik airbase should the US keep arming the YPG/PKK forces. Airpower is the enabler (sole
enabler, IMO) of the/any Kurdish overreach inside Syria. Seems like Erdoğan holds the ace card in this muddle but has yet to play
it.
Seems like Turkey has more than one card to play. A commenter on another site mentioned recently that the US really doesn't
want Erdogan to have that S-400 system from Russia. Got me thinking, could Russia have deliberately loaded Erdogan's hand with
that additional card to help him negotiate with the US?
Turkey may well leave NATO and as others have pointed out, this would be a game changer far beyond the matter of the US's illegal
presence in NE Syria. This possibility brings immense existential gravitas to Erdogan's position right now. He could ask
for many concessions at this point, not to leave. And from the Eurasian point of view, it doesn't matter if he leaves or stays,
while from the western view, it matters greatly.
Would the US give up Syria, in order to keep Turkey in NATO? It's a western dichotomy, not one that affects Asia. It would
be simple to throw S-400 at that dynamic to watch it squirm.
The plays the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
- Hamlet
As the endgame plays out, Erdogan's conscience may be revealed.
b has made the point that the partition that US-led proxy forces have carved out is unsustainable. But it would be sustainable
if Erdogan can be convinced to allow trade via Turkey.
For that reason, I thought Trump's ceasing direct military aid to the Kurds made sense as it provided Erdogan with an excuse
to allow land routes for trade/supply. Erdogan can argue that he wants to encourage such good behavior and doesn't want to make
US an enemy (Turkey is still a NATO country).
Furthermore, I've always been suspicious of Erdogan's 'turn' toward Russia. Many have suspected that the attempted coup
was staged by Erdogan (with CIA help?) so as to enable Erdogan to remain in office. IMO Erdogan joined the 'Assad must go!' effort
not just because he benefited from the oil trade but because he leans toward Sunnis (Surely he was aware of the thinking that:
the road to Tehran runs through Damascus .)
Hasn't Erdogan's vehement anti-Kurdish stance done R+6 a disservice? It seems to me that it has helped USA to convince
Kurds to fight for them and has also been a convenient excuse for Erdogan to hold onto Idlib where al Queda forces have refuge.
If Erdogan was really soooo angry with Washington, and soooo dependent on Moscow, then why not relax his anti-Kurdish
stance so as to bring Kurds back into the Syrian orbit?
Jackrabbit @20:
Erdogan may feel that if he relaxed his stance against the Syrian Kurds, it could embolden Turkish Kurds to further pursue their
agenda. It would also make him appear weak towards his supporters.
Erdogan is NOT going to leave NATO. Why should he? It would be the stupidest chess move ever? He's in the club and they can't
kick him out. He can cause all the trouble he wants and hobble that huge machine that is the western alliance. He will not get
EU membership, but he has his NATO ID CARD and that ain't bad. Erdo now knows that the poor bastard Trumps is WORTHLESS that he
is a toothless executive in name only. This is a wake up call, if I were Erdo, I would be very afraid of the USA and it's Syria,
MENA policy. It is being run by LUNATICS and is a slow moving train wreak. So for now, Erdo must be looking at Moscow, admiring
Putin for this is a man who has his shit together and truly knows how to run a country. Maybe even a sense of admiration and more
respect for Putin is even present. If I were Erdo, I'd double down in my support for Russia's Syria policy.
You do not get it:
„...which happens to be a socialist and secular party interested in pan-Arab unity...not nationalism..."
According to this ideology the coherence of a society comes from where? And who is excluded if one applies it?
So your contribution is just a rant using rancidic rhetoric tools. But I will not call you „flunkerbandit". My advice is to move
to this area and have a look into such a society from a more close position. Armchair type of vocal leadership does not help.
@23 "Erdogan is NOT going to leave NATO. Why should he?"
I guess one possible reason would be this: as long as Turkey remains in NATO then he is obliged to allow a US military presence
in his country, and that's just asking for another attempt at a military coup.
After all, wasn't Incirlik airbase a hotbed of coup-plotters during the last coup attempt?
"when the Syrian settlement is achieved, Syria's democratic forces will join the Syrian army." "When the Syrian state stabilizes, we can say that the Americans did what they said, then withdraw as they did in Iraq and
set a date for their departure and leave."
Nothing new here, nothing good either. Kurds so far are keeping up their demands of de-facto independence under fig-leaf of
"we are part of federalised Syria" with weak central government and autonomous Kurds. Thats how US plan to castrate Syria. Russia
offered cultural autonomy, Kurds rejected.
As for Americans "withdrawing" willfully, it never happened. Iraq had to kick them out, and then US used ISIS and Kurds to
get back in.
As for Syria's stabilization part, US is doing everything in its power to prevent it.
@Yeah Right #26
Turkey is not obliged to keep foreign troops in their country to remain in NATO. De Gaulle invited the US to leave France in 1967
but is still a member of NATO
@31 France actually withdrew from NATO in 1966. It remained "committed" to the collective defence of western Europe, without being,
you know, "committed" to it.
So, yeah, France kicked all the foreign troops out of France in 1967, precisely because its withdrawal from NATO's Integrated
Military Command meant that the French were no longer under any obligation to allow NATO troops on its soil.
But France had to formally withdraw from that Command first, and the reason that de Gaulle gave for withdrawing were exactly
that: remaining meant ceding sovereignty to a supra-national organization i.e. NATO Integrated Military Command.
That France retained "membership" of NATO's political organizations even after that withdrawal was little more than a fig-leaf.
After all, NATO's purpose isn't "political", it is "military".
"The Decider" is Trump's apparent self image. He can't be enjoying the Presidency and the controls exerted upon him by others
among the "Deep State" (whom I suppose have effectively cowed him into behaving via serious threats).
If he already had money and power, as it appears that he had, he gained little by taking the crown. He has less power because
he is now controlled by a number of forces (CIA, NSA, Media, MIC and etc.) as he remains under constant assault by his natural
opposition.
Big mistake dumping Flynn.
Now you take another kind of asshole in the person of Obama - a guy that had nothing - you have a malleable character who enjoys
the pomp and circumstance. Really didn't need any persuading to do anything required of him.
Here is a recent report from the Turkish Prime Minister supporting Trump's "lie" about ending support for the Kurds....what will
history show occured?
ISTANBUL, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Sunday that his country is expecting the United
States to end its partnership with the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People's Protection
Units (YPG).
"Since the very beginning, we have said that it is wrong for the U.S. to partner with PKK's cousin PYD and YPG in the fight
against Daesh (Islamic State) terrorist group," Yildirim told the press in Istanbul prior to his departure for Britain.
Ankara sees the Kurdish groups as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighting against the Turkish government
for over 30 years, while Washington regards them as a reliable ground force against the Islamic State (IS), also known as Daesh.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday spoke to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the phone, pledging not to
provide weapons to the YPG any more, an irritant that has hurt bilateral ties, according to the Turkish side.
Yildirim noted that Washington has described it as an obligation rather than an option to support the Kurdish groups on the
ground. "But since Daesh (IS) is now eliminated then this obligation has disappeared," he added.
It would be nice if Erdogan when withdrawing from NATO (Assuming he does this in the next 12-18 months) would say something like.
"We really like President Trump - and we trust his word implicitly. The problem is, although we trust his word, we know
he is not in control so his word is useless and best ignored. Though of course - we still trust he means well."
That would be a nice backhander to hear from Erdopig.
Speculation about Turkey leaving NATO seems farfetched. Turkey has NATO over a barrel. It has been a member for decades and what
would it gain by leaving? Nothing. By staying it continues to influence and needle at the same time. Turkey will only leave when
NATO throws it out, which isn't going to happen.
Perestroika and Trump_vs_deep_state has one important thing in common -- they arose out of deep crisis of the
Soviet Society and the US neoliberal society, correspondingly
Notable quotes:
"... The reasoning of Gorbachev's program of perestroika -- as an attempt to both transcend tired Soviet orthodoxies while remaining loyal to the underlying assumptions of the regime -- also explains the attraction of Trump_vs_deep_state to many conservative intellectuals, voters, and activists. Trump_vs_deep_state gives its followers the allure of reckoning with the conservative movement's inadequacies while remaining faithful to its underlying assumptions about economics and the role of the state. ..."
"... For all its recklessness, it is this faction of Right that has indeed grappled with a nation whose poor- and lower-middle class face the erosion of both wages and a formerly rich institutional fabric ..."
"... When Bannon calls for Americans to understand themselves as citizens with "certain responsibilities and obligations," it's a subtle -- if incomplete and disingenuous -- recognition that the vocabulary of "liquid modernity" cannot rescue us from the very fruits it created. ..."
"... The Hayekian claim that any language of social justice commences a perilous journey towards serfdom was perhaps necessary to combat midcentury sirens of collectivism. But today it is more often representative of an age fearful of placing demanding claims upon our lives ..."
"... Someone else at TAC asked a similar question, and the answer is, no: Trump is no Gorbachev. If anything he is our Boris Yeltsin. And no, that is not intended as a compliment. MEOW , says: November 15, 2017 at 12:07 am Good points. Gorby was a realist like the Chinese. They could not depress a people's living standards with an inferior system of exchange, production, and distribution. The word was out about living standard differences. The one-world movement is very different. It means to disable all our traditions and differences (Happy Holidays for Merry Christmas – rewriting history etc) in order to allow a different cabal to prevail in this artificially created vacuum. Mac61 , says: November 15, 2017 at 6:46 am Gorbachev said we must set aside all ideology and look at all things through the light of morality. Trump is not capable of that. Bannon tried to ally Trump_vs_deep_state with Judeo-Christian morality. That project seems incomplete at the moment. Egypt Steve , says: November 15, 2017 at 9:26 am I suppose if you compare any two things, you can find some points of similarity somewhere. M1798 , says: November 15, 2017 at 9:32 am You ask for a more expansive welfare state, but didn't Make the case that our current welfare state does any public good. Food stamps and disability payments subsidize mothers to not keep the father around and fathers to not work to provide for their families. We have job training programs, yet you fail to make the case that they serve any long term good. And even our most popular welfare programs, social security and Medicare, are financially unsustainable. You wrote this article as if the GOP has legislated in the same way as their rhetoric, yet the we saw the failure to repeal Obamacare as proof that this isn't true. Dan Green , says: November 15, 2017 at 9:39 am I subscribe to what Hayek coined, the road to serfdom. Once The Social Democratic Welfare State is fully implemented , as we witness today, the state cannot make it work. Currently the model is subsidized with debt. John , says: November 15, 2017 at 10:49 am If there were an award in journalism for the hottest of takes, this might be a strong finalist for this year's. Otherwise LOL. vern , says: November 15, 2017 at 11:38 am Trump is none of the above. His only purpose in government was for his own ego gratification and to increase his wealth. He is a puppet for whoever is close enough for him to pull his strings. His favorite world leaders all happen to be autocrats who care little about civil liberties or human rights. He cares about wins and losses (ego) He is not religious, it is just a smoke screen he has put up so he can hide his worse tendencies and use it to block criticism. spite , says: November 15, 2017 at 11:57 am People that write these kind of articles just never get it (actually they probably do but cannot say these things openly). It has to do with race, whether you like this reason or not – this is the underlying fundamental issue at play here. Being replaced by another people is not going to sit well with some, one would think this is stating the obvious but it seems that the fear to broach this topic makes people come up with all kinds of reasonings that simply do not admit the truth of this. I know that anything to do with race causes so called conservatives to have abject fear (even this comment has a high chance of being censored), but you simply cannot ignore this anymore. Alex , says: November 15, 2017 at 11:59 am Oh, please. I am from the former Soviet Union. I know who Gorbachev was. He was a democrat, Trump is a dictator. Gorbachev was able to talk and listen to people, Trump is very good in insulting and blaming people. I can continue forever. They have nothing in common as human beings. connecticut farmer , says: November 15, 2017 at 12:34 pm " in which the state is again recognized as a limited but essential expression of our shared life together, where we are members not just of a market but a "great common enterprise" in which solidarity and justice are indeed tangible things." This phrase unfortunately constitutes a blemish on an otherwise fine and thoughtful article. Exactly what does the phrase "limited but essential expression of our shared life together" mean? "Limited" by what? What "great common enterprise"? What "solidarity"? Ours is a country where commonality of purpose–to the extent that it has ever existed in the first place– appears to be vanishing at an exponential level. Lots of questions. No answers. polistra , says: November 15, 2017 at 1:10 pm Obama is more like Gorbachev. The last attempt to rebrand the old system, hoping to make it more palatable. Trump may turn out to be more like Yeltsin if he starts doing SOMETHING. So far the fake image of "Trump" is causing all sorts of reactions and changes, but the actual Trump has done nothing at all. He just emits meaningless noises, handing his enemies free ammunition. ..."
TAC'
s own Rod Dreher recently
highlighted an American professor's exchange with an African diplomat, who compared Donald
Trump to Mikhail Gorbachev. Just as the last Soviet premier unwittingly became "the man who
destroyed a superpower," Trump in this view is recklessly squandering the United States' global
position. But upon reflection, the analogy holds for another reason: Whatever Trump's own
mixture of "irritable mental gestures," Trump_vs_deep_state -- as articulated by Steve Bannon, Laura
Ingraham, Michael Anton & Company -- can be read as a sort of perestroika for the
American Right.
A reader may naturally look warily at the comparison. Can one discern a link between the
rhetoric of Breitbart and Gorbachev's exhortation, "to reject obedience to any dogma, to think
independently, to submit one's thoughts and plans of action to the test of morality"? However
reaching, the comparison may allow us to discern why debates over immigration and trade now
capture the conservative imagination in a way not reducible to "white identity politics" or
reflexive loyalty to the president.
The reasoning of Gorbachev's program of perestroika -- as an attempt to both
transcend tired Soviet orthodoxies while remaining loyal to the underlying assumptions of the
regime -- also explains the attraction of Trump_vs_deep_state to many conservative intellectuals, voters,
and activists. Trump_vs_deep_state gives its followers the allure of reckoning with the conservative
movement's inadequacies while remaining faithful to its underlying assumptions about economics
and the role of the state. The appeal of nationalist rhetoric is not reducible to
nativism, though it might be for some. Instead, Bannon's program offers conservatives a safe
exit ramp from self-critical thinking, allowing them to both grapple with an erosion of work
and community among America's economic losers, while maintaining most of an existing right-wing
economic program.
In a 1987 message to the Communist Party's Central Committee, Gorbachev flaunted the Soviet
order for its "conservative inclinations, inertia, and desire to brush aside everything that
didn't fit into habitual patterns." This is the same critique offered by the Jacksonian Right
of the conservative establishment. "The whole enterprise of Conservative Inc.," wrote
Michael Anton in his famous "Flight 93 Election" essay, "reeks of failure. Its sole recent and
ongoing success is its own self-preservation."
For all its recklessness, it is this faction of Right that has indeed grappled with a
nation whose poor- and lower-middle class face the erosion of both wages and a
formerly rich institutional fabric Laura Ingraham's description of "a working class hammered by
globalization" would not seem foreign to readers of Our Kids, Hillbilly Elegy, or
Janesville . At its most tone-deaf, the Right responds with incantations to
"rekindle the rugged individualism of America's founding, frontiers, and Constitution." But
even those on the center-right with sincere empathy frequently offer only small-ball politics.
For all their merits ,
a modest increase of the Child Tax Credit, repeal of occupational licensing, vouchers for
improved geographic mobility, and moral exhortations for coastal elites to escape their bubble
do not match the gravity of the moment. In a certain way, the Bannonite call for the wall and
ripping up trade agreements is a rebellion against a purely technocratic politics without
boldness of purpose. When Bannon calls for Americans to understand themselves as citizens
with "certain responsibilities and obligations," it's a subtle -- if incomplete and
disingenuous -- recognition that the vocabulary of "liquid modernity"
cannot rescue us from the very fruits it created.
Trade and immigration are becoming the signature benchmarks for this new movement. Yet the
Jacksonian shift allows conservatives to still maintain their aversion to a strong, active
welfare state, an institution all other Western center-right parties have come to terms with.
Limiting the fluid movement of goods and people, in this view, will accomplish the same goals
as a state modeled on social or Christian-democratic purposes: We do not need to expand child
tax credits or pursue ambitious investments of retraining and vocational education. All our
struggling labor markets
demand is "stopping the importation of cheap labor." At the same time, we can press ahead
to repeal Obamacare and the tentacles of the administrative state, for economic nationalism can
ameliorate our social problems far better than any program arising out of the Washington
cesspool. Perhaps this strategy explains why, according to
Pew Research , the president maintains far more support among "Core Conservatives" than
"Country First" and "Market Skeptic" Republicans. The Trump revolution is ultimately not a
decisive schism from old-time William F. Buckley-style fusionism, no matter what both
supporters and Never Trumpers allege.
Systematic free-marketers may point out accurately how Trump_vs_deep_state can be just as economically
redistributive as any welfare program. This is all true, but to most conservative activists,
all this subtle redistribution and subsidizing looks far more hidden than paid-family leave or
public investments in early childhood or prenatal care. In other words, Trump_vs_deep_state's attraction
derives not from its wholesale rejection of traditional American conservatism, but its
potential to keep its core tenets of the right alive -- even as neoliberalism's inadequacies
suggest what is needed is a more vigorous discussion of what conservatism means in the public
sphere.
If Trump_vs_deep_state's fundamental attraction to most conservative writers and activists derives from
its ability to revise but sustain their movement, it is difficult to see how it will be to
evolve into a credible governing program. This is not because a more hawkish line on
immigration and trade is a fundamental betrayal of the "liberal world order." Indeed, one need
only read
Paul CollierGeorge BorjasMichael
Lind ,
Peter Skerry , or Dani
Rodrik to find sustained, reasonable critiques of the establishment consensus on these
matters.
But none of these authors would present their heterodox dissents as singular solutions for
restoring the American (or Western) social contract. Just as Gorbachev's ambition was not to
revitalize Russia but the Soviet Union, so is Trump_vs_deep_state not a program to save the Republic, or
even a more narrow "Middle America." Despite the Jacobin rhetoric, the Trump_vs_deep_state of Bannon,
Anton, and Ingraham is ultimately a rearguard maneuver to preserve a conservative movement
whose even devoted partisans recognize has not aged gracefully since 1989. To keep it alive,
wrecking the "globalist" consensus on immigration and trade must be pursued, regardless of the
absence of any discernible benefit for the white working class.
What would a true revolution for American conservatism look like? It should start with the
(early) thought of George Will, who wrote in the New Republic that, "if conservatism is to engage itself with the way we live now, it
must address government's graver purposes with an affirmative doctrine of the welfare state."
Conservatives must "come to terms with a social reality more complex than their slogans," where
equality of opportunity is assumed as given. The Hayekian claim that any language of social
justice commences a perilous journey towards serfdom was perhaps necessary to combat midcentury
sirens of collectivism. But today it is more often representative of an age fearful of placing
demanding claims upon our lives .
The Right must again recover the
wisdom held by Disraeli, Churchill, and the (early) domestic neoconservatives, in which the
state is again recognized as a limited but essential expression of our shared life together,
where we are members not just of a market but a "great common enterprise" in which solidarity
and justice are indeed tangible things. Accepting this truth will be a harder project than
tightening the border and combating Chinese mercantilism, worthy though such things may be. But
it will be far more revolutionary, even historic, than anything the present Trumpian revolution
offers.
David Jimenez, a recent graduate of Bowdoin College and a Fulbright Scholar in Romania,
works on campus outreach at a Washington think-tank.
Good points. Gorby was a realist like the Chinese. They could not depress a people's living
standards with an inferior system of exchange, production, and distribution. The word was out
about living standard differences. The one-world movement is very different. It means to
disable all our traditions and differences (Happy Holidays for Merry Christmas –
rewriting history etc) in order to allow a different cabal to prevail in this artificially
created vacuum.
Gorbachev said we must set aside all ideology and look at all things through the light of
morality. Trump is not capable of that. Bannon tried to ally Trump_vs_deep_state with Judeo-Christian
morality. That project seems incomplete at the moment.
You ask for a more expansive welfare state, but didn't Make the case that our current
welfare state does any public good. Food stamps and disability payments subsidize mothers to
not keep the father around and fathers to not work to provide for their families. We have job
training programs, yet you fail to make the case that they serve any long term good. And even
our most popular welfare programs, social security and Medicare, are financially
unsustainable. You wrote this article as if the GOP has legislated in the same way as their
rhetoric, yet the we saw the failure to repeal Obamacare as proof that this isn't true.
I subscribe to what Hayek coined, the road to serfdom. Once The Social Democratic Welfare
State is fully implemented , as we witness today, the state cannot make it work. Currently
the model is subsidized with debt.
Trump is none of the above. His only purpose in government was for his own ego gratification
and to increase his wealth.
He is a puppet for whoever is close enough for him to pull his strings. His favorite world
leaders all happen to be autocrats who care little about civil liberties or human rights.
He cares about wins and losses (ego) He is not religious, it is just a smoke screen he has
put up so he can hide his worse tendencies and use it to block criticism.
People that write these kind of articles just never get it (actually they probably do but
cannot say these things openly). It has to do with race, whether you like this reason or not
– this is the underlying fundamental issue at play here. Being replaced by another
people is not going to sit well with some, one would think this is stating the obvious but it
seems that the fear to broach this topic makes people come up with all kinds of reasonings
that simply do not admit the truth of this. I know that anything to do with race causes so
called conservatives to have abject fear (even this comment has a high chance of being
censored), but you simply cannot ignore this anymore.
Oh, please. I am from the former Soviet Union. I know who Gorbachev was. He was a democrat,
Trump is a dictator. Gorbachev was able to talk and listen to people, Trump is very good in
insulting and blaming people. I can continue forever. They have nothing in common as human
beings.
" in which the state is again recognized as a limited but essential expression of our shared
life together, where we are members not just of a market but a "great common enterprise" in
which solidarity and justice are indeed tangible things."
This phrase unfortunately constitutes a blemish on an otherwise fine and thoughtful
article. Exactly what does the phrase "limited but essential expression of our shared life
together" mean? "Limited" by what? What "great common enterprise"? What "solidarity"? Ours is
a country where commonality of purpose–to the extent that it has ever existed in the
first place– appears to be vanishing at an exponential level.
Obama is more like Gorbachev. The last attempt to rebrand the old system, hoping to make it
more palatable.
Trump may turn out to be more like Yeltsin if he starts doing SOMETHING. So far the fake
image of "Trump" is causing all sorts of reactions and changes, but the actual Trump has done
nothing at all. He just emits meaningless noises, handing his enemies free ammunition.
"For all its recklessness, it is this faction of Right that has indeed grappled with a nation
whose poor- and lower-middle class face the erosion of both wages and a formerly rich
institutional fabric."
But Trump might already be betraying it, as this article on banking (de)regulation
suggests. It doesn't bode will for what the tax reform bill would mean for the 80% in the
bottom quintiles of the population.
Unfortunately the entrenched social democratic welfare state will not lead to serfdom but to
a dysfunctional society. This is the lesson from independent india which has no political
party representing individualistic policies. The current Hindu nationalist party in power
caters to Hindu sentiments but a redistributive economic policy. As an outsider i see USA
following the same path with islands of functionality sustaining barely, the rest. Hopefully
the author would join in a length discussion with me on this
There is some important to note "cognitive dissonance" here: if Trump is as stupid as appears from his current policies why in
the past he was insightful enough to understand important events in proper light? Something here does not compute...
Notable quotes:
"... Trump was bright enough to build up a billion dollar business empire, to win the Republican nomination against the wishes of most the the Republican establishment, and to win the election over the Clinton/Establishment machine. ..."
"... He was bright enough to note immediately after the 9/11 false flag the absurdity of aspects of what became the official narrative; ..."
"... And his anti-NWO strong emphasis on national sovereignty, and upon taking office his immediate repudiation of the nation-state disempowering and democracy-defeating TPP, are imo evidence of combining bright and gutsy. ..."
"... And he has been bright and gutsy enough to directly take on mass media bs and to call out, as no other promenent person has, the 'fake news', the mass media propaganda system; and playfully, and rather brightly, offers his direct line to the public via twitter. ..."
"... And along with Putin, Trump has earned more mass media and establishment invective, attacks, and condemnation than just about anyone in my living memory. So he must be doing something right. ..."
"... When someone is referred to as "not the brightest bulb", this is a cliché way of denoting stupidity in someone else, but it is a often a somewhat perilous joust, suggesting a suspect self-inflation. As far as not being well informed, that of course depends on what specific matters are being referred to. It has been said that a bunch of highly intelligent people with access to all sorts of information bombed Indochina mercilessly for years; for. as the highly intelligent and overflowing with information Dr. Kissinger noted, basically nothing. ..."
"... I listened to Trump carefully during his campaign speeches. He'd deliver a long "stream of consciousness" sentence that seemed to go all over the place. But when he'd finished the sentence you realised he'd in fact covered all the points he needed to make. And had done so while at the same time picking up and factoring in the audience response. I think he may be very bright indeed and quick on his feet. ..."
"... His policies? I think we have to accept one unpalatable fact. An American politician who doesn't ostentatiously support Israel doesn't get to be an American politician, if that's not a circular way of saying it. Since that to a lesser extent is the case in England as well - you saw the trouble Corbyn got into recently - one either has to isolate oneself from political discussion or just accept that most politicians of any importance here or in the States will be defective in that respect. That sounds heartless, given what the Palestinians are going through, and given what Israel's neighbours are going through; but ceasing to strive for a little because we cannot have more is even less acceptable. ..."
"... One final point. You've seen the re-election in Germany of Mrs Merkel - no idea how since none of the people I meet in Germany would have dreamed of voting for her, but she's still there. You've seen a dead-beat government elected in the UK as well. And in France you've seen the election of Macron! In America that pattern was broken. I think it might have been a fluke - I have relatives in the States who are dyed in the wool Democrats but who just couldn't stomach the candidate they put up, and it seems there were many like them. But fluke or not they now have a President who, judging by the way they attack him, is an opponent of the type of policies that have led us to our present pass. He seems to have pretty well the entire American establishment and the media against him so he may not get that far. But surely a slim chance of getting out of the hopeless mess that is our politics in the West at present is better that the certainly of sinking further into it? ..."
Trump was bright enough to build up a billion dollar business empire, to win the Republican nomination against the wishes
of most the the Republican establishment, and to win the election over the Clinton/Establishment machine.
He was bright enough to note immediately after the 9/11 false flag the absurdity of aspects of what became the official
narrative; and for example to question the safety of the deluge of vaccines that kids especially are being subjected to,
while simultaneously there is an unprecedented 'epidemic' of autism and asthma in children.
And his anti-NWO strong emphasis on national sovereignty, and upon taking office his immediate repudiation of the nation-state
disempowering and democracy-defeating TPP, are imo evidence of combining bright and gutsy.
And he has been bright and gutsy enough to directly take on mass media bs and to call out, as no other promenent person
has, the 'fake news', the mass media propaganda system; and playfully, and rather brightly, offers his direct line to the public
via twitter.
And along with Putin, Trump has earned more mass media and establishment invective, attacks, and condemnation than just
about anyone in my living memory. So he must be doing something right.
When someone is referred to as "not the brightest bulb", this is a cliché way of denoting stupidity in someone else, but
it is a often a somewhat perilous joust, suggesting a suspect self-inflation. As far as not being well informed, that of course
depends on what specific matters are being referred to. It has been said that a bunch of highly intelligent people with access
to all sorts of information bombed Indochina mercilessly for years; for. as the highly intelligent and overflowing with information
Dr. Kissinger noted, basically nothing.
"Trump is not the brightest bulb and he is not well informed. I dislike nearly all of his policies."
"b" - I listened to Trump carefully during his campaign speeches. He'd deliver a long "stream of consciousness" sentence
that seemed to go all over the place. But when he'd finished the sentence you realised he'd in fact covered all the points he
needed to make. And had done so while at the same time picking up and factoring in the audience response. I think he may be very
bright indeed and quick on his feet.
Not well informed? I can't argue with that, not after Khan Shaykhun, but the same blanket of misinformation that covers almost
all of us in Europe or the States will presumably cover New York property developers. In the echo chamber that is Washington DC
I doubt there's much chance of remedying that. I speak to responsible well-educated people regularly whose knowledge of what is
happening abroad you would condemn as pitifully inadequate. Rightfully so. Those of you who have a more accurate idea of the facts
are few, and those of us who hear you are also in a tiny minority. That's a fact of life and we can no more condemn Trump for
being ill-informed than we can the most of your and my neighbours.
I pin my hopes on the fact that he does have a good intuition and is, as I say, quick on his feet. With such a person reality
has a better chance of getting through than it would with the usual tunnel vision politician.
His policies? I think we have to accept one unpalatable fact. An American politician who doesn't ostentatiously support
Israel doesn't get to be an American politician, if that's not a circular way of saying it. Since that to a lesser extent is the
case in England as well - you saw the trouble Corbyn got into recently - one either has to isolate oneself from political discussion
or just accept that most politicians of any importance here or in the States will be defective in that respect. That sounds heartless,
given what the Palestinians are going through, and given what Israel's neighbours are going through; but ceasing to strive for
a little because we cannot have more is even less acceptable.
His other policies? You do not write on the economy on your site. The European economies, that of the UK in particular, and
the American economy, are in a bad way. Urgently so. I can therefore only put forward as a view that the solutions proposed by
Trump in 2016 offered the only chance, if a slim one, of turning that round.
One final point. You've seen the re-election in Germany of Mrs Merkel - no idea how since none of the people I meet in
Germany would have dreamed of voting for her, but she's still there. You've seen a dead-beat government elected in the UK as well.
And in France you've seen the election of Macron! In America that pattern was broken. I think it might have been a fluke - I have
relatives in the States who are dyed in the wool Democrats but who just couldn't stomach the candidate they put up, and it seems
there were many like them. But fluke or not they now have a President who, judging by the way they attack him, is an opponent
of the type of policies that have led us to our present pass. He seems to have pretty well the entire American establishment and
the media against him so he may not get that far. But surely a slim chance of getting out of the hopeless mess that is our politics
in the West at present is better that the certainly of sinking further into it?
If by chance Trump or anyone is genuine about taking down the deep state, they cannot do it by running around in a pathetic
attempt trying to fix small issues.
They would have to leave the machine to carry on as normal and go for its foundations. I thought
about this months ago, and now looking at the latest events, this could be what is happening.
The real question is so much Russian influence as the US intelligence agencies influence on 2016 presidential elections. Brennan
in particular. He bet of Hillary Clinton and lost. After that he was instrumental in launching "color revolution" against Trump. In
which the the critical step was to appoint "special prosecutor".
Notable quotes:
"... But even more is emerging that could take the Russia story in a totally new direction -- namely that the infamous dossier compiled
by former British Secret Intelligence Service officer Christopher Steele was bought and paid for by a law firm , Perkins Coie, working
on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). ..."
"... The extent to which the Steele Dossier influenced the intelligence underpinning Mueller's probe has yet to be determined with
any certainty. In January, the U.S. intelligence community published the unclassified ICA, which was derived from a compilation of intelligence
reports and assessments conducted by the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Many of the allegations made in the ICA mirror reporting contained in the
Steele Dossier. So striking are the similarities that there are real concerns among some senior Republican lawmakers that the ICA merely
reflects "echoes" of the Steele Dossier reported back via liaison with foreign intelligence services who had access to it (namely the
British Secret Intelligence Service) or whose own sources were also utilized by Steele. ..."
"... An examination of the nexus between the dossier and the publication of the Russian ICA, however, shows that Litt was less than
truthful in his denials. Material from the Steele Dossier was, in fact, shared with the FBI and U.S. intelligence community in July
of 2016, and seems to have been the driving force behind the intelligence briefings provided to the so-called Gang of Eight who served
as the initial impetus for an investigation into Russian meddling that eventually morphed into the 2017 Russian ICA. ..."
"... Moreover, while Perkins Coie had its hands all over the dossier, it was also massaging the Russian hack narrative for mainstream
media primetime. ..."
"... The political law practice of Perkins Coie was started in 1981 under the leadership of Bob Bauer , who went on to become the
White House Counsel to President Barack Obama. Today, the practice is headed by Marc Elias , who has been described as "the Democrats'
go-to attorney an indispensable figure in the party." Elias oversees the work of 18 attorneys representing nearly every Democratic senator,
as well as the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and Hillary for America, which oversaw the Clinton campaign. ..."
"... Sussman, after coordinating with Wasserman-Schultz, approached the FBI and tried to get them to publicly attribute the intrusion
to Russia. ..."
"... When the FBI refused, citing a need to gain access to the DNC servers before it could make that call, Sussman balked and, again
with the full support of the DNC, instead coordinated a massive publicity effort intended to link Russia to the DNC breach through an
exclusive to the Washington Pos t ..."
"... According to the Washington Post , in early August 2016, the CIA director John Brennan came into possession of "sourcing deep
inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and
discredit the U.S. presidential race." This intelligence was briefed to the Gang of Eight. Almost immediately, information derived from
this briefing began to leak to the media. "Russia's hacking appeared aimed at helping Mr. Trump win the November election," officials
with knowledge of Brennan's intelligence told the New York Times . The intelligence, referred to as "bombshell," allegedly "captured
Putin's specific instructions on the operation's audacious objectives -- defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton,
and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump." ..."
"... The question is was the investigation supposed to uncover whatever it uncovere, or was it supposed to fabricate the discovery?
If it was fabrication, yes, they should be condemned. ..."
"... My best guess is that some part of the US intelligence community is involved in the election manipulation. Overthrowing foreign
governments or undermining the EU is one thing, colluding with a foreign power to manipulate the US election is quite another. Note,
by the way, the absence of any reference to George Papadopulous or Viktor Yanukovych. ..."
"... But it is obvious that most of the Beltway including the spook world badly wants a proxy war with Russia, Iran, and Syria.
As usual we are killing people overseas under Presidents of both parties and as usual the United States of narcissism can only complain
about what dastardly foreigners allegedly did to us. ..."
"... Someone help me out here. If Clinton (or her very close associates) pay huge bucks to Russians to get dirt (even if it is made
up dirt) on Trump, that is good, because it hurts Trump. But if Trump associates simply have conversations with Russians, full stop
(cf. Michael Flynn, or anyone else who spoke with the Russian ambassador), that is criminal. Is this not sort of a double standard?
..."
"... We're expected to believe Crowdstrike's report on Russian hacking but we can't examine the evidence. We're expected to believe
that Perkins Coie went rogue and decided to spend $12 million without informing any of its clients. ..."
"... What a bunch of hogwash. There's a cover up here, but it's not what the complicit media is portraying. The cover up is of the
past 8 years of misdeeds by the Deep State, the Clintons and the Obama Administration. ..."
"... I think the story is even more obvious than this. They wanted to spy on aspects of the Trump campaign but they legally couldn't.
The FBI told them they needed a reason to tap the phones and read the mail. They paid a guy to put together a dossier that would allow
them to get FISA warrants to do the spying they wanted to do illegally. They just needed the dossier to say certain things to get it
past a FISA judge. They did this and tapped his phones and read his emails and texts for the purpose of beating him in the election.
It is really that simple of a story. ..."
"... Given Hillary's past pay to play lobbying and her disregard for national security, it would seem appropriate to have investigate
if members of the Clinton campaign had contacts with the Russian Ambassador or Russian "operatives. We now know that the dossier relied
on collaboration with Russian officials. ..."
"... In my opinion, Mueller has disgraced his former and present positions by collaborating in this conjured affair that obfuscates
the real crimes occurring during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Crooked Hillary and her klan never thought for a second they wouldn't be able to cover up democrat crimes. The Clinton Crime
Family is in full panic mode. No one seems to remember why Mueller quit as director of the FBI. He was disgusted by the Obama administration
covering up lawlessness. ..."
"... Why didn't the FBI insist on examining the DNC servers? Something's not right. ..."
"... I voted for Clinton, but as the lesser evil on various issues, chiefly domestic and environmental. Clinton is not in Putin's
pocket. She is in the pocket of Netanyahu, and the Saudis. Trump doesn't really seem to be in Putin's pocket -- he has neocons and others
working hard to ensure that he gets into a confrontation with Iran. Basically he too is in the pocket of the Israelis and the Saudis.
..."
"... The mainstream ignores this. The countries with real influence on our policies don't have to favor one party over the other.
They have them both in their pocket. ..."
"... As time goes on, I don't think Russia "meddled" in US elections as much as US politicians of both parties corruptly attempted
to rig the elections. Seems to me that the demonization of Russia is bi-partisan because the US military industrial complex needs a
"bogey man" to justify its billions$$$$ and just about ALL politicians need that money to stay in power. ..."
The Democratic Law Firm Behind the Russian Collusion Narrative How a high-powered practice contracted oppo-research
on Trump -- and then pushed a hack story.
Credit: Shutterstock/ Mark Van Scyoc The ongoing investigation
headed by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between the campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russian
government has moved into a new phase, with a focus on
purported money laundering. On Monday,
indictments were filed against
former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime associate Rick Gates.
But even more is emerging that could take the Russia story in a totally new direction -- namely that the infamous dossier
compiled by former British Secret Intelligence Service officer Christopher Steele was
bought and paid for by a law firm , Perkins Coie, working on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National
Committee (DNC).
The current controversy isn't so much over the contents of the dossier -- despite some of the reporting, none of the relevant
claims contained within have been verified. Rather, the issue in question is how opposition research derived from foreign intelligence
sources and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC ended up influencing the decision to prepare the January 2017
Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) into alleged
Russian interference in the 2016 election, the contents of that assessment, and the subsequent investigations by the U.S. Congress
and a special prosecutor.
The extent to which the Steele Dossier influenced the intelligence underpinning Mueller's probe has yet to be determined with
any certainty. In January, the U.S. intelligence community published the unclassified ICA, which was derived from a compilation of
intelligence reports and assessments conducted by the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Many of the allegations made in the ICA mirror reporting
contained in the Steele Dossier. So striking are the similarities that there are
real
concerns among some senior Republican lawmakers that the ICA merely reflects "echoes" of the Steele Dossier reported back via
liaison with foreign intelligence services who had access to it (namely the British Secret Intelligence Service) or whose own sources
were also utilized by Steele.
According to Robert Litt , who served as general counsel
to former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, this mirroring was nothing more than coincidence. "The dossier itself,"
Litt wrote in a recent Lawfare blog , "played
absolutely no role in the coordinated intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in our election. That assessment, which was
released in unclassified form in January but which contained much more detail in the classified version that has been briefed to
Congress, was based entirely on other sources and analysis."
Moreover, Litt noted, the decision in December 2016 to brief President-elect Trump on the existence of the Steele Dossier and
provide him with a two-page summary of that document, was not a reflection that "the Intelligence Community had relied on it in any
way, or even made any determination that the information it contained was reliable and accurate." It was rather, Litt said, a need
to share with Trump the fact that the document existed and was being passed around Congress and the media.
An examination of the nexus between the dossier and the publication of the Russian ICA, however, shows that Litt was less
than truthful in his denials. Material from the Steele Dossier was, in fact, shared with the FBI and U.S. intelligence community
in July of 2016, and seems to have been the driving force behind the intelligence briefings provided to the so-called
Gang of Eight who served as the initial impetus for an investigation into Russian meddling that eventually morphed into the 2017
Russian ICA.
Moreover, while Perkins Coie had its hands all over the dossier, it was also massaging the Russian hack narrative for mainstream
media primetime.
It was in the latter two roles that Elias, acting on behalf of his clients, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C.-based company
that, according to its website , "provides premium research, strategic intelligence,
and due diligence services." Fusion GPS had previously been contracted by the
Washington Free Beacon "to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary." However, when it became clear that Trump
was going to secure the Republican Party nomination, the contract with Fusion GPS was terminated. According to
a letter sent by Perkins Coie to Fusion
GPS sometime in March 2016, Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS, met with Elias and lobbied for the job of conducting
opposition research on behalf of the Clinton campaign. In April 2016, Simpson's company was retained by the firm through the end
of the election cycle.
Perkins Coie is also home to Michael
Sussman , a partner in the firm's Privacy and Data Security Practice, who was retained by the DNC to respond to the cyber-penetration
of their server in the spring of 2016. When, in late April 2016, the DNC discovered that its servers had been breached, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz,
then chairwoman of the DNC, turned to Perkins Coie and Sussman for help. Sussman chaired the meetings at the DNC regarding the breach,
and, on May 4, 2016,
he reached out to Shawn Henry , a former FBI agent who headed the incident response unit for the private cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike,
for assistance in mitigating the fallout from the breach. According to CrowdStrike, it was immediately able to detect the presence
of hostile malware that it identified as Russian in origin. Sussman, after coordinating with Wasserman-Schultz, approached the
FBI and tried to get them to publicly attribute the intrusion to Russia.
When the FBI refused, citing a need to gain access to the DNC servers before it could make that call, Sussman balked and,
again with the full support of the DNC, instead coordinated a massive publicity effort intended to link Russia to the DNC breach
through
an exclusive to the Washington Pos t , which was published in concert with a dramatic CrowdStrike technical report
detailing the intrusion, ominously named
"Bears in the Midst."
This public relations campaign started the media frenzy over the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC server, enabling every facet
of the story that followed to be painted with a Russian brush -- normally with
a spokesperson from either
the DNC or Hillary for America taking the lead in promulgating the story.
It was about this same time that Elias decided to expand the scope of Fusion GPS's opposition research against Trump, going beyond
the simple mining of open-source information that had been the hallmark of the firm's work up until that time, and instead delving
into the active collection of information using methodologies more akin to the work of spy agencies. The person
Fusion GPS turned to for this task was Steele
Key persons within the Clinton campaign and the DNC denied any knowledge of either the decision by Perkins Coie to hire Fusion
GPS for the purpose of gathering opposition research, or to tap Steele to conduct this task. Elias reportedly made use of money already
paid to the firm by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to fund the work of Fusion GPS, creating the conditions for deniability on the
part of his clients. This decision meant that Perkins Coie, as a firm, had ownership of the Steele Dossier; expenditures of firm
assets require the approval of either the
management or executive committee
of the firm (Elias sits on the executive committee).
But as far as intelligence products go, the Steele Dossier is as sketchy as it gets. It's an amalgam of poorly written "reports"
cobbled together from what
Vanity Fair called "angry émigrés," "wheeling and dealing oligarchs," and "political dissidents with well-honed axes
to grind." These are precisely the kind of sources intelligence professionals operating in Russia in the early 1990s -- Steele was
assigned to Moscow from 1990 to 1993 -- would have had access to. Such sources also produce information that professional analysts
normally treat with more than a modicum of skepticism when preparing national-level intelligence products.
The very first report produced by Steele, dated June 20, 2016, was chock full of the kind of salacious details justifying its
explosive title, "Republican Candidate Donald Trump's Activities in Russia and Compromising Relationship with the Kremlin." The substantive
charges leveled in the report centered on three unnamed sources -- a senior Foreign Ministry official, a former top-level Russian
intelligence officer, and a senior Russian financial official -- whom Steele accessed through a "trusted compatriot." The report
alleged that Russia had been feeding the Trump campaign "valuable intelligence" on Clinton, and that this effort was supported and
directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. A second report, dated June 26, 2016, focused exclusively on "Russian State Sponsored
and Other Cyber Offensive (Criminal) Operations."
These reports were delivered to Elias at a critical time -- on July 22,
when Wikileaks released thousands of emails believed to have been sources from the DNC hack . These emails detailed the internal
deliberations of the DNC that proved to be embarrassing to both Clinton and the DNC leadership -- Wasserman-Schultz was compelled
to resign due to the revelations set forth in these emails. This leak took place on the eve of the Democratic National Convention
when Clinton was to be selected as the Democrats' candidate for president. The Clinton campaign blamed Russia. "Russian state actors,"
Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager told the press , "were feeding the email to hackers for the purpose of helping Donald
Trump."
If Elias thought the publication of the DNC emails would spur the U.S. intelligence community to join both the DNC and the Clinton
campaign in pointing an accusatory finger at Russia, he would be disappointed. When questioned by CNN's Jim Sciutto at the
2016 Aspen
Security Forum as to whether or not the DNI shared the White House's view that there was no doubt Russia was behind the hack
of the DNC emails, Clapper responded, "I don't think we are quite ready to make a call on attribution I don't think we are ready
to make a public call on that yet." Noting that there was still some uncertainty about exactly who was behind the DNC cyber-penetration,
Clapper stated that he was taken aback by the media's "hyperventilation" over the DNC email issue, pointing out that the intelligence
community did not "know enough to ascribe motivation" at that time.
According to the
Washington Post , in early August 2016, the CIA director John Brennan came into possession of "sourcing deep inside the
Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladimir Putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit
the U.S. presidential race." This intelligence was briefed to the Gang of Eight. Almost immediately, information derived from this
briefing began to leak to the media. "Russia's hacking appeared aimed at helping Mr. Trump win the November election," officials
with knowledge of Brennan's intelligence told
the New York Times
. The intelligence, referred to as "bombshell," allegedly "captured Putin's specific instructions on the operation's audacious objectives
-- defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump."
This intelligence, allegedly from a "human source" linked to a foreign intelligence service, is at the center of the current spate
of Russian meddling investigations. Was this source a product of the CIA's own efforts, as DNI General Counsel Litt contends, or
was this an "echo" of the work done by Steele? The answer may lie in the actions of both Elias and Steele, who in the aftermath of
the Democratic National Convention, and on the heels of the statement by DNI Clapper that he wasn't ready to commit to Russian attribution,
shared the first two reports with both the FBI and members of the intelligence community.
Steele also sat down with U.S. officials to discuss the details of these reports , which presumably included the sourcing that
was used.
The parallels between the information contained in the initial report filed by Steele and the "bombshell" intelligence that prompted
Brennan's decision to brief the Gang of Eight are too close to be casually dismissed. Of particular note is Steele's "Source C,"
a senior Russian "financial official" who had "overheard Putin talking" on at least two occasions. Was this the source that Brennan
cited when it came to Putin's "specific instructions"? The cause and effect relationship between the decision by Marc Elias to brief
U.S. intelligence officials on the aspects of the Steele Dossier, and Brennan's coming into possession of intelligence that virtually
mirrors the reporting by Steele, cannot be dismissed out of hand.
The future of the Trump presidency will be determined by the various investigations currently underway. Those efforts have been
influenced, in one way or another, by reporting sourced to Perkins Coie, including the designation of Russia as the responsible party
behind the DNC cyber-breach and the Steele Dossier. These investigations are linked in their unquestioning embrace of the conclusions
set forth in the 2017 Russia Intelligence Community Assessment that Russia was, in fact, meddling in the election. However, the genesis
of that finding, both in terms of Russian involvement in the DNC hack and the "bombshell" intelligence introduced by Brennan in August
2016, has gone largely unquestioned by the investigators.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control
treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of Deal
of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road to War (Clarity Press, 2017). MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
The question is was the investigation supposed to uncover whatever it uncovere, or was it supposed to fabricate the discovery?
If it was fabrication, yes, they should be condemned. But if it was a question of "tell us what you find, good, bad, or indifferent"
then uncovering what might be treasonable activity would be called a patriotic act.
All of this and not one mention of how much of the controversy Donald Trump could defuse by simply releasing his tax returns and
allowing more transparency into his financial relationships with the Russian oligarchy.
Ritter's underlying 'logic' here extended would have us believe Alan Turin's breaking of the Enigma Machine was done in collusion
with Nazi U-boat commanders.
The spooks are still scared silly of Russiagate. "Hillary paid" doesn't mean "Hillary fabricated". That Mr Ritter is reduced to
such a manifestly silly argument shows just how spooked the spooks are. My best guess is that some part of the US intelligence
community is involved in the election manipulation. Overthrowing foreign governments or undermining the EU is one thing, colluding
with a foreign power to manipulate the US election is quite another. Note, by the way, the absence of any reference to George
Papadopulous or Viktor Yanukovych.
Given that Russia's insiders (not to mention former-officials) are no more lined up with Putin than US counterparts and political
actors are behind any current US administration or opponent, within and without the party in power, there are presumably Russian
actors who would like to undermine Putin.
To the extent "the Russians" may be behind particular efforts – including information/disinformation – related to the 2016
US election, might they not have sought to undermine foreign and (Russian) domestic proponents of US-Russian detente?
" Overthrowing foreign governments or undermining the EU is one thing, colluding with a foreign power to manipulate the
US election is quite another. "
This is a joke. I have no concern one way or the other about whether Trump colluded with Russia – if laws were broken, prosecute
the lot of them. But it is obvious that most of the Beltway including the spook world badly wants a proxy war with Russia,
Iran, and Syria. As usual we are killing people overseas under Presidents of both parties and as usual the United States of narcissism
can only complain about what dastardly foreigners allegedly did to us.
In DC we have a vicious fight between the McCain-Clinton forces and the Trump forces. It's a choice between warmongers.
Donald (the left leaning one), I agree with your concluding comment that we are left with a choice between two warmongers, no
question about that. However if you look at the corruption in the deep state in the Uranium One deal, how it was approved and
now nobody, I mean nobody knows anything about FBI informant and gag order on him for the last 8 years it is just mind boggling.
Oh well after all these years I think the African dictators have more integrity than our elected officials.
Someone help me out here. If Clinton (or her very close associates) pay huge bucks to Russians to get dirt (even if it is
made up dirt) on Trump, that is good, because it hurts Trump. But if Trump associates simply have conversations with Russians,
full stop (cf. Michael Flynn, or anyone else who spoke with the Russian ambassador), that is criminal. Is this not sort of a double
standard?
I've worked at large law firms, been a partner at several and litigated against Perkins Coie, so I know a bit about them. Knowing
the industry and this firm in particular, I can say without reservation that this statement is ridiculous: "Elias reportedly made
use of money already paid to the firm by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to fund the work of Fusion GPS, creating the conditions
for deniability on the part of his clients." That does not and would not happen with a $12 million expense.
Mr. Ritter does not come out and say it, but there's a plausible explanation for all of this Russia nonsense we've been hearing
about for the past year. Until the day after the election, 99.9% of Democrats were convinced that Hillary Clinton would win. Once
enshrined in office, all of the misdeeds that they'd been getting away with for the past decade -- the Clinton Foundation, Uranium
One, the Pay-to-Play politics, etc. -- would be swept under the rug.
November came, and that didn't happen. Democrats were both floored and caught with their pants down. Now, all of their dirty
laundry was going to come out into the open. It was only a matter of time.
So, what did they do? The same thing Democrats always do. The best defense is an offense. 'Always accuse your opponents of
doing whatever wrong you've committed.' All of the sudden, it wasn't just that 'Russians hacked the election.' It became, 'the
Trump campaign secretly colluded with the Russians.' The Steele dossier was leaked, the FBI was briefed which in turn briefed
Obama, the Gang of Eight and Trump. Next, a Special Prosecutor had to be appointed to investigate.
But, where does it all lead? Back to Hillary, through Perkins Coie, and through many of the same Deep State players who were
complicit in the misdeeds.
We now learn that Comey, Mueller and Rosenstein all knew about Russians attempting to buy influence through donations to the
Clinton "charity," but they turned a blind eye when Uranium One was up for approval.
We now learn that Clinton and the DNC paid for the Steele dossier then fed it to Comey, who leaked it.
We're expected to believe Crowdstrike's report on Russian hacking but we can't examine the evidence. We're expected to
believe that Perkins Coie went rogue and decided to spend $12 million without informing any of its clients.
What a bunch of hogwash. There's a cover up here, but it's not what the complicit media is portraying. The cover up is
of the past 8 years of misdeeds by the Deep State, the Clintons and the Obama Administration.
I find it curious that Crooked Mueller charged two republicans just as Crooked Hillary and the DNC were identified for paying
Russians for smear documents! America First!
How is it not true? Reports indicate that Mr. Steele did indeed use paid sources within Russia to compile the "dossier" on Trump.
Steele used money paid by the Clinton campaign labeled as "legal fees". There is a reason Hillary, DWS, Podesta and the others
have all lied.
I think the story is even more obvious than this. They wanted to spy on aspects of the Trump campaign but they legally couldn't.
The FBI told them they needed a reason to tap the phones and read the mail. They paid a guy to put together a dossier that would
allow them to get FISA warrants to do the spying they wanted to do illegally. They just needed the dossier to say certain things
to get it past a FISA judge. They did this and tapped his phones and read his emails and texts for the purpose of beating him
in the election. It is really that simple of a story.
Did Obama's White House Counsel Bauer and Perkins Coie's Elias engage in a conspiracy to smear Trump and benefit the Clinton campaign?
Did they orchestrate a campaign trick, using the Fusion GPS dossier and an insider leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks,that falsely
smeared the Trump team?
Hillary and Fusion GPS both lobbied against business restrictions proposed and imposed by the Magnitsky legislation and both
received bonuses and payments from Russian entities with ties to the Putin gang.
Given Hillary's past pay to play lobbying and her disregard for national security, it would seem appropriate to have investigate
if members of the Clinton campaign had contacts with the Russian Ambassador or Russian "operatives. We now know that the dossier
relied on collaboration with Russian officials.
Given that several levels under the 17 intelligence heads of the Obama administration, including former FBI Director Mueller,
participated in suppressing known Russian bribery, obfuscated and obstructed the investigation into Hillary's national security
violations & pay to play schemes, and apparently conspired using a dossier, containing Russian supplied information, to throw
the last Presidential election, it is time to bring the Obama political appointees and Clinton campaign officials to justice and
stop the interference affecting the Trump administration.
In my opinion, Mueller has disgraced his former and present positions by collaborating in this conjured affair that obfuscates
the real crimes occurring during the Obama administration.
The Russian SVR RF was no doubt inside the DNC's server, just as it was no doubt inside of Hillary Clinton's private unsecured
email server on which she did all of her State Department business.
But that does not necessarily mean that the SVR RF released the damning evidence about the corruption of the DNC & its machinations
to influence the outcome of the Election to Wikileaks. I believe Seth Rich was the source of that damning evidence.
Since there was allegedly some evidence of the Russian hacking, the DNC conveniently blamed the Wikileaks story on them.
But the fact the Democrats refused to turn over the supposedly hacked DNC server to the FBI suggests there is something seriously
wrong with the Democ"rats" story.
Crooked Hillary and her klan never thought for a second they wouldn't be able to cover up democrat crimes. The Clinton Crime
Family is in full panic mode. No one seems to remember why Mueller quit as director of the FBI. He was disgusted by the Obama
administration covering up lawlessness.
All of this and not one mention of how much of the controversy Hillary Clinton could defuse by simply releasing all of the government
emails she kept on a private server in order to keep them away from FOIA requests and allowing more transparency into her financial
relationships with the Russian oligarchy.
Nice try at deflection, but it is not likely to stop Muller because he has an actual brain. On the other hand, the comments indicate
that the conspiracy types are on board. Now I have it on good authority that there are ties between Steele and Benghazi as well
so it is time to wrap this all up together into a unified story.
Since most of the posters here seem to be partisan I'm sure that no one will like my preference: Lock both Trump and HRC up and
put them in the same cell to save us money. They are both crooked and any attempt to accuse one and defend the other is futile.
Karen Finney, formerly of the Clinton 2016 campaign, on October 29th:
"I think what's important, though, is less who funded it than what was in the dossier."
In the same interview:
"We also learned this week that Cambridge Analytica, the company that was basically the data company for the [Trump] campaign,
reached out to Julian Assange of Wikileaks."
Did everybody catch that?
In today's Democratic Party, it is perfectly acceptable to pay foreign sources for dirt, fabricated or not, on your domestic
political opponent.
But it is totally unacceptable to reach out to Wikileaks, with no money involved, for dirt on your domestic political opponent.
I'll note that Wikileaks has relied on whistle-blower sources and has not been shown to have published any false information in
its entire 10-year existence.
The Russian SVR RF was likely inside the DNC's server, just as it was likely inside of Hillary Clinton's private unsecured email
server on which she did all of her State Department business.
But that does not necessarily mean that the SVR RF released the evidence about the rotten corruption of the DNC & its machinations
to influence the outcome of the Election to Wikileaks. I believe Seth Rich was the source of that evidence.
Since there was allegedly some evidence of the Russian hacking, the DNC conveniently blamed the Wikileaks story on them.
But the fact the Democrats refused to turn over the supposedly hacked DNC server to the FBI suggests that there is something
seriously wrong with the Democ"rats" story.
To all of those who think that paying a foreign informant money to give you info is the same thing as accepting help from a foreign
government, you have some screws lose.
Furthermore, the help that Trump received was in the form of emails that have been stolen from an American citizen, a federal
offence.
The whole Uranium one non story is based on a book that his own author admitted he has no evidence of malfeasance by HRC ,
and who was paid for his effort by the Mercers.
Also, the Uranium cannot be exported outside the USA anyway, because the law prevents it, no matter who owns the company
To all those who think what Hillary campaign did is the same thing as what Trump campaign did: Can you with a straight face think
that Hillary is in Putin's pocket? I don't think so. The issue, if you're being honest, is that a lot of people on the other side
can easily see Trump being in Putin's pocket. And so far he (Trump) has done nothing to disprove that. Remember the Glee that
the neocons had when Trump ordered a few missiles at Syria..guess what nothing came off it and Assad is still very much in power
and no one cares anymore (an outcome that I am fine with). You think things would have been the same if Hillary was in power?
But at the end of the day, we're left to wonder whether Trump is doing Putin's bidding Just because so far he has done nothing
that has been antagonistic towards Russian interests (Iran notwithstanding because nothing is going to come off it, all it is
going to do is make US look impotent, which will be fine by Putin).
If only Sanders had ever exclaimed something like "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn Russians!"
If there is any kind of actual evidence of state actors in the various efforts to force transparency on the Clinton campaign
and the DNC, it is now tainted by the association with Steele, Simpson, Elias, which appear to have repeatedly acted against client
privileges and privacy – peddling results paid for by one client to another, leaking information paid for by clients to the press,
Congress, the FBI – or have acted with client permission, while a former "spy" is accessing and potentially endangering networks
maintained by his former employer, a foreign intelligence service known for its ability to find yellowcake.
Only the Democrats can show such staggering ineptitude.
The plot needs some new, exciting turn at this point. Let us speculate that the Steele Dossier was in fact a false flag operation,
allowing "Russians" to discredit not one, but two presidential campaigns, not one, but two presidential candidates, a twofer that
makes whomever becomes President look like an idiot. One of the most ridiculous propositions of this whole affair has been the
claim that Putin would seriously care which incompetent and corrupt American gets to prosecute the self-inflicted ruin of this
blighted nation for the next four years.
@Virginia Farmer : "Lock both Trump and HRC up and put them in the same cell to save us money. They are both crooked and any attempt
to accuse one and defend the other is futile."
"To all those who think what Hillary campaign did is the same thing as what Trump campaign did: Can you with a straight face think
that Hillary is in Putin's pocket?"
I'm not very partisan. I voted for Clinton, but as the lesser evil on various issues, chiefly domestic and environmental.
Clinton is not in Putin's pocket. She is in the pocket of Netanyahu, and the Saudis. Trump doesn't really seem to be in Putin's
pocket -- he has neocons and others working hard to ensure that he gets into a confrontation with Iran. Basically he too is in
the pocket of the Israelis and the Saudis.
The mainstream ignores this. The countries with real influence on our policies don't have to favor one party over the other.
They have them both in their pocket.
Yeah, I can't keep up with all the twists and turns. I read just enough to see both sides ( the partisan ones) live in closed
cognitive universes. I suspect there is plenty of corruption and dishonesty to go around, even if we restricted ourselves to real
or alleged Russian ties. But I wonder what would turn up if we really looked into how our foreign policy sausage is made?
In my annoyance I overstated it a little, but this thread is a good example of what I was saying about a lot of the liberal
commenters on TAC. I don't read a lot of these comments and see people who are giving the article much thought.
BTW I was about to write the exact same thing to JR you did regarding the Saudis and the Israelis.
As time goes on, I don't think Russia "meddled" in US elections as much as US politicians of both parties corruptly attempted
to rig the elections. Seems to me that the demonization of Russia is bi-partisan because the US military industrial complex needs
a "bogey man" to justify its billions$$$$ and just about ALL politicians need that money to stay in power.
"... When I first read the memos, I knew none of the backstory, and looked forward to the salacious content to bring this clown down, particularly any facts showing that the Trump people had prior knowledge of the Russian hacks - a Watergate-sized story, if true, even if the effects of the hacks on the election are being overblown. But with nearly 40 years of investigative experience, mostly on international issues, the wording of the memos quickly caused me to slam on the breaks, because they were worded in such a way as to make confirmation of the charges impossible. The rule involved in making professional judgments on these kinds of things is simple: you look for information that can be proven either true or false, and from that factual template, you then build out one incontrovertible fact at a time. These memoranda had no such facts, with the possible exception of Cohen's trip to Prague, which the FBI told the WSJ was false. ..."
... think it was wrong for BuzzFeed to publish it and the media company
bears responsibility for this debacle, which has made the entire profession look even worse and generated
sympathy for, of all people, Donald Trump.
Simpson's firm is being berated at the moment but there are a lot
of companies in Washington who do the same thing - namely produce political and business intelligence
for paying clients - and they operate openly and everyone, including journalists, know who they are.
In terms of political intelligence, there are firms who work for Democrats and firms that work for
Republicans, and some who work for both. The Democrats don't have a monopoly on these firms as one
might imagine from the current hysteria.
... ... ...
As has been widely reported, the Trump dossier had circulated for
many months - at least as far back as August - and even though there was a fever on the part of the
media to get anti-Trump stories into print, everyone with the exception of David Corn of Mother
Jones declined to write about the "dossier," and even he only referred to parts of it. The fact
that dozens of journalists reviewed these documents and declined to use them, on the grounds that
their allegations could not be verified shows that the information contained within them was very
shaky.
I read the documents online and it's clear that they are thinly sourced and there
were apparently serious errors in them, for example the bit about Trump's attorney's trip to
Prague...
... ... ...
Whatever you think of Trump, he won this embarrassing election under
the rules of the game. (And yes, Hillary won the popular vote and in a serious democracy she would
have been declared the winner, but we are stuck for the time being with the Electoral College.) The
Golden Showers story is quite a sensational accusation to make given that he was about 10 days out
from inauguration. If Hillary had won the election would Buzzfeed have posted an unproven dossier
on her that alleged she had hired prostitutes during an overseas trip to Ukraine? I seriously doubt
it, especially given Buzzfeed's notable pro-Hillary tilt during the campaign.
... ... ...
When Chuck Todd accused Smith of publishing "fake news," he suggested
that BuzzFeed was just being a good Internet news organization and not letting the media and political
elite keep information from the public. This would be easier to take more seriously if BuzzFeed is
not so obviously a part of the media elite and doesn't fraternize so comfortably with the political
elite like most other news outlets. BuzzFeed was chasing clicks and that's fine, but dressing this
up as public service doesn't cut it and especially given the political calculations involved.
BuzzFeed's other excuse was that the documents were already being
talked about and were referred to in the Intelligence Community's very dubious report on Trump. But
the documents appear to have been given to various agencies by political figures seeking to burn
Trump, which BuzzFeed was only too happy to help out with. So it appears that Trump's political enemies
and media enemies were working together to get this information out before the inauguration.
I'd also note here one peculiar, and possibly unethical, thing about
the New York Times' behavior here. The Times, like everyone but BuzzFeed, didn't
publish the report but they wrote quite a bit about it. In an early story it said that they would
not identify the research firm behind the leaked memos because of "a confidential source agreement
with The New York Times." Then it revealed the firm's name in a later story and edited the earlier
one to take out the line about their confidential source agreement.
So it looks like the Times violated a confidentiality agreement, which
is pretty troubling...
... ... ...
Note: I'd strongly urge anyone following this story to friend long-time investigative
journalist and researcher Craig Pyes on Facebook. ....
Here is an excerpt:
When I first read the memos, I knew none of the backstory, and looked forward
to the salacious content to bring this clown down, particularly any facts showing that the Trump
people had prior knowledge of the Russian hacks - a Watergate-sized story, if true, even if the
effects of the hacks on the election are being overblown. But with nearly 40 years of investigative
experience, mostly on international issues, the wording of the memos quickly caused me to slam
on the breaks, because they were worded in such a way as to make confirmation of the charges impossible.
The rule involved in making professional judgments on these kinds of things is simple: you look
for information that can be proven either true or false, and from that factual template, you then
build out one incontrovertible fact at a time. These memoranda had no such facts, with the possible
exception of Cohen's trip to Prague, which the FBI told the WSJ was false.
"... Warning that a "soft coup" is being waged against Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he sees attempts in the United States to "delegitimize" US President-elect Donald Trump using "Maidan-style" methods previously used in Ukraine, where readers will recall president Yanukovich was ousted in 2014 following a violent coup, which many suspect was conducted under the auspices of the US State Department and assorted US intelligence operations. ..."
"... Putin said he doesn't believe that Donald Trump met with prostitutes in Russia, calling the accusations part of a campaign to undermine the election result, and suggested that an internal political struggle is underway in the United States despite the fact that the presidential election is over, and added that reports of alleged Russian dossier on Trump are fake as "our security services do not chase every US billionaire." ..."
Warning that a "soft coup" is being waged against Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin
said that he sees attempts in the United States to "delegitimize" US President-elect Donald Trump
using "Maidan-style" methods previously used in Ukraine, where readers will recall president Yanukovich
was ousted in 2014 following a violent coup, which many suspect was conducted under the auspices
of the US State Department and assorted US intelligence operations.
Putin said he doesn't believe that Donald Trump met with prostitutes in Russia, calling the
accusations part of a campaign to undermine the election result, and
suggested that an internal political struggle is underway in the United States despite the fact
that the presidential election is over, and added that reports of alleged Russian dossier on Trump
are fake as "our security services do not chase every US billionaire."
Unsubstantiated allegations made against Trump are "obvious fabrications," Putin told reporters
in the Kremlin on Tuesday. "People who order fakes of the type now circulating against the U.S. president-elect,
who concoct them and use them in a political battle, are worse than prostitutes because they don't
have any moral boundaries at all," he said.
The Russian president,
cited by BBG, said that Trump wasn't a politician when he visited Moscow in the past and Russian
officials weren't aware that he held any political ambitions.
Looks like the US Senate is a real can of worms...
Notable quotes:
"... One involved the media, which in October were given and encouraged to publish the "report" by the authors of the report (or their sponsors), purportedly a former British intelligence officer working for a private intelligence company ..."
"... Remember, we have a dubious report constructed for the purpose of discrediting Donald Trump, which was first commissioned by one of his Republican primary rivals and later completed under the patronage of someone in Hillary's camp. ..."
"... Enter John McCain. According to media reports, the dossier was handed to Sen. McCain -- again, a strong Trump opponent and proponent of conflict with Russia -- by a former UK ambassador (who presumably received it from the source, a former British intelligence officer). ..."
"... Senator McCain is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the most powerful members of the US Senate. Consider the impact of being handed a strange report by some private intelligence-firm-for-hire or a media outlet versus being handed a report by one of the most powerful men in the US government. McCain's involving himself in the case gave the report a sense of legitimacy that it would not otherwise have had. Was this "laundering" intentional on his part? We do not know, but given his position on Trump and Russia that possibility must be considered. ..."
"... So great was the pressure on McCain to come clean on his decision to meet privately with the FBI Director to hand over this report that he released a statement earlier today portraying himself as nothing more than a good citizen, passing information to the proper authorities for them to act on if they see fit. ..."
We all know what money laundering is. When you need to hide the fact that the money in your possession
comes by way of nefarious sources, you transfer it through legitimate sources and it appears clean
on the other end. It's standard practice among thieves, extortionists, drug dealers, and the like.
The same practice can even be used to "clean" intelligence that comes by dubious sources, and
sometimes even US Senators may involve themselves in such dark activities. Case in point US Senator
John McCain (R-AZ), whose virulent opposition to Donald Trump is outmatched only by his total dedication
to fomenting a new cold (or hot?) war with Russia.
While the world was caught up in the more salacious passages from a purported opposition research
report on Donald Trump showing all manner of collusion with Putin's Russia -- and Russia's possession
of blackmail-able kompromat
on Trump -- something very interesting was revealed about the custody of the information.
The "dossier" on Trump seemed to follow two chains of custody. One involved the media, which in October
were given and encouraged to publish the "report" by the authors of the report (or their sponsors),
purportedly a former British intelligence officer working for a private intelligence company. Only
David Corn of Mother Jones bit, and his resulting story picked over the report to construct a mess
of innuendo on Trump's relation to Russia that was short on any evidence.
The other chain of custody is what interests us. Remember, we have a dubious report constructed
for the purpose of discrediting Donald Trump, which was first commissioned by one of his Republican
primary rivals and later completed under the patronage of someone in Hillary's camp. It was created
for a specific political purpose, which may have tainted its reception among more objective governmental
sources had that been known.
Enter John McCain. According to
media reports, the dossier was handed to Sen. McCain -- again, a strong Trump opponent and proponent
of conflict with Russia -- by a former UK ambassador (who presumably received it from the source,
a former British intelligence officer).
Senator McCain then felt duty-bound to bring this "intelligence report" directly (and privately)
to the personal attention of FBI Director James Comey. From this hand-off to Comey, the report then
became part of the Intelligence Community's assessment of Russian interference in the US presidential
election.
Senator McCain is the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the most powerful
members of the US Senate. Consider the impact of being handed a strange report by some private intelligence-firm-for-hire
or a media outlet versus being handed a report by one of the most powerful men in the US government.
McCain's involving himself in the case gave the report a sense of legitimacy that it would not otherwise
have had. Was this "laundering" intentional on his part? We do not know, but given his position on
Trump and Russia that possibility must be considered.
So great was the pressure on McCain to come clean on his decision to meet privately with the
FBI Director to hand over this report that he
released a statement earlier today portraying himself as nothing more than a good citizen, passing
information to the proper authorities for them to act on if they see fit.
"... For Donald Trump, all attempts to gain a foothold in the USSR and then in Russia in 30 years of travel and negotiations failed. Moscow did not have a Trump Tower of its own, although Trump boasted every time that he had met the most important people and was just about to invest hundreds of millions in a project that would undoubtedly be successful. ..."
"... Trumps' largest business success in Russia was the presentation of a Trump Vodka at the Millionaire Fair 2007 in Moscow. This project was also a cleansing; In 2009 the sale of Trump Vodka was discontinued. ..."
"... puts his name on stuff ..."
"... (2) Zhirinovsky Is The Very Last Person Putin Would Use For A Proxy ..."
"... Such a delicate plan – to reach the election of a President of the US by means of Zhirinovsky – ensures a skeptical smile for every Russian at best. He is already seventy and has been at the head of a party with a misleading name for nearly thirty years. The Liberal Democratic Party is neither liberal nor democratic. If their policies are somehow characterized, then as right-wing populism. Zhirinovsky is known for shrill statements; He threatened, for example, to destroy the US by means of "gravitational weapons". ..."
"... Why Would Russian Intelligence Agencies Sources Have Talked to Steele? ..."
"... But the report, published on the BuzzFeed Internet portal, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The problem is not even that there are a lot of false facts. Even the assumption that agents of the Russian secret services are discussing the details with a former secretary of a hostile secret service in the midst of a highly secret operation by which a future President of the US is to be discredited appears strange. ..."
"... Exactly. For the intelligence community and Democrat reliance on Steele's dossier to be plausible, you have to assume 10-foot tall Russkis (1) with incredibly sophisticated strategic, operational, and technical capabilities, who have (2) performed the greatest intelligence feat of the 21st and ..."
"... Donald Trump went on Howard Stern for, like, decades. The stuff that's right out there for whoever wants to roll those tapes is just as "compromising" as anything in the dodgy dossier, or the "grab her by the pussy" tape, for that matter. As Kowaljow points out, none of it was mortally wounding to Trump; after all, if you're a volatility voter who wants to kick over the table in a rigged game, you don't care about the niceties. ..."
"... transition ..."
"... And that's before we get to ObamaCare, financial regulation, gutting or owning the CIA (which Trump needs to do, and fast), trade policy, NATO, China, and a myriad of other stories, all rich with human interest, powerful narratives, and plenty of potential for scandal. Any one of them worthy of A1 coverage, just like the Inaugural crowd size dogpile that's been going on for days. ..."
"... Instead, the press seems to be reproducing the last gasps of the Clinton campaign, which were all about the evils of Trump, the man. That tactic failed the Clinton campaign, again because volatility voters weren't concerned with the niceties. And the same tactic is failing the press now. ..."
In any case, a link to the following story in Hamburg's ridiculously sober-sided Die Zeit came
over the transom:
So schockiert von Trump wie alle anderen ("So shocked by Trump like everyone else"). The reporter
is Alexej Kowaljow
, a Russian journalist based in Moscow. Before anyone goes "ZOMG! The dude is Russian
!", everything Kowaljow writes is based on open sources or common-sense information presumably available
to citizens of any nation. The bottom line for me is that if the world is coming to believe that
Americans are idiots, it's not necessarily because Americans elected Trump as President.
I'm going to lay out two claims and two questions from Kowaljow's piece. In each case, I'll quote
the conventional, Steele and intelligence community-derived wisdom in our famously free press, and
then I'll quote Kowaljow. I think Kowaljow wins each time. Easily. I don't think Google Translate
handles irony well, but I sense that Kowaljow is deploying it freely.
(1) Trump's Supposed Business Dealings in Russia Are Commercial Puffery
Here's
the
section on Russia in Time's article on Trump's business dealings; it's representative. I'm going
to quote it all so you can savor it. Read it carefully.
Donald Trump's Many, Many Business Dealings in 1 Map
Russia
"For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump
tweeted
in July, one day before he called on the country to "find" a batch of emails deleted from
Hillary Clinton's private server. Nonetheless, Russia's extraordinary meddling in the 2016 U.S.
election-a declassified report released by U.S. intelligence agencies in January disclosed that
intercepted conversations captured senior Russian officials celebrating Trump's win-as well as
Trump's complimentary remarks about Russian President have stirred widespread questions about
the President-elect's pursuit of closer ties with Moscow. Several members of Trump's inner circle
have business links to Russia, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who
consulted for pro-Russia politicians in the Ukraine. Former foreign policy adviser Carter
Page worked in Russia and
maintains ties there.
During the presidential transition, former Georgia Congressman and Trump campaign surrogate
Jack Kingston
told a gathering of businessmen in Moscow that the President-elect could lift U.S. sanctions.
According to his own son, Trump has long relied on Russian customers as a source of income.
"Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," Donald Trump
Jr.
told a Manhattan real estate conference in 2008 , according to an account posted on the website
of trade publication eTurboNews. "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."
Back to map .
Read that again, if you can stand it. Do you see the name of an actual business, owned by Trump?
Do you see the name of any businessperson who closed a deal with Trump? Do you, in fact, see any
reporting at all? At most, you see commercial puffery by Trump the Younger: "Russians [in Russia?]
make up a pretty [qualifier] disproportionate [whatever that means] cross-section [whatever that
means] of a lot of [qualifier] our assets."
Now Kowaljow (via Google Translate, so forgive any solecisms):
For Donald Trump, all attempts to gain a foothold in the USSR and then in Russia in 30
years of travel and negotiations failed. Moscow did not have a Trump Tower of its own, although
Trump boasted every time that he had met the most important people and was just about to invest
hundreds of millions in a project that would undoubtedly be successful.
Trumps' largest business success in Russia was the presentation of a Trump Vodka at the
Millionaire Fair 2007 in Moscow. This project was also a cleansing; In 2009 the sale of Trump
Vodka was discontinued.
Because think about it: Trump puts his name on stuff . Towers in Manhattan, hotels, casinos,
golf courses, steaks. Anything in Russia with Trump's name on it? Besides the failed vodka venture?
No? Case closed, then.
(2) Zhirinovsky Is The Very Last Person Putin Would Use For A Proxy
Five reasons intel community believes Russia interfered in election
The attacks dovetailed with other Russian disinformation campaigns
The report covers more than just the hacking effort. It also contains a detailed list account
of information warfare against the United States from Russia through other means.
Political party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who the report lists as a "pro-Kremlin proxy,"
said before the election that, if Trump won, Russia would 'drink champagne' to celebrate their
new ability to advance in Syria and Ukraine.
Now Kowaljow:
The report of the American intelligence services on the Russian interference in the US elections,
published at the beginning of January, was notoriously neglected by Russians, because the name
of Vladimir Zhirinovsky was mentioned among the "propaganda activities of Russia", which had announced
that in the event of an election victory of Trump champagne to want to drink.
Such a delicate plan – to reach the election of a President of the US by means of Zhirinovsky
– ensures a skeptical smile for every Russian at best. He is already seventy and has been at the
head of a party with a misleading name for nearly thirty years. The Liberal Democratic Party is
neither liberal nor democratic. If their policies are somehow characterized, then as right-wing
populism. Zhirinovsky is known for shrill statements; He threatened, for example, to destroy the
US by means of "gravitational weapons".
If, therefore, the Kremlin had indeed had the treacherous plan of helping Trump to power, it
would scarcely have been made known about Zhirinovsky.
The American equivalent would be. Give me a moment to think of an American politician who's both
so delusional and such a laughingstock that no American President could possibly
consider using them as a proxy in a devilishly complex informational warfare campaign Sara Palin?
Anthony Weiner? Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Na ga happen.
And now to the two questions.
(3) Why Would Russian Intelligence Agencies Sources Have Talked to Steele?
Kowaljow:
But the report, published on the BuzzFeed Internet portal, is full of inconsistencies and
contradictions. The problem is not even that there are a lot of false facts. Even the assumption
that agents of the Russian secret services are discussing the details with a former secretary
of a hostile secret service in the midst of a highly secret operation by which a future President
of the US is to be discredited appears strange.
Exactly. For the intelligence community and Democrat reliance on Steele's dossier to be plausible,
you have to assume 10-foot tall Russkis (1) with incredibly sophisticated strategic, operational,
and technical capabilities, who have (2) performed the greatest intelligence feat of the 21st
and 20th centuries, suborning the President of the United States, and whose intelligence agencies
are (3) leakly like a sieve. Does that make sense? (Of course, the devilish Russkis could have fed
Steele bad data, knowing he'd then feed it to the American intelligence agencies, who would lap it
up, but that's another narrative.)
(4) How Do You Compromise the Uncompromisable?
Funny how suddenly the word kompromat was everywhere, wasn't it? So sophisticated. Everybody
loves to learn a new word! Regarding the "Golden Showers" - more sophistication! - Kowaljow writes:
But even if such a compromise should exist, what sense should it have, since the most piquant
details have long been publicly discussed in public, and had no effect on the votes of the elected
president? Like all the other scandals trumps, which passed through the election campaign, they
also remained unresolved, including those who were concerned about sex.
This also includes what is known as a compromise, compromising material, that is, video shots
of the unsightly nature, which can destroy both the political career and the life of a person.
The word Kompromat shines today – as in the past Perestroika – in all headlines; It was not invented
in Russia, of course. But in Russia in the Yeltsin era, when the great clans in the power gave
bitter fights and intensively used the media, works of this kind have ended more than just a brilliant
career. General Prosecutor Jurij Skuratov was dismissed after a video had been shown in the country-wide
television channels: There, a person "who looks like the prosecutor's office" had sex with two
prostitutes.
Donald Trump went on Howard Stern for, like, decades. The stuff that's right out there for
whoever wants to roll those tapes is just as "compromising" as anything in the dodgy dossier, or
the "grab her by the pussy" tape, for that matter. As Kowaljow points out, none of it was mortally
wounding to Trump; after all, if you're a volatility voter who wants to kick over the table in a
rigged game, you don't care about the niceties.
Conclusion
It would be nice, wouldn't it, if our famously free press was actually covering the Trump
transition , instead of acting like their newsrooms are mountain redoubts for an irrendentist
Clinton campaign. It would be nice, for example, to know:
The content and impact of Trump's Executive Orders.
Ditto, regulations.
Personnel decisions below the Cabinet level. Who are the Flexians?
Obama policies that will remain in place, because both party establishments support them.
Charters, for example.
Republican inroads in Silicon Valley.
The future of the IRS, since Republicans have an axe to grind with it.
Mismatch between State expectations for infrastructure and Trump's implementation
And that's before we get to ObamaCare, financial regulation, gutting or owning the CIA (which
Trump needs to do, and fast), trade policy, NATO, China, and a myriad of other stories, all rich
with human interest, powerful narratives, and plenty of potential for scandal. Any one of them worthy
of A1 coverage, just like the Inaugural crowd size dogpile that's been going on for days.
Instead, the press seems to be reproducing the last gasps of the Clinton campaign, which were
all about the evils of Trump, the man. That tactic failed the Clinton campaign, again because volatility
voters weren't concerned with the niceties. And the same tactic is failing the press now. Failing
unless, of course, you're the sort of sleaze merchant who
downsizes the newsroom because, hey, it's all about the clicks.
"... BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said Mr Steele had previously been an intelligence officer - rather than agent - in MI6, who would have run a team of agents as an intelligence gatherer. ..."
"... Intelligence agencies considered the claims relevant enough to brief both Mr Trump and President Obama last week. ..."
"... But the allegations have not been independently substantiated or verified and some details have been challenged as incorrect by those who are mentioned. ..."
"... Mr Trump himself was briefed about the existence of the allegations by the US intelligence community last week but has since described them as fake news, accusing the US intelligence services of leaking the dossier. ..."
An ex-MI6 officer who is believed to have prepared memos claiming Russia has compromising material
on US President-elect Donald Trump is now in hiding, the BBC understands.
Christopher Steele, who runs a London-based intelligence firm, is believed to have left his home
this week.
The memos contain unsubstantiated claims that Russian security officials have compromising material
on Mr Trump.
The US president-elect said the claims were "fake news" and "phoney stuff".
Mr Steele has been widely named as the author of a series of memos - which have been published
as a dossier in some US media - containing extensive allegations about Mr Trump's personal life and
his campaign's relationship with the Russian state.
... ... ...
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said Mr Steele had previously been an intelligence officer
- rather than agent - in MI6, who would have run a team of agents as an intelligence gatherer.
However, as Mr Steele was now working in the private sector, our correspondent said, there was
"probably a fair bit of money involved" in the commissioning of the reports.
He said there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations and it was still possible the dossier
had been based on what "people had said" about Mr Trump "without any proof".
Donald J. Tump Twit
@realDonaldTrump
James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally
circulated. Made up, phony facts. Too bad!
... ... ...
Obama briefing
The 35-page dossier on Mr Trump - which is believed to have been commissioned initially by Republicans
opposed to Mr Trump - has been circulating in Washington for some time.
Media organisations, uncertain of its credibility, initially held back from publication. However,
the entire series of reports has now been posted online, with Mr Steele named as the author.
Intelligence agencies considered the claims relevant enough to brief both Mr Trump and President
Obama last week.
But the allegations have not been independently substantiated or verified and some details have
been challenged as incorrect by those who are mentioned.
Mr Trump himself was briefed about the existence of the allegations by the US intelligence community
last week but has since described them as fake news, accusing the US intelligence services of leaking
the dossier.
So guardian clearly supports Steele dossier. Nice... So the guy clearly tried to influence
the US election and Guardian neoliberal honchos and their Russophobic presstitutes (like Luke
Harding) are OK with it. They just complain about Russian influence. British elite hypocrisy in action...
Notable quotes:
"... Published in January by BuzzFeed , the dossier suggested that Donald Trump's team had colluded with Russian intelligence before the US election to sabotage Hillary Clinton's campaign. Citing unidentified sources, it said Trump had been "compromised" by Russia's FSB spy agency during a trip to Moscow in 2013. ..."
"... Trump dismissed the dossier as fake news and said Steele was a "failed spy". Vladimir Putin also rejected the dossier. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Russia did not collect kompromat – compromising material – on Trump or anyone else. ..."
"... As head of MI6's Russia desk, Steele led the inquiry into Litvinenko's polonium poisoning, quickly concluding that this was a Russian state plot. He did not meet Litvinenko and was not his case officer, friends said. ..."
Christopher Steele speaks publicly for first time since the file was revealed and thanks
supporters for 'kind messages'
The former MI6 agent behind the
controversial Trump dossier has returned to work, nearly two months after its publication caused
an international scandal and furious denials from Washington and Moscow.
Christopher Steele posed for a photograph outside the office of his business intelligence company
Orbis in Victoria, London on Tuesday. Speaking for the first time since his
dossier was revealed , Steele said he had received messages of support.
"I'm now going to be focusing my efforts on supporting the broader interests of our company here,"
he told the Press Association. "I'd like to say a warm thank you to everyone who sent me kind messages
and support over the last few weeks."
Steele, who left British intelligence in 2009 and co-founded Orbis with an MI6 colleague, said
he would not comment substantively on the contents of the dossier: "Just to add, I won't be making
any further statements or comments at this time."
Published in January by BuzzFeed , the dossier suggested that Donald Trump's team had colluded
with Russian intelligence before the US election to sabotage Hillary Clinton's campaign. Citing unidentified
sources, it said Trump had been "compromised" by Russia's FSB spy agency during a trip to Moscow
in 2013.
It alleged that Trump was secretly videoed with Russian prostitutes in a suite in the Ritz-Carlton
hotel in Moscow. The prostitutes allegedly urinated on the bed used by Barack Obama during a presidential
visit.
Trump dismissed the dossier as fake news and said Steele was a "failed spy". Vladimir Putin
also rejected the dossier. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed
Russia did not collect
kompromat – compromising material – on Trump or anyone else.
Steele's friends say he has been keen to go back to work for some weeks. They insist he has not
been in hiding but has been keeping a low profile to avoid paparazzi who have been camped outside
his family home in Surrey.
Several of the lurid stories about him that have appeared in the press have been wrong, said friends.
The stories include claims that Steele met Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident who was murdered
in 2006 with a radioactive cup of tea,
probably on Putin's orders .
As head of MI6's Russia desk, Steele led the inquiry into Litvinenko's polonium poisoning,
quickly concluding that this was a Russian state plot. He did not meet Litvinenko and was not his
case officer, friends said.
Neocons still dream of Trump impeachment. Neutering him is not enough... the number of potentially illegal wiretaps of Trump associates
suggests that threr was a plan to derail plan in three letter agencies headquarters (with blessing of Obama). Plan of interfere with
the US election to be exact.
Notable quotes:
"... Reports that the FBI wiretapped former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are a further sign of the seriousness of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation. But there's still a great deal we don't know about the implications, if any, for the broader inquiry into possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The other import of this news involves the possible implications if Manafort is charged. The New York Times reported Monday that when Manafort's home was searched in July, investigators told him he should expect to be indicted. ..."
"... A typical white-collar investigation often proceeds by building cases against lower-level participants in a scheme -- the little fish -- and then persuading them to cooperate in the investigation of the bigger fish. Trump and his associates therefore may have reason to be concerned about what Manafort could tell investigators, if he were indicted and chose to cooperate. ..."
"... Again, much of this is speculation. Due to grand jury secrecy and the secrecy surrounding the FISA process, we don't know many of the details. And given the typical pace of these investigations, whatever happens likely will not happen quickly. ..."
Then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort at the Republican National Convention. (Matt Rourke/Associated Press)
Reports that the FBI wiretapped former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are a further sign of the seriousness of special counsel
Robert S. Mueller III's investigation. But there's still a great deal we don't know about the implications, if any, for the broader
inquiry into possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign.
CNN
reported
Monday night that the FBI obtained a warrant to listen in on Manafort's phone calls back in 2014. The warrant was part of an
investigation into U.S. firms that may have performed undisclosed work for the Ukrainian government. The surveillance reportedly
lapsed for a time but was begun again last year when the FBI learned about possible ties between Russian operatives and Trump associates.
This news is a big deal primarily because of what it takes to obtain such a wiretap order. The warrant reportedly was issued under
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A FISA warrant requires investigators to demonstrate to the FISA court that there is probable
cause to believe the target may be acting as an unlawful foreign agent.
When
news broke last month that Mueller was using a grand jury to conduct his investigation, many reported it with unnecessary breathlessness.
Although a grand jury investigation is certainly significant, a prosecutor does not need court approval or a finding of probable
cause to issue a grand jury subpoena, and Mueller's use of a grand jury
was not unexpected .
A FISA warrant is another matter. It means investigators have demonstrated probable cause to an independent judicial authority.
Obtaining a warrant actually says much more about the strength of the underlying allegations than issuing a grand jury subpoena.
That's also why the search warrant
executed at Manafort's home in July was such a significant step in the investigation. Unlike a grand jury subpoena, the search
warrant required Mueller's team to demonstrate to a judge that a crime probably had been committed.
But it's important not to get too far in front of the story. The FBI surveillance of Manafort reportedly began in 2014, long before
he was working as Trump's campaign manager. So the initial allegations, at least, appear to have involved potential crimes having
nothing to do with the Trump campaign. And most or all of the surveillance apparently took place before Mueller was even appointed
and was not at his direction.
Mueller's involvement now does suggest that the current focus relates to Manafort's role in the Trump campaign. But we don't know
exactly how, if at all, any alleged crimes by Manafort relate to his work in that role. And we don't know whether any other individuals
involved in the campaign are potentially implicated.
We also don't know what evidence was obtained as a result of the surveillance. The fact that warrants were issued does not mean
any evidence of criminal conduct was actually found.
The other import of this news involves the possible implications if Manafort is charged. The New York Times
reported
Monday that when Manafort's home was searched in July, investigators told him he should expect to be indicted. Even if Mueller
were to indict Manafort for crimes not directly related to the Trump campaign, it would be a significant development. A typical
white-collar investigation often proceeds by building cases against lower-level participants in a scheme -- the little fish -- and
then persuading them to cooperate in the investigation of the bigger fish. Trump and his associates therefore may have reason to
be concerned about what Manafort could tell investigators, if he were indicted and chose to cooperate.
Again, much of this is speculation. Due to grand jury secrecy and the secrecy surrounding the FISA process, we don't know
many of the details. And given the typical pace of these investigations, whatever happens likely will not happen quickly.
But news of the FISA surveillance is the latest evidence that Mueller's investigation is serious, aggressive and will be with
us for some time.
Randall D. Eliason teaches white-collar criminal law at George Washington University Law School.
Why they decided to resume investigation now ? What new facts were uncovered? What hidden storm
hit "deep state" so the for stability they need to sacrifice Hillary Clinton
How this correlates with the discovery that DNC paid for Steele dossier? Judging from
John Sipher a is
a former member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service attempt
to defend Steele dossier in his
Slate article (Sept, 2017), just a month before current revelations. As retied CIA agents
usually avoid public spotlight it might well be that he was "adviced" to write his
evaluation and, if this is the case, then CIA and may be personally Brennan were also involved
in "Steele dossier" fiasco.
Notable quotes:
"... The ousted FBI director James Comey and the former attorney general Loretta Lynch spoke at length to Congress about that investigation last year, and it is the subject of a continuing review by the justice department's inspector general. ..."
"... Nunes has separately signed off on subpoenas that sought the banking records of Fusion GPS, the political research company behind a dossier of allegations about Trump's connections to Russia. A lawyer for the company said in a statement Tuesday the subpoena was "overly broad" and without any legitimate purposes ..."
The Republican leaders of the House judiciary and oversight panels said in a statement they were
opening investigations into the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation and the decision
not to prosecute her – the subject of hours-long congressional hearings last year.
The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, Devin Nunes, also announced a separate
investigation into a uranium deal brokered during Barack Obama's tenure as president.
The House judiciary committee chairman, Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, and the oversight committee
chairman, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, said the inquiry would be aimed at the
FBI and its decisions in the Clinton investigation . The ousted FBI director James Comey
and the former attorney general Loretta Lynch spoke at length to Congress about that investigation
last year, and it is the subject of a continuing review by the justice department's inspector general.
The two panels have declined to investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, leaving
those inquiries to Senate committees and the House intelligence committee.
Nunes has separately signed off on subpoenas that sought the banking records of Fusion GPS,
the political research company behind a dossier of allegations about Trump's connections to Russia.
A lawyer for the company said in a statement Tuesday the subpoena was "overly broad" and without
any legitimate purposes.
This is great comment: " One fairly obvious point -- in response to your original post, not
the article itself -- is surely that the general consensus which united conservatives and liberals,
that neoliberal economics works, that war against weak countries can be waged on the cheap, and that
the local working class will always eat whatever excrement is put on their plates, has started to break
down. "
Notable quotes:
"... The Reactionary Mind ..."
"... The Art of the Deal ..."
"... TRUMP IS BY NO MEANS the first man of the right to reach that conclusion about capitalism, though he may be the first President to do so, at least since Teddy Roosevelt. A great many neoconservatives found themselves stranded on the same beach after the end of the cold war, as had many conservatives before that. But they always found a redeeming vision in the state. Not the welfare state or the "nanny state," but the State of high politics, national greatness, imperial leadership, and war; the state of Churchill and Bismarck. Given the menace of Trump's rhetoric, his fetish for pomp and love of grandeur, this state, too, would seem the natural terminus of his predilections. As his adviser Steve Bannon has said, "A country's more than an economy. We're a civic society." Yet on closer inspection, Trump's vision of the state looks less like the State than the deals he's not sure add up to much. ..."
"... Trump_vs_deep_state's inconsistency, lack of coherence and cult of personality brings to mind Juan Peron and Evita. ..."
"... The desire to make Trump anti-Semitic, and a fascist is a lot easier than recognizing he's a talented media manipulator devoid and any real convictions. The idea that 60 million Americans voted to elect a man who secretly wants to end elections is absurd on every level. He doesn't need to end elections, because elections are the ultimate ratings game. He brags endlessly that he beat all the professional politicians as a neophyte. ..."
"... When folks assert that Trump is all about surfaces, they say that as if it's a bad thing. The republican base supporting Trump, we have clearly learned, maintains no fidelity to the theologies expounded at the NRO and the AEI. Trump's inability to think about challenges in ways approved of by his critics confounds experts precisely because he's so effective. I can't believe he has less heft and gravitas than the light-bulb salesman Americans elected twice. He is simply the right guy with the right message for a specific time and place. He may morph into evil personified and I get the sense at times that some of his critics are keen to see just that. ..."
"... That Trump lacks much knowledge of public policy was clear during the campaign, and since being inaugurated he has remained uninterested in and ignorant of (sometimes amazingly so) the details of policy. One wonders if he even reads the exec orders he has been signing. Your support of someone so manifestly unsuited to be president, by virtue of his vast ignorance if nothing else, was puzzling during the campaign and remains so. Btw, what "great society experiments" are you talking about? Have you heard of the '96 welfare 'reform' law? ..."
"... Trump has defended an isolationist foreign policy, attacking Nafta, Nato, the WTO etc. Given his erratic behavior, he has not followed through on this (yet?) but the departure with the previous mainstream consensus is radical. The mainstream left and right, at least since two decades, had been very much internationalist. ..."
"... During the campaign Trump has defended some form of social welfare state and more government intervention in the economy: e.g. his defense of Social Security, or even maternity leave, and his support for infrastructure. I do not think he really cares about this stuff and so he is probably not going to follow through. ..."
"... It's also very anti-historical. Inasmuch as conservatism is, among other things, a defense of hierarchy , it can (and did, at one time) appeal to millennia of precedent. ..."
"... Something can be deeply wrong, i.e. immoral, without being the product of a cognitive abnormality, and people can commit evil acts and hold evil beliefs without being mentally or psychologically impaired. To attribute all retrograde political acts and beliefs to an individual's deficient "theory of mind" (whatever that means exactly) is sociologically naive, psychologically untenable, and historically invalid. ..."
"... One fairly obvious point -- in response to your original post, not the article itself -- is surely that the general consensus which united conservatives and liberals, that neoliberal economics works, that war against weak countries can be waged on the cheap, and that the local working class will always eat whatever excrement is put on their plates, has started to break down. ..."
"... Trump is a right-wing bullshitter, Clinton is a liberal bullshitter; there's nothing really new about that (much the same sort of thing happened with those who continued to support the consensus during the Great Depression). ..."
"... When Obama failed to embody the forward-looking ideals he campaigned on, some people checked out, but you can trace clear lines of mass disillusionment and radicalization from 2008 to Occupy and BLM to the Sanders campaign. ..."
"... The question was never if there was an appetite for real leftism in the American electorate (Clinton and Trump's unconvincing plagiarism of Sanders talking points are telling here, I think), but whether the Democratic party, mired as it's been in institutional rot and complacency, would ever tolerate true economic leftism when the "social liberalism" of identity and representation seemed to work well enough and was so much less threatening to the moneyed interests that financed the party's rightward swing. ..."
"... For decades, the left wing of the Democratic party has been cajoled into voting for "liberal" candidates that resemble nothing so much as the old aristocratic Whigs who used to discuss ways to help the less fortunate over claret and cigars down at the gentlemen's club. ..."
"... I don't think there's any going back to the neocon/neolib era and I think even a lot of moderate Republicans (who used to rely on friendly financiers like Romney to keep the rabid right on-leash) are beginning to realize it. After all, what's the point of selling out if it doesn't buy you anything? ..."
"... The neo-cons are out: Bill Kristol, Max Boot and company are sworn enemies of the administration. Democratic party neocons like HRC can longer launch democracy-building projects in the middle east. Long may this continue. ..."
"... Calling 60 million Trump voters racist and/or fascist might feel good, but as Mark Lilla sensibly observes, identity politics is Reagan's trickle-down economics for liberals, self-delusion for folks out of answers. The 'solutions' for poor, black families in crisis on this thread illustrate clearly why so many black voters in Michigan and elsewhere stayed home. Folks without work, safe schools, and much hope want solutions – not 'this study says' or 'but, Republicans.'' ..."
"... Donald Trump is president because the Democratic party abandoned the poorest, white and black, not because 60 million Americans are actually fascists. ..."
"... It's the sort of completely insane projection that falls apart at the most cursory examination, to wit: the entire notion of destroying a public, universal service like secondary (and post-secondary, in many cases) education in order to hand the system over to unscrupulous profiteers is [extremely Zizek voice]PURE NEOLIBERALISM[/extremely Zizek voice]. ..."
"... What we have, and what Trump_vs_deep_state is merely one symptom of, is a massive crisis in public governance. In large part, the people who are responsible for said governance brought it on themselves. ..."
"... Race is one the primary axes of American politics, and our reluctance to fund basic public goods cannot be understood without acknowledging this basic fact. ..."
"... there's absolutely no daylight whatsoever between "mainstream" Republicans and Trump when it comes to the lust for war: ..."
"... Having discovered this fact which so many slogans obscure, we might well wonder whether it is quite correct to look upon capitalism as a social form sui generis or, in fact, as anything else but the last stage of the decomposition of what we have called feudalism. ..."
"... The thing is, Trump is an owner who's there because he's finished with that political crap. At this point, we probably have to hope that some general has the spine to tell Trump no, the US army really is not a very good military force for anything that involves taking casualties, which means it is fairly useless for actually conquering anything, as opposed to laying waste in endless campaigns. But the spirit of West Point, the school of treason that produced many, many, many more fighters against America than the CPUSA ever did, still rules. I'm not very hopeful. ..."
"... This is a legitimacy crisis. It is not as if Clinton partisans did not call Trump's electoral legitimacy into question. Half the country think Russian "meddling" determined the result, when it is not clear any "meddling" happened. ..."
"... Yes, Americans have lost their collective mind, politically. I know several elderly people (not much more elderly than me, truth to tell) who consume anti-Trump screeds from Seth Meyers or Rachel Maddow on a daily basis. It is entertainment I suppose, but it does not inform them or improve their critical thinking skills. One, a transplanted Englishman, described Maddow to me the other day as "erudite". ..."
"... The relentless flood tide of propaganda in American politics makes it exceedingly hard to talk with any American realistically about what is going on, because so much of what is going is exists not as objective and verified facts, but as shared, tendentious narratives. The actual Trump seems to me to be a bit of a personal mess and an authoritarian in the same mode as the blowhards who hang out at the barbershop; the Trump constructed by, say, Maddow's televised narratives is something else, something more imagined than real. The imagined Trump has to be bigger, to be fitted with cheap hyperbole. ..."
"... An essential element of the propaganda narrative is the "distance" to the other. The "base of Trump supporters" is a prop. Wondering what "they" could be thinking but not waiting for an answer before launching scorn and ridicule on the way to slander is a method. ..."
"... No Layman, there is plenty of irrefutable evidence that Clinton is a militarist who strongly believes in force and the threat of force, especially when it comes to the ME – and this plays just fine with the Democratic party establishment, actually it's a necessity considering the donor base. Clinton's stance towards Iran and the nuclear deal is a matter of record. Next time don't nominate a warmonger who voted for the Iraq war if you want to prevent someone like Trump – and hey, maybe young people will trust you again. ..."
"... There is no "real" Trump narrative; narratives are imagined stories, constructed according to principles of dramatic art to create meaning and morality. With effort, it is possible to anchor a narrative to facts, and to do so by methods that limit violence to the objectivity of facts. Whether a well-anchored narrative is persuasive may be important to such enterprises as the operation of law or even the progress of science. ..."
"... Our famously free press (spoken sarcastically) is thought to provide a check; fact-check columns proliferate at times, but mostly prove how weak an instrument of the public interest, a Media run by massive corporations and financially dependent on corporate business advertising is. ..."
"... A common practice now is to lead with counterfactuals: narratives in which the place of facts is taken by theory and theory's constructions. "Because the whole thing is basically a fantasy, nothing will disprove it." ..."
"... My political theory of Trump_vs_deep_state is that this is what conservative politics unchecked, unopposed and not responsible to any mass constituency produces. Trump says anything. But, it has been twenty years since anyone in politics has been held to account for anything said, except for "gotcha" moments of mostly fake outrage. Not that we would have a gotcha moment for Bush's war crimes. But that is my point. Holding Clinton up as a standard of normalcy in politics runs into exactly this same problem: she talks in the political code words, takes no responsibility for policy consequences and shows every sign of greed and irresponsibility, but the counterfactual of her normalcy is still set forward, with no awareness that it is a groundless narrative. This is not a point about Clinton or Trump, but it is a point about a political process that produces a lot of stupid and Trump is a bonus. ..."
"... Through the book, he traces the many potential problems that the 'personalization' of media might bring. Most germane to this discussion, he raised the point that if every one of the billion News Feeds is different, how can anyone understand what other people are seeing and responding to? 'The most serious political problem posed by filter bubbles is that they make it increasingly difficult to have a public argument.' " ..."
"... I stand by my belief that Trump built a public persona as a race-baiting, loudmouth buffoon that carried him straight into the WH despite a fervent, well-funded bi-partisan effort to unseat him from the time he declared up right to the present. Studying the buffoon tells us practically nothing about the individual. He's ordinary, capable, ambitious, avaricious, and mired in the world of the senses rather than the mind. There are worse traits and places to be. ..."
"... what I always find grotesque about the accusations of Russian meddling is the full ticket obliviousness to all the meddling the US used to perform in Russian elections, and in fact in many other elections worldwide. It's quite a sorry sight to see people like you make a fuss about very minor activities (if there's even evidence of any), without as much as a shred of self awareness. ..."
"... If people want a sane non- militaristic foreign policy it's going to take more than just opposition to Trump. You are also going to have to oppose some of Trump's opponents in both parties. The one time Trump received positive feedback and praise from many in the Beltway was when he bombed Syria. ..."
"... Why are people talking about Hillary here, on a thread about Trump and conservatism? Because a plausible argument can be made that Hillary is more of conservative than Trump, at least in terms of neo-conservative politics. She has, after all, two neo-con wars under her belt already and enjoys good relations with all the really wrong people. Her avarice and willingness to tell tales are at least comparable to Trump's. But perhaps the best reason Hillary belongs here is because many believe that had a less conservative Democrat than Hillary run (Bernie, for example), Dems would have won and Donald Trump would be yesterday's news. ..."
October 12, 2017 The magazine n+1 is running an
excerpt
from the second edition of The Reactionary Mind , which comes out next week but is
available for purchase now . The n+1 piece is titled "The Triumph of the Shill: The
political theory of Trump_vs_deep_state." It's my most considered reflection on what Trump_vs_deep_state represents, based
on a close reading of The Art of the Deal (yes, I know he didn't write it, but it's far
more revelatory of the man and what he thinks than even its ghostwriter realized) and some of his
other writings and speeches, as well as the record of Trump's first six months in office.
Here are some excerpts from the excerpt, but I hope you'll buy the book, too. It's got a lot of
new material, particularly about the economic ideas of the right. And a long, long chapter on Trump
and Trump_vs_deep_state.
... ... ...
This is what makes Trump's economic philosophy, such as it is, so peculiar and of its moment.
An older generation of economic Darwinists, from William Graham Sumner to Ayn Rand, believed without
reservation in the secular miracle of the market. It wasn't just the contest that was glorious;
the outcome was, too. That conviction burned in them like a holy fire. Trump, by contrast, subscribes
and unsubscribes to that vision. The market is a moment of truth -- and an eternity of lies.
It reveals; it hides. It is everything; it is nothing. Rand grounded her vision of capitalism
in A is A; Trump grounds his in A is not A.
TRUMP IS BY NO MEANS the first man of the right to reach that conclusion about capitalism,
though he may be the first President to do so, at least since Teddy Roosevelt. A great many neoconservatives
found themselves stranded on the same beach after the end of the cold war, as had many conservatives
before that. But they always found a redeeming vision in the state. Not the welfare state or the
"nanny state," but the State of high politics, national greatness, imperial leadership, and war;
the state of Churchill and Bismarck. Given the menace of Trump's rhetoric, his fetish for pomp
and love of grandeur, this state, too, would seem the natural terminus of his predilections. As
his adviser Steve Bannon has said, "A country's more than an economy. We're a civic society."
Yet on closer inspection, Trump's vision of the state looks less like the State than the deals
he's not sure add up to much.
I'll be doing a bunch of interviews about the book, including one with our very own Henry, so
keep an eye out at my blog for more information
on that.
Dr. Hilarius 10.12.17 at 4:54 am (no link)
Trump_vs_deep_state's inconsistency, lack of coherence and cult of personality brings to mind Juan Peron
and Evita.
kidneystones 10.12.17 at 2:19 pm (no link)
@12 The desire to make Trump anti-Semitic, and a fascist is a lot easier than recognizing
he's a talented media manipulator devoid and any real convictions. The idea that 60 million Americans
voted to elect a man who secretly wants to end elections is absurd on every level. He doesn't
need to end elections, because elections are the ultimate ratings game. He brags endlessly that
he beat all the professional politicians as a neophyte.
He looks certain at this point to thread the needle for 2020 at the expense of both Republicans
and Democrats. He may very well simplify the tax code and get rather more done in his second year
in office. His first year has and will be devoted to pure survival – defending his corner and
maintaining his base. Trump supporters, myself included, are anti-politician, and unsympathetic
to faction and ideology, which is part of the reason I really do question Corey's efforts to make
Trump part of a conservative movement.
When folks assert that Trump is all about surfaces, they say that as if it's a bad thing.
The republican base supporting Trump, we have clearly learned, maintains no fidelity to the theologies
expounded at the NRO and the AEI. Trump's inability to think about challenges in ways approved
of by his critics confounds experts precisely because he's so effective. I can't believe he has
less heft and gravitas than the light-bulb salesman Americans elected twice. He is simply the
right guy with the right message for a specific time and place. He may morph into evil personified
and I get the sense at times that some of his critics are keen to see just that.
Every time Hillary Clinton opens her mouth to utter another blatant falsehood, I feel better
about the results of 2016. There is, as Corey notes, an emptiness at the heart of the conservative
movement. The same can be said of liberals who are, if anything, in even greater disarray than
conservatives. The great society experiments yield, in 2016, appalling failure rates among America's
African-American youth to follow decades of failure as the African-American family unit dis-integrates.
Liberals are all out of answers, as are theological conservatives. Perhaps the reality is that
ordinary Americans, and others across the globe, are actually far less polarized than the pundits
tell us.
We might very well go down some ugly path to war and disaster, but is seems to me just as likely
that life will actually go on much as it has, only with fewer wars and slightly more charity towards
each other. Cause just yammering about the blah-blah-blah is getting mighty old.
LFC 10.12.17 at 5:03 pm (no link)
kidneystones @15 That Trump lacks much knowledge of public policy was clear during the campaign, and since
being inaugurated he has remained uninterested in and ignorant of (sometimes amazingly so) the
details of policy. One wonders if he even reads the exec orders he has been signing. Your support
of someone so manifestly unsuited to be president, by virtue of his vast ignorance if nothing
else, was puzzling during the campaign and remains so. Btw, what "great society experiments" are
you talking about? Have you heard of the '96 welfare 'reform' law?
LFC 10.12.17 at 5:10 pm (no link)
p.s. In terms of ignorant presidents in recent memory, Reagan and G.W. Bush come close to Trump,
but Trump outdoes them. (Though in a competition on that score between Reagan and Trump, it might
be close to a tie.)
As far as I can tell, your claim so far (in this and other posts) is that Trump should be seen
first of all as a conservative: those who see him as a radical break from US conservatism have
an idealized version of what the GOP and the right have actually been throughout their history.*
I tend to agree with this (e.g. the GOP has been very racist since many decades) but with two
important qualifications that I have never seen you make:
a) Trump has defended an isolationist foreign policy, attacking Nafta, Nato, the WTO etc.
Given his erratic behavior, he has not followed through on this (yet?) but the departure with
the previous mainstream consensus is radical. The mainstream left and right, at least since two
decades, had been very much internationalist.
b) During the campaign Trump has defended some form of social welfare state and more government
intervention in the economy: e.g. his defense of Social Security, or even maternity leave, and
his support for infrastructure. I do not think he really cares about this stuff and so he is probably
not going to follow through. Given his general cluelessness, he is also captured by the various
randians who populate the GOP ranks. But, differently from many politicians on the right, in primis
the randians, Trump has some sense for what people want. And in the campaign he said it, possibly
opening up the field for future Keynesians republicans.
*You hedge this view a bit in this post, by considering Trump's view of the market.
Collin Street thinks that conservatism is some kind of organic affliction, that conservatives
all have something wrong with their brain chemistry or biology, that they are all cognitively
abnormal. This is absurd.
It's also very anti-historical. Inasmuch as conservatism is, among other things, a defense
of hierarchy , it can (and did, at one time) appeal to millennia of precedent. Were the believers
in the divine right of monarchs mentally abnormal? Were those who believed (and continue to believe)
that employers have a right to exploit their workers mentally ill? Were, to take an even starker
example, proponents of slavery psychologically impaired? If so, how to account for the fact that
slavery was close to universal among human societies until fairly recently in the history of the
species? Were the vast majority of humans all psychologically impaired until some date of enlightenment
(pick your date or century)?
Something can be deeply wrong, i.e. immoral, without being the product of a cognitive abnormality,
and people can commit evil acts and hold evil beliefs without being mentally or psychologically
impaired. To attribute all retrograde political acts and beliefs to an individual's deficient
"theory of mind" (whatever that means exactly) is sociologically naive, psychologically untenable,
and historically invalid.
One fairly obvious point -- in response to your original post, not the article itself -- is
surely that the general consensus which united conservatives and liberals, that neoliberal economics
works, that war against weak countries can be waged on the cheap, and that the local working class
will always eat whatever excrement is put on their plates, has started to break down.
The alternatives seem to be to change the consensus, or spread bullshit that the consensus
is OK but just needs to be tweaked a bit. Trump is a right-wing bullshitter, Clinton is a
liberal bullshitter; there's nothing really new about that (much the same sort of thing happened
with those who continued to support the consensus during the Great Depression).
This excerpt seems to take a fairly dim view of the left and what it's had to offer in recent
years, and I can't say I really disagree, but I think Corey is underestimating the extent to which
a leftist resurgence is already underway. I still think 2008 was a turning point, not because
Obama himself really represented a new view of American liberalism (frankly, I think a hypothetical
Gore or Kerry administration would have been extremely similar to what we got from Obama), but
because the energy people invested in Obama's vision of America has never really dissipated. I
think liberals are liberals in large part because they prefer futurism to nostalgia, so it shouldn't
have been surprising that the candidate of "hope and change" beat a candidate whose political
persona is frozen in the mid-90s.
When Obama failed to embody the forward-looking ideals he campaigned on, some people checked
out, but you can trace clear lines of mass disillusionment and radicalization from 2008 to Occupy
and BLM to the Sanders campaign.
The question was never if there was an appetite for real leftism in the American electorate
(Clinton and Trump's unconvincing plagiarism of Sanders talking points are telling here, I think),
but whether the Democratic party, mired as it's been in institutional rot and complacency, would
ever tolerate true economic leftism when the "social liberalism" of identity and representation
seemed to work well enough and was so much less threatening to the moneyed interests that financed
the party's rightward swing.
For decades, the left wing of the Democratic party has been cajoled into voting for "liberal"
candidates that resemble nothing so much as the old aristocratic Whigs who used to discuss ways
to help the less fortunate over claret and cigars down at the gentlemen's club. We put up
with it because we were told that was the only way to keep Republican robber barons from reinstating
white male supremacy, criminalizing poverty, and declaring war on human decency. Trump was the
embodiment of that venal reactionary bogeyman and Clinton was supposed to be the bullwark of reason
and common sense -- the "electable" candidate -- that kept the far right at bay. George W. Bush
was a decent-seeming guy whose dad was president. Losing to him was tolerable if frustrating,
but Clinton losing feels like a broken promise, like the deal with the devil we made back in '92
is now null and void and it's time for something new.
I don't think there's any going back to the neocon/neolib era and I think even a lot of
moderate Republicans (who used to rely on friendly financiers like Romney to keep the rabid right
on-leash) are beginning to realize it. After all, what's the point of selling out if it doesn't
buy you anything?
"We came, we saw, he died – ha-ha-ha" is not president, and African-Americans are no longer
chained to the ineffective policies of the Democratic party and teachers unions. The neo-cons
are out: Bill Kristol, Max Boot and company are sworn enemies of the administration. Democratic
party neocons like HRC can longer launch democracy-building projects in the middle east. Long
may this continue.
A sociopath can be very good at reading and manipulating others. Having a theory of mind
is quite distinct from having empathy, and having empathy is quite distinct from using it pervasively
to guide personal/social/political life.
There's a few simple tricks, is the only word that works, I think, that you can do without
needing any insight into how people work. Stuff like being silent and letting people run their
mouth out, or being vague so that you can redefine what you meant post-facto and claiming success,
or the gish-gallop technique or a few other rhetorical tricks that can be used to confuse/blindside
people in various ways.
Power-sales techniques and what-have-you.
"Tricks", because if they work they work by mechanical rule-following and if people know enough
to recognise them they don't work at all. You don't need particular insight to use any of these,
you just need an audience that doesn't recognise them and isn't told about them. A lot
of the communication ones, in particular, rely on abuse of normal discourse structures/pragmatics,
which means that they're actually things that people with autism-spectrum conditions -- that severely
disrupt normal pragmatic structures -- might stumble into by, literally, accident.
With a drive to succeed and a handful of these tricks you can -- with luck, and we only hear
about the successes: there's an old technique for building a reputation that starts by sending
out 1024 letters that A will happen, and another 1024 saying the exact opposite -- build a small
fortune. But if you run into more-experienced players who can recognise the tricks you're using,
then you're not going to succeed against them, and it might go badly for you. Or they might give
you a half-million in fuck-off money just to get you out of their way, and you'd probably think
yourself awesome for getting it.
But since I haven't read a lot of Burke I need to decide, provisionally, whether to go with
the view that e.g. Reflections on the Revolution in France is a manifestation of "autism" or whether
to go with the view that it's a statement and elaboration of the author's political convictions.
I can't exactly see how the two descriptions you've provided are incompatible; can you explain
why you feel you need to decide, why do you feel that they can't both be true?
Calling 60 million Trump voters racist and/or fascist might feel good, but as Mark Lilla
sensibly observes, identity politics is Reagan's trickle-down economics for liberals, self-delusion
for folks out of answers. The 'solutions' for poor, black families in crisis on this thread illustrate
clearly why so many black voters in Michigan and elsewhere stayed home. Folks without work, safe
schools, and much hope want solutions – not 'this study says' or 'but, Republicans.''
America's cities are under Democratic control, for the most part, and the studies, the plans,
and the programs, and the teachers' unions haven't got the job done, unless creating a cycle of
failure and illiteracy qualifies as some form of progress, or success.
Donald Trump is president because the Democratic party abandoned the poorest, white and
black, not because 60 million Americans are actually fascists.
If Democrats can't provide solutions for ordinary people at the state, local and national level
the party is going to continue to keep losing elections.
"Both Left and Right concurred in the very shallow notion that National Socialism was merely a
version of Conservatism". Orwell in his review of "Mein Kampf".
Ah, there it is, the good shit, the barely-warmed-over Manhattan Institute talking points that
the conservative lie machine has been pushing for ages.
It's the sort of completely insane projection that falls apart at the most cursory examination,
to wit: the entire notion of destroying a public, universal service like secondary (and post-secondary,
in many cases) education in order to hand the system over to unscrupulous profiteers is [extremely
Zizek voice]PURE NEOLIBERALISM[/extremely Zizek voice].
It is exactly the kind of short-sighted maneuver that Democrats have been pulling for decades
now, trying to get "moderate" Republicans in the suburbs to vote for them, and its only effect
has been to undermine the concept of public education entirely. Some of the most vigorous advocates
of charter schools and union-busting have been Democrats, for fuck's sake! A nonexhaustive list:
Joel Klein, Arne Duncan, Rahm Emmanuel, and these are just the first three I could think of off
the top of my head; I guarantee that I could find you an list as long as your arm if I tried.
Top Democratic donors such as those from Silicon Valley and Wall Street are gung-ho about charter
schools and other similar scams like "online education." In the meantime, the actual research
shows that at best, charter schools are a wash in terms of performance and at worst they are basically
a fraud perpetrated upon both taxpayers and students in order to shovel money to people like DeVos.
What we have, and what Trump_vs_deep_state is merely one symptom of, is a massive crisis in public
governance. In large part, the people who are responsible for said governance brought it on themselves.
On the right-wing side, a propaganda machine has existed since the 1950s to sell people various
poisonous ideas (regulation is bad! the "free market" is good!) dressed up, in the best of times,
in quasi-academic language, and in the worst of times as just plain racism. The retreat from public
services that took place in the South once those services would have to be integrated is a great
tell; wealthy Virginians literally closed the entire state's public school system rather
than have to attend school with black children. On the center-left, the entire New Democrat generation
drank the idiot Kool-Aid that demanded we turn over anything and everything to market forces but!
with a slightly more advanced degree of wokeness. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the CTU, under a predominantly
black and Latino leadership, has been
at the forefront (PDF) of fighting privatization and the attendant segregation that follows
it, demanding resources from the austerity-mad Emmanuel administration so they can actually do
their jobs. Said fight, I should add, taking place with the support of the predominantly African-American
communities that are currently being brutalized by Rahm, so maybe if you care about black agency
as much as you claim you do (hahahaha) you might take that into account.
The Democratic party has not been nearly as good to the African-American community as the latter's
loyalty to the former (or, really, as basic justice) would seem to require, but the failure has
not been "too much Great Society programs" or "too many unionized teachers." That's tendentious,
ahistorical horseshit. The real failure has been the Democratic willingness to cast its most solid
coalition partner again and again into a racist market system in which they have to fight uphill
battles every step of the way. That Democrats are still a preferable alternative to the open eliminationism
of Trump supporters is not particularly to their credit, not when entire Democratic administrations
have failed to protect African-Americans from predatory lending or housing and workplace discrimination
or being killed by police officers or even do so much as keep them from being forced to drink
lead-tainted water.
Race is one the primary axes of American politics, and our reluctance to fund basic public
goods cannot be understood without acknowledging this basic fact. Lots of white people, but
especially the petit bourgeoisie that constitutes the core of Republican voters (who are, shock
of shocks, also the core of Trump voters), would rather eat dirt if it means that a black person
somewhere will have to eat shit, and unfortunately for all of us, the idiotic electoral system
we inherited from the slavers played to their advantage in this electoral cycle. Now Trump is
going to decertify the Iran deal so go take your "hurrrr neocons out" nonsense and shove it up
your ass, because all the same fucking lunatics who want to turn the Middle East into glass are
still in charge everywhere and a literally demented person holds the nuclear codes because showing
the libs whatfor is the only ideal that white middle America is even capable of processing anymore.
JRLRC 61 Thanks for some historical perspective. Reading this thread makes me give up hope for
the American Republic. Your leader misses no opportunity to exhibit contempt for democracy, contempt
for the rule of law, contempt for international treaty obligations, contempt for the UN world
order, contempt for diplomacy, contempt for truth, contempt for science, a guy who in real time
threatens to start a nuclear world war (remember CR wrote a whole post dismissing the idea that
Trump was reckless), and you people explain him away as just another conservative? Have you really
no sense of history? Frankly you must be out of your minds.
"We have seen that the function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of
production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility
for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source
of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on This
social function is already losing importance and is bound to lose it at an accelerating rate in
the future even if the economic process itself of which entrepreneurship was the prime mover went
on unabated. economic progress tends to become depersonalized and automatized. (p.132)
"Of old, roughly up to and including the Napoleonic Wars, generalship meant leadership and
success meant the personal success of the man in command who earned corresponding "profits" in
terms of social prestige This is no longer so. Rationalized and specialized office work will eventually
blot out personality, the calculable result, the "vision." The leading man no longer has the opportunity
to fling himself into the fray. He is becoming just another office worker -- and one who is not
always difficult to replace. in the last analysis the same social process -- undermines the role
and, along with the role, the social position of the capitalist entrepreneur. His role, though
less glamorous than that of medieval warlords, great or small, also is or was just another form
of individual leadership acting by virtue of personal force and personal responsibility for success
(p.133)
" contrasting the figure of the industrialist or merchant with that of the medieval lord. The
latter's "profession" not only qualified him admirably for the defense of his own class interest
-- he was not only able to fight for it physically -- but it also cast a halo around him and made
of him a ruler of men Of the industrialist and merchant the opposite is true. There is surely
no trace of any mystic glamour about him which is what counts in the ruling of men. The stock
exchange is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail. We have seen that the industrialist and merchant,
as far as they are entrepreneurs, also fill a function of leadership. But economic leadership
of this type does not readily expand, like the medieval lord's military leadership, into the leadership
of nations. On the contrary, the ledger and the cost calculation absorb and confine He can only
use rationalist and unheroic means to defend his position or to bend a nation to his will. He
can impress by what people may expect from his economic performance, he can argue his case, he
can promise to pay out money or threaten to withhold it, he can hire the treacherous services
of a condottiere or politician or journalist. But that is all and all of it is greatly overrated
as to its political value the bourgeois class is ill equipped to face the problems, both domestic
and international, that have normally to be faced by a country of any importance. (pp.137-8)
" capitalist policies wrought destruction much beyond what was unavoidable. They attacked the
artisan in reservations in which he could have survived for an indefinite time. They forced upon
the peasant all the blessings of early liberalism -- the free and unsheltered holding and all
the individualist rope he needed in order to hang himself In breaking down the pre-capitalist
framework of society, capitalism thus broke not only barriers that impeded its progress but also
flying buttresses that prevented its collapse. That process, impressive in its relentless necessity,
was not merely a matter of removing institutional deadwood, but of removing partners of the capitalist
stratum, symbiosis with whom was an essential element of the capitalist schema. Having discovered
this fact which so many slogans obscure, we might well wonder whether it is quite correct to look
upon capitalism as a social form sui generis or, in fact, as anything else but the last stage
of the decomposition of what we have called feudalism." (p.139)
Schumpeter, from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, ch. 7
Jerry Vinokurov@71 writes "there's absolutely no daylight whatsoever between 'mainstream' Republicans
and Trump when it comes to the lust for war "
This is overly optimistic in a way, yet overly pessimistic in another. For the first, there's
no daylight between Trump and "mainstream" Democrats when it comes to a lust for war.
For the second? It's clear both parties would support Trump if he ordered a decapitation strike
on North Korea, and it's likely both parties would support Trump if it failed and turned into
an all-out conflagration, no matter the fallout. But, the last president apt to such unilateral
war-making was Richard Nixon, and he was impeached for also discarding the two-party deal (a no
no on par with a Mexican President taking a second term.) Before the fact, however, there are
straws in the wind about impeachment, from the Washington Post op-ed, columnists Rubin and Waldman,
and "rumors" reported in Vanity Fair. Not a bright prospect, to be sure, no daylight at all?
The thing is, Trump is an owner who's there because he's finished with that political crap.
At this point, we probably have to hope that some general has the spine to tell Trump no, the
US army really is not a very good military force for anything that involves taking casualties,
which means it is fairly useless for actually conquering anything, as opposed to laying waste
in endless campaigns. But the spirit of West Point, the school of treason that produced many,
many, many more fighters against America than the CPUSA ever did, still rules. I'm not very hopeful.
I recall a story that Nixon boasted that after he was finished, they'd never make things like
they were again. That's the political theory of Trump_vs_deep_state. Today, when people will seriously argue
that Nixon was a liberal president, there is no ruling class appetite for democracy, old style
or bourgeois or what have you.
b9n10nt @68 links to Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates knows perfectly well that if the black voters
had turned out in larger numbers, Clinton would have won the Electoral College as well. People
trying to normalize Trump are not alone, Every single black voter who didn't see any difference
between Clinton and Trump agrees. Clinton tried to make the campaign about a symbolic endorsement
of anti-racism and anti-sexism, as opposed to the deplorables. Millions of black voters proved
they were having none of it. They stayed home.
OP: "conservatives have breached norms, flouted decorum, assailed elites, and shattered orthodoxy
throughout the ages." But is that not also exactly what anti-conservatives – progressives, revolutionaries
– have done? Or is it the wrong sort of breaching, flouting, assailing, shattering when conservatives,
not your friends, do it; but SOP when your friends do it?
Or are you maintaining that respectable norm-adhering, decorum-maintaining, elite-sustaining,
deeply orthodox left-wingers have always been the vast majority of anti-conservatives?
On further thought: elite-sustaining, yes, maybe, if you regard the nomenklatura as elite.
Orthodox also, for their own kind of orthodoxy.
None of this is intended to imply support for the remarkable Trump.
I wonder if that qualifies as push-polling? Is asking the question propaganda? This is
a legitimacy crisis. It is not as if Clinton partisans did not call Trump's electoral legitimacy
into question. Half the country think Russian "meddling" determined the result, when it is not
clear any "meddling" happened.
nastywoman
Yes, Americans have lost their collective mind, politically. I know several elderly people
(not much more elderly than me, truth to tell) who consume anti-Trump screeds from Seth Meyers
or Rachel Maddow on a daily basis. It is entertainment I suppose, but it does not inform them
or improve their critical thinking skills. One, a transplanted Englishman, described Maddow to
me the other day as "erudite".
The relentless flood tide of propaganda in American politics makes it exceedingly hard
to talk with any American realistically about what is going on, because so much of what is going
is exists not as objective and verified facts, but as shared, tendentious narratives. The actual
Trump seems to me to be a bit of a personal mess and an authoritarian in the same mode as the
blowhards who hang out at the barbershop; the Trump constructed by, say, Maddow's televised narratives
is something else, something more imagined than real. The imagined Trump has to be bigger, to
be fitted with cheap hyperbole.
An essential element of the propaganda narrative is the "distance" to the other. The "base
of Trump supporters" is a prop. Wondering what "they" could be thinking but not waiting for an
answer before launching scorn and ridicule on the way to slander is a method.
No Layman, there is plenty of irrefutable evidence that Clinton is a militarist who strongly
believes in force and the threat of force, especially when it comes to the ME – and this plays
just fine with the Democratic party establishment, actually it's a necessity considering the donor
base. Clinton's stance towards Iran and the nuclear deal is a matter of record. Next time don't
nominate a warmonger who voted for the Iraq war if you want to prevent someone like Trump – and
hey, maybe young people will trust you again.
There is no "real" Trump narrative; narratives are imagined stories, constructed according
to principles of dramatic art to create meaning and morality. With effort, it is possible to anchor
a narrative to facts, and to do so by methods that limit violence to the objectivity of facts.
Whether a well-anchored narrative is persuasive may be important to such enterprises as the operation
of law or even the progress of science.
In politics, the absence of the restraints imposed by institutions of law or science (which
often fail their purposes even in those domains) invite the practice of dark arts of propaganda
and mass manipulation. Our famously free press (spoken sarcastically) is thought to provide
a check; fact-check columns proliferate at times, but mostly prove how weak an instrument of the
public interest, a Media run by massive corporations and financially dependent on corporate business
advertising is.
A common practice now is to lead with counterfactuals: narratives in which the place of
facts is taken by theory and theory's constructions. "Because the whole thing is basically a fantasy,
nothing will disprove it."
Last week's New Yorker has a profile of Rachel Maddow.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/rachel-maddow-trumps-tv-nemesis
Janet Malcolm is full of praise for Maddow. For what she identifies, correctly, as entertainment.
She does not comment on whether political comment as entertainment makes for a healthy politics.
I think not.
My political theory of Trump_vs_deep_state is that this is what conservative politics unchecked, unopposed
and not responsible to any mass constituency produces. Trump says anything. But, it has been twenty
years since anyone in politics has been held to account for anything said, except for "gotcha"
moments of mostly fake outrage. Not that we would have a gotcha moment for Bush's war crimes.
But that is my point. Holding Clinton up as a standard of normalcy in politics runs into exactly
this same problem: she talks in the political code words, takes no responsibility for policy consequences
and shows every sign of greed and irresponsibility, but the counterfactual of her normalcy is
still set forward, with no awareness that it is a groundless narrative. This is not a point about
Clinton or Trump, but it is a point about a political process that produces a lot of stupid and
Trump is a bonus.
I was not intending to distinguish actual from real, if that was a question. I was intending
to distinguish objectively factual statements or descriptive observation from arguments taking
the form of narratives, particularly projective or counterfactual narratives that seem distant
from or untethered in the main from verifiable fact.
I think it is possible to make value judgments closely related to factual observation, without
projecting a narrative into the future or into an alternate reality.
Whether my statements characterizing Trump constitute a narrative or rely on narrative to justify
value judgments is a fine point I do not see the point in arguing at this time. I would not defend
my observations and judgment as constituting the one "true story".
"Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble became the most widely cited distillation of the effects Facebook
and other internet platforms could have on public discourse. Pariser began the book research when
he noticed conservative people, whom he'd befriended on the platform despite his left-leaning
politics, had disappeared from his News Feed. "I was still clicking my progressive friends' links
more than my conservative friends' -- and links to the latest Lady Gaga videos more than either,"
he wrote. 'So no conservative links for me.'
Through the book, he traces the many potential problems that the 'personalization' of media
might bring. Most germane to this discussion, he raised the point that if every one of the billion
News Feeds is different, how can anyone understand what other people are seeing and responding
to? 'The most serious political problem posed by filter bubbles is that they make it increasingly
difficult to have a public argument.' "
I think everyone here agrees we have problems to address. If the solutions I supported most
of my life were working in places such as California, I wouldn't feel the need for radical change.
Had the Democratic candidate not supported the Iraq war, alongside Biden, McCain et al, and then
'learned' her lesson by violent regime-change in Libya (described by Obama as a 'shit-show'),
and then embarked upon program of cash collection from the powerful and secrecy towards her coronation,
I might have wavered back towards the Dems. Bernie would have drawn me like a magnet. But given
the choice between the devil I know and the one I don't I choose the latter. Trump may yet screw
things up and people are free to disagree about his skills and solutions.
It's pretty easy today to forget that both Bill and Hillary attended Trump's (most recent)
wedding. Their daughter Chelsea is/was a good friend of Ivanka Trump (a convert to Judaism) and
her husband. The criticism of bedrock conservatives repeatedly loudly and publicly even today,
is that Trump is more of a Democrat than a conservative.
I stand by my belief that Trump built a public persona as a race-baiting, loudmouth buffoon
that carried him straight into the WH despite a fervent, well-funded bi-partisan effort to unseat
him from the time he declared up right to the present. Studying the buffoon tells us practically
nothing about the individual. He's ordinary, capable, ambitious, avaricious, and mired in the
world of the senses rather than the mind. There are worse traits and places to be.
Corey, it's a must read, especially for those in your field and for anyone interested in how
information is being manufactured, filtered, distributed, and internalized.
Hint: we don't know whattf others are reading and thinking, and won't be finding out anytime
soon.
I don't think Clinton would have cancelled the Iran agreement because it leaves the US exposed
as the one clearly breaking its word, annoying its allies. I think she would have found cleverer
ways to be bellicose. For instance, her supporter Michael Morell told Charlie Rose we should be
covertly killing Iranians and Russians in Syria so that they would know we did it. He didn't spell
it out, but by saying "covert" he meant we would deny it publicly. Clinton also wanted protected
zones for refugees, which in practice would mean massive air strikes and ground forces and in
a sanctuary for rebels to use as they strike at the Syrians and Russians and Iranians and Hezbollah.
Before someone objects to irrelevant Clinton bashing, there is a larger point. Trump is awful
and I favor removing him via the 25th Amendment because I think he might start a war with N Korea.
But a great many of Trump's opponents are opposed to him because he is an incompetent boob and
not because they oppose American warmongering. They favor it, but don't trust Trump to do it correctly.
@122 I'm going to respectfully leave that for you to figure out on your own. I'll close all further
communication with you by suggesting that your aggressive and uniformly uncharitable reading of
the remarks of others may complicate your understanding of relatively simple statements.
@123 I enjoy your comments very much, generally. And 123 is entirely fair.
I find very little in Trump's first term that is remarkable, or revolutionary. He seems to
understand that he can't go to war with a Republican party he's ostensibly supposed to lead. Corey
and others are correct, I believe, in asserting that Trump is fundamentally uninterested in governing,
and entirely wrapped up in frequent external validations. I'll add that he thrives on conflict
and perhaps instinctively knows how and when to rally his base. I've certainly seen him switch
gears/targets during rallies when he senses he's losing the crowd.
Unlike you, and probably many others, I don't take anything any politician says seriously,
especially Trump. Actions, rather than words, matter far more. Trump might like to get credit
for a decapitation strike on NK and I think you nailed it when you noted that such a strike would
win him bi-partisan support. He's more interested, imho, in getting credit for a golden economic
age however fanciful that notion may be.
Overall, I still defer to Scott Adams and look forward to his new book (any day)
"Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter." By all means buy Corey's Book, but
keep Adams in the back of your mind for light reading.
Trump may well blow us all up, but I've been told that could happen pretty much every day since
I can recall. What I can say, re: Kim, is that I was here in Japan when Bill Clinton started looking
seriously at removing Kim and all the Americans I knew here were crapping themselves. Can't see
it happening simply because nobody wants to see downtown Seoul and Tokyo vaporized, one of which
is a near-certainty, and that's if the conflict remains contained. The 1 percent in China, the
US, Korea, Russia, and Japan aren't about to let anybody risk a regional conflagration.
Michael Morell is a former CI A director and I saw speculation that he was a likely member of
a Clinton Administration. About the same time that he appeared on Charlie Rose he had also published
an op ed endorsing Clinton for President.
But you also ignored my other points. Clinton favored a safe zone in Syria, which is tantamount
to an invasion of Syria and armed conflict with their government and its allies. And Clinton herself
was and is representative of a large number of Very Serious People who thought Obama had botched
Syria by not intervening on a large enough scale. There is a big constituency for more vigorous
action against Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. ( There is also a constituency for more intervention
in the Ukraine.). Clinton was clearly part of that. She also told AIPAC that we needed to take
our relationship with Israel to the next level, and the only comment I recall reading about her
regarding Yemen was about Iranian intervention, but to be honest I would need to look that up
to be sure.
Clinton pushed for the Libyan intervention.
Again, she is irrelevant now, but she was part of the group who wanted yet more American military
intervention in the Middle East. That group is still around. Your response was to avoid all my
points and to pretend Morrell is just some random supporter.
Last comment of the day. But I googled and found something I didn't know. Morell was one of her
advisors last fall and said we should be stopping and boarding Iranian ships to prevent them from
sending weapons to the Houthis.
J-D 'Can you explain how the construction of Trump in an (illustrative example) imagined narrative
differs from an objective description of Trump?'
Here is a quote from a Vox article dated Oct 13: ". . . obviously, there's Donald Trump, who
has dispensed with one democratic norm after another. He's fired an FBI director in order to undercut
an investigation into his campaign's possible collusion with Moscow . . ."
The article is not about Trump. Sean Illing, the author, is using Trump as an illustration.
Or, rather he is using a narrative about Trump where Trump colluded with the Russian state to
win election by foul means. If you accept the donnée of Trump's collusion with Russia, then it
follows that Trump fired Comey in what practically amounts to obstruction of justice. And, a considerable
volume of reporting has supported that narrative. One set of reports had Comey fired right after
he made a budget request to fund an expanded investigation. A dossier put together by a British
spy implied that Trump was being blackmailed by Russians. A meeting of arranged by one of Trump's
sons with a Russian lawyer was supposedly baited with an offer of dirt on Clinton and this meeting
has been interpreted as confirming the Trump campaign's willingness to collude. There has been
a lot of speculation in the Media in support of this narrative is my point. At the time Comey
was fired, there was a great volume of speculation centered on what Trump said in his letter dismissing
Comey, calling into question the claim by Trump that Comey had assured Trump on three occasions
that Trump himself was not under investigation. In support of the narrative that Trump had obstructed
justice, Comey's character and positive reputation were touted by some journalists.
But, despite the tremendous volume of journalistic speculation structured around this narrative
of collusion, there are no confirmed and unambiguous facts to support it. So, Illing must qualify
his use of the narrative as an example of bad behavior with the insertion of the weasel words,
"possible collusion".
In a better world than the one we are living in, responsible journalists are careful and judicious
in both verifying facts and grounding the narratives they use with facts. The facts that can be
ascertained and verified become constraints on the story, on the choice of narrative. That does
not necessarily happen. Sometimes, journalists go with a "good story" that resonates with readers
and attracts clicks or viewers. And, they construe such facts as there are in ways that support
the chosen narrative without exercising judgment or attempting verification. The story -- the
choice of narrative script -- becomes a constraint on the facts and their interpretation.
I think the balance of available factual evidence suggests pretty strongly that Trump did not
collude with the Russian state to defeat Clinton. An honest and balanced "objective" description
of factors affecting the electoral outcome and Trump's conduct do not support the idea that there
was collusion or even that the Russians did much of anything to affect the election beyond openly
funding a cable news channel. The dossier peddled by the British ex-spy was pretty ridiculous
on its face. The Comey budget request was a pure invention. Responsible journalists would have
attempted to verify details in the dossier or reported on how absurd many parts of it were. Journalists
assessing Comey's character might have taken a more critical perspective.
If the factual basis for "possible collusion" is taken away, the obstruction of justice charge
evaporates. Trump becomes a President who does not want to be dogged by a groundless investigation,
fishing for a blue dress until it finds one. Trump the President finds he does not want to have
the hack, Comey hanging out. Useful when he was tripping up his opponent, not so attractive as
a companion.
Trump viewed plainly is still a fairly alarming figure to have in a powerful office, but a
narrative of traitorous collusion with a national enemy, titillating as it may be as news entertainment,
is not descriptively accurate given the available evidence and appropriately balanced methods
of evaluating that evidence. (During the campaign, Trump called on Russia to disclose the emails
Clinton claimed to have deleted. I suppose one could take that as a joke or a call for collusion
with Boris and Natasha. I think joke is the better, more natural interpretation.)
You did it again, layman. I refuted what you said to me even if you take it in the narrowest possible
way. You objected to my reference to Morell's statement, implying that he was just some random
Clinton supporter using some silly argument about. " Donald Johnson supporter" who drowns kittens.
I showed that this argument was wrong and Morell was one of Clinton's advisors. If you want to
stick to issues, then stick to them and don't make silly arguments and get them wrong.
The larger point is that in Washington the fight between Trump and many ( obviously not all)
of his critics is a fight between two groups of militarists.. It would be good if people acknowledged
this. In a way it is three groups of militarists,, since Trump's personal incoherence makes him
a group unto himself. But on Iran there is an important disagreement between those who want to
dump the nuclear agreement and those who want to adhere to it, but are otherwise hardliners who
badly want more confrontation.
On your main point, when you aren't trivializing mine, yes, Trump is worse than Clinton because
he is not only an arrogant militarist (a trait he shares with Clinton and many others), but ignorant
and irrational.
Layman, small differences between Clinton and Trump do not dominate Clinton's very large political
defects. You had an argument for relentlessly focusing on differences to the exclusion of appreciating
the whole reality, maybe, when there was a choice on an upcoming ballot. Now, we live in the shadow
of Clinton's defects: her defects gave us Trump. And, those defects are not so much the qualities
of an individual person -- Clinton or Trump -- as they are the persistent institutional personalities
of large political factions and institutional actors: the Democratic Party establishment, the
Deep State intelligence agencies and military-industrial complex, the Foreign Policy Blob, the
corporate Media, et cetera.
Bullying others in comments over such fine points as whether Clinton would have respected
certain forms of the Iran nuclear deal is not contributing much to the discussion. We can see
that Trump is hostile to that agreement and is cynically manipulating the forms in ways likely
to make the agreement come apart. What relevance a counterfactual projection of Clinton's behavior
might have is not clear; asserting that acceptance of such a counterfactual as "true" should be
a dispositive criteria for rationality borders on the bizarre.
The relevant fact is not some putative small differences between Trump and Clinton (and the
factions and interests and institutionalized views she sought to represent as a fully paid-up
member of the Foreign Policy Blob), but the near-absence in American politics of a countervailing
force to the consensus of views and interests promoting a palsied, nearly mindless imperial aggression.
Morell's views are relevant to showing just how extreme and reckless is this "center" that Clinton
represented, and understanding how and why the "center" is not doing much to restrain the Trump.
Some powerful forces cultivated by the Democratic establishment have always been hostile to Iran,
supportive of Saudi Arabia and so on.
TM, the idea that CR is minimizing Trump seems bizarre to me. If anyone understands the incoherent
viciousness of conservatism as the impulse to dominate in a hierarchical polity, it is our gracious
host. Trump is expressing conservative ideas and impulses that have always been there. He is not
new. That bit of narrative hyperbole -- that Trump is different from all those nice responsible
conservatives of the past -- is a dangerous deception. What is different in our political moment
is the collapse of effective opposition from the left and centre-left. Trump is so scary because
so little stands in his way, so little compels him (or the various factions enjoying the power
associated with the authority of office under his aegis, including the practical military junta
at the core of his Administration) to moderate his policies, let alone his rhetoric.
what I always find grotesque about the accusations of Russian meddling is the full ticket
obliviousness to all the meddling the US used to perform in Russian elections, and in fact in
many other elections worldwide. It's quite a sorry sight to see people like you make a fuss about
very minor activities (if there's even evidence of any), without as much as a shred of self awareness.
Also, too: I've said I think she's bad on militarism. I'm not interested in, and don't,
defend the other side of that argument. I just don't have any patience for the sort of nonsense
that wants to paint her as an eater of babies. She's a bog-standard, mainstream adherent of
the global diplomatic, economic and military order. That's not good, but it ain't Satan either.
The global diplomatic, economic and military order is downright evil and full-scale babyeating.
Ask around in Yemen, Syria, Lybia, etc. So yes, she has that Satan streak. That that's bog-standard
and mainstream is horrific, but I grant you that's the world we live in.
Note, BTW, that she was directly involved in at least some of these actions. She has, even
now, more blood on her hands than Trump.
Layman, this is the third time your response is frustratingly beside the point and after this
I am giving up, because you are just going to continue doing it. I didn't just quote other people.
I said Clinton supported intervention in Syria, that she supported the Libyan intervention and
of course she voted for the Iraq War. She is also a standard AIPAC panderer. Do your own googling
if you actually care about this rather than try to save face in some internet thread. It's well
known Clinton is a hawk.
My point was that yes, she is a bog standard militarist and one of the points I was making
is that even if she is no longer relevant, the people who are militaristic in their attitudes
still are. You are the one between the two of us who wants to make it mainly about Clinton, but
since you brought up baby eating, that is you once again trivializing the consequences of bog
standard US militarism.
'Police departments will now have access to military surplus equipment typically used in warfare,
including grenade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced
on Monday, describing it as "lifesaving gear."'
All of the foregoing actions could have been predicted during the campaign.
It is quite true that the U.S. has interfered in the elections of other nations, with disastrous
consequences for many of those nations. Why this should tie hands now is not clear to me. Highly
unlikely the Russians were engaged in righteous retribution for Mossadegh. I suspect some would
be taking a less dismissive tone had, say, the Chinese interfered on behalf of Clinton the bloodthirsty.
Layman@159 :
Based on this and your prior comment, you're asking for counterfactuals, because of course
Clinton-the-non-President is not capable of being even as bad as let alone worse than Trump-the-President.
However, based on your comments elsewhere in the thread, you're dismissing any counterfactuals
out of hand. Taken together, this is not a tack taken by someone who is interested in a serious
dialogue, or really, any dialogue. Can we dispense with that sort of horseshit?
Either Clinton has no relevance at all, in which case you can forgo with the pedantic lectures
about how she's vastly superior in all ways to Trump (
@95 ) and we can hopefully resume forgetting that she exists, or the comparison of a hypothetical
Clinton presidency to the current administration has some value in the conversation even when
someone other than you is making it (
@96 ). Until and unless you're willing and able to unravel the fundamental contradiction between
these perfectly incompatible stances – which have infected every exchange you've made downthread
of the them – there's no point at all in trying to discuss this with you in any detail, and there's
certainly no reason for us to run and fetch answers for you in response to your ever-changing
standards.
I didn't go back to see who first mentioned Clinton, but the point made by at least a few of us
is that Clinton is only important at this point as a representative of a broad segment of the
Beltway crowd that is constantly pushing for more military intervention, either directly or by
proxy, and that some of the opposition to Trump doesn't come from antiwar types, but from people
who don't trust him to warmonger in a competent way.
If people want a sane non- militaristic foreign policy it's going to take more than just opposition
to Trump. You are also going to have to oppose some of Trump's opponents in both parties. The
one time Trump received positive feedback and praise from many in the Beltway was when he bombed
Syria.
If XYZ does not exist, it doesn't exist. If it does exist, it exists. I agree that in our present
state of political disorganization among the broad mass, most people do not know much about constitutes
a political issue. And, they don't know what they want politically.
nastywoman @ 175
"Such "thinking" is as "Alien" as blaming the kid who was mauled by a Pit Bull the other day
– "because so little stood in the Pit Bulls way and so little did "compel him".
"What type of person – what type of people can think like that?!"
The kind of person who thinks dogs should be kept on a leash. The type of person who can think
like that is highly intelligent, suave and debonair.
Why are people still talking about Clinton? In general, because Clinton won't shut up. She's as
hungry for a microphone and the spotlight as the conservative in question. Which is ironic considering
that her aversion to the press and the public as a candidate helped cost her the election. Now,
she can't stop talking. Bannon would willingly bankroll the book tour and undoubtedly wants her
to remain in the spotlight through 2018. Indeed, Bannon is banking on making Hillary a key part
of Trump's re-election in 2020, as role she looks all too eager to fill. Chew on that as you gaze
into the future.
Why are people talking about Hillary here, on a thread about Trump and conservatism? Because
a plausible argument can be made that Hillary is more of conservative than Trump, at least in
terms of neo-conservative politics. She has, after all, two neo-con wars under her belt already
and enjoys good relations with all the really wrong people. Her avarice and willingness to tell
tales are at least comparable to Trump's. But perhaps the best reason Hillary belongs here is
because many believe that had a less conservative Democrat than Hillary run (Bernie, for example),
Dems would have won and Donald Trump would be yesterday's news.
To get a sense of what the Democratic future looks like, here's a very recent interview with
Hillary which I think is illustrative of the level of disconnect between supporters (like me)
who felt strongly enough about her candidacy in 2008 to endure accusations of racism from Obama
supporters, yet turned from her to Trump by 2015, and those who still support her for reasons
that make a great deal of sense (to them).
The interview with Hillary about Hillary runs 45 minutes on Australian TV with a transcript.
Take away – Trump figures bigly and in the most unflattering terms, so much for graciousness in
defeat. The Access Hollywood tape is discussed in great detail, as is Comey, and the Russians.
The words Wall St; Goldman Sachs, Libya, and Syria are never mentioned. In Hillary-world Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Bernie Sanders merit a mention each and only in a very specific context. We get
David Duke, the Klu Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists; pizzas – and pure deflection
when the discussion turns to Bill, Chelsea, gifts; and cash. In short, she hasn't much of a good
word to say about anyone.
Here's a sampling for the still faithful.
" Russians actually paid in rubles for running ads in ah Facebook and on Twitter making all
kinds of accusations against me, working to suppress voters which is a really important part of
the equation " (suppress voters, or decrease turnout? The latter fits better, imho.)
Interviewer: "Is it, is it the case that you missed the fundamentally angry sentiment in the
US last year against globalisation?
HILLARY CLINTON: I didn't miss it "
Interviewer: "Was it in some ways your links to big money politics that made it difficult for
you to be the representative of that anger ?
HILLARY CLINTON: No, not at all! You know, when I was in the primary, Bernie Sanders couldn't
explain his programs. I was the one who was saying here's what we're going to do to the banks
"
One mere mention of Wisconsin: "we know is that the false information was aimed at Wisconsin
and Michigan and parts of Pennsylvania "
Economic nationalism in key ideas is close to Mussolini version of corporatism. It is about
the alliance of state with large corporation but of less favorable to large corporations terms
then under neoliberalism, which is a flavor of corporatism as well, but extremely favorable to
the interests of transactionals.
So grossly simplifying, this is Mussolini version of corporatism (Make Italy Great Again),
minus foreign wars, minus ethnic component (replacing it with more modern "cultural nationalism"
agenda).
Bannon is definitely overrated. It is jobs that matter and he has no real plan. Relying on
tax cutting and deregulation is not a plan. In this sense, yes, he is a paper tiger. And not a
real nationalist, but some kind of castrated variety.
One thing that plays into Bannon hands in the DemoRats (neoliberal Democrats led by
Hillary Clinton) were completely discredited during the last elections.
Notable quotes:
"... But his statements show that it's all bluster and no real strategy. Democrats seem poised to take back Congress precisely because of Republican extremism, not because institutional Republicans are inadequately racist and nationalist. ..."
"... Like Karl Rove before him, Steven Bannon is a paper tiger. ..."
There is a tendency on the left to overestimate the abilities of conservative campaign gurus
and spinmeisters after a bitter defeat. In the aughts, Karl Rove was seen as the Svengali
mastermind of Republican politics, a nefarious force smarter and more cunning than all the
left's braintrust put together. It turned out not to be true. Karl Rove didn't have "the math"
and never really did: Rove mostly got lucky by a combination of butterfly ballots in Florida,
and happening to hold power during a terrorist attack that saw Democrats cowed into submission
rather than holding the president and his team accountable for their failure to protect the
country.
Steve Bannon is taking on a similar mystique for some. But Bannon is no more special than
Rove...
... ... ...
Bannon is
going
to war " with the GOP establishment, even going so far as to countermand Trump's own
endorsement in the Alabama Senate race and force the president to back a loser.
But his statements show that it's all bluster and no real strategy. Democrats seem
poised to take back Congress precisely because of Republican extremism, not because
institutional Republicans are inadequately racist and nationalist.
And his prediction to the Values Voter Summit that Trump will
win 400 electoral votes in 2020 is simply preposterous on its face. It's no better than
even odds that Trump will even finish out his term, much less sweep to a Reaganesque landslide
in three years. During the same speech, Bannon quipped a line destined to be fodder for the
inevitable 2018 campaign commercials accusing Trump of actively blowing up the ACA
exchanges and driving up premiums in a bid to kill the program.
Like Karl Rove before him, Steven Bannon is a paper tiger. Democrats need only
muster courage, conviction and hard work to teach him the same lesson they taught Rove in 2006.
David Atkins is a writer, activist and
research professional living in Santa Barbara. He is a contributor to the Washington Monthly's
Political Animal and president of The Pollux Group, a qualitative research firm.
"... Despite the potential pitfalls of Cotton and Netanyahu's plan, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley embraced the approach. Haley, a possible replacement for embattled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, tweeted yesterday, "[Sen. Tom Cotton] has clear understanding of the Iranian regime & flaws in the nuclear deal. His [CFR] speech is worth reading." ..."
"... The United States must cease all appeasement, conciliation, and concessions towards Iran, starting with the sham nuclear negotiations. Certain voices call for congressional restraint, urging Congress not to act now lest Iran walk away from the negotiating table, undermining the fabled yet always absent moderates in Iran. But, the end of these negotiations isn't an unintended consequence of Congressional action, it is very much an intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so to speak." ..."
"... Any agreement that advances our interests must by necessity compromise Iran's -- doubly so since they are a third-rate power, far from an equal to the United States. The ayatollahs shouldn't be happy with any deal; they should've felt compelled to accept a deal of our choosing lest they face economic devastation and military destruction of their nuclear infrastructure. That Iran welcomes this agreement is both troubling and telling. ..."
"... Ben Armbruster, writing for LobeLog last week, detailed the ways in which Mark Dubowitz , CEO of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies , pushes for a so-called "better deal" while explicitly calling for regime change in Tehran. ..."
"... But perhaps a bigger pressure on Trump to de-certify comes from three of his biggest political donors : Sheldon Adelson , Paul Singer , and Bernard Marcus . All three have funded groups that sought to thwart the negotiations leading to the JCPOA, including Dubowitz's FDD, and have given generously to Trump. ..."
"... Adelson has also financed Israel's largest circulation daily newspaper, whose support for Netanyahu and his right-wing government earned it the nickname "Bibiton." ..."
The Post credits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Tom Cotton
(R-AR) with this "fix it or nix it" approach to U.S. compliance with the JCPOA. Indeed, Cotton
laid out essentially this very strategy in a speech
at the Council on Foreign Relations in which he proposed that the president should decertify
Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal based on Iran's actions in unrelated areas and toughen
key components of the agreement, arguing that the deal fails to serve U.S. national security
interests.
Despite the potential pitfalls of Cotton and Netanyahu's plan, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
embraced the approach. Haley, a possible replacement for embattled Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, tweeted
yesterday, "[Sen. Tom Cotton] has clear understanding of the Iranian regime & flaws in the
nuclear deal. His [CFR] speech is worth reading."
But Cotton has been clear that renegotiating the nuclear deal isn't his actual intention. In
2015, he made no secret of his desire to blow up diplomacy with Iran, saying
:
The United States must cease all appeasement, conciliation, and concessions towards
Iran, starting with the sham nuclear negotiations. Certain voices call for congressional
restraint, urging Congress not to act now lest Iran walk away from the negotiating table,
undermining the fabled yet always absent moderates in Iran. But, the end of these
negotiations isn't an unintended consequence of Congressional action, it is very much an
intended consequence. A feature, not a bug, so to speak."
Later that same year, Cotton explained his terms for any agreement with Iran, qualities that
more closely resemble a surrender document than anything the Iranians would agree to in a
negotiation. Cotton
said :
Any agreement that advances our interests must by necessity compromise Iran's --
doubly so since they are a third-rate power, far from an equal to the United States. The
ayatollahs shouldn't be happy with any deal; they should've felt compelled to accept a deal
of our choosing lest they face economic devastation and military destruction of their nuclear
infrastructure. That Iran welcomes this agreement is both troubling and telling.
Indeed, Cotton and his fellow proponents of the president de-certifying Iranian compliance,
despite all indications that Iran is complying with the JCPOA, have a not-so-thinly-veiled goal
of regime change in Tehran, a position in which the JCPOA and any negotiations with Iran pose a
serious threat. Ben Armbruster, writing for LobeLog last week,
detailed the ways in which Mark Dubowitz , CEO of the
neoconservative Foundation for
Defense of Democracies , pushes for a so-called "better deal" while explicitly calling for
regime change in Tehran.
"I think that Iran is the devil," said Marcus in a 2015 Fox Business interview . Adelson told a Yeshiva University
audience in 2013 that U.S. negotiators should launch a nuclear weapon at Iran as a
negotiating tactic. Adelson may hold radical views about the prudence of a nuclear attack on Iran, but he
appears to enjoy easy access to Trump. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who were Trump's biggest
financial supporters by far during his presidential run, met with the president at Adelson's
headquarters in Las Vegas recently, ostensibly to discuss the recent mass shooting there.
But Andy Abboud, senior vice president Government Relations for Adelson's Sands Corporation,
told the Adelson-owned Las Vegas Review Journal that the meeting was "pre-arranged and set to
discuss policy,"
according to the paper .
Adelson has also financed Israel's largest circulation daily
newspaper, whose support for Netanyahu and his right-wing government earned it the nickname
"Bibiton."
Eli Clifton reports on money in politics and U.S. foreign policy. He's
previously reported for the American Independent News Network, ThinkProgress, and Inter Press
Service.
I thought the same way as John in January 2017. We both were definitely wrong. As were
many people who voted for Trump in a hope to block ascendance of neocon warmonger Hillary Clinton
to power. Now it is unclear whether Hillary Clinton would be so disastrous in foreign policy
as Trump or slightly less so.
The period when Trump was at least formally ant-war is firmly in the past now and probably
ended with inauguration. In April Trump folded to neocons and destroyed his
anti-war credentials with
Tomahawk salvo in Syria. Instead of fighting "the Washington swap" as he promised to his voters,
he became a part of the swamp. In August Trump himself emerged as a bona-fide warmonger stoking the
tension with North Korea. And in October he decertified Iran deal.
Notable quotes:
"... The implications of this move are, arguably, breathtaking. Trump treated Putin as his ally, not as a hated adversary. And he treated Obama and the bipartisan foreign policy elite of Washington as his adversaries, not his allies -- a move that makes perfect sense if Trump's desire is to rein in the War Party's New Cold War and to strive for a New Détente with Russia. ..."
"... If the main enemy is those who are stoking the New Cold War and risking worse, then Trump has placed himself squarely against these war hawks. And stop to consider for a moment who these folks are. Besides President Obama and Hillary Clinton, they represent a full-blown armchair army: neocons, liberal interventionists, the mainstream media, various Soros-funded "non-governmental organizations," virtually all the important think tanks, the leadership of both major parties, and the CIA and the other U.S. intelligence agencies. This array of Official Washington's power elite has been working 24/7 at demonizing Putin and stoking tensions with nuclear-armed Russia. Trump took on all of them on with his tweet! ..."
"... As Trump looks for new allies in pursuit of a New Détente and a relaxation of U.S.-Russian tensions, Putin is foremost among them. Thus, in the struggle for peace, Trump has drawn new lines, and they cross national borders. Not since Ronald Reagan embraced Mikhail Gorbachev or Richard Nixon went to China have we seen a development like this. In this new battle to reduce tensions between nuclear powers, Trump has shown considerable courage, taking on a wide range of attackers. ..."
When President Obama expelled Russian diplomats over the hysterical and unproven accusation
of Russia "hacking the election," Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to be drawn into a
petty squabble, saying he would delay any response until Donald Trump assumed office. Instead
Putin invited American diplomats and their families in Moscow to join the official holiday
celebrations in the Kremlin.
Then came the shock that shook Official Washington: President-elect Trump, in the form of a
tweet heard round the world, wrote: "Great move on delay (by V. Putin) -- I always knew he
was very smart!"
And just to be sure that everyone saw it, Trump "pinned" the tweet which means it is the
first thing seen by viewers of his account. This was a first use of "pinning" for Trump. And to
be doubly sure, he posted it on Instagram as well. This was no spontaneous midnight outburst
but a very deliberate action taken on Friday noon, Dec. 30, the day after Obama had issued his
retaliation order.
The implications of this move are, arguably, breathtaking. Trump treated Putin as his
ally, not as a hated adversary. And he treated Obama and the bipartisan foreign policy elite of
Washington as his adversaries, not his allies -- a move that makes perfect sense if
Trump's desire is to rein in the War Party's New Cold War and to strive for a New
Détente with Russia.
If the main enemy is those who are stoking the New Cold War and risking worse, then
Trump has placed himself squarely against these war hawks. And stop to consider for a moment
who these folks are. Besides President Obama and Hillary Clinton, they represent a full-blown
armchair army: neocons, liberal interventionists, the mainstream media, various Soros-funded
"non-governmental organizations," virtually all the important think tanks, the leadership of
both major parties, and the CIA and the other U.S. intelligence agencies. This array of
Official Washington's power elite has been working 24/7 at demonizing Putin and stoking
tensions with nuclear-armed Russia. Trump took on all of them on with his tweet!
Putin as Ally Against the War Party
As Trump looks for new allies in pursuit of a New Détente and a relaxation of
U.S.-Russian tensions, Putin is foremost among them. Thus, in the struggle for peace, Trump has
drawn new lines, and they cross national borders. Not since Ronald Reagan embraced Mikhail
Gorbachev or Richard Nixon went to China have we seen a development like this. In this new
battle to reduce tensions between nuclear powers, Trump has shown considerable courage, taking
on a wide range of attackers.
Later that afternoon, Maya Kosoff writing for Vanity Fair
put out an article
entitled "Twitter Melts Down over 'Treason' After Trump Praises Putin." The first batch of such
tweets came from "journalists and other foreign policy experts," the next from Evan McMullin,
the former CIA officer who tried to draw off Republican votes from Trump in the general
election, who tweeted: "To be clear, @realDonaldTrump is siding with America's greatest
adversary even as it attacks our democracy. Never grow desensitized to this."
Finally came the predictable rash of tweets calling Trump's words "treasonous" or
"seditious." In response, Team Trump refused to issue a "clarification," saying instead that
Trump's words spoke for themselves.
As stunning as Trump's tweet was in many ways, it was in other ways entirely predictable.
Despite the mainstream media's scorn and Hillary Clinton's mocking him as Putin's "puppet,"
Trump has held firm to his promise that he will seek peace with Russia and look for areas of
cooperation such as fighting terrorism.
So, even when Trump's Russia comments appeared to cost him politically, he stuck with them,
suggesting that he believes that this détente is important. The rule of thumb is that if
a politician says something that will win votes, you do not know whether it is conviction or
opportunism. But if a politician says something that should lose her or him votes, then you can
bet it is heartfelt.
Trump was bashed over his resistance to the New Cold War both during the Republican
primaries when many GOP leaders were extremely hawkish on Russia and during the general
election when the Clinton campaign sought to paint him as some sort of Manchurian Candidate.
Even his vice presidential candidate Mike Pence staked out a more hawkish position than
Trump.
Trump stood by his more dovish attitude though it presented few electoral advantages and
many negatives. By that test, he appears to be sincere. So, his latest opening to Putin was
entirely predictable.
A Choice of Peace or War
What is troubling, however, is that some Americans who favor peace hate Trump so much that
they recoil from speaking out in his defense over his "treasonous" tweet though they may
privately agree with it. Some progressives are uncomfortable with the mainstream's descent into
crude McCarthyism but don't want to say anything favorable about Trump.
After all, a vote for President is either thumbs up or thumbs down -- nothing in
between -- though voters may like or dislike some policy prescriptions of one candidate
and other positions of another candidate. And progressives could list many reasons to not vote
for Trump.
But a presidential administration is multi-issued -- not all or none. One can disagree
with a president on some issues and agree on others. For instance, many progressives are
outraged over Trump's harsh immigration policies but agree with him on scrapping the TPP trade
deal.
In other words, there is no reason why those who claim to be for peace should not back Trump
on his more peaceful approach toward Putin and Russia, even if they disdain his tough talk
about fighting terrorism. That is the reality of politics.
What I've discovered is that many progressives -- as well as many on the Right --
who oppose endless war and disdain empire will tell you in whispers that they do support
Trump's attempt at Détente 2.0, though they doubt he will succeed. In the meantime, they
are keeping their heads down and staying quiet.
But clearly Trump's success depends on how much support he gets -- as weighed against
how much grief he gets. By lacking the courage to defend Trump's "treasonous tweet," those who
want to rein in the warmongers may be missing a rare opportunity. If those who agree with Trump
on this issue stay silent, it may be a lost opportunity as well.
John V. Walsh, an anti-war activist, can be reached at [email protected]
Bastard neoliberalism by Trump (and Bannon) are inconsistent. You can't be half pregnant -- to be
a neoliberal (promote deregulation, regressive taxes) and be anti-immigration and anti-globalist. In
this sense words Trump is doomed: neoliberal are determined to get rid of him.
Reagan was a former governor of California before becoming the President. hardly a complete outsider.
Trump was an outsider more similar to Barak Obama in a sense that he has no political record and can
ride on backlash against neoliberal globalization, especially outsourcing and offshoring and unlimited
immigration, as well as ride anti-globalism sentiments and popular protest against foreign wars. Only
quickly betraying those promised afterward. Much like king of "bait and switch" Obama .
Notable quotes:
"... Among the signature issues of Trumpian populism is economic nationalism, a new trade policy designed to prosper Americans first. ..."
"... Reagan preached free trade, but when Harley-Davidson was in danger of going under because of Japanese dumping of big bikes, he slammed a 50 percent tariff on Japanese motorcycles. Though a free trader by philosophy, Reagan was at heart an economic patriot. ..."
"... He accepted an amnesty written by Congress for 3 million people in the country illegally, but Reagan also warned prophetically that a country that can't control its borders isn't really a country any more. ..."
"... Reagan and Trump both embraced the Eisenhower doctrine of "peace through strength." And, like Ike, both built up the military. ..."
"... Both also believed in cutting tax rates to stimulate the economy and balance the federal budget through rising revenues rather than cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security. ..."
"... Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in Reagan's day, Russia and China in Trump's time. ..."
"... As Ingraham writes, Trump_vs_deep_state is rooted as much in the populist-nationalist campaigns of the 1990s, and post-Cold War issues as economic patriotism, border security, immigration control and "America First," as it is in the Reaganite issues of the 1980s. ..."
"... Coming up on one year since his election, Trump is besieged by a hostile press and united Democratic Party. This city hates him. While his executive actions are impressive, his legislative accomplishments are not. His approval ratings have lingered in the mid-30s. He has lost half a dozen senior members of his original White House staff, clashed openly with his own Cabinet and is at war with GOP leaders on the Hill. ..."
"... And both are fans of the tinkle-down theory of economics, where the govt cuts taxes on the rich and increases them on the poor and middle class, since the rich will do a better job of spreading around the extra money they get to keep, thereby stoking the economy, supposedly. Or as 'Poppy' Bush called it, "voodoo economics." ..."
"... It's a failed regressive tax program that only creates more billionaires while the number of poor swells, due to an influx of the steadily declining middle-class. ..."
"... Bizarrely, comically ignorant of reality. Though the really bizarre thing is the degree to which the same obtusely ignorant world-view permeates the establishment media and the political establishment. ..."
"... There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in the grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism. Reagan's opposition to the Soviet Union was very much bound up in resistance to that ideology, even if that resistance was often as much a pretext as a real motive. ..."
"... Today neither Russia nor China subscribes to any such universalist ideology. It is the US, today, that seeks to impose its liberal democratic political correctness ideologies and its manufactured taboos upon the world and which harasses and menaces any country that tries to live differently. ..."
"... As for Trump supposedly being wrapped up in "America First", that's particularly comical this week as he demonstrates that his idea of "America First" is acting as Israel's bitch, and as he makes ever louder noises about undermining the Iran deal – a policy as clearly counterproductive to any interest plausibly attributable to the American nation (as opposed to the identity lobbies that run the US government politics and media) as it is self-evidently in the self-perceived interests of the Israel Lobby and the foreign country that lobby serves. ..."
"... Trump is an egotistical jackass, nothing else. A liar from the git-go, and a completely ineffective leader, ideologue and President. He's not going to last much longer. I will take note that he did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety. But, he has molted into a complete fuckup. ..."
"... Goodbye, good riddance. Let's get ready to deal with the next wacko -- Pence. ..."
"... you're forgetting that Trump wasn't a war monger while on the campaign trail, far from it. Which is the only reason he won the election. In other words he fooled just enough people (like you and me) long enough to get elected. Same thing happened with peace candidate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Hussein Obama. It's clearly a rigged process. ..."
Both men were outsiders, and neither a career politician. Raised Democratic, Reagan had been a
Hollywood actor, union leader and voice of GE, before running for governor of California.
Trump is out of Queens, a builder-businessman in a Democratic city whose Republican credentials
were suspect at best when he rode down that elevator at Trump Tower. Both took on the Republican
establishment of their day, and humiliated it.
Among the signature issues of Trumpian populism is economic nationalism, a new trade policy
designed to prosper Americans first.
Reagan preached free trade, but when Harley-Davidson was in danger of going under because
of Japanese dumping of big bikes, he slammed a 50 percent tariff on Japanese motorcycles. Though
a free trader by philosophy, Reagan was at heart an economic patriot.
He accepted an amnesty written by Congress for 3 million people in the country illegally,
but Reagan also warned prophetically that a country that can't control its borders isn't really a
country any more.
Reagan and Trump both embraced the Eisenhower doctrine of "peace through strength." And, like
Ike, both built up the military.
Both also believed in cutting tax rates to stimulate the economy and balance the federal budget
through rising revenues rather than cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in Reagan's
day, Russia and China in Trump's time.
And both were regarded in this capital city with a cosmopolitan condescension bordering on contempt.
"An amiable dunce" said a Great Society Democrat of Reagan.
The awesome victories Reagan rolled up, a 44-state landslide in 1980 and a 49-state landslide
in 1984, induced some second thoughts among Beltway elites about whether they truly spoke for America.
Trump's sweep of the primaries and startling triumph in the Electoral College caused the same consternation.
However, as the Great Depression, New Deal and World War II represented a continental divide in
history between what came before and what came after, so, too, did the end of the Cold War and the
Reagan era.
As Ingraham writes, Trump_vs_deep_state is rooted as much in the populist-nationalist campaigns of the
1990s, and post-Cold War issues as economic patriotism, border security, immigration control and
"America First," as it is in the Reaganite issues of the 1980s.
Which bring us to the present, with our billionaire president, indeed, at the barricades.
The differences between Trump in his first year and Reagan in 1981 are stark. Reagan had won a
landslide. The attempt on his life in April and the grace with which he conducted himself had earned
him a place in the hearts of his countrymen. He not only showed spine in giving the air traffic controllers
48 hours to get back to work, and then discharging them when they defied him, he enacted the largest
tax cut in U.S. history with the aid of boll weevil Democrats in the House.
Coming up on one year since his election, Trump is besieged by a hostile press and united
Democratic Party. This city hates him. While his executive actions are impressive, his legislative
accomplishments are not. His approval ratings have lingered in the mid-30s. He has lost half a dozen
senior members of his original White House staff, clashed openly with his own Cabinet and is at war
with GOP leaders on the Hill.
And both are fans of the tinkle-down theory of economics, where the govt cuts taxes
on the rich and increases them on the poor and middle class, since the rich will do a better job
of spreading around the extra money they get to keep, thereby stoking the economy, supposedly.
Or as 'Poppy' Bush called it, "voodoo economics."
It's a failed regressive tax program that only creates more billionaires while the number
of poor swells, due to an influx of the steadily declining middle-class.
The only parts of the economy it helps are the builders of luxury mansions, antique and pricey
art dealers, and the makers of luxury autos and private jets.
when the US Government is trying to prevent alien forces from interfering in our electoral
process
Bizarrely, comically ignorant of reality. Though the really bizarre thing is the degree
to which the same obtusely ignorant world-view permeates the establishment media and the political
establishment.
Two pieces here at Unz you ought to read, and fully take on board the implications of, if you
want to even begin the process of grasping reality, rather than living in the manufactured fantasy
you appear to inhabit at the moment:
Both believed in engaging with the superpower rival of the day -- the Soviet Union in
Reagan's day, Russia and China in Trump's time.
There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear
ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in the
grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism. Reagan's opposition to
the Soviet Union was very much bound up in resistance to that ideology, even if that resistance
was often as much a pretext as a real motive.
Today neither Russia nor China subscribes to any such universalist ideology. It is the
US, today, that seeks to impose its liberal democratic political correctness ideologies and its
manufactured taboos upon the world and which harasses and menaces any country that tries to live
differently.
As for Trump supposedly being wrapped up in "America First", that's particularly comical
this week as he demonstrates that his idea of "America First" is acting as Israel's bitch, and
as he makes ever louder noises about undermining the Iran deal – a policy as clearly counterproductive
to any interest plausibly attributable to the American nation (as opposed to the identity lobbies
that run the US government politics and media) as it is self-evidently in the self-perceived interests
of the Israel Lobby and the foreign country that lobby serves.
Here's the German government being unusually blunt yesterday about the stupidity of the Trump
regime's seeming plans in this regard:
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Thursday said that any move by US President Donald
Trump's administration to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal would drive a wedge between Europe
and the US.
"It's imperative that Europe sticks together on this issue," Gabriel told Germany's RND
newspaper group. "We also have to tell the Americans that their behavior on the Iran issue
will drive us Europeans into a common position with Russia and China against the USA."
It's difficult to know whether the likes of Gabriel actually believe all the boilerplate nonsense
they talk about a supposed Iranian nuclear program – the real reason the European nations want
the deal to continue is that it stopped them having to pretend to believe all the outright lies
the US told about Iran, and having to kowtow t0 costly and counterproductive sanctions against
Iran that did immense general harm for the benefit only of Israel and Saudi Arabia and their US
stooges.
The US pulling out of the deal would at least bring that issue of US dishonesty on Iran and
past European appeasement of it to a head, I suppose.
Trump is an egotistical jackass, nothing else. A liar from the git-go, and a completely ineffective
leader, ideologue and President. He's not going to last much longer. I will take note that he
did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety. But, he has molted into a complete
fuckup.
Goodbye, good riddance. Let's get ready to deal with the next wacko -- Pence.
Assuming they won't kill Pence with the same bomb.
I will take note that he did, temporarily, save us from the madness of the Hillary moiety.
Often I feel like it'd be better if Hillary did the same insane policies. It's always worse
when our guy does something wrong, and better when the hated enemy does it.
Hillary was a danger that she would start WW3 in Syria, but I don't think we can be certain
she'd have started it. Given how risk-averse women are in general, I think the only issue was
whether the Russians could've made it clear that shooting at Russian soldiers would mean war with
Russia. And I think even Hillary's advisers would've blinked.
On the other hand, I don't think Hillary would be nearly as insane on North Korea or Iran.
As a bonus, she would be accelerating the demise of the US, by introducing ever more insane domestic
policies, things like gay, transsexual and female quotas in US Special Forces. This would ultimately
be a good thing, destroying or weakening US power which is currently only used to evil ends in
the world.
Unfortunately I can see Orbán and the Poles torpedoing a common EU stance. I'm sure that will
be the price for Netanyahu's meeting with the V4 leaders a few months ago.
I think one good thing would be if US conservatives stopped their Reagan worship. He was certainly
not a bad person, but he allowed the amnesty to happen, couldn't stop the sanctions on Apartheid
South Africa, didn't (or couldn't?) do anything against the MLK cult becoming a state religion,
and started the free trade and tax cuts cults, he's also responsible for promoting the neocons
to positions of power. So overall he was a mixed bag from a nationalist conservative viewpoint.
Private citizens are forbidden to ask for help from a foreign country, when the US Government
is trying to prevent alien forces from interfering in our electoral process.
You forgot the Clintons, Bush, McCain, Romney, and Obama. China and Israel worked on behalf
of all five of them, even though three of them lost
Yes, that's quite possible, but a common EU stance is not really all that important. What really
matters is how far the Germans, and to a lesser extent the less relevant but still big European
nations such as France and Italy and the more subservient US tool, the UK, are prepared to continue
to kowtow to US and Israeli dishonesty on Iran.
All the signs seem to be that repudiating the deal and trying to return to the days of the
aggressive and counter-productive US-imposed sanctions will be a step too far for many of those
players.
As a bonus, she would be accelerating the demise of the US, by introducing ever more insane
domestic policies, things like gay, transsexual and female quotas in US Special Forces. This
would ultimately be a good thing, destroying or weakening US power which is currently only
used to evil ends in the world.
Actually I suspect that repudiating the JCPOA, whether openly or by de facto breach, will go
immensely farther, and much faster, towards destroying practical US influence and therefore power
globally than any of those domestic policies, at least in the short run.
You can see that Trump is at least dimly aware of that likelihood from the way he keeps bottling
and postponing the decision, despite his clearly evident and desperate desire to please his pro-Israeli
and anti-Iranian advisers and instincts.
On the other hand, I don't think Hillary would be nearly as insane on North Korea or Iran.
An election of Hillary meant open borders. That is official, rapid and deliberate national
suicide. All foreign policy issues pale before such a horror.
1) There's a chance foreign policy insanity starts a nuclear war, in which case all domestic
policy issues will pale before such horror.
2) The US already has de facto open borders. Why does it matter if it becomes majority nonwhite
in 30 or just 20 years?
3) For non-American whites, it's better the earlier the US sphere disintegrates. I bet you
it's better for American whites as well. As long as this political/cultural center holds, the
rot cannot be stopped.
I watched the movie Independence Day last night: Can we have that guy for President after
Trump, or do we have to have an obligatory Democrat (Chelsea Clinton?) President for the next
8 years?
An election of Hillary meant open borders. That is official, rapid and deliberate national
suicide. All foreign policy issues pale before such a horror.
That's understandable, but obviously the calculation must be somewhat different from a non-US
perspective. Given how strongly many white Americans are in favor of pro-war policies and mindless
Israel worship (how many US blacks or Hispanics care about Israel or confronting Iran?), I'm not
even sure nationalists in Europe should really lament the Hispanicization of the US. It might
at least have a positive effect in restricting US interventionism and eroding US power. The sooner
the US is unable to continue with its self-appointed role as a global redeemer nation, the better.
History repeats first as tragedy (crushing the spoiled unionized mostly white air traffic controllers),
then as farce (crushing the spoiled unionized mostly afro NFL jocks). Reagan was at least an American
Firster. Trumpenstein is an obvious traitorous Izzie Firster, with little concern for the so-called
deplorables except to convert them into deployables at the service of his jooie sponsors. Maybe
Paddy should have titled his screed "Heir to Begin, not Reagan"?
Pat Buchanan points out that " it is far more likely that a major war would do for the Trump presidency
and his place in history what it did for Presidents Wilson, Truman, LBJ and George W. Bush."
As for President Trump; Let us hope that war DOES NOT BECOME "The Last Refuge Of This Scoundrel"!
Rubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority non-White
jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
If only non-White votes were counted, Hillary Clinton would have been elected unanimously by
the electoral college, and Hillary is more of a war-monger than Trump is.
The few reliable voices for foreign policy sanity in congress, such as Senator Rand Paul and
Congressmen Walter Jones, John Duncan, Thomas Massie, and Justin Amash, represent overwhelmingly
White, Protestant, old-stock American districts.
Rubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority
non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
Maybe, but is there any data indicating many blacks in Washington DC actually voted in the
Republican primaries? Why would they when most of them are a solid Democrat voting block? I'd
guess Rubio got his votes from white elites in DC.
As for Puerto Rico, I didn't know they actually have primaries, seems odd given they don't vote
in US presidential elections.
Hillary is more of a war-monger than Trump is.
Hillary was horrible all around, and I agree she might well have been disastrous as president
given her dangerous proposals for no-fly zones in Syria, and the potential of conflict with Russia
this entailed. But I'm no longer sure Trump is really better regarding foreign policy. His behaviour
on the North Korea issue is irresponsible imo, and his willingness to wreck the nuclear deal with
Iran at the behest of neoconservatives and Zionist donors like Sheldon Adelson is a big fat minus
in my view. Sorry, but I think you guys who hoped for something different have all been (neo-)conned.
Reagan said: My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation
that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.
Trump said: We will totally destroy North Korea if the United States is forced to defend
itself or its allies.
The only similarities I see between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump is that both live (lived) in
a sort of la-la land, totally out of touch with reality. The only difference between them is that
Reagan had sensible people around him (like Pat Buchannan) who wrote good speeches and make good
decisions which he took full credit for. Trump, on the other hand delivers abbreviated, one-sentence
speeches via Twitter while surrounded by mental midgets with military minds.
There is arguably a fundamental difference here, that in Reagan's day there was a clear
ideological threat from the Soviet Union, which was still (albeit increasingly nominally) in
the grip of an aggressively destabilising universalist ideology, communism
Not really Randal. The Cold War was an invented war like the War on Terror that replaced just
in the nick of time, and for the same purpose, which is to justify unlimited defense budgets necessary
to sustain a bloated MIC that would not otherwise exist.
Rubio was far more of a war-monger than Trump, and he won the primaries in the majority
non-White jurisdictions (Washington DC, Puerto Rico).
but you're forgetting that Trump wasn't a war monger while on the campaign trail, far from
it. Which is the only reason he won the election. In other words he fooled just enough people
(like you and me) long enough to get elected. Same thing happened with peace candidate, and Nobel
Peace Prize winner, Hussein Obama. It's clearly a rigged process.
Not really Randal. The Cold War was an invented war like the War on Terror that replaced
just in the nick of time, and for the same purpose, which is to justify unlimited defense budgets
necessary to sustain a bloated MIC that would not otherwise exist.
Well, yes and no. In both cases. It really is more complicated than that.
Reagan didn't undo Arab Israel Camp David Peace Treaty He didn't keep the Israeli side and undo
the Egyptian side of the American obligation . He kept both.
Trump is dangerous malevolent anti-American and anti- anything that hurts his ego or pocket
. He has malcontent displaced sycophants as inner circle supporters who want a piece in the pie
denied to them by the establishment .
Here is a quote from antiwar -"In other words, it's all about the war that Trump and his still-loyal
lieutenant Steve Bannon, assisted by UN ambassador Nikki Haley, have declared on the "deep state."
Also, Trump and Bannon aren't really interested in draining the foreign policy swamp in DC.
They simply want to install their own cronies who will ensure that war and globalization benefit
them rather than Kissinger and his ilk. It's a shell game designed to fool Trump's base, but the
rest of the world has kept its eye on the ball."
http://original.antiwar.com/feffer/2017/10/13/trump-signaling-unprecedented-right-turn-foreign-policy/
This war between elites have been predicted by a CT professor in an article in 2016 , to get
more serious and dangerous by 2020 . The fights among elites are not new but another pathway an
empire takes additionally to the final fate of the destruction from within
"A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable,
has been denied access to elite positions."
Another visible sign of increasing intra-elite competition and political polarization is the
fragmentation of political parties
cliodynamic research on past societies demonstrates that elite overproduction is by far the
most important of the three main historical drivers of social instability and political violence
(see Secular Cycles for this analysis).
But the other two factors in the model, popular immiseration (the stagnation and decline of
living standards) and declining fiscal health of the state (resulting from falling state revenues
and rising expenses) are also important contributors.
Ideally Europe would be strong together, without US and more sane policies on morals and immigration.
Yes v4 is connected to CC, Neocon, Zios.
While Polands stance on immigration, and trying to hold on to old values is good, problem is
depending on US too much, and being stuck between Russia and Germany which would isolate it from
Europe in some ways. Obviously Poles are not uniform, views on US, Russia, Germany, Ukraine are
all over the place. I wish Poland was just European (in politics) but the US-EU connection is
still strong.
Commenting on US presidents. Presidents are puppets. All of them. Modern leaders in Western world
are unlikable. Reagan at least had some balance, had some Catholic and Paleocon involvement. It
wasnt all Neocons and Zios. Im quite sure Reagan (and his dad), people like Buchanan had connections
to groups like Knights Malta or Knights Colombus. Cant prove it though. Kennedy was KC.
Today
Neocon/Zionist influence is even stronger. Trump policies on NK and Iran are nuts. At best a war
is avoided.
On the other side you have Clintons, Obamas. They would destroy the US, and have similar policies
because again they are puppets. Clinton would likely be involved in Syria, just like Obama was.
While Polands stance on immigration, and trying to hold on to old values is good, problem
is depending on US too much
Yes, that's a problem, and I think Polish national conservatives are somewhat in denial about
what the modern US stands for the "values" pushed by the US establishment today are incompatible
with the Polish right's vision for Poland (e.g. conservative values in sexual morality – no homo-lobbyism
and transgender nonsense -, strong public role of Catholicism, restrictive and selective immigration
policies that keep out Muslims).
I can understand to some degree why the Polish right is so pro-US, given history and apprehensions
about Germany and Russia, but they should at least be aware that alliance with the US could have
a rather pernicious influence on Poland itself.
"... In the 1970s a programming shop was legacy American, with only a thin scattering of foreigners like myself. Twenty years later programming had been considerably foreignized , thanks to the H-1B visa program. Now, twenty years further on, I believe legacy-American programmers are an endangered species. ..."
"... So a well-paid and mentally rewarding corner of the middle-class job market has been handed over to foreigners -- for the sole reason, of course, that they are cheaper than Americans. The desire for cheap labor explains 95 percent of U.S. immigration policy. The other five percent is sentimentality. ..."
"... Now they are brazen in their crime: you have heard, I'm sure, those stories about American workers being laid off, with severance packages conditional on their helping train their cheaper foreign replacements. That's our legal ..."
"... A "merit-based" points system won't fix that. It will quickly and easily be gamed by employers to lay waste yet more middle-class occupational zones for Americans. If it was restricted to the higher levels of "merit," we would just be importing a professional overclass of foreigners, most East and South Asians, to direct the labors of less-meritorious legacy Americans. How would that ..."
"... Measured by the number of workers per year, the largest guestworker program in the entire immigration system is now student visas through the Optional Practical Training program (OPT). Last year over 154,000 aliens were approved to work on student visas. By comparison, 114,000 aliens entered the workforce on H-1B guestworker visas. ..."
"... A History of the 'Optional Practical Training' Guestworker Program , ..."
"... incredible amount ..."
"... on all sorts of subjects ..."
"... for all kinds of outlets. (This ..."
"... no longer includes ..."
"... National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and ..."
"... and several other ..."
"... . He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: ..."
"... ( also available in Kindle ) and ..."
"... Has it ever occurred to anyone other than me that the cost associated with foreign workers using our schools and hospitals and pubic services for free, is more than off-set by the cheap price being paid for grocery store items like boneless chicken breast, grapes, apples, peaches, lettuce etc, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive even for the wealthy? ..."
Item-wise, the biggest heading there is the second one, "Interior Enforcement." That's very
welcome.
Of course we need improved border security so that people don't enter our country without
permission. That comes under the first heading. An equally pressing problem, though, is the
millions of foreigners who are living and working here, and using our schools and hospitals and
public services, who should not be here.
The President's proposals on interior enforcement cover all bases: Sanctuary
cities , visa
overstays , law-enforcement
resources , compulsory E-Verify , more
deportations , improved visa security.
This is a major, wonderful improvement in national policy, when you consider that less than
a year ago the
White House and
Justice Department were run by committed open-borders
fanatics. I thank the President and his staff for having put so much work into such a
detailed proposal for restoring American sovereignty and the rights of American workers and
taxpayers.
That said, here come the quibbles.
That third heading, "Merit-Based Immigration System," with just four items, needs work.
Setting aside improvements on visa controls under the other headings, this is really the only
part of the proposal that covers legal immigration. In my opinion, it does so imperfectly.
There's some good meat in there, mind. Three of the four items -- numbers one, three, and
four -- got a fist-pump from me:
cutting down chain
migration by limiting it to spouse and dependent children; eliminating the Diversity
Visa Lottery ; and limiting the number of refugees admitted, assuming this means severely
cutting back on the numbers, preferably all the way to
zero.
Good stuff. Item two, however, is a problem. Quote:
Establish a new, points-based system for the awarding of Green Cards (lawful permanent
residents) based on factors that allow individuals to successfully assimilate and support
themselves financially.
sounds OK, bringing in talented, well-educated, well-socialized people, rather than
what the late Lee
Kuan Yew referred to as " fruit-pickers ." Forgive
me if I have a rather jaundiced view of this merit-based approach.
For most of my adult life I made a living as a computer programmer. I spent four years
doing this in the U.S.A. through the mid-1970s. Then I came back in the late 1980s and
worked at the same trade here through the 1990s. (Pictured right–my actual H-1B visa ) That gave me two
clear snapshots twenty years apart, of this particular corner of skilled middle-class
employment in America.
In the 1970s a programming shop was legacy American, with only a thin scattering of
foreigners like myself. Twenty years later programming had been considerably foreignized ,
thanks to the H-1B visa program. Now, twenty years further on, I believe legacy-American
programmers are an endangered species.
So a well-paid and mentally rewarding corner of the middle-class job market has been
handed over to foreigners -- for the sole reason, of course, that they are cheaper than
Americans. The desire for cheap labor explains 95 percent of U.S. immigration policy. The other
five percent is sentimentality.
On so-called "merit-based immigration," therefore, you can count me a cynic. I have no doubt
that American firms could recruit all the computer programmers they need from among our legacy
population. They used to do so, forty years ago. Then they discovered how to game the
immigration system for cheaper labor.
A "merit-based" points system won't fix that. It will quickly and easily be gamed by
employers to lay waste yet more middle-class occupational zones for Americans. If it was
restricted to the higher levels of "merit," we would just be importing a professional overclass
of foreigners, most East and South Asians, to direct the labors of less-meritorious legacy
Americans. How would that contribute to social harmony?
With coming up to a third of a
billion people, the U.S.A. has all the talent, all the merit , it needs. You might
make a case for a handful of certified geniuses like Einstein or worthy dissidents like
Solzhenitsyn, but those cases aside, there is no reason at all to have guest-worker programs.
They should all be shut down.
Some of these cheap-labor rackets don't even need congressional action to shut them down; it
can be done by regulatory change via executive order. The scandalous OPT-visa scam, for
example, which brings in cheap workers under the guise of student visas.
Here is John Miano writing about the OPT program last month, quote:
Measured by the number of workers per year, the largest guestworker program in the
entire immigration system is now student visas through the Optional Practical Training
program (OPT). Last year over 154,000 aliens were approved to work on student visas. By
comparison, 114,000 aliens entered the workforce on H-1B guestworker visas.
Because there is no reporting on how long guestworkers stay in the country, we do not know
the total number of workers in each category. Nonetheless, the number of approvals for work
on student visas has grown by 62 percent over the past four years so their numbers will soon
dwarf those on H-1B visas.
End quote. (And a cheery wave of acknowledgement to John Miano here from one of the
other seventeen people in the U.S.A. that knows the correct placement of the hyphen in
"H-1B.")
Our legal immigration system is addled with these scams. Don't even get me started
on
the EB-5 investor's visa . It all needs sweeping away.
So for preference I would rewrite that third heading to include, yes, items one, three, and
four -- cutting down chain migration, ending the Diversity Visa Lottery, and ending refugee
settlement for anyone of less stature than Solzhenitsyn; but then, I'd replace item two with
the following:
End all guest-worker programs, with exceptions only for the highest levels of
talent and accomplishment, limit one hundred visas per annum .
So much for my amendments to the President's October 8th proposals. There is, though, one
glaring omission from that 70-item list. The proposal has no mention at all of birthright
citizenship.
Yes, yes, I know: some constitutional authorities argue that birthright citizenship is
implied in the
Fourteenth Amendment , although it is certain that the framers of that Amendment did not
have foreign tourists or illegal entrants in mind. Other scholars think Congress could
legislate against it.
The only way to find out is to have Congress legislate. If the courts strike down the
legislation as unconstitutional, let's then frame a constitutional amendment and put it to the
people.
Getting rid of birthright citizenship might end up a long and difficult process. We might
ultimately fail. The only way to find out is to get the process started . Failure to
mention this in the President's proposal is a very glaring omission.
I agree with ending birthright citizenship. But Trump should wait until he can put at
least one more strict constitutionalist in the supreme court. There will be a court
challenge, and we need judges who can understand that if the 14th Amendment didn't give
automatic citizenship to American Indians it doesn't give automatic citizenship to children
of Mexican citizens who jumped our border.
John's article, it seems to me, ignores the elephant in the room: the DACA colonists.
Trump is offering this proposal, more or less, in return for some sort of semi-permanent
regularization of their status. Bad trade, in my opinion. Ending DACA and sending those
illegals back where they belong will have more real effect on illegal and legal
immigration/colonization than all sorts of proposals to be implemented in the future, which
can and will be changed by subsequent Administrations and Congresses.
Trump would also be able to drive a much harder bargain with Congress (like maybe a
moratorium on any immigration) if he had kept his campaign promise, ended DACA the afternoon
of January 20, 2017, and busloads of DACA colonists were being sent south of the Rio
Grande.
The best hope for immigration patriots is that the Democrats are so wedded to Open Borders
that the entire proposal dies and Trump, in disgust, reenacts Ike's Operation Wetback.
Well, in the real world, things just don't work that way. It's pay me now or pay me
later. Once all the undocumented workers who are doing all the dirty, nasty jobs Americans
refuse to do are run out the country, then what?
Right, prior to 1965, Americans didn't exist. They had all starved to death because, as
everyone knows, no Americans will work to produce food and, even if they did, once Tyson
chicken plants stop making 50 percent on capital they just shut down.
If there were no Somalis in Minnesota, even Warren Buffett couldn't afford grapes.
Illegal immigrants picking American produce is a false economy.
Illegal immigrants are subsidized by the taxpayer in terms of public health, education,
housing, and welfare.
If businesses didn't have access to cheap and subsidized illegal alien labor, they would
be compelled to resort to more farm automation to reduce cost.
Cheap illegal alien labor delays the inevitable use of newer farm automation
technologies.
Many Americans would likely prefer a machine touch their food rather than a illegal alien
with strange hygiene practices.
In addition, anti-American Democrats and neocons prefer certain kinds of illegal aliens
because they bolster their diversity scheme.
@Realist "Once all the undocumented workers who are doing all the dirty, nasty jobs
Americans refuse to do are run out the country, then what?"
Eliminate welfare...then you'll have plenty of workers. Unfortunately, that train left the
station long ago. With or without welfare, there's simply no way soft, spoiled, lazy,
over-indulged Americans who have never hit a lick at anything their life, will ever perform
manual labor for anyone, including themselves.
@Randal Probably people other than you have worked out that once their wages are not
being continually undercut by cheap and easy immigrant competition, the American working
classes will actually be able to earn enough to pay the increased prices for grocery store
items, especially as the Americans who, along with machines, will replace those immigrants
doing the "jobs Americans won't do" will also be earning more and actually paying taxes on
it.
The "jobs Americans/Brits/etc won't do" myth is a deliberate distortion of reality that
ignores the laws of supply and demand. There are no jobs Americans etc won't do, only jobs
for which the employers are not prepared to pay wages high enough to make them worthwhile for
Americans etc to do.
Now of course it is more complicated than that. There are jobs that would not be
economically viable if the required wages were to be paid, and there are marginal
contributions to job creation by immigrant populations, but those aspects are in reality far
less significant than the bosses seeking cheap labour want people to think they are.
As a broad summary, a situation in which labour is tight, jobs are easy to come by and
staff hard to hold on to is infinitely better for the ordinary working people of any nation
than one in which there is a huge pool of excess labour, and therefore wages are low and
employees disposable.
You'd think anyone purporting to be on the "left", in the sense of supporting working
class people would understand that basic reality, but far too many on the left have been
indoctrinated in radical leftist anti-racist and internationalist dogmas that make them
functional stooges for big business and its mass immigration program.
Probably people other than you have worked out that once their wages are not being
continually undercut by cheap and easy immigrant competition, the American working classes
will actually be able to earn enough to pay the increased prices for grocery store items,
especially as the Americans who, along with machines, will replace those immigrants doing
the "jobs Americans won't do" will also be earning more and actually paying taxes on
it.
There might be some truth in this. When I was a student in England in the 60′s I
spent every summer working on farms, picking hops, apples, pears, potatoes and made some
money and had a lot of fun too and became an expert farm tractor operator.
No reason why US students and high school seniors should not pick up a lot of the slack.
Young people like camping in the countryside and sleeping rough, plus lots of
opportunity to meet others, have sex, smoke weed, drink beer, or whatever. If you get a free
vacation plus a nice check at the end, that makes the relatively low wages worthwhile. It is
not always a question of how much you are paid, but how much you can save.
We can fix the EB-5 visa scam. My suggestion: charge would-be "investors" $1 million to
enter the US. This $1 is not refundable under any circumstance. It is paid when the
"investor's" visa is approved. If the "investor" is convicted of a felony, he is deported. He
may bring no one with him. No wife, no child, no aunt, no uncle. Unless he pays $1 million
for that person.
We will get a few thousand Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes a year under this
program
As to fixing the H-1B visa program, we charge employer users of the program say $25,000
per year per employee. We require the employers to inform all employees that if any is asked
to train a replacement, he should inform the DOJ immediately. The DOJ investigates and if
true, charges managerial employees who asked that a replacement be trained with fraud.
As to birthright citizenship: I say make it a five-year felony to have a child while in
the US illegally. Make it a condition of getting a tourist visa that one not be pregnant. If
the tourist visa lasts say 60 days and the woman has a child while in the US, she gets
charged with fraud.
None of these suggestions requires a constitutional amendment.
In the United States middle class prosperity reached its apogee in 1965 – before the
disastrous (and eminently foreseeable) wage-lowering consequence of the Hart-Celler Open
Immigration Act's massive admission of foreigners increased the supply of labor which began
to lower middle class prosperity and to shrink and eradicate the middle class.
It was in 1965 that ordinary Americans, enjoying maximum employment because employers were
forced to compete for Americans' talents and labor, wielded their peak purchasing
power . Since 1970 wages have remained stagnant, and since 1965 the purchasing power of
ordinary Americans has gone into steep decline.
It is long past time to halt Perpetual Mass Immigration into the United States, to end
birthright citizenship, and to deport all illegal aliens – if, that is, our leaders
genuinely care about and represent us ordinary Americans instead of continuing their
legislative, policy, and judicial enrichment of the 1-percenter campaign donor/rentier class
of transnational Globali$t Open Border$ E$tabli$hment $ellout$.
Re the birthright citizenship argument, that is not settled law in that SCOTUS has never
ruled on the question of whether a child born in the US is thereby a citizen if the parents
are illegally present. Way back in 1897, SCOTUS did resolve the issue of whether a child born
to alien parents who were legally present was thereby a citizen. That case is U.S. vs Wong
Kim Ark 169 US 649. SCOTUS ruled in favor of citizenship. If that was a justiciable issue how
much more so is it when the parents are illegally present?
My thinking is that the result would be the same but, at least, the question would be
settled. I cannot see justices returning a toddler to Beijing or worse. They would never have
invitations to cocktail parties again for the shame heaped upon them for such uncaring
conduct. Today, the title of citizen is conferred simply by bureaucratic rule, not by
judicial order.
Arguments Against Fourteenth Amendment Anchor Baby Interpretation
J. Paige Straley
Part One. Anchor Baby Argument, Mexican Case.
The ruling part of the US Constitution is Amendment Fourteen: "All persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Here is the ruling part of the Mexican Constitution, Section II, Article Thirty:
Article 30
Mexican nationality is acquired by birth or by naturalization:
A. Mexicans by birth are:
I. Those born in the territory of the Republic, regardless of the nationality of
their parents:
II. Those born in a foreign country of Mexican parents; of a Mexican father and
a foreign mother; or of a Mexican mother and an unknown father;
III. Those born on Mexican vessels or airships, either war or merchant vessels. "
A baby born to Mexican nationals within the United States is automatically a Mexican
citizen. Under the anchor baby reasoning, this baby acquires US citizenship at the same time
and so is a dual citizen. Mexican citizenship is primary because it stems from a primary
source, the parents' citizenship and the law of Mexico. The Mexican Constitution states the
child of Mexican parents is automatically a Mexican citizen at birth no matter where the
birth occurs. Since the child would be a Mexican citizen in any country, and becomes an
American citizen only if born in America, it is clear that Mexico has the primary claim of
citizenry on the child. This alone should be enough to satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment
jurisdiction thereof argument. Since Mexican citizenship is primary, it has primary
jurisdiction; thus by the plain words of the Fourteenth such child is not an American citizen
at birth.
[MORE]
There is a second argument for primary Mexican citizenship in the case of anchor babies.
Citizenship, whether Mexican or American, establishes rights and duties. Citizenship is a
reciprocal relationship, thus establishing jurisdiction. This case for primary Mexican
citizenship is supported by the fact that Mexico allows and encourages Mexicans resident in
the US, either illegal aliens or legal residents, to vote in Mexican elections. They are
counted as Mexican citizens abroad, even if dual citizens, and their government provides
widespread consular services as well as voting access to Mexicans residing in the US. As far
as Mexico is concerned, these persons are not Mexican in name only, but have a civil
relationship strong enough to allow a political voice; in essence, full citizenship. Clearly,
all this is the expression of typical reciprocal civic relationships expressed in legal
citizenship, further supporting the establishment of jurisdiction.
Part Two: Wong Kim Ark (1898) case. (Birthright Citizenship)
The Wong Kim Ark (WKA) case is often cited as the essential legal reasoning and precedent
for application of the fourteenth amendment as applied to aliens. There has been plenty of
commentary on WKA, but the truly narrow application of the case is emphasized reviewing a
concise statement of the question the case was meant to decide, written by Hon. Horace Gray,
Justice for the majority in this decision.
"[W]hether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the
time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and
residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in
any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his
birth a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution." (Italics added.)
For WKA to justify birthright citizenship, the parents must have " permanent domicile and
residence " But how can an illegal alien have permanent residence when the threat of
deportation is constantly present? There is no statute of limitation for illegal presence in
the US and the passage of time does not eliminate the legal remedy of deportation. This alone
would seem to invalidate WKA as a support and precedent for illegal alien birthright
citizenship.
If illegal (or legal) alien parents are unemployed, unemployable, illegally employed, or
if they get their living by illegal means, then they are not ". . .carrying on business. .
.", and so the children of indigent or criminal aliens may not be eligible for birthright
citizenship
If legal aliens meet the two tests provided in WKA, birthright citizenship applies.
Clearly the WKA case addresses the specific situation of the children of legal aliens, and so
is not an applicable precedent to justify birthright citizenship for the children of illegal
aliens.
Part three. Birth Tourism
Occasionally foreign couples take a trip to the US during the last phase of the wife's
pregnancy so she can give birth in the US, thus conferring birthright citizenship on the
child. This practice is called "birth tourism." WKA provides two tests for birthright
citizenship: permanent domicile and residence and doing business, and a temporary visit
answers neither condition. WKA is therefore disqualified as justification for a "birth
tourism" child to be granted birthright citizenship.
@Carroll Price Unfortunately, that train left the station long ago. With or without
welfare, there's simply no way soft, spoiled, lazy, over-indulged Americans who have never
hit a lick at anything their life, will ever perform manual labor for anyone, including
themselves. Then let them starve to death. The Pilgrims nipped that dumb ass idea (welfare)
in the bud
An equally pressing problem, though, is the millions of foreigners who are living and
working here, and using our schools and hospitals and public services, who should not be
here.
Has it ever occurred to anyone other than me that the cost associated with
foreign workers using our schools and hospitals and pubic services for free, is more than
off-set by the cheap price being paid for grocery store items like boneless chicken breast,
grapes, apples, peaches, lettuce etc, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive even
for the wealthy?
Let alone relatively poor people (like myself) and those on fixed incomes? What
un-thinking Americans want, is having their cake and eating it too. Well, in the real world,
things just don't work that way. It's pay me now or pay me later. Once all the undocumented
workers who are doing all the dirty, nasty jobs Americans refuse to do are run out the
country, then what? Please look up;History; United States; pre mid-twentieth century. I'm
pretty sure Americans were eating chicken, grapes, apples, peaches, lettuce, etc. prior to
that period. I don't think their diet consisted of venison and tree bark.
But since I wasn't there, maybe I'm wrong and that is actually what they were eating.
I know some people born in the 1920′s; I'll check with them and let you know what they
say.
"... Bardella said Bannon had helped villainise McConnell, making him a toxic symbol of the Republican establishment and an albatross around the necks of vulnerable Republicans such as Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada. A seat in Tennessee following Senator Bob Corker's announcement that he would not seek re-election in 2018 could also be a target. ..."
"... Among the "establishment" donors likely to oppose Bannon in a series of running battles are the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Bannon himself has admitted there is not "a deep bench" of viable candidates to represent his agenda. ..."
"... "The floodgates are open. You'll see a lot of this, one after another, and Steve Bannon's going to be at the centre of it. He's one for one. It'll be a civil war; it has been for quite some time." ..."
"... Andrew Surabian, a political strategist who worked under Bannon at the White House, told USA Today: "Bannon is plotting a strategy to launch an all-out assault on the Republican establishment. I think it's fair to say that if you're tied to Mitch McConnell, any of his henchmen in the consulting class, or were a Never-Trumper during the campaign, you're not safe from a primary challenge." ..."
"... Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino and Ben Jacobs ..."
Already Bannon is touring the country and meeting with candidates who will carry forward such
an agenda. He told the Bloomberg agency: "The populist-nationalist movement proved in Alabama that
a candidate with the right ideas and a grassroots organization can win big. Now, our focus is on
recruiting candidates to take over the Republican party."
The election eve rally in Alabama was a reunion of sorts of those in Bannon's political orbit.
Two potential candidates, Chris McDaniel of Mississippi and Mark Green of Tennessee, attended along
with Paul Nehlen, a primary challenger last year to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, whose campaign
was heavily promoted by Breitbart.
McDaniel described Moore's win as "incredibly inspiring" for his own challenge to Senator Roger
Wicker in 2018. "We know Mitch McConnell was rejected tonight and Roger Wicker is just another part
of Mitch McConnell's leadership apparatus," McDaniel told the Associated Press.
"We supported Donald
Trump because he was an agent of change, and he's still an agent of change. In this instance,
he must have been given bad advice to retain this particular swamp creature."
On Thursday, Bannon
spent two hours with Tom Tancredo, who worked on Nehlan's behalf and is considering a run for
Colorado governor next year. Tancredo, a former congressman, told the Guardian: "He was encouraged
by what happened in Alabama and was certainly hoping he can replicate it.
"He's trying to establish an awareness of the fact the Republican party should be standing for
the values he and others have tried to articulate over the years. It's a hugely difficult undertaking
when you consider the power of the establishment and the swamp. He just kept reiterating: 'I need
to try to save the country.'"
Asked about the prospect of a Republican civil war, Tancredo replied: "A good philosophic blood
letting is not necessarily a bad thing."
... ... ...
Bardella said Bannon had helped villainise McConnell, making him a toxic symbol of the Republican
establishment and an albatross around the necks of vulnerable Republicans such as Jeff Flake of Arizona
and Dean Heller of Nevada. A seat in Tennessee following Senator Bob Corker's announcement that he
would not seek re-election in 2018 could also be a target.
"Every dollar that is spent on a candidate by Mitch McConnell and the Republican party is a dollar
spent against them," Bardella added. "And that's because it plays right into the theme that they're
bought and paid for by the establishment."
Among the "establishment" donors likely to oppose Bannon in a series of running battles are
the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Bannon himself has admitted there is not "a deep
bench" of viable candidates to represent his agenda.
But he can expect at least tacit backing from Trump, who was said to be furious about having backed
the wrong horse in Alabama: the president even deleted three tweets that endorsed Strange. Bannon
also has powerful benefactors in the shape of the billionaire hedge fund investor Robert Mercer and
his daughter Rebekah Mercer.
The New York Times reported that Bannon and Robert Mercer began working out a rough outline for
a "shadow party" that would advance Trump's nationalist agenda during a
five-hour meeting last month at the family's Long Island estate.
Bannon has also been consulting with Henry Kissinger and other foreign policy veterans, Bloomberg
reported, and is preparing make the threat posed by China a central cause. "If we don't get our situation
sorted with China, we'll be destroyed economically," he said.
Rick Tyler, a political analyst and former campaign spokesman for the Texas senator Ted Cruz,
said: "Roy Moore has demonstrated that the establishment and all its money can be beaten. You can
only spend so much money in Alabama before it becomes irritating: you can only stuff so much in people's
mailboxes or run so many ads on TV.
"The floodgates are open. You'll see a lot of this, one after another, and Steve Bannon's
going to be at the centre of it. He's one for one. It'll be a civil war; it has been for quite
some time."
Republican memories are still raw from 2014, when the House majority leader,
Eric Cantor, was beaten in a primary contest by Dave Brat, a little-known professor backed by
the Tea Party. But Bannon could make the establishment versus Tea Party battle look like a mere skirmish.
Andrew Surabian, a political strategist who worked under Bannon at the White House,
told USA Today: "Bannon is plotting a strategy to launch an all-out assault on the Republican
establishment. I think it's fair to say that if you're tied to Mitch McConnell, any of his henchmen
in the consulting class, or were a Never-Trumper during the campaign, you're not safe from a primary
challenge."
Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino and Ben Jacobs
"... The Tea Party recognizes that "one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is the kind of one plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires." The rise of illegal immigration represents a new form of capitalism, as opposed to the old "meritorious" capitalism of the post-war period. When right-wing ideologues attack "communism," the argument goes, they are actually conceptualizing neoliberalism. ..."
"... Michaels concedes that the Tea Party is a disproportionately upper middle class movement, but argues that even segments of the top twenty percentile of Americans by income have been hit hard in recent decades. ..."
"... The top one percent have been the big winners of the neoliberal era, while the other 19 percent in that bracket anxiously see their position falter in comparison. ..."
"... people in the Tea Party movement have a problem that is realer than "White male status anxiety," that the economic shifts that are taking place, the more and more extreme inequality, the more and more going to the top, no doubt some people may be unhappy because of loss of status, but many millions more are going to be unhappy because of the loss of actual money. ..."
Ideas spread in all sorts of directions. I've heard Christian right "intellectuals"
haphazardly invoke Gramsci and counter-hegemony and I myself have spent more of my youth than
I'm willing to admit reading back issues of National Review . It's probably less
of a stretch that some Tea Partiers have favorably nodded toward the ideas on their movement
that our friend Walter Benn Michaels expresses in his interview in the inaugural
Jacobin .
Here's my summary of Michaels's argument on the Tea Party and immigration, which brings up
the question, a question that shouldn't really be a question at all, about the left and open
borders. (My thoughts on the over-hyped and over-exposed Tea Party can be found over at
New Politics .)
Michaels identifies the Tea Party as a reaction against neoliberalism. He doesn't view the
challenge as a serious one, but also stresses that the movement, "is not simply a reaction
against neoliberalism from the old racist right." Michaels contests the American left's desire
to summarily reduce the Tea Party to racists: "They're thrilled when some Nazis come out and
say 'Yeah, we support the Tea Party' or some member of the Tea Party says something racist,
which is frequently enough." Michaels finds the subversive content of their political program
in an opposition to illegal immigration.
The Tea Party recognizes that "one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of
neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal
immigration is the kind of one plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires."
The rise of illegal immigration represents a new form of capitalism, as opposed to the old
"meritorious" capitalism of the post-war period. When right-wing ideologues attack "communism,"
the argument goes, they are actually conceptualizing neoliberalism.
Michaels concedes that the Tea Party is a disproportionately upper middle class movement,
but argues that even segments of the top twenty percentile of Americans by income have been hit
hard in recent decades.
The top one percent have been the big winners of the neoliberal era,
while the other 19 percent in that bracket anxiously see their position falter in comparison.
Responding to those who place the roots of this angst in the growing diversification of the
elite, Michaels says:
. . . people in the Tea Party movement have a problem that is realer than "White male
status anxiety," that the economic shifts that are taking place, the more and more extreme
inequality, the more and more going to the top, no doubt some people may be unhappy because
of loss of status, but many millions more are going to be unhappy because of the loss of
actual money. So my point isn't really to deny the phenomenon of status anxiety, it's just to
point out the extraordinary eagerness of American liberals to identify racism as the problem,
so that anti-racism (rather than anti-capitalism) can be the solution.
Michaels's conclusion is, in sum, that students of Friedrich Hayek and exalters of Ayn Rand
are the most visible source of resistance to neoliberalism on the American scene. Such a view,
I believe, is as contradictory as it appears...
Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin .
"... If Only The God-Emperor Knew: Using Trump_vs_deep_state Against The Trump Administration" ..."
"... Republican Sen. Corker announces he won't seek re-election ..."
"... Associated Press, ..."
"... Corker's departure is widely being interpreted as a sign of the Establishment's inability to control the GOP base, as the election of President Trump, the rise of nationalism and the emergence of alternative media outlets (such as Breitbart and VDARE.com) make it harder for cuckservatives to Republican primary voters in line [ Sen. Bob Corker's retirement is notable for when it's happening ..."
"... Washington Post, ..."
"... And now, we have the ultimate proof in Alabama. Judge Roy Moore, one of the most persistent targets of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is now the Republican nominee for the Senate. And he defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange despite Strange being endorsed by President Donald J. Trump himself. ..."
"... Of course, Strange didn't just have Trump in his corner. He also had Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell using his PAC to run negative ads against Moore, ads which conservative websites called "defamatory" and which cost many millions of dollars [ McConnell's Super PAC accused of 'defaming ' Roy Moore ..."
"... McConnell's mortal enemy might soon be in his caucus ..."
"... Alabama rally: Trump campaigns in last-ditch effort for Senate candidate Luther Strange ..."
"... President Trump admits he doesn't 'know that much' about Alabama Senate contender Roy Moore, gets his name wrong in interview ..."
"... New York Daily News, ..."
"... During a debate with Strange, Moore suggested President Trump was being "redirected" by Mitch McConnell and others who "will not support his [Trump's] agenda" [ Alabama Senate debate erupts over whether McConnell is manipulating Trump ..."
"... Brexit Hero Farage in Alabama: Judge Roy Moore 'Not Going To Be Sucked Into The Swamp' ..."
"... Sarah Palin endorses Judge Roy Moore for US Senate ..."
"... Western Journalism, ..."
"... Ben Carson Splits With Trump, Basically Endorses Roy Moore in Alabama ..."
"... Talking Points Memo, ..."
"... Gorka: Trump Was Pressured to Endorse 'Swamp Dweller' Strange ..."
"... , Fox News, ..."
"... The Breitbart Universe Unites For Roy Moore ..."
"... The Atlantic, ..."
"... Trump's advisors seem to know this. In the Fox News ..."
"... Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama ..."
"... How Alabama Senate Election Results Could Trigger Trump's Impeachment ..."
"... Trump supports Strange, but says it may be "mistake," ..."
"... Washington Post, ..."
"... Roy Moore: 'I can't wait' for Trump to 'campaign like hell' for me ..."
"... Washington Examiner, ..."
"... Chamber of Commerce: 'Shut Down' Roy Moore & 'Remind Bannon Who's In Charge' ..."
"... Trump should seize on the narrative of his supposed opponents. He is unquestionably being given objectively poor political counsel by his aides!not surprising how utterly incompetent the Republican Establishment is when it comes to political strategy. [ Steve Bannon: We Need A Review After This Alabama Race To See How Trump Came To Endorse Someone Like Luther Strange ..."
"... Trump's N.F.L. Critique a Calculated Attempt to Shore Up His Base ..."
"... New York Times, ..."
"... Today, those who defeated Trump in the Republican army are still proclaiming their loyalty to their Commander-in-Chief. But Donald Trump, memes aside, is not a sovereign or just a symbol. He is a man who created a political movement!and that movement expects results. The movement he created, and which put him in office, is desperate for him to lead on an America First agenda. ..."
"... If Trump does not give it results, the movement will eventually find a new leader. Roy Moore is almost certainly not that leader on a national scale. But in Alabama tonight, Moore proved he is stronger than the president himself. ..."
"... James Kirkpatrick [ Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. ..."
He must have known what was coming. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a pillar of the cowardly
GOP Establishment , announced he would not be running for re-election on Tuesday [
Republican Sen. Corker announces he won't seek re-election, by Richard
Lardner and Erik Schelzig, Associated Press, September 26, 2017]. Corker's
departure is widely being interpreted as a sign of the Establishment's inability to control the
GOP base, as the election of President Trump, the rise of nationalism and the emergence of
alternative media outlets (such as Breitbart and VDARE.com) make it harder for cuckservatives
to Republican primary voters in line [ Sen. Bob Corker's retirement is notable for when it's happening, by
Amber Phillips, Washington Post, September 26, 2017]
And now, we have the ultimate proof in Alabama.
Judge Roy Moore, one of the most
persistent
targets of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is now the Republican nominee for the Senate.
And he defeated incumbent Senator Luther Strange despite Strange being
endorsed by President Donald J. Trump himself.
Of course, Strange didn't just have Trump in his corner. He also had Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell using his PAC to run negative ads against Moore, ads which conservative
websites called "defamatory" and which cost many millions of dollars [ McConnell's
Super PAC accused of 'defaming ' Roy Moore, by Bob Unruh, WND,
August 3, 2017] As a result, Judge Moore openly campaigned against his party's own Senate
leader during the primary, claiming a victory for him would mean the end of McConnell's hapless
leadership. [ McConnell's
mortal enemy might soon be in his caucus, by Burgess Everett and Seung Min
Kim, Politico, September 18, 2017]
And yet, revealingly, Moore and his allies framed their insurgency against Trump's wishes as
an act of loyalty.
During a debate with Strange, Moore suggested President Trump was being "redirected" by
Mitch McConnell and others who "will not support his [Trump's] agenda" [ Alabama Senate debate erupts over whether McConnell is manipulating Trump, by Alex Isenstadt and Daniel Strauss, Politico, September 21,
2017]
And most importantly, it shows how the populist and nationalist movement is larger than
Trump himself.
Trump's advisors seem to know this. In the Fox News interview referenced above,
Dr. Gorka claimed "no one voted for Trump, we voted for his agenda." And during his speech in support of Moore,
Bannon referenced Jeff Sessions, not Trump, as
the "spiritual father of the populist and nationalist movement."
But does Trump himself know this? Already, the Main Stream Media is trying to present this
as a devastating defeat for the president personally. The New York Times kvetched
about Moore's social views and sneered that his victory "demonstrated in stark terms the limits
of Mr. Trump's clout" [ Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama, by Jonathan Martin and
Alexander Burns, September 26, 2017]. Jason Le Miere at Newsweek suggested Trump had
suffered his first major political defeat at the ballot box and hinted his political weakness
could trigger his impeachment. [ How
Alabama Senate Election Results Could Trigger Trump's Impeachment, September
26, 2017]
It's hardly a devastating defeat for President Trump when his supposed enemies are
fanatically loyal to him and his "allies" can't wait to stab him in the back.
Tellingly, Trump in his messy intuitive way is already embarking on a movement to shore up
his base by taking on the pro-Black Lives Matter and anti-American antics of the National
Football League [ Trump's
N.F.L. Critique a Calculated Attempt to Shore Up His Base, by Glenn Thrush
and Maggie Haberman, New York Times, September 25, 2017]. But such symbolic fights are
meaningless unless they are coupled with real action on trade and immigration policy.
Today, those who defeated Trump in the Republican army are still proclaiming their
loyalty to their Commander-in-Chief. But Donald Trump, memes aside, is not a sovereign or just
a symbol. He is a man who created a political movement!and that movement expects results. The
movement he created, and which put him in office, is desperate for him to lead on an America
First agenda.
If Trump does not give it results, the movement will eventually find a new leader. Roy
Moore is almost certainly not that leader on a national scale. But in Alabama tonight, Moore
proved he is stronger than the president himself.
Trump has given the Establishment Republicans their chance and they have failed him. It's
time for him to return to the people who have supported him from the very beginning.
James Kirkpatrick [ Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from
Conservatism Inc.
Look people, it's time to grasp some basic politics. The heart might have said Roy Moore
but a leader can not think with his heart alone. Whatever happened in the GOP primary, Luther
Strange was going to remain in the Senate until January. There are big, important votes
coming up in Congress and Trump's margin of error in the Senate is virtually non-existent.
What sense does it make to alienate, even slight, a sitting Senator that has always voted
your way and has never trashed you in public?
It's hardly a devastating defeat for President Trump when his supposed enemies are
fanatically loyal to him and his "allies" can't wait to stab him in the back.
As a man who supposedly highly values personal loyalty, does Trump really not understand
that the men who pushed him to support Strange are also the men who will be first in line to
vote for impeachment the moment it looks as though the leftist establishment has found a
pretext that will succeed?
The movement better start paying attention to the thoughtcrime laws being passed right now
under the banner of "hatespeech". The first amendment isn't just a nice concept. People in
other countries are jailed for speaking their mind in the way Americans take for granted.
"... We should not be entangled in foreign wars merely at the whim and caprice of a President, Moore writes on his site. We must treat sovereign nations as we would want to be treated. ..."
"... It's too early to tell whether the nationalist hawks will be more or less interventionist overall than the internationalist, neocon hawks were, Daniel McCarthy, editor-at-large at the American Conservative ..."
...Steve Bannon told me Wednesday afternoon that he and Moore, who defeated Sen. Luther
Strange (whom President Trump had backed) for the Republican primary nomination in Alabama on
Tuesday, see eye to eye on global affairs, as well, and that, yes, he is every bit the
Bannonite on foreign policy.
Moore, the twice-ousted Alabama Chief Justice, is likely headed to the United States Senate.
Bannon and the Trump movement have often been depicted as essentially non-interventionist. My
recent
reportingindicates
a
caveat to that, however. While Bannon and his cohort might differ with the
blob on confronting Kim Jong Un in North Korea or Bashar al-Assad in Syria or Vladimir
Putin in Russia, they are much more suspicious of the government of Iran. ...
... ... ...
The judges website, Roymoore.org, features such language. We should not be entangled in
foreign wars merely at the whim and caprice of a President, Moore writes on his site. We must
treat sovereign nations as we would want to be treated.
But there are notable divergences from the paleocons. Like Bannon, Moore is a hawk for
Israel. We should pass the
Taylor Force Act and move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. His writing that the U.S. should
not rely on nuclear reduction treaties which leave us vulnerable to foreign powers and that it
should reject agreements or policies that undermine Israel's security clearly alludes to the
Iran deal. The pair would part company with Buchanan on that.
And like President Trump, Moore, a graduate of West Point, wants a bigger military. More
funding should be available to develop a missile defense system and to provide our Navy, Air
Force, Army, Marines, and Coast Guard with the most modern technology including weapon systems.
Respect for our strength is the best defense. Walk softly and carry a big stick is and should
be our guide.
... ... ...
It's too early to tell whether the nationalist hawks will be more or less
interventionist overall than the internationalist, neocon hawks were, Daniel McCarthy,
editor-at-large at the American Conservative , tells me. My guess is that while the
nationalists will speak more provocatively, abort diplomatic agreements, and ramp up `political
warfare, they'll engage in fewer large-scale, nation-building interventions. McCarthy adds
that religion is important here, as well. Moore and Bannon are both on record as deeply
religious. Neoconservative foreign policy is sold as a scheme for secular salvation, bringing
the blessings of liberalism and democracy and human rights to a world that eagerly awaits them,
says McCarthy. Moore's religious convictions might help to immunize him against a belief in
worldly salvation through American arms and advisers...
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest. Follow him on
Twitter: @CurtMills.
President Trump's speech yesterday at the United Nations got rave reviews from neocons like
John Bolton and Elliot Abrams. The US president threatened North Korea, Venezuela, Syria,
Yemen, and Iran. At the same time he claimed that the US is the one country to lead by example
rather than by violating the sovereignty of others. Are the neocons on a roll as they push for
more war? Have they "won" Trump?
Although he speaks about the USA being occupied, looks like Saker does not understand that that
the US empire is actually a global neoliberal empire where multinationals and financial oligarchy have
political control. And without a viable alternative it probably will not collapse, as any collapse presuppose
the withdrawal of support. The necessary level of isolation is possible only if a an alternative is
present
Now like in befor the World War Ii there is struggle for "spheres of influence", in which the USA
is gradually losing as both Germany and Japan restored their industrial potential and China is a new
powerful player on the world scene, which now is allied with Russia with its formidable nuclear deterrent
that now anti-missile defense can neutralize"
Also the USA venture into Ukraine means the completion of revision of the results of WWII, which
opened a new can of worms for the USA making Russia essentially a hostile power (which neocon admit
and try to exploit via the current neo-McCarthism witch hunt)
Notable quotes:
"... Trump wins. Problem: he will be completely alone. The Neocons have a total, repeat total, control of the Congress, the media, banking and finance, and the courts. From Clinton to Clinton they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies. ..."
"... In their hate-filled rage against Trump and the American people (aka "the basket of deplorables") the Neocons have had to show their true face. By their rejection of the outcome of the elections, by their riots, their demonization of Trump, the Neocons have shown two crucial things: first, that the US democracy is a sad joke and that they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which rules against the will of the American people. ..."
"... And since, just like Israel, the USA are unable to frighten their enemies, they are basically left with nothing, no legitimacy, no ability to coerce. So yes, the Neocons have won. But their victory is removes the last chance for the US to avoid a collapse. ..."
"... Externally, the US foreign policy is basically "frozen" and in lieu of a foreign policy we now only have a long series of empty threats hurled at a list of demonized countries which are now promised "fire and brimstone" should they dare to disobey Uncle Sam. ..."
"... This bizarre, and illegal, form of a "vote of no-confidence" further hammers in the message that Trump is either a madman, a traitor, or both. ..."
"... Organizationally, it is clear that Trump is surrounded by enemies as illustrated by the absolutely outrageous fact that he can't even talk to a foreign head of state without having the transcript of his conversation leaked to the Ziomedia . ..."
"... I believe that these all are preparatory steps to trigger a major crisis and use it to remove Trump, either by a process of impeachment, or by force under the pretext of some crisis. Just look at the message which the Ziomedia has been hammeing into the brains of the US population. ..."
"... just imagine the reaction in South Korea and Japan if some crazy US strike on the DPRK results in Seoul and Tokyo being hit by missiles! ..."
"... when the cat is gone, the mice dance ..."
"... The mouse dreams dreams that would terrify the cat ..."
"... Third, for all the encouraging statistics about the Dow Jones, unemployment and growth, the reality is that the US society is rapidly transforming itself in a three-tired one: on top, a small number of obscenely rich people, under them, a certain amount of qualified professionals who service the filthy rich and who struggle to maintain a lifestyle which in the past was associated with the middle-class. And then the vast majority of Americans who basically are looking at making "minimal wage plus a little something" and who basically survive by not paying for health insurance, by typically working two jobs, by eating cheap and unhealthy "prolefeed" and by giving up on that which every American worker could enjoy in the 1950s and 1960s (have one parent at home, have paid holidays, a second vacation home, etc.). Americans are mostly hard workers and, so far, most of them are surviving, but they are mostly one paycheck away from seriously bad poverty. A lot of them only make ends meet because they get help from their parents and grand-parents (the same is true of southern Europe, by the way). A large segment of the US population now survives only because of Walmart and the Dollar Store. Once that fails, food stamps are the last option. That, or jail, of course. ..."
"... No wonder that when so many Americans heard Hillary's comment about the "basket of deplorables" they took that as declaration of war. ..."
"... Whatever may be the case, by their manic insistence, on one hand, to humiliate and crush Trump and, on the other, to repress millions of Americans the Neocons are committing a double mistake. First, they are showing their true face and, second, they are subverting the very institutions they are using to control and run this country. ..."
"... What makes the gradual collapse of the AngloZionist Empire so uniquely dangerous is that it is by far the biggest and most powerful empire in world history. No empire has ever had the quasi monopoly on power the USA enjoyed since WWII. By any measure, military, economic, political, social, the US came out of WWII as a giant and while there were ups and downs during the subsequent decades, the collapse of the USSR only reaffirmed what appeared to be the total victory of the United States. ..."
"... And if Obama was probably the most incompetent President in US history, Trump will be the first one to be openly lynched while in office. As a result, the AngloZionist Empire is now like a huge freight train which has lost its locomotive but still has an immense momentum pushing it forward even though there is nobody in control any more. The rest of the planet, with the irrelevant exception of the East Europeans, is now scrambling in horror to get out of the path of this out of control train. So far, the tracks (minimal common sense, political realities) are more or less holding, but a crash (political, economic or military) could happen at any moment. And that is very, very scary. ..."
"... The US has anywhere between 700 to 1000 military bases worldwide, the entire international financial system is deeply enmeshed with the US economy, the US Dollar is still the only real reserve currency, United States Treasury securities are held by all the key international players (including Russia and China), SWIFT is politically controlled by the US, the US is the only country in the world that can print as much money as it wants and, last but not least, the US has a huge nuclear arsenal. As a result, a US collapse would threaten everybody and that means that nobody would want to trigger one. The collapse of the Soviet Union threatened the rest of mankind only in one way: by its nuclear arsenal. In contrast, any collapse of the United States would threaten everybody in many different ways. ..."
"... This is the irony of our situation: even though the entire planet is sick and tried of the incompetent arrogance of the AngloZionists, nobody out there wants their Empire to catastrophically collapse. And yet, with the Neocons in power, such a collapse appears inevitable with potentially devastating consequences for everybody. ..."
"... This is really amazing, think of it: everybody hates the Neocons, not only a majority of the American people, but truly the entire planet. And yet that numerically small group of people has somehow managed to put everybody in danger, including themselves, due to their ugly vindictiveness, infinite arrogance and ideology-induced short-sightedness. That this could ever have happened, and at a planetary scale, is a dramatic testimony to the moral and spiritual decay of our civilization: how did we ever let things get that far?! ..."
"... My biggest hope with Trump was that he would be willing to sacrifice the Empire for the sake of the US (the opposite of what the Neocons are doing: they are willing to sacrifice the US for the sake of their Empire) and that he would manage a relatively safe and hopefully non-violent transition from Empire to "normal country" for the US. Clearly, this is ain't happening. Instead, the Neocons are threatening everybody: the Chinese, the Russians, the North Koreans and the Venezuelans of course, but also the Europeans (economically), the entire Middle-East (via the "only democracy in the Middle-East"), all the developing countries and even the American people. Heck, they are even threatening the US President himself, and in not-so-subtle ways! ..."
"... my overwhelming sense is that Trump will be removed from office, either for "high crimes and misdemeanors" or for "medical reasons" (they will simply declare him insane and unfit to be the President). ..."
"... The evil hand of the "Russian KGB" (yes, I know, the KGB was dissolved in 1991) will be found everywhere, especially amongst US libertarians (who will probably the only ones with enough brains to understand what is taking place). The (pseudo-) "Left" will rejoice. ..."
"... Should this course of action result in an unexpected level or resistance, either regional or social, a 9-11 false flag followed by a war will the most likely scenario (why stray away from something which worked so well the first time around?!). ..."
"... in 1991 when the US sent the 82nd AB to Iraq there was nothing standing between this light infantry force and the Iraqi armored divisions. Had the Iraqis attacked the plan was to use tactical nuclear weapons. Then this was all quickly forgotten ..."
"... There is a reason why the Neocons thrive in times of crisis: it allows them to hide behind the mayhem, especially when they are the ones who triggered the mayhem in the first place. This means that as long as the Neocons are anywhere near in power they will never, ever, allow peace to suddenly break out, lest the spotlight be suddenly shined directly upon them. Chaos, wars, crises – this is their natural habitat. Think of it as the by-product of their existence. Eventually, of course, they will be stopped and they will be defeated, like all their predecessors in history. But I shudder when I think of the price mankind will have to pay this time around. ..."
In October of last year a wrote an analysis I entitled
The USA are about to face the worst crisis of their history and how Putin's example might inspire
Trump and I think that this is a good time to revisit it now. I began the analysis by looking
at the calamities which would befall the United States if Hillary was elected. Since this did not
happen (thank God!), we can safely ignore that part and look at my prediction of what would happen
if Trump was elected. Here is what I wrote:
Trump wins. Problem: he will be completely alone. The Neocons have a total, repeat total,
control of the Congress, the media, banking and finance, and the courts. From Clinton to Clinton
they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies. The
Fed is their stronghold. How in the world will Trump deal with these rabid "
crazies in the basement "? Consider the vicious hate campaign which all these "personalities"
(from actors, to politicians to reporters) have unleashed against Trump – they have burned their
bridges, they know that they will lose it all if Trump wins (and, if he proves to be an easy pushover
his election will make no difference anyway). The Neocons have nothing to lose and they will fight
to the very last one.
What could Trump possibly do to get anything done if he is surrounded by Neocons and
their agents of influence? Bring in an entirely different team? How is he going to vet them? His
first choice was to take Pence as a VP – a disaster (he is already sabotaging Trump on Syria and
the elections outcome). I *dread* the hear whom Trump will appoint as a White House Chief of Staff
as I am afraid that just to appease the Neocons he will appoint some new version of the infamous
Rahm Emanuel And should Trump prove that he has both principles and courage, the Neocons can always
"Dallas" him and replace him with Pence. Et voilà !
Less than a month ago
I warned that a 'color revolution ' was taking place in the USA . My first element of proof
was the so-called "investigation" which the CIA, FBI, NSA and others were conducting against President
Trump's candidate to become National Security Advisor, General Flynn. Tonight, the plot to get
rid of Flynn has finally succeeded and
General Flynn had to
offer his resignation . Trump accepted it. Now let's immediately get one thing out of the
way: Flynn was hardly a saint or a perfect wise man who would single handedly saved the world.
That he was not. However, what Flynn was is the cornerstone of Trump's national security policy
. ( ) The Neocon run 'deep state' has now forced Flynn to resign under the idiotic pretext that
he had a telephone conversation, on an open, insecure and clearly monitored, line with the Russian
ambassador. And Trump accepted this resignation. Ever since Trump made it to the White House,
he has taken blow after blow from the Neocon-run Ziomedia, from Congress, from all the Hollywood
doubleplusgoodthinking "stars" and even from European politicians. And Trump took each
blow without ever fighting back. Nowhere was his famous "you are fired!" to be seen. But I still
had hope. I wanted to hope. I felt that it was my duty to hope. But now Trump has betrayed us
all. Again, Flynn was not my hero. But he was, by all accounts, Trump's hero. And Trump betrayed
him. The consequences of this will be immense. For one thing, Trump is now clearly broken. It
took the 'deep state' only weeks to castrate Trump and to make him bow to the powers that be .
Those who would have stood behind Trump will now feel that he will not stand behind them and they
will all move back away from him. The Neocons will feel elated by the elimination of their worst
enemy and emboldened by this victory they will push on, doubling-down over and over and over again.
It's over, folks, the deep state has won.
I then concluded that the consequences of this victory would catastrophic for the United States:
In their hate-filled rage against Trump and the American people (aka "the basket of deplorables")
the Neocons have had to show their true face. By their rejection of the outcome of the elections,
by their riots, their demonization of Trump, the Neocons have shown two crucial things: first,
that the US democracy is a sad joke and that they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which
rules against the will of the American people. In other words, just like Israel, the USA
has no legitimacy left. And since, just like Israel, the USA are unable to frighten their
enemies, they are basically left with nothing, no legitimacy, no ability to coerce. So yes, the
Neocons have won. But their victory is removes the last chance for the US to avoid a collapse.
I think that what we are seeing today are the first signs of the impending collapse.
The symptoms of the agony
Externally, the US foreign policy is basically "frozen" and in lieu of a foreign policy we now
only have a long series of empty threats hurled at a list of demonized countries which are now promised
"fire and brimstone" should they dare to disobey Uncle Sam. While this makes for good headlines,
this does not qualify as a "policy" of any kind (I discussed this issue at length during
my recent interview
with SouthFront ). And then there is Congress which has basically
stripped Trump from his powers to conduct foreign policy . This bizarre, and illegal, form
of a "vote of no-confidence" further hammers in the message that Trump is either a madman, a traitor,
or both. Internally, the latest riots in Charlottesville now being blamed on Trump who, after
being a Putin agent is now further demonized as some kind of Nazi (see Paul Craig Roberts'
first and
second warnings about this dynamic)
Organizationally, it is clear that Trump is surrounded by enemies as illustrated by the absolutely
outrageous fact that he can't even talk to a foreign head of state without having the
transcript of his conversation leaked to the Ziomedia .
I believe that these all are preparatory steps to trigger a major crisis and use it to remove
Trump, either by a process of impeachment, or by force under the pretext of some crisis. Just look
at the message which the Ziomedia has been hammeing into the brains of the US population.
The psychological preparation for the forthcoming coup: scaring them all to death Here are three
very telling examples taken from Newsweek's front page:
... ... ...
Ask yourself, what is the message here? Trump is a traitor, he works for Putin, Putin wants to
destroy democracy in the United States and these two men together are the most dangerous men on the
planet . This is a " plot against America ", no less! Not bad, right? "They" are clearly out there
go get "us" and "we" are all in terrible danger: Kim Jong-un is about to declare nuclear war on the
US, Xi and Putin are threatening the world with their armies, and "our" own President came to power
courtesy of the "Russian KGB" and "Putin's hackers", he now works for the Russians, he is also clearly
a Nazi, a White supremacist, a racist and, possibly, a "
new Hitler " (
as is Putin , of course!).
And then, there are those truly scary Mooslims and Aye-rabs who apparently want only two things
in life: destroy "our way of life" and kill all the "infidels". This is why we need the TSA, 16 intelligence
agencies and militarized police SWAT teams everywhere: in case the terrorists come to get us where
we live.
Dangerous international consequences
This would all be rather funny if it was not also extremely dangerous. For one thing, the US is
really poking at a dangerous foe when it constantly tries to scare Kim Jong-un and the DPRK leadership.
No, not because of the North Korean nukes (which are probably not real nuclear capable ICBMs but
a not necessarily compatible combination of nuclear 'devices' and intermediate range ballistic missiles)
but because of the huge and hard to destroy conventional North Korean military. The real threat are
not missiles, but a deadly combination of conventional artillery and special forces which present
very little danger to the US or the US military, but which present a huge threat for the population
of Seoul and the northern section of South Korea. Nukes, in whatever form, are really only an added
problem, a toxic "icing" on an already very dangerous 'conventional cake'.
[Sidebar - a real life nightmare : Now, if you *really* want to terrify yourself and stay awake
all night then consider the following. While I personally believe that Kim Jong-un is not insane
and that the main objective of the North Korean leadership is to avoid a war at all costs, what if
I am wrong? What if those who say that the North Korean leaders are totally insane are right? Or,
which I think is much more likely, what if Kim Jong-un and the North Korean leaders came to the conclusion
that they have nothing to lose, that the Americans are going to kill them all, along with their families
and friends? What could they, in theory, do if truly desperate? Well, let me tell you: forget about
Guam; think Tokyo! Indeed, while the DPRK could devastate Seoul with old fashioned artillery systems,
DPRK missiles are probably capable of striking Tokyo or the
Keihanshin region encompassing
Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe including the key industries of the
Hanshin Industrial
Region . The Greater Tokyo area (Kanto region) and the Keihanshin region are very densely populated
(37 and 20 million people respectively) and contain an immense number of industries, many of which
would produce an ecological disaster of immense proportions if hit by missiles. Not only that, but
a strike on the key economic and financial nodes of Japan would probably result in a 9-11 kind of
international economic collapse. So if the North Koreans wanted to really, really hurt the Americans
what they could do is strike Seoul, and key cities in Japan resulting in a huge political crisis
for the entire planet. During the Cold War we used to study the consequences of a Soviet strike against
Japan and the conclusion was always the same: Japan cannot afford a war of any kind. The Japanese
landmass is too small, too densely populated, to rich in lucrative targets and a war lay waste to
the entire country. This is still true today, only more so. And just imagine the reaction in
South Korea and Japan if some crazy US strike on the DPRK results in Seoul and Tokyo being hit by
missiles!The
South Koreans have already made their position unambiguously clear , by the way. As for the Japanese,
they are officially
placing their hopes in missiles (as if technology could mitigate the consequences of insanity!).
So yeah, the DPRK is plenty dangerous and pushing them into their last resort is totally irresponsible
indeed, nukes or no nukes]
What we are observing now is positive feedback loop in which each move by the Neocons results
in a deeper and deeper destabilization of the entire system. Needless to say, this is extremely dangerous
and can only result in an eventual catastrophe/collapse. In fact, the signs that the US is totally
losing control are already all over the place, here are just a few headlines to illustrate this:
A French expression goes " when the cat is gone, the mice dance ", and this is exactly
what is happening now: the US is both very weak and basically absent. As for the Armenians, they
say " The mouse dreams dreams that would terrify the cat ". Well, the "mice" of the world
are dancing and dreaming and simply ignoring the "cat". Every move the cat makes only makes things
worse for him. The world is moving on, while the cat is busy destroying himself.
Dangerous domestic consequences
First on my list would be race riots. In fact, they are already happening all over the United
States, but they are rarely presented as such. And I am not talking about the "official" riots of
Black Lives Matter, which are bad enough, I am talking about the many mini-riots which the official
media is systematically trying to obfuscate. Those interested in this topic should read the book
here ). The simple truth is that no regime can survive for too long when it proactively supports
the exact opposite of what it officially is supposed to stand for. The result? I have yet to meet
an adult American who would sincerely believe that he/she lives in the "land of the free and the
home of the brave". Maybe infants still buy this stuff, but even teenagers know that this is a load
of bull.
Third, for all the encouraging statistics about the Dow Jones, unemployment and growth, the
reality is that the US society is rapidly transforming itself in a three-tired one: on top, a small
number of obscenely rich people, under them, a certain amount of qualified professionals who service
the filthy rich and who struggle to maintain a lifestyle which in the past was associated with the
middle-class. And then the vast majority of Americans who basically are looking at making "minimal
wage plus a little something" and who basically survive by not paying for health insurance, by typically
working two jobs, by eating cheap and unhealthy "prolefeed" and by giving up on that which every
American worker could enjoy in the 1950s and 1960s (have one parent at home, have paid holidays,
a second vacation home, etc.). Americans are mostly hard workers and, so far, most of them are surviving,
but they are mostly one paycheck away from seriously bad poverty. A lot of them only make ends meet
because they get help from their parents and grand-parents (the same is true of southern Europe,
by the way). A large segment of the US population now survives only because of Walmart and the Dollar
Store. Once that fails, food stamps are the last option. That, or jail, of course.
Combine all this and you get a potentially extremely explosive situation. No wonder that when
so many Americans heard Hillary's comment about the "basket of deplorables" they took that as declaration
of war.
And how do the Neocons plan to deal with all this? By cracking down on free speech and dissent,
of course! What else? Their only response – repression of course!
YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter – they are all cracking down on "bad" speech which includes
pretty much any topic a garden variety self-described 'liberal' frowns upon.
GoDaddy
and
Google are even going after domain names. Oh sure, nobody gets thrown in jail for, say, defending
the 2nd Amendment, but they get "demonetized" and their accounts simply closed. It's not the cops
cracking down on free speech, it's "Corporate America", but the effect is the same. Apparently, the
Neocons do not realize that censorship is not a viable strategy in the age of the Internet. Or maybe
they do, and they are deliberately trying to trigger a backlash?
Then there is the vilification campaign in the media: unless you are some kind of 'minority' you
are assumed to be nefarious by birth and guilty of all the evils on the planet. And your leader is
Trump, of course, or maybe even Putin himself, vide supra. Christian heterosexual White
males better run for cover
Whatever may be the case, by their manic insistence, on one hand, to humiliate and crush Trump
and, on the other, to repress millions of Americans the Neocons are committing a double mistake.
First, they are showing their true face and, second, they are subverting the very institutions they
are using to control and run this country. That, of course, only further weaken the Neocons
and the United States themselves and that further accelerates the positive feedback loop mentioned
above which now threatens the entire international system.
Us and Them
What makes the gradual collapse of the AngloZionist Empire so uniquely dangerous is that it
is by far the biggest and most powerful empire in world history. No empire has ever had the quasi
monopoly on power the USA enjoyed since WWII. By any measure, military, economic, political, social,
the US came out of WWII as a giant and while there were ups and downs during the subsequent decades,
the collapse of the USSR only reaffirmed what appeared to be the total victory of the United States.
In my admittedly subjective opinion, the last competent (no, I did not say 'good', I said 'competent')
US President was George Herbert Walker Bush who, unlike his successors, at least knew how to run
an Empire. After that, it is all downhill, faster and faster. And if Obama was probably the most
incompetent President in US history, Trump will be the first one to be openly lynched while in office.
As a result, the AngloZionist Empire is now like a huge freight train which has lost its locomotive
but still has an immense momentum pushing it forward even though there is nobody in control any more.
The rest of the planet, with the irrelevant exception of the East Europeans, is now scrambling in
horror to get out of the path of this out of control train. So far, the tracks (minimal common sense,
political realities) are more or less holding, but a crash (political, economic or military) could
happen at any moment. And that is very, very scary.
The US has anywhere between 700 to 1000 military bases worldwide, the entire international
financial system is deeply enmeshed with the US economy, the US Dollar is still the only real reserve
currency, United States Treasury securities are held by all the key international players (including
Russia and China), SWIFT is politically controlled by the US, the US is the only country in the world
that can print as much money as it wants and, last but not least, the US has a huge nuclear arsenal.
As a result, a US collapse would threaten everybody and that means that nobody would want to trigger
one. The collapse of the Soviet Union threatened the rest of mankind only in one way: by its nuclear
arsenal. In contrast, any collapse of the United States would threaten everybody in many different
ways.
So the real question now is this: can the rest of the planet prevent a catastrophic collapse of
the AngloZionist Empire?
This is the irony of our situation: even though the entire planet is sick and tried of the
incompetent arrogance of the AngloZionists, nobody out there wants their Empire to catastrophically
collapse. And yet, with the Neocons in power, such a collapse appears inevitable with potentially
devastating consequences for everybody.
This is really amazing, think of it: everybody hates the Neocons, not only a majority of the
American people, but truly the entire planet. And yet that numerically small group of people has
somehow managed to put everybody in danger, including themselves, due to their ugly vindictiveness,
infinite arrogance and ideology-induced short-sightedness. That this could ever have happened, and
at a planetary scale, is a dramatic testimony to the moral and spiritual decay of our civilization:
how did we ever let things get that far?!
And the next obvious question: can we still stop them?
I honestly don't know. I hope so, but I am not sure. My biggest hope with Trump was that he
would be willing to sacrifice the Empire for the sake of the US (the opposite of what the Neocons
are doing: they are willing to sacrifice the US for the sake of their Empire) and that he would manage
a relatively safe and hopefully non-violent transition from Empire to "normal country" for the US.
Clearly, this is ain't happening. Instead, the Neocons are threatening everybody: the Chinese, the
Russians, the North Koreans and the Venezuelans of course, but also the Europeans (economically),
the entire Middle-East (via the "only democracy in the Middle-East"), all the developing countries
and even the American people. Heck, they are even threatening the US President himself, and in not-so-subtle
ways!
So what's next?
Truly, I don't know. But my overwhelming sense is that Trump will be removed from office,
either for "high crimes and misdemeanors" or for "medical reasons" (they will simply declare him
insane and unfit to be the President). Seeing how weak and spineless Trump is, he might even
be "convinced" to resign. I don't see them simply murdering him simply because he is no Kennedy either.
After that, Pence comes to power and it will all be presented like a wonderful event, a group-hug
of the elites followed by an immediate and merciless crackdown on any form of political opposition
or dissent which will immediately be labeled as racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, terrorist, etc.
The evil hand of the "Russian KGB" (yes, I know, the KGB was dissolved in 1991) will be found
everywhere, especially amongst US libertarians (who will probably the only ones with enough brains
to understand what is taking place). The (pseudo-) "Left" will rejoice.
Should this course of action result in an unexpected level or resistance, either regional
or social, a 9-11 false flag followed by a war will the most likely scenario (why stray away from
something which worked so well the first time around?!). Unless the US decides to re-invade
Grenada or give Nauru a much deserved thrashing, any more or less real war will result in a catastrophic
failure for the US at which point the use of nukes by the Neocon crazies might become a very real
risk, especially if symbolic US targets such as aircraft carriers are hit ( in 1991 when the
US sent the 82nd AB to Iraq there was nothing standing between this light infantry force and the
Iraqi armored divisions. Had the Iraqis attacked the plan was to use tactical nuclear weapons. Then
this was all quickly forgotten ).
There is a reason why the Neocons thrive in times of crisis: it allows them to hide behind
the mayhem, especially when they are the ones who triggered the mayhem in the first place. This means
that as long as the Neocons are anywhere near in power they will never, ever, allow peace to suddenly
break out, lest the spotlight be suddenly shined directly upon them. Chaos, wars, crises – this is
their natural habitat. Think of it as the by-product of their existence. Eventually, of course, they
will be stopped and they will be defeated, like all their predecessors in history. But I shudder
when I think of the price mankind will have to pay this time around.
"... Yes, in the sense that it had nothing to do with fulfilling the expectations of people who voted for it. But certainly it may had something to do with weakening the EU under German and to lesser extent French leadership. Releasing thousands of refugees from Turkey to Europe in 2015 in the direction of Germany was probably also a part of weakening the EU plan. The wholehearted welcoming of refugees by Merkel and German elites is a part of a theater as well but for a different audience. ..."
"... What about Viktor Orbán? What about the whole Visegrad Group? What about Marine Le Pen? Do you side with them, or against them, in their struggle against the wholesale cultural transformation of Europe through mass immigration? ..."
"... The Empire "lowerarchy" only needs entertain the voter masses during the theatric event popularly known as POTUS elections. They know that the People never get a candidate choice which is not pre-approved. ..."
"... In fact, I intuit that The Empire appreciates having even major "idiot" donors to their uni-Party campaign theater. ..."
Good points, Priss Factor, and I will add one for your consideration.
At Davos 2017, Anthony Scaramucci assured the congregation that "President Trump is
the last hope of the globalists."
I am mindful how powerful forces of Deception can cunningly co-opt populism /
nationalism to their N.W.O. advantage.
A question.
Do you believe international banksters gave the Brits an opportunity to decide whether
"in or out" of the EUROPEAN UNION?
I think the Brexit outcome was theater, a globalist "invasion" & occupation of
planet-scale perception.
Thanks and I trust you will reply!
===
I think the Brexit outcome was theater
Yes, in the sense that it had nothing to do with fulfilling the expectations of people
who voted for it. But certainly it may had something to do with weakening the EU under
German and to lesser extent French leadership. Releasing thousands of refugees from Turkey
to Europe in 2015 in the direction of Germany was probably also a part of weakening the EU
plan. The wholehearted welcoming of refugees by Merkel and German elites is a part of a
theater as well but for a different audience.
@Vinteuil If The Powers That
Be (TPTB) in Europe constantly attacked Islam & demanded the repatriation of Muslims to
their homelands, the Dinh/Revusky thesis would at least *make sense.* The hatred of Muslims
by TPTB would explain why they go to such trouble to fake all these attacks.
But, in fact, said powers endlessly insist that Not All Muslims Are Like That, and do
everything they can to import more of them.
Angela Merkel, anybody? Jean-Claude Juncker? The entire European MSM? I mean, hello?
And they stigmatize anybody who doubts the wisdom of this policy - like, say, Marine Le
Pen or Viktor Orbán - as "far right" extremists! Serious question, VD/JR:
What about Viktor Orbán? What about the whole Visegrad Group? What about Marine
Le Pen? Do you side with them, or against them, in their struggle against the wholesale
cultural transformation of Europe through mass immigration?
Yes, in the sense that it had nothing to do with fulfilling the expectations of people
who voted for it. But certainly it may had something to do with weakening the EU under
German and to lesser extent French leadership. Releasing thousands of refugees from Turkey
to Europe in 2015 in the direction of Germany was probably also a part of weakening the EU
plan. The wholehearted welcoming of refugees by Merkel and German elites is a part of a
theater as well but for a different audience. Utu,
For me, the title of this article alone is a learning experience.
The Empire "lowerarchy" only needs entertain the voter masses during the theatric event
popularly known as POTUS elections. They know that the People never get a candidate choice
which is not pre-approved.
In fact, I intuit that The Empire appreciates having even major "idiot" donors to their
uni-Party campaign theater.
"... Jeb's 2016 departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , ..."
"... Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency ..."
"... Political Divisions in 2016 and Beyon ..."
"... Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties, ..."
"... When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years." ..."
"... Devil's Bargain ..."
"... the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules!for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed, without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their candidate off to Arizona in the final days. ..."
"... Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [ Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017] ..."
"... But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing. ..."
Throughout 2016, I would occasionally turn on the television to see how the punditocracy was responding to the mounting
Trump tsunami . If you get most of your news online, watching cable news is frustrating. The commentary is so
dumbed down and painfully
reflective of speaker's biases, you can always basically guess what's coming next. With a few exceptions!above all
Ann Coulter 's famous
June 19, 2015 prediction
of a Trump victory on
Bill Maher !these pundits again and again told us that Trump would eventually go away, first after he made this or that gaffe,
then after he "failed" in a debate, then after people actually started voting in the primaries.
The most interesting cases to me: the "
Republican
strategists ," brought on to CNN and MSNBC to give the audience the illusion that they were hearing both sides: Nicole Wallace,
Steve Schmidt, Ana Navarro, Rick Wilson, Margaret Hoover, Todd Harris.
Mike Murphy even convinced donors to hand him over $100 million to make Jeb Bush the next president! [ Jeb's 2016
departure draws out Mike Murphy critics , By Maeve Reston, February 22, 2016]
With campaigns and donors throwing money at these people, and the Main Stream Media touting them, it was easy to assume they must
know what they were talking about. Significantly, each of these pundits was a national security hawk, center-right on economic issues,
and just as horrified by "
racism " and "
sexism
" as their
Leftist counterparts . By a remarkable coincidence, the "
strategic
" advice that they gave to Republican candidates lined up perfectly with these positions. Their prominence was a mirage created
by the fact that the
MSM handed this
token opposition the
Megaphone
because they did not challenge the core prejudices of the
bipartisan Ruling Class.
And of course they were all humiliated in a spectacular fashion, November 8 being only the climax.
Joshua Green begins his book Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon,
Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by giving us a view inside the Trump campaign on election night, before
tracing Steve Bannon's path up to that point. Reliving the journey is one of the joys of Green's work, which is mostly an intellectual
biography of Steve Bannon,
with a special focus on his relationship with Trump and the election.
Bannon
joined the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016 without any previous experience in electoral politics. But like the candidate
himself, the Breitbart editor showed that he understood the nature of American politics and the GOP base
better than Establishment Republicans. The "strategists'" supposed "expertise," "strategic advice," and "analysis" was in reality
built on a house of cards. (In fact, the
Bannon-Trump
view of the electorate is closer to the
consensus among
political scientists that, unlike more nationalist and populist policies,
Republican Establishment positions have relatively little popular support. [
Political
Divisions in 2016 and Beyon d | Tensions Between and Within the Two Parties, Voter Study Group, June 2017]).
Bannon at Breitbart.com gave the Republican base what it wanted. Moral: in a democracy, you always have a chance at winning when
public opinion (or at least intraparty opinion) is on your side.
Green traces Bannon's journey from his
Irish-Catholic working-class
roots and traditionalist upbringing, to his time in the Navy, at Harvard Business School and Goldman Sachs, and finally Breitbart.com
and the pinnacle of American politics. The picture that
emerges is of a man with principles and vigor, refusing to submit to the inertia that is part of the human condition, with enough
confidence to realize that life is too short to not make major changes when staying on the current path is not going to allow him
to accomplish his goals.
For example, Bannon originally wanted a career in defense policy, and took a job in the Pentagon during the Reagan administration.
Yet he was off to Harvard Business School when he realized that the rigid
bureaucracy that he was a part of would not let him move up to a high-level position until he was middle-aged. Decades later,
after taking over his website upon the unexpected death
of Andrew Breitbart in 2012, it would have been easy to go low-risk!sticking to Establishment scripts, making life comfortable
for Republican elites, implicitly submitting to the taboos of the Left.
Instead , he helped turn Breitbart News into a major voice of the populist tide that has been remaking center-right politics
across the globe.
When Donald Trump burst onto the scene, Bannon had found what he is quoted describing as a "blunt instrument for us," a man
who had "taken this nationalist movement and moved it up twenty years."
From Green, we learn much about Bannon's intellectual influences. Surprisingly, although he was raised as a Roman Catholic and
maintains that faith today, we find out that Bannon briefly practiced Zen Buddhism while in the Navy. There are other unusual influences
that make appearances in the book, including Rightist philosopher
Julius Evola and
René Guénon,
a French occultist who eventually became a Sufi Muslim. Although not exactly my cup of tea, such eccentric intellectual interests
reflect a curious mind that refuses to restrict itself to fashionable influences.
It's incorrect to call Devil's Bargain a biography. There is practically no mention of Bannon's personal life!wives,
children. I had to Google to find out that he has three daughters. His childhood is only discussed in the context of how it may have
influenced his beliefs and political development.
Rather, we get information on Bannon's intellectual and career pursuits and his relationships with consequential figures such
as mega-donor Robert Mercer, Andrew Breitbart and Donald Trump.
As Bannon exits the White House and returns to Breitbart, we must hope that Bannon and the movement he's helped to create accomplish
enough in the future to inspire more complete biographies.
But the rise of Bannon and Trump holds lessons for the Dissident Right. One of them: despite how powerful the Establishment
may appear, there are fatal disconnects between it and the people it rules!for example, on social and identity issues. Thus, many
members of this Ruling Class, such as the Republican strategists who predicted a Jeb or Rubio victory, have been more successful
in deluding themselves than they have been in building any kind of effective base. Similarly, Clinton campaign operatives believed,
without much evidence, that undecided voters would eventually break in their favor. Because the thought of a Trump presidency was
too horrifying for them to contemplate, they refused to recognize polls showing a close race, ignored the Midwest and sauntered their
candidate off to Arizona in the final days.
Of course, currently the ideas that Bannon fought for appear to be on the wane, leading him to declare upon leaving the White
House that the "Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over." [
Weekly Standard, August 18, 2017]
But this is probably somewhat of an exaggeration. I doubt that Bannon laments the fact that the current president is Donald
Trump rather than Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. But it has proved much more difficult to change government policy than to win an
election. Unlike GOP strategists, the Deep State appears to know what it is doing.
In his memoir Nixon's White House Wars , Pat
Buchanan writes about how, despite playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out
of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our movement had exhibited real power
in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and
though we were
playing a pivotal role in the election of 1968, the conservative movement was
mostly shut out
of high-level jobs:
Then there was the painful reality with which the right had to come to terms. Though our movement had exhibited real power
in capturing the nomination for Barry Goldwater and helping Nixon crush the Rockefeller-Romney wing of the Republican Party, and
though we were veterans of a victorious presidential campaign, few of us had served in the executive branch. We lacked titles,
resumes, credentials Our pool of experienced public servants who could seamlessly move into top positions was miniscule compared
to that of the liberal Democrats who had dominated the capital's politics since FDR arrived in 1933.
History repeated itself in 2016, when Donald Trump would win the presidency on a nationalist platform but find few qualified individuals
who could reliably implement his agenda.
If nationalists want to ensure that their next generation of leaders is able to effectively implement the policies they run on,
they are going to have to engage in the slow and tedious project of working their way up through powerful institutions.
Bannon may have been and remains an "outsider" to the political Establishment. But nonetheless, throughout his life he has leveraged
elite institutions such as Harvard, Goldman Sachs, the Republican Party, and even Hollywood in order to become financially independent
and free to pursue his political goals.
If enough of those on the Dissident Right forge a similar path, we can be sure that future nationalist political victories will
be less hollow. Jeremy Cooper is a specialist in international politics and an observer of global trends. Follow him at
@NeoNeoLiberal .
@Clyde Wilson
Is there any evidence that Trump even tried to find the right people to fill the offices? Having dabbled ever so slightly
in this process in the spring, my impression is that there is a mechanism run largely by lawyers from the big DC law firms (presumably
one for each party) who are the gatekeepers for applicants. The result of this system, which I have little doubt that the "Trump
Team" did not try to take on (after all, they had only a couple of months to put together the beginnings of a team, and that left
little or no time replacing The Swamp Machine ) is that the key positions throughout the administration are largely filled with
lawyers from connected law firms. After all, who better to administer the government than lawyers!?!?
At any rate, my experience with the process was: on your marks, get set, nothing. 30 years experience in and around federal
government, but not a lawyer. Don't call us, we don't want to talk to you. (I also made clear in my cover letter that the key
motivator for my application -- and first ever political contributions -- was Trump and his agenda. In retrospect, this "admission"
was probably a kiss of death. I was a Trumpite. Eeeewww!!! (I may well not have been qualified for anything, but I'm SURE I was
disqualified by my support for Trump )
In its aftermath, commentators warned of a resurgence of economic nationalism, that is,
protectionism. Some states did increase tariff levels but this has not led to a generalised
increase in barriers to trade in the pursuit of national economies for interrelated reasons:
(1) the integration and therefore interdependency of economies; (2) the complexity of the
global economy, making it all but impossible to separate by nationality; (3) the greater
extensity of world markets compared to the mid-20th century; (4) the redundancy of the various
models of economic nationalism.
Policy Implications
Economic nationalism should be understood as a set of practices to create, bolster and
protect national economies in the context of world markets. The rise and institutionalisation
of economic nationalism in the 20th century was a product of economic crisis, nationalist
movements and enlarged states.
There has been no 'return of economic nationalism' as in a generalised rise in protective
barriers to trade since the financial crash of 2011. Unlike the 1930s, sovereign debt has not
motivated states to withdraw from global markets.
The integration, complexity and extensity of the world's economy mean that a reversal of
trade as great as during the interwar period would entail an economic Armageddon. Whatever
future ructions the world's economy experiences due, above all, to chronic levels of
sovereign debt, policy makers should be mindful of this reality.
Simultaneously, they should be aware that ongoing instability may entail greater economic
nationalism. The key lesson from the period after the Second World War is relevant now at a
more overtly global level: the importance of planning, regulation and respect for models of
economic diversity to further global trade.
"... neocons are not Alt Right. National Socialists are not Alt Right. ..."
"... The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals or globalist objectives. ..."
"... The Alt Right is opposed to the rule or domination of any native ethnic group by another, particularly in the sovereign homelands of the dominated peoples. The Alt Right is opposed to any non-native ethnic group obtaining excessive influence in any society through nepotism, tribalism, or any other means. ..."
"... The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people, or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native culture it prefers. ..."
"... The Alt Right is a philosophy that values peace among the various nations of the world and opposes wars to impose the values of one nation upon another ..."
The Alt Right is of the political right in both the American and the European sense of
the term. Socialists are not Alt Right. Progressives are not Alt Right. Liberals are not Alt
Right. Communists, Marxists, Marxians, cultural Marxists, and
neocons are not Alt Right.
National Socialists are not Alt Right.
The Alt Right is an ALTERNATIVE to the mainstream conservative movement in the USA that
is nominally encapsulated by Russel Kirk's
10 Conservative
Principles
, but in reality has devolved towards progressivism. It is also an alternative
to libertarianism.
The Alt Right is not a defensive attitude and rejects the concept of noble and principled
defeat. It is a forward-thinking philosophy of offense, in every sense of that term. The Alt
Right believes in victory through persistence and remaining in harmony with science, reality,
cultural tradition, and the lessons of history.
The Alt Right believes Western civilization is the pinnacle of human achievement and
supports its three foundational pillars: Christianity, the European nations, and the
Graeco-Roman legacy.
The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the
right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and
immigration.
The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals
or globalist objectives.
The Alt Right is anti-equalitarian. It rejects the idea of equality for the same reason
it rejects the ideas of unicorns and leprechauns, noting that human equality does not exist
in any observable scientific, legal, material, intellectual, sexual, or spiritual form.
The Alt Right is scientodific. It presumptively accepts the current conclusions of the
scientific method (scientody), while understanding a) these conclusions are liable to future
revision, b) that scientistry is susceptible to corruption, and c) that the so-called
scientific consensus is not based on scientody, but democracy, and is therefore intrinsically
unscientific.
The Alt Right believes identity > culture > politics.
The Alt Right is opposed to the rule or domination of any native ethnic group by
another, particularly in the sovereign homelands of the dominated peoples. The Alt Right is
opposed to any non-native ethnic group obtaining excessive influence in any society through
nepotism, tribalism, or any other means.
The Alt Right understands that diversity + proximity = war.
The Alt Right doesn't care what you think of it.
The Alt Right rejects international free trade and the free movement of peoples that free
trade requires. The benefits of intranational free trade is not evidence for the benefits of
international free trade.
The Alt Right believes we must secure the existence of white people and a future for
white children.
The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people,
or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique
strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native
culture it prefers.
The Alt Right is a philosophy that values peace among the various nations of the
world and opposes wars to impose the values of one nation upon another
as well as
efforts to exterminate individual nations through war, genocide, immigration, or genetic
assimilation.
TL;DR: The Alt Right is a Western ideology that believes in science, history, reality, and
the right of a genetic nation to exist and govern itself in its own interests.
The patron saint of conservatives, Russell Kirk, wrote:
"The great line of demarcation in
modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one
side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women
who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only
needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that
line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant
human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal."
This is no longer true, assuming it ever was. The great line of demarcation in modern
politics is now a division between men and women who believe that they are ultimately defined
by their momentary opinions and those who believe they are ultimately defined by their genetic
heritage. The Alt Right understands that the former will always lose to the latter in the end,
because the former is subject to change.
Rejection of globalization by alt-right is very important. that's why make them economic nationalists.
And that's why they are hated neocon and those forces of neoliberalism which are behind Neocon/Neolib
Cultural Revolution -- promotion of LGBT, uni-gender bathrooms, transsexuals, etc, identity wedge in
politics demonstrated by Hillary, etc. (modeled on Mao's cultural revolution, which also what launched
when Mao started to lose his grip on political power).
In my experience with the alt-right, I encountered a surprisingly common narrative: Alt-right supporters
did not, for the most part, come from overtly racist families. Alt-right media platforms have actually
been pushing this meme aggressively in recent months. Far from defending the ideas and institutions
they inherited, the alt-right!which is overwhelmingly a movement of white millennials!forcefully
condemns their parents' generation. They do so because they do not believe their parents are racist
enough
In an inverse of the left-wing protest movements of the 1960s, the youthful alt-right bitterly
lambast the "boomers" for their lack of explicit ethnocentrism, their rejection of patriarchy, and
their failure to maintain America's old demographic characteristics and racial hierarchy. In the
alt-right's vision, even older conservatives are useless "cucks" who focus on tax policies and forcefully
deny that they are driven by racial animus.
... ... ...
To complicate matters further, many people in the alt-right were radicalized while in college. Not
only that, but the efforts to inoculate the next generation of America's social and economic leaders
against racism were, in some cases, a catalyst for racist radicalization. Although academic seminars
that explain the reality of white privilege may reduce feelings of prejudice among most young whites
exposed to them, they have the opposite effect on other young whites. At this point we do not know
what percentage of white college students react in such a way, but the number is high enough to warrant
additional study.
A final problem with contemporary discussions about racism is that they often remain rooted in
outdated stereotypes. Our popular culture tends to define the racist as a toothless illiterate Klansman
in rural Appalachia, or a bitter, angry urban skinhead reacting to limited social prospects. Thus,
when a white nationalist movement arises that exhibits neither of these characteristics, people are
taken by surprise.
It boggles my mind that the left, who were so effective at dominating the culture wars basically
from the late 60s, cannot see the type of counter-culture they are creating. Your point about
alt-righters opposing their parents drives this home.
People have been left to drift in a sea of postmodernism without an anchor for far too long
now, and they are grasping onto whatever seems sturdy. The alt-right, for its many faults, provides
something compelling and firm to grab.
The left's big failure when all the dust settles will be seen as its inability to provide a
coherent view of human nature and a positive, constructive, unifying message. They are now the
side against everything – against reason, against tradition, against truth, against shared institutions
and heritage and nationalism It's no wonder people are looking to be for something these days.
People are sick of being atomized into smaller and smaller units, fostered by the left's new and
now permanent quest to find new victim groups.
I'm disappointed to read an article at The American Conservative that fails to address the reality
behind these numbers. Liberal identity politics creates an inherently adversarial arena, wherein
white people are depicted as the enemy. That young whites should respond by gravitating toward
identity politics themselves in not surprising, and it's a bit offensive to attribute this trend
to the eternal mysteries of inexplicable "racist" hate.
The young can see through the fake dynamic being depicted in the mainstream media, and unless
The American Conservative wants to completely lose relevance, a light should be shone on the elephant
in the room. For young white kids, The Culture Wars often present an existential threat, as Colin
Flaherty shows in Don't Make the Black Kids Angry–endorsed and heralded as a troubling and important
work by Thomas Sowell.
From the 16 Points of the Alt-Right:
5. The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the right
of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration.
6. The Alt Right is anti-globalist. It opposes all groups who work for globalist ideals or globalist
objectives.
It is important to remember that nations are people, not geography. The current American Union,
enforced by imperial conquest, is a Multi-National empire. It has been held together by force
and more recently by common, though not equal, material prosperity.
With the imposition of Globalism's exotic perversions and eroding economic prospects the American
Union is heading for the same fate as all Multi-National empires before it.
Mysteriously absent from the scholarly discussion seems to be the pioneer of sociology, Ludwig
Gumplowicz. Incredibly so, as the same factors that led to the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire abound in contemporary America.
I have two teenage sons – we live in Canada – and they tell that, no matter what they say, who
they hang out with, what music they listen to, no matter how many times they demonstrate they
are not racist, they are repeatedly called racist. They are automatically guilty because they
are white. They are beaten over the head with this message in school and in the press and are
sick and tired of it.
What might also be considered is the cultural effect upon a generation which has now matured through
what the government calls "perpetual war," with the concomitant constant celebration of "warriors,"
hyper-patriotism as demanded of all public events such as shown in the fanaticism of baseball
players engaged in "National Anthem standouts," such as were popular a couple years ago in MLB,
the constant references in political campaigns to the "enemy," to include Russia as well now,
and the "stab in the back" legend created to accuse anyone opposed to more war and occupation
of "treason." We've "radicalized" our own youth, with Trump coming along with his links to Israel's
ultra militarist, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli "Right," and created a cultural condition
much like this:
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/04/conservative-revolutionaries-fascism/
Odd, you write "How did the youngest white Americans respond to the most racially polarizing election
in recent memory?" In reality it was less racially polarized than 2012, when 93 % of African Americans
and 71% of Hispanics voted for Obama while in 2016 88% of Blacks and 65% of Hispanics voted from
Hillary. So Trump won a higher percentage of African American votes and Hispanic votes than Mitt
Romney. In 2008 Obama won 95% of Blacks and 67% of Hispanics, in 2004 the numbers were 88 and
53 for Kerry so the three elections between 2004 and and 2016 were all more polarizing than the
2016 race.
Yes, you make many important points, Mr. Hawley, but that you feel the need to join the chorus
of those who see our president's reaction to Charlottesville as somehow inappropriate or even
itself racist–that is sad. I don't see what else you may be implying in your opening paragraphs,
since you move directly from the number of "likes" Obama's bromide received to this: "[Obama's
reaction] also offered a stark contrast to that of President Trump."
In spite of many liberals' frantic desire to read whatever they want into President Trump's
words, he very clearly condemned the neo-Nazis and the evil of Heather Heyer's murderer. That
he also condemned the violence coming from Antifa ranks does not lessen his condemnation
of that coming from the alt right side. Rather, condemning the rising illiberalism on both sides
of this growing conflict was both commendable and necessary.
Many Americans see these recent events in a context stretching back years. Myself, at fifty,
having watched especially the steady empowerment of a demagogic left on our campuses, I'm not
much surprised that a racist "white nationalist" movement should burst into flame at just this
point. The kindling is right there in the anti-white, misandrous virulence of our SJW left.
Sane conservatives have strongly condemned the new alt-right racism. The problem is that we
are not seeing anything similar from the left. Our left seems incapable of condemning, let alone
even seeing , its own racist excesses. Which are everywhere in its discourse, especially
in our humanities departments.
I would say that in the recent decades the American left has grown much more deeply invested
in identity politics than the right has ever been during my lifetime. In my view, our left has
grown more enamored of identity issues precisely because it has abandoned the bread and butter
issues that really matter to most Americans.
I have many left-liberal friends and regularly read the left press. Surveying the reactions
to Charlottesville and the rising conflict between alt-right extremists and a radicalized Antifa
left, I see nowhere a step toward acknowledging the obvious: our rabid identity politics is by
no means just a problem of the right.
Racial identity politics is a curse. Sadly, it seems we've been cursed by it well and and good.
The poison's reaching down to the bone. Unless both smart moderates and people on the left start
to recognize just how badly poisoned our left has been by this curse, no progress will be made.
Identity politics needs to be condemned on both sides of this growing national street brawl,
and it should start NOW.
But I'm afraid it's not going to happen. I see my friends on the left, and they're nowhere
near acknowledging the problem. And I'm sad to see our president's attempt to call out both sides
has gotten such negative reactions. I'm afraid this isn't going to end well.
Liberal identity politics creates an inherently adversarial arena, wherein white people are
depicted as the enemy. That young whites should respond by gravitating toward identity politics
themselves in not surprising
One of many good reasons for rejecting "identity" politics generally.
A white friend attended a Cal State graduate program for counseling a couple of years ago; he
left very bitter after all his classes told him that white men were the proximate cause of the
world's misery. Then a mutual Latina friend from church invited him to coffee and told him that
he was the white devil, the cause of her oppression. You can conclude how he felt.
The liberal universities' curricula has caused a storm of madness; they have unleashed their
own form of oppressive thought on a significant portion on American society:white men. There is
now an adverse reaction. Of course, even more opprobrium will be heaped upon on men who might
question the illogicality of feminism and the left. How can all of this end well if the humanity
of white men is denied in universities, public schools and universities?
The Alt Right simply believes that Western nations have a right to preserve their culture and
heritage. Every normal man in these United States agreed with that premise prior to the Marxist
takeover of our institutions in the 1960's. And you know it's true.
Maybe at the bottom of it is not racism as in they are the wrong colour, but about cultural traits
and patterns of behaviour that are stirring resentment. Plus maybe the inclusion towards more
social benefits not available before (Obamacare?).
The current rap music, as opposed to the initial one, that emphasized social injustice is such
that one feels emptying his own stomach like sharks do.
The macho culture that black gangs, latin american gangs manifest is a bit antagonistic to
white supremacists gangs and attitudes towards women. After all, vikings going raiding used to
have shield maidens joining, and Celtic culture is full of women warriors. Northern European culture,
harking back to pre-Christian times was more kinder to women than what women from southern Europe
(Greece, Rome) experienced (total ownership by husbands, the veil, etc., all imported from the
Middle East: but one must not judge too harshly, the book "Debt, the first 5000 years" could be
an eye opener of the root causes of such attitudes).
Also, the lack of respect for human life expressed in these cultures is not that palatable,
even for white supremacists (while one can point to Nazi Germany as an outlier – but there it
was the state that promoted such attitudes, while in Japan the foreigner that is persecuted and
ostracized could be the refugee from another village around Fukushima – see the Economist on that).
So I think there are many avenues to explore in identifying the rise in Alt right and white
supremacists in the U.S. But colour is definitely not it.
Come now. There were the same types around me years ago at school, work, society. They just did
not march around like Nazis in public, probably because the Greatest Generation would have kicked
their butts.
Now, with the miracle of modern technology, a few hundred of them can get together and raise
hell in one place. Plus they now get lots of encouraging internet press (and some discouraging).
This article says virtually nothing.
The author fails to define his terms, beginning with Alt-Right.
And he seems to operate from a dislike of Trump underneath it all. This dislike is common among
pundits, left and right, who consider themselves to be refined and cultured. So it was that the
NYT's early condemnation of Trump led with complaints about his bearing and manners – "vulgar"
was the word often used if memory serves.
This gets us nowhere. Many in the US are disturbed by the decline in their prospects with a decrease
in share of wages in the national income ongoing since the 1970's – before Reagan who is blamed
for it all. Add to that the 16 years of wars which have taken the lives of Trump supporters disproportionately
and you have a real basis for grievances.
Racism seems to be a side show as does AntiFa.
"The accusation of being racist because you are white is a misunderstanding of structural racism."
I agree, but I notice that Jews have the same misunderstanding when you mention structural
"Zionist Occupied Government" or "Jewish Privilege".
Perhaps because they are both conspiracy theories rooted in hatred and ignorance, which is
where we descend when the concept of a statistical distribution or empirical data become "controversial",
or "feelings" overtake "facts".
And progressives still refer to KKK when they seek an example of a white supremacist group. Amazing.
They are too lazy even to learn that the Klan lost its relevance long ago, and the most powerful
white supremacist organization of today consists of entirely different people, who are very far
from being illiterate.
***
Todd Pierce,
Israel's ultra militarist, Benjamin Netanyahu
I won't deny that Bibi is a controversial figure, but calling him an ultra militarist is quite
a bit of a stretch.
Elite sports. After reading this article and it's underlying thesis, it occurs to me that the
way sports have evolved in this country is very likely to be the experience that millennial whites
have had that fosters their "out group" belief systems. It is very common, using soccer as my
frame of reference, for wealthy suburban families to spend a fortune getting their children all
the best training and access to all the best clubs. Their children are usually the best players
in their community of origin and usually the top players all the way through the preadolescent
years only to find all of that money and prestige gone to waste once their kids get to around
sixteen at which point their children are invariably replaced on the roster by a recent immigrant -- mainly from Africa or south of our border and usually at a cut rate compared to the one they
are bleeding the suburban families with. I'm assuming this is becoming more common across all
sports as they move toward a pay to play corporate model. In soccer, the white kids are, seriously,
the paying customers who fill out the roster that supports the truly talented kids (from countries
who know how to develop soccer talent.)
The thing is when blacks begin to feel power and a secure place in America then their true colors
show-at least among many. Left unchecked they would become the biggest racists of all. You can
see that now. So what it comes down to are white people going to give away their country? Until
blacks become cooperative and productive things need to stay as they are. Sad maybe but that's
just the way it has to be.
There have always been fringe, rightwing groups in the US. Nothing new there. But the so-called
alt-right, comprised of Nazi wannabes and assorted peckerwoods, is truly the spawn of the looney
left, whose obsession with race has created the toxic environment we find ourselves in.
"... Bannon openly acknowledged his animus for the "Party of Davos" editorial positions of The Economist ..."
"... For Mr Bannon, who went from a working-class Virginian family to careers in Wall Street and Hollywood, those agreements epitomised the folly of globalisation, which he considers disastrous for American workers and avoidable. He hardened this critique after returning to America from a spell in Hong Kong; China, whose gaming of WTO rules Mr Bannon considers tantamount to an "economic war" against America, remains at the heart of it. ..."
"... When some of Mr Bannon's early schemes failed -- including the shabbily planned travel ban, now snarled up in the courts -- Mr Trump turned increasingly to his more conventional advisers, including Mr Kushner and Mr McMaster. ..."
President Trump's former chief strategist and current Breitbart
News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon invited the editors of
The Economist
to his
home for a candid discussion about the future of the populist economic nationalist movement and
the civilizational challenges that will pit "the Judeo-Christian liberal West" against
globalist "mercantilist" forces from China to Silicon Valley.
Bannon openly acknowledged his animus for the "Party of Davos" editorial positions of
The Economist
, referring to them as "the enemy" of economic nationalism for their
"radical" obsession with free trade at all costs.
He also affirmed his loyalty to Trump and his desire to help him. Breitbart "will never turn
on [Trump]," Bannon said, "But we are never going to let him take a decision that hurts
him."
Bannon acknowledged that in the White House he had "influence," but outside at Breitbart he
has "power." He said he intends to use that power to "rally the base" and "have [Trump's] back.
The harder he pushes, the more we will be there for him."
The discussion soon turned to what Bannon sees as the inevitable civilizational struggle
between the Judeo-Christian classical liberalism of the West -- which affirms human rights,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and self-governance -- versus the "mercantilist,
Confucian system" of an ascendant China.
Among the particular opponents he has in his sights, said Mr Bannon, seated in a
dining-room decorated with Christian iconography and political mementos, are congressional
Republicans ("Mitch McConnell, I'm going to light him up"), China ("Let's go screw up One
Belt One Road") and "the elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street -- they're a bunch of
globalists who have forgotten their fellow Americans." Despite his departure -- voluntarily, he
insists, though his resignation is reported to have been demanded of him -- Mr Bannon says he
will never attack his former boss. Yet Breitbart will caution Mr Trump to stick to the
populist nationalist course Mr Bannon charted. "We will never turn on him. But we are never
going to let him take a decision that hurts him." The website offered an early taste of this
in its disparaging coverage of Mr Trump's "flip-flop" decision to send more American troops
to Afghanistan, which was announced on August 21st and Mr Bannon strongly opposes (see
article
).
As Mr Trump's campaign chief (his third in two months, the campaign having been roiled by
scandals) Mr Bannon urged him to redouble that effort [to campaign on as a populist economic
nationalist taking on the politically correct establishment]. "The American people understood
his foibles and understood his character flaws and they didn't care," he says. "The country
was thirsting for change and [Barack] Obama didn't give them enough. I said, we are going for
a nationalist message, we are going to go barbarian, and we will win."
For Mr Bannon, who went from a working-class Virginian family to careers in Wall Street
and Hollywood, those agreements epitomised the folly of globalisation, which he considers
disastrous for American workers and avoidable. He hardened this critique after returning to
America from a spell in Hong Kong; China, whose gaming of WTO rules Mr Bannon considers
tantamount to an "economic war" against America, remains at the heart of it.
A zealous
Catholic who believes in the inevitability of civilizational conflict, he considers China's
growth to be an additional, overarching threat to America, which it must therefore dial back.
"I want the world to look back in 100 years and say, their mercantilist, Confucian system
lost. The Judeo-Christian liberal West won."
The president has, if not fixed intellectual differences with Mr Bannon, different
predilections, including his slavish regard for the military and business elites now stocking
his cabinet, whom his former adviser derides. ("What did the elites do?" asks Mr Bannon.
"These are the guys who gave us happy talk on Iraq, who let China into the WTO and said it
would sign up to the rules-based order.")
When some of Mr Bannon's early schemes
failed -- including the shabbily planned travel ban, now snarled up in the courts -- Mr Trump
turned increasingly to his more conventional advisers, including Mr Kushner and Mr McMaster.
On trade and security in particular, they have edged him towards the mainstream. Whereas Mr
Bannon urged the president to withdraw from NAFTA and Afghanistan, for example, he has
launched a modest-looking review of the former and will send more troops to the latter.
Increasingly isolated, Mr Bannon's departure from the White House was predicted.
'I'm not going to breathe the same air as
that terrorist'
Bannon boycotted Trump meet with 'terrorist' Abbas --
report
Days after his ouster from the White House, the extent of the animosity
between divisive strategist Steve Bannon and the president's son-in-law
Jared Kushner is steadily emerging in US media reports, with an article in
Vanity Fair detailing their disputes and asserting that Bannon is now
planning his "revenge."
Bannon, a hero of the so-called "alt right" whose presence in the West
Wing was controversial from the start, had become the nucleus of one of
several competing power centers in a chaotic White House. During his
six-month tenure as Trump's chief strategist, Bannon and Kushner reportedly
clashed on numerous policy issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
... ... ...
Hours after he was fired, Bannon
returned to his previous job as editor of the ultra-conservative
Breitbart News, where he declared war on Ivanka, Kushner and
fellow "globalist" Gary Cohn.
The Vanity Fair article was headlined:
"Steve Bannon readies his revenge: The war on Jared Kushner is
about to go nuclear."
... ... ...
"Jared and Ivanka helped push him out. They were concerned about how they
were being viewed by the Jewish community," The Mail reported on Sunday.
Jossef Perl
·
Nahariyah, Hazafon, Israel
Yes, this time it is Tamar
Pileggi who gives us Time of Israel's typical Trump's
blasting story quoting "Vanity Fair detailing their (i.e.
Kushner vs. Bannon) disputes and asserting that Bannon is
now planning his 'revenge."" If it comes from Vanity Fair
that Bannon is planning a revenge (albeit without a single
named source) it must be true right? But this is what the
US fake news media has decended to, while the Israeli fake
news media goes one step lower, just quoting the US fake
media. Any 7 years old can see the that intent here
continues to be to creat an impression that the Trump
white is out of control and everything around Trum is
falling apart. How can this kind of media continue to
think the public believes a word from them? Tamar Pileggi,
if all you do is quoting Vanity Fair, which is typical to
the rest of the staff at TOI, why don't you all just
include a link to the original articles in your TOI
webpage? Who need all of you filling your paper by quoting
other publications without any due diligence? How can you
call yourselves journalists when all you do is cut and
paste?
Audrey Travis
·
Works at
Music Teacher - Retired
Perhaps, but 90% of
the world knows nothing about the
extreme violence of the ultra left
Antifa and the fact the y brought and
used weapons in Charlottesville. What
Trump should have done was be explicit
in the detailsof why he was condemning
both side. His broadsided condemnation
of both sides was the problem.
Albert Reingewirtz
·
Works at
Happily Retired
He did not do any
equivalence between two despicable gangs
of mobsters. He talked about BOTH of
their VIOLENCE. You listen too much to
propaganda. The more they repeat the
more people believe their lies.
Steve Klein
·
Works at
Self-Employed
Albert Reingewirtz,
do you believe there were "some very
fine" people marching with the Nazis in
Charlottesville?
Like
·
Reply
·
2
·
Aug 21, 2017 5:17am
Steve Klein
·
Works at
Self-Employed
'Bannon: Mahmoud Abbas is a terrorist,
I'd never meet with him'
Ousted WH strategist Steve Bannon reportedly lobbied hard
for Jerusalem embassy move, tougher line against PA - but
was opposed by Kushner.
David Rosenberg, 21/08/17 11:23 (Israel National News)
"... The "West Wing Democrats" in the White House are eager to sacrifice President Donald Trump's top campaign promise in exchange for Democratic approval of the tax cuts sought by wealthy donors and business interests, according to an article in Politico. In an August 23 article about Trump's push to get funding for an extended border wall, Politico described the lack of support for the wall among his business-affiliated aides: Few staff members in the West Wing are as concerned about it [as the President], senior administration officials said. Some in the White House have urged Trump not to focus as much on the wall, try to pass a clean debt-ceiling bill and move to tax reform. "You have barely anyone here saying, 'Wall, wall, we have to get the wall at all costs,'" one White House official said. Two people who have spoken to Trump said he sees not building the wall as a personal embarrassment -- and that he has shown more interest in building the wall than in other issues, like the upcoming budget negotiations. "You don't want a government shutdown," the White House official said. "He is told that. He says, 'I want money for the wall.'" The same emphasis on tax cuts for the elite before immigration reform for voters was also cited by Axios on August 20, in an article which claimed to explain why top staff chose to stay in the White House amid elite hatred of his populist, wage-boosting, pro-American priorities. Axios reported : We talked to a half dozen senior administration officials, who range from dismayed but certain to stay, to disgusted and likely soon to leave. They all work closely with Trump and his senior team so, of course, wouldn't talk on the record. Instead, they agreed to let us distill their thinking/rationale: "You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill": The most common response centers on the urgent importance of having smart, sane people around Trump to fight his worst impulses. If they weren't there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall. "General Mattis needs us": Many talk about their reluctance to bolt on their friends and colleagues who are fighting the good fight to force better Trump behavior/decisions. They rightly point out that together, they have learned how to ignore Trump's rhetoric and, at times, collectively steer him to more conventional policy responses. This situation leaves Trump dependent on a few aides -- such as immigration reformer Steve Miller -- and his supporters at his rallies to help fend off the insistent demands by his globalist aides for a back-room surrender of his presidential goals. ..."
"... the pro-American immigration reformers who backed Trump in the election fear his globalist aides will push Trump to accept and establish former President Barack Obama's DACA amnesty in exchange for minor concessions, such as a modest amount of funds to build a short distance of border wall. ..."
The "West Wing Democrats" in the White House are eager to sacrifice President Donald Trump's
top campaign promise in exchange for Democratic approval of the tax cuts sought by wealthy donors
and business interests, according to an article in Politico.
In an August 23 article about Trump's push to get funding for an extended border wall, Politico
described the lack of support for the wall among his business-affiliated aides:
Few staff members in the West Wing are as concerned about it [as the President], senior administration
officials said.
Some in the White House have urged Trump not to focus as much on the wall, try to pass a clean
debt-ceiling bill and move to tax reform. "You have barely anyone here saying, 'Wall, wall, we
have to get the wall at all costs,'" one White House official said.
Two people who have spoken to Trump said he sees not building the wall as a personal embarrassment
-- and that he has shown more interest in building the wall than in other issues, like the
upcoming budget negotiations. "You don't want a government shutdown," the White House official
said. "He is told that. He says, 'I want money for the wall.'"
The same emphasis on tax cuts for the elite before immigration reform for voters was also cited
by Axios on August 20, in an article which claimed to explain why top staff chose to stay in the
White House amid elite hatred of his populist, wage-boosting, pro-American priorities. Axios
reported :
We talked to a half dozen senior administration officials, who range from dismayed but certain
to stay, to disgusted and likely soon to leave. They all work closely with Trump and his senior
team so, of course, wouldn't talk on the record. Instead, they agreed to let us distill their
thinking/rationale:
"You have no idea how much crazy stuff we kill": The most common response centers on the urgent
importance of having smart, sane people around Trump to fight his worst impulses. If they weren't
there, they say, we would have a trade war with China, massive deportations, and a government
shutdown to force construction of a Southern wall.
"General Mattis needs us": Many talk about their reluctance to bolt on their friends and colleagues
who are fighting the good fight to force better Trump behavior/decisions. They rightly point out
that together, they have learned how to ignore Trump's rhetoric and, at times, collectively steer
him to more conventional policy responses.
This situation leaves Trump dependent on a few aides -- such as immigration reformer
Steve Miller -- and his supporters at his rallies to help fend off the insistent demands
by his globalist aides for a back-room surrender of his presidential goals.
That surrender would help his aides win Democratic support for their goals -- but
it would leave Trump with few friends heading into the 2018 midterm elections and the crucial 2020
reelection, says D.C. insiders. For example, the pro-American immigration reformers who backed
Trump in the election fear his
globalist aides will push Trump to accept and establish former President Barack Obama's DACA
amnesty in exchange for minor concessions, such as a modest amount of funds to build a short distance
of border wall.
"If [Trump's aides] are left to their own devices, they would exchange this for a few trinkets,"
so violating Trump's campaign promise before the 2018 and 2020 elections, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman
for FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
The suggested deal was outlined in a Tuesday
article by Anita Kumar, a reporter for the McClatchy news service. She uses the Democrats' term
-- 'dreamers' – to describe the 800,000 DACA illegals as she wrote:
White House officials want Trump to strike an ambitious deal with Congress that offers Dreamers
protection in exchange for legislation that pays for a border wall and more detention facilities,
curbs legal immigration and implements E-verify, an online system that allows businesses to
check immigration status, according to a half-dozen people familiar with situation, most involved
with the negotiations.
The group includes former and current White House chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and
John Kelly , the president's daughter,
Ivanka Trump , and her husband,
Jared Kushner , who both serve as presidential advisers, they said. Others who have not been
as vocal publicly about their stance but are thought to agree include Vice President
Mike Pence , who as a congressman worked on a failed immigration deal that called for citizenship,
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn, a Democrat who serves as director of the
National Economic Council.
There is no evidence that Democrats will accept that ambitious deal before the 2018 election,
and much evidence that Trump's aides will quickly give up wall funding and the popular RAISE Act
to win Democratic support for tax cuts. So far, top Democrats have responded that they would
not offer anything as they demand a permanent DACA amnesty.
However, Trump's determination to resist his aides is likely boosted by the cheering he gets at
rallies when he promises to build the wall.
"We are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary," he told roughly
30,000 cheering supporters at an August 22 rally in Phoenix, Ariz. "The obstructionist Democrats
would like us not to do it, believe me, [but] if we have to close down our government, we are building
that wall We're going to have our wall. We're going to get our wall."
There you have it, @realDonaldTrump
-- Your own 30k focus-group. LIKE: deportations, a wall, jobs; DON'T LIKE: Media,
Afghan War & tax cuts.
Read the Axios article
here , and the Politico article
here .
Under current immigration policy, the federal government accepts 1 million legal immigrants each
year, even though 4 million young Americans enter the workforce to look for decent jobs. Each year,
the government also hands out
almost 3 million short-term work permits to foreign workers. These permits include
roughly 330,000 one-year OPT permits for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges, roughly
200,000 three-year H-1B visas for foreign white-collar professionals, and 400,000 two-year permits
to DACA illegals.
Many
polls show that Americans are very generous, they do welcome individual immigrants, and they
do want to like the idea of immigration. But the polls also show that most Americans
are increasingly worried that large-scale legal immigration will
change their country and disadvantage themselves and their children. Trump's "Buy American, Hire
American" policies are also
extremely popular , including among Democratic-leaning voters.
The country is better off with him out of the West Wing, but now Trump has to step up.
After departing his post as White House chief strategist last week, Steve Bannon told the Weekly Standard that "the Trump presidency
that we fought for, and won, is over." The clear suggestion is that Mr. Trump's chance at success had followed Mr. Bannon out the
door.
Trying to recast his ouster as a personal choice, Mr. Bannon bragged "I can fight better on the outside." He promised "to crush
the opposition," saying "I built a f! machine at Breitbart."
The former adviser also told a Bloomberg reporter he would be "going to war for Trump against his opponents!on Capitol Hill, in
the media, and in corporate America."...
"... Stephen Bannon may have been a political adviser to President Donald Trump, but his firing Friday could have an impact on U.S. foreign policy from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. Bannon's exit clears an obstacle for backers of an active U.S. foreign policy in line with recent presidencies -- and is a resounding win for Bannon's internal rival, national security adviser H.R. McMaster. ..."
"... More generally, it will remove an internal brake on U.S. military action abroad. Bannon has argued greater U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria and was among the few White House officials to oppose President Donald Trump's early-April missile strike in Syria. ..."
"... Tonight if Trump order more troops to Afghanistan, he'd put the last and hardest nail on his own coffin. I do not understand, how long Americans will let the Deep State win, making them sacrificial animals at the mercy of a perpetual power. ..."
His exit is a win for backers of a more traditional -- and interventionist -- U.S. foreign policy.
Stephen Bannon may have been a political adviser to President Donald Trump,
but his firing Friday could have an impact on U.S. foreign policy from Europe to the Middle East
and Asia. Bannon's exit clears an obstacle for backers of an active U.S. foreign policy in line with recent
presidencies -- and is a resounding win for Bannon's internal rival, national security adviser H.R.
McMaster.
Bannon was a regular participant in national security debates, often as an opponent of military
action and a harsh critic of international bodies like the United Nations and the European Union.
He has also been a withering critic of diplomatic, military and intelligence professionals -- "globalists"
he says have repeatedly shown bad judgment, particularly when it comes to U.S. military interventions
abroad. That put him at loggerheads with Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, as well as McMaster.
"If you look at the balance of power of isolationists versus internationalists in the White House
now, it seems safe to say that the pendulum has swung towards the internationalists," said Danielle
Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Though Bannon has not described himself as an "isolationist," he has proudly adopted Trump's "America
First" motto, which he says argues for spending less blood and treasure overseas for anything less
than America's most vital interests.
He has also alarmed European leaders with his criticism of the E.U. and his expressed support
for some European nationalist movements. Bannon actively backed Great Britain's 2016 "Brexit" from
the E.U. and introduced Trump to its chief political advocate, the populist British politician Nigel
Farage.
"Our European allies are happy about Bannon's departure," said Jorge Benitez, a senior fellow
with the Atlantic Council.
In the immediate term, foreign policy insiders agreed, Bannon's departure also could increase
the chances of a U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan -- a plan championed by McMaster but strongly opposed
by Bannon, who managed to draw out debate on the issue with direct appeals to Trump.
More generally, it will remove an internal brake on U.S. military action abroad. Bannon has argued
greater U.S. intervention in Iraq and Syria and was among the few White House officials to oppose
President Donald Trump's early-April missile strike in Syria.
Bannon is not totally conflict averse: He calls for a far stronger U.S. posture against China
and has warned that war with Beijing could be inevitable. But he pressed Trump to take economic,
not military action against Beijing.
And on Wednesday, Bannon told the American Prospect magazine that there is "no military solution"
to Trump's standoff with North Korea -- undermining the president's recent military threats against
that country, and echoing China's view of the situation.
Beyond the policy realm, Bannon's exit is a clear victory for national security adviser H.R. McMaster,
who at times seemed to be in zero-sum struggle with the Trump adviser for power and influence in
the White House.
Foreign policy veterans were startled when, in early February, Trump designated Bannon as a member
of the National Security Council's elite principals committee -- calling it unprecedented for a White
House political adviser to have a reserved seat at the table for life-and-death debates.
McMaster stripped Bannon of his official NSC position in April, after succeeding the ousted Michael
Flynn -- a Bannon ally -- as national security adviser. Bannon continued to attend NSC meetings and debates
about foreign policy in the Oval Office. But Bannon resented McMaster for demoting him, and for purging
several Flynn allies from the NSC.
Bannon and McMaster also sharply differed on how Trump should discuss terrorist groups like ISIS
and al Qaeda. Bannon favors using the phrase "radical Islamic extremism," but McMaster has largely
prevented Trump from saying it in public on the grounds that it could alienate moderate Muslims who
hear it as an attack on their religion.
McMaster's defenders have accused Bannon of spearheading a campaign of leaks meant to undermine
the top national security aide.
"The campaign to get him out was clearly coming from Bannon or his allies," said Brian McKeon,
a former NSC chief of staff and senior Pentagon policy official in the Obama administration. "The
national security adviser's job is hard enough without having to always look over your shoulder to
see who's trying to knife you.
"This will make McMaster's days a little easier," he added.
No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
Likely to share McMaster's satisfaction at Bannon's ouster is Tillerson, who chafed at Bannon's
role in State Department personnel decisions. Speaking to the American Prospect this week, Bannon
boasted that he was working to remove Tillerson's top official for China and East Asia.
"I'm getting Susan Thornton out at State," Bannon said in the interview.
In a pointed show of support the next morning, Tillerson shook Thornton's hand in front of television
cameras.
And when Tillerson recommended in February that Trump nominate former Reagan and George W. Bush
administration official Elliott Abrams to be his deputy, Bannon intervened to block the choice, according
to Abrams.
"Bannon's departure probably means a return to normalcy, where the State and Defense Departments
will have greater influence on foreign policy," Abrams said.
Bannon also told the Prospect that he was "changing out people" on the Pentagon's China desk.
Mattis, too, has had personnel disputes with the White House.
"Anything that Tillerson and Mattis really push for will now have a better chance of winning out
-- for
better and for worse," Abrams added.
Abrams and others said that Bannon's exit makes it more likely that McMaster and Mattis will convince
Trump to send more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the subject of a meeting among Trump and his national
security team at Camp David today.
Some sources downplayed the significance of Bannon's departure, however -- noting that, on military
and diplomatic issues, Bannon was more dissenter than policy maker.
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security aide to former President Barack Obama, said Bannon's
main contributions was his backing for Trump's early executive orders restricting travel from several
Muslim-majority countries. Bannon was also a defender of his friend and ally Sebastian Gorka, a controversial
White House adviser who often appears on television.
"On national security, it was hard to see Bannon's influence anywhere other than the Muslim ban
and Gorka doing cable hits, so I don't think it changes that much," Rhodes said, adding: "It does
suggest a greater likelihood of a troop increase in Afghanistan."
And several sources cautioned that while Bannon may not longer occupy the White House, his worldview
is still frequently reflected in the words of the most powerful policymaker of all: President Trump.
European allies "will not be popping champagne corks because their main source of worry remains
in the White House, Donald Trump," Benitez said. "Most Europeans blame Trump personally rather than
Bannon or other subordinates for damaging transatlantic relations."
"The president gets the last vote," McKeon added. "And he has a different approach to foreign
policy than all his predecessors."
As long as there is disagreement there is hope for compromise and moderation. If everyone in the
Executive branch were in agreement, there would be no hope for moderation..
Our 'dear' leaders are NOT in control.
North Korea ia a distraction as is Trump. Examine the military buildup by Nsto against Russia. Time for Germany, Russia and China to work together militarily for harmony/peace in our world.
330 million people and a bunch of nutbars in charge of the place, very few of whom have ever had
a vote cast for them in any election, Trump being the exception. Some guy like Bannon sits around
formulating a wanker worldview and somehow gains power for seven months. I don't suppose the EU
gives a tinker's damn that he dislikes it, it's none of his business. Fulminating on it just exposes
his acceptance of Imperial America, muttering threats because in his blinkered mind that's not
the way the US would have organized Europe - I am unaware that anyone with a brain regards Bannon
as an intellectual, merely a weirdo. Then you have all these generals running around thinking
they're political geniuses or something, all unelected bozos with little exposure to real life.
Giving and taking orders and salutes all around, living a regimented life - just the thing for
running the civilian part of the USA.
Why is it that in the US you vote for dogcatchers, sheriffs and judges which no other country
bothers with, yet all these high cabinet posts are filled from unelected dorks out there who somehow
got noticed, picked by the president, nominated and agreed to by the Senate? The argument has
been, well because they're specialists. So what - they're not responsible to the electorate in
any direct manner. There's a fat chance that they are managerial competents if they are from the
military, a big chance they have developed some warped theory about the world, and few of them
are in the slightest bit interested in domestic politics as it relates to the average citizen.
50% of the budget goes to running the armed forces, by nature always measuring foreign "threats"
as if diplomacy was a competition or something. The business types picked as cabinet secretaries
are invariably from the big business side of the ledger and find foreigners annoying when they
don't hand over their natural resources for next to nothing royalties, leading to the government
bashing these foreigners over the head until they put someone in charge who sees the "light" and
becomes a US ally.
It's a formula for bad government for the domestic population from beginning to end. So up
ramps the patriotism to make the people keep the faith which many are happy to do, and then they
crap all over the way other countries are organized, their food, customs and "only in America
can a hobo be elected President" and there's no opportunity anywhere but in the USA memes. Mesmerized
by their own propaganda into thinking the US is the best there is. Cough.
Tonight if Trump order more troops to Afghanistan, he'd put the last and hardest nail on his own
coffin.
I do not understand, how long Americans will let the Deep State win, making them sacrificial
animals at the mercy of a perpetual power.
Buchanan demonstrates very superficial understanding of the result of the USSR collapse.
Afghan war was just one contributing factor. It was never the primary reason. Soviet
people understood pretty well that they actually faced the USA in Afghan war. Or more
correctly the combination of the USA has technological superiority, Saudi money and
political Islam. The fact that the USA supplied Stingers portable anti-aircraft rocket launchers.
Which later will shoot down some US helicopters. The fact the the USA fe-factor put
political Islam on front burner later will bite the USA several times.
Also Buchanan does not understand the role of neoliberal revolution (or coup d'état if you
wish, called quite coup) of 80th in the current US troubles. Trump was the first ever presidential
candidate, who companied and managed to win the elections on promises to tame neoliberal
globalization. The fact that he was crushed in six month of so is not surprising, as he
faced very well organize Trotskyite militants (aka deep state) - neoliberalism is actually
Trotskyism for rish. Russiagate witch hunt with its Special Prosecutor is a replica of
Stalin processes. As Marx used to say history repeats, first as tragedy, second as farce.
"I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the
British Empire," said Winston Churchill. and this is the essence of Trump betrual of his
election promises.
Notable quotes:
"... Is it now the turn of the Americans? Persuaded by his generals -- Mattis at Defense, McMasters on the National Security Council, Kelly as chief of staff -- President Trump is sending some 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to augment the 8,500 already there. Like Presidents Obama and Bush, he does not intend to preside over a U.S. defeat in its longest war. Nor do his generals. Yet how can we defeat the Taliban with 13,000 troops when we failed to do so with the 100,000 Obama sent? The new troops are to train the Afghan army to take over the war, to continue eradicating the terrorist elements like ISIS, and to prevent Kabul and other cities from falling to a Taliban now dominant in 40 percent of the country. ..."
"... Writes Bob Merry in the fall issue of The National interest: "War between Russia and the West seems nearly inevitable. No self-respecting nation facing inexorable encirclement by an alliance of hostile neighbors can allow such pressures and forces to continue indefinitely. Eventually (Russia) must protect its interests through military action." ..."
"... Trump himself seems hell-bent on tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran. This would lead inexorably to a U.S. ultimatum, where Iran would be expected to back down or face a war that would set the Persian Gulf ablaze. ..."
"... Yet the country did not vote for confrontation or war. ..."
"... America voted for Trump's promise to improve ties with Russia, to make Europe shoulder more of the cost of its defense, to annihilate ISIS and extricate us from Mideast wars, to stay out of future wars. ..."
"... This agenda did exist and Trump used it to get elected. Once he pulled off that trick he tried to get together again (unsuccessfully) with his New York Plutocrat friends. It's that New York social background. It's always been difficult to see Trump fit together economically or socially with the America that elected him, and after he got elected he quickly weakened his ties with Middle America. So why should he complain about Fake News since he got elected on a Fake Agenda? ..."
"... Trump does not even remember what he was elected to do. A man who was determined to drain the swamp is deep, up to his neck, in that swamp. The neocons and the never-Trumpers are the main decision makers in the Trump administration. All the loyal supporters have been chased out of the Trump's inner circle. A man who built his empire with his brain and shrewdness can't seem to handle the Presidency. He is trying to appease the very same people who opposed him in the election. ..."
"... For a smart businessman, Donald Trump can't seem to make any friends. There is a very simple solution to these wars of choice. Mr. Trump swallow your pride and bring the boys home. You will save American lives and will also earn the gratitude of the families of these soldiers. You may even bring peace to many countries around the world and people who have been displaced by these wars can return home. You may even solve the refugee problem in the process. You might even save your presidency. Give peace a chance. ..."
"... I think The Donald offered the lame excuse that things looks much different when you're in the oval office vs. the campaign trail. That won't be any consolation to people who voted for him in the hopes that their family members in the military would be coming home soon. And it won't be any consolation to some members of his base. ..."
"... Trump isn't going to keep his campaign promises. ..."
"... Continuing to maintain forces in South Korea continues to contribute to our bankruptcy. ..."
"... Now that the generals have gone wild under Trump we may as well admit that we're ruled by a military junta. We'll let them make all the decisions since they're so brilliant while Trump tweets and holds stupid rallies trying to convince people that he hasn't reneged on any campaign promises. ..."
"I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the
British Empire," said Winston Churchill to cheers at the Lord Mayor's luncheon in London in
November 1942. True to his word, the great man did not begin the liquidation. When his countrymen threw him out in July 1945, that role fell to Clement Attlee, who began
the liquidation. Churchill, during his second premiership from 1951-1955, would continue the
process, as would his successor, Harold Macmillan, until the greatest empire the world had ever
seen had vanished.
While its demise was inevitable, the death of the empire was hastened and made mo re
humiliating by the wars into which Churchill had helped to plunge Britain, wars that bled and
bankrupted his nation. At Yalta in 1945, Stalin and FDR treated the old imperialist with something approaching
bemused contempt. War is the health of the state, but the death of empires. The German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires all fell in World War I. World War
II ended the Japanese and Italian empires -- with the British and French following soon after.
The Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989. Afghanistan delivered the coup de grace.
Is it now the turn of the Americans? Persuaded by his generals -- Mattis at Defense, McMasters on the National Security Council,
Kelly as chief of staff -- President Trump is sending some 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan
to augment the 8,500 already there. Like Presidents Obama and Bush, he does not intend to preside over a U.S. defeat in its
longest war. Nor do his generals. Yet how can we defeat the Taliban with 13,000 troops when we
failed to do so with the 100,000 Obama sent? The new troops are to train the Afghan army to take over the war, to continue eradicating
the terrorist elements like ISIS, and to prevent Kabul and other cities from falling to a
Taliban now dominant in 40 percent of the country.
Yet what did the great general, whom Trump so admires, Douglas MacArthur, say of such a
strategy? "War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision." Is not "prolonged indecision" what the Trump strategy promises? Is not "prolonged
indecision" what the war policies of Obama and Bush produced in the last 17 years? Understandably, Americans feel they cannot walk away from this war. For there is the
certainty as to what will follow when we leave.
When the British left Delhi in 1947, millions of former subjects died during the partition
of the territory into Pakistan and India and the mutual slaughter of Muslims and Hindus. When the French departed Algeria in 1962, the "Harkis" they left behind paid the price of
being loyal to the Mother Country. When we abandoned our allies in South Vietnam, the result was mass murder in the streets,
concentration camps and hundreds of thousands of boat people in the South China Sea, a final
resting place for many. In Cambodia, it was a holocaust.
Trump, however, was elected to end America's involvement in Middle East wars. And if he has
been persuaded that he simply cannot liquidate these wars -- Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
Afghanistan -- he will likely end up sacrificing his presidency, trying to rescue the failures
of those who worked hardest to keep him out of the White House.
Consider the wars, active and potential, Trump faces.
Writes Bob Merry in the fall issue of The National interest: "War between Russia and the
West seems nearly inevitable. No self-respecting nation facing inexorable encirclement by an
alliance of hostile neighbors can allow such pressures and forces to continue indefinitely.
Eventually (Russia) must protect its interests through military action."
If Pyongyang tests another atom bomb or ICBM, some national security aides to Trump are not
ruling out preventive war.
Trump himself seems hell-bent on tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran. This would lead
inexorably to a U.S. ultimatum, where Iran would be expected to back down or face a war that
would set the Persian Gulf ablaze.
Yet the country did not vote for confrontation or war.
America voted for Trump's promise to improve ties with Russia, to make Europe shoulder
more of the cost of its defense, to annihilate ISIS and extricate us from Mideast wars, to stay
out of future wars.
America voted for economic nationalism and an end to the mammoth trade deficits with the
NAFTA nations, EU, Japan and China. America voted to halt the invasion across our Southern border and to reduce legal
immigration to
I think that the case of Korea is very different from all the others, but generally I
agree with Mr. Buchanan to the extent that I say: Pat Buchanan for President
Trump's populist-nationalist and America First agenda,
This agenda did exist and Trump used it to get elected. Once he pulled off that trick he
tried to get together again (unsuccessfully) with his New York Plutocrat friends. It's that New York social background. It's always been difficult to see Trump fit together
economically or socially with the America that elected him, and after he got elected he
quickly weakened his ties with Middle America. So why should he complain about Fake News since he got elected on a Fake Agenda?
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This quote is so
well-known that almost everyone knows it, except perhaps the politicians and the generals.
Afghanistan has been called the deathbed of empires. The two recent empires to go down are
the British and the Soviet. For almost 200 years the British tried to tame the Afghan tribes
but couldn't. The devastation they caused did not deter the natives. It is all there in the
history books for everyone to read. The Soviet empire didn't even last ten years. It cut its
losses and ran.
The lack of teaching of history and geography in American schools is quite evident when
one looks at the performance of American forces in Afghanistan after 17 years. Add the
arrogance of the Presidents and the generals to this lack of knowledge and one can understand
the disasterous results of the Afghan war. One other subject that is missing from the modern
presidency is diplomacy. War over diplomacy seems to be the order of the day.
Trump, however, was elected to end America's involvement in Middle East wars. And if he
has been persuaded that he simply cannot liquidate these wars -- Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
Afghanistan -- he will likely end up sacrificing his presidency, trying to rescue the
failures of those who worked hardest to keep him out of the White House.
Trump does not even remember what he was elected to do. A man who was determined to drain
the swamp is deep, up to his neck, in that swamp. The neocons and the never-Trumpers are the
main decision makers in the Trump administration. All the loyal supporters have been chased
out of the Trump's inner circle. A man who built his empire with his brain and shrewdness
can't seem to handle the Presidency. He is trying to appease the very same people who opposed
him in the election.
Trump himself seems hell-bent on tearing up the nuclear deal with Iran. This would lead
inexorably to a U.S. ultimatum, where Iran would be expected to back down or face a war
that would set the Persian Gulf ablaze.
It is never going to happen. Not only the Middle East would be set ablaze, but America
will lose its European allies as well. The relations with Russia are already confrontational
and heading fast towards an ultimate war. European allies are also confused about the US
foreign policy or lack thereof. Trade war is brewing with China. The only country which is
happy with this chaos is Israel.
For a smart businessman, Donald Trump can't seem to make any friends. There is a very
simple solution to these wars of choice. Mr. Trump swallow your pride and bring the boys
home. You will save American lives and will also earn the gratitude of the families of these
soldiers. You may even bring peace to many countries around the world and people who have
been displaced by these wars can return home. You may even solve the refugee problem in the
process. You might even save your presidency. Give peace a chance.
No one has ever been able to conquer Afghanistan why would America think it can? Likely
just throwing a bone to the neocons. As for Iran, Trump has been beating his chest all over
the World and doing nothing, again with the Neocon feeding, I don't think he has any intention
of getting into anything larger than a skirmish with anyone, he's a lot smarter than he looks
--
Well while Mr. Buchanan is not an expert in Balkans history, or politics, as I've argued
here, he is excellent in American history and politics. An article somewhat short, because he
is not connecting his sharp analysis to ongoing First Amendment disaster. It comes along,
obviously, but still an excellent piece.
To be copied and saved in my personal archives, anyway. I do not believe that even this site
will last long.
Greetings from Serbia, suicidal country controlled from that feudal fortress (US Embassy)
where our Scott-Pasha resides.
It was the eclipse that swept across America to change it forever.
We now know we are on our own, there is no political solution for this war.
The eclipse marks the end of a war, our war, we lost.
Trump extends Afghan swamp war on the very day.
Eclipse was conjunct Trumps Mars, he was castrated.
Doesn't mean we won't win, but it won't be via the rigged ballot box and the DC swamp.
I think The Donald offered the lame excuse that things looks much different when you're in
the oval office vs. the campaign trail. That won't be any consolation to people who voted for
him in the hopes that their family members in the military would be coming home soon. And it
won't be any consolation to some members of his base.
Now that the generals have gone wild under Trump we may as well admit that we're ruled by
a military junta. We'll let them make all the decisions since they're so brilliant while
Trump tweets and holds stupid rallies trying to convince people that he hasn't reneged on any
campaign promises.
But if it prevents tens of thousands of knuckle dragging Afghans steeped in a culture of
violence, pedophilia and pederasty from entering America as refugees then I guess there's a
silver lining.
My original instinct was to pull out, and historically, I like following my instincts.
But all my life I've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk
in the Oval Office.
Trump isn't going to keep his campaign promises. That means he's not going to build a
beautiful wall on our southern border.
@KenH I
think The Donald offered the lame excuse that things looks much different when you're in the
oval office vs. the campaign trail. That won't be any consolation to people who voted for him
in the hopes that their family members in the military would be coming home soon. And it
won't be any consolation to some members of his base.
Now that the generals have gone wild under Trump we may as well admit that we're ruled by
a military junta. We'll let them make all the decisions since they're so brilliant while
Trump tweets and holds stupid rallies trying to convince people that he hasn't reneged on any
campaign promises.
"... Before his death in May, Roger Ailes had sent word to Bannon that he wanted to start a channel together. Bannon loved the idea: He believes Fox is heading in a squishy, globalist direction as the Murdoch sons assume more power. ..."
"... "That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying." ..."
"... The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over I feel jacked up Now I'm free. I've got my hands back on my weapons ..."
Axios:
that part of that war effort might include a brand new cable news network to the right of Fox
News.
Axios' Jonathan Swan hears Bannon has told friends he sees a massive opening to the right of
Fox News , raising the possibility that he's going to start a network. Bannon's friends are speculating about whether it will be a standalone TV network, or online
streaming only.
Before his death in May, Roger Ailes had sent word to Bannon that he wanted to start a
channel together. Bannon loved the idea: He believes Fox is heading in a squishy, globalist
direction as the Murdoch sons assume more power.
Now he has the means, motive and opportunity: His chief financial backer, Long Island hedge
fund billionaire Bob Mercer, is ready to invest big in what's coming next, including a huge
overseas expansion of Breitbart News. Of course, this new speculation comes after Bannon declared last Friday that he was "
going to war" for
Trump ...
" If there's any confusion out there, let me clear it up. I'm leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents... on Capitol
Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,
Meanwhile, with regard his internal adversaries , at the departments of State and Defense,
who think the United States can enlist Beijing's aid on the North Korean standoff, and at
Treasury and the National Economic Council who don't want to mess with the trading system,
Bannon was ever harsher...
"Oh, they're wetting themselves," he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which
was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only
temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has
big plans to marginalize their influence.
"That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury
and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying."
Finally, perhaps no one can summarize what Bannon has planned for the future than Bannon
himself:
"The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over I feel jacked up Now I'm free.
I've got my hands back on my weapons.
I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There's no
doubt. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart. And now we're about to rev that machine up."
Bannon supported Blackwater founder Erik Prince's plan to use military contractors in the war
in Afghanistan and was against National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster's plan to deploy tens of thousands
of more troops to the Afghan conflict, according to a source with knowledge of the deliberations.
While saying he would "bomb the s**t" out of ISIS, Trump ran on a largely non-interventionist
campaign. He attacked President Bush for invading Iraq and cautioned against toppling the Assad regime
in Syria.
His White House, however, is not populated with like-minded thinkers. Even the most Trump-like
senior adviser left, Stephen Miller,
was a strong supporter of the Iraq War and primarily focuses on domestic policy issues.
Trump does have the habit of speaking to outside advisers on the phone and calls with Bannon and
Roger Stone might be the only times Trump hears war-weary voices.
Trump's power grows. And, his people don't speak first. (Trump speaks what The People are thinking.
Offend Trump and you have offended almost everybody.)
Bye, by)e Democrats. You can't win WITHOUT a Revolution...and not very many of the real People
are really interested in efforts to get one going.
Remember the CENTER of it all (ISIS, RIOTS) is London/Wall Street.
Everything since last Summer, has been coming out of MI5/6 to our FBI, CIA, NSA Business Intelligence
Empire.
The People are not going to go against Lincoln and they aren't
going to stand for anyone to take down the "States Rights" statues.
People are for a Strong Central Government and for a Strong State Government. It isn't "either/or".
It's BOTH. For Mob Rule...uh, not so much... Trump's power is growing steadily.
The People are sometimes for Left, sometimes for Right. It isn't "either/or". It's BOTH.
If you don't know this, you don't know anything about Americans.
These killings and riots are highly organized by both assets and AGENTS of the Anti forces of
Deep State, Deep Business. None of this is "from" WE, The People.
Bannon is now in a better position to expose the deep state. McMaster is probably soiling
his diapers.
Jesse4 > Hillary Clintub • 2 days ago
The deep state just kicked Bannon's incredibly huge butt.
lorsarah > Jesse4 • 2 days ago
The Deep State oligarchs and hacks may have won a small battle but their days are numbered.
The movement that Bannon is part of is growing.
oknow • 2 days ago
This whole intervention crap is for the birds and a waste of money as the years have shown.
If the Germans and Japanese were Islamic or international religious armies it would have never
ended. Maybe it is time that the great oil powers man up and fight.
Trump not backing down from the NK is what strength is. Not this crap of 15 years in foreign
nations.
T100C1970 > oknow • 2 days ago
This bravo sierra warfare did not start with Muzzies. It started with Commies. The Korean
war was the first war the US did not win. We got a tie with the pathetic Norks. Then in the
era in which I served as an Army Officer we managed to LOSE to the Cong + NVA.. The wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan are so far more like "ties" ... assuming you can call it a tie to spend
billions and lose thousands of troops to preserve a sort of status quo.
lorsarah > oknow • 2 days ago
"Not backing down from North Korea" IS foreign intervention, as everyone with a brain knows
that NK, which can't even keep its lights on, is not a threat.
11B30L • 2 days ago
President Trump is allowing his "little tiny ego" to get in the way of White House staffing
decisions, according to conservative commentator Ann Coulter.
Burrito Jackson • 2 days ago
Trump just sent his generals proposal back to the drawing board to keep us in Afghanistan.
Trump hasn't changed. Tired of hearing everyone controls Trump like he is a puppet.
lorsarah > Burrito Jackson • 2 days ago
Why are we there AT ALL? To protect our freedom? Of course not. Self-defense? Of course
not. It's lunacy, just as Vietnam was. But the military-industrial complex makes big money on
lunacy such as Afghanistan.
wars r u.s. • a day ago
Trump is a dove? He bombed Syria with no evidence that Assad did the chemical attack. He
dropped the MOAB on Afghanistan and his only real problem with that war is that we're not
winning. We continue to back the Saudi's in their onslaught of Yemen. Trump wants to decertify
Iran's compliance to the nuke deal even though Iran is in compliance which could lead to the
war the neocons and liberal hawks(Israeli firsters) have been salivating over for decades. He
threatens NK with "fire ad fury" and even recently threatened Venezuela...
"... For the record, Mr. Bannon gave notice on 8/7 to POTUS. As well, Mr. Bannon, when appointed to Trump's cabinet, stated for any who bothered to read/listen that he would accept under one condition, which was he'd be leaving the WH in eight months. Eight months brings us to 8/7. No one fired him. He is back at Breitbart as its Chairman. ..."
"... Bannon's interview with the American Prospect last week was his shot across the proverbial bow aimed directly at the globalists who are determined to keep their march toward raping the world from all her resources aka the NWO/neocon/neolib mafia while fomenting more war(s). ..."
"... If you are unaware of the current round of NAFTA negotiations, now in its fourth day, w/Canada and Mexico OR if you are unaware that on Friday the Trump administration formally launched a Section 301 Trade investigation into China's trading practices, then you are not paying attention to what the right hand is doing. ..."
"... Oh, and btw, it was Kushner and his data operation who carried Trump over the finish line not Bannon and his policy positions. ..."
Francis @68 - Refreshing to read a comment by someone who obviously has made it her/his
business to understand Trump and Team from the conservative perspective. Great comment and spot
on IMHO.
For the record, Mr. Bannon gave notice on 8/7 to POTUS. As well, Mr. Bannon, when appointed
to Trump's cabinet, stated for any who bothered to read/listen that he would accept under one
condition, which was he'd be leaving the WH in eight months. Eight months brings us to 8/7. No
one fired him. He is back at Breitbart as its Chairman.
Bannon's interview with the American Prospect last week was his shot across the proverbial
bow aimed directly at the globalists who are determined to keep their march toward raping the
world from all her resources aka the NWO/neocon/neolib mafia while fomenting more war(s).
Bannon with Mercer and et al backing (and I can make a pretty solid educated guess that
there are others) have been developing a new media platform of some kind which will be launched
in weeks not months (another educated guess). Sinclair broadcasting has been mentioned on other
conservative platforms as getting ready to make a move of some kind as well.
As Breitbart's editor wrote on Friday following the Bannon announcement - "WAR" - is
unequivocally that sites way of saying the Swamp in DC is going to be drained. Indeed, Trump
and Team have already begun to roll out their 2018 election strategy.
Any who hold the belief that Trump is stupid, naive, or whatever derogatory statement
conjured up is just plain wrong and shouldn't be taken seriously by any here who know
better.
Trump is a businessman. Trump is not a politician. And he certainly wasn't elected to serve
as America's grandpa-he ain't gonna hold your hand...ever.
If you are unaware of the current round of NAFTA negotiations, now in its fourth day,
w/Canada and Mexico OR if you are unaware that on Friday the Trump administration formally
launched a Section 301 Trade investigation into China's trading practices, then you are not
paying attention to what the right hand is doing.
There is always much going on behind all of the noise the insufferable Left makes on a daily
basis. Apparently, they don't want you to know about any of the plethora of Executive Orders
signed, the roll back of regulations zero and czars put in place, the trade negotiations and
so, so much more.
On the other hand, conservative sites are all over the blogosphere report daily what this
administration is doing and how it is succeeding. Bannon remains a phone call away.
Oh, and btw, it was Kushner and his data operation who carried Trump over the finish line
not Bannon and his policy positions.
"... The war veteran has never quite clicked with the president, but other West Wing staff members recoiled at a series of smears against General McMaster by internet allies of Mr. Bannon. ..."
Mr. Bannon's disdain for General McMaster also accelerated his demise.
The war veteran
has never quite clicked with the president, but other West Wing staff members recoiled at a
series of smears against General McMaster by internet allies of Mr. Bannon.
The strategist denied involvement, but he also did not speak out against them.
By the time Charlottesville erupted, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump had a powerful ally in Mr.
Kelly, who shared their belief that Mr. Trump's first statement blaming "many sides" for the
deadly violence needed to be amended.
Mr. Bannon vigorously objected. He told Mr. Kelly that if Mr. Trump delivered a second, more
contrite statement it would do him no good, with either the public or the Washington press
corps, which he denigrated as a "Pretorian guard" protecting the Democrats' consensus that Mr.
Trump is a race-baiting demagogue. Mr. Trump could grovel, beg for forgiveness, even get down
on his knees; it would never work, Mr. Bannon maintained.
"They're going to say two things: It's too late and it's not enough," Mr. Bannon told Mr.
Kelly.
Later in the day, the lead story on the site was "
McMaster Of Disguise: Nat'l Security Adviser Endorsed Book That Advocates Quran-Kissing Apology Ceremonies
." This piece from frequent McMaster critic Aaron Klein said that McMaster endorsed a book that "calls
on the U.S. military to respond to any 'desecrations' of the Quran by service members with an apology
ceremony, and advocates kissing a new copy of the Quran before presenting the Islamic text to the
local Muslim public."
The article went on to say that McMaster has "troubling views" on Islamic terrorism.
The site also published two articles Sunday critical of Ivanka. One of them is an
aggregate of a Daily Mail report that claimed Ivanka helped push Bannon out of the White House.
Shortly after the story was published, the article received an update that said a White House senior
aide stated the Daily Mail report is "totally false."
Breitbart also wrote a
piece that highlighted six times Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner's displeasure with President
Trump had been leaked to the media.
Bannon said in interviews after his departure from the White House that he will use Breitbart
to fight for the president's agenda.
"In many ways, I think I can be more effective fighting from the outside for the agenda President
Trump ran on," Bannon told
The New York Times . "And anyone who stands in our way, we will go to war with."
"... Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country, regardless of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class. ..."
"... There's more to it than that. Its true that the white working class in America are the only group that the media feels it is acceptable to insult/denigrate. What was it Obama said - People in small towns clinging on to their religion & guns. ..."
"... The white middle class has to walk the walk with respect of social justice. Due to the economics of it, multiculturalism has affected the working classes far more than the middle classes. As I say, I'm prepared for the consequences personally, but I wonder how many others would be. ..."
"... People may underestimate the populist element in Bannon's make up. As Scaramucci tells it, both he and Bannon had white middle class fathers who had played with a straight bat and had their retirement savings wiped out in 2008 and all that, while the fat cats were saved by Uncle Sam. Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there. ..."
"... "In Bannon's view, we are in the midst of an existential war, and everything is a part of that conflict. Treaties must be torn up, enemies named, culture changed. Global conflagration, should it occur, would only prove the theory correct. For Bannon, the Fourth Turning has arrived. The Grey Champion, a messianic strongman figure, may have already emerged. The apocalypse is now. ..."
"... I got the strong sense that Trump was hunkered down defensively and baring his teeth like a feral dog trapped in a corner. ..."
"... Trump is not Mussolini or Franco in that he is not a true believer ..."
"... With the exception of the military which at this point is a state unto itself the government is a paradox of being both omnipresent and nowhere and thus truly Kafkaesque...utterly opaque and completely visible at all times... ..."
"... The left's focus on identity politics is the reason this Bannon chump is relevant at all. The switch in focus from class to race and gender has segmented the working class from the common struggle. A people divided. This is about the only strategic fact Bannon understands. But it is an important one. ..."
"... Identity politics at its core is mostly untenable and while it might treat the symptoms of disease in the short run it will always collapse under the weight of its internal inconsistencies. The blind squirrel Bannon has found his nut. Continuing to assert that poor white men have it made is demonstrably false and offensive. And gives the alt-right plenty of tools to recruit. ..."
Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country, regardless
of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class.
So a billionaire like Trump, with Bannon's aid, does whatever he can to focus the disatisfaction of the population on people
who have a different skin colour, rather than the vastly rich elites who have grabbed such a massive share of US wealth and power
- and demand yet more
There's more to it than that. Its true that the white working class in America are the only group that the media feels
it is acceptable to insult/denigrate. What was it Obama said - People in small towns clinging on to their religion & guns.
Must have gone down really well in those rustbelt towns where everyone is on oxycontin out of sheer despair. But hey, they're
only rednecks so who cares right ?
Tragic that so many in the US don't seem able to see that the problem is gross economic inequality in their country,
regardless of race. But divide and rule still works well for the ruling class.
Exactly, it's all about creating a group you can point to and say "at least you're not as bad off as them!"
When your entire existence is predicated on 'at least I'm not the worst off' it becomes frightening when those who were previously
'worse off' start improving. But instead of improving themselves they try and bring the others down again.
That's what I don't get about the Nazis who turned up in Charlottsville: they chanted "Jews will not replace us" and also "we're
going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump". How can Nazis believe Trump is on their side when his daughter is married to a
Jew? There are so many contradictions in this situation that I can't get my head around it.
Someone has to lose out in a redistribution of anything, be it political power or wealth. I mention the white middle classes
because they tend to the the keyboard warriors refusing to tackle the insecurities and concerns of the white working class, and
simply resorting to calling them racist.
The white middle class has to walk the walk with respect of social justice. Due to the economics of it, multiculturalism
has affected the working classes far more than the middle classes. As I say, I'm prepared for the consequences personally, but
I wonder how many others would be.
Agree with your latter point and I'm sensitive to the fact that within class groups, minorities and women remain disadvantaged;
I'm not saying we don't continue to look at that. But realistically, on an economic level, you're not going to get white working
class men accepting that middle class minorities or women are disadvantaged compared to them, are you? The only reason this distinction
doesn't seem to happen (class lines) is because most of the SJW contingent suddenly have to check an aspect of privilege they're
unkeen to pay attention to.
People may underestimate the populist element in Bannon's make up. As Scaramucci tells it, both he and Bannon had white
middle class fathers who had played with a straight bat and had their retirement savings wiped out in 2008 and all that, while
the fat cats were saved by Uncle Sam. Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there.
As to Bannon still in the job, I think LBJ's story about tents and which way the piss goes applies.
Maybe a story just for the telling, but it is out there.
As others have noted, given that both of them worked in finance/had some background in finance, it's odd that their fathers
lost savings which could have been avoided (Bannon's father, for instance, only lost out because he sold his stock but it regained
its value shortly afterwards, i.e. it was a bad financial decision). But as you say, its out there.
Indeed. If you held on through the crash you now have double the money you had in 2007.
There are some pretty basic retirement rules (60/40 equity to bonds or less, keep 2 years in cash) which if anyone followed
would have resulted in no pain from the crash, just some anxiety.
If he got greedy, had 100% in equities and sold at the bottom of the market because he had not kept a cash cushion - well he
cannot blame the Chinese for that.
Of course he was bitter before his son became a billionaire, but to still be bitter is more about character than the economy.
"In Bannon's view, we are in the midst of an existential war, and everything is a part of that conflict. Treaties must
be torn up, enemies named, culture changed. Global conflagration, should it occur, would only prove the theory correct. For Bannon,
the Fourth Turning has arrived. The Grey Champion, a messianic strongman figure, may have already emerged. The apocalypse is now.
"What we are witnessing," Bannon told The Washington Post last month, "is the birth of a new political order.""
An interesting interpretation of his behavior. I got the strong sense that Trump was hunkered down defensively and baring
his teeth like a feral dog trapped in a corner.
" and it has forged an indefatigable core of support that will stay with Trump through the next general election and
beyond."
Except that atavistic and uneducated people can and will change their sense of allegiance on a dime or a whim and given the
fact that Trump is not an ideologue but rather an unstable pathological narcissist and a bigot (versus espousing a coherent racist
plan of action because he has a particular ideological agenda) there is no way to effectively predict what his actions will echo
in that part of his base and therefore no way to predict what his base will do if Trump is untethered from Bannon. Trump is as
likely to make a boneheaded deal with China that pleases Wall Street as he is to accidentally start a war. He is as likely to
break his support as he is to cement it.
As Christopher Hitchens said:
"A feature, not just of the age of the end of ideology, but of the age immediately preceding the age of the end of ideology,
is that of the dictator who has no ideology at all."
Trump is not Mussolini or Franco in that he is not a true believer though he is a bigot and clearly dictatorial. Trump
is all expediency first and faith second even if he has consistently been a racist.
The second problematic issue is that if you assert that Axelrod and Rove "achieved" anything of lasting consequence then Axelrod
could not have followed Rove and Bannon could not have followed Axelrod.
Unlike in France where the president serves far longer the reelection cycle here with its utterly corrupt need to raise massive
amounts of cash which then forces candidates to constantly be in race mode (and effectively reduces the period of actual governance
to around 18 months) has created a perpetually unstable and ineffective bureaucracy that has more in common with late Ottoman
inefficiency than it does with a contemporary "modern" state.
With the exception of the military which at this point is a state unto itself the government is a paradox of being both
omnipresent and nowhere and thus truly Kafkaesque...utterly opaque and completely visible at all times...
Further, there is this: "There's another reason why firing Bannon wouldn't be a huge loss: his work is largely done."
In fact, Trump has achieved nothing and done nothing of lasting change to the bureaucracy. In a sense it is analogous to the
situation with North Korea where, despite Trump's pale Strangelove imitation it was noted in the media that the military had made
no changes to its posture.
The only time I have ever agreed with Bannon is that his analysis of the potential for N Korea to destroy S Korea with an artillery
barrage. With about 12,000 artillery prices the North could launch somewhere around 50,000 shells per minute into Soul. Do the
arithmetic for a 10 minute shelling. Any grandstanding by the US military is simply folly.
The left's focus on identity politics is the reason this Bannon chump is relevant at all. The switch in focus from class
to race and gender has segmented the working class from the common struggle. A people divided. This is about the only strategic
fact Bannon understands. But it is an important one.
Identity politics at its core is mostly untenable and while it might treat the symptoms of disease in the short run it
will always collapse under the weight of its internal inconsistencies. The blind squirrel Bannon has found his nut. Continuing
to assert that poor white men have it made is demonstrably false and offensive. And gives the alt-right plenty of tools to recruit.
"... Contrary to Trump's threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." ..."
"... "To me," Bannon said, "the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover." ..."
"... Bannon's plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. "We're going to run the tables on these guys. We've come to the conclusion that they're in an economic war and they're crushing us." ..."
"... "The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats." ..."
"... For ideas on how to counter the far-right agenda in the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville, click here . ..."
You might think from recent press accounts that Steve Bannon is on the ropes and therefore behaving prudently. In the aftermath of
events in Charlottesville, he is widely blamed for his boss's continuing indulgence of white supremacists. Allies of National Security
Adviser H.R. McMaster hold Bannon responsible for a campaign by Breitbart News, which Bannon once led, to vilify the security chief.
Trump's defense of Bannon, at his Tuesday press conference, was tepid.
But Bannon was in high spirits when he phoned me Tuesday afternoon to discuss the politics of taking a harder line with China,
and minced no words describing his efforts to neutralize his rivals at the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury. "They're
wetting themselves," he said, proceeding to detail how he would oust some of his opponents at State and Defense.
Needless to say, I was a little stunned to get an email from Bannon's assistant midday Tuesday, just as all hell was breaking loose
once again about Charlottesville, saying that Bannon wished to meet with me.
Needless to say, I was a little stunned to get an email from Bannon's assistant midday Tuesday, just as all hell was breaking
loose once again about Charlottesville, saying that Bannon wished to meet with me. I'd
just published a column on how China was
profiting from the U.S.-North Korea nuclear brinkmanship, and it included some choice words about Bannon's boss.
"In Kim, Trump has met his match," I wrote. "The risk of two arrogant fools blundering into a nuclear exchange is more serious
than at any time since October 1962." Maybe Bannon wanted to scream at me?
I told the assistant that I was on vacation, but I would be happy to speak by phone. Bannon promptly called.
Far from dressing me down for comparing Trump to Kim, he began, "It's a great honor to finally track you down. I've followed your
writing for years and I think you and I are in the same boat when it comes to China. You absolutely nailed it."
"We're at economic war with China," he added. "It's in all their literature. They're not shy about saying what they're doing.
One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it's gonna be them if we go down this path. On Korea, they're just tapping
us along. It's just a sideshow."
Bannon said he might consider a deal in which China got North Korea to freeze its nuclear buildup with verifiable inspections
and the United States removed its troops from the peninsula, but such a deal seemed remote. Given that China is not likely to do
much more on North Korea, and that the logic of mutually assured destruction was its own source of restraint, Bannon saw no reason
not to proceed with tough trade sanctions against China.
Contrary to Trump's threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget
it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes
from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." Bannon went on
to describe his battle inside the administration to take a harder line on China trade, and not to fall into a trap of wishful thinking
in which complaints against China's trade practices now had to take a backseat to the hope that China, as honest broker, would help
restrain Kim.
"To me," Bannon said, "the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue
to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able
to recover."
Bannon's plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology
transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. "We're going
to run the tables on these guys. We've come to the conclusion that they're in an economic war and they're crushing us."
But what about his internal adversaries, at the departments of State and Defense, who think the United States can enlist Beijing's
aid on the North Korean standoff, and at Treasury and the National Economic Council who don't want to mess with the trading system?
"Oh, they're wetting themselves," he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats
with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon
has big plans to marginalize their influence.
"I'm changing out people at East Asian Defense; I'm getting hawks in. I'm getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and
Pacific Affairs] out at State."
But can Bannon really win that fight internally?
"That's a fight I fight every day here," he said. "We're still fighting. There's Treasury and [National Economic Council chair]
Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying."
"We gotta do this. The president's default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don't get me wrong. It's like,
every day."
Bannon explained that his strategy is to battle the trade doves inside the administration while building an outside coalition
of trade hawks that includes left as well as right. Hence the phone call to me.
There are a couple of things that are startling about this premise. First, to the extent that most of the opponents of Bannon's
China trade strategy are other Trump administration officials, it's not clear how reaching out to the left helps him. If anything,
it gives his adversaries ammunition to characterize Bannon as unreliable or disloyal.
More puzzling is the fact that Bannon would phone a writer and editor of a progressive publication (the cover lines on whose first
two issues after Trump's election were "Resisting Trump" and "Containing Trump") and assume that a possible convergence of views
on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.
The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up. This is also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not
exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the press. He's probably the most media-savvy person in America.
I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the ugly white nationalism epitomized by the
racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of
using Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump's base.
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: "Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's
a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
From his lips to Trump's ear.
"The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want them to talk about racism every
day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
I had never before spoken with Bannon. I came away from the conversation with a sense both of his savvy and his recklessness.
The waters around him are rising, but he is going about his business of infighting, and attempting to cultivate improbable outside
allies, to promote his China strategy. His enemies will do what they do.
Either the reports of the threats to Bannon's job are grossly exaggerated and leaked by his rivals, or he has decided not to change
his routine and to go down fighting. Given Trump's impulsivity, neither Bannon nor Trump really has any idea from day to day whether
Bannon is staying or going. He has survived earlier threats. So what the hell, damn the torpedoes.
The conversation ended with Bannon inviting me to the White House after Labor Day to continue the discussion of China and trade.
We'll see if he's still there.
For ideas on how to counter the far-right agenda in the aftermath of the events in Charlottesville,
click here .
"... Lots of dunces, but chief strategist Steve Bannon, sadly, isn't one of them. The intellectual leader of the alt-right movement is no genius – nobody with his political views could be – but neither is he an idiot. He's one of the few people in that White House with even a primitive grasp of long-term strategy, which makes his impulsive-seeming decision to call The American Prospect this week curious. ..."
"... In the interview, Bannon said there was "no military solution" to North Korea's posturing. He stressed his efforts to fight economic war with China, adding, in a Scaramuccian touch, that his intramural foes on that front were "wetting themselves." ..."
"... "The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," he said. "I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats." ..."
The Trump administration's stubbly race warrior reminds us why he's so dangerous
By Matt Taibbi
21 hours ago
The list of nitwits in the Trump administration is long. Betsy DeVos, in charge of education
issues, seems capable of losing at tic-tac-toe. Ben Carson thought the great pyramids of Egypt
were grain warehouses. Rick Perry, merely in charge of the nation's nuclear arsenal, probably
has post-it notes all over his office to remind him what things are: telephone, family photo,
souvenir atomic-reactor paperweight, etc.
Lots of dunces, but chief strategist Steve Bannon, sadly, isn't one of them. The
intellectual leader of the alt-right movement is no genius – nobody with his political
views could be – but neither is he an idiot. He's one of the few people in that White
House with even a primitive grasp of long-term strategy, which makes his impulsive-seeming
decision to call The American Prospect this week curious.
In the interview, Bannon said there was "no military solution" to North Korea's
posturing. He stressed his efforts to fight economic war with China, adding, in a Scaramuccian
touch, that his intramural foes on that front were "wetting themselves."
When asked about the Charlottesville tragedy, Bannon called the neo-Nazi marchers "a
collection of clowns." He also called them "losers" and a "fringe element."
This theoretically should be a dark time for Bannon, since Charlottesville reminded the
whole world of his inexplicable and indefensible presence in the White House. The story has
even the National Review howling for his dismissal.
But Prospect writer Robert Kuttner noted with surprise in his piece that Bannon seemed
upbeat. He essentially told Kuttner he believed the Charlottesville mess and stories like it
were a long-term political windfall for people like himself.
"The longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em," he said. "I want them to talk
about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic
nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
President Trump has told senior aides that he has decided to remove Stephen K. Bannon, the
embattled White House chief strategist who helped Mr. Trump win the 2016 election, according to
two administration officials briefed on the discussion.
The president and senior White House officials were debating when and how to dismiss Mr.
Bannon. The two administration officials cautioned that Mr. Trump is known to be averse to
confrontation within his inner circle, and could decide to keep on Mr. Bannon for some
time.
As of Friday morning, the two men were still discussing Mr. Bannon's future, the officials
said. A person close to Mr. Bannon insisted the parting of ways was his idea, and that he had
submitted his resignation to the president on Aug. 7, to be announced at the start of this
week, but the move was delayed after the racial unrest in Charlottesville, Va.
Mr. Bannon had clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers and members of the
president's family.
But the loss of Mr. Bannon, the right-wing nationalist who helped propel some of Mr. Trump's
campaign promises into policy reality, raises the potential for the president to face criticism
from the conservative news media base that supported him over the past year.
Mr. Bannon's many critics bore down after the violence in Charlottesville. Outraged over Mr.
Trump's insistence that "both sides" were to blame for the violence that erupted at a white
nationalist rally, leaving one woman dead, human rights activists demanded that the president
fire so-called nationalists working in the West Wing. That group of hard-right populists in the
White House is led by Mr. Bannon.
On Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York, Mr. Trump refused to guarantee Mr. Bannon's job
security but defended him as "not a racist" and "a friend."
"We'll see what happens with Mr. Bannon," Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Bannon's dismissal followed an Aug. 16 interview he initiated with a writer with whom he
had never spoken, with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it, Mr. Bannon
mockingly played down the American military threat to North Korea as nonsensical: "Until
somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don't
die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about,
there's no military solution here, they got us." ...
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:37 AM
Trump on North Korea
https://nyti.ms/2vI6smj
NYT - MARK LANDLER - August 17
WASHINGTON -- For all his fire-breathing nationalism -- the demands to ban Muslims, build a
wall on the Mexican border and honor statues of Confederate heroes -- Stephen K. Bannon has
played another improbable role in the Trump White House: resident dove.
From Afghanistan and North Korea to Syria and Venezuela, Mr. Bannon, the president's chief
strategist, has argued against making military threats or deploying American troops into
foreign conflicts.
His views, delivered in a characteristically bomb-throwing style, have antagonized people
across the administration, leaving Mr. Bannon isolated and in danger of losing his job. But
they are thoroughly in keeping with his nationalist credo, and they have occasionally resonated
with the person who matters most: President Trump.
Mr. Bannon's dovish tendencies spilled into view this week in unguarded comments he made
about North Korea to a liberal publication, The American Prospect. Days after Mr. Trump
threatened to rain "fire and fury" on the North Korean government if it did not curb its
belligerent behavior, Mr. Bannon said, "There's no military solution here; they got us."
...
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:43 AM
The casualties are not worth the little chance of blunting Kim.
Beside look: with all that money and training and so forth....DDG 62, an Aegis destroyer
could not stay safe in peaceful water!
US can't poke ISIS out of Raqqa in 3 years, what would happen with 2 million soldier tough
as VC?
"When asked about the Charlottesville tragedy, Bannon called the neo-Nazi marchers "a
collection of clowns." He also called them "losers" and a "fringe element.""
Maybe that was it? Why would he call the Prospect? Did he think he was calling the American
Conservative and it was off the record? Did he know he was out?
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 10:45 AM
Stephen K. Bannon's exit was described in a White House statement as a mutual decision
between Mr. Bannon and Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Critics of Mr. Bannon, a right-wing nationalist, bore down after the violence in
Charlottesville.
Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Trump win the 2016
election but clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers, is leaving his post, a
White House spokeswoman announced Friday.
"White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be
Steve's last day," the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a
statement. "We are grateful for his service and wish him the best." ...
Reply
Friday, August 18, 2017 at 11:31 AM
What kind of talk doesn't threaten the money and power of the 0.1%?
"The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime
bill."
by Jake Johnson, staff writer
....................
"The Democratic Party isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill,"
Warren said. "We're not going back to the days of being lukewarm on choice. We're not going
back to the days when universal healthcare was something Democrats talked about on the campaign
trail but were too chicken to fight for after they got elected."
"And," Warren concluded, "we're not going back to the days when a Democrat who wanted to run
for a seat in Washington first had to grovel on Wall Street."
To a certain extent Bannon symbolized backlash against neoliberal globalization, that is mounting in the USA. With him gone Trump
is a really emasculated and become a puppet of generals, who are the only allies left capable to run the show. Some of them are real
neocons. What a betrayal of voters who are sick and tired of wars for expansion and protection of global neoliberal empire.
Notable quotes:
"... What Bannon's exit might mean, however, is the end of even the pretense that Trumpist economic policy is anything different from standard Republicanism -- and I think giving up the pretense matters, at least a bit. ..."
"... The basics of the U.S. economic debate are really very simple. The federal government, as often noted, is an insurance company with an army: aside from defense, its spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (plus some ACA subsidies). ..."
"... Conservatives always claim that they want to make government smaller. But that means cutting these programs -- and what we know now, after the repeal debacle, is that people like all these programs, even the means-tested programs like Medicaid. Obama paid a large temporary price for making Medicaid/ACA bigger, paid for with taxes on the wealthy, but now that it's in place, voters hate the idea of taking it away. ..."
"... So if Bannon is out, what's left? It's just reverse Robin Hood with extra racism. On real policy, in other words, Trump is now bankrupt. ..."
"... with Bannon and economic nationalism gone, he will eventually double down on that part even more. If anything, Trump_vs_deep_state is going to get even uglier, and Trump even less presidential (if such a thing is possible) now that he has fewer people pushing for trade wars. ..."
Everyone seems to be reporting that Steve Bannon is out. I have no insights about the palace intrigue; and anyone who thinks
Trump will become "presidential" now is an idiot. In particular, I very much doubt that the influence of white supremacists and
neo-Nazis will wane.
What Bannon's exit might mean, however, is the end of even the pretense that Trumpist economic policy is anything different
from standard Republicanism -- and I think giving up the pretense matters, at least a bit.
The basics of the U.S. economic debate are really very simple. The federal government, as often noted, is an insurance
company with an army: aside from defense, its spending is dominated by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (plus some ACA subsidies).
Conservatives always claim that they want to make government smaller. But that means cutting these programs -- and what
we know now, after the repeal debacle, is that people like all these programs, even the means-tested programs like Medicaid. Obama
paid a large temporary price for making Medicaid/ACA bigger, paid for with taxes on the wealthy, but now that it's in place, voters
hate the idea of taking it away.
So what's a tax-cutter to do? His agenda is fundamentally unpopular; how can it be sold?
One long-standing answer is to muddy the waters, and make elections about white resentment. That's been the strategy since
Nixon, and Trump turned the dial up to 11. And they've won a lot of elections -- but never had the political capital to reverse
the welfare state.
Another strategy is to invoke voodoo: to claim that taxes can be cut without spending cuts, because miracles will happen. That
has sometimes worked as a political strategy, but overall it seems to have lost its punch. Kansas is a cautionary tale; and under
Obama federal taxes on the top 1 percent basically went back up to pre-Reagan levels.
So what did Trump seem to offer that was new? First, during the campaign he combined racist appeals with claims that he wouldn't
cut the safety net. This sounded as if he was offering a kind of herrenvolk welfare state: all the benefits you expect, but only
for your kind of people.
Second, he offered economic nationalism: we were going to beat up on the Chinese, the Mexicans, somebody, make the Europeans
pay tribute for defense, and that would provide the money for so much winning, you'd get tired of winning. Economic nonsense,
but some voters believed it.
Where are we now? The herrenvolk welfare state never materialized, in part because Trump is too lazy to understand policy at
all, and outsourced health care to the usual suspects. So Trumpcare turned out to be the same old Republican thing: slash benefits
for the vulnerable to cut taxes for the rich. And it was desperately unpopular.
Meanwhile, things have moved very slowly on the economic nationalism front -- partly because a bit of reality struck, as export
industries realized what was at stake and retailers and others balked at the notion of new import taxes. But also, there were
very few actual voices for that policy with Trump's ear -- mainly Bannon, as far as I can tell.
So if Bannon is out, what's left? It's just reverse Robin Hood with extra racism. On real policy, in other words, Trump
is now bankrupt.
But he does have the racism thing. And my prediction is that with Bannon and economic nationalism gone, he will eventually
double down on that part even more. If anything, Trump_vs_deep_state is going to get even uglier, and Trump even less presidential (if such
a thing is possible) now that he has fewer people pushing for trade wars.
At least Bannon does not look like a sociopath as Hillary "We came, we saw he died" and her
inner cicle. He has some concerns about South koreian population, dying for US empire
geopolitical goals.
Notable quotes:
"... "Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." ..."
... [in] an Aug. 16
interview
he initiated with a writer
with whom he had never spoken, with the progressive publication The American Prospect. In it,
Mr. Bannon mockingly played down the American military threat to North Korea as nonsensical:
"Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in
Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're
talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us."
He also bad-mouthed his colleagues in the Trump administration, vowed to oust a female
diplomat at the State Department and mocked officials as "wetting themselves" over the
consequences of radically changing trade policy.
"... He was then moved quickly to contain the influence of chief strategist Steve Bannon, who McMaster removed from the National Security Council. If you recall, he was appointed to contain other Trump loyalists such as Michael Flynn, as well. ..."
"... Recently, a campaign accusing him of being anti-Israel has been waged with the support of billionaire Sheldon Adelson by a coalition of alt-right nationalists that includes Steve Bannon ..."
Remember Lieutenant-General Herbert Raymond McMaster? He was appointed as President Trump's national
security adviser back in February. He was then moved quickly to contain the influence of chief
strategist Steve Bannon, who McMaster removed from the National Security Council. If you recall,
he was appointed to contain other Trump loyalists such as Michael Flynn, as well.
Recently, a campaign accusing him of being anti-Israel has been waged with the support of
billionaire Sheldon Adelson by a coalition of alt-right nationalists that includes Steve Bannon
and extreme right-wing Zionists such as the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton
Klein, as well as by Israeli journalist Caroline Glick from the Jerusalem Post. President Trump,
in response to all of this, called McMaster "a good man, very pro-Israel," and Israeli officials
have also come forward calling McMaster a friend of Israel.
On to talk about these connections and tensions is Shir Hever. Shir is a Real News correspondent
in Heidelberg, Germany. Of course, he covers Israel and Palestine for us extensively. I thank you
so much for joining us, Shir.
SHIR HEVER: Thanks for having me, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Shir, President Trump is now six months into his office as president. He initially
has appointed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to take up the Israel file, but there are these allegations
flying against General McMaster. Explain to us what's going on. Why are these individuals like Sheldon
Adelson even concerned about how Trump is responding in terms of Israel and Israel policy?
SHIR HEVER: I think there's very little that General McMaster can actually do about Israel or
against Israel. It really doesn't matter much. The only issue that has come up was the Iran nuclear
deal, and I think this is going to be a decision taken directly by President Trump and not by McMaster.
Also, what exactly is the Israel interest regarding the Iran nuclear deal? It is not so clear. Obviously,
Prime Minister Netanyahu has a certain opinion, but other Israeli politicians have other opinions.
I think this is really a symbolic issue. There are people in the alt-right and also the extreme Zionism
who are using this old worn-out accusation that somebody is anti-Israel in order to get their own
people into the National Security Council, in order to exert influence on the Trump administration.
This coalition between extreme right nationalists, white nationalists in the United States, and Jewish
Zionists, which traditionally were on opposing sides, are now working together because of this very
strange rise of this alt-right.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Now, give us a greater sense of the connection or the tensions between
these alt-right organizations and McMaster and Bannon. Map this for us.
SHIR HEVER: Yeah. I've been looking through these accusations that Caroline Glick, deputy editor
of the Jerusalem Post, and Steve Bannon himself, and also Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization
of America. What problem do they have with McMaster? They make very vague things about some statements
that he made, but they couldn't put them in context. He said that Israel is an occupying power. Of
course, Israel is an occupying power, but they couldn't place that statement. The only thing that
their criticism boils down to is they say McMaster is a remnant of the Obama administration. He continues
the Obama policies, and therefore he's not loyal to Trump.
I think this is the crux of the matter, because actually, for people like Caroline Glick and I
think also for Sheldon Adelson, their relation to Trump borders on religious. They consider Trump
to be some kind of messiah or savior that will allow Israel once and for all to annex the occupied
territory, expand its borders, and then the land will be redeemed. They talk about this in religious
terminology.
Here's the problem. Trump has been president for six months now, and Israel did not annex the territory.
It did not expand its borders. In fact, it has gone from one crisis to the next, and the Israeli
government is not able to cement its power over the Palestinians. Palestinian resistance is not tied
down. They're looking for an explanation. The explanation is that something is not pure in the Trump
administration, and they're pointing the finger at McMaster saying, "Because of people like him who
are sabotaging Trump's own policies from the inside, then this is preventing the Trump administration
from reaching its full potential."
SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Obviously, Netanyahu and the Israeli government doesn't agree with this
assessment. In fact, they have come out supporting McMaster as being a good supporter of Israel.
How does this play out here?
SHIR HEVER: Absolutely. Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing real politics. He knows that there's nothing
that President Trump can do that will actually make Israel suddenly conquer more territory. That's
not the point. Netanyahu is trying to balance a very complicated system with pressure from different
points, and he is a populist, and he's only in power because of his populism. Now, his administration
is under threat because of corruption allegations, so this is a problem for him. When people expect
that the Trump administration will free his hands to do whatever he wants, Netanyahu suddenly has
a problem because he needs to come up with a new excuse. Why doesn't he annex all the occupied territory?
Of course, for him, it's not a good time to get into a fight with the Trump administration. He
wants to create the impression that things are happening under the surface, that he is in the know,
that his friends are involved in this, but I think the fact that Sheldon Adelson, the big financial
supporter of Netanyahu, is now switching to support extreme right groups that have nothing to do
with the interests of the Israeli current administration, but are actually trying to push the Israeli
administration to move further to the extreme right and to annex territory, that puts Netanyahu in
trouble. I think it also spells some clouds over the warm relationship between Netanyahu and Adelson.
SHARMINI PERIES: Coming back to this side of things here in the United States, in light of the events
of Charlottesville, Shir, showing a direct link between the alt-right and hardcore racists and neo-Nazis,
why would extreme right-wing Zionist Jewish organizations and individuals like Glick and Klein agree
to cooperate with the alt-right in this way?
SHIR HEVER: I think people on the left tend to forget that, just like the left considers itself
to be a kind of universalist movement, and that leftists around the world should have solidarity
with each other, the right also has a kind of solidarity, especially the extreme right. Extreme right
movements in different countries consider the extreme right in other countries to be their allies.
One of the things we saw in Charlottesville is that some of these neo-Nazi groups and white nationalist
groups are big supporters of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, because they see him as the kind of strong
leader they would like to see in the United States as well.
For people who see Donald Trump talking about America first, then they're saying, "Okay, that's exactly
the kind of administration we want to see in Israel, somebody taking about Israel first." For Caroline
Gluck or for a Morton Klein, they are willing to accept a very heavy load of racism and even anti-semitism
against Jews from the Trump administration and from its supporters in exchange for being allowed
to copy that same kind of racism and that same kind of right-wing policy towards their minorities.
Just like the American administration has its minorities, Muslims, Mexicans which are being targeted,
Israel also has its minorities, Palestinians and asylum-seekers, and they want those people to be
targeted in the same harsh language and the same harsh policies, so that we can [inaudible] a great
compromise.
I have to say, the events in Charlottesville had a profound impact on Israeli public opinion.
In fact, there are a lot of Israelis who are very concerned about this kind of coalition. They are
saying, "No, there's not that much that we're willing to take in order to keep the relations with
the Trump administration on good footing." Because of that, the president of Israel, President Rivlin,
and also the education minister Naftali Bennett issued statements condemning white nationalists and
neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. I think Naftali Bennett, who is the head of the Jewish Nationalist
Party in Israel, and he's actually of the same political camp as Caroline Glick, as Morton Klein,
when he makes that statement, that shows that even he thinks that they have gone too far.
SHARMINI PERIES: Interesting analysis, Shir. I thank you so much for joining us today. I guess the
situation in Charlottesville is evolving, and it would be interesting to continue to keep an eye
on what's developing here against what's happening in Israel as well. Thank you so much.
SHIR HEVER: Thank you, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Thank you for joining us here on the Real News Network.
Confusing, at least to me, in any case I believe that the Zionists learned a lot from the Nazis
and there is very little difference between the two groups. I would say that the main difference
lies in the fact that the Zionists are sneakier and know how to play with popular opinion. That's
why it doesn't surprise me that they are making a common cause with the white supremacists groups.
The only surprise here is that they are doing it openly now. They have become brave and have
decided to take the backlash. Perhaps they are doing so because they know they have the support
of Trump.
Divide and conquer. Soon we will be fighting on our own streets against each other. It will
be the death of the US...
"For Caroline Gluck or for a Morton Klein, they are willing to accept a very heavy load of
racism and even anti-semitism against Jews from the Trump administration and from its supporters
in exchange for being allowed to copy that same kind of racism and that same kind of right-wing
policy towards their minorities."
I have great respect for Shir Hever, he has great insight into Israel society and politics.
However, his statement that Klein and Glick (and maybe Adelson) want to be "allowed" to copy Trump's
supporter's racism and right-wing policies towards minorities in Israel is beyond hilarious. Minorities
in Israel have been and continue to be subjected to racist and supremacist policies (much worse
than anything Trump supporters can even imagine) by the Zionists since the theft of Palestinian's
land in 1948. The Israelis are not just pursuing racist policies but as Israeli historian Ilan
Pappe said, they are committing slow motion genocide against the Palestinians.
Ethnic nationalism rises when the state and the nation experience economic difficulties. Weimar
republic is a classic example here.
Notable quotes:
"... That's exactly nationalism, for sure. The work of that wealth creation by the way is done by the all the classes below the rentier class, from working to middle class. The funneling upwards thing is actually theft. ..."
"... The middle class is shrinking and being pushed down closer to rage because the wealth-stealing mechanisms have become bigger and better, and saturated the entire national system, including its electoral politics. This real face of capitalism has driven out the iconic American Dream, which was the essence of upward mobility. ..."
"... Nationalism is an ugly word, but it's easily reached for when there aren't any better words around. In Russia, they already went through what faces the US, and they figured it out. ..."
"... "In our view, faster growth is necessary but not sufficient to restore higher intergenerational income mobility," they wrote. "Evidence suggests that, to increase income mobility, policymakers should focus on raising middle-class and lower-income household incomes." ..."
"... Advocating smoothed-out relations with Russia (for commercial perso reasons, Tillerson, etc. and a need to grade adversaries and accept some into the fold, like Russia, instead of Iran ), a more level playing field, multi-polar world, to actually become more dominant in trade (China etc.) and waste less treasure on supporting enemies, aka proxy stooges, to no purpose (e.g. Muslim brotherhood, Al Q kooks, ISIS) and possibly even Israel -- hmmm. ..."
"... The old guard will do much to get rid of the upstart and his backers (who they are exactly I'd quite like to know?) as all their positions and revenues are at risk ..."
"... The Trump crowd seems at the same time both vulnerable and determined and thus navigating à vue as the F say, by sight and without a plan An underground internal war which is stalemated, leading to instrumentalising the ppl and creating chaos, scandals, etc. ..."
The US has no problem generating wealth, and has no need to force conflict with China. The
US's problem is that that wealth is funneled upwards. Wealth inequality is not a meme. "Shrinking
middle class" is a euphemism for downward-mobility of the middle class, an historical incubator
for Reaction. And that's what we have here, reactionaries from a middle class background who now
are earning less than their parents at menial jobs, or who are unemployed, becoming goons; aping
the klan, appropriating nazi icons, blaming the foreigner, the negro, the Jew, the Muslim, for
their circumstances. A "trade war" will not help them one iota, it will make their lives worse,
and Bannon will go out and say it's the fault of the foreigner and the immigrant, their numbers
wool swell. More terror, depper culture wars. I suppose that's nationalism to some people.
That's exactly nationalism, for sure. The work of that wealth creation by the way is done
by the all the classes below the rentier class, from working to middle class. The funneling
upwards thing is actually theft.
The middle class is shrinking and being pushed down closer to rage because the wealth-stealing
mechanisms have become bigger and better, and saturated the entire national system, including
its electoral politics. This real face of capitalism has driven out the iconic American Dream,
which was the essence of upward mobility.
Nationalism is an ugly word, but it's easily reached for when there aren't any better words
around. In Russia, they already went through what faces the US, and they figured it out.
Since we're looking for the grown-ups, let's turn to Vladimir Putin, always reliable for sanity
when direction is lost.
Putin recalled the words of outstanding Soviet Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev that patriotism
drastically differs from nationalism. "Nationalism is hatred of other peoples, while patriotism
is love for your motherland," Putin cited his words.
"In our view, faster growth is necessary but not sufficient to restore higher intergenerational
income mobility," they wrote. "Evidence suggests that, to increase income mobility, policymakers
should focus on raising middle-class and lower-income household incomes."
Interventions worth considering include universal preschool and greater access to public
universities, increasing the minimum wage, and offering vouchers to help families with kids
move from poor neighborhoods into areas with better schools and more resources, they said.
Is there any political party or group in the US that suggests this?
The Corporate "fascist" - with grains of salt - USA. The 'democracy' part is fiction, camouflaged
via a fools theatre two-party system and ginormous social re-distribution, amongst others..
the Core (PTB) found itself through miscalculation and loss of power subject to a challenger
who broke thru the \organised/ fake elections, to attempt some kind of re-adjustement - renewal
- re-set - review...
Advocating smoothed-out relations with Russia (for commercial perso reasons, Tillerson,
etc. and a need to grade adversaries and accept some into the fold, like Russia, instead of Iran
), a more level playing field, multi-polar world, to actually become more dominant in trade (China
etc.) and waste less treasure on supporting enemies, aka proxy stooges, to no purpose (e.g. Muslim
brotherhood, Al Q kooks, ISIS) and possibly even Israel -- hmmm.
Heh, the profits of domination are to be organised, extracted and distributed, differently.
One Mafia-type tribe taking over from another! Ivanka will be The Sweet First Woman Prezzie! Style,
Heart, Love, Looks! Go!
The old guard will do much to get rid of the upstart and his backers (who they are exactly
I'd quite like to know?) as all their positions and revenues are at risk, so they are activating
all - anything to attack. The Trump crowd seems at the same time both vulnerable and determined
and thus navigating à vue as the F say, by sight and without a plan An underground internal
war which is stalemated, leading to instrumentalising the ppl and creating chaos, scandals, etc.
"... McMaster's was spewing nonsense. The same was said about the Soviet Union and China when they became nuclear weapons states. North Korea just became one . Conventional deterrence of both sides has worked with North Korea for decades. Nuclear deterrence with North Korea will work just as well as it did with the Soviet and Chinese communists. If North Korea were really not deterrable the U.S. should have nuked it yesterday to minimize the overall risk and damage. It is the McMaster position that is ideological and not rational or "grown up" at all. ..."
"... Compare that to Steve Bannon's take on the issue: ..."
"... "There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." ..."
"... But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained from an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China), perhaps a leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US. Third generation at war with the US and his seen his father was fucked over when trying to make a deal with the US. NK's nuke and missile tech have come a long way in the few short years Kim Jong Un has been in power. ..."
"... "Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking an action not yet started, or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires." ..."
"... Classic deterrence strategy IS working for NK perfectly. ..."
"... All one has to do to know what Bannon's position on Iran is to read Breitbart on any given day. Unless we are supposed to believe that Bannon's opinions are not reflected by the website he ran for four years. Bannon is for war against Islam in general, there is nothing "realist" about his foreign policy. ..."
"... @12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an alliance of corporate and state powers... but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no trust in the corporate sector as they [the corporate sector] are to a large degree Globalists - they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist. ..."
"... Bannon makes sense. That must be why many want him gone especially the neocons. As to North Korea, the US should have admitted "facts on the ground" long ago and worked to sign the official end of the war and work to get the two Koreas talking and working together. ..."
The Democrats and the media
love
the Pentagon generals in the White House. They are the "grown ups":
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., had words of praise for Donald Trump's new pick for national
security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster -- calling the respected military officer a
"certified, card-carrying grown-up,"
Who is really the sane person on, say, North Korea?
The "grown-up" General McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor, is not one of them. He
claims North Korea is not deterrable from doing something insane.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But your predecessor Susan Rice wrote this week that the U.S. could tolerate
nuclear weapons in North Korea the same way we tolerated nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union
far more during the Cold War. Is she right?
MCMASTER: No, she's not right. And I think the reason she's not right is that the
classical deterrence theory, how does that apply to a regime like the regime in North Korea?
A regime that engages in unspeakable brutality against its own people? A regime that poses a
continuous threat to the its neighbors in the region and now may pose a threat, direct
threat, to the United States with weapons of mass destruction?
McMaster's was spewing nonsense. The same was said about the Soviet Union and China when
they became nuclear weapons states. North Korea just
became one
. Conventional deterrence of both sides has worked with North Korea for decades.
Nuclear deterrence with North Korea will work just as well as it did with the Soviet and
Chinese communists. If North Korea were really not deterrable the U.S. should have nuked it
yesterday to minimize the overall risk and damage. It is the McMaster position that is
ideological and not rational or "grown up" at all.
"There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody
solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in
the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about,
there's no military solution here, they got us."
It was indeed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea which "got" the United States and
stopped the U.S. escalation game. It is
wrong
to think
that North Korea
"backed off"
in the recent upheaval about a missile test targeted next to Guam. It was the U.S. that pulled
back from threatening behavior.
Since the
end
of May
the U.S. military trained extensively for decapitation and "preemptive" strikes on
North Korea:
Two senior military officials -- and two senior retired officers -- told NBC News that key to
the plan would be a B-1B heavy bomber attack originating from Andersen Air Force Base in
Guam.
...
Of the 11 B-1 practice runs since the end of May, four have also involved practice bombing at
military ranges in South Korea and Australia.
In response to the B-1B flights North Korea published plans to launch a missile salvo next
to the U.S. island of Guam from where those planes started. The announcement
included a hidden
offer
to stop the test if the U.S. would refrain from further B-1B flights. A deal was made
during
secret negotiations
. Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea
suspended
its Guam test plans. McMaster lost and the sane people, including Steve Bannon,
won.
But what about Bannon's "ethno-nationalist" ideology?
Isn't he responsible
for the
right-wing nutters of Charlottesville conflict? Isn't he one of them?
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it:
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too
much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
Bannon sees China as an economic enemy and wants to escalate an economic conflict with it.
He is said to be against the nuclear deal with Iran. The generals in Trump's cabinet are all
anti-Iran hawks. As Bannon now turns out to be a realist on North Korea, I am not sure what
real position on Iran is.
Domestically Bannon is pulling the Democrats into the very trap I had several times warned
against:
"The Democrats," he said, "the longer they talk about identity politics, I got 'em. I want
them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go
with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats."
This worked well during the presidential election and might continue to work for Trump. As
long as the Democrats do not come up with, and fight for, sane economic polices they will
continue to lose elections. The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that
bathroom. They are interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They
are unlikely to get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White
House crew at least claim to have plans to achieve it.
Posted by b on August 16, 2017 at 11:51 PM |
Permalink
A couple of very interesting links from the last thread were the one to the Bannon article,
and also the link to the Carter/NK article.
Kim Jong Un, 3rd generation like his father and grandfather leader of NK. From what I have
read this is a cultural thing t hat predates communism and the Japanese occupation prior. Many pictures of Kim show an overweight youngster amongst gaunt hungry looking
generals.
Gave the impression of a spoilt kid simply handed power. Not going to the May 9 parade in
Russia when invited also gave the impression he was paranoid.
But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained from
an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China), perhaps a
leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US. Third generation at
war with the US and his seen his father was fucked over when trying to make a deal with the US. NK's nuke and missile tech have come a long way in the few short years Kim Jong Un has been
in power.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim Jong Un and Trump have a meet one day.
b said: "The people are not interested in LGBT access to this or that bathroom. They are
interested in universal healthcare, in personal and economic security. They are unlikely to
get such under Bannon and Trump. But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at
least claim to have plans to achieve it."
"There's no military solution [to North Korea's nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody
solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in
the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about,
there's no military solution here, they got us."
Doesn't that at least show Bannon as the adult in the room?
I would say so.
So lets start parsing this economic nationalism that Bannon is making happen with Trump.
Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which are guided by the idea of
protecting domestic consumption, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the
imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labour, goods and capital. It
is in opposition to Globalisation in many cases, or at least on questions the unrestricted
good of Free trade. It would include such doctrines as Protectionism, Import substitution,
Mercantilism and planned economies.
Examples of economic nationalism include Japan's use of MITI to "pick winners and losers",
Malaysia's imposition of currency controls in the wake of the 1997 currency crisis, China's
controlled exchange of the Yuan, Argentina's economic policy of tariffs and devaluation in
the wake of the 2001 financial crisis and the United States' use of tariffs to protect
domestic steel production.
Think about what a trade war with China would do. It would crash the world economy as
China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US likely defaulting......just one
possible scenario.
At least now, IMO, the battle for a multi-polar (finance) world is out in the open.....let
the side taking by nations begin. I hope Bannon is wrong about the timing of potential global
power shifting and the US loses its empire status.
Bannon thinks the bombast on display between the Kim and Trump has been "a sideshow". The
real show, on the other hand, has nothing to do with the dramatic sparring between the two
leaders. The Mother Of All Policies, according to Bannon, is an all-bets-on trade war with
China, whose endgame admits to only one outcome,--that is to say-- that only one hegemon will
remain standing at the end of this struggle.
There can be only one King-of-the-Hill. But where is the Greek Chorus?--the prophetic
warning that goes by the name of necessity?-- that tries to ward off hubris? "One must never
subscribe to absurdities" (it was Camus who aptly said that).
I had read this before; interesting to say the least.
Truth be told, I'd never heard of Bannon prior to Trumps election and still know little about
him.
Politics aside Bannon seems a straight shooter; I certainly can't argue his statement re:
what would happen if we attacked NK. His statement is echo'd by many long before today.
I do plan to start paying attention from this point forward.
Oh, and I did read that Trump is afraid of Bannon, but don't remember the reason stated.
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too
much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
"These guys are a collection of clowns," he added.
No, whoever planned that "United Right" rally walked Trump into the trap.
As Trump was incapable to disassociate himself clearly from people who protest against the
take down of a statue of General Lee. Trump now owns the race issue.
Steve Bannon is
a
fascist
. That does not mean he is stupid.
The generals are clearly dangerous. They have the power to walk everybody to world war
III. Trump has pledged to spend even more on the US military, the military already has the
highest spending world wide. The generals don't want to admit that they cannot solve
anythings by military power.
Trump going off script in that press conference into a stream of consciousness was bad. He
reminded everybody of their rambling demented great-grandfather. He tried to get the
discussion to economic issues, he did not succeed.
In stepped more lies and garbage, this time more fake than the other, with chaos theory and
psychological warfare organizations drowning in capabilities from the overfunded phony war
on terror and too much time on their hands now lending their useless talents toward
disinforming the general public.
The result has been a divided US where "alternative facts" fabricated for a vulnerable
demographic now competes with the "mainstream" now termed, and I believe rightly so, "fake
news" to support different versions of a fictional narrative that resembles reality only in
the most rarified and oblique manner.
...
America has left itself open to dictatorship. It long since gave up its ability to
govern itself, perhaps it was the central bank, the Federal Reserve in 1913 or more recent
erosions of individual power such as the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2005.
Whatever milestone one chooses, the remains of democratic institutions in the US are now
difficult to find.
What we are left with is what increasingly seems to be factions, mistakenly defined as
"right" or "far right" jockeying for control over America's military, and with that,
control over the planet itself.
You see, whoever controls the American military controls the world, unless a power bloc
appears that can challenge, well, challenge what? If the Pentagon controls America's
military and the Pentagon is controlled by a cabal of religious extremists as many claim or
corporate lackeys as most believe, then where does the world stand?
Then again, if Trump and his own Republican congress are at war over impeachment, and I
assure you, little else is discussed in Washington, two sides of the same coin, servants of
different masters, has all oversite of the newfound military power over American policy
disappeared?
Bannon can be perfectly mature, adult and realist on some points and be totally blinded by
biases on others - him wanting total economic war against China is proof enough. So I don't
rule out that he has a blind spot over Iran and wants to get rid of the regime. I mean, even
Trump is realist and adult in a few issues, yet is an oblivious fool on others.
Kind of hard to find someone who's always adult and realist, actually. You can only hope to
pick someone who's more realist than most people. Or build a positronic robot and vote for
him.
More puzzling is the fact that Bannon would phone a writer and editor of a progressive
publication (the cover lines on whose first two issues after Trump's election were
"Resisting Trump" and "Containing Trump") and assume that a possible convergence of views
on China trade might somehow paper over the political and moral chasm on white nationalism.
The question of whether the phone call was on or off the record never came up. This is
also puzzling, since Steve Bannon is not exactly Bambi when it comes to dealing with the
press. He's probably the most media-savvy person in America.
I asked Bannon about the connection between his program of economic nationalism and the
ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump's
reluctance to condemn it. Bannon, after all, was the architect of the strategy of using
Breitbart to heat up white nationalism and then rely on the radical right as Trump's
base.
He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it:
"Ethno-nationalism!it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too
much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more."
Explanation a) He wants to explain the climbdown of his boss on North Korea.
Not really helpful to Trump.
b) He wants to save his reputation as the association with the KKK and White Suprematists
has become toxic.
I think Bannon is an authentic economic nationalist, and one that Trump feels is good counsel
on those matters. If this is so, then Bannon cannot be trying to provoke a trade war with
China, since that would be an economic catastrophe for the US (and China and the rest of the
world). I'm hoping he's playing bad cop and eventually Trump will play good cop in
negotiations for more investment by China in the US and other goodies in exchange for 'well,
not much' from the US. Similar to what the US dragged out of Japan in the 80s nd 90s.
psychohistorian at 4: 'as China tried to cash in on it US Treasury holdings with the US
likely defaulting...'
as a sovereign currency issuer of that size the usa can not run out of dollars
to default on their obligations would be a voluntary mistake the federal reserve will
avoid
meanwhile the chinese are investing in africa and other countries securing their position in
the world
c | Aug 17, 2017 6:59:32 AM | 17
as a sovereign currency issuer of that size the usa can not run out of dollars
to default on their obligations would be a voluntary mistake the federal reserve will
avoid
meanwhile the chinese are investing in africa and other countries securing their position in
the world
Very good; and I agree with your POV; the usa can not run out of dollars.
And therein lies its power; a very dangerous situation that I do not think the world is
equipped to deal with in toto...
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of the
Electoral College, including Steve Bannon. It is the Republican Party, not Trump and his
Trumpery who holds majorities in the House, the Senate and the nation's statehouses. Anybody
who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten that
Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
It appears that as a purely nominal Republican, an owner in a hostile takeover, Trump has
no qualms about trashing the system. Practically speaking, this is the very opposite of
draining the swamp, which requires effective leadership.
Kim Jong Un, 3rd generation like his father and grandfather leader of NK. From what I have
read this is a cultural thing that predates communism and the Japanese occupation prior.
But looking at things now, rather than a spoilt paranoid kid, perhaps someone trained
from an early age for leadership, and perhaps rather than being paranoid (Russia/China),
perhaps a leader that finds it more important to create a deterrence against the US.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Aug 17, 2017 1:05:52 AM | 1
OR, looked at another way:
Perhaps the gurning wunderkind Kim's ascent to the North Korean Throne was completely
predictable and was predicted a long time ago, and plans were set in motion to ensure that he
was co-opted as a kid, and now works with the US to help counter the rising Chinese
power.
Perhaps the alleged face-off Trump, Kim and the western MSM treated the world to over the
past while, was merely nothing but a pre-scripted choreographic display, a piece of theater
agreed upon beforehand by all participants except China
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kim Jong Un and Trump have a meet one day.
I wouldn't be surprised if Kim Jong Un and Trump actually play for the same side.
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead of
the Electoral College, i
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19
Actually as far as I can tell the real political swindlers are the ones who refuse to
acknowledge that a US Presidential election is, (and has been for nearly whole time the US
has been in existence, which is more than 200 years for those who have problems keeping track
of such simple matters) decided NOT by the popular vote but by the results of the Electoral
College voting.
Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has
forgotten that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
Again, just to repeat the actual reality regarding US Presidential elections: They are
decided on the basis of Electoral Collage voting and NOT on the basis of the popular vote, as
political swindlers would now like everyone to believe.
He is doubling down now defending General Lee statues as beautiful. He is doing the same
strategy as he did in his duel with Hillary Clinton when everybody thought he was insane,
playing to his core Republican base to make sure Republicans have to stay in line or face a
primary challenge.
Breitbart is doing the same threatening "Republican traitors".
The problem with this strategy is that Trump won because Hillary Clinton was so unpopular,
because their pollsters outsmarted Nate Silver and Co. and possibly because she was a
woman.
But Republicans who have to pretend they are religious right wing nuts in the primaries,
then have to appeal to independents to win the actual election.
So they cannot go against Trump but cannot defend him. They are paralysed.
That what it comes down to. That the main aim of the president of the United States is to
paralyze the party he hijacked.
They are decided on the basis of Electoral Collage voting and NOT on the basis of the
popular vote, as political swindlers would now like everyone to believe
indeed, though, speaking of political swindlers,
there's
mucho
evidence
that Trump may have won the popular vote as well.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 17, 2017 8:18:55 AM | 19
Every political swindler today starts off by pretending Trump won the election instead
of the Electoral College, including Steve Bannon. It is the Republican Party, not Trump and
his Trumpery who holds majorities in the House, the Senate and the nation's statehouses.
Anybody who wants to think that "economic nationalism" will crush the Democrats has forgotten
that Trump lost the popular vote on this ticket.
Have you read the Constitution of the USA? The Electoral College elects the President by
the rank and file voters electing the Electors to the College on November election day.
That's how the system works.
Ask Al Gore; he won the popular vote.
Oh and btw, the Hillary won the popular 2016 vote meme. Take a look at Detroit, MI heavy
Democrats' precints - more votes than voters - and the millions of illegal aliens' vote in
California who voted after the invite of Obama.
Trump won the election. Period. End of story. Done. Finished. Get over it and get on with
your life. He didn't compete to win the popular vote. He competed and campaigned to win the
election. Advice to Democrats - nominate a candidate beside a senile old neocon woman who is
corrupt to her ugly core, and then maybe you can beat a former reality show star.
The problem with this strategy is that Trump won because Hillary Clinton was so unpopular,
because their pollsters outsmarted Nate Silver and Co. and possibly because she was a
woman.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 17, 2017 9:45:00 AM | 23
Nope - first part of the sentence is correct but the rest of is just you, as usual, repeating
crap you found on the Internet and then repeating it here pretending it is profound and that
you actually understand what you are talking about, which you clearly don't as evidenced by
the fact that you then go on to reference Nate Silver whose fame was never anything but media
created hype with little or nothing to back it up.
Silver's feet of clay were evident long before the latest Prez election. It became obvious
that his alleged electoral statistical prowess rested as much on luck as anything else. Lucky
in prediction when it came to the 2008 election but by 2010 things started to go wrong but
the media ignored his feet of clay and kept hyping him as a stats genius.
By the time 2016 rolled round Silver was exposed for the lucky fraud he is.
The real truth of Hillarys inability to win lies not in her being female as you and many
others disingenuously (at best) try to claim, but simply lies in the fact that she is a
thoroughly unpleasant person with a complete lack of charisma and a massive sense of
entitlement.
Blacks and others, minorities generally and independents, who came out in droves for the
Obama elections simply refused to go and vote for her.
The Republican vote however changed very little - pretty much the exact same demographic
voted republican as voted for Romney.
Trump won partly because of Clintons massive hubris in refusing to campaign in several key
states. Cambridge analytical were not required to give him the win, no matter what you read,
without analysing it, elsewhere on the web and are now repeating here in an effort to pretend
you know what you are talking about.
CA probably helped somewhat but it unlikely that they were central to the win. Clintons
hubris and her complete lack of charisma, ensured low black/minority/independent for her in
key states, especially those where she had refused to even bother to campaign, which was
enough to seal the win for Trump
You simply repeating crap you heard on the net and pretending that if you say it in an
authoritative fashion it will magically become true, just ends up making you look completely
clueless, as usual. (or dishonest)
@ Everybody who bought into the MSM Steve Bannon promoted white supremacy and through
Breitbart. Suggested you read his world view expressed in remarks at Human Dignity Institute,
Vatican Conference 2014
Posted by: likklemore | Aug 17, 2017 10:51:54 AM | 28
Anyone with any intelligence would be wise to treat with great caution anything Bannon
claims in public interviews about himself or his alleged political beliefs,
US politics is a great big clusterfeck - worse than ever, which is hard to believe. Bannon's big liar. He did heaps to create this very situation with the White
Supremacists. Of course the Democrats are worse than useless. All they're doing is presenting themselves
as "We're not Trump" and whining about Putin. All of them are clowns. Every last one. Including the so-called "Generals." Worthless.
"Since then no more B-1B flights took place and North Korea suspended its Guam test
plans."
but: "Yesterday (...) two US B-1 strategic bombers, operating with Japanese fighter jets,
conducted exercises to the southwest of the Korean Peninsula." says WSWS. ?
everything about the usa today is divisive... i can't imagine the usa being happy if this
didn't continue until it's demise..the 2 party system hasn't worked out very well as i see
it.. failed experiment basically.. oh well..
If I remember correctly, wasn't it both the President Elect and the Republican Congressmen
who won clear majorities in nearly 80 percent of congressional districts? Presuming an issue
like the gerrymandering of districts wasn't significant, that's a far more legitimate victory
than an extra million Democrats voting in California (determining the future of national
policy). I'm not a fan of the Republicans, but denying the short term efficiency of 'populist
rhetoric' isn't helping the left win any substantial electoral victories in the future.
Good Lord. Can't people read anymore? The election is all about the EC. Keep talking and
running for the popular vote, and Trump will keep winning the Electoral College. You either
want to win or you don't. I hope you keep preaching the popular vote personally.
Keep the proles spilt in their little "identity groups", their micro-tribes, and continue
building the Kleoptocracy/Prison/Military State while the dumbed down demos are busy hunting
micro-aggressions/fighting gender & race wars etc etc
During the last 5 Prez Election cycles the population spilt on utterly retarded lines such
as Gay-marriage, Gender-free toilets etc. All this while the US fought or financed numerous
very expensive wars in the Middle East ukraine etc, resulting hundreds of thousands of lives
lost.
The 2008 elections had one of the highest ever voter turnout rates for the Democrats and
the 2016 elections had one of the lowest ever. The turnout rates (abysmal if ever compared to
voter turnout rates in Germany and Japan) easily explain the initial victory and the eventual
defeat, not 'Detroit fraud' or 'the millions of illegals' voting in your head. Racial
gerrymandering against black voters in the Southern States is a far more real issue.
somwbody @ 12: Good link thanks..Interesting read about "The Forth Turning"
psycho @ 5: good link also..
WJ @ 27 said:" Advice to Democrats - nominate a candidate beside a senile old neocon woman
who is corrupt to her ugly core, and then maybe you can beat a former reality show star."
Yep, so-called "Russian hacking" wasn't the problem, HRC was the problem...
Just Sayin' @ 41 said:"It should by now be clear to anyone paying attention that while both
Bannon & Trump certainly TALK a lot, they seem to actually do very little."
Kinda' waitin' myself to see all those "accomplishments"....
I understand and respect your point, but I was responding to the initial comment's
implicit argument on public opinion: "a common argument is the
lower-middle-to-upper-middle-class social base of the Republicans is less receptive to the
short term effects of Protectionist policy and this would reduce political morale, as well as
grassroots and voting organization. However, the Democrats 'won the popular vote.' So, it's
'obvious' in saying the classless definition of 'the American people' oppose this Republican
policy, and naturally, the social base of the Republican Party isn't especially relevant to
consider when organizing voters and grassroots movements for a renewed Democratic Party."
To be fair, I think like the early Unionist and Communist circles, and presume public
opinion translates to expressions of grassroots politics between conflicting classes (more so
than it actually happens in American class society).
If one proceeds on the assumption that politics in the United States closely follows themes,
scripts and production values pioneered by WWF, then all becomes clear. It's simply
pro-wrestling on a global scale with nuclear weapons and trillions of dollars in prize money.
@42 just sayin'.. yes to all you say - it is quite sad actually.. not sure of the way out at
this point, short of complete rebellion in the streets which looks like a longs ways off at
this point..
not sure of the way out at this point, short of complete rebellion in the streets which
looks like a longs ways off at this point..
Posted by: james | Aug 17, 2017 2:58:51 PM | 49
Most of the younger generation seem to be much to busy, obsessing over non-existent things
like "Micro-agressions" or "hetero-normative cis-gender oppression", to pay attention to, let
alone acknowledge, the enormous global macro-aggressions their own country is engaged in on a
world-wide scale.
But, unlike the Democrats, the current White House crew at least claim to have plans to
achieve it.
Is there a "don't" missing from that sentence?
I must disagree that DPRK nuclear missiles are a qualitatively similar threat to those
possessed by the Soviet Union and China. DPRK's guiding
Suche
ideology is a literal
cult that goes far beyond the cult-of-personality that held sway over the Soviet Union and
China when Stalin and Mao ruled. And by the time the Soviets developed delivery capabilities
Stalin was dead and his cult was done. By the time the Chinese developed delivery
capabilities Mao was declining into figurehead status and Zhou Enlai, who as commander of the
PLA realized how weak China really was militarily, had no illusions about what would happen
in a military confrontation with the US. But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the
Kims are ordained with supernatural powers that allowed them to drive the Japanese off the
peninsula then fight off an American "invasion." They truly don't mention the role of the
Soviets and the Chinese in saving their bacon. In terms of face-saving, the Kims have set the
bar pretty high for themselves by fostering their cult. Their legitimacy would be threatened
if their statecraft as rational actors undermined their Suche cult.
DPRK have been rogue actors against ROK and Japan out of sheer spitefulness, fully
exploiting the umbrella provided by the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Assistance
with China. They have done extraterritorial kidnappings and murders not for perceived
strategic reasons but merely to intimidate. DPRK has pointedly refused to enter talks for a
formal peace between them and the ROK. Those kinds of motives do not bespeak of someone who
can be trusted with nukes.
Bannon is someone whom I hold quite responsible for contributing to the rise of White
Supremacy in the USA, which I consider a clear and present danger. Bannon's dismissive hand
waving yesterday is meant to dissemble. Guess some are willing to buy what he was selling
yesterday. Not me.
What are your reasons for believing this about Bannon? What counts as contributing, and
how did you come to your decision?
It's not that I don't believe you. It's rather important to establish in what way his
words (whether the ones you found or the recent ones in
American Prospect
) are lies
or misdirection, so that I, and anyone interested, can evaluate this for ourselves and come
to similar or different conclusions.
I don't think Bannon wants a "trade" war with China but he is right that there is an economic
war going on. The "silk roads" and the various new organisations that the Chinese-Russians
have set up, (Major Banks, "Swift" equivalent, Glossnass satellites, card payment systems,
industrial independence, and food self-sufficiency etc), plus the use of currencies other
than the dollar - are all examples of a break-away from a US-EU domination.
However, they have not suddenly introduced everything at once to "bring the US house
down". Why? One possible reason could be that they are expecting the US to collapse anyway.
Another is that viable alternatives also take time to set up.
b has mentioned the "grown ups" v the Idealogues". The impact of the military on the
economic war seems to be underestimated. How much longer can the US afford the more than
trillion dollars per year of the "visible" arms? This does not include hidden costs
("Intelligence agencies and pork). Nor does it include costs borne by other countries. ie.
Italy has about 80 US bases (the most in the EU) and about 77 nuclear warheads on its soil.
Italy PAYS for those bases, and even that does not include infrastucture (roads, increased
airport capacity, sewage, water mains, etc) which are paid for by the Italians themselves.
Other countries will have similar systems. Some like Kuwait are "paying" back the amounts
spent on arms for example.
The total cost is astronomical.
A brief reminder the USSR collapsed because of massive overspending on arms and military
projects - leaving the rest of the economy in the lurch. Presumably the Chinese and Russians
are expecting the same thing to happen again.
(Aside - yes, you can print dollars as a sovereign state, but printing roubles didn't help
the soviets either)
So McMasters and the others are in fact just spoilt brats who think that the good times are
forever.
----
One example of the new "bluff-calling" cheaper method of economic warfare (*NK is the
another) were the recent NATO/US manoeuvres in Georgia (country) on the anniversary of the
Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. The number of troops and means involved would have been
enough to carry out a "surprise" attack this time too. The Russians - sent in Putin, who
declared that the Russians supported S.Ossetia and were ready to deal with any threat -
exactly as they did "last" time. Cost? One plane trip.
(*The NK threat by the US would have seen about 40'000 men from S. Korea and Japan sent
against about 700'000 motivated local troops and massive artillery arrays. It was a
non-starter, even with nukes)
You are forgetting to mention the main sticking point to talks is our refusal to halt our
annual̶d̶e̶f̶e̶n̶s̶i̶v̶e̶
̶d̶r̶i̶l̶l̶s̶ invasion practice before they will come to
the table. At least from what I read.
Even with China's international financial position growing more robust with SWIFT
independence, AIDB, the New Silk Road and such, they still have an interest in the
Dollar-based western financial system as long as they can make money off of it. They are not
going to shoot themselves in the foot by deliberately causing it to collapse. They might even
prop it up in a crisis, but I suspect they would drive a hard bargain.
Thirdeye says, "But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained with
supernatural powers." What is American Exceptionalism?
MCMASTER: Says classic deterrence strategy won't work with NK.
"Deterrence is a strategy intended to dissuade an adversary from taking an action not yet
started, or to prevent them from doing something that another state desires."
Classic deterrence strategy IS working for NK perfectly.
What I base my analysis of Bannon is his leadership at Bretibart which may or may not be
continuing right now. Just read Breitbart if you think Bannon isn't fully behind the White
Supremacists rising up right now.
The idea that people (a people) have to suffer a big war in order to cleanse themselves
from moral depravity is fascism pure and simple as who should force people to do this but a
dictator.
All one has to do to know what Bannon's position on Iran is to read Breitbart on any given
day. Unless we are supposed to believe that Bannon's opinions are not reflected by the
website he ran for four years. Bannon is for war against Islam in general, there is nothing
"realist" about his foreign policy.
That's a different issue from entering talks for a formal peace with with ROK. DPRK has
been refusing that for years. Did you ever consider that DPRK's constant saber rattling
against ROK was what lent impetus to US exercises in the region in the first place? The US
knows that China would not tolerate a US invasion of DPRK. Why take the risk of invading
across great defensive terrain when you can simply destroy?
57 Madhatter67
Thirdeye says, "But DPRK is still ruled by a cult that believes the Kims are ordained
with supernatural powers." What is American Exceptionalism?
That's a dumb analogy and a pathetic attempt at deflection. Criticize American
Exceptionalism all you want, but don't compare it to a supernaturalist cult. That's just
stupid.
DPRK has a history of doing whatever they think they can get away with, exploiting their
treaty with China. If their delusional
Suche
ideology leads them to miscalculate or
paints them into a corner trying to prop it up, it could lead to war.
If there's any bright spot in the whole picture it's China's chilly stance towards DPRK
after recent events. The excesses of DPRK's ruling cult have occurred largely because they
figured China had their back. But China's regional interests have changed dramatically over
the past 30 years. ROK is no longer a competitive threat to China and is economically more
important to China than DPRK ever was. DPRK's military power is of much less benefit to China
than it was in the past. It might even be considered a liability.
61 Stonebird
It wouldn't be cash, it would be be assets and/or the means of controlling them. Big
Chinese money is already coming into the west coast of the US and Canada. Oh well, we fucked
things up here; maybe the Chinese will do a better job.
Bannon is against the nuclear deal, and is one of the top people in the administration
arguing for Trump to move the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Bannon has been
cited as promoting Sheldon Adelson's Israel policy in meetings with Trump.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-abbas-lauder-hawkish-adelson-battling-to-influence-trump-on-mideast/
If anything Bannon/Breitbart push an even harder line on Israel than most politicians and
media do.
First of all, I will now declare that I am 99% confused! So please let me review the 1% that
comes through my little keyhole. What has been said?
/~~~~~~~~~~
<< = Just Sayin' | Aug 17, 2017 11:01:18 AM | 30
Anyone with any intelligence would be wise to treat with great caution anything Bannon
claims in public interviews about himself or his alleged political beliefs,
\~~~~~~~~~~
Well sure! The guy's a political operative -- One does not get to be a political operative
by being some kind of a Dudly Do-Right. Damn.
@12... "Bannon is a fascist" I'm not so sure. Mussolini defined fascism as being an
alliance of corporate and state powers... but Bannon (and most of his followers) have no
trust in the corporate sector as they [the corporate sector] are to a large degree Globalists
- they used the US and then threw it aside in pursuit of profit elsewhere. For that, he would
even call them traitors. So you could call him a Nationalist.
\~~~~~~~~~~
Well since we can't believe anything from Bannon... And aside from that I am sick of
hearing Mussolini's definition of fascism -- After all, he was a psycho-villain -- so why
believe it?!
UNTIL WE HAVE STRATEGIC HEDGE SIMPLE SCORE VOTING WE WILL BE SADDLED WITH THE TWO-PARTY
"SYSTEM" (really only one party). Who cares if we really have no choice whatsoever. We are
held hostage to the false alternatives of the vast legion of the election methods
cognoscenti.
@35, please refer to post 69. If Bannon was not a Zionist, he would not have ran a site which
brags of being conceived in Israel and which pushes a harder line on Israel than almost any
other, and he would not be promoting Adelson's Israel policy within the administration.
Bannon makes sense. That must be why many want him gone especially the neocons. As to North
Korea, the US should have admitted "facts on the ground" long ago and worked to sign the
official end of the war and work to get the two Koreas talking and working together.
"That's a different issue from entering talks for a formal peace with with ROK. DPRK has been
refusing that for years."
I doubt any substantial transcripts from early talks will ever be released, so whoever had
diplomats offering the 'fairest' compromises for terms of an early framework (resulting in a
later settlement) cannot be known (regarding specifics).
If I remember correctly, there has been at least three Chinese-sponsored peace conferences
(on Korea) since 2007, where the general position of the U.S. was: North Korea had to freeze
total nuclear production, accept existing and additional (U.N.) verification missions, and
dismantle all warheads PRIOR to the signing of any peace treaty. How is demanding
unconditional surrender not intransigence? Are we going to just pretend the United States
hadn't sponsored military coups in Venezuela and Honduras and hadn't invaded Iraq and Libya
(in a similar time frame)?
During peace talks, any terms are argued, refused, and eventually compromised (usually
over years and sometimes over decades). Why presume the United States and South Korea had the
fairest offers and general settlements in a handful of conferences (especially when we have
no transcripts)?
"Did you ever consider that DPRK's constant saber rattling against ROK was what lent
impetus to US exercises in the region in the first place?"
You're presuming your case and not giving specific information on what you might know.
Personally, I don't know who 'started it' (I would guess Japan 'started it' by forcing
through the Protectorate Treaty of 1905, or the United States 'started it' by forcing through
the Amity and Commerce Treaty of 1858), but if North Korea isn't testing missiles near Guam
and the United States isn't flying specific planes over South Korea, a compromise WAS made
this last week, and more can be made to ensure peace.
"... Expectations that Trump's ouster will restore normalcy ignore the very factors that first handed him the Republican nomination (with a slew of competitors wondering what hit them) and then put him in the Oval Office (with a vastly more seasoned and disciplined, if uninspiring, opponent left to bemoan the injustice of it all). ..."
"... Not all, but many of Trump's supporters voted for him for the same reason that people buy lottery tickets: Why not? In their estimation, they had little to lose. Their loathing of the status quo is such that they may well stick with Trump even as it becomes increasingly obvious that his promise of salvation -- an America made "great again" -- is not going to materialize. ..."
"... Yet those who imagine that Trump's removal will put things right are likewise deluding themselves. To persist in thinking that he defines the problem is to commit an error of the first order. Trump is not cause, but consequence. ..."
"... the election of 2016 constituted a de facto referendum on the course of recent American history. That referendum rendered a definitive judgment: the underlying consensus informing U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War has collapsed. Precepts that members of the policy elite have long treated as self-evident no longer command the backing or assent of the American people. Put simply: it's the ideas, stupid. ..."
"... "Without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American?" As the long twilight struggle was finally winding down, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, novelist John Updike's late-twentieth-century Everyman , pondered that question. ..."
"... Unfettered neoliberalism plus the unencumbered self plus unabashed American assertiveness: these defined the elements of the post-Cold-War consensus that formed during the first half of the 1990s -- plus what enthusiasts called the information revolution. The miracle of that "revolution," gathering momentum just as the Soviet Union was going down for the count, provided the secret sauce that infused the emerging consensus with a sense of historical inevitability. ..."
"... The three presidents of the post-Cold-War era -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama -- put these several propositions to the test. Politics-as-theater requires us to pretend that our 42nd, 43rd, and 44th presidents differed in fundamental ways. In practice, however, their similarities greatly outweighed any of those differences. Taken together, the administrations over which they presided collaborated in pursuing a common agenda, each intent on proving that the post-Cold-War consensus could work in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. ..."
"... To be fair, it did work for some. "Globalization" made some people very rich indeed. In doing so, however, it greatly exacerbated inequality , while doing nothing to alleviate the condition of the American working class and underclass. ..."
"... I never liked Obama, but I don't think he has personal animus against Russia, Syria, Iran, Libya, or Palestinians. But given who was looking over his shoulder, he had to make things difficult for those nations, and that is why leaders of those nations and Obama came to hate one another. As for North Korea, much of the tensions wouldn't exist if US hadn't threatened or invaded 'axis of evil' nations and forced S. Korea to carry out joint exercises to prepare for invasion. ..."
"... Same with Trump. I seriously doubt if Trump has personal animus against Syrians, Russians, Iranians, Palestinians, and etc. But who is looking over his shoulder? So, he has to hate the same people that Obama had to hate. ..."
If we have, as innumerable commentators assert, embarked upon the Age of Trump, the defining feature
of that age might well be the single-minded determination of those horrified and intent on ensuring
its prompt termination. In 2016, TIME magazine chose Trump as its
person of the year
. In 2017, when it comes to dominating the news, that "person" might turn out to be a group -- all
those fixated on cleansing the White House of Trump's defiling presence.
Egged on and abetted in every way by Trump himself, the anti-Trump resistance has made itself
the Big Story. Lies, hate, collusion, conspiracy, fascism: rarely has the everyday vocabulary of
American politics been as ominous and forbidding as over the past six months. Take resistance rhetoric
at face value and you might conclude that Donald Trump is indeed the fifth horseman of
the Apocalypse
, his presence in the presidential saddle eclipsing all other concerns. Pestilence, War, Famine,
and Death will just have to wait.
The unspoken assumption of those most determined to banish him from public life appears to be
this: once he's gone, history will be returned to its intended path, humankind will breathe a collective
sigh of relief, and all will be well again. Yet such an assumption strikes me as remarkably wrongheaded -- and not merely because, should Trump prematurely depart from office, Mike Pence will succeed him.
Expectations that Trump's ouster will restore normalcy ignore the very factors that first handed
him the Republican nomination (with a slew of competitors wondering what hit them) and then put him
in the Oval Office (with a vastly more seasoned and disciplined, if uninspiring, opponent left to
bemoan the injustice of it all).
Not all, but many of Trump's supporters voted for him for the same reason that people buy
lottery tickets: Why not? In their estimation, they had little to lose. Their loathing of the status
quo is such that they may well stick with Trump even as it becomes increasingly obvious that his
promise of salvation -- an America made "great again" -- is not going to materialize.
Yet those who imagine that Trump's removal will put things right are likewise deluding themselves.
To persist in thinking that he defines the problem is to commit an error of the first order. Trump
is not cause, but consequence.
For too long, the cult of the presidency has provided an excuse for treating politics as a melodrama
staged at four-year intervals and centering on hopes of another Roosevelt or Kennedy or Reagan appearing
as the agent of American deliverance. Donald Trump's ascent to the office once inhabited by those
worthies should demolish such fantasies once and for all.
How is it that someone like Trump could become president in the first place? Blame sexism, Fox
News, James Comey, Russian meddling, and Hillary's failure to visit Wisconsin all you want, but a
more fundamental explanation is this: the election of 2016 constituted a de facto referendum
on the course of recent American history. That referendum rendered a definitive judgment: the underlying
consensus informing U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War has collapsed. Precepts that members
of the policy elite have long treated as self-evident no longer command the backing or assent of
the American people. Put simply: it's the ideas, stupid.
Rabbit Poses a Question
"Without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American?" As the long twilight struggle
was finally winding down, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, novelist John Updike's late-twentieth-century
Everyman
, pondered that question. In short order, Rabbit got his answer. So, too, after only perfunctory
consultation, did his fellow citizens.
The passing of the Cold War offered cause for celebration. On that point all agreed. Yet, as it
turned out, it did not require reflection from the public at large. Policy elites professed to have
matters well in hand. The dawning era, they believed, summoned Americans not to think anew, but to
keep doing precisely what they were accustomed to doing, albeit without fretting further about Communist
takeovers or the risks of nuclear Armageddon. In a world where a "
single
superpower " was calling the shots, utopia was right around the corner. All that was needed was
for the United States to demonstrate the requisite confidence and resolve.
Three specific propositions made up the elite consensus that coalesced during the initial decade
of the post-Cold-War era. According to the first, the globalization of corporate capitalism held
the key to wealth creation on a hitherto unimaginable scale. According to the second, jettisoning
norms derived from Judeo-Christian religious traditions held the key to the further expansion of
personal freedom. According to the third, muscular global leadership exercised by the United States
held the key to promoting a stable and humane international order.
Unfettered neoliberalism plus the unencumbered self plus unabashed American assertiveness:
these defined the elements of the post-Cold-War consensus that formed during the first half of the
1990s -- plus what enthusiasts called the information revolution. The miracle of that "revolution,"
gathering momentum just as the Soviet Union was going down for the count, provided the secret sauce
that infused the emerging consensus with a sense of historical inevitability.
The Cold War itself had fostered notable improvements in computational speed and capacity, new
modes of communication, and techniques for storing, accessing, and manipulating information. Yet,
however impressive, such developments remained subsidiary to the larger East-West competition. Only
as the Cold War receded did they move from background to forefront. For true believers, information
technology came to serve a quasi-theological function, promising answers to life's ultimate questions.
Although God might be dead, Americans found in Bill Gates and Steve Jobs nerdy but compelling idols.
More immediately, in the eyes of the policy elite, the information revolution meshed with and
reinforced the policy consensus. For those focused on the political economy, it greased the wheels
of globalized capitalism, creating vast new opportunities for trade and investment. For those looking
to shed constraints on personal freedom, information promised empowerment, making identity itself
something to choose, discard, or modify. For members of the national security apparatus, the information
revolution seemed certain to endow the United States with seemingly unassailable military capabilities.
That these various enhancements would combine to improve the human condition was taken for granted;
that they would, in due course, align everybody -- from Afghans to Zimbabweans -- with American values
and the American way of life seemed more or less inevitable.
The three presidents of the post-Cold-War era -- Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama -- put these several propositions to the test. Politics-as-theater requires us to pretend that our
42nd, 43rd, and 44th presidents differed in fundamental ways. In practice, however, their similarities
greatly outweighed any of those differences. Taken together, the administrations over which they
presided collaborated in pursuing a common agenda, each intent on proving that the post-Cold-War
consensus could work in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
To be fair, it did work for some. "Globalization" made some people very rich indeed. In doing
so, however, it greatly
exacerbated inequality , while doing nothing to alleviate the condition of the American working
class and underclass.
The emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism improved the status of groups long subjected to
discrimination. Yet these advances have done remarkably little to reduce the alienation and despair
pervading a society suffering from epidemics of
chronic substance abuse ,
morbid obesity ,
teen suicide
, and similar afflictions. Throw in the world's
highest incarceration rate , a seemingly endless appetite for
porn
, urban school systems
mired in permanent crisis, and
mass shootings that occur with metronomic regularity, and what you have is something other than
the profile of a healthy society.
As for militarized American global leadership, it has indeed resulted in various bad actors meeting
richly deserved fates. Goodbye, Saddam. Good riddance, Osama. Yet it has also embroiled the United
States in a series of costly, senseless, unsuccessful, and ultimately counterproductive wars. As
for the vaunted information revolution, its impact has been
ambiguous
at best, even if those with eyeballs glued to their personal electronic devices can't tolerate being
offline long enough to assess the actual costs of being perpetually connected.
In November 2016, Americans who consider themselves ill served by the post-Cold-War consensus
signaled that they had had enough. Voters not persuaded that neoliberal economic policies, a culture
taking its
motto from the Outback steakhouse chain, and a national security strategy that employs the U.S.
military as a global police force were working to their benefit provided a crucial margin in the
election of Donald Trump.
The response of the political establishment to this extraordinary repudiation testifies to the
extent of its bankruptcy. The Republican Party still clings to the notion that reducing taxes, cutting
government red tape, restricting abortion, curbing immigration, prohibiting flag-burning, and increasing
military spending will alleviate all that ails the country. Meanwhile, to judge by the promises contained
in their recently unveiled (and
instantly forgotten ) program for a "Better Deal," Democrats believe that raising the minimum
wage, capping the cost of prescription drugs, and creating apprenticeship programs for the unemployed
will return their party to the good graces of the American electorate.
In both parties embarrassingly small-bore thinking prevails, with Republicans and Democrats equally
bereft of fresh ideas. Each party is led by aging hacks. Neither has devised an antidote to the crisis
in American politics signified by the nomination and election of Donald Trump.
First, abolish the Electoral College. Doing so will preclude any further occurrence of the
circumstances that twice in recent decades cast doubt on the outcome of national elections
and thereby did far more than any foreign interference to undermine the legitimacy of American
politics.
The November numbers indicate that for the time being without the Electoral College, California
and New York will elect our President well into the future.
If Bacevich had really balls, he would cut to the chase and say it like it is.
I think Trump the person doesn't want trouble with Iran, Syria, and Russia. He's a businessman
who wants to do business with the world while protecting US borders and sovereignty. Trump is
anti-Iran because of Jewish Lobby. His peace with Russia was destroyed by the Lobby and its purse-strings
and puppet-strings.
The undeniable fact of the US is it's not a democracy in terms of real power. It is a Jewish
Supremacist Oligarchy. To be sure, there are Jewish critics of Jewish power. Think of Philip Weiss
and others. Technically, US still has rule of law and due process. But in the end, the Power decides.
Look at the anti-BDS bill supported even by Republicans who make a big stink about liberty and
free speech.
California is said to be uber-'progressive', and many grassroots people there are supportive
of BDS. But California elites and whore politicians are anti-BDS and even passed laws against
it. What does that tell you?
Rule of Law is for little people. The Power has Rule of Rule. And if American People, along
with their politicians, seem to schizo, well, what does one expect? They get their info from J-Media
that feed that lies 24/7.
What is often called 'American' is processed mindset, like yellow American singles is bogus
processed 'cheese food'. Because handful of industries control all the media that beam same signals
to over 300 million TV sets in the US, 'Americanism' is processed mind-food. We need more organic
minds. Too many minds have been processed and re-processed by Great Mind Grinder of J-Media.
AB's 10 recommendations remind me of the beauty pageant contestant answering the question about
what she intended to do ."promote world peace".
Actually the beauty queen is being more sincere and realistic. AB's points are very nice sounding,
but he gives us no idea how realistically, he or anyone could achieve them and we are left with
the feeling that he is just grandstanding. Like the beauty queen, he knows that he will never
do much of anything concrete to further these goals, not even if his life or his son' life, depended
on it.
"Without the Cold War, what's the point of being an American?"
Well, Updike speaks from the position of a "universalist"? Did he ever consider that being
an American may not mean standing up for universal ideas, but simply caring for one's own children
and grandchildren? But even from a universalist position the answer seems simple now – not for
Bacevich, but for me. The United States are singled out and unique w.r.t. their First Amendment.
Whereas all other Western countries have succumbed to Bolshevist propaganda and have undermined
freedom of speech, the "Americans" are the only ones to stand up for it. Why, even Damore may
win a lawsuit against Google.
Whoops Colonel, you forgot to add slashing military spending to your list. The USA could cut
its military budget in half and still spend more than Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China combined.
Trump's insane push for more military spending undermines his effort at cutting domestic programs
to balance the budget. Yet Jimmy Dore explains that most Democrats voted boost the military budget
even more than Trump!
It is unfair to depict Trump as a bumpkin. He graduated from an excellent university and used
a few million dollars from Dad's seed money to become a billionaire. Moreover, he defied all odds
to become President of the USA. I challenge all his brilliant critics to run for President in
2020 to prove that is simple.
@Robert Magill The US Constitution would have to be amended to eliminate the Electoral College
by 3/4 of the states ratifying the amendment. The smaller states would never vote to eliminate
their role in electing the president. Nor should they. My respect for Bacevich is waning.
As for militarized American global leadership, it has indeed resulted in various bad actors
meeting richly deserved fates. Goodbye, Saddam. Good riddance, Osama.
Goodbye Saddam?? The implication being that all the death and destruction was somehow worth
it?? You scum, of the most evil *beep* nation on earth! A pox on all of you.
"First, abolish the Electoral College. Doing so will preclude any further occurrence of
the circumstances that twice in recent decades cast doubt on the outcome of national elections
and thereby did far more than any foreign interference to undermine the legitimacy of American
politics."
Yeah, let's trade the consensus of a nation of local communities for the tyranny of the (bi-coastal)
majority. I might give up the EC, however, if the system was replaced by gladiatorial combat to
the death for all who want the job, or, if we're sticking to a two-party system, the decision
can come by pistols at dawn (Good Morning America can't get the nod I hate that Roker chap, and
I don't think Megan Kelly should be anywhere near selection of a President). Real skin in the
game, so to say.
Yeah, bring back the draft. Military service only. We won't end senseless wars unless many
more of our young people actually experience them, and that's not going to happen if they are
picking up litter or emptying bed pans.
More money for public education? We've been doing that for years dude, and we get worse results
as we spend more. There's already too much money in public education. College for all is a mistake,
and in gen snowflake, tell me who isn't deserving. How about serious testing for results and beating
for those who do not achieve them?
Income equality sounds nice, but it's never been had anywhere by taxation. It takes a certain
societal moderation and modesty requiring our ruling elites to not want to be so conspicuous in
their consumption (this in the age of the Rich Kids of Instagram) and to share the wealth through
employment and good wages to their fellow citizens. Good luck with that ever gracing our shores.
Stop yakking about the pseudoscience nay the religion of climate change. Plant some more trees
and take a couple aspirin. Add the costs of global wars for resources to the cost of gas, which
will spike it to $6 per gallon and dissuade a lot of unnecessary driving.
Require all candidates for Federal elective office to be physically neutered, and forbid any
of their progeny for at least three generations as well as any immediate relations closer than
fourth cousin from holding any position of honor, elective office, or Federal employment whatsoever.
Trump or no Trump, things would be much saner without Jewish globalist pressure.
I never liked Obama, but I don't think he has personal animus against Russia, Syria, Iran,
Libya, or Palestinians. But given who was looking over his shoulder, he had to make things difficult
for those nations, and that is why leaders of those nations and Obama came to hate one another.
As for North Korea, much of the tensions wouldn't exist if US hadn't threatened or invaded 'axis
of evil' nations and forced S. Korea to carry out joint exercises to prepare for invasion.
Same with Trump. I seriously doubt if Trump has personal animus against Syrians, Russians,
Iranians, Palestinians, and etc. But who is looking over his shoulder? So, he has to hate the
same people that Obama had to hate.
In the US, politicians must hate according to Jewish neurosis. And that's the problem. We don't
have autonomy of likes and dislikes. Like dogs, we have to like or hate what our master likes
or hates. And Jewish Globalists are elites. The great evil of America is we are forced to HATE
whatever Jewish globalists Hate. It is a culture of Hate. Ironically, the biggest haters accuse
others of hate.
Most of Mr. Bacevich's piece was quite good. Then we got to the Ten-Point Program. A bold,
revolutionary program calling for more of how we got here. What the hell?
@LarryS The US Constitution would have to be amended to eliminate the Electoral College by
3/4 of the states ratifying the amendment. The smaller states would never vote to eliminate their
role in electing the president. Nor should they. My respect for Bacevich is waning. Yes, it is
interesting how smaller states in federations show that they understand and will hold on to their
leverage even when , as in Australia, the people themselves vote on constitutional change.
But why would eliminating the Electoral College allow presidentlal elections to be decided
by the popular vote in California and NY as someone suggested? Aren't the number of electoral
college votes adjusted quite promptly in proportion to population changes?
Here's an anti Imperial Presidency policy for the author to consider and perhaps endorse .
1. Move towards the constitutiobal monarchy or limited presidency parliamentary model by strengthening
the H of R and relying on ordinary human ambition to forward the project;
2. Specifically extend Congressional terms from 2 years to 4 (and perhaps provide lots of public
financing and free publicity to diminish thevcorruption by donors)
3. Enhance the role of Majority leader – indeed facilitate his forming his own Cabinet – and
restrict the amending of budget bills submitted (as the main ones would have to be) by the leader
of the majority – or his nominated Finance spokesperson..
@Wizard of Oz To some extent, but since each state has at least one Representative and two
Senators, there is a bias toward political geography that is difficult to overcome by population.
This is a good thing.
@Wizard of Oz Sorry, should have connected the dots each state's Electors total the same as
their Congressional delegations in House and Senate, and House is capped at 435.
@Wizard of Oz Only with respect to the EC votes corresponding to the number of House Representatives.
From Wikipedia:
"Each state chooses electors, totaling in number to that state's combined total of senators
and representatives."
Each state – irrespective of population – has two senators, so this protects citizens of less
populous states from those in, e.g., California. Part of the Constitutional bargain that makes
for a republic as opposed to a national democracy.
@The Alarmist Sorry, should have connected the dots ... each state's Electors total the same
as their Congressional delegations in House and Senate, and House is capped at 435. Yes, the effect
of adding in the senators is substantial. The two biggest (Democrat) states add just 4 out of
543 to their basic Congressional weighting while the 48 other states add 96/543. Thus 17.6 per
cent against just an extra 0.7 per cent.
Not even Texas would think of supporting the abolition of the Electoral College. A pity yhe excellent
author should be so sloppy as not at least to acknowledge which items on his wish list are pure
fantasy.
"Nominally, the Constitution assigns responsibilities and allocates prerogatives to three co-equal
branches of government."
Oh, dear, I do get tired of this meme.
No, the Constitution does not create "three co-equal branches of government," no matter how
often the phrase is repeated.
The Constitution establishes a legislative branch that, whenever it is sufficiently united
and desirous, has absolute power over the other two branches.
The Congress can remove any member of the other two branches from office, among other powers,
but the countervailing power of the other two branches over Congress, at least per the Constitution,
is very limited indeed.
In most republics and constitutional monarchies, the executive branch has a number of ways
to influence the legisilature, including calling new elections when desired. Our Constitution
has none of that.
Under the Constitution, the Congress is not co-equal. Its supreme.
@gustafus " as we import more and more of the LOW IQ 3rd world – education will be more about
the reasons we don't boink our children siblings and cousins"
Nahh, that would be imposing our Eurocentric values on their vibrant cultures.
@Robert Magill Any citizen of the USA and/or student of its history who writes in the same
essay both that he is a conservative and that he favors abolishing the Electoral College is either
a fool, an unprincipled knave, or most likely both.
@Robert Magill I came in to make the same point and will add that it would be effectively
only two metropolitan areas–LA and NYC.
Whoever would control those cities politically would control the nation politically, economically,
and socially the way Chicago's elites control much of Wisconsin (to use an example recently discussed
at iSteve).
The republic would be ripe for division into two coastal demesnes vying with each other for
power, resources, and serfs (both in the coastal hives and the "flyover states").
What is undermining the legitimacy of American politics isn't the United States Constitution.
It is the countless billions of dollars spend on election campaigning each year. That includes
all corollary expenditures, as on media buys and polling.
Not the kind of polling that involves voting. The kind of polling that Nate Silver does.
Election campaigns engineer infiltration of the public culture at every level–federal, state,
county, municipal, and local–by divisive discourse and methods. These originally were developed
so that merchants could differentiate and sell to the masses soap and junk food brands. Not even
the commodities themselves–but brands of them.
Political campaigning rolls up the worst elements of advertising, PR, propaganda, and opinion
research into one unending tsunami of hostility, division, manufactured conflict, false equivalencies,
forced choices, and sneering tearing-down of what others believe, want, or have built.
The people who create political campaigns for a living–with all the corollary products that
go with that, including the candidate himself/herself–are, like the people who communicate those,
among the biggest parasites in the republic. They literally create positions, opinions, and ideas,
then go out and create the demand for them by whatever means it takes. They produce nothing of
value. They siphon off value and resources and set the conditions where by organic excellence
is drowned in a sea of mass communications.
If the Electoral College were demolished tomorrow, they would have even more unfettered access
to more billions of dollars as Candidate Cool Ranch Dorito vied for an influential and lucrative
sinecure with Candidate Salty Crunchy Triangular Fried Corn Thing.
And thanks to Citizens United, money is free speech, and free speech means carefully
selected, constructed, massaged, spun, and polled speech.
Keeping the campaign-media-finance industrial complex operating is all that matters to these
people. Sounds like Bacevich is one of them. Members of the Pontificating Caste usually are. The
Constitution is a barrier to their aspirations.
The author did a decent job of describing the zeitgeist. But his list of 10 big government
solutions is a riot! The solution is a return to human liberty and acceptance of the reality that
all politics that matter to people is local. But our owners don't like local, they like global,
they like universal, they claim to be supporters of diversity but their diversity if they have
their way looks exactly the same everywhere you go – wow, how diverse. You can be in any major
metropolitan area in the US these days and you find it has the same chain store signage dominating
the landscape, the same stories in the newspapers, the same ideological megaphones spouting (((their)))
doctrines to the masses, the same conformity of expressed opinions (don't say what you really
think if you want to keep your job at xyz corp), the same. And unbeknownst to most Americans who
are quick to thank servicemen for "their service", their actual service is that when are elites
have finally won the entire world will be indistinguishable like US metropolitan areas are today.
There is not a big government solution to these issues, big xxx is the problem. The real question
at least in my mind is if our owners would allow pockets of American style, liberty based pockets
to emerge?
If we could find responsible enough men to do it, we could take back monetary sovereignty from
the federal reserve and start a Bank of America. We have our politicians beginning to sell off
the commons (highways for example) to investors. We can fund that by letting some money creation
occur by being earned into existence rather than loaned into existence. This is explicitly disallowed
in the FEDs charter, and it is not for certain we can find men responsible enough to handle this
task without problems nor is it certain that global finance would not retaliate. But we have a
lot of infrastructure that needs upgrading and maintenance. This would allow some level of exodus
from the metros back to Mayberry if there were jobs. We need a small effective government that
has a long term plan of how we are going to maintain our infrastructure. Presently the elected
children in Washington, short sighted immature bunch they are, put construction money for bridges
in the back of bills recognizing a particular day as "insert bullshit day here day" to make their
fellow child go along with the pork they put is some other garbage bill. This is an awful way
to run a country and the chickens have come home and are roosting. Let the metros continue their
present course of forced conformity via peer shaming and propaganda.
Alarm bells going off in the night? How about Bill Clinton? Robert Dole? Al Gore? George W
Bush? How about the stupendously unqualified mirage of Presidential gravitas, Barrack Obama? his
opponents, the snarling ignoramus from Arizona, John McCain? the leaden corporatist Mitt Romney.
Perhaps we are to understand these names that the Colonel leaves unmentioned as constituting the
"slouching:" But the reason we have arrived at Mar-a-Lago is that the terminally corrupt Democratic
Party chose as their candidate the terminally corrupt, stupendously unqualified former President's
wife. The foresight of our founding Father's saved us from that miserable fate, thank you US Constitution.
But lest we become too nostalgic for a time when our co-equal legislative branch had members who
could assert themselves against the stooge of the moment who the people had installed in the White
House, let us take a moment to ponder the stupendous stupidity of our current body that just recently,
with near unanimity, chose to lump Russia in with Iran and North Korea on its sanctions bill while
producing no evidence of any kind to justify its measure.
@Wizard of Oz Quite right. Though the whole thing started when the "real" job of the congressman
became re-election. Once that was internalized, the rest was pretty much inevitable. As long as
the government is heavily involved with businesses, determining not only their profit rate but
perhaps whether they even survive, they will continue efforts to influence government decisions.
Limiting contribution's primary effect, I suspect, would be to drive the influence-buying underground.
The solution, of course, is to get the government out of business and indeed everything else
to the extent possible.
McGovern thinks that it was Brennan boys who hacked into DNC as a part of conspiracy to implicate Russia and to secure Hillary win.
One of the resons was probably that DNC servers were not well protected and there were other hacks, about whihc NSA know. So the sad
state of DNC internet security needed to be swiped under the carpet and that's why CrowdStike was hired.
NSA created 7 million lines of code for penetration and that includes those that were pablished by Wikileaks and designed to imitate
that attackers are coming (and using the language) from: China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.
Also NSA probably intercepts and keeps all Internet communications for a month or two so if it was a hack NSA knows who did it and
what was stolen
But the most unexplainable part was that fact that FBI was denied accessing the evidence. I always think that thye can dictate that
they need to see in such cases, but obviously this was not the case.
Notable quotes:
"... She couldn't pack a school gymnasium while Trumps rallies were packed with 10's of thousands. ..."
Love the rest of the talk, but no way did Hillary win. No way did she get the popular vote.
The woman was calling for war and reinstating the draft on men and women. She couldn't pack a school gymnasium while Trumps
rallies were packed with 10's of thousands.
At the moment, the talk is about DNC scuttling Bernie. But if it gets going, how long before they get to DNC/Crowdstrike/Ukraine
.? [And then there's DWS and the Awan bros.]
If Trump wants to survive he should FIGHT! He call out the Deep State explicitly, using the words "Deep State." and explaining machinations
to the public. This creates a risk for his life, but still this is the only way he can avoid slow strangulation by Muller.
Notable quotes:
"... In explicit terms Trump should call out the Deep State – he should use the words "Deep State." ..."
"... Mueller is Deep Sate - he is an elite - if he comes up with things that have nothing to do with Russia and the election - Trump
should pardon whoever - case closed. ..."
"... Murmurs have started about a 2nd Special Prosecuter – to investigate the DNC. At the moment, the talk is about DNC scuttling
Bernie. But if it gets going, how long before they get to DNC/Crowdstrike/Ukraine .? [And then there's DWS and the Awan bros.] ..."
"... Lee Stranahan names names [Clinton, McCain, CIA, the Media, Soros....] ..."
In explicit terms Trump should call out the Deep State – he should use the words "Deep State."
Mueller is Deep Sate - he is an elite - if he comes up with things that have nothing to do with Russia and the election
- Trump should pardon whoever - case closed.
Trump should say that right now - put the onus on Mueller to do the right thing and not take down the election over small
nothings.
Peace --- Art
... ... ...
Murmurs have started about a 2nd Special Prosecuter – to investigate the DNC. At the moment, the talk is about DNC scuttling
Bernie. But if it gets going, how long before they get to DNC/Crowdstrike/Ukraine .? [And then there's DWS and the Awan bros.]
Lee Stranahan names names [Clinton, McCain, CIA, the Media, Soros....]
So when you cut through all the steam and the boilerplate, how do they plan to do it so it's
fairer to poor Ukrainians, but the state spends less?
Ah. They plan to
raise the age at which you
qualify for a pension
, doubtless among other money-savers. If the state plays its cards
right, the target demographic wil work all its adult life and then die before reaching
pensionable age. But as usual, we must be subjected to the usual western sermonizing about
how the whole initiative is all about helping people and doing good.
This is borne out in one of the other 'critical reforms' the IMF insisted upon before
releasing its next tranche of 'aid' – a land reform act which would allow Ukraine to
sell off its agricultural land
in the interests of 'creating a market'. Sure: as if.
Land-hungry western agricultural giants like Monsanto are drooling at the thought of
getting their hands on Ukraine's rich black earth
plus a chink in Europe's armor against
GMO crops. Another possible weapon to use against Russia would be the growing of huge volumes
of GMO grain so as to weaken the market for Russian grains.
Another element of the plan to reduce pension obligations is the dismantling of whatever
health care system that remain in the Ukraine. That is a twofer – save money on
providing medical services and shortening the life span. This would be another optimization
of wealth generation for the oligarchs and for those holding Ukraine debt.
I can just see Ukrainian health authorities giving away free cigarettes to patients and their
families next!
That remark was partly facetious and partly serious: life these days in the Ukraine sounds
so surreal that I wouldn't put it past the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine to come up with
the most hare-brained "reform" initiatives.
I recall a news story about the adverse effects of a reduction in smoking on the US Social
Security Trust Fund. Those actuaries make those calculations for a living. The trouble with
shortening life spans via cancer is that end-of-life treatment tends to be very expensive
unless
people do not have or have very basic health insurance, then there is a likely
net gain. Alcohol, murder and suicides are generally much more efficient economically. I just
depressed myself.
Something does not add up. Any government expenditure is an economic stimulus. The only
potentially negative aspect is taxation. Since taxation is not excessive and in fact too
small on key layers (e.g. companies and the rich), there is no negative aspect to government
spending on pensions. So we have here narrow-definition accounting BS.
Agree that in a world where the people, represented by their governments, are in charge of
money creation and governments ran their financial systems independently of Wall Street and
Washington, any government spending would be welcomed as stimulating economic production and
development. The money later recirculates back to the government when the people who have
jobs created by government spending pay the money back through purchases of various other
government goods and services or through their taxes.
But in capitalist societies where increasingly banks are becoming the sole creators and
suppliers of money, government spending incurs debts that have to be paid back with interest.
In the past governments also raised money for major public projects by issuing treasury bonds
and securities but that doesn't seem to happen much these days.
Unfortunately also Ukraine is surviving mainly on IMF loans and the IMF certainly doesn't
want the money to go towards social welfare spending.
In fact, the IMF specifically intervenes to prevent spending loan money on social welfare, as
a condition of extending the loan. That might have been true since time out of mind for all I
know, but it certainly was true after the first Greek bailout, when leaders blew the whole
wad on pensions and social spending so as to ensure their re-election. They then went
sheepishly back to the IMF for a second bailout. So there are good and substantial reasons
for insisting the loan money not be wasted in this fashion, as that kind of spending
customarily does not generate any meaningful follow-on spending by the recipients, and is
usually absorbed by the cost of living.
But as we are all aware, such IMF interventions have a definite political agenda as well.
In Ukraine's case, the IMF with all its political inveigling is matched against a crafty
oligarch who will lift the whole lot if he is not watched. Alternatively, he might well blow
it all on social spending to ensure his re-election, thus presenting the IMF with a dilemma
in which it must either continue to support him, or cause him to fall.
"... The truth about this "17 intel agencies" claim matters, not so much because of what it says about the intelligence community's
conclusion on Russian meddling, but because of what it says about the establishment media's conclusion on Russian meddling. ..."
"... The fact is many of these narratives bear all the same hallmarks as the "17 intelligence agencies" mess. ..."
"... Based on the word of one anonymous source, The Washington Post reported that Russia had hacked the U.S. electrical grid. That
was quickly proven false when the electric company, which the reporter had not bothered to contact before publishing, said in a statement
the grid definitely was not hacked , and the "Russian hacker" may have been no hacker at all, but an employee who mistakenly visited
an infected site on a work computer. ..."
"... The media is bent on supporting already foregone conclusions about Trump and Russian meddling, no matter what they have to
scoop up or parrot or claim (or ignore) to do so. ..."
"... for the media, it's also just a "basic fact" that Trump likely colluded with Russia, and that he should be impeached, and that
his White House is on the verge of literally disappearing into a sinkhole. ..."
When Hillary Clinton claimed "17 intelligence agencies" agree on Russian meddling in the third presidential debate, a host of media
outlets including The New York Times rated the claim as 100 percent true. Nine months later, those same outlets say the stat is obviously
false, and there's been a "simple" explanation as to why all along.
A closer look at how the claim survived and thrived over those nine months reveals a startling lack of skepticism in the press
when it comes to the Russia narrative. The truth is the great majority of the 17 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community
had nothing to do with the investigation and made no judgments about the matter.
"The reason the views of only those four intelligence agencies, not all 17, were included in the assessment is simple: They were
the ones tracking and analyzing the Russian campaign," The New York Times now
reports
. "The rest were doing other work."
Strange admission for the paper, since its star political reporter recently
reiterated the false claim as she was in the middle of writing an article characterizing President Trump as stubbornly foolish.
"The latest presidential tweets were proof to dismayed members of Mr. Trump's party that he still refuses to acknowledge a basic
fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help him
get elected," Maggie Haberman wrote. Her story was later corrected to reflect the -- basic fact -- that only three agencies working
under the Director of National Intelligence contributed to the intelligence community's conclusion.
A few days later, the Associated Press
echoed that correction in a "clarification" bulletin acknowledging there's no truth to the claim the wire service had repeatedly
blasted out for publication to news outlets all over the world.
The bizarrely timed corrections put the media in a bit of a truth pickle, especially after Trump drew attention to the corrections
at a high-profile press conference in Poland. "They had to apologize, and they had to correct," he noted.
The New York Times, CNN and others quickly spun up articles and tweets aimed at steering the conversation away from this uncomfortable
truth about their proliferation of an outright false claim, and back to the more comfortable "isn't Trump an idiot?" narrative.
"17 intel agencies or four? Either way, Russia conclusion still valid," Politifact
wrote in a Thursday headline . "Trump still doesn't seem to believe his intelligence agencies,"
CNN blared .
The New York Times
took
it a step further , dismissing the truth of the claim as a "technicality" and then accusing Trump of spreading a "misleading"
narrative by correcting the record. Their headline on a story about Trump calling them out for pushing a bogus claim: "Trump Misleads
on Russian Meddling: Why 17 Intelligence Agencies Don't Need to Agree."
But that uncomfortable truth remains. The "17 intelligence agencies" embellishment is frighteningly easy to catch. A cursory glance
of the DNI website would show the truth. More importantly, the sheer length of time the falsehood stood in public record at the highest
echelons of media betrays an astounding lack of scrutiny on other points in the Russia narrative, which are often sourced to political
operatives and anonymous "officials."
Let's look at how this happened, and what it says about the media's overall credibility in the Russia collusion narrative, from
the top.
The claim can be traced straight back to candidate Clinton in the third presidential debate, remarking on Russian meddling a few
weeks after the DNI released a statement on the investigation. The press didn't demonstrate any interest in the number of agencies
that signed off on the Oct. 7 statement, until Clinton unleashed the "17" number in the debate (other than a CNN report
incorrectly claiming there are
19 intelligence agencies).
She was clearly trying to add some umpf to the DNI assessment and pour cold water on Trump's skepticism about Russia's attempt
to influence the election. She even repeated the number twice, firmly planting it in the record.
"I think that this is such an unprecedented situation," Clinton said. "We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere
in our election. We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks,
these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply
disturbing."
Trump took the bait.
"She has no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else," he replied, setting off a back and forth that would be reiterated
over and over in the press as evidence
he was in denial about Russian meddling. "I am quoting 17, 17 -- do you doubt?" Clinton said, and Trump responded definitively: "Our
country has no idea. Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it."
With that, Hillary's claim was up and off.
Journalists highlighted the talking point on Twitter as they covered the debate. And
the fact checks came rolling in.
The New York Times
,
Politico ,
ABC News ,
Politifact and PBS
all rated the claim as totally true the night of the debate. Before the night ended The New York Times was using Clinton's number
with authority in its reporting, saying
in a debate wrap up that Trump had "refused" to acknowledge "the unanimous conclusion of America's 17 intelligence agencies."
The following day the number popped up in reports from Politico and Defense One, quickly divorced from its context as a debate
talking point and transformed into an indisputable fact attached to Trump-Russia stories.
"The Office of the Director of National Intelligence collects and coordinates for the President the information and analysis from
the 17 agencies that make up U.S. national intelligence collection," a line
in the Defense One report on "Trump's Denial" stated.
Politico hadn't previously used the 17 figure in reporting on Russian meddling, but now
framed it as common
knowledge that Clinton had to "explain" to Trump: "As Clinton tried to explain that the Russian role is the finding of 17 military
and civilian intelligence agencies, Trump cut her off: 'I doubt it.'"
The fact checks continued to roll in. USA Today wrote a
particularly aggressive check on the claim headlined "Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking."
The article confidently asserted, "Clinton is correct."
All of these "fact checks" and reports were wrong, of course, as has since been made ultra clear. As The New York Times now concedes,
the truth about her claim was obviously false from the start. Any reporter capable of operating Google could have looked up a list
of the intelligence agencies in question, and ruled out almost half in just minutes.
The Department of Energy, Treasury and Drug Enforcement agencies can be dismissed out of hand. The military service intelligence
organizations can't legally operate on U.S. soil. Add the Coast Guard and we're tentatively at eight remaining intel agencies under
DNI. The Defense Intelligence Agency is also unlikely. Geospatial intelligence? Definitely not. National recon office? Not unless
a political influence campaign has something to do with a missile launch or natural disaster.
That leaves us with State Department intelligence, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA and NSA. Five tops, narrowed down
at the speed of common sense and Google.
Sure, the October DNI report was presented as the conclusion of the intelligence community, which does consist of 16 separate
agencies headed up by the DNI. At first glance, her claim might seem perfectly reasonable to someone unfamiliar with the makeup of
the intelligence community. But it's journalistic malpractice to do a fact-check level review of her claim that each agency separately
reviewed and judged the campaign, without so much as hinting at the obvious likelihood that most of them weren't involved.
Nevertheless, the claim persisted.
"All 17 U.S. Intelligence agencies believe the Russians are behind that leak," ABC host George Stephanopoulos told Trump
in
an October interview . "Why don't you believe it?"
"[Trump] has consistently denied any link between the hackers and the Kremlin, despite 17 intelligence agencies' claims to the
contrary," the Daily Beast
reported
that same day .
NBC News dropped Hillary's number nugget
in
a December report on the Obama White House asking the intelligence community for a dossier on the hacking assessment. The resulting
report would be shared with the public, White House counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco said at the time.
"Monaco used careful language, calling it a 'full review of what happened during the 2016 election process,'" NBC reported. "But
since the U.S. government has already said that all 17 intelligence agencies agree Russia was behind the hacks, Monaco's meaning
was clear."
Reuters, too, touted the number
in a December report that characterizes the DNI as a "17-agency strong" operation.
The declassified DNI report that followed in January
provided new details on the assessment that dumped ice-cold water on the "17 intelligence agencies agree" claim. The conclusion
was drawn only from the NSA, CIA and FBI, the report said. (The New York Times
conceded this in a break down of the report, although the claim would later make its way back into the paper's pages.)
A few months later former national intelligence director James Clapper reiterated the truth in a high-profile congressional hearing
about Russian interference, opting to correct the record without any partisan prompting.
"As you know, the I.C. was a coordinated product from three agencies; CIA, NSA, and the FBI -- not all 17 components of the intelligence
community," he said in his opening remarks. "Those three under the aegis of my former office."
And when Democrat Sen. Al Franken reiterated the false claim later in the hearing, Clapper once again made a point of correcting
the record.
"The intelligence communities have concluded -- all 17 of them -- that Russia interfered with this election," Franken said. "And
we all know how that's right."
Clapper interjected: "Senator, as I pointed out in my statement, Senator Franken, it was, there were only three agencies directly
involved in this assessment, plus my office."
"But all 17 signed on to that?" Franken pressed.
"Well, we didn't go through that, that process," Clapper replied, again shooting down the claim as utterly false. "This was a
special situation because of the time limits we decided to restrict it to those three."
So not only was the assessment only made by three of the 16 agencies working under the DNI, but also Clapper indicated here that
none of the other agencies even signed off on the report before it was released. Yes, none of them dissented. But why would they,
since they didn't have independent evidence to suggest otherwise?
At this point in the life of Hillary's debate talking point, there's just no credible way to rate the claim as true. The DNI report
made the truth explicit, and Clapper had now reiterated that truth in a very public setting.
Yet just a few weeks later Clinton unabashedly reiterated the "17 agencies agree" claim
in an interview
with the tech outlet recode, and as if on cue the media once more began spreading it around.
"Read the declassified report by the intelligence community that came out in early January," Clinton said. "17 agencies, all in
agreement – which I know from my experience as a senator and secretary of state is hard to get – they concluded with 'high confidence'
that the Russians ran an extensive information war against my campaign to influence voters in the election."
A little while later the bogus claim
showed up in an AP report , after The Daily Caller News Foundation
fact checked Clinton's claim in the interview and found it false. And then
twice
more in June before the "clarification" memo was published. Stephanopolous was back at it as well
in a June
11 interview with Republican Sen. Mike Lee. And then that Haberman report in The New York Times on the 25th echoing the claim,
which was rather strangely corrected four days later.
After all this, CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta
actually accused Trump on Thursday of pushing "fake news" by saying the conclusion only came from "three or four" agencies. "Where
does that number come from?" Acosta asked.
The timing of the AP and NYT corrections are a bit of a mystery, but for whatever reason the press is now collectively saying
Trump is correct in his push back on the "17 agencies" claim. And that's got the narrative a bit tangled. After initially
doubling down on the "true" rating of Clinton's debate claim, Politifact is now bizarrely also rating the claim
mostly false in a separate fact check.
So we're left with that uncomfortable truth. The establishment press uncritically "vetted" and embraced a Clinton campaign talking
point designed to make Trump look foolish, divorced it of its political context and reiterated it word-of-God style for more than
six months -- all the time either ignoring or missing entirely easily obtainable information proving it false -- and then suddenly
reversed course on the claim weeks after it was unambiguously and authoritatively debunked.
We live in a world where r/the_donald -- a Reddit thread teeming with Trump supporters --
proved
more shrewd than The New York Times and the Associated Press when vetting an important claim about the Russia
investigation.
The truth about this "17 intel agencies" claim matters, not so much because of what it says about the intelligence community's
conclusion on Russian meddling, but because of what it says about the establishment media's conclusion on Russian meddling.
Haberman and her ilk seem intent on casting Trump as a loner bordering on a nervous breakdown, maniacally watching the
news at all hours, hollering at staff and generally acting like a buffoon. And there's the almost daily implication that Trump personally
coordinated a hacking campaign with Russia, an implication grounded in no hard evidence despite a lengthy investigation.
The fact is many of these narratives bear all the same hallmarks as the "17 intelligence agencies" mess.
Sources often appear to be politically motivated, like Clinton. They show up in bizarre numbers, like "dozens" or "more than 30."
Anecdotes seem almost questionable at face value. An astonishing number of hastily reported or vaguely sourced "scoops" turn out
to be totally wrong when the subject of the story corrects the record.
In a report casting
the White House as fraught and bordering on collapse, Haberman wrote that Trump likes to stew over cable news in a bathrobe.
The White House refuted the anecdote
in no uncertain terms
the following day.
Based on the word of one anonymous source, The Washington Post reported that Russia had hacked the U.S. electrical grid. That
was quickly proven false when the electric company, which the reporter had not bothered to contact before publishing, said in a statement
the grid
definitely was not hacked , and the "Russian hacker" may have been no hacker at all, but an employee who mistakenly visited an
infected site on a work computer.
CNN reported that Former FBI Director James Comey
would
refute Trump's claim the director told him three separate times he was not personally under investigation. Comey did no such
thing. In fact he
corroborated Trump's account .
Just weeks after retracting a story
on a wealthy Trump associate and Russia, CNN insisted for days Trump would not ask Putin about Russian meddling during their
first meeting. Of course, the report depended on an anonymous source. Of course,
it was wrong
. One of the first things Trump did when he sat down with Putin was "press" him on the subject multiple times, according to Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson, who was in the room.
We could go on, but the point remains. The media is bent on supporting already foregone conclusions about Trump and Russian
meddling, no matter what they have to scoop up or parrot or claim (or ignore) to do so. Sure, it's a "basic fact" Russia meddled
in the election. But for the media, it's also just a "basic fact" that Trump likely colluded with Russia, and that he should
be impeached, and that his White House is on the verge of literally disappearing into a sinkhole.
The facts they use to support these conclusions might as well be irrelevant.
Trump deflated and sold all his election promises. He is essentially a neocon now. why he will be
different on immigration?
Notable quotes:
"... Trump Interrupted 6 Times in Poland With a Chant You Might Have Thought Would Only Be Heard in the USA ..."
"... Independent Journal Review, ..."
"... Critically, the president identified border security as one of the most important issues during his speech, declaring that the will to enforce immigration laws is synonymous with the will to defend Western Civilization. ..."
"... Trump's speech in Poland sounded like an alt-right manifesto ..."
"... 'Kate's Law' battle shifts to the Senate, testing Dems ..."
"... As Trump's Coach, Senator Cotton Provides Policy to Match Rhetoric ..."
"... 'These deaths were preventable': Trump urges Senate to pass 'Kate's Law,' ..."
"... Immigration bills face Senate hurdle ..."
"... San Antonio Express-News, ..."
"... Trump's 'face-lift' tweet overshadows week to push immigration, energy policies ..."
"... Washington Examiner, ..."
"... How The Democrats Lost Their Way On Immigration ..."
"... What's the point of an anti-immigrant left ..."
"... Trump is winning the immigration debate ..."
"... In my opinion, even more important than to attack the hostile, mostly liberal media is for Trump to distance himself not just form the Neocon wing of the Republican party, but also to keep a healthy distance from and even attack Ayn Rand fanboys like Paul Ryan and other lackeys of the Koch Brothers ..."
"... No, Donald Trump hasn't really read "Atlas Shrugged." Sad! But he's surrounding himself with Ayn Rand superfans ..."
"... IMO, Trump's deeds rarely match the words written for him by his speechwriter(s). There's been little progress on our Southern border wall and his administration only marginally decreased refugees to 50K for 2018. I want zero or only white refugees from S. Africa – not racial, cultural and religious aliens from the third world. ..."
"... That remains to be seen as Trump has drifted towards the center on immigration since his inauguration. He kept DACA in place and hasn't uttered one negative word on the presumption of birthright citizenship or implored Congress to pass legislation clarifying that the 14th amendment only applied to descendants of blacks slaves and not every person who sneaks across the border and drops an anchor baby or two or eight. The same applies to visa holders and "maternity tourists". ..."
"... Poland and the CIA – what memories, what a work over! Lech Walesa and Solidarność. No wonder they cheer Trump, but they might as well be cheering any US President and that's the point. ..."
"... There is no real opposition to Trump. He's a walking clown, pay attention if you must. But the mainstream media includes Kirkpatrick as much as it does The Atlantic and Vox and Fox and CNN. Super national corporations delivering control over your lives. When they tell you who, what and when you should foam at mouth you'll obey – 'those damn other guys!' ..."
Critically, the president identified border security as one of the most important issues during
his speech, declaring that the will to enforce immigration laws is synonymous with the will to defend
Western Civilization. Not surprisingly, the hysterically and openly anti-white, anti-Trump Main
Stream Media screamed that the president had delivered an "Alt Right manifesto". [
Trump's speech in Poland sounded like an alt-right manifesto, by Sarah Wildman,
Vox, July 6, 2017]
Nothing of the sort of course: Trump
merely delivered the kinds
of patriotic platitudes which every other generation in history would have taken for granted. However,
with many Western nations
under de facto occupation by a hostile elite, such common sense comments are revolutionary. More
importantly, President Trump
finally seems to be going on the attack in the last week , championing the kinds of populist
policies which put him in office.
The House Republicans finally seem to be taking some action on the immigration issue, recently
passing both
Kate's Law and the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act . The former increases penalties on criminal
aliens who attempt to reenter our country and latter cuts funding to cities which refuse to imply
with federal immigration laws. Two dozen House Democrats voted for "Kate's Law" and Senate Democrats
in red states, a number of whom are facing re-election in 2018, will be under pressure to support
the legislation in the Senate. [
'Kate's Law' battle shifts to the Senate, testing Dems, by Jordain Carney
and Rafael Bernal, The Hill, July 3, 2017]
The increasing willingness of the President's team to seek the advice of Senator Tom Cotton, who
seems to have succeeded Jeff Sessions as the greatest immigration patriot in the upper chamber, is
also an encouraging sign [
As Trump's Coach, Senator Cotton Provides Policy to Match Rhetoric, by Maggie
Haberman and Matt Flegenheimer, New York Times, June 8, 2017]. Most importantly, Trump himself
is taking the strategic offensive, championing his success on these issues. [
'These deaths were preventable': Trump urges Senate to pass 'Kate's Law,'Fox Insider,
July 1, 2017]
Of course, the real question is what the Republican Senate Leadership will do. Everything depends
on whether Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is willing to put the bills up for a vote and pressure
the caucus to vote for them. [
Immigration bills face Senate hurdle, by Bill Lambrecht, San Antonio Express-News,
July 5, 2017]
And here, again, it's really not even about McConnell but about Trump's own will. While Trump's
fight with the MSM is amusing and important, ultimately, he needs to put pressure on the leaders
of his own party. The battles with CNN and Mika Brzezinski risks distracting from the real policy
accomplishments the president poised to secure in the coming weeks [
Trump's 'face-lift' tweet overshadows week to push immigration, energy policies
, by Alex Pappas, Washington Examiner, June 30, 2017]. As leader of the party, he can
set the priority and challenge McConnell to put his weight behind the immigration bills.
If Trump indeed has the "will" to go through with it, there are the faint outlines how to achieve
the political realignment necessary for the United States of America to survive in any meaningful
sense. For the first time in many years, there are real splits on the intellectual Left on immigration.
Peter Beinart recently admitted in The Atlantic, "A decade ago, liberals publicly questioned
immigration in ways that would shock many progressives today,"
citing the legacy of Barbara Jordan among others . While Beinart is far from a born-again immigration
patriot, he admitted restrictionists have valid concerns that progressives should heed:
Liberals must take seriously Americans' yearning for social cohesion. To promote both mass
immigration and greater economic redistribution, they must convince more native-born white Americans
that immigrants will not weaken the bonds of national identity. This means dusting off a concept
many on the left currently hate: assimilation.
Of course, Leftist Enforcer
Dylan Matthews , [ Email him
] whose entire oeuvre can be summarized as a
hysterical insistence on the moral necessity of
white genocide , blasted Beinart on the grounds that Open Borders is what defines the
West. "Beinart doesn't actually seem to care about promoting mass immigration," Matthews sneers.
"And that's the one answer to this dilemma that's completely unacceptable". [
What's the point of an anti-immigrant left, Vox, July 2, 2017]
To whom? Matthews decrees:
[A]ny center-left party worth its salt has to be deeply committed to egalitarianism, not just
for people born in the US but for everyone it means treating people born outside the US as equals.
But of course, this renders American
citizenship essentially pointless. Indeed being an "American" (which would simply mean owning
a certain kind of passport) would be an active disadvantage, as you would simply exist to be tax-farmed
for the benefit of
an ever growing number of hostile and hapless Third Worlders .
Few Americans would sign up for this. So, as even
Rich Lowry [
Email him
] now admits, Donald Trump is "winning" on immigration simply by mentioning the issue and breaking
apart the Democratic coalition.
Trump probably wouldn't have won without running so directly into the teeth of the elite consensus.
According to a
study published by Public Religion Research Institute and the
Atlantic of white working-class voters, it was anxiety about culture change and support for
deporting undocumented immigrants that correlated with voting for Trump, not loss of economic
or social standing. Likewise, a Democracy Fund Voter Study Group
report found Hillary Clinton cratered among populist voters who had supported Barack Obama,
with the issue of immigration looming large.[Links added by VDARE.com]
• 100 Words When Bush jr was in Vilnius he was also cheered, by 30.000 carefully selected Lithuanians.
If Warschau did the same, I do not know.
However, Poles still seem afraid of Russia, and they resist the Muslim immigration Brussels tries
to force on them.
The crash of the Polish aircraft with nearly the whole Polish establishment on board on its way
to Katyn still is blamed on Russia, while it was Polish stupidity, and too much liquor.
So maybe this was a spontaneous crowd.
This paper by Dutton and van der Linden (2014) might be interesting to you:
Who are the "Clever Sillies"? The intelligence, personality, and motives of clever
silly originators and those who follow them
[...] European Romantic nationalism could be seen as problematic from a Jewish perspective.
Both thinkers may have been motivated by the good of their group.
[...]
neo-liberal "Chicago School"-style economics, also known as "Freshwater" economics, promoted
by Milton Friedman
[...]
Western mind seducer and manipulator, "Objectivist" Ayn Rand
[...] The Refutation of Libertarianism
[...] But the competition for global domination is rarely honest. Thus when Western individualist
societies conquered and absorbed collectivist ones, it was only a matter of time before
the more intelligent tribes learned how to cheat.
In my opinion, even more important than to attack the hostile, mostly liberal media is
for Trump to distance himself not just form the Neocon wing of the Republican party, but
also to keep a healthy distance from and even attack Ayn Rand fanboys like Paul Ryan and other
lackeys of the Koch Brothers :
Fountainhead of bad ideas: Ayn Rand's fanboys take the reins of power
No, Donald Trump hasn't really read "Atlas Shrugged." Sad! But he's surrounding himself
with Ayn Rand superfans
"Libyans enjoyed the highest quality of life in all of Africa. Libyan citizens enjoyed free
universal health care from prenatal to geriatric, free education from elementary school to post-graduate
studies and free or subsidized housing. We were told that Gaddafi ripped off the nation's oil
wealth for himself when in reality Libya's oil wealth was used to improve the quality of life
for all Libyans.
We were told that Libya had to be rebuilt from scratch because Gaddafi had not
allowed the development of national institutions. If we knew that infant mortality had been seriously
reduced, life expectancy increased and health care and education made available to everyone, we
might have asked, "How could all that be accomplished without the existence of national institutions?"
Knowledge is the antidote to propaganda and brainwashing which is exactly why it is being increasingly
controlled and restricted."
Critically, the president identified border security as one of the most important issues
during his speech, declaring that the will to enforce immigration laws is synonymous with the
will to defend Western Civilization.
IMO, Trump's deeds rarely match the words written for him by his speechwriter(s). There's
been little progress on our Southern border wall and his administration only marginally decreased
refugees to 50K for 2018. I want zero or only white refugees from S. Africa – not racial, cultural
and religious aliens from the third world.
The increasing willingness of the President's team to seek the advice of Senator Tom Cotton,
who seems to have succeeded Jeff Sessions as the greatest immigration patriot in the upper
chamber,
Cotton has a proposed immigration bill that reduces legal immigration from 1.1 million to 700K.
It also takes aim at some chain migration mechanisms which is a positive step, but overall immigration
still overwhelmingly favors the third world. Some "immigration patriot".
Even if this miraculously passes this does nothing to arrest the pro-third world demographic
trends that ensures white go from majority to plurality by 2040 and America is still on a path
to become Brazil Norte.
The House Republicans have proven they will go along with a Trump immigration agenda, provided
the president leads the way.
That remains to be seen as Trump has drifted towards the center on immigration since his
inauguration. He kept DACA in place and hasn't uttered one negative word on the presumption of
birthright citizenship or implored Congress to pass legislation clarifying that the 14th amendment
only applied to descendants of blacks slaves and not every person who sneaks across the border
and drops an anchor baby or two or eight. The same applies to visa holders and "maternity tourists".
• 200 Words Poland and the CIA – what memories, what a work over! Lech Walesa and Solidarność.
No wonder they cheer Trump, but they might as well be cheering any US President and that's the
point.
Americans are long worked over – they are led to believe in some fictional mass of opposition
"that hates white people so they oppose Trump" and the standard false equivalence of a "main stream
media" that isn't themselves to begin with! The so-called left are the dancing partners who play
their part in this fraud – put up targets so the other team can shoot at them, that isn't left,
and that isn't right.
There is no real opposition to Trump. He's a walking clown, pay attention if you must.
But the mainstream media includes Kirkpatrick as much as it does The Atlantic and Vox and Fox
and CNN. Super national corporations delivering control over your lives. When they tell you who,
what and when you should foam at mouth you'll obey – 'those damn other guys!'
The unelected mob with their clowns on podiums doesn't concern themselves with borders, security
and punishment the way their controlled minions are programmed to. These are there weapons – they'll
publish every op-ed online if need be for you to cheer on the use of these weapons. Wear your
weblinks like Solidarnosc buttons. You love Lockheed and you hate the others.
Neoliberalism like Bolshevism sacrifices nations on the altar of globalism.
Notable quotes:
"... You have divided into two parts all men throughout your empire everywhere giving citizenship to all those who are more accomplished, noble, and powerful, even as they retain their native-born identities, while the rest you have made subjects and the governed. ..."
"... Ultimately, the American identity has not been lost within the past 60 years, it just has transformed, similar to when the Thirteen Colonies began as primarily British, but subsumed other European groups who were historic rivals, and eventually non-Europeans. The Welsh, the Cornish, Bavarians, the Catalans–they were distinct sub-Europeans groups, but over generations they intermingled and dispersed in our great land. Americans are a mixture of European and non-European ethnostates who, like any and all groups, self-identify. ..."
"... This identification is the direct result of indoctrination from our Founding Fathers. ..."
"... The idea that "diversity is strength", in the context of a society, is the kind of barefaced falsehood that only a man made foolish or dishonest by political dogma could believe or assert. ..."
"... Americans eat like pigs. US has become the premier imperialist power in the world, even aiding Al-Qaida in Syria and aiding neo-nazis in Ukriane. We are told we must support Israel or Sodomia because it has the biggest homo 'pride' parade. ..."
"... America is a culture in decay, it is a huge piece of land with lots of resources and ruled by outside forces from within. ..."
"... Pat seems to imply that if the original ancestry had been maintained, America would not have the problems it now faces. He singlehandedly lays out the blame for the decline of American Republic/democracy at the feet of non-white foreigners. Let us follow this line of reasoning and see where it leads us. ..."
In the first line of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson speaks
of "one people." The Constitution, agreed upon by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789, begins,
"We the people "
And who were these "people"?
In Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes of them as "one united people descended from the same ancestors,
speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government,
very similar in their manners and customs "
If such are the elements of nationhood and peoplehood, can we still speak of Americans as one
nation and one people?
We no longer have the same ancestors. They are of every color and from every country. We do not
speak one language, but rather English, Spanish and a host of others. We long ago ceased to profess
the same religion. We are Evangelical Christians, mainstream Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons,
Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics and atheists.
Federalist No. 2 celebrated our unity. Today's elites proclaim that our diversity is our strength.
But is this true or a tenet of trendy ideology?
After the attempted massacre of Republican Congressmen at that ball field in Alexandria, Fareed
Zakaria wrote: "The political polarization that is ripping this country apart" is about "identity
gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation (and) social class." He might have added - religion,
morality, culture and history.
Zakaria seems to be tracing the disintegration of our society to that very diversity that its
elites proclaim to be its greatest attribute: "If the core issues are about identity, culture and
religion then compromise seems immoral. American politics is becoming more like Middle Eastern
politics, where there is no middle ground between being Sunni or Shiite."
Among the issues on which we Americans are at war with one another - abortion, homosexuality,
same-sex marriage, white cops, black crime, Confederate monuments, LGBT rights, affirmative action.
Was the discovery of America and conquest of this continent from 1492 to the 20th century among
the most glorious chapters in the history of man? Or was it a half-millennium marked by mankind's
most scarlet of sins: the genocide of native peoples, the enslavement of Africans, the annihilation
of indigenous cultures, the spoliation of a virgin land?
Is America really "God's Country"? Or was Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, justified
when, after 9/11, he denounced calls of "God Bless America!" with the curse "God Damn America!"?
With its silence, the congregation seemed to assent.
In 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance many of us recited daily at the end of noon recess in the schoolyard
was amended to read, "one nation, under God, indivisible."
Are we still one nation under God? At the Democratic Convention in Charlotte to renominate Barack
Obama, a motion to put "God" back into the platform was hooted and booed by half the assembly.
With this July 4 long weekend, many writers have bewailed the animus Americans exhibit toward
one another and urged new efforts to reunite us. Yet, recall again those first words of Jefferson
in 1776:
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them "
Are we approaching such a point? Could the Constitution, as currently interpreted, win the approval
of two-thirds of our citizens and three-fourth of our states, if it were not already the supreme
law of the land? How would a national referendum on the Constitution turn out, when many Americans
are already seeking a new constitutional convention?
All of which invites the question: Are we still a nation? And what is a nation? French writer
Ernest Renan gave us the answer in the 19th century:
"A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things constitute this soul, this spiritual
principle. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy
of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to
invest in the heritage that we have jointly received.
"Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate: our ancestors have made us what we
are. A heroic past with great men and glory is the social capital upon which the national idea
rests. These are the essential conditions of being a people: having common glories in the past and
a will to continue them in the present; having made great things together and wishing to make them
again."
"In the first line of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson speaks
of "one people." The Constitution, agreed upon by the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia in 1789,
begins, "We the people " And who were these "people"? In Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes of
them as "one united people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing
the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners
and customs " ** If such are the elements of nationhood and peoplehood, can we still speak of
Americans as one nation and one people? **
** YES
It would appear that Mr. Buchanan is making an argument our Founding Fathers established a
British enthnostate, but IF (and I say IF) he is taking this position, similar to Vox Day, then
he is totally wrong. Preserving rights "for one's posterity" was legal repudiation of feudalism,
which stated liberties were a grant from a monarch and the State, and reverted upon his/her death.
That is, fundamental freedoms were NOT passed to future generations. The Declaration and the Federalist
Papers in particular destroys that feudalist notion. More importantly, Article I, Section 8, Clause
4, as a component of our Constitution and reflects original intent, granted Congress and NOT the
States the authority to establish uniform rules of naturalization. By definition, naturalization
extends citizenship, and the liberties related to it, to an "outsider".
So, the drafters of our Constitution and the adopting state s fully comprehended the new Congress
would have to power to receive immigrants and set forth the standards under which they are naturalized.
Citizenship therefore is NOT exclusively confined to the British. This means this argument that
the franchise of citizenship is meant to be confined solely to the British children of rebel British
subjects is not reflected in the clear meaning of the document. Since immigration was allowed
to the United States, at first to Europeans but later extended to non-Europeans, the "posterity"
includes more than the actual descendants of residents of our great nation at that time.
But, but, but "[the Constitution] did allow for the possibility of change. But change, by definition,
is not the previous state. And the original purpose of the Constitution cannot change, obviously."
Well, a contract, which essentially is what is our Constitution, that has an amendment process
is NOT meant to remain constant. It has no original purpose but to establish exactly what the
Preamble states. Posterity does not refer to the progeny of the founders but of the People as
a whole. While this population was primarily of British descent, the Dutch, Germans, Irish, Scots,
French, Africans, and Native Americans ALL fought to remove the shackles of tyranny from Great
Britain.
Posterity is synonymous with "legacy"–what we leave behind. Indeed, few, if any, had imagined
when the Constitution was created that anyone BUT a white European had the intellectual capacity
to embrace Republican principles of government YET the criterion of commitment to those ideas
is NOT itself racial or ethnic specific. Of course, that does NOT mean foreigners have the right
to enter our shores, and it is legitimate, although in my opinion unreasonable, to doubt that
non-white groups are equal to the task to embrace such principles. Of course, in the past foreigners
have ben excluded on racial and religious grounds.
Interestingly enough, Vox Day makes these arguments
"As you probably know, my argument is that the Posterity for whom the Constitution is intended
to defend the Blessings of Liberty consists solely of the genetic descendants of the People of
the several and United States. Posterity does not include immigrants, descendants of immigrants,
invaders, conquerers, tourists, students, Americans born in Portugal, or anyone else who happens
to subsequently reside in the same geographic location, or share the same civic ideals, as the
original We the People.
"Many, if not most, descendants of immigrants are not the Posterity of the then-People of the
United States. Neither are people living in Mexico, Germany, Israel, or even Great Britain. The
U.S. Constitution was not written for them, nor was it ever intended to secure the Blessings of
Liberty for them. The idea that the Constitution was intended to do anything at all for immigrants,
resident aliens, or foreigners is as absurd as the idea that its emanations and penumbras provide
them with an unalienable right to an abortion. The fact that courts have declared otherwise is
totally irrelevant.
"The proposition nation is a lie. There is no such thing, there never was any such thing, and
there never will be any such thing."
So, everyone on this fine blog, if you are unable to trace directly your ancestors to British
settlers, YOU MUST GO BACK. Like, immediately.
Happy 4th Of July!
Tom Kratman, a science fiction writer, took Vox Day to task on this matter.
"All of which invites the question: Are we still a nation? And what is a nation?"
Aelius Aristides, a Greek who received Roman citizenship in 123 A.D. stated
You have divided into two parts all men throughout your empire everywhere giving citizenship
to all those who are more accomplished, noble, and powerful, even as they retain their native-born
identities, while the rest you have made subjects and the governed. Neither the sea nor the
great expanse of intervening land keeps one from being a citizen, and there is no distinction
between Europe and Asia No one is a foreigner who deserves to hold an office or is worthy of trust.
Rather, there is here a common "world democracy" under the rule of one man, the best ruler and
director You have divided humanity into Romans and non-Romans and because you have divided people
in this manner, in every city throughout the empire there are many who share citizenship with
you, no less than the share citizenship with their fellow natives. And some of these Roman citizens
have not even seen this city [Rome]! There is no need for troops to garrison the strategic high
points of these cities, because the most important and powerful people in each region guard their
native lands for you yet there is not a residue of resentment among those excluded [from Roman
citizenship and a share in the governance of the provinces]. Because your government is both universal
and like that of a single city-state, its governors rightly rule not as foreigners but, as it
were, their own people Additionally, all of the masses of subjects under this government have
protection against the more powerful of their native countrymen, by virtue of your anger and vengeance,
which would fall upon the more powerful without delay should they dare to break the law. Thus,
the present government serves rich and poor alike, and your constitution has developed a single,
harmonious, all-embracing union. What in former days seemed impossible has in your time come to
pass: You control a vast empire with a rule that is firm but not unkind "
Ultimately, the American identity has not been lost within the past 60 years, it just has
transformed, similar to when the Thirteen Colonies began as primarily British, but subsumed other
European groups who were historic rivals, and eventually non-Europeans. The Welsh, the Cornish,
Bavarians, the Catalans–they were distinct sub-Europeans groups, but over generations they intermingled
and dispersed in our great land. Americans are a mixture of European and non-European ethnostates
who, like any and all groups, self-identify. They know who they are and where they come from,
and create groups who share their self-identities. Furthermore, the default for American is American
and not a particular race, regardless of one's willingness to admit it this decided fact. When
you call yourself a black American or a Chinese American, you are still an American, as in residing
in the nation referred as the United States. And while Yankees and Southerners and Midwesterners
are clearly different, they are not separate "tribes" or "nations", just locations with groups
of people who self-identify geographically, socially, and culturally.
This identification is the direct result of indoctrination from our Founding Fathers.
Yeah, and someone named Khizr Khan, a Pakistani Islamist-supremacist who, as a lawyer, has
written articles defending Sharia law, was _invited_ by the Clinton campaign to speak at the Democratic
convention, where the Islamist proceeded to lecture Trump on the U.S. Constitution, and wagging
his finger declared .."Mr. Trump, this is not your America .." (or words that effect), to a wild
applause of brainwashed 1,000s in the audience.
@The Anti-Gnostic "Isn't the Church doubling down on modernity, social democracy, and multiculturalism?"
So are you and your family, with you being a lawyer and your wife a school teacher. Now are
you ready to get rid of all of your technological gadgets and live strictly in accord with the
beliefs AND lifestyle of Orthodoxy?
I think Pat already answered this question a few years ago when he observed that half the country
hates the other half and one half of the nation reveres our history and traditions while the other
half reviles them. Nothing has changed since then and if fact we're starting to see things slowly
escalate to threats, fisticuffs and even a few shootings.
Was the discovery of America and conquest of this continent from 1492 to the 20th century
among the most glorious chapters in the history of man? Or was it a half-millennium marked
by mankind's most scarlet of sins: the genocide of native peoples, the enslavement of Africans,
the annihilation of indigenous cultures, the spoliation of a virgin land?
Today's elites proclaim that our diversity is our strength. But is this true or a tenet
of trendy ideology?
The idea that "diversity is strength", in the context of a society, is the kind of barefaced
falsehood that only a man made foolish or dishonest by political dogma could believe or assert.
Common sense says that only societies that are at least reasonably homogeneous on most major
issues – race, culture, religion – can be held together other than by brute force, and that the
more homogeneous a society is the stronger it will be, in the sense of withstanding hard times
an external shocks. Any diversity is a fault line, along which a society can crack under pressure,
even if that pressure is merely the kind of opportunist identity lobby charlatans who have done
so much harm in modern American and European societies.
But common sense has little chance in the face of ideology.
Pat like most Amurikans in the Fourth Reich have forgotten what ideals animated the American
and French revolutions: liberty from tyrannical big guvmints, liberty to strike out on one's own
to build a business and a homestead, and a declaration of universal human rights (life liberty
pursuit of happiness privacy) all of which the current and past empires have trampled upon in
the name of greed for money and power the glue that defines America is precisely the willingness
to risk life and property for these ideals if we studied our two greatest wars 1770-87 and 1859-1965
(civil rights and states rights) we might educate ourselves to the light and dark in our culture
he(Wright) denounced calls of "God Bless America!" with the curse "God Damn America!"?
Happy Fourth. And God bless the USA.
ROTFL. Is Buchanan still in defensive mode about America?
Why would God bless the current America? Just think about it.
This is a degenerate nation whose new faith is homomania. People have tattoos and piercings
for identity. Even in elite colleges. Mainstream culture has been pornified. Just turn on the
TV. Some primetime shows are downright lurid.
We have white families falling apart too and opoid addiction going thru the roof. Gambling
is of the main industries and GOP's main sugar daddy is cretin Sheldon Adelson. Fathers raise
their boys to be pansies and their girls to be skanky sluts.
Catholic church is home of pederasty and homo agenda. Women's idea of protest is wearing 'pussy
hats' and spewing vulgar filth from their lips.
Media are 100x nuttier than Joe McCarthy in their hysteria and paranoia. These are the very
Libs who'd once made McCarthy the most sinister person in US history.
Blacks routinely beat up & wussify white boys and colonize white wombs, but white 'Muricans worship
black thugs in sports and rappers.
Blacks do most violence but we are supposed to believe BLM.
Americans eat like pigs. US has become the premier imperialist power in the world, even
aiding Al-Qaida in Syria and aiding neo-nazis in Ukriane. We are told we must support Israel or
Sodomia because it has the biggest homo 'pride' parade.
And 'pride' is now synonymous with homo fecal penetration.
Why would God bless this kind of degenerate nation?
Despite the gibberish of the lunatic left most people recognize this and quite rightly reject
the attempt to destroy their society in pursuit of a crazed political fantasy.
Not enough of them vociferously enough to make the ruling elites pay attention, clearly.
Despite this rejection the fantasy continues to be foisted upon the people.
As I noted, ideology trumps common sense, for those who make policy and for those who wish
to be seen as good guys by their supposed betters and peers.
America is a culture in decay, it is a huge piece of land with lots of resources and ruled
by outside forces from within. It is pimped to the max!!! Our cuckold "experts and politicians
" imaginations run wild whenever the pimps (from outside) and their representatives (within) give
the orders to further push this land into an increasingly decadent society .. look how happy we
are when we kill defenseless people, clearing their (pimps) garbage, work hard to collect wealth
for them, it is soooo sad just thinking about it. Carrying the pimp's flag is considered one of
the most patriotic thing to do, ask Tom Cotton, Bolton, Rumsfeld .
We no longer have the same ancestors. They are of every color and from every country.
We do not speak one language, but rather English, Spanish and a host of others. We long ago
ceased to profess the same religion. We are Evangelical Christians, mainstream Protestants,
Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics and atheists.
Pat seems to imply that if the original ancestry had been maintained, America would not
have the problems it now faces. He singlehandedly lays out the blame for the decline of American
Republic/democracy at the feet of non-white foreigners. Let us follow this line of reasoning and
see where it leads us.
First, unless the original white immigrants to this country had wiped out every non-white resident
(the American Indians) of this country, there would still be non-white people living in America.
However, leaving that little detail aside, let us examine who caused the decline of America.
The laws of the land are enacted by the congress of the United States. The US congress has the
sole power of imposing taxation, allowing immigration, and the conduct of wars. Up until recently
the congress of the United States consisted of mostly white citizens. Out of the 45 presidents
that the country has seen, all but one have been white Americans. The one black president was
more white than black. Just check with black citizens and they will tell you that they were better
off before him.
The British taxes, without representation, that the colonist rebelled against were much lower
than what they are now. These taxes have been imposed by the white congressmen and signed by white
presidents.
The immigration laws and quotas were passed by the white congress and signed by white presidents.
The wars, both declared and undeclared, have been waged by the white presidents.
While I sympathize with Mr Buchanan lamenting upon the good old days, no one but his own white
folks have destroyed those good old days. America took pride in been called the nation of immigrants
but only when the going was good. As long as, the immigrant scientist, engineers, and architects
made this country great they were welcome but as soon as things got rough America blamed the immigrants.
Mr. Buchanan, don't blame all immigrants. Most of them are still productive and faithful to
their adopted country. If you want to blame someone, follow the money, since money is the root
of all evil. I don't have to tell you who controls the money. You should know very well who. I
have followed your career for a long time. I even voted for you in 1992 presidential primary.
You were very outspoken then but your wings have been clipped. There is no zing left in your writing.
You have toned down criticism of the very group of people that have destroyed this country.
"Societies succeed because they've built up, usually over centuries, a widely accepted and
practiced set of behaviors; social capital built up of predictable actions and attitudes and beliefs.
The core of the culture."
Which America has. "Immigrants; who do not have that ingrained culture are likely to be destructive
of social capital and destructive to the host society." According to Vox Day, only the English
immigrants were able to understand the Rights Of Englishmen. Non-English immigrants perverted
its meaning. Are you non-English? If yes, you have to go back.
Jacques Sheete "We should be mourning our lost liberties on the Fourth, not wishing one another
happiness over the fraud."
Thank you for your virtue signaling. "Can a cesspool be a nation? If so, who would want it?"
Except America is not a cesspool, nor resembles anything like it.
The Jester
"In a historic turnabout, we have now given the feminists and sexual deviants hiding behind
Cultural Marxist ideology a legally protected status and (under the Marxist aphorism that personal
choice defines one's culture, gender, and sex) are inviting massive immigration from the hell-holes
populating the Third and Fourth Worlds."
The scope of Cultural Marxism is Fake News.
Randal
"Common sense says that only societies that are at least reasonably homogeneous on most major
issues – race, culture, religion – can be held together other than by brute force "
Except America does not fit that description.
"and that the more homogeneous a society is the stronger it will be, in the sense of withstanding
hard times an external shocks."
America's people are bound by a common set of values.
Blonde hair blue eyed Waffen SS soldiers .I assume
baptized Christian .being wasted by beautiful blonde haired Conservative Orthodox Christian Women
Russian Snipers. This is what you will always get when you fall for the lies of the worshippers
of Franco.
Hitler and Franco .enablers of the Mohammadan Gang Rape Army .Hitler's Waffen SS-Werhrmacht
gang rape Army
Short tiny Andrew Anglin doesn't realize how much he has in common with the Jewish Antifas on
a fundamental Level ..
History offers up important lessons for the Alt Right
There is a historic
precedent for the Alt Right in US History:look no further than the late
19th-early 2oth Century US Labor Movement it was racially
xenophobic .isolationist and economically progressive .The late 19th-early 2oth
century Labor Movement gave us such wonderfull things such as The Chinese Legal
Immigrant Exclusion Act and the Sihk Legal Immigrant Exclusion Act .not bad!!!
And let's honest The Alt Right kiddie brigade that worships
Hitler Franco Pinochet .also swims in the sewage of JFK and Ronnie Reagan
worship two scoundrels who unleashed race-replacement immigration policy on The
Historic Native Born White American Working Class..
"... Read Starikov... All these recent weapons deals, and many before is nothing more than what's called Reparations and Contributions. ..."
"... It's an old deal http://defense-update.com/20141222_qatari_patriots.html ..."
"... You know I am not a fan of the military industrial complex but you have to be in awe of these people. Trump sells 350 billion to SA which includes the best automatic self destruct fighter every engineered by the U.S. and then sells F15s to their obvious rivals in Quatar lol. ..."
Pentagon Agrees To Sell $12 Billion In F-15s To Qatar Tyler Durden Jun 14, 2017
4:35 PM 0 SHARES Remember when Trump called on
Qatar to stop funding terrorism, claiming credit for and endorsing the decision of Gulf nations to
isolate their small neighbor (where the most important US airbase in the middle east is located),even
as US Cabinet officials said their blockade is hurting the campaign against ISIS. You should: it
took place just 5 days ago.
"We had a decision to make," Trump said, describing conversations with Saudi Arabia and other
Gulf countries. "Do we take the easy road or do we finally take a hard but necessary action? We have
to stop the funding of terrorism." Also last week, Trump triumphantly announced on twitter that "during
my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology.
Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!"
Well, Qatar funding terrorism apparently is not a problem when it comes to Qatar funding the US
military industrial complex , because just two weeks after Trump signed a record, $110 billion weapons
deal with Saudi Arabia, moments ago
Bloomberg reported that Qatar will also buy up to 36 F-15 jets from the Pentagon for $12 billion
.... even as a political crisis in the Gulf leaves the Middle East nation isolated by its neighbors
and criticized by President Donald Trump for supporting terrorism, according to three people with
knowledge of the accord.
According to the Pentagon, the sale will give Qatar a "state of the art" capability, not to mention
the illusion that it can defend itself in a war with Saudi Arabia.
If nothing else, Uncle Sam sure is an equal-opportunity arms dealer, and best of all, with the
new fighter planes, Qatar will be able to at least put on a token fight when Saudi Arabia invades
in hopes of sending the price of oil surging now that every other "strategy" has failed.
To be sure, the sale comes at an opportune time: just days after Qatar put its military on the
highest state of alert,
and scrambled its tanks . All 16 of them. Maybe the world's wealthiest nation realized it's time
beef up its defensive capabilities?
Qatar's defense minister will meet with Pentagon chief Jim Mattis on Wednesday to seal the agreement,
Bloomberg reported citing people who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sale hasn't been
announced. Last year, congress approved the sale of up to 72 F-15s in an agreement valued at as much
as $21 billion but that deal took place before the recent political crisis in the region.
Oh c'mon y'all. This is nothing new. These are the same synchophants that (somehow, oops!)
created ISIS and then go in and bomb them. WTF did you expect? That they'd actually do what they
say?
A big shout out to Boeing Military. Hookers and blow tonight in the exec suite. BTW these planes
aren't sitting in inventory ready to be delivered. So any conflict in the next few years won't
have to worry about these planes.
That is unless the US or some other buyer agrees to step aside and allow Qatar to take their
place at the end of the assembly line.
That should about wrap it up on who is in charge of the Deep state. Backing both sides of a
potential conflict and making sure everyone has enough arms to blow each to smitherines. Sounds
like the old Red Shield tricks are still the best ones. Long live central bankers, after they
have been thrown into a burning pit of sulfer.
Absolutely. But, oh, these damned Iranians. They simply resisted the USA's boy Saddam and fought
back.
That failure to comply with OUR orders sealed his faith.
Weapons of mass destruction. Well, we delivered them to him. chemical weapons to kill all the
Iranians. So we KNEW they must have been there. We just didn't expect that he really used them
all up against Iran and later on (the remaining few) against the curds. What a bastard. After
all that WE did for Saddam, he didn't deliver. Fuck him.
Speaking of non-delivery, why has our newest boy, Poroshenko, not yet taken Moscow? So, fuck
him, too! And fuck the EU.
And speaking of that, where is Monica, when one needs her? And let's have some Pizza...
That could happen and did on many F-18 sales where we in the US in effect packed the parts
into glorified Heath kits and sent them to the buying countries who did their own labor. Also
sent them the testing equipment and every other thing they needed so all we got were a few spare
piece parts at a slightly lower price. The labor went to the purchasing country.
That right there is some wizard-level salesmanship. And I can assure you that these weapons
systems have "ALL" of the capabilities of the ones in our US arsenal, hahaha. And furthermore,
they cannot be messed with by remote control by the boys at the Pentagon, just in case things
get a little messy or embarassing. Nosiree. What you see is what you get. Yes, Lord.
Looks like Trump is just selling to whoever want to buy. What the hell, why not, he's shown
himself to be a sell out. Might as well be the best damn arms dealer you can buy.
You know I am not a fan of the military industrial complex but you have to be in awe of
these people. Trump sells 350 billion to SA which includes the best automatic self destruct fighter
every engineered by the U.S. and then sells F15s to their obvious rivals in Quatar lol.
I personally think the F15s will utterly destroy the f35s because all they have to do to down
an f35 is keep it flying, it will eventual blow up on its own.
Well like I said before, let the body count be super high... and let all the fucking crazy
suicide bombers head back home to kill themselves.
As Bernie, the man behind the man that shot up a bunch of congressmen said... Its going to
be HUUUUUGE... the war thats coming that is... I wonder how many oil tankers will be sunk?
Almost all the world's economic and political problems revolve around the hegemony of a global
corporate cartel, which is headquartered in the US because this is where their dominant military
force resides. The US Constitution is therefore the "kingpin" of an all-inclusive global financial
empire. These fictitious entities now own the USA and command its military infrastructure by virtue
of the Federal Reserve Corporation, regulatory capture, MSM propaganda, and congressional lobbying.
The Founders had to fight a bloody Revolutionary War to win our right to incorporate as a nation
– the USA. But then, for whatever reason, our Founders granted the greediest businessmen among
them unrestricted corporate charters with enough potential capital & power to compete with the
individual states, smaller sovereign nations, and eventually to buy out the USA itself. The only
way The People can regain our sovereignty as a constitutional republic now is to severely curtail
the privileges of any corporation doing business here. To remain sovereign we have to stop granting
corporate charters to just any "suit" that comes along without fulfilling a defined social value
in return. The "Divine Right Of Kings" should not apply to fictitious entities just because they
are "Too Big To Fail". We can't afford to privatize our Treasury to transnational banks anymore.
Government must be held responsible only to the electorate, not fictitious entities; and banks
must be held responsible to the government if we are ever to restore sanity, much less prosperity,
to the world.
It was a loophole in our Constitution that allowed corporate charters to be so easily obtained
that a swamp of corruption inevitably flooded our entire economic system. It is a swamp that can't
be drained at this point because the Constitution doesn't provide a drain. This 28 th
amendment is intended to install that drain so Congress can pull the plug ASAP. As a matter
of political practicality we must rely on the Article 5 option to do this, for which the electorate
will need overwhelming consensus beforehand. Seriously; an Article 5 Constitutional Convention
is rapidly becoming our only sensible option.
This is what I think it will take to save the world; and nobody gets hurt: 28 th
Amendment
28 th Amendment:
Corporations are not persons in any sense of the word and shall be granted only those rights
and privileges that Congress deems necessary for the well-being of the People. Congress shall
provide legislation defining the terms and conditions of corporate charters according to their
purpose; which shall include, but are not limited to:
1, prohibitions against any corporation; a, owning another corporation; b, becoming economically
indispensable or monopolistic; or c, otherwise distorting the general economy;
2, prohibitions against any form of interference in the affairs of; a, government, b, education,
c, news media; or d, healthcare, and
3, provisions for; a, the auditing of standardized, current, and transparent account books;
b, the establishment of state and municipal banking; and c, civil and criminal penalties to be
suffered by corporate executives for violation of the terms of a corporate charter.
"... Still peddling the 4GW snake oil . . . Would there even be an ISIS without the support of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Turkey, Israel . . . or without the Bush administration having destroyed the Iraqi state? ..."
"... 4GW is a mantra used rather ineffectively to obscure the obvious reality of our own strategic dysfunctions . . . replacing the establishment leadership only takes care of part of the problem, and perhaps not even the worst part, which imo is conceptual . . . connected with having followed Mr. Lind and Martin van Creveld down the rabbit hole notion of the "Transformation of War" . . . ..."
"... I understand you have to generate content on a regular basis, and a conservative publication should at least try to find the silver linings in a Trump presidency, but you have provided me with very little foundation for why all of these (ostensibly good) things would come to pass because of President Donald J. Trump. ..."
"... Enjoy the dream while it lasts, Mr. Lind. But be prepared for a rude awakening. Anyone who thinks that Trump will have a positive influence on any aspect of American governance needs to have his head examined, and probably to have it replaced. ..."
"... Most Trump supporters hope for negative accomplishments, catharsis: firings and prosecutions of elite miscreants, ending immigration and deporting illegals, getting out of the Middle East, beating down the GOP establishment and, with it, great swathes of Leviathan. ..."
"... Both sides aren't seeing their candidate as being great. They just see the other side as an absolute disaster. ..."
Still peddling the 4GW snake oil . . . Would there even be an ISIS without the support of
Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Turkey, Israel . . . or without the Bush administration having
destroyed the Iraqi state?
4GW is a mantra used rather ineffectively to obscure the obvious reality of our own strategic
dysfunctions . . . replacing the establishment leadership only takes care of part of the problem,
and perhaps not even the worst part, which imo is conceptual . . . connected with having followed
Mr. Lind and Martin van Creveld down the rabbit hole notion of the "Transformation of War" . .
.
It's tempting to project your preferences onto Trump because there's so much blank space there
in terms of policy, but Trump has in no way committed to firing half of our general officers,
or a "housecleaning" that takes away enough money from the Pentagon to fund a major infrastructure
program in its own right, or cancelling any weapons system currently under development.
This is all wishful thinking, even without considering what Congress would do. I understand
you have to generate content on a regular basis, and a conservative publication should at least
try to find the silver linings in a Trump presidency, but you have provided me with very little
foundation for why all of these (ostensibly good) things would come to pass because of President
Donald J. Trump.
I wish it were as simple as waltzing about the Pentagon saying "You're Fired!" There's good reasoning
in the essay with which I agree; Trump seems to have the better instincts to deal with Pentagon
Inc, particularly when Option 2 is Hillary.
But. How does one reform an inherently unreformable institution? How to overcome a system
rigged with flag officers and SES bureaucrats that were groomed for their true-belief in the military-industrial
complex? Maybe I'm just the eternal pessimist, but knowing the Pentagon culture firsthand, I see
zero chance at a "businessman-led housecleaning of the U.S. military.
"4GW does not justify big-ticket programs such as the F-35 fighter/bomber and its trillion-dollar
price tag."
I would go further and say nothing justifies the F-35. Because of its expense, it is not mass
producible, and therefore not suitable for a conventional war either. The cost/aircraft would
come down with mass production, but it would still be too expensive and slow to mass produce in
an all-out conventional war. It would be kind of like an aerial tiger tank.
Enjoy the dream while it lasts, Mr. Lind. But be prepared for a rude awakening. Anyone who
thinks that Trump will have a positive influence on any aspect of American governance needs to
have his head examined, and probably to have it replaced.
William S. Lind contrasts Trump and Clinton with respect to Pentagon reform:
Trump: "Because Trump is anti-establishment, military reform would at least be a possibility
.Trump is a businessman. Businessmen do not like wasting money. They want efficiency. They cut
bloated staffs, fire incompetent executives, and get rid of unnecessary contractors."
Clinton: On the other hand, "So long as the establishment is in power, it [reform ] is not
[possible]. In defense as in everything else, establishment leadership means more of the same.
In the case of Hillary Clinton that mean[s] more wasted money."
Lind also contrasts Trump and Clinton with respect to American interventionism:
Trump: "He has repeatedly questioned American interventionism. He roundly condemned the idiotic
and disastrous Iraq War, which suggests he would rather not repeat the experience. Of equal importance,
he has called for repairing our relationship with Russia."
Clinton: A Hillary Clinton presidency "means more wars, wars we will lose. Hillary is a wild-eyed
interventionist. She gave us the Libyan fiasco, and had Obama been fool enough to listen to her
again, we would now be at war on the ground in Syria."
However – on reading further in the Lind article – it becomes apparent that Lind's argument
is not so much with endless American military interventionism as it is with the targets of endless
American interventionism:
"The Pentagon pretends its future is war against other states The establishment refuses to
compel our military to focus on war against non-state opponents, or Fourth Generation war Might
a Trump administration see the need for an alliance of all states against non-state forces?"
In other words, Lind proposes to merely redirect the current endless American military interventions
away from existing nation states and towards non-state forces. Lind doesn't simply want to work
with other states on a case-by-case basis when it is in the US national interest to do so - rather
he wants a new "grand strategy" of an open-ended world-wide alliance with other states against
non-state forces. Lind doesn't want to put a stop to endless American military interventionism,
but instead to concentrate on a new kind of endless American interventionism.
An additional point of concern in the Lind article: In asking "Might a Trump administration
see the need for an alliance of all states against non-state forces?" Lind writes: "Here we have
a clue: Trump has chosen as a defense advisor-the rumor mill says shadow secretary of defense-retired
Army general Michael Flynn. It was an excellent choice."
Two reference articles show why Michael Flynn would not be an "excellent choice"at all: First,
in Flynn's own words on July 9th op-ed in The New York Post:
Wishful thinking, Mr. Lind even if Trump could with the election and try to make the changes you
envision. Truth be told, America is now govern by the "Deep State" of which the MIC is major part
of. Also, the MIC is not the least interested in ending any of these interventions wars as that
would negatively impact their "gravy train".
I agree that we may be projecting our wishful thinking on Trump, but what is the alternative?
Faced with a choice between a known bad apple and an apple that gives some vague hope, it is rational
to bet on the second. Especially given that it is hard to imagine an apple more rotten than HRC,
so our downside risk is limited too.
PS I was always willing to give pres. Obama a bit of a free pass because of his refusal to
implicate us any deeper in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine. I figured the atrocity of Yemen
and blunders elsewhere (Iraq, Afghanistan, relationship with SA and Turkey, the lack of resolve
to draw an even clearer line in the sand on Syria, Libya, and Ukraine) were the norm given the
neocon-infested foreign policy apparatus, and at least he was putting up SOME resistance. Sadly,
that resounding endorsement of HRC blew it all up, he has fallen in line and we are in for some
more GW-Cheney-style insanity should she prevail. Whatever respect I had for him is now gone.
I was hoping he'd try to setup things so that the resistance to the neocon insanity and jingoism
would grow further, not fall back, as the choice of HRC clearly indicates.
"Anyone who thinks that Trump will have a positive influence on any aspect of American governance
needs to have his head examined, and probably to have it replaced."
"Positive influence" is all well and good, but we're in slow motion collapse, and it's beside
the point.
Most Trump supporters hope for negative accomplishments, catharsis: firings and prosecutions
of elite miscreants, ending immigration and deporting illegals, getting out of the Middle East,
beating down the GOP establishment and, with it, great swathes of Leviathan.
I have no idea what the Clinton supporters hope for. More abortions? More government jobs?
More immigrants? More gay weddings and transwhatever toilets? More dead Americans and Middle Easterners?
More Wall Street bailouts? More foreign dictators and more taxpayer money to put them on the US
payroll? They probably aren't thinking "more money and power for the Clintons", "more recklessness
and irresponsibility", or "more scandal and embarrassment", even though that's about all they'll
get.
While it's true this is wishful thinking, one just needs to remember the alternative. It is as
certain as anything can be in this life that with Clinton we will rush full speed ahead into more
of the same disasters. Trump is bad, but worse than the status quo? That's hard to imagine. Flynn,
though, seems to be another neocon nut, though I'm open to any contrary evidence.
I wish it were otherwise, but I don't even think that Trump is a serious candidate. He's done
nothing to encourage his supporters, taken little to no advantage of Clinton's obvious shortcomings,
and everything to provide ammunition to Clinton's legions of delusional 'liberal' fascists. This
is not a Donald who wants to win.
"Trump is a businessman. Businessmen do not like wasting money. They want efficiency. They cut
bloated staffs, fire incompetent executives, and get rid of unnecessary contractors."
Nah.
Here's how Trump runs his businesses, he incurs enormous debts by grossly overpaying for whatever
new toy he wants. Then he incurs more debt to pay himself and his family large salaries or to
pay off his personal debts. He also wastes money on the gaudy, unnecessary and tasteless "improvements"
to his purchases(small e.g., gold plated fixtures in the Trump Shuttle bathrooms). Then, he doesn't
pay contractors for the work they performed. And, when it all goes belly-up he leaves his foolish
investors or the banks holding the bag (i.e., the enormous debt).
More simply, going by his business record Trump actually loves debt, incompetence, overspending
and obscene waste.
Trump dug his grave when he delved into xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism.His ranting about Mexicans
and Muslims and now his new Nixonian slogan of being a tough law and order president has given
enough ammunition to the Democrats to trounce him coming next election.
I think Lind is proof of the triumph of hope over reality here; either that or that there is a
sucker born every minute. I think some important facts about Flynn are missed here. Here is a
statement he made to Hugh Hewitt:
"Last, I'm going to just touch on Russia and Iran briefly. Both of these countries, I deal
with in my book, because these are allies of radical Islamism, and most people don't know how
they are interacting with each other. So I just wanted to touch on that."
Today, July 12th, his book with Michael Ledeen as co-author, Field of Fight, was released.
In Flynn's own words:
"Yet, the alliance exists, and we've already dithered for many years.
The war is on. We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia,
Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. We are under attack, not only from nation
states, but also from al Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS, and countless other terrorist groups. Suffice
to say, the same sort of cooperation binds together jihadis, Communists, and garden-variety
tyrants.
Flynn isn't an antidote to Hilary Clinton; they're equals in madness.
I wouldn't even now bet on Trump being the Republican nominee - the Republican establishment may
well prefer to be trounced rather than elect Trump. Look for them to give Trump the kind of "support"
a rope gives a hanged man, or to change the rules so they can select another nominee, or a combination
of both. Paul Ryan has been making noises about allowing delegates to vote their conscience on
the 1st ballot, allowing nervous Trump delegates to jump ship. All it would take is a meeting
of GOP Rules Committee, which happens just before the convention. And this is a senator who has
"endorsed" Trump, even if he has also called him a "racist."
from sglover:
"Maintaining a wobbly status quo. You'll see no grand visions of anything from HRC"
Sadly I think that IS what's expected. Similar to how Trump voters don't see him so much as
doing great things as much as "80% chance of failure is better than 100%", Hillary voters see
it as more "keeping the plane slightly tilted down being better than blowing the plane up with
dynamite."
Both sides aren't seeing their candidate as being great. They just see the other side as
an absolute disaster.
I'll be honest, given what the GOP was giving up as alternatives and assuming that Sanders
didn't have a chance in hades, Trump/Hillary was, to me, the best outcome out of the primaries.
I don't support Trump but I'd take him over Rubio or Bush.
Though note that at this point 8 years ago, I was saying "oh, Obama vs McCain. Either way,
I'm happy." Then the general election campaign kicked in and I stopped being happy over the latter
:/
Sort of worried I'll see the same here, and if the rumors about Trump's shift are true, then
I think that's exactly what I'll be seeing.
Dec 18, 2015 Donald Trump Is The Establishment Candidate
While his rise in the polls is attributed to his challenging the establishment and the political
status quo, let's look at the many ways Donald Trump, when it comes to his political positions,
represents that very same status quo. From the Fed, to war, to civil liberties, the "anti-establishment"?
Trump takes no positions not already endorsed by the establishment.
"... What is NATO? Originally, NATO was supposed to be a military alliance to oppose the Soviet armed forces and, later, the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Now that these two have disappeared, NATO has no real mission. What NATO still has is a huge bureaucracy. There is a lot of money to be made through NATO: salaries, contracts, investments, etc. Heck – these guys just built themselves gigantic and brand new headquarters , probably to "deter the Russian aggression", right? ..."
"... NATO is also a huge bureaucratic lift which can pull people up to the real centers of power, including financial power. Furthermore, NATO is also a gang of people who use NATO to advance their petty career or political agenda. ..."
"... What NATO is not is a militarily useful alliance. Oh yes, sure, the Americans can use NATO to force the Europeans to use US military hardware, that is true, but should a war break out, especially a *real* war against Russia, the Americans would push all these Eurosissies out of the way and do 90%+ of the fighting. ..."
"... And then there is the " New Europe ": the crazies in Poland or the Baltics who are making an immense effort in trying to put the Old Europeans (who made the huge mistake of accepting them into NATO) on a collision course with Russia. ..."
"... From a pragmatic point of view, NATO member states should have never EVER incorporated the "New Europeans" into their alliance. The same goes for the EU, of course. But in their illusions of grandeur and their petty revanchism they decided that *real* Europe needed to be joined at the hip with "New Europe" and now they are paying the price for this strategic mistake of colossal proportions. Of course, the Americans are bastards for encouraging the Eurodummies in their delusional dreams, but now that the deed is done, the Americans are doing the rational and pragmatic thing: they are letting the Eurodummies deal with their own mistakes. This is best shown by Trump's new policy about the Ukraine: he simply does not care. ..."
"... There used to be a time when the G7 really was huge, but now with China and India missing at the table and with Russia expelled, the G7 has become just a kaffeeklatsch for ugly rich people, an occasion to reminisce about the good old days when Europe still mattered. ..."
"... We are told that the G7 is composed of the seven major advanced economies on the planet (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), but the only real power in that list is the US. Next, it would be Germany, but Merkel's immigration policies have resulted in a EU-wide disaster and she is very much an embattled leader. She is also a prime culprit of the Ukrainian fiasco. ..."
"... in political terms the Japanese are voiceless US subcontractors ..."
"... in economic terms the G7 has pretty much been replaced by the G20 while in political terms the G7 is an empty shell. ..."
"... Trump's contempt for European leaders is definitely undiplomatic and shows a basic lack of education, but it still is a contempt the European leaders richly deserve. ..."
"... In politics, power is not absolute, but relative. Sure, the US military is basically dysfunctional and doesn't seem to be capable of frightening anybody on the US list of "enemies", but compared to Europe the US is a powerhouse. As for the Europeans, they are depending on the Americans for pretty much everything that matters. Trump understands all that and he seem to have more respect for Kim Jong-un than for Angela Merkel. I can't blame him as this is also how I feel. ..."
"... The traditional British foreign policy has always been to fosters wars in Europe to prevent any kind of continental unity. As for the US, its main objective has always been to keep "keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down". And now we see the Brits leaving the EU and the Americans pulling out well, maybe not out of Europe per se , but out of most of Europe's problems. So why are the Anglos pulling out? Is that not a clear sign that Europe is sinking? ..."
"... But for the time being, war is far less likely than it would have been the case with Hillary. What we see is Trump making "America great again" by stepping on its allies in Europe and by contemptuously disregarding the rest of humanity. That kind of arrogant megalomania is not a pretty sight for sure – but way better than WWIII. And "better than WWIII" is all we can hope for in the foreseeable future. ..."
"... The propaganda couched as the American Way of Life has become so all consuming that it took just one individual to march to center stage and reflect back our carefully hidden shortcomings and delusions for the fear and loathing to begin. We've been sleepwalking for a long time. https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/black-magic-or-jungian-shadow/ ..."
"... NATO gives the US a fig leaf by being a coalition of the willing for whatever merry ventures we choose to get into at any given time. ..."
"... I'm not so sure that the West has the will, purpose, or capacity for sacrifice to prosecute a Third World War. I think the Russians are primarily preparing to defend themselves from the disorganized, spastic lashing-out of a dying West. ..."
"... I can only hope Trump continues to treat the EU political elites as just so many gutless dogs & inept clowns: because they are ..."
"... Start with the most elementary act of common sense: stop ALL sanctions, whether economic or political against Russia. Then fully commit to Eurasian integration. Sure, the US will SPIT, but, the EU is sinking – fast. Anyway, I'll dream on .. ..."
"... You have entirely missed the point. We know good and well that the president alone does not get to make any important foreign policy decisions–or probably any decisions at all. We know just as well that he is expected to be a salesman promoting policies crafted by the banks, corporations and the deep state. We know. The point is that Trump is an incredibly bad spokesman! He is discrediting the empire by his very presence. ..."
"... American land forces never were serious contented compared to USSR and with 90′s mess reversed things are back to normal state of affairs which means Russian land forces asserting normal state of dominance along Russian borders. ..."
"... Avoiding World War III works for me. ..."
"... Yeah, I have a problem with that one too. I don't see such chivalry coming from US – assuming 90% of the fighting to save Europe. NATO was designed with one purpose only – to defend US and no one else. Anybody who believes otherwise – doesn't live in the real world. ..."
"... In the 68 years of NATO existence, the only country to ever invoke article 5 was – you guess it – US. Article 5 means asking for help from other NATO members to come to your defense when you are attacked. So US asked for help because they were "attacked" in Afghanistan. ..."
"... The money Changers's propaganda has always spread lies that have been the exact opposite of their actions. Trump probably had to buy in or he wouldn't be President and his Jewish son-in-law is there on keep an eye on him. He is changing our foreign policy to the extent that he isn't pursuing regime change in Syria even though we have boots on the ground. ..."
"... I believe that, despite the fact that we have been a fascist economic state since the Origins of the Truman Doctrine and the build up of the MIIC, Trump didn't become a billionaire because he's clueless. I'm in favor of his actions, so far. He has said screw the Globalist and screw the wasted-brains-EPA. ..."
"... Everything in the world is controlled by Money Grabbing Economy Controllers so Trump will have issues getting his MAGA agenda but his foreign policy, despite the Syria hiccup, is acceptable. After decades of our forces killing millions of civilians, if Syria lost a few at that airbase, well.. it could have been worse. ..."
"... Donald Trump: "Whenever you see the words 'sources say' in the fake news media, and they don't mention names it is very possible that those sources don't exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!" ..."
"... Your critique of Saker's evaluation of Trump is basically grounded deeply from within the matrix, whose prisoner you seem to be. Yes, Trump is widely painted to be "a laughing stock globally, despised, cringed at, as are the people who voted for him" but no, that is the view that the mass media has been dishing out. It is not true, simply not true, even though many have swallowed it along with a whole load of marbles. ..."
"... You are basically paraphrasing Clinton when you jeer "the people who voted for him". Yes, these "despicable folk" did vote Trump into power, and yes they might well do so again. You do not seem to understand the processes at work here: part democracy, part a revolt of the people sickened by the one-sided narrative propagated in the media. ..."
First, a confession: I really don't know how the corporate media has covered the Trump trip to
NATO and the G7 summit. Frankly, I don't really care – it's been a long while since I stopped listening
to these imperial shills. There is a risk in completely ignoring them, and that risk is the risk
to say "white" when everybody else says "black". This is a small risk – and, after all, who cares?
– but today I will take it again and give you my own take on Trump's trip to Europe: I think that
it was an immense success. But not necessarily for Trump as much as it was an immense success for
the enemies of the Empire, like myself. Here is my own rendition on what I think has taken place.
First, Trump was consistently rude. I cannot judge if this lack of manners is the real Trump or
whether Trump was tying to send an unspoken message. For whatever this is worth, I know of only one
person who had personal and private dealing with the Trump family, including The Donald Himself,
and according to him, Trump is an impeccably courteous person. Whatever may be the case, whether
this was nature or no so subtle "messaging", Trump truly outdid himself. He
unceremoniously pushed aside the Prime Minister of Montenegro , who richly deserves being treated
with utter contempt. Then he blocked out Angela
Merkel during the official photo taking . He made the G7 wait for over an hour, he refused to
walk to another photo op by foot.
He didn't even bother putting on his translation headset when others
were speaking and, crime of crimes, he told the NATO members states to pay more money while
not saying a single word about Article 5 . It is hard to gauge what the rest of the assembled
politicians really thought (prostitutes are good at hiding and repressing their own feelings), but
Merkel clearly was angry and frustrated.
Apparently, everybody hated Trump, with the sole possible
exception of Marcon (but he is a high-end prostitute). As much as Obama was a charmer, Trump seems
to relish the role of ruffian. But most importantly, Trump treated the EU/NATO gang with the contempt
they deserve and that, frankly, I find most refreshing. Why?
The ugly truth about NATO: Eurosissies and Eurodummies
What is NATO? Originally, NATO was supposed to be a military alliance to oppose the Soviet armed
forces and, later, the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Now that these two have disappeared, NATO has
no real mission. What NATO still has is a huge bureaucracy. There is a lot of money to be made through
NATO: salaries, contracts, investments, etc. Heck –
these guys just built themselves gigantic and brand new headquarters , probably to "deter the
Russian aggression", right?
NATO is also a huge bureaucratic lift which can pull people up to the
real centers of power, including financial power. Furthermore, NATO is also a gang of people who
use NATO to advance their petty career or political agenda. At best, NATO is a gigantic fig leaf
covering the obscenity of western imperialism.
What NATO is not is a militarily useful alliance. Oh yes, sure, the Americans can use NATO to
force the Europeans to use US military hardware, that is true, but should a war break out, especially
a *real* war against Russia, the Americans would push all these Eurosissies out of the way and do
90%+ of the fighting. Most NATO armies are a joke anyway, but even those who are marginally better
fully depend on the US for all the force multipliers (intelligence, logistics, transportation, communications,
navigation, etc.).
And then there is the "
New
Europe ": the crazies in Poland or the Baltics who are making an immense effort in trying to
put the Old Europeans (who made the huge mistake of accepting them into NATO) on a collision course
with Russia.
From a pragmatic point of view, NATO member states should have never EVER incorporated the
"New Europeans" into their alliance. The same goes for the EU, of course. But in their illusions
of grandeur and their petty revanchism they decided that *real* Europe needed to be joined at the
hip with "New Europe" and now they are paying the price for this strategic mistake of colossal proportions.
Of course, the Americans are bastards for encouraging the Eurodummies in their delusional dreams,
but now that the deed is done, the Americans are doing the rational and pragmatic thing: they are
letting the Eurodummies deal with their own mistakes. This is best shown by Trump's new policy about
the Ukraine: he simply does not care.
Oh sure, he will say something about the Minsk Agreement, maybe mention Crimea, he might even
say something about a Russian threat. But then he turns away and walks. And the Eurodummies are now
discovering something which they should have suspected all along: the Ukraine is *their* problem
now, the Americans don't care because they have nothing to lose and nothing to win either, and so
besides empty words they will offer nothing. Much worse is the fact that it appears that it will
be the Europeans who will end up paying most of the costs of rebuilding the Ukraine when the current
Nazi regime is finally removed (but that is a topic for a future article).
There is karmic justice at work here: all the Eurodummies will now have to deal with the fallout
from the total collapse of the Ukraine, but the first ones to pay will be the Poles who tried so
hard to draw NATO and the real Europe into their revanchist agenda. Besides, is it not simply justice
for the Poles who for years have been ranting about a Russian threat and who for years have been
supporting nationalist and even neo-Nazi movements in the Ukraine to now be faced with a deluge of
problems (social, political, economic, etc.) coming from "their" Ukrainians while the Russians will
be looking at this mess from the east, protected by the two Novorussian republics and formidable
National and Border guards. As most Russians will, I wish the Europeans " bien du plaisir
" with the upcoming waves of Ukrainian refugees and the "European values" they will bring with them.
... ... ...
The sad truth is that NATO and the EU are do not deserve to be treated with any respect at all.
Trump's condescension is fully deserved. Worse, the Americans don't even have to pretend to take
the Europeans seriously because, for the past decade, the latter have sheepishly obeyed the most
ridiculous and even self-defeating orders from the Americans.
Truly, Victoria Nuland's famous words about the EU were expressing something of an American consensus
about the Old Continent.
The G7: "bubbles from a sunken world"
" Bubbles from a sunken world " is not an expression I coined. It was the Russian author
Ivan Solonevich who wrote that about the kind of exiled Russian aristocrats who still thought that
they would one day recover all their properties seized by the Soviets in Russia. Still, this expression
also applies to the G7 leaders who meet with a great deal of gravitas and pretend like they really
matter. In truth, they don't. There used to be a time when the G7 really was huge, but now with China
and India missing at the table and with Russia expelled, the G7 has become just a kaffeeklatsch for
ugly rich people, an occasion to reminisce about the good old days when Europe still mattered.
In reality, of course, and just like with the EU or NATO, the G7 is an anachronistic leftover
of a long gone past. G7 countries are simply not the place where the real action is nowadays. But
even worse than that is the fact that the leaders of the G7 suffer from the same form of senile dementia
as the EU or NATO leaders which is unsurprising since they are more or less the same people: they
have nothing original or new to say, nothing important for sure. They have no vision at all, very
little legitimacy and even less credibility.
Yes, sure, in France Macron did win, but only because
the French establishment engaged in a massive propaganda campaign aimed at beating Marine LePen.
But if you consider that only about 20% of the French voted for Macron in the first round and that
he achieved that rather pitiful score even though he had the full support of the French establishment
then you realize how unpopular that establishment really is with the French. While the Rothschild
propaganda machine tried to present Macron like some kind of de Gaulle, most French people did see
him for what he was: a hollow puppet in the hands of the transnational plutocracy. And yet, of all
the leaders of the G7, Macron is undeniably the most dynamic one, not only due to his young age,
but simply because he does not come across as some kind of fossil from a distant past.
Trump and the Eurodwarves
We are told that the G7 is composed of the seven major advanced economies on the planet (Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), but the only real power
in that list is the US. Next, it would be Germany, but Merkel's immigration policies have resulted
in a EU-wide disaster and she is very much an embattled leader. She is also a prime culprit of the
Ukrainian fiasco.Next in line would be the UK, but the UK has just left the EU and May is presiding
over a process which she herself opposes, as do the British elites. Which leaves us with Japan, Italy
and Canada. Japan's past economic power is being overshadowed by China's immense economy while in
political terms the Japanese are voiceless US subcontractors. Italy should not even be part of the
G7, at least not in political and economic terms, because Italy is much closer to her Mediterranean
neighbors such as Spain and Greece and therefore looked down with contempt by the "northerners",
especially Germany. Which leaves Canada, arguably the most irrelevant and subservient country of
them all (when is the last time Canada had anything of relevance to say about anything? Exactly).
The bottom line is this: in economic terms the G7 has pretty much been replaced by the G20 while
in political terms the G7 is an empty shell. Trump fully realizes that and that is why he does not
even try to be polite with them.
Obama was a born used car salesman: he could be charming and polite with anybody and everybody.
Trump has never had any need to act in such a way and, in the case of the Europeans, he does not
even feel like trying.
Trump's contempt for European leaders is definitely undiplomatic and shows a basic lack of education,
but it still is a contempt the European leaders richly deserve. Furthermore, while it is true that
the AngloZionist Empire is sinking, the European part is sinking much faster than the American one.
Which is unsurprising since the US is truly a very unique country.
The American Sonderfall
While I was writing this article, I have been listening to the press conference of Donald Trump
in the Rose Garden explaining to the world that the US would now withdraw from the
Paris Agreement . I don't
want to discuss the merits of this agreements or the reasons behind Trump's decision, but I will
stress that this places the US in direct opposition to 195 other countries who signed this treaty
expecting the US to abide by its terms. 195 countries really means just about the entire planet.
And yet Trump feels confident that he can afford taking a separate path and the rest of the world
will have to shut up.
Trump is right. The US is a "special case".
There is absolutely nothing the rest of the planet can do to prevent the United States from withdrawing
from this or any other agreement. The best proof of that fact can be found in the more or less official
US position that it does not need a UN Security Council to impose sanctions on another nation, threaten
it with military aggression or even go to war against it. Right now, the US have attacked Syria several
times already and there are US forces deployed inside Syria and nobody seems to care, which is kind
of ironic considering how many lawyers there are in the US and, even more so, in Congress. Yet everybody
sheepishly accepts that the US is, for some reason, above the law, that laws are for "others", not
for the "indispensable nation" with a "duty" and a "special responsibility" to "lead the world" (sorry,
I indulge, but I just love this kind of imperialistic language!).
In politics, power is not absolute, but relative. Sure, the US military is basically dysfunctional
and doesn't seem to be capable of frightening anybody on the US list of "enemies", but compared to
Europe the US is a powerhouse. As for the Europeans, they are depending on the Americans for pretty
much everything that matters. Trump understands all that and he seem to have more respect for Kim
Jong-un than for Angela Merkel. I can't blame him as this is also how I feel.
The many sweet ironies of it all
The traditional British foreign policy has always been to fosters wars in Europe to prevent
any kind of continental unity. As for the US, its main objective has always been to keep "keep the
Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down". And now we see the Brits leaving the EU and
the Americans pulling out well, maybe not out of Europe per se , but out of most of Europe's
problems. So why are the Anglos pulling out? Is that not a clear sign that Europe is sinking?
One of the favorite slogans of the Ukronazis is "Україна – це Європа" (The Ukraine is Europe).
Alas, as I wrote in a past article
, it is Europe which "became" (like) the Ukraine: poor, corrupt, lead by hypocritical ideologues
totally detached from reality and, most importantly, totally fixated on imaginary threats. The only
difference between the EU leaders and their Ukronazi counterparts is that while the latter have declared
that they are already fighting a Russian invasion, the former are only preparing to counter it. That's
it. Other than that, I see no difference, at least none that matters. Oh, I almost forgot the Americans:
they don't fight the Russians (yet?), but they are "defending" their country from the onslaught of
Russian hackers and pro-Russian moles in the entourage of Donald Trump. Brilliant.
In this world got mad, only the Russians are patiently trying to convince their western partners
to return to some semblance of sanity. But, frankly, I don't think that they are very hopeful. They
see how the so-called "West" is falling apart, how the ruling elites of the West appear to be hell-bent
on self-destruction and they wonder: why are our "western partners" so determined to bring about
their own demise and why are they blaming us for what they are doing to themselves? They also often
laugh at the quasi magic powers the paranoid crazies in the West seem to ascribe to Russia. One senior
US official, James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence,
even thinks that Russians are " almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor,
whatever, which is a typical Russian technique " to subvert democracy (I can't decide if he sounds
more like a Nazi racist or a clown probably a mix of both). As I said, the Russians are mostly laughing
at it all, but just to make darn sure things don't turn ugly, they are also
re-creating their famous "Shock Armies " (including at least one Tank Army) and
doubling the size of the Russian Airborne Forces bringing them to 72,000 soldiers and
generally
preparing for World War 3 .
But for the time being, war is far less likely than it would have been the case with Hillary.
What we see is Trump making "America great again" by stepping on its allies in Europe and by contemptuously
disregarding the rest of humanity. That kind of arrogant megalomania is not a pretty sight for sure
– but way better than WWIII. And "better than WWIII" is all we can hope for in the foreseeable future.
"Bubbles from a sunken world" is not an expression I coined.
It's a good reapplication of it, though.
The peoples of Europe no longer have the advantage they had from the industrial revolution
they created. They are resource poor, having no great areas of territory, and that depleted by
centuries of use. There is one remaining asset they could use to maintain some of their position
of punching so dramatically above their weight, which has been their status in human affairs for
the past few centuries at least, and that would be the cultural and genetic advantages they used
to create that dominance in the first place.
The ultimate dark joke is the fact that the said peoples of Europe are in the process of actively
destroying any remnants of that final asset, through cultural degradation and mass immigration.
In this light, we should consider to what degree the political and propaganda support for said
processes of cultural degradation and mass immigration emanate from the rivals and enemies of
the European peoples, with the intention of preventing forever any recovery from the disastrous,
suicidal wars of the early C20th. The most obvious source of such malign influence would be the
US, an offshoot of the European peoples which gained the most from the wars in question and has
the most to lose from any recovery of the Old World European peoples to any position of sovereignty.
(In this context, of course, any process that hastens the alienation of the European political
classes from their comfortable and profitable subordination to the US elites, such as the events
Saker describes above, can only be regarded as a useful contribution to the process of recovery
of sovereignty.)
The propaganda couched as the American Way of Life has become so all consuming that it
took just one individual to march to center stage and reflect back our carefully hidden shortcomings
and delusions for the fear and loathing to begin. We've been sleepwalking for a long time.
https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/black-magic-or-jungian-shadow/
One senior US official, James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, even thinks
that Russians are "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which
is a typical Russian technique" to subvert democracy
Sounds like a pretty good description of the Jew mafia.
"It is hard to gauge what the rest of the assembled politicians really thought (prostitutes"
Correct punctuation at that point in the sentence: ). They were thinking of their own prostitutes
and who would pay for them if the US pulls out of NATO. NATO gives the US a fig leaf by being
a coalition of the willing for whatever merry ventures we choose to get into at any given time.
Don't give Trump too much credit. After hearing his campaign rhetoric, I thought one of this
first moves would be to end the ERI, a recently created $3 billion annual American military slush
fund to add bases and equipment stores in Europe. Check out this Dept of Defense press release
this week
"The Defense Department's fiscal year 2018 budget request includes nearly $4.8 billion for
the European Reassurance Initiative to enhance deterrence and defense and improve the readiness
of forces in Europe, the U.S. European Command director of strategy, plans and policy said today.
Air Force Maj. Gen. David W. Allvin held a telephone briefing with reporters, speaking from Eucom
headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
ERI funding for next fiscal year is up $1.4 billion over fiscal 2017, he said, noting that
the funding increase will support the deterrence of future Russian aggression and malign influence
through increased joint air, sea and land force responsiveness and expanded interoperability with
combined multinational forces. 'This is one of our nation's commitments to Europe, and it demonstrates
our strong dedication to the trans-Atlantic bond and the defense of our allies,' Allvin said."
Eurosissies? Eurodummies? the 'journalism' here is becoming increasingly puerile, perhaps aiming
for a dumbed down audience as traffic has grown?
"Trump is an impeccably courteous person"?
The man has a global reputation of a human pig, a racist, a misogynist, a bigot The more I
see such outlandish and frankly bewildering statements on here, the more I begin to believe my
own value of the site has been too quickly given and now appears misguided.
I repeat, Trump has long ago persuaded the world that he is scum. Bush was bad enough, basically
a special needs coke fiend. Yet he is one reason why the rest of the world understands how a man
as sickeningly appalling as Trump could get into so called 'power'. This was not the media cleverly
depicting him in a bad light, he has always behaved in the same way, always cultivated the same
public image, many moons before running for president. It is not brainwashing or conditioning
to find a nasty moron as putrid, it is natural to be sickened by sick souls. It is possible that
the site has been co-opted, or was a tool designed to monitor and direct and feed a non mainstream
audience who revel in their own arrogant assertion of exceptionalism?
I am unsure as of yet as to why the author has gradually parted Trump and the US government
from the anglozionist machine. When clearly, by every measure, that power structure owns the US
government, decides its every major decision and as for Trump making any decisions that matter indeed,
alleged 'experts' are focusing on how he shakes hands with other 'leaders' rather focusing on
the ins and outs of what the anglozionists have organised behind the scenes of $300bn moving from
KSA to the banksters.
Trump is no leader. The more he is assumed as much the less credibility a writer enjoys. The
man is a laughing stock globally, despised, cringed at, as our the people who voted for him. Nothing
has changed with US policy, because it is not decided by the US government. Hilary, Obama, Trump,
whoever they are Punch and Judy to draw attention, to nourish the fable of democracy, to provide
a human shape to inhuman power
het vergt ook en vooral de politieke wil om een afschrikkingsmacht op te bouwen die zich kan
meten met Ruslands militaire potentieel en van Teheran tot Peking ontzag inboezemt
This is what Brill this morning writes in the more or less leading Dutch newpaper Volkskrant.
The translation: also the political will, especially, is needed to build a deterrent might
that is equal to the Russian military potential and is seen with awe from Teheran to Peking. One
wonders in what psychiatric institution Brill's treatment failed. Stalin died in 1953. Chrustsjow
removed the Russian rockets and atomic heads from Cuba. Putin sells gas.
@Carlton Meyer We, the Dutch, in a referendum rejected the EU association treaty with Ukraine.
Of course in the democratic Netherlands and the even more democratic EU it had no effect.
But it did have a curious effect. When our prime minister Rutte, nickname Pinokkio for
his lies, defended rejecting the referendum he referred to Russian vacuum bombs on Aleppo.
So he confirmed what we knew, the Ukraine association is part of the war of the west against Russia.
Rutte did not condemn the USA MOAB vacuum bomb east of Abottabad, Pakistan. NATO should
have been dissolved in 1990, perhaps already when the Cuba crisis was solved peacefully.
I'm not so sure that the West has the will, purpose, or capacity for sacrifice to
prosecute a Third World War. I think the Russians are primarily preparing to defend themselves
from the disorganized, spastic lashing-out of a dying West. They need a credible nuclear force to deter
the West from launching an end-of-life nuclear strike, and sufficient ground forces to protect
their borders from refugees and bandit military units while the West finishes its death throes
and then ( I hope) re-birth.
Great article. I can only hope Trump continues to treat the EU political elites as just so many gutless dogs
& inept clowns: because they are . Perhaps such treatment will wake the EU up (sure: LOL
!) The Saker is right about Europe's increasing insignificance but, the answers are there
.
Start with the most elementary act of common sense: stop ALL sanctions, whether economic or
political against Russia. Then fully commit to Eurasian integration.
Sure, the US will SPIT, but, the EU is sinking – fast. Anyway, I'll dream on ..
Trump is no leader. The more he is assumed as much the less credibility a writer enjoys.
The man is a laughing stock globally, despised, cringed at, as our the people who voted for
him.
You have entirely missed the point. We know good and well that the president alone does not
get to make any important foreign policy decisions–or probably any decisions at all. We know just
as well that he is expected to be a salesman promoting policies crafted by the banks, corporations
and the deep state. We know. The point is that Trump is an incredibly bad spokesman! He
is discrediting the empire by his very presence.
We don't want to be admired or respected for destroying one country after the next. We don't
want to be the leaders of the 'free' world. We don't want to be part of any entangling alliances,
or any 'new world order'. We just want our country back . And since they won't let us simply
vote to end the empire, we have no further recourse but to try and sabotage and discredit it from
within. And it's working! It's working because of Trump.
So I say: let him be as vulgar and uncouth as wants. Let him smack around the other NATO countries
until they finally wake up. Let him further erode our increasingly untenable position in the middle
east. Let him!
It's all part of God's plan for man, my friend. If we have to endure a little international
isolation in order to achieve our aims, well that's just fine with us. We are, after all, isolationists
. We don't want empire or foreign wars. We just want our country back.
We are approaching, if not already in, the interregnum between empires. Europe has never recovered
its pride since WWII the US made sure of that ..the question is whether Europe will find the
leadership during this time when the US pulls out .much like the time when Rome left Britain.
" but should a war break out, especially a *real* war against Russia, the Americans would push
all these Eurosissies out of the way and do 90%+ of the fighting."
Knowing what we know of US military it would mean mostly bleeding and running towards the Channel
losing hardware and status of so called "hyper" whatever in the process. Take away nuclear weapons
and USA is clearly not a threat to Russia.
American land forces never were serious contented compared to USSR and with 90′s mess reversed
things are back to normal state of affairs which means Russian land forces asserting normal state
of dominance along Russian borders.
EUrabia! Evolutionary process in reverse. Except for Austria and Switzerland, the rest of them
are terminally disgusting, particularly the Scandinavian harlots and the Baltic Chihuahuas. Vicky
Newland was right: F *** k the EU!
@Johan Nagel He is the President of the USA! Not of the world. So stop your ramble, and sit
down. Trump kick A*s. Who cares what the 'world' thinks, we don't care who their leaders are,
or who they voted for, we have Trump, and that is that!
Actually MOAB is just a fat airblast bomb (not thermobaric aka fuel-air, aka
"vacuum bomb", why even have a MOAB? I guess "because you can"), apparently fitted with a hard
cone so that it burrows a bit.
" but should a war break out, especially a *real* war against Russia, the Americans would
push all these Eurosissies out of the way and do 90%+ of the fighting."
Yeah, I have a problem with that one too. I don't see such chivalry coming from US – assuming
90% of the fighting to save Europe. NATO was designed with one purpose only – to defend US and
no one else. Anybody who believes otherwise – doesn't live in the real world.
In the 68 years of NATO existence, the only country to ever invoke article 5 was – you guess
it – US. Article 5 means asking for help from other NATO members to come to your defense when
you are attacked. So US asked for help because they were "attacked" in Afghanistan.
That's like me going armed into a bank and trying to rob it, and then complaining that I was
"attacked" by the security guard. NATO was simply an early version of the theorem: We fight them
over there, so we don't have to fight them here. "Them" in this case being the Russians, instead
of the terrorists. Like the Russians were ever planning to cross the Atlantic to fight the Americans
"here". Then again, when was the last time paranoia was rational anyway?
Jun 3, 2017 Putin defends Trump – 'Don't worry, be happy'
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement caused anger and anxiety
across the world. But is there more than meet the eye? How many critics have actually read the
agreement themselves – as President Putin rightfully points out? The agreement is a framework
agreement with no particular obligations. There are no guidelines as to how resources should be
spent, and the resources which the US ratified are quite substantial.
The money Changers's propaganda has always spread lies that have been the exact opposite of
their actions. Trump probably had to buy in or he wouldn't be President and his Jewish son-in-law
is there on keep an eye on him. He is changing our foreign policy to the extent that he isn't
pursuing regime change in Syria even though we have boots on the ground.
Trump's actions are intentionally rude towards some and, contrary to belief in some circles,
he's not mad, just flabergasting.
I believe that, despite the fact that we have been a fascist economic state since the Origins
of the Truman Doctrine and the build up of the MIIC, Trump didn't become a billionaire because
he's clueless. I'm in favor of his actions, so far. He has said screw the Globalist and screw
the wasted-brains-EPA.
Everything in the world is controlled by Money Grabbing Economy Controllers so Trump will have
issues getting his MAGA agenda but his foreign policy, despite the Syria hiccup, is acceptable.
After decades of our forces killing millions of civilians, if Syria lost a few at that airbase, well.. it
could have been worse.
I don't agree with everything but the author gets a "respected" from me.
@Johan Nagel "The man has a global reputation of a human pig, a racist, a misogynist, a bigot
"
For which there is no proof, only the elitist leftist MSM's unhinged wishful thinking. Harvard
Study: Two Thirds Of Americans Believe Mainstream Media Is 'Fake News'
Donald Trump: "Whenever you see the words 'sources say' in the fake news media, and they
don't mention names it is very possible that those sources don't exist but are made up by fake
news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!"
Your critique of Saker's evaluation of Trump is basically grounded deeply from within the matrix,
whose prisoner you seem to be. Yes, Trump is widely painted to be "a laughing stock globally,
despised, cringed at, as are the people who voted for him" but no, that is the view that the mass
media has been dishing out. It is not true, simply not true, even though many have swallowed it
along with a whole load of marbles.
You are basically paraphrasing Clinton when you jeer "the people who voted for him".
Yes, these "despicable folk" did vote Trump into power, and yes they might well do so again. You
do not seem to understand the processes at work here: part democracy, part a revolt of the people
sickened by the one-sided narrative propagated in the media.
"... No mention of the 63 millions who voted for him. Trumps enemies will make sure there is no peace until Trump is driven from office. Blowback will insure there is no peace after the coup. ..."
"... Hilllary is of course also widely detested. In many ways, the last election was a contest about who the American people hate more, and Hillary got the award for Most Hated. Both candidates got a large percent of their votes from people who were voting against their opponent. Outside of CA, NY, and MA, more people hated Hillary, ..."
"... So, it turns out that Hillary is detested by the 'wrong' people. Hillary won the vote for most hated. But she's never investigated, the Clinton's are never charged. Bill openly violated election campaigning laws in MA, but no investigation, no charges. The Clintons have become filthy rich during a life of public service, but no investigations, no charges. And if you even want to hear about it, you have to turn off the corporate press and find independent reporters. ..."
"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
The witches in Macbeth.
President Trump's administration is now at a high boil as he faces intense heat from all sides.
The Republican Party has backed away from their embattled president. US intelligence agencies are
baying for his blood. The US media plays the role of the witches in 'Macbeth' as it plots against
Trump.
One increasingly hears whispers about impeachment or the wonderful 1964 film about a military
coup in Washington, 'Seven Days in May.'
As in Shakespeare's King Lear, Trump stands almost alone on a blasted heath, howling that he has
been betrayed. The world watches on in dismay and shock.
One thing is clear: the US presidency has become too powerful when far-fetched talk of possibly
Russian involvement in Trump's campaign could send world financial markets into a crash dive. And
when Trump's ill informed, off the cuff remarks can endanger the fragile global balance of power.
Trump has made this huge mess and must now live with it. Yes, he is being treated unfairly by
appointment of a special prosecutor when the titanic sleaze of the Clintons was never investigated.
But that's what happens when you are widely detested. No mercy for Trump, a man without any mercy
for others.
Trump is not a Manchurian candidate put into office by Moscow though his bungling aides and iffy
financial deals often made it appear so. His choice of the fanatical Islamophobe Gen. Michael Flynn
was an awful blunder. Flynn was revealed to have taken money from Turkey to alter US Mideast policy.
Who else paid off Flynn? Disgraceful.
But what about all the politicians and officials who took and take money from the Saudis and Gulf
emirates, or Sheldon Adelson, the ardent advocate of Greater Israel? What about political payoffs
to the flat-earth Republicans who now act as Israel's amen chorus in Washington?
The growing scandals that are engulfing Trump's presidency seem likely to delay if not defeat
the president's laudatory proposals to lower taxes, prune the bureaucracy, clean up intelligence,
end America's foreign wars, and impose some sort of peace in the Mideast.
By recklessly proposing these reforms at the same time, Trump earned the hatred of the media,
federal government, all intelligence agencies, and the Israel lobby, not to mention ecologists, free-thinkers,
cultured people, academia and just about everyone else who does not raise cotton or abuse animals
for a living.
No wonder Trump stands almost alone, like Rome's Horatio at the Bridge. One increasingly hears
in Washington 'what Trump needs is a little war.'
That would quickly wrong-foot his critics and force the neocon media – Washington Post, Wall Street
Journal, New York Times, and CNN – to back him. We already saw this happen when Trump fired salvos
of cruise missiles at Syria. It would also provide welcome distraction from the investigations of
Trump that are beginning.
Trump has appeared to be pawing the ground in a desire to attack naughty North Korea or Syria,
and maybe even Yemen, Somalia or Sudan. A war against any of these small nations would allow the
president to don military gear and beat his chest – as did the dunce George W. Bush. Bomb the usual
Arabs!
' As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents. more and more closely, the
inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach
their hart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Shee-it! I thought Dubya accomplished this . Apparently the M'urkan public is being defiant
and really wants to flaunt it's ignorance. Well, howdee! we got us a real contest goin' on now.
Trump is obviously the proverbial monkey with a machine-gun. My inner survival instincts are starting
to kick in. Does anyone see this this presidency as leveling out and trying to conduct business
like you know as it has been in the last 200 years?
This is too insane. I honestly think that some kind of the fix is in. How? Don't know.
By recklessly proposing these reforms at the same time, Trump earned the hatred of the media,
federal government, all intelligence agencies, and the Israel lobby, not to mention ecologists,
free-thinkers, cultured people, academia and just about everyone else who does not raise cotton
or abuse animals for a living.
No mention of the 63 millions who voted for him. Trumps enemies will make sure there is
no peace until Trump is driven from office. Blowback will insure there is no peace after the coup.
Eric wrote: His choice of the fanatical Islamophobe Gen. Michael Flynn was an awful blunder.
Flynn was revealed to have taken money from Turkey to alter US Mideast policy.
Hunsdon said: The notorious Islamophobe, in pay of the Next Sultan? Too delicious.
Hilllary is of course also widely detested. In many ways, the last election was a contest
about who the American people hate more, and Hillary got the award for Most Hated. Both candidates
got a large percent of their votes from people who were voting against their opponent. Outside
of CA, NY, and MA, more people hated Hillary, and the Electoral College was put into place
precisely to keep a big state or a couple of big states from dominating the election of a President.
Even in the 1780′s, many Americans didn't want NY to have the power to pick a President on their
own.
So, it turns out that Hillary is detested by the 'wrong' people. Hillary won the vote for
most hated. But she's never investigated, the Clinton's are never charged. Bill openly violated
election campaigning laws in MA, but no investigation, no charges. The Clintons have become filthy
rich during a life of public service, but no investigations, no charges. And if you even want
to hear about it, you have to turn off the corporate press and find independent reporters.
Thus, its not that Trust is simply the most detested. He's not. At worst, the last election
said he's the second most detested person in the country. But, the "right" people all detest him.
So, a small minority of government insiders and the members of the media want to run him out of
town.
There's things he's done since he's been elected that I don't like. I don't like the way that
saying he was against regime change and more wars in the middle east has turned out to be a massive
lie. But still, this is rapidly getting to the point where the American people are going to need
to speak up and tell their representatives and senators, especially the Republicans, that Trump
was elected President and they don't want to see a coup remove him.
If not, then CA and NY and the Deep State and the Media millionaires will run this country
and everyone will know that elections don't matter.
But still, this is rapidly getting to the point where the American people are going to need
to speak up and tell their representatives and senators, especially the Republicans, that Trump
was elected President and they don't want to see a coup remove him.
This is exactly right, and as others have said, the place to do this is a state level by reestablishing
a close contact between the public and their representatives and senators on a detailed issue
by issue basis.
If their representative is part of the chorus supporting a "Russian Hacking " investigation,
or is an advocate of further wars then they have to understand that they are in real political
trouble.
"Political Trouble" is a large scale, local, well organized and continuous public attack on
their electability.
If the public are to lazy to do this then they'll deserve what they get.
By recklessly proposing these reforms at the same time, Trump earned the hatred of the media,
federal government, all intelligence agencies, and the Israel lobby, not to mention ecologists,
free-thinkers, cultured people, academia and just about everyone else who does not raise cotton
or abuse animals for a living.
No mention of the 63 millions who voted for him. Trumps enemies will make sure there is no peace
until Trump is driven from office. Blowback will insure there is no peace after the coup.
Few ruling classes had an opportunity to build an idyllical structure of society and governance
over the last four centuries as the two ruling US classes had.
Instead, they created numerous cliquish cliques and with political powers of each clique diminishing
from the two top classes down to the last class: prisoners, indigenes, white and black trash.
But still, this is rapidly getting to the point where the American people are going to need
to speak up and tell their representatives and senators, especially the Republicans, that Trump
was elected President and they don't want to see a coup remove him.
This is exactly right, and as others have said, the place to do this is a state level by reestablishing
a close contact between the public and their representatives and senators on a detailed issue
by issue basis.
If their representative is part of the chorus supporting a "Russian Hacking " investigation,
or is an advocate of further wars then they have to understand that they are in real political
trouble.
"Political Trouble" is a large scale, local, well organized and continuous public attack on
their electability.
If the public are to lazy to do this then they'll deserve what they get.
"... It began when big money was employed by political operatives such as Roger Stone, a close Trump adviser, to create negative political advertisements and false narratives to deceive the public, turning political debate into burlesque. On all these fronts we have lost. We are trapped like rats in a cage. A narcissist and imbecile may be turning the electric shocks on and off, but the problem is the corporate state, and unless we dismantle that, we are doomed. ..."
"... "What's necessary for the state is the illusion of normality, of regularity," America's best-known political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, told me last week by phone from the prison where he is incarcerated in Frackville, Pa. " In Rome, what the emperors needed was bread and circuses. In America, what we need is 'Housewives of Atlanta.' We need sports. The moral stories of good cops and evil people. Because you have that . there is no critical thinking in America during this period... ..."
"... Trump, an acute embarrassment to the corporate state and the organs of internal security, may be removed from the presidency, but such a palace coup would only further consolidate the power of the deep state and intensify internal measures of repression. ..."
Forget the firing of James Comey. Forget the paralysis in Congress. Forget
the idiocy of a press that covers our descent into tyranny as if it were a sports contest between
corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats or a reality show starring our maniacal president and
the idiots that surround him. Forget the noise.
The crisis we face is not embodied in the public
images of the politicians that run our dysfunctional government. The crisis we face is the result
of a four-decade-long, slow-motion corporate coup that has rendered the citizen impotent, left us
without any authentic democratic institutions and allowed corporate and military power to become
omnipotent. This crisis has spawned a corrupt electoral system of legalized bribery and empowered
those public figures that master the arts of entertainment and artifice. And if we do not overthrow
the neoliberal ,
corporate forces that have destroyed our democracy we will continue to vomit up more monstrosities
as dangerous as Donald Trump.
Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Our descent into despotism began with the
pardoning of Richard Nixon , all of whose impeachable crimes are now legal, and the extrajudicial
assault, including targeted assassinations and imprisonment, carried out on dissidents and radicals,
especially black radicals.
It began with the creation of corporate-funded foundations and organizations
that took control of the press, the courts, the universities, scientific research and the two major
political parties. It began with empowering militarized police to kill unarmed citizens and the spread
of our horrendous system of mass incarceration and the death penalty. It began with the stripping
away of our most basic constitutional rights-privacy, due process, habeas corpus, fair elections
and dissent.
It began when big money was employed by political operatives such as Roger Stone, a
close Trump adviser, to create negative political advertisements and false narratives to deceive
the public, turning political debate into burlesque. On all these fronts we have lost. We are trapped
like rats in a cage. A narcissist and imbecile may be turning the electric shocks on and off, but
the problem is the corporate state, and unless we dismantle that, we are doomed.
"What's necessary for the state is the illusion of normality, of regularity," America's best-known
political prisoner,
Mumia Abu-Jamal, told me last week by phone from the prison where he is incarcerated in Frackville,
Pa. " In Rome, what the emperors needed was bread and circuses. In America, what we need is 'Housewives
of Atlanta.' We need sports. The moral stories of good cops and evil people. Because you have that
. there is no critical thinking in America during this period...
... ... ...
Trump, an acute embarrassment to the corporate state and the organs of internal security, may
be removed from the presidency, but such a palace coup would only further consolidate the power of
the deep state and intensify
internal measures of repression.
"... the recent news as for Rich Seth murder might take Trump probe in a somewhat different direction and put additional pressure of neoliberal, Pelosi-Clinton part of the party leadership. If half of what was recently reported is true, Clapper-Brennan "Intelligence assessment" looks more and more like Warren Commission report. ..."
"... ... Then, Newt Gingrich, on Fox News, says: " (Rich) was assassinated at 4 in the morning after having giving Wikileaks something like 53,000 emails and 17,000 attachments. Nobody's investigating that. And what does that tell you about what is going on?" ..."
Pence is worse than Trump. And he is more likely to get two terms.
In the meantime, nothing gets fixed.
Anyone who wants single-payer, better jobs, etc. should focus on the 2018 elections and work for
people who can oust people like Nancy Pelosi in the primaries and Republicans in the general.
"Pence is worse than Trump. And he is more likely to get two terms.In the meantime, nothing gets
fixed."
True. Also the recent news as for Rich Seth murder might take Trump probe in a somewhat different
direction and put additional pressure of neoliberal, Pelosi-Clinton part of the party leadership. If half of what was recently reported is true, Clapper-Brennan "Intelligence assessment" looks
more and more like Warren Commission report.
... Then, Newt Gingrich, on Fox News, says: " (Rich) was assassinated at 4 in the morning after
having giving Wikileaks something like 53,000 emails and 17,000 attachments. Nobody's investigating
that. And what does that tell you about what is going on?"
Well, we know that Kim's chances of attracting Congressional interest was just about nil, but
then Sean Hannity invited Dotcom to discuss his evidence in the Seth Rich case on his shows.
Stay tuned. Public invitation Kim Dotcom to be a guest on radio and TV. #GameChanger Buckle up
destroy Trump media. Sheep that u all are!!! https://t.co/3qLwXCGl6z
- Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 20, 2017
Most recently, he tweeted:
Complete panic has set in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party. Any bets when the
kitchen sink is dumped on my head?? https://t.co/Zt2gIX4zyq
- Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 22, 2017
They can dig this dirt to years. Trump is now a hostage.
Notable quotes:
"... A spokesman for Manafort, Jason Maloni, confirmed that Manafort turned over documents, adding that Manafort remains interested in cooperating with the Senate investigation. ..."
"... NBC adds that it was too early to tell whether the documents from Manafort and Stone "suggested they had fully complied with the request." In a parallel process, as part of the FBI's Russia collusion investigation, federal grand juries have issued subpoenas for records relating to both Flynn and Manafort. ..."
While Michael Flynn may refusing to comply with the Senate Intel Committee's probe of Russian interference, two other former associates
of Donald Trump complied on Monday afternoon, and
according to NBC , Paul Manafort and Roger Stone have turned over documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee in its Russia
investigation, providing "all documents consistent with their specific request." As reported previously, the committee sent document
requests to Manafort and Stone, as well as Carter Page and Mike Flynn, seeking information related to dealings with Russia. So far
Page has not yet complied, while Flynn it was confirmed today, planned to plead the Fifth as a reason not to comply with a committee
subpoena, citing "escalating public frenzy" as part of the ongoing probe.
According to NBC, the committee's letter to Page asked him "to list any Russian official or business executive he met with between
June 16, 2015 and Jan. 20, 2017. It also asked him to provide information about Russia-related real estate transactions during that
period. And it seeks all his email or other communications during that period with Russians, or with the Trump campaign about Russia
or Russians."
While the precise contents is unknown, similar letters were sent to Manafort and Stone, who then sent the requested information
to investigators by last Friday's deadline.
"I gave them all documents that were consistent with their specific request," Stone said in an email to NBC News.
A spokesman for Manafort, Jason Maloni, confirmed that Manafort turned over documents, adding that Manafort remains interested
in cooperating with the Senate investigation.
NBC adds that it was too early to tell whether the documents from Manafort and Stone "suggested they had fully complied with
the request." In a parallel process, as part of the FBI's Russia collusion investigation, federal grand juries have issued subpoenas
for records relating to both Flynn and Manafort.
Meanwhile, Flynn's assertion of the Fifth Amendment would make it difficult for the Senate to enforce its subpoena, NBC News reported
citing Senate sources: "The Senate could go to court, or go ask the Justice Department to go to court to enforce it, but either actin
would require the Republicans who control the chamber to agree." Trump fired Flynn as his national security advisor in February after
misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Russia.
This is hilarious. Is there supposed to be some connection between meeting with Russians and rigging an election?
I am thinking that if there is to be an investigation then Congress needs to cast a wider net to include all of the past three
administrations, All international banks and their legal representatives, all of Congress and everyone who has ever contributed
to the DNC or RNC.
If they are going to hunt for witches, why not make it open season on ALL witches.
My personal preference is to be on friendly terms with both Russia and China ... not to mentioned Iran, people of all religions
and the other countries that do not have BIS tied central banks. Why do we tolerate people telling us that we have to hate someone?
Guardian defends Hillary. Again. They also are afraid to open the comment section on this article.
Notable quotes:
"... A prominent ally of Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that the - - special counsel appointed to investigate alleged links between
the president's aides and - - Russia should instead focus on the murder last year of a young Democratic staffer, Seth Rich, which has
become the focus of conspiracy theorists . ..."
"... This week, the Russian embassy in the UK shared the conspiracy on Twitter, CNN reported , calling Rich a murdered "WikiLeaks
informer" and claiming that the British mainstream media was "so busy accusing Russian hackers to take notice". ..."
"... "He's been killed, and apparently nothing serious has been done to investigate his murder. So, I'd like to see how [former
FBI director Robert] Mueller is going to define what his assignment is, and if it's only narrowly Trump, the country will not learn
what it needs to learn about foreign involvement in American politics." ..."
"... The Rich family has sent Wheeler a cease-and-desist letter, threatening legal action if he continues to discuss the case, the
Washington Post reported . ..."
Trump confidante and husband of ambassadorial nominee repeats WikiLeaks theory denounced as 'fake news' by family of murdered DNC
staffer Sunday 21 May 2017, 16.48 EDT Last modified on Monday 22 May 2017
A prominent ally of Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that the - -
special counsel appointed to investigate alleged links between the president's aides and - -
Russia
should instead focus on the murder last year of a young Democratic staffer, Seth Rich, which has become
the focus of
conspiracy theorists .
In an appearance on Fox and Friends less than two days after his wife was - -
proposed as ambassador to the Holy See , Newt Gingrich – former speaker of the House, 2012 presidential candidate and a Trump
confidante – publicly endorsed the conspiracy theory that Rich was "assassinated" after giving Democratic National Committee emails
to WikiLeaks.
Rich, 27, was shot dead in the early hours of 10 July 2016, as he walked home in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington.
In August, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, - -
insinuated that Rich had been a source. Police initially explored whether Rich's murder might be connected to robberies in the
area, according
to a local news report , and officials in the capital have publicly debunked other claims.
"This is a robbery that ended tragically," Kevin Donahue, Washington's deputy mayor for public safety,
told NBC News this week. "That's bad enough for our city, and I think it is irresponsible to conflate this into something that
doesn't connect to anything that the detectives have found. No WikiLeaks connection."
On Sunday, the Washington DC police public affairs office did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
In January, American intelligence agencies concluded with "
high confidence " in a public
report that Russian military intelligence was responsible for hacking the DNC and obtaining and relaying private messages to WikiLeaks,
which made a series of embarrassing public disclosures. The goal, the agencies concluded, was to undermine the candidacy of Hillary
Clinton and boost Trump, as well as hurt Americans' trust in their own democracy.
This week, the Russian embassy in the UK
shared the conspiracy on Twitter,
CNN reported
, calling Rich a murdered "WikiLeaks informer" and claiming that the British mainstream media was "so busy accusing Russian hackers
to take notice".
The Rich family has repeatedly denied that there is any evidence behind the conspiracy theories and called on Fox News to retract
its coverage of their son's murder. Earlier this week, a spokesman for the family
said
in a statement that "anyone who continues to push this fake news story after it was so thoroughly debunked is proving to the
world they have a transparent political agenda or are a sociopath".
On Fox and Friends, Gingrich said: "We have this very strange story here of this young man who worked for the DNC who was apparently
assassinated at four in the morning having given WikiLeaks
something like 23,000 – I'm sorry, 53,000 – emails and 17,000 attachments.
"Nobody's investigating that, and what does that tell you about what was going on? Because it turns out it wasn't the Russians,
it was this young guy who, I suspect, who was disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee.
"He's been killed, and apparently nothing serious has been done to investigate his murder. So, I'd like to see how [former
FBI director Robert] Mueller is going to define what his assignment is, and if it's only narrowly Trump, the country will not learn
what it needs to learn about foreign involvement in American politics."
Last week, the private investigator and Fox News commentator Rod Wheeler claimed that evidence existed that Rich had been in contact
with WikiLeaks. Questioned by CNN, however, he said: "I only got that [information] from the reporter at Fox News" and added that
he did not have any evidence himself.
"Using the legacy of a murder victim in such an overtly political way is morally reprehensible," a Rich family spokesman told
CNN.
The Rich family has sent Wheeler a cease-and-desist letter, threatening legal action if he continues to discuss the case,
the
Washington Post reported .
After just 100 days in the office Trump already has a special prosecutor.
Notable quotes:
"... Without consulting the White House, he sandbagged President Trump, naming a special counsel to take over the investigation of the Russia connection that could prove ruinous to this presidency. ..."
"... Rod has reinvigorated a tired 10-month investigation that failed to find any collusion between Trump and Russian hacking of the DNC. Not a single indictment had come out of the FBI investigation. ..."
"... Yet, now a new special counsel, Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI, will slow-walk his way through this same terrain again, searching for clues leading to potentially impeachable offenses. What seemed to be winding down for Trump is now only just beginning to gear up. ..."
"... Why did Rosenstein capitulate to a Democrat-media clamor for a special counsel that could prove disastrous for the president who elevated and honored him? Surely in part, as Milbank writes, to salvage his damaged reputation. ..."
"... Rosenstein had gone over to the dark side. He had, it was said, on Trump's orders, put the hit on Comey. Now, by siccing a special counsel on the president himself, Rosenstein is restored to the good graces of this city. Rosenstein just turned in his black hat for a white hat. ..."
"... Democrats are hailing both his decision to name a special counsel and the man he chose. Yet it is difficult to exaggerate the damage he has done. As did almost all of its predecessors, including those which led to the resignation of President Nixon and impeachment of Bill Clinton, Mueller's investigation seems certain to drag on for years. ..."
"... Recall the famous adage that a competent district attorney could successfully indict a ham sandwich. ..."
"... Political trials are infamously witch hunts, and there isn't a witch hunt that couldn't miraculously find any number of witches to burn. ..."
"... One has to hand it to the Democrats. This strategy to get the ruling elite class back in both houses of congress and bring forth a shining night in armour for their next candidate is well crafted. The Clintons messed up the Obama Hope and Change Rhetoric. ..."
"... From the very outset of his presidency, U.S. President D.J. Trump either hired people who were against his presidential campaign all the time of last year or cozied up to perpetual political opponents while distancing himself from the very patriotic people who gave him the electoral college victory last November. ..."
"... Like Pres. Dick Nixon did, U.S. President D.J. Trump will also politically kill himself with one political misstep after another by giving his political opponents whatever they demand until it will be too late to reverse the course. ..."
"... "The real power in this country doesn't reside within the ballot box After months of leaks coming from the intelligence agencies, who bitterly oppose the new policy, and a barrage of innuendo, smears, and character assassination in the media, the will of the people has been abrogated: the Deep State has the last word. The denizens of Langley, and the career spooks within our seventeen intelligence agencies, have exercised their veto power – a power that is not written into the Constitution, but is nevertheless very real. Their goal is to not only make détente with Russia impossible but also to overthrow a democratically elected chief executive No matter what you think of Trump, this is an ominous development for all those who care about the future of our republic What we are witnessing is a "regime-change" operation, such as our intelligence agencies have routinely carried out abroad, right here in the United States This pernicious campaign is an attempt to criminalize dissent from the foreign policy "consensus." It is an effort by powerful groups within the national security bureaucracy, the media, and the military-industrial complex to stamp out any opposition to their program of perpetual war The reign of terror is about to begin: anyone who opposes our interventionist foreign policy is liable to be labeled a "Kremlin tool" – and could face legal sanctions. ..."
"... If Trump wasn't a narcissistic idiot, he could be well on the way to leading a takedown of establishment politics. Should have left Comey in to go nowhere, but Trump is a narcissistic idiot who does not read and his presidency is and will continue to be a miserable failure. Donald J. Trump is a Loser and a Laughingstock, plain and simple. There's nothing to see here. Does he have the ability to do better? Yes. Will he? Doubtful. Firing Comey is not impeachable or even wrong, it's just a blunder of monumental proportions. Trump's continued incompetent "explanations" of the decision raised red flags. This is not Trump Steaks Inc. This is the Presidency of the United States of America. ..."
"With the stroke of a pen, Rod Rosenstein redeemed his reputation," writes Dana Milbank of
The Washington Post .
What had Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein done to be welcomed home by the Post like the
prodigal son?
Without consulting the White House, he sandbagged President Trump, naming a special counsel to
take over the investigation of the Russia connection that could prove ruinous to this presidency.
Rod has reinvigorated a tired 10-month investigation that failed to find any collusion between
Trump and Russian hacking of the DNC. Not a single indictment had come out of the FBI investigation.
Yet, now a new special counsel, Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI, will slow-walk his
way through this same terrain again, searching for clues leading to potentially impeachable offenses.
What seemed to be winding down for Trump is now only just beginning to gear up.
Also to be investigated is whether the president tried to curtail the FBI investigation with his
phone calls and Oval Office meetings with FBI Director James Comey, before abruptly firing Comey
last week.
Regarded as able and honest, Mueller will be under media pressure to come up with charges. Great
and famous prosecutors are measured by whom they convict and how many scalps they take. Moreover, a burgeoning special counsel's office dredging up dirt on Trump and associates will
find itself the beneficiary of an indulgent press.
Why did Rosenstein capitulate to a Democrat-media clamor for a special counsel that could prove
disastrous for the president who elevated and honored him? Surely in part, as Milbank writes, to salvage his damaged reputation.
After being approved 94-6 by a Senate that hailed him as a principled and independent U.S. attorney
for both George Bush and Barack Obama, Rosenstein found himself being pilloried for preparing the
document White House aides called crucial to Trump's decision to fire Comey.
Rosenstein had gone over to the dark side. He had, it was said, on Trump's orders, put the hit
on Comey. Now, by siccing a special counsel on the president himself, Rosenstein is restored to the
good graces of this city. Rosenstein just turned in his black hat for a white hat.
Democrats are hailing both his decision to name a special counsel and the man he chose. Yet it
is difficult to exaggerate the damage he has done. As did almost all of its predecessors, including those which led to the resignation of President
Nixon and impeachment of Bill Clinton, Mueller's investigation seems certain to drag on for years.
Trump set up his own demise -- all the Jews like Rosenstein that he has appointed would really rather
have the rabid evangelical Israel supporter Pence as president.
The appointment of former director Mueller to take charge of an investigation too hot for Rosenstein
or anyone in his department to file a report on, particularly if no prosecution will be recommended,
does not presage this affair will continue interminably. Months of work have already been put
into the matter by the FBI. Mueller may arrive, ask those agents for a summary of what they have
unearthed, say, "I don't see anything here. Do you think further work by you will uncover more?",
and if they respond, "No", Mueller might very well take what he is given, file a report saying
no prosecution is warranted, just as Jim Comey did in the Clinton matter, and go home.
The man is retired with honor. He doesn't need to make a name for himself with this or any
other case. The last thing he wants to find out is that there is evidence that might result in
the impeachment and criminal prosecution of the President of the United States.
Wasnt pat a happy supporter of the special counsel investigating Clinton? Now suddenly he is against
such counsels? How about some priciples Mr buchanan?
And here is a hat tip for you aggrieved folks here. Trump brought this on himself. He could have
avoided it all by simply letting Comey do his job. If there really is nothing in the Russia story,
then Comey would have come up with nothing.
Trump has been used to running a family business all his life and a fake TV show as well where
his and only his word runs. That is not how the government functions and nor should it be. What
happened to the famous negotiator? The one who could make great deals? Who would learn quickly
how to navigate the waters and make things happen. This person seems non existent. Lets see some
of that please.
Wall Street swooned *not* because Trump's "populist" agenda is endangered but rather because Alt-Trump's
bait-and-switch pro-Wall Street agenda is endangered. That Pat Buchanan cannot distinguish these
is stunning to behold.
And if Hillary Clinton had been inaugurated in January, there wouldn't be a dozen Congressional
committees pursuing specious investigations, egged on by right wing media? (Even this comment
thread carries one such demand, and she is not in office.)
This is one outcome of a poisoned body politic. Roger Ailes was there at the beginning, and
we are all sickened by his legacy.
Unfortunately, Buchanan seems to have ignored the fact that Rosenstein's decision to appoint a
special prosecutor was sparked by Trump's precipitous and unnecessary decision to dismiss Comey.
It was a foolish decision and now he's paying a price for it.
One has to hand it to the Democrats. This strategy to get the ruling elite class back in both
houses of congress and bring forth a shining night in armour for their next candidate is well
crafted. The Clintons messed up the Obama Hope and Change Rhetoric.
U.S. President D.J. Trump is himself 100% responsible for the political and legal debacles where
he is in now and will be in for any foreseeable future!
From the very outset of his presidency, U.S. President D.J. Trump either hired people who were
against his presidential campaign all the time of last year or cozied up to perpetual political
opponents while distancing himself from the very patriotic people who gave him the electoral college
victory last November.
Like Pres. Dick Nixon did, U.S. President D.J. Trump will also politically kill himself with
one political misstep after another by giving his political opponents whatever they demand until
it will be too late to reverse the course.
John Gruskos (8:57 a.m.) is right. Justin Raimondo's column today is a "must read":
"The real power in this country doesn't reside within the ballot box After months of leaks
coming from the intelligence agencies, who bitterly oppose the new policy, and a barrage of innuendo,
smears, and character assassination in the media, the will of the people has been abrogated: the
Deep State has the last word. The denizens of Langley, and the career spooks within our seventeen
intelligence agencies, have exercised their veto power – a power that is not written into the
Constitution, but is nevertheless very real. Their goal is to not only make détente with Russia
impossible but also to overthrow a democratically elected chief executive No matter what you think
of Trump, this is an ominous development for all those who care about the future of our republic What
we are witnessing is a "regime-change" operation, such as our intelligence agencies have routinely
carried out abroad, right here in the United States This pernicious campaign is an attempt to
criminalize dissent from the foreign policy "consensus." It is an effort by powerful groups within
the national security bureaucracy, the media, and the military-industrial complex to stamp out
any opposition to their program of perpetual war The reign of terror is about to begin: anyone
who opposes our interventionist foreign policy is liable to be labeled a "Kremlin tool" – and
could face legal sanctions.
What goes around, comes around. The Republicans did the same thing to Bill Clinton. Remember,
if you can do it to them, they can do it to you. Be careful about the precedents you set.
Has anyone considered that the opposition from career bureaucrats is due to their past experience
as to what works and what doesn't? They can recognize a half-baked plan, concocted by someone
who has only a hazy idea of what goes on (the guy who managed to admit that health care was "complicated"
after touting on the campaign trail that it was easy). Add to it stubborness and unwillingness
to learn, and those bureaucrats may think that they are staring at an accident waiting to happen.
If Trump wasn't a narcissistic idiot, he could be well on the way to leading a takedown of establishment
politics. Should have left Comey in to go nowhere, but Trump is a narcissistic idiot who does
not read and his presidency is and will continue to be a miserable failure. Donald J. Trump is
a Loser and a Laughingstock, plain and simple. There's nothing to see here.
Does he have the ability to do better? Yes. Will he? Doubtful. Firing Comey is not impeachable
or even wrong, it's just a blunder of monumental proportions. Trump's continued incompetent "explanations"
of the decision raised red flags.
This is not Trump Steaks Inc. This is the Presidency of the United States of America.
He will
be held to a higher standard until such time as he realizes he cannot run this world's most powerful
country like some sham casino operation he let fall into bankruptcy. And @Cal, this is not a Jewish
conspiracy. If you can't see that Trump is an incompetent idiot narcissist, you can't see anything.
"... When Trump becomes president by running against the nation's neoliberal elite of both parties, it was a strong, undeniable signal that the neoliberal elite has a problem -- it lost the trust of the majority American people and is viewed now, especially Wall Street financial sharks, as an "occupying force". ..."
"... That means that we have the crisis of the elite governance or, as Marxists used to call it "a revolutionary situation" -- the situation in which the elite can't govern "as usual" and common people (let's say the bottom 80% of the USA population) do not want to live "as usual". Political Zugzwang. The anger is boiling and has became a material force in the most recent elections. ..."
"... The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes. ..."
"... Thus did this economic turn of events reflect the financialization of the U.S. economy-more and more rewards for moving money around and taking a cut and fewer and fewer rewards for building a business and creating jobs. ..."
"... ...Now comes the counterrevolution. The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy -- the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America. That's why there is so much talk about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of "high crimes and misdemeanors." That's why the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre." ..."
"... That's why the demonization of Russia has reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and threat. ..."
"... There is no way out for America at this point. Steady as she goes could prove highly problematic. A push to remove him could prove worse. Perhaps a solution will present itself. But, even if it does, it will rectify, with great societal disquiet and animosity, merely the Trump crisis. The crisis of the elites will continue, all the more intractable and ominous. ..."
Trump is just a one acute symptom of the underling crisis of the neoliberal social system, that
we experience. So his removal will not solve the crisis.
And unless some kind of New Deal Capitalism is restored there is no alternative to the neoliberalism
on the horizon.
But the question is: Can the New Deal Capitalism with its "worker aristocracy" strata and the
role of organized labor as a weak but still countervailing force to corporate power be restored
? I think not.
With the level of financialization achieved, the water is under the bridge. The financial toothpaste
can't be squeezed back into the tube. That's what makes the current crisis more acute: none of
the parties has any viable solution to the crisis, not the will to attempt to implement some radical
changes.
When Trump becomes president by running against the nation's neoliberal elite of both parties,
it was a strong, undeniable signal that the neoliberal elite has a problem -- it lost the trust
of the majority American people and is viewed now, especially Wall Street financial sharks, as
an "occupying force".
That means that we have the crisis of the elite governance or, as Marxists used to call
it "a revolutionary situation" -- the situation in which the elite can't govern "as usual" and
common people (let's say the bottom 80% of the USA population) do not want to live "as usual".
Political Zugzwang. The anger is boiling and has became a material force in the most recent elections.
At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some
even attacked him vociferously. But, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate
who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended up with the nomination.
The Republican elites had to give way. Why? Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar,
ill-mannered, tawdry politicians? No, because the elite-generated society of America had become
so bad in their view that they turned to the man who most clamorously rebelled against it.
... ... ...
The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over
the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated
purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many
elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise
in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag
is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes.
... ... ...
Then there is the spectacle of the country's financial elites goosing liquidity massively
after the Great Recession to benefit themselves while slamming ordinary Americans with a resulting
decline in Main Street capitalism. The unprecedented low interest rates over many years, accompanied
by massive bond buying called "quantitative easing," proved a boon for Wall Street banks and
corporate America while working families lost income from their money market funds and savings
accounts. The result, says economic consultant David M. Smick, author of The Great Equalizer
, was "the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial interests
in the history of mankind." Notice that these post-recession transactions were mostly financial
transactions, divorced from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating,
and taking risks-the kinds of activities that spur entrepreneurial zest, generate new enterprises,
and create jobs. Thus did this economic turn of events reflect the financialization of
the U.S. economy-more and more rewards for moving money around and taking a cut and fewer and
fewer rewards for building a business and creating jobs.
...Now comes the counterrevolution. The elites figure that if they can just get rid
of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy -- the status quo ante, before
the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America. That's why there is so much talk
about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
That's why the firing of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon's "Saturday
Night Massacre."
That's why the demonization of Russia has reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even
minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and threat.
... ... ...
There is no way out for America at this point. Steady as she goes could prove highly
problematic. A push to remove him could prove worse. Perhaps a solution will present itself.
But, even if it does, it will rectify, with great societal disquiet and animosity, merely the
Trump crisis. The crisis of the elites will continue, all the more intractable and ominous.
IMHO Trump betrayal of his voters under the pressure from DemoRats ("the dominant neoliberal
wing of Democratic Party", aka "Clinton's wing") makes the situation even worse. a real Gordian
knot. Or, in chess terminology, a Zugzwang.
"... America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making-and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it's difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis. ..."
"... Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency, and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job. But that isn't the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis proportions of its own. ..."
"... The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes. ..."
"... "Elites" are not necessarily truly unique, "brights" are not necessarily truly bright, "gnostics" do not necessarily have true knowledge, "puritans" are not necessarily truly pure, etc. What is being labeled is not what they truly are, but what they would have us believe they are; the reality is often very much the contrary. ..."
"... What characterizes "elites" is not really position or power, very much less intelligence or nobility of heart. The defining characteristic of an "elite" is arrogance. ..."
America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of
the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making-and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted
in the American polity that it's difficult to see how it can be resolved in any kind of smooth or even peaceful way. Looking to the
future from this particular point in time, just about every possible course of action appears certain to deepen the crisis.
What is it? Some believe it stems specifically from the election of Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency,
and will abate when he can be removed from office. These people are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his
White House job. But that isn't the central crisis; it is merely a symptom of it, though it seems increasingly to be reaching crisis
proportions of its own.
When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation's elites, it's a strong signal that
the elites are the problem. We're talking here about the elites of both parties. Think of those who gave the country Hillary Clinton
as the Democratic presidential nominee-a woman who sought to avoid accountability as secretary of state by employing a private email
server, contrary to propriety and good sense; who attached herself to a vast nonprofit "good works" institution that actually was
a corrupt political machine designed to get the Clintons back into the White House while making them rich; who ran for president,
and almost won, without addressing the fundamental problems of the nation and while denigrating large numbers of frustrated and beleaguered
Americans as "deplorables." The unseemliness in all this was out in plain sight for everyone to see, and yet Democratic elites blithely
went about the task of awarding her the nomination, even to the point of employing underhanded techniques to thwart an upstart challenger
who was connecting more effectively with Democratic voters.
At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long as they could. Some even attacked him vociferously. But,
unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republican candidate who most effectively captured the underlying sentiment of GOP voters ended
up with the nomination. The Republican elites had to give way. Why? Because Republican voters fundamentally favor vulgar, ill-mannered,
tawdry politicians? No, because the elite-generated society of America had become so bad in their view that they turned to the man
who most clamorously rebelled against it.
The crisis of the elites could be seen everywhere. Take immigration policy. Leave aside for purposes of discussion the debate
on the merits of the issue-whether mass immigration is good for America or whether it reaches a point of economic diminishing returns
and threatens to erode America's underlying culture. Whatever the merits on either side of that debate, mass immigration, accepted
and even fostered by the nation's elites, has driven a powerful wedge through America. Couldn't those elites see that this would
happen? Did they care so little about the polity over which they held stewardship that their petty political prejudices were more
important than the civic health of their nation?
So now we have some 11 million illegal immigrants in America, a rebuke to territorial sovereignty and to the rule of law upon
which our nation was founded, with no reasonable solution-and generating an abundance of political tension. Beyond that, we have
fostered an immigration policy that now has foreign-born people in America approaching 14 percent-a proportion unprecedented in American
history except for the 1920s, the last time a backlash against mass immigration resulted in curtailment legislation.
And yet the elites never considered the importance to the country's civic health of questions related to assimilation-what's an
appropriate inflow for smooth absorption. Some even equated those who raised such questions to racists and xenophobes. Meanwhile,
we have "sanctuary cities" throughout Blue State America that are refusing to cooperate with federal officials seeking to enforce
the immigration laws-the closest we have come as a nation to "nullification" since the actual nullification crisis of the 1830s,
when South Carolina declared its right to ignore federal legislation it didn't like. (Andrew Jackson scotched the movement by threatening
to hang from the nearest tree anyone involved in violence stemming from the crisis.)
Then there is the spectacle of the country's financial elites goosing liquidity massively after the Great Recession to benefit
themselves while slamming ordinary Americans with a resulting decline in Main Street capitalism. The unprecedented low interest rates
over many years, accompanied by massive bond buying called "quantitative easing," proved a boon for Wall Street banks and corporate
America while working families lost income from their money market funds and savings accounts. The result, says economic consultant
David M. Smick, author of The Great Equalizer , was "the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial
interests in the history of mankind." Notice that these post-recession transactions were mostly financial transactions, divorced
from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating, and taking risks-the kinds of activities that spur entrepreneurial
zest, generate new enterprises, and create jobs. Thus did this economic turn of events reflect the financialization of the U.S. economy-more
and more rewards for moving money around and taking a cut and fewer and fewer rewards for building a business and creating jobs.
And, though these policies were designed to boost economic growth, they have failed to do so, as America suffered through one
of the longest periods of mediocre growth in its history.
All this contributed significantly to the hollowing out of the American working class-once the central foundation of the country's
economic muscle and political stability. Now these are the forgotten Americans, deplorable to Hillary Clinton and her elite followers,
left without jobs and increasingly bereft of purpose and hope.
And if they complain they find themselves confronting the forces of political correctness, bent on shutting them up and marginalizing
them in the political arena. For all the conservative and mainstream complaints against political correctness over the years, it
was never clear just how much civic frustration and anger it was generating across the country until Donald Trump unfurled his attack
on the phenomenon in his campaign. Again, it was ordinary Americans against the elites.
The elites also ran American foreign policy, as they have throughout U.S. history. Over the past 25 years they got their country
bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen,
Libya. Many elites want further U.S. military action in Ukraine, against Iran, and to thwart China's rise in Asia. Aside from the
risk of growing geopolitical blowback against America, the price tag is immense, contributing to the country's ongoing economic woes.
When Trump, marshaling this anti-elite resentment into a powerful political wave, won the presidential election last November,
it was noted that he would be a minority president in the popular vote. But then so was Nixon; so was Clinton; so was Wilson; indeed,
so was Lincoln. The Trump victory constituted a political revolution.
Now comes the counterrevolution. The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they
consider normalcy-the status quo ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America. That's why there is so
much talk about impeachment even in the absence of any evidence thus far of "high crimes and misdemeanors." That's why the firing
of James Comey as FBI director raises the analogy of Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre." That's why the demonization of Russia has
reached a fevered pitch, in hopes that even minor infractions on the part of the president can be raised to levels of menace and
threat.
Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, even suggests the elites of Washington should get rid of Trump
through the use of the Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president if a majority of the cabinet
informs the Congress that he is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" and if a two-thirds vote of Congress confirms
that judgment in the face of a presidential challenge. This was written of course for such circumstances of presidential incapacity
as ill health or injury, but Douthat's commitment to the counterrevolution is such that he would advocate its use for mere presidential
incompetence.
Consider the story of Trump's revelation of classified information to Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to the United States.
No one disputes the president's right to declassify governmental information at will, but was it wise in this instance? Certainly,
it was reckless if he exposed sources and methods of intelligence gathering. But did he?
The president and his top foreign policy advisers, who were present during the conversation, say he didn't. The media and Trump's
political adversaries insist that he did, at least implicitly. We don't know. But we do know that when this story reached the pages
of The Washington Post , as a result of leaks from people around Trump who want to see him crushed, it led to a feeding frenzy
that probably harmed American interests far more than whatever Trump may have said to those Russians. Instead of Trump's indiscretion
being confined to a single conversation with foreign officials, it now is broadcast throughout the world. Instead of, at worst, a
hint of where the intelligence came from, everyone now knows it came from the Israelis. Instead of being able to at least pursue
a more cooperative relationship with Russia on matters of mutual interest, Trump is once again forced back on his heels on Russian
policy by government officials and their media allies-who, unlike Trump, were never elected to anything.
Thus is the Trump crisis now superimposed upon the much broader and deeper crisis of the elites, which spawned the Trump crisis
in the first place. Yes, Trump is a disaster as president. He lacks nearly all the qualities and attributes a president should have,
and three and a half more years of him raises the specter of more and more unnecessary tumult and deepening civic rancor. It could
even prove to be untenable governmentally. But trying to get rid of him before his term expires, absent a clear constitutional justification
and a clear assent from the collective electorate, will simply deepen the crisis, driving the wedge further into the raw American
heartland and generating growing feelings that the American system has lost its legitimacy.
There is no way out for America at this point. Steady as she goes could prove highly problematic. A push to remove him could prove
worse. Perhaps a solution will present itself. But, even if it does, it will rectify, with great societal disquiet and animosity,
merely the Trump crisis. The crisis of the elites will continue, all the more intractable and ominous.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is editor of The American Conservative
. His next book, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century
, is due out from Simon & Schuster in September.
If you want to know why things are as bad as they are and why Americans are so ignorant and dumbed down, get the video "Agenda"
by Curtis Bower. It explains it all.
I agree with your diagnosis, even if the term "elite" is nebulous (aren't you, Mr. Merry, by virtue of your position as a D.C.-based
journalist, an "elite"?). Anyway, Gilens and Page found as much.
Yeah this whole "elite" thing is kind of frustrating to hash out in good faith sometimes of course we want "elite" people in charge,
in the sense that they're not illiterate imbeciles. The funny thing is how much "democracy" often fails those who are most wont
to sing its praises. Those who identify as liberal tend to romanticize the idea of "the people" and their right to have a voice
in our government, but then are sorely disappointed when those actual people exercise that voice in the real world. It's why most
of the liberal social agenda of the past 50 years has been achieved through the courts, the least democratic institutions in our
polity. "The people" wouldn't have voted for most of this stuff.
Since a lot of people are obviously having trouble with this concept: "Elites" are not necessarily truly unique, "brights"
are not necessarily truly bright, "gnostics" do not necessarily have true knowledge, "puritans" are not necessarily truly pure,
etc. What is being labeled is not what they truly are, but what they would have us believe they are; the reality is often very
much the contrary.
What characterizes "elites" is not really position or power, very much less intelligence or nobility of heart. The defining
characteristic of an "elite" is arrogance.
Saying "elites are the problem" is NOT to say "let us eliminate all elites" (duh). It is instead to say "let us get ourselves
different elites".
A good elite is one which uses its talents and power to pursue the common good. A bad elite is one which uses its talents and
power to pursue the good of elites alone. After deindustrialization and financialization and the Iraq War and the financial crisis
and the Great Recession and the White Death combined with the ever growing wealth and power of what Richard Reeves calls the "
dream hoarders ", it's pretty clear that we have
bad elites.
This is not to say that the masses are completely off the hook. A republic requires a virtuous elite AND virtuous masses. As
Rod Dreher notes endlessly, the American masses aren't too virtuous nowadays, either.
Cheap, imported labor lowers wages and improves profits. Moving manufacturing to China lowers wages and improves profits. Reducing
income from savings forces people into the labor force, lowering wages and increasing profits. Labor's share of national income
is at a low-point not seen since the 1920's. Corporate profitability is at an historical high point.
I don't understand what "crisis" is being spoken of here. Isn't this exactly the scenario we have been attempting to create
since Reagan? There is no crisis. This is the fruition of our conservative economic agenda. Isn't this site called "The American
Conservative"?
"Couldn't those elites see that this would happen? Did they care so little about the polity over which they held stewardship that
their petty political prejudices were more important than the civic health of their nation?"
"Over the past 25 years they got their country bogged down in persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances
no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya."
Good points. Now you may apprehend why we simple people are not so eager to react with panic to the hysteria being drummed
up by the same "elite" people and institutions that melt down every time Trump walks out of his office.
Who are these "elites"? This is the central question.
They seem to be: [1] highly educated [2] in private colleges and universities [3] mainly in the Northeast [4] and as adults
[5] employed primarily in professional occupations [6] geographically concentrated in the Boston-Washington corridor, especially
in NYC and DC.
The unparalleled expansion of the (mostly white) educated professional class in the DC area over the past generation should
occupy center stage in any conservative critique of the American elite.
if President Donald J Trump IS supremely unfit to hold the office, does that not logically (in the eyes of the author)not
make the xx million American people who voted for him supremely unfit to vote?
Not at all. It makes them supremely desperate. The most important part of the election takes place before the first primary,
when PACs and party officials determine what choices will be put before voters. Their candidates (from both parties) were likewise
supremely unfit. I don't care much for either the Libertarians or Abe Lincoln, but
Dead Abe Lincoln got one thing right: "Oh, hey America
you just got screwed." Frankly, this has been going on for decades, but it is now reaching levels of abject absurdity.
What Bruce said. In addition: who could possibly be so simple-minded as to believe that the removal of Trump will magically fix
government? Bottom line is, Trump is dangerously incompetent. There are no doubt some in gov't who would get rid of Trump for
the wrong reasons, but there are many (too many) right reasons for doing so. Some of the so-called Deep Staters will be Republicans
who understand that Trump's promise to "drain the swamp" was nothing more than an empty talking point - and more importantly,
that he's a threat to national security. Getting rid of Trump would be just one step toward fixing gov't, but would be significant
nonetheless.
Actually, Bruce, some of us lefties agree with much, though not all of what Merry says. The elites in both parties have failed
and if you want names one can go down a long list. On foreign policy, for instance, leaders in both parties like Clinton and McCain
have consistently favored more intervention and more war. The only time Trump has been popular with the elites is when he bombed
Syria.
This post was already pretty long– if Merry had gone into detail on the financial crisis and foreign policy it would have been
ten times longer.
I despise Trump too. The problem is that many of his critics are cynical opportunists.
"So tell me, if the down trodden Working class is so distraught by the elites putting them down, why do they celebrate when the
GOP House voted to take away their healthcare by removing rules on pre-existing conditions."
How you view the policies on pre-existing conditions depends on whether you are looking at premiums or benefits. If you are
looking at premiums then removing rules on pre-existing conditions will benefit you. If you are looking at benefits no so much.
You can't say that lowering premiums doesn't help working class families. There is also a fairness issue. The pre-existing exclusion
only kicks in if there has been a lapse in coverage which encourages some people to not pay into the insurance pool until they
get sick. How is that fair to all the folks who paid their premiums even when they didn't avail themselves of healthcare services?
The proposed plan only asks those who haven't been paying into the system to pay more to make the system more fair to those who
paid all along. It doesn't deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions. They can also avoid the higher payments by making
sure their coverage doesn't lapse. Yes there are those who let their coverage lapse due to a financial crisis and we do need to
have programs to assist those who truly can't pay.
Bruce's comment is nonsense. The elites are not in the least vague and unnamed, plainly referring to the mainstream "news" media
and professoriate and GOP and corporate chiefs eager for cheap labor and GOP renegades (most of them warmongers) displeased by
being upstaged. He purports to want "real" solutions but is quick to condemn real limits on immigration and trade deficits and
racism in the guise of affirmative action and comparable ornaments of "social justice." Then, those who resent the liberal status
quo and don't share Bruce's values are child-like and paranoid.
Such arrogant and abusive views as his scarcely deserve refutation.
"The elites" aren't the problem, using the phrase "the elites" in political debate is the problem. What elites, exactly, do NOT
include Trump, the nepotistic New York billionaire whose father donated a building to get him into Wharton? "Elites" is the code
word used by right wing propagandists when they're trying to induce gullible or resentful citizens into acting against their own
interests. Anyone using the term is dishonest.
John D. King contends: " corporate chiefs eager for cheap labor " are among the elites voters shunned when voting for Pres. Trump.
Um corporate chief? Donald Trump. Eager for cheap labor? Donald Trump. Elite? Donald Trump? Sending his son to an elite school
that costs as much as the school that Obama sent his daughters to? Donald Trump. The only thing about Donald Trump that isn't
elite is his drunken boor (even though he doesn't drink) rhetoric and social skills which he uses to mask his elitism. If you
want no more than symbolic anti-elitism, Donald Trump is your man, and that's what Donald Trump supporters seem to want: the feeling
that they are superior to those whom they feel have put them down for years, instead of the skills enabling them to compete with
and perhaps surpass the people they deride as elite. Meanwhile the substance of Donald Trump's life has been elitism since he
was in business school about a half century ago. No reason to believe that will change, is there?
Bob Halvorsen wrote: "Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise? The only
presidents with a minority of the popular vote are JQ Adams, Hayes, Harrison and Bush."
The author wrote "minority in the popular vote". To me that means LESS than 50% of the irrelevant national popular vote total.
The author is NOT saying that the presidents listed did not get the most votes in the irrelevant national popular vote, just that
they received less than 50% of the total.
Nixon 1968 – 43.4%
Clinton 1992 – 43%
Clinton 1996 – 49.2%
Wilson 1912 – 41.8%
Lincoln 1860 – 39.8%
Mueller's appointment sounds promising, all powerful politicians should be investigated if there's smoke, if not fire.
But this discussion of elites conjures up a counter-factual President Hillary, elected President with a Democratically-controlled
House, Senate, and solid 5-vote majority on the Supreme Court:
Given her campaign's numerous contacts with the Russian ambassador last year, along with an ongoing FBI investigation into
the Clinton Foundation, including but not limited to the Russian uranium agreement, State Dept. pressuring Kazakhstan to sign
off, after which donations were made, and Bill's speaking fees going up, other pay-to-play allegations involving some very nasty
governments in Africa and the Middle East
There would be no DOJ investigation, and no Special Counsel appointed. Even had she fired Comey herself on Day One. Impossible
to prove, but none of this would be happening. And I doubt the press at large would be clamoring for investigations, because there
wouldn't be any leaking going on.
If elites are good at anything, it's circumventing the rule of law by stonewalling, or burying, all investigations into wrongdoing.
The Obama DOJ excelled greatly at that sort of thing
For those of us who elected Donald Trump our President, Mr. Merry, your type of analysis is the most dangerous!
On the one hand, you point to the root of the problems: "The elites are the problem."
You correctly identify some of the main reasons why we elected Donald Trump: "[1] The hollowing out of the American working
class '[2] the greatest transfer of middle-class and elderly wealth to elite financial interests in the history of mankind' [3]
persistent wars with hardly any stated purpose and in many instances no end in sight-Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya [4]
11 million illegal immigrants in America, a rebuke to territorial sovereignty and to the rule of law upon which our nation was
founded."
But then – having admitted that "Removing Trump Won't Solve America's Crisis" – you spout the elites' main talking point in
their war to overturn the election results and to get rid of Donald Trump. You trumpet the elites' biggest lie. You say: "These
people [the elites] are right about one thing: Trump is supremely unfit for his White House job."
You are wrong, Mr. Merry. Totally wrong! President Trump is supremely qualified, and for these reasons:
• He was the only presidential candidate with the courage to stand up and identify the real problems that have been destroying
America and
• He was the only candidate with the courage to stand up to the elites and not to back down.
You say, Mr. Merry, that "three and a half more years of [Trump] raises the specter of more and more unnecessary tumult."
You're wrong again. The tumult is entirely necessary. In fact the tumult is inevitable because we Americans have finally elected
a President who is not afraid to speak to America's real problems. We have finally elected a President who has the guts to stand
up to the powerful elites who created these problems. We have finally elected a President who will fight for us – fight for us
and not back down!
The elites don't like what they see. They don't like Trump and they don't like us, because we put Trump in the White House.
Those of us who elected Donald Trump President because he fights for us are willing and able to fight for him!
"The elites figure that if they can just get rid of Trump, the country can return to what they consider normalcy-the status quo
ante, before the Trumpian challenge to their status as rulers of America."
I don't agree at all with this assessment of what the "elites" want or expect.
I believe that the strong following Bernie Sanders had–and still has– is indicative of the large numbers of Americans who find
the the "status quo" a questionable way to proceed.
This is not an endorsement of Bernie Sanders or a lamentation that he didn't get the nomination, it is just a clarification of
terms of "what the elite want" i.e. you're barking up the wrong tree.
Also not sure who you consider an elite; the whole article seems based on flimsy assumptions.
I am thinking more and more that our only hope is partition. If California wants to let half of Mexico in, go for it. Just
don't ask Idaho or Montana to send you water when you run out. If New England and New York want to be run by Wall Street capitalists
with SJW social views, go for it. Encourage your working class and middle class people to move to the South or the Midwest and
you can be just like Brazil! A nice place to vacation run by very rich people, but inhabited by mostly poor people. Another benefit
of partition would be that the Ununited States would not have the size or resources to be the world's policeman. Sounds like a
win for almost everybody but the neo-cons and the liberal interventionists.
To be honest, I don't really agree with the thesis of this article. The idea of elite as pejoratives seems out of place with the
usage in other contexts and suggests we need a clearer articulation of what exactly it is we are angry about. This being said,
regardless of where the problem lies, these so called "elites" have done an amazing job of turning the political machine to their
advantage. We elected them – we elected Trump. I guess the thing I come back to is we need to stop seeking evidence of why we
are right and start seeking evidence of why we are wrong – especially when it comes to candidates. I honestly don't know what
this would look like or if it would be possible – but I feel like we need to change the way we know and evaluate candidates. It
feels clear to me that the things we use as yardsticks fail us and warrants a re-imaging of how we determine fitness for public
positions.
The term "elite" might well mean nothing more than "educated and knowledgeable and experienced." We can see what happens when
a rich person seems uneducated in world history, uneducated in our form or government and shows no leadership qualities for running
a government. He is not an elite. He is a bozo. Michael Jordan was an "elite" basketball player. Do you want anything less in
the top ranks of government?
The term "elite" has a negative tone for those who do not understand how difficult issues are. As was said "I never knew how
complicated health care was." And this bozo was elected.
You can only blame the elites so much in a democracy. We elect presidents who appoint judges that say corporations have a constitutional
right to give unlimited campaign contributions to politicians who work for them. We often confuse supporting our troops for supporting
whatever war they're sent to. We want to cut taxes but we also want more warplanes. We spend more than any other country on healthcare
and complain about costs but we reject systems other countries use that are proven more efficient. We spend much time complaining
about elites but, with few exceptions, we keep electing them.
Kurt Gayle: "You correctly identify some of the main reasons why we elected Donald Trump: "
Perfectly valid reasons. Unfortunately, a perfectly wrong candidate and a perfectly wrong party to support. For most of the
issues cited (excepting immigration), you'd really want a Progressive. Trump and the GOP were never going to 'clean out the swamp'
(he opened the gates to the swamp), never going to try reversing the flow of wealth away from the poor & middle classes, never
de-escalate military conflict, and never going to wrest control from "financialists".
For that work, Trump is unqualified, slow to learn and has demonstrated a disquieting disinterest in actual details.
I agree with most of the objectives you mention, but Trump was never even close to being right person for the job. Better to
wash your hands of this Administration and move on.
" The term "The Deep State" being latest iteration, allowing anybody to speculate and project their own predjudices and paranoias
as to these dark and unnamed forces as well comfortably allowing us each to excuse our own failures as being secretly the fault
of some vague and unnamed "them"."
Deep State theory originated in the New Left as a response to the Kennedy assassination, for instance with the works of Carl
Oglesby and Peter Dale Scott, who was using the phrase "deep politics" decades ago not the only way in which the modern GOP base
has started to sound like left-wingers from the old days, but one of the more surprising.
I could pretty readily contradict some of the article's details, but I will skip that in order to agree with the basic premise.
Yes, the Trump and Bernie Sanders phenomena signify a dissatisfaction with elitism. However, solutions not only exist, but abound.
One in particular presents itself as not only advisable, but as a necessary condition: I will present only that one possibility
here.
As long as big money can buy elections, elitists will rule and the masses will get shafted. The only way to keep that from
happening in perpetuity is to establish a system of public funding for elections.
Absent that change, there really is no hope. We might not like it, and we might be forced to revisit principles we thought
inviolate, but it is a necessary condition of restoring government of, by, and for the people.
The problem with our elites is they do well when the rest of the country is going down the drain.
Most of the blame attaches to Republican elites but the Dems are not immune.
Since Reagan's election and the start of the libertarian takeover of the Republican party, America has shredded the social
contract we have with one another. No more we're-in-this-together. No more we-are-our-brother's-keeper.
Instead of decent middle class jobs with all the benefits, we've moved toward a gig economy where everyone is always hustling
for the next job/client. Which the New Yorker recently called the work-until-you-die economy.
Yes, if you're talented and lucky - the Yankees bringing you up from the minors, Paramount pictures distributing the movie
you financed with credit cards, your start-up getting acquired by Microsoft - it is easier than before to become successful.
But if you're a temporary receptionist at a law firm or driving for Uber . . .
We've wrecked all the countervailing powers that inhibited capital from overwhelming labor. The share of US income going to
capital (dividends, interest, capital gains) versus labor (paychecks) has soared.
Unions are dead. Infrastructure and other public spending is gone. NAFTA was supposed to come with support for workers whose
jobs went to Mexico but Bob Dole didn't believe in coddling losers.
For-profit education and soaring tuition with bankruptcy law no longer permitting discharge of student load debt. How are those
kids ever going to afford to buy the houses older people are counting on to finance their retirements?
Years without increases in the minimum wage. (Minimum wage is the reference wage for most other wages. Up the minimum wage
and everyone earning a paycheck will soon get a raise too.)
That's what libertarians did to the Republican party and then to America. We stopped caring about the well-being of our fellow
citizens because everything is a business deal between two self-interested parties. That's how you think on Wall Street and Silicon
Valley. (And in 2008-09, when Wall Street drove the economy off a cliff, ordinary Americans bailed out the bankers.)
But if you're an out-of-work steelworker addicted to opiates? Your bad choices are not my problem.
The poster child for elites who no longer care about ordinary Americans is Pete Peterson of Blackstone. Remember his dog and
pony show about federal govt's looming fiscal crisis? His solution was to gut entitlement spending that's probably keeping a lot
of people alive.
And here's the kicker: nothing about this fiscal crisis was so severe that a solution would require billionaires like Peterson
to tighten their belts.
Trump and Sanders picked up on the rage and despair that ordinary citizens feel for our elites and what they're doing to our
country. Hillary and the rest of the Republican candidates misread the mood.
Trump is now proposing the same old Republican agenda. Tax cuts for the rich to be financed by gutting Obamacare. More deregulation
and less public spending.
Yes, America is in crisis. Support for democratic norms is razor-thin and declining.
This country needs to recommit to a social contract. And a social safety net. We're all in this together. The rich can't do
well at the expense of everyone else if this country is to live up to our ideals.
Back in the 1950s, the head of General Motors told a congressional hearing that he always thought that what was good for GM
was good for America and what was good for America was good for GM. He got laughed at. But he was right. If he's selling cars,
it means people are feeling good about their prospects.
I'm waiting for a presidential candidate who promises that the rich are going to bear the biggest share of the burden when
Americans roll up our sleeves to fix our country. He'll win in a landslide.
If wealth equals power then the only way you are going to limit the power of the elites is by massive campaign reform that would
curtail the influence the wealth of the elites currently has over the political process. Neither Republicans or Democrats have
shown the slightest interest in meaningful campaign reform for the simple reason that it is easier fund a campaign with millions
from the elites who donate directly to a campaign and indirectly through a PAC. Without meaningful campaign reform the US will
slowly but surely slip from being a democracy to an oligarchy run by the elites for the benefit of the elites. The crisis in the
US is that it seems most citizens seem willing to accept that because of their wealth the elites are more likely to know how to
govern. Sadly these citizens are having to learn that being a wealthy elite like Trump does not automatically mean that he knows
how to govern.
As a moderate lifelong Republican, I was a NeverTrumper through the primaries where my guy (Rubio) did well in my state, winning
the contest. Only after Trump prevailed did I go off for a few hours on a long walk to contemplate what this meant for me, my
party and my nation. I concluded that Trump was a necessary evil if we were serious about giving the 100,000,000 working men and
women in this country a fair shake at the American Dream. Someone had to be ballsy enough to reconstruct the Federal Bureacracy
and anyone less than a guy like Trump would wilt in the heat generated by the left leaning media and left leaning Federal Bureaucracy.
Let's face it. Had HRC won absolutely nothing would have changed except our acceptance of corruption in our body politic. I
still have hope that the Federal Government can be right-sized and the power redistributed to the United States of America not
DC.
Therein lies the fight of our time. We can either concede the fight and let DC make all the decisions (including whether to
fix the pot holes on my local streets)to we can ask what each citizen can do for his or her country. It's a binary choice really.
You either believe that all the power should reside with the Feds and the dictates and mandates that go with power being held
1000 miles away .or you're in favor of 95% of the decisions that impact you locally and in your state.
If you need to find out where someone sits on this issue, ask them 2 simple questions.
1) Who is Joe Biden?
2) Name just 2 people from all of the following: Who's your Mayor? City Council? County Commission? School Board? State Senator?
State Rep? Lt. Governor? School Board?
The Trump era will be cathartic or emetic. Government operations will be so confused and erratic that people will start to think
that maybe elite rule wasn't so bad and will look forward to "the grown-ups" taking over again. Of course, every new administration
now claims to be "the grown-ups" reasserting themselves - that's come to be a given - but those pretensions will be taken more
seriously when the next administration takes over.
So are the elites to blame? Well, in a way. They have their agenda, and it's not always shared by ordinary Americans. But ordinary
Americans don't agree with each other all that often, and depending on what the issue is, some parts of the general public are
closer to the governing elites than they are to other parts of the public. It could be that elites manage to get enough support
from non-elite voters to stay in office.
But also, competence is a factor. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about elites, but much of the energy of governing
elites may go into being just well-informed enough to do a half-way credible job of staying on top of events, rather than into
deep-laid plans to thwart popular wishes.
"All this contributed significantly to the hollowing out of the American working class-once the central foundation of the country's
economic muscle and political stability. Now these are the forgotten Americans, deplorable to Hillary Clinton and her elite followers,
left without jobs and increasingly bereft of purpose and hope."
Nice try.
Three things led to the "hollowing out" of the American working class, and they have nothing to do with ephemeral vaporings
about "divorced from the traditional American passion for building things, innovating, and taking risks."
1. Automation – and there's just no way around that – the semi-skilled and some skilled jobs giving lower-educated workers
a strong middle class life are gone.
2. "Reagan Democrats" who've been voting staunchly Republican and stood by watching and nodding while conservatives have eviscerated
and vilified union jobs that also supported a middle class lifestyle (see, e.g., "right-to-work" states).
3. Globalization (abetted by both parties) that shipped these jobs overseas – although there's no clear solution to this in
an emergent 21st-century global economy.
Look, I grew up outside of Detroit and knew families and friends who didn't go to college, but went to work on the line and
could afford a middle class life. For the reasons listed above, those days are gone forever.
Who are these "elites"? This is the central question.
They seem to be: [1] highly educated [2] in private colleges and universities [3] mainly in the Northeast [4] and as adults
[5] employed primarily in professional occupations [6] geographically concentrated in the Boston-Washington corridor, especially
in NYC and DC.
Using that definition, the author of this post is an elite. But I bet he claims he is not.
The thing is, Mr. Merry is a journalist. I'm hearing a lot about how dastardly THEY are from Trump supporters.
As long as big money can buy elections, elitists will rule and the masses will get shafted. The only way to keep that from
happening in perpetuity is to establish a system of public funding for elections.
I agree wholeheartedly. Does anyone who is not rich think that money = speech? What other democracy has an election funding
system as bizarre as ours?
Trump's "populism" is based on the same old demagogue's standbys: xenophobia, scapegoating, racism, anti-intellectualism, economic
anxiety, nationalism, and a yearning for an idealized past that never existed. The idea of Trump as some shirt-sleeved populist
warrior who is going to correct the inequities of wealth distribution in the U.S. is too laughable to bother with. I would refer
anyone to the two health care bills he has championed so far, which were poorly disguised attempts to enrich the wealthy even
further, while robbing tens of millions of their ability to afford health insurance.
Sorry, but the problem is not the "elite" but the "elitists": them that's curried favor-always monetary-w/ other elitists in exchange
for donations at election time. With Clinton & Trump, we had two elitists that thought they deserved the pres'y & were propelled
by the elitists running the campaigns & parties that hoped to gain from either of those two in the W.H.
Meanwhile, the press worked feverishly to turn Clinton & Trump into viable candidates-w/ ancient, useless labels like "liberal,"
progressive"; "anti-establishment," "populist"-& convinced voters that they were the "best men" for the job.
So I ended up voting for our state's Repo. gov.; who in turn voted for his own father, an 88-yr-old former congressman. That
was effect elitists had on some of us.
April 25, 2017 Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishing
In a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking
conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10. He defends
himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John
McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government.
"Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise?"
Because the author is letting his partisanship relive him of his good sense. Or he is as numerically challenged as his president,
who knows?
These people won PLURALITIES of the popular vote. So did Hillary Clinton. They all received the most votes in an election with
three or more candidates but received less votes than the total that voted for some one else. Everyone on the planet besides third-world
dictators and Republicans generally describe this phenomenon as "winning an election".
A plurality is very different from getting a minority of the vote like Trump did. I am sure that Merry knows this. If you don't
believe me, go ask the folks who voted Green and Libertarian who they would have voted for as a second choice if they were forced
to
And BTW, a lot of those immigrants (to whom I do not object) are here because of America's fascination with foreign wars and
intrusions. Think "boat people," for example, or Iranian refugees or Cuban, etc., etc. Our stupidity produces moral obligations.
Contra the demos-fueled hissy-fit over "Elites", I have no problem with Elites running the world. For one thing, they (Elites)
always have run the world, and that isn't going to change, except cosmetically.
Nor do I have a problem with them reasonably rewarding themselves for their efforts.
Experiments with direct participatory democracy have usually ended in the sort of lynch-mobbing which murdered Socrates.
I have neither time nor interest in attending to every pettyfrogging detail of running a village government, let alone one
of 300 million souls. Even with the Internet, "direct democracy" ends up being run by a few (reference Athens, if any doubt).
The current outrage-aholic fixation over "elites" is not because they are Elites, but because they are INCOMPETENT Elites.
It is said the Brits lost the Empire because they forgot how to govern, and now, it is our turn.
Eric Hoffer told us how Elites fall back in 1950 (The True Believer), but we were so fat and happy we ignored what he said.
Besides, he was a longshoreman, with no credentials. What did he know?
My preference is for Them to fix Their problem, and to get back running affairs properly.
Then I can focus on playing with my grandkids, flirting with my wife, and drinking beer in late afternoon with Old Blue at
my feet.
Well, he talks and tweets a lot. But NAFTA is still in force (he learned of downsides of ash canning it), Iran sanctions have
not been increased (maybe he thought of jobs related to jet sales important), he is talking with Russia (as opposed to talking
about it), and has let all know about his aversion to gassing civilians.
Let us continue to observe what he does, not what he tweets. I plan to come back in late July and take a look, 100 days just
is too short to come to a decision.
So true. Another of the few sane voices, with intellectual heft to match that sobriety. Wish Rod Dreher would read and be convinced
by your salient analysis, even if against his will. I think too many conservatives genuflect to established hierarchy, whatever
its faults, out of a character that is disposed to distrust change, even needed change. I myself do not buy into the reasoning,
"better the devil we know." I really think only the relatively well off can sustain such a view, whether in Manhattan or connected
to it via the internet in Baton Rouge. The rest of us are too desperate.
The elites truly are the problem. Just like those who blame Russia, they won't take ownership. They will need one heckuva Homeland
Security and clampdown on the population they view as intolerable, once they have their coup against democracy. It is certain
to be a pyrrhic victory though, as no elites in history ever gave up their power willingly or peacefully, yet in every case they
were forcibly removed in paroxysms of violence by angry mobs of citizens who lost faith in a rigged system that would not allow
needed peaceful change.
So Trump lacks all the qualities and attributes of a proper President. What exactly are those qualities beyond getting elected?
Who are the great examples Trump should imitate? Let's see, the community organizer? The son of a Bush? The man from Hope? Poppy
Bush? I am one who admired Reagan but he did run up the debt. The quality these people share is a ludicrous vanity. Can't understand
the notion that Trump is far below the rest of these flawed human beings. He seems to be just another one. What the heck, he might
turn out to be effective. It is way too early to know.
Very true. The elites want to turf Trump because he is jeopardising a model that sustains their salaries and prestige, yet of
course they can still not offer an alternative to what was there before.
The elites can't look outside the system, to something beyond the system, because that is, by definition, something they can't
control or make false promises about. The deeper problem is they are unwilling to even have this conversation, for fear it would
lead to a logical conclusion about the inadequacies of power.
What a bore and a canard; Trump_vs_deep_state has shown itself in capable of competent and capable public policy; quick on the trigger to
tear everything down but in coherent and undisciplined to build anything of consequence to replace it. I'll take the elites any
day over nihilism and petulance. Trump is the mirror image of his voters and it gives me great satisfaction to see their political
fortunes grind to dust Over their own incompetence.
Meh. People keep screaming about a "crisis" but aren't able to actually point to one. The economy is doing well. Crime is at historic
lows. There are so few actual problems that people are taking to manufacturing them (e.g. opioids).
I think the real issue here is that the politically-powerful Baby Boom is approaching the final years of its narcissistic,
navel-gazing existence, and assumes the entire world disappears when they do.
This article does a good job stitching together much of the Elites' sins. It is apparent to me that the American government can't
be reformed from within by electing reform candidates. If reform is possible, it can't come from the Northeast and West Coast.
It will never come from a Harvard, or any other Ivy League school, graduate. It won't come from a Boston Catholic person or New
York Jewish-American. It won't come from a Baby Boomer who wishes to continue to prop up the social changes they ushered in the
60s and 70s. I would expect actual reform to come from a young person in the American Heartland, which the bi-coastal elites deride
as "Flyover Country." Wasn't it the "Rust Belt" who showed us the way in the 2016 election? And if and when reform (i.e. the non-violent
neutering of the Elites' power abuses) comes, the reformers had better be prepared with a total package and not just one candidate.
It may be a one-time opportunity, and must be executed with the utmost strategy and determination.
But We Trump supporters are quite happy with his actions so far. We know the press is rigged against him. It is distressing to
see the elitist Republicans attack him too though. You are right about the divide, but this may be our last best hope of taking
the government back
if President Donald J Trump IS supremely unfit to hold the office, does that not logically (in the eyes of the author)not make
the xx million American people who voted for him supremely unfit to vote? Startling hubris if you ask me.
Basically agree with the author;s position but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, stop calling elitists, elites. They are not "superior to
the rest in terms of ability or qualities" in fact, they are frequently inferior.
When Sen. Schumer announced, on MSNBC, that a president going against the CIA is 'stupid' because 'they have six ways from Sunday
of getting back at you,' doesn't that scream 'crisis' from the rooftops? Since when does America, allegedly a democratic republic,
assume elected presidents are the subordinates of the CIA? Well, de facto, probably for many years, but to actually openly approve
of it?
But there was no even discussion of his statement! It set off no alarm bells, no demands for reigning in the CIA ('the intelligence
"community"'). Why not? Presumably because the short-term interests of too many elites aligned in this case with that of the deep
state. The habit of 'whatever works for me, for the moment' won out, once again, further degrading the political culture right
at its institutional heart.
And also because Schumer is right. It isn't smart to criticize the CIA It wouldn't be good for your career, you know what
I mean? ('What are ya, a Russian commie or something?').
Merry is absolutely right. Removing Trump does nothing. It does less than nothing. It drives the disease even further into
the body politic. The only solution is honesty and courage. Can we muster it?
So tell me, if the down trodden Working class is so distraught by the elites putting them down, why do they celebrate when the
GOP House voted to take away their healthcare by removing rules on pre-existing conditions.
Say what you will about Obama and his
looking down on the people", but take him on his actions and he has done more to help the lower class through legislation and
executive orders than any other president in the past 30 years.
But wait, he didn't do anything about immigration. So therefore ignore all the laws, ignore the rules changed, just focus on
the revamped Know Nothings afraid of 3% of the population.
Principled opposition to President Trump's character is limited to this magazine and a tiny handful of like minded pundits and
politicians.
If Trump had run on Hillary Clinton's platform, and if he were ruling in accordance with that platform, waging a war for regime
change in Syria, signing TPP or some equivalent, refusing to enforce the immigration laws, granting amnesty to illegal immigrants,
and greatly increasing the number of legal immigrants, the Democrats and neocons would be praising him to the skies and supporting
him to the hilt.
If, on the other hand, someone other than Trump, Pat Buchanan for instance, had been elected on Trump's platform, the Democrats
and neocons would be attacking him with all the hysterical venom they are now hurling at Trump (remember the brief deranged hysteria
that followed Buchanan's 1996 primary win in New Hampshire?) – and I suspect some of those who pass for principled critics of
Trump's character would be caught up in this hypothetical anti-Buchanan hysteria, because of their sheer weak-willed yearning
for social acceptance.
If you want to really be serious about "fitness to lead", it has been a very long time since the USA has had a president who was
fit to lead.
The fact is, though, that the first rumblings of "impeachment" started before the Electoral College even met, back while Democrats
were still hoping to nullify what happened on election night through the Electoral College.
The whole Russian angle is simply a pretext. No one is saying that Russia hacked into the voting machines and added or subtracted
votes; at most they are accused of having done the kind of thing investigative journalists are praised for having done. When,
in the midst of the American election, British parliamentarians discussed banning Trump from the UK, **THAT** was much more serious
and overt tampering with our election, yet no one cares about that, because the UK is the land of Peter Pan and Mary Poppins,
whereas Russia is the bogeyman. Thus we see headlines about Russian jets "buzzing" the coast of Alaska, only to read further down
that by "buzzing" we mean they were 20+ miles into international airspace. Apparently it's an outrage that they should come within
a thousand miles of American airspace. American spy planes in the Black Sea are a different story: after all, they remained in
international air space the whole time!
It is dangerous to cast Russia unnecessarily in the role of villain, but it is even more dangerous to engineer even the softest
of coups. Once that is done, there is no going back. Very likely there would be widespread protests, many of them violent, and
a large portion of the public would see the de facto government as not merely corrupt and foolish, but completely invalid. The
"authorities" would probably be able to crush dissent, but only by going full-on Stalin. What happens after that, who knows, but
this story would not have any happy ending.
As usual, Merry's insights are useful and informed.However, Clinton, warts and all, would have more likely eased the pain of many
Americans. Her campaign focused too much on aggrieved minorities and not enough on the pain shared by all but her policies would
have more likely checked the manic redistribution of wealth from middle class to elite, ended the health care impasse that cruelly
toys with people, made education more accessible and enhanced investments in science and technology that could create jobs in
the coming years. With regard to immigration, it is true that adding so many immigrants to the population at a time when decent-paying
jobs were being eliminated through technology created a bad optic but the ban or removal of millions of immigrants would not really
restore middle class stability. Elites in both parties have made mistakes and been entirely too attentive to those who give the
most money but let's not legitimize Trump's mixture of exploiting anger with false promises and pushing policies that will make
the plight of working people even more desperate. Clinton might not have shaken up an elitist system she helped create but she
would not have shaken our democratic institutions and attacked an already fragile polity the way Trump has and will continue to
do for another 3 and half years. Like it or not, elites and disenfranchised will eventually have to work together and Trump has
set back this inevitable and urgent collaboration years, if not forever.
Nixon, Clinton, Wilson,Lincoln all won the popular vote. Why does this article suggest otherwise? The only presidents with a minority
of the popular vote are JQ Adams, Hayes, Harrison and Bush.
A self-described "publishing executive" who writes magazine/blog articles for a living is a member of the "elite"! Condemned
out of his own mouth. By his own vanity, perhaps.
And the case is hardly made by deliberately misstating facts.
65 million people voted for Hillary Clinton for President. Is that 65 million "elites," or 65 million "dupes" too stupid to
"see through her"? 65 million irresponsible citizens? Are these 65 million the real "deplorables"?
I don't expect to see any mea culpa statements from the numerous conservative writers and talking heads who made excuses
for Trump's selection as candidate prior to the election. Many of those excuses were promulgated through TAC. But a look in the
mirror, and a conversation with that "still, small voice" could be therapeutic for many of you.
Not Hillary Clinton, not the Democratic Party, not the 65 million "deplorables," were responsible for conservatives' decision
to go with a manifestly unsuitable candidate. Once again, those declaiming most loudly about "personal responsibility" - lack
it.
Good piece. Clearly the many leakers aren't concerned about national security consequences. This is only about bringing down Trump.
After all, the journalist establishment extolled Snowden for leaking tons of classified information. Trump might help himself
by being a little more "political," and learning to fight the right battles.
I hope your article gains a large readership that includes the nevertrump cadre. It is probably a pipe dream to hope they would
wake up and become aware of how they and their preference for Hillary look to many of the 63 million people who voted for Trump.
They knew he was inexperienced, coarse, and a mixed bag. They also know he's only been in office for 4 months and the obstruction,
malicious leaks, and malignant hatred of Trump began long before he took office.
Too many in the nevertrump cadre come off as self-righteous, smug Pharisees for whom conservatism has become a religion. For
some reason, they think their own character, knowledge, and judgement is impeccable with no room for correction by 63 million
voters. The vox populi needs the elites to override them. Such hubris. We are well aware that they would rather have had a Hillary
presidency. Are they any more mature than the Left in dealing with defeat? Apparently not.
Glenn Reynolds (professor of law) sums up the situation this way: "The childish response of Democrats - and 'NeverTrump' Republicans
- to the 2016 election has done more damage to American politics and institutions than any foreign meddling could do." It would
behoove the nevertrumpers to consider what they are sowing and reaping. Has their hatred of Trump and smug self-righteousness
made them deaf, dumb, and blind?
I think Victor Davis Hanson's article (see link below) has articulated the situation best and is best read as a whole instead
of excerpted. The National Review's readership fell greatly prior to the election because of the nevertrumpers pomposity, but
not the readership of VDH's articles at the NRO. Perhaps instead of silently disagreeing, the vox populi need to intervene and
impeach the nevertrumpers.
You elected a chump over all the obvious reasons not to, and he iS going to go before the end of the summer, either for the reasons
already in.front of us or for the new ones he will give us in.the next 60 days. Get your stupid saves out of the way now and allow
the republic to recover.
Btw the "you elected" phrase above is predicated on.the idea that the chump really won.the election, Cuz it's quite clear he
may not have.
The problem is not the elite, but a POTUS who is ignorant and arrogant,who is unqualified and inept and who is a man-child trying
to be a leader. He makes his own issues by opening his mouth and saying stupid things and insisting they are true, and doing stupid
things and insisting they are good. It is obvious he has no plan for anything and doesn't understand much of what is going on
around him. He never talks about anything of substance; on health care, Price had to deal with details, and with the tax plan,
it was Cohn who revealed that amazing one page initiative. When he does talk, he stupidly gives intel to our enemies. Trump is
an idiot with a pen and that is the problem and it is a problem for this country.
Excellent article. Can it be possible that the meritocratic oligarchy which runs this country still doesn't "get it?" Do they
really believe that getting rid of Trump solves the problem? Can it be possible that they still can't see that absent proof of
actual malfeasance, driving Trump out of office could make things even worse, as if things aren't bad already.
As the days and weeks go by it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer is–yes.
This is, far and away, the best summary of our current situation I have read anywhere. Outstanding!
One area around immigration could, however, be improved to truly capture why there is so much anger at the elites. On immigration,
the article states: "Leave aside for purposes of discussion the debate on the merits of the issue-whether mass immigration is
good for America or whether it reaches a point of economic diminishing returns and threatens to erode America's underlying culture.
Whatever the merits on either side of that debate, mass immigration, accepted and even fostered by the nation's elites, has driven
a powerful wedge through America. "
While true, this still misses the main point. The point is that the nation has existing laws to control immigration. Because
the elites could not change the law through the democratic process, they opted instead to just ignore the laws, with absolutely
no consequences except for those who live in the communities impacted.
In this context, the significance of the Clinton email scandal was magnified as it represented, again, the elites clearly violating
the law with no consequences.
The lawlessness aspect is a critical point that needs to be emphasized. The elite backlash is not just about policy disagreements,
its about a class of people (elites) violating/ignoring the law for their own benefit and at the expense of others. The very fact
that this could happen exposes how broken the system really is.
And btw.. Tho the author here is a smart and good writer, this whole "elites" thing is a stupid argument.I agree that we democrats
were too cowardly to nominate Bernie, whose whole message and absolute unlikelihood was most aligned with the spirit of the times.
As a party we thought small and thus became small. But Hillary was so vastly superior to any of the republican candidates that
the problem has nothing to do with right wing elites and everything to do with that large swath of the right wing which simply
is deplorable. They are deplorable and they deserve to know that the nation as a whole knows them to.be such. There wzz a time
when they knew their place– way down a hole with the boot of the nation s conscience firmly on.the top of their head. The right
let them emerge from.that hole during the advent of the tea party Cuz it liked the fact that those losers were giving their movement
breadth and energy.
But don't think for a minute that those millions of prejudiced, disgusting people have been redeemed by the chumps supposed
victory, they haven't. Maybe Hillary shouldn't have called them.such, idk, but the fact of their existence being a cancer in.the
republic is as correct today as it was 400 years ago and in.every generation.to.follow.
With the absolute control the elites have upon the military industrial complex, the traditional media outlets, the bureaucratic
"three-letter" departments of governance, as well as the powerful influence over both the judicial and legislative branches of
the governmnet, it seems impossible to me that such a group could be thrown off by its citizenry by violent uprising or otherwise.
Just watch some of the video of Chaffets lead intelligence committee trying to access information regarding the Clinton servers
and you will begin to see the incredible scope of the problem we face in America and the world today. Just as it was God that
delivered a rag-tag band of America patriots from the hands of elite-based tyranny at the founding of our country, it will take
an act of God to remove the chains and shackles of the Deep State from off the necks of the American people. Unfortunately a growing
number of Americans are turning their back on the only real chance of deliverance we have – He who delivered the Hebrews from
the Egyptian elites can delver us also.
In the day when we received our news of national and international goings on via newspapers, there was a space for reflection
and contemplation, and even some semblance of reasoned debate.
That ship has sailed, never to return and we are in the day of "Amusing Ourselves to Death"
It used to take some time and effort to form a proper mob.
What defines this shadowy type – "elite?" Educated? Financially well off? Aren't you an elite? Or does it only apply to liberals
and Democrats? How would you define yourself?
Apologies for a poorly written comment. The vox populi is a reference to a Douthat tweet: "7. But what, in the end, are elites
for? What justifies their existence? Some sort of wisdom that the vox populi can lack." Douthat's article, his tweet storm, and
the lack of strong repudiation from the nevertrump cadre pretty much ended my patience with all of them. It has become almost
impossible to tell the difference between the hysterical Left and the outraged nevertrump cadre. This last week has been such
a delightful display of how the media, establishment elites, and nevertrumpers feel about those 63 million unredeemable deplorable
Americans who voted for Trump. Thank you for allowing me to comment.
I agree with this. I voted for Trump and told my wife several times before voting, "I don't think Trump will be a good president.
I'm voting for him to send a "f- you" to the elites who run this country.
When I say elites, I don't mean only the high and mighty. In my hometown, where I have lived all my life, our city council
has handed millions of tax dollars to the region's largest car dealer to expand yet again. They pledged $1 million to lure a Hobby
Lobby even though it is in direct competition with a Michael's store that has been here for years. They bought property for $1
million, knocked down the building on it, prepared the site for development, then "sold" it to a developer for $10.
That kind of favoritism has been running wild in my little town - a little town controlled entirely by people who call themselves
Republicans.
"When a man as uncouth and reckless as Trump becomes president by running against the nation's elites, it's a strong signal that
the elites are the problem."
The problem is the industrialized disinformation machine that continues to spew hatred and lies. One side thinks it's the liberal
media, and the other side thinks it's RW talk radio and Fox News. It's easy to figure out which one is the real problem. There
are facts and there are internet rumors that are passed off as facts. Both can't be true. And even in the face of clear evidence,
primarily one side continues to believe the rumors and lies. Can't argue with delusion.
This article makes some good points. Trump was elected fair and square and the case against him is straight out of fantasy land.
BUT then there is the snotty rhetoric that Trump is "uncouth," the same sort of rhetoric employed by the elite New York Times.
Frankly I do not care about Trump's table manners. I do care that he has sought detente 2.0 with Russia and has killed off the
TPP, not only a lousy trade deal but also the economic limb of Hillary's military/economic assault (aka pivot) to China.
So I dismiss charges that Trump is "unfit" or "lacks nearly all the characteristics or attributes that a president should have.".
And I have little confidence in a writer who looks at things in such an arrogant way. That he is the new editor of The American
Conservative is enough to make me reconsider the contributions I make to this journal. Pat Buchanan and Bill Kauffman, yes. Merry?
I wonder.
I don't think the abundance of evidence that members of the Trump team met with Russian officials during the campaign can be called
"minor infractions against the president". These are certainly serious allegations. It was clear early in the Trump presidency
that he was not surrounding himself with people capable of carrying out the vision he articulated in his campaign for restoring
America's middle class. He made many picks from the ranks of the elites including his Vice President and Attorney General. His
selection seemed to favor loyalty rather than building a team that could make the changes he campaigned on. His Treasury pick
is straight from Wall Street and his foreign policy team is praised by the elites. Donald Trump is not the agent for change. You
can't differentiate him from the elites because he surrounded himself with them.
What the elites don't understand is that there are lot more of us than of them. If they try to take the election away from the
people who support President Trump. They will have a war on their hands and not a war of words.
Written by a Never-Trump, this article is absolute BS concerning the fact that President Trump is "unfit" for the office of the
presidency. The article is, however, absolutely correct about the elites who have thrown their middle finger in the face of WE
THE PEOPLE of the CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC of the USA, but WE THE PEOPLE elected President Trump to drain the swamp and he will.
The true enemy of the USA is the elected class in D.C. and their cronies like Buffet, Steyer, Gates and the Soros Democrat Marxist
Party and the utter traitorous actions by Obama. President Trump has to rid us of all Obamaites and has to slam the RINO traitors
to the ground. President Trump is perfectly fit to be president and certainly more so than some community organizer who hates
the USA and works to destroy her. Merry's hatred of President trump is boundless and shows him to be among the elites of the "media,"
a terrible curse on the USA. Thank God for President Trump and for FLOTUS Melanie Trump who has returned dignity, grace, class,
and beauty to the White House after eight years of hate-filled, resentful, nasty, and cloddish behavior by Michelle Obama who
disrespected the American people, spending millions of American posterity hard-earned money on herself and her family. Where was
your article about the corruption of Obama and his breaking of our laws and his utter and disgusting spitting on his oath to our
Constitution, Merry?
I am still confused how a billionaire was NOT considered 'elite' to the working class.. Does this not baffle anyone? OK, I get
that America on both sides, left and right, is sick of getting screwed over by the elites. But Trump is no friend to the working
man. He is only helping all his billionaire elite friends and creating practices that will hurt the working class who elected
him, whether via healthcare reform or promising coal miners they can have their jobs back, when everyone knows that sector is
dying. The rest of the world is getting ahead of us, in technology, infrastructure, renewable energy sources, etc. The divide
between conservatives and liberals has become so ridiculous that no one cares about making the US a better place. Trump's laughable
campaign slogan worked miracles in convincing voters, but I think everyone has sobered up to the dangers that Trump poses in so
many ways. We might be tired of politicians in Washington, but if most of us are honest, this 'shake-up' is going to do a lot
of damage. Maybe it's what we need in the long run to be able to change things, but all the laws and deregulation have only made
the elite stronger. It makes companies bigger, and the working man poorly treated and expendable.
Please help me understand. What remedies are you recommending? The reason I ask is because these accusations against a class of
people, the elites, rather than against specific wrongful acts smack of Mao and the Cultural Revolution to me. I sense that some
wish to see professors and newspaper editors working in fields with hand tools. I may have misread this posting, but Fran Macadam's
comments sound like a call for at least a sharp turn to me.
I'm not buying the "it's the elites" problem. An 'elite', more often than not, is someone who is using power in a way we don't
like, along with that person's clique. This is akin to using the term, 'activist judges'.
Ultimately, a democracy always gets the leaders it deserves. Once in a great while, it gets better leaders than it deserves.
There will always be facilitators of our worst instincts but ultimately, people have a choice. If a democracy is dysfunctional,
it's not because some 'elites' or 'deep state' have taken over everything. It's because the voters kept electing idiots and representatives
that didn't truly represent their interests.
Regarding the history of immigration in the United States, the Census Bureau says that the post-1850 peak was in 1890 when 14.8%
of residents were foreign born, followed closely by 1910 when 14.7% were foreign born.
Pew estimates that the US will break these records around 2025. Soon we'll have to go back to the mid-1700s to find a period
in American history with a level of immigration we will be experiencing in the near future.
-Vince Hill said: "What the elites don't understand is that there are lot more of us than of them. If they try to take the election
away from the people who support President Trump. They will have a war on their hands and not a war of words."
Those masses are not relevant to those "Elites" and are cannon fodder. The term "Deplorables" says it all. The masses are not
worthy of any consideration. Those "Deplorables" are an obstacle to be eliminated for the greater good. You don't need shadow
govt conspiracies to see this kind of stuff anymore. The blatant lies and manipulations from DC and the media originating from
Dems and Repubs is there for all to see. The 2016 election cycle was a wake-up call. Neither candidate was fit to be a President.
Both are crooked. Yet, the majority of sheep on both sides continue toward their slaughter. Trump may yet get us blown to bits,
but I no longer care about saving the status quo. The majority of people have spoken in this this country and we have been broken
for many Presidencies. The future of this nation, as is, is ugly, if one exists at all.
Mr. Trump is not the issue. And from what I have come to understand about Washington language from top to bottom, his language
isn't the issue either, in my view.
Whether he is unfit cannot even be addressed though I suspect he is, if one examines the long history of the office. I don't
have any doubt that Mr Trump is an effective admin as head of state. As a non-politician, there may be some issues. And his policy
and social positions may not square with my own. But that alone would not make him unfit. His temperament would not take unfit
either. But having to sift through the emotional tantrums of so many in leadership, influence and power to make that assessment
is a very tough slog.
Now we have a secret source that indicates a Mr. Trump did something or other in pressing for an end of needless investigations,
as any CEO might, if said investigations were hindering the effectiveness of his tenure. And clearly its a disruptive fire. The
seed of which were laid immediately as it became clear that Mr Trump, now Pres Trump was a contender. There was talk of impeachment
before the election, and while I appreciated the "heads up", it was disappointing that the agenda for the net four years was to
impeachment a man even before he took office.
I once said that Mr Trump was be given the royal "black treatment" and I stand by those comments. Everything he does, says,
is a minefield. There are no mines, but there are explosions from multiple corners. I have to say, even some of the authors on
TAC are are straining credulity, credibility with their "end of the world", "doom and gloom" commentary. The minefield, once again
has not evidence, but rather, so and so said thus. There's nothing documented that Pres Trump has done anything to hinder anything
about Russia or Gen Flynn. This type of scrutiny makes it impossible to do one's job.
I have been in communication for a long long time. And while my life is but a wreck at the moment. I have had some successes
in competitive speech, and coaching. When I did my master's degree, I was unfit for teaching as a grad assistant. Not because
of a lack of skill, knowledge or expertise, but because by every measure I had. What made the post a total disaster was the scrutiny
as if I I had never done anything of the kind. If you have been teaching a while, there are things you know that a grad just have
a clue about. My adviser attempted to fit my roundness into a nonexistent square peg. The entire graduate program was a disaster
and a disaster in every way. They simply had no clue how to manage someone who had long past graduate level knowledge or experience.
And much to failure, I did, wouldn't, couldn't communicate that fact, though given the internal politics of the place, I doubt
it would have mattered. The behaviors were at best dysfunctional at worst criminal. If I wasn't already highly suspicious, by
the time I left, I was certainly distrustful. I was asked if I wanted to pursue legal redress - the idea of that mess has always
been a route to be avoided, save for defense. "People are people, and sometimes they just do dumb stuff," was my attitude. I was
probably incorrect, dumb, innocent or malicious it was deeply beyond the pail.
Pres. Trump has entered an arena in which he has no respite from the attack or question of every aspect of his being and on
every matter. While, a Pres should expect scrutiny, what he has been subjected is over Everest unreasonable and reasoned. The
constant hyperbolic crisis mongering from people who supposedly have a better temperament, judiciousness, and higher moral code
is a tad bit "funny".
No. Humorous.
What is in play and of deep concern are the repeated manufactured crisis to disrupt his tenure Crisis mongering that began
shortly after 9/11 and has progressed with increasing speed, oddly enough when actual crisis have subsided. Aside form the economy,
the country faces no "real" threat beyond securing the border.
Given our rather carelessness action in the region of the middle east, we had better obey the security protocols prior to 9/11
any of which would have prevented the attack or severely diminished its success. Checking expired passports would have been helpful
– devastating to the attackers.
In Compton, Detroit, NYC, Tallahassee, Birmingham, there are hard working folks trying to figure out how they are going to
compete against the immigrant who's labor is cheaper, who doesn't contribute to the community as much as they draw. They are trying
to figure out how to be fair to their issues, without starving their own. They are doing everything possible to avoid being "deplorable"
and always have. And yet the representatives of their locals are about dealing with muckraking needlessly.
-----
"Sad!"
Boy. it's not a good sign when you are sad. Stay fiesty!
Those in opposition made it clear where they stood before the election. And Mr. Trump has just started to climb this long hill.
There's no reason for the war to turn violent, we are some distance from that turn and even the suggestion is hard to hear.
It suggests a state of threat that need not be aired. In many ways, this situation is airing out the problem, for those brave
enough to acknowledge it.
Though avoiding confrontation of any kind hasn't aided me much, I admit.
"... what astonished me was how quickly the media interpreted its use in the hearings to mean that the conversations and emails that apparently were recorded or intercepted involving Trump associates and assorted Russians as "sensitive contacts" meant that they were necessarily inappropriate, dangerous, or even illegal. ..."
"... The Post is unfortunately also providing ISIS with more information than it "needs to know" to make its story more dramatic, further compromising the source. ..."
"... McMaster described the report as "false" and informed the Post that "The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation. At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly." Tillerson commented that "the nature of specific threats were (sic) discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods, or military operations." ..."
"... The media will no doubt be seeking to magnify the potential damage done while the White House goes into damage control mode. ..."
"... In this case, the intelligence shared with Lavrov appears to be related to specific ISIS threats, which may include planned operations against civilian aircraft, judging from Trump's characteristically after-hours tweets defending his behavior, as well as other reporting. ..."
"... The New York Times , in its own reporting of the story, initially stated that the information on ISIS did not come from an NSA or CIA operation, and later reported that the source was Israel. ..."
"... And President Trump has one more thing to think about. No matter what damage comes out of the Lavrov discussion, he has a bigger problem. There are apparently multiple leakers on his National Security Council. ..."
"... You have McMaster himself who categorically denies any exposure of sources and methods – he was there in person and witness to the talks – and a cloud of unknown witnesses not present speculating, without reference to McMaster or Tillerson's testimony, about what might have happened. This is the American Media in a nutshell, the Infinite Circle Jerk. ..."
"... I am more disturbed how this story got into the press. While, not an ally, I think we should in cooperation with other states. Because the Pres is not familiar with the protocols and language and I doubt any executive has been upon entering office, I have no doubt he may be reacting or overreacting to the overreaction of others. ..."
"... Here's a word. We have no business engaging n the overthrow of another government that is no threat to the US or her allies, and that includes Israel. Syria is not. And we should cease and desist getting further entangled in the messes of the previous executive, his Sec of State and those organizations who seem to e playing with the life blood of the US by engaging if unnecessary risks. ..."
"... And if I understand the crumbs given the data provided by the Post, the Times and this article, if one had ill will for the source of said information, they have pretty good idea where to start. ..."
"... In general I agree with you, but the media was NEVER concerned about the treatment of sensitive material from HRC! ..."
"... I think he needs to cut back on intelligence sharing with Israel. They do just what the hell they want to do with anything. ..."
Intelligence agencies and senior government officials tend to use a lot of jargon. Laced with acronyms, this language sometimes does
not translate very well into journalese when it hits the media.
For example, I experienced a sense of disorientation two weeks ago over the word "sensitive" as used by several senators, Sally
Yates, and James Clapper during committee testimony into Russiagate. "Sensitive" has, of course, a number of meanings. But what
astonished me was how quickly the media
interpreted its use in the hearings to mean that the conversations and emails that apparently were recorded or intercepted involving
Trump associates and assorted Russians as "sensitive contacts" meant that they were necessarily inappropriate, dangerous, or even
illegal.
When Yates and Clapper were using "sensitive" thirteen times in the
86 page transcript of the Senate hearings, they were referring to the medium rather than the message. They were both acknowledging
that the sources of the information were intelligence related, sometimes referred to as "sensitive" by intelligence professionals
and government insiders as a shorthand way to describe that they are "need to know" material derived from either classified "methods"
or foreign-liaison partners. That does not mean that the information contained is either good or bad or even true or false, but merely
a way of expressing that the information must be protected because of where it came from or how it was developed, hence the "sensitivity."
The word also popped up this week in a Washington Post
exclusive report alleging that the president had, in his recent meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, gone too
far while also suggesting that the source of a highly classified government program might be inferred from the context of what was
actually revealed. The Post describes how
The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so
sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.
The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump's decision
to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State.
The Post is unfortunately also providing ISIS with more information than it "needs to know" to make its story more
dramatic, further compromising the source. Furthermore, it should be understood that the paper is extremely hostile to Trump,
the story is as always based on anonymous sources, and the revelation comes on top of another unverifiable Post article claiming
that the Russians might have sought to sneak
a recording device into the White House during the visit.
No one is denying that the president discussed ISIS in some detail with Lavrov, but National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, both of whom were present at the meeting,
have denied that any sources or methods were revealed while reviewing with the Russians available intelligence. McMaster
described the report as "false" and
informed the Post that "The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation.
At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known
publicly." Tillerson commented that "the nature of specific threats were (sic) discussed, but they did not discuss sources, methods,
or military operations."
So the question becomes to what extent can an intelligence mechanism be identified from the information that it produces. That
is, to a certain extent, a judgment call. The president is able
on his own authority to declassify anything, so the legality of his sharing information with Russia cannot be challenged. What
is at question is the decision-making by an inexperienced president who may have been showing off to an important foreign visitor
by revealing details of intelligence that should have remained secret. The media will no doubt be seeking to magnify the potential
damage done while the White House goes into damage control mode.
The media is claiming that the specific discussion with Lavrov that is causing particular concern is related to a so-called
Special Access Program
, or SAP, sometimes referred to as "code word information." An SAP is an operation that generates intelligence that requires special
protection because of where or how it is produced. In this case, the intelligence shared with Lavrov appears to be related to
specific ISIS threats, which may include planned operations against civilian aircraft, judging from Trump's characteristically after-hours
tweets defending his behavior, as well as other reporting.
There have also been reports that the White House followed up on its Lavrov meeting with a routine review of what had taken place.
Several National Security Council members observed that some of the information shared with the Russians was far too sensitive to
disseminate within the U.S. intelligence community. This led to the placing of
urgent calls to NSA and CIA to brief them on what had been said.
Based on the recipients of the calls alone, one might surmise that the source of the information would appear to be either a foreign-intelligence
service or a technical collection operation, or even both combined. The Post claims that the originator of the intelligence
did not clear its sharing with the Russians and raises the possibility that no more information of that type will be provided at
all in light of the White House's apparent carelessness in its use. The New York Times , in its own reporting of the story,
initially
stated that the information on ISIS did not come from an NSA or CIA operation, and later reported that the source was Israel.
The Times is also reporting that Trump provided to Lavrov "granular" information on the city in Syria where the information
was collected that will possibly enable the Russians or ISIS to identify the actual source, with devastating consequences. That projection
may be overreach, but the fact is that the latest gaffe from the White House could well damage an important intelligence liaison
relationship in the Middle East while reinforcing the widely held impression that Washington does not know how to keep a secret.
It will also create the impression that Donald Trump, out of ignorance or hubris, exhibits a certain recklessness in his dealing
with classified information, a failing that he once attributed to his presidential opponent Hillary Clinton.
And President Trump has one more thing to think about. No matter what damage comes out of the Lavrov discussion, he has a
bigger problem. There are apparently multiple leakers on his National Security Council.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
This article has been updated to reflect news developments.
" The latest gaffe from the White House could well damage an important intelligence liaison relationship in the Middle East
"
On the other hand, it also represents closer collaboration with Russia–even if unintended–which is an improvement on the status
quo ante and, not to mention, key to ending the conflict in Syria.
You have McMaster himself who categorically denies any exposure of sources and methods – he was there in person and witness
to the talks – and a cloud of unknown witnesses not present speculating, without reference to McMaster or Tillerson's testimony,
about what might have happened. This is the American Media in a nutshell, the Infinite Circle Jerk.
Out of my depth, but was Trump working within the framework, maybe a bit outside if the story is true, of the Joint Implementation
Group the Obama administration created last year with Russia?
Also, I recall reading that the prior administration promised Russia ISIS intel. Not sure if that ever happened, but I doubt
they'd have made it public or leak anything to the press.
I think it should go without saying that intelligence is a sensitive business and protecting those who operate in its murky
waters is important to having an effective agency.
Of course the Pres of the US has a duty to do so.
I have not yet read the post article. But I am doubtful that the executive had any intention of putting anyone in harms way.
I am equally doubtful that this incident will. If the executive made an error in judgement, I am sure it will be dealt wit in
an appropriate manner.
I do wish he'd stop tweeting, though I get why its useful to him.
I am more disturbed how this story got into the press. While, not an ally, I think we should in cooperation with other
states. Because the Pres is not familiar with the protocols and language and I doubt any executive has been upon entering office,
I have no doubt he may be reacting or overreacting to the overreaction of others.
Here's a word. We have no business engaging n the overthrow of another government that is no threat to the US or her allies,
and that includes Israel. Syria is not. And we should cease and desist getting further entangled in the messes of the previous
executive, his Sec of State and those organizations who seem to e playing with the life blood of the US by engaging if unnecessary
risks.
Just another brier brushfire of a single tumble weed to add to the others in the hope that setting fires in trashcans will
make the current exec go away or at least engage in a mea culpa and sign more checks in the mess that is the middle east policy
objective that remains a dead end.
__________
And if I understand the crumbs given the data provided by the Post, the Times and this article, if one had ill will for
the source of said information, they have pretty good idea where to start.
Politics is now directly endangering innocent civilians. Because of the leaks and its publication, ISIS for sure now knows that
there is an information leak out of their organization. They will now re-compartmentalize and may be successful in breaking that
information leak. Innocent airline passenger civilians, American, Russian, or whoever may die as a result. Russia and the US are
both fighting ISIS. We are de facto allies in that fight whether some people like it or not. Time to get over it.
Having read the article, uhhh, excuse me, but unlike personal secrets. The purpose of intel is to use to or keep on hand for some-other
date. But of that information is related to the security of our interests and certainly a cooperative relationship with Russia
is in our interest. Because in the convoluted fight with ISIS/ISIL, Russia is an ally.
What this belies is the mess of the intelligence community. If in fact, the Russians intend to take a source who provided information
that was helpful to them, it would be a peculiar twist of strategic action. The response does tell us that we are in some manner
in league with ISIS/ISIL or their supporters so deep that there is a need to protect them, from what is anybody's guess. Because
if the information is accurate, I doubt the Russians are going to about killing the source, but rather improving their airline
security.
But if we are in fact attempting to remove Pres Assad, and are in league with ISIS/ISIL in doing so - I get why the advocates
of such nonsense might be in a huff. So ISIS/ISISL our one time foe and now our sometimes friend . . .
Good greif . . .
Pres Trump is the least of muy concerns when it coes to security.
Philip, back on July 23, 2014, you explained in "How ISIS Evades the CIA" "the inability of the United States government to anticipate
the ISIS offensive that has succeeded in taking control of a large part of Iraq." You explained why the CIA had to date had no
success in infiltrating ISIS.
You continued: "Given U.S. intelligence's probable limited physical access to any actual terrorist groups operating in Syria
or Iraq any direct attempt to penetrate the organization through placing a source inside would be difficult in the extreme. Such
efforts would most likely be dependent on the assistance of friendly intelligence services in Turkey or Jordan. Both Turkey and
Jordan have reported that terrorists have entered their countries by concealing themselves in the large numbers of refugees that
the conflict in Syria has produced, and both are concerned as they understand full well that groups like ISIS will be targeting
them next. Some of the infiltrating adherents to radical groups have certainly been identified and detained by the respective
intelligence services of those two countries, and undoubtedly efforts have been made to 'turn' some of those in custody to send
them back into Syria (and more recently Iraq) to report on what is taking place. Depending on what arrangements might have been
made to coordinate the operations, the 'take' might well be shared with the United States and other friendly governments."
You then describe the difficulties faced by a Turkish or Jordanian agent trying to infiltrate ISIS: "But seeding is very much
hit or miss, as someone who has been out of the loop of his organization might have difficulty working his way back in. He will
almost certainly be regarded with some suspicion by his peers and would be searched and watched after his return, meaning that
he could not take back with him any sophisticated communications devices no matter how cleverly they are concealed. This would
make communicating any information obtained back to one's case officers in Jordan or Turkey difficult or even impossible."
Notwithstanding how "difficult or even impossible" such an operation would be - and using the New York Times as your only source
for a lot of otherwise completely unsubstantiated information – and admitting that "this is sheer speculation on my part" – you
say that "it is logical to assume that the countries that have provided numerous recruits for ISIS [Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia]
would have used that fact as cover to carry out a seeding operation to introduce some of their own agents into the ISIS organization."
Back to the New York Times as your only source, you say that "the Times is also reporting that Trump provided to Lavrov 'granular'
information on the city in Syria where the information was collected that will possibly enable the Russians or ISIS to identify
the actual source, with devastating consequences."
But having ventured into the far reaches of that line of speculation, you do admit that "that projection may be overreach."
Indeed!
You go on to characterize the events of the White House meeting with the Russians as "the latest gaffe from the White House"
– even though there is absolutely no evidence (outside of the unsubstantiated reports of the Washington Post and the New York
Times) that anything to do with the meeting was a "gaffe" – and you further speculate that "it could well damage an important
intelligence liaison relationship in the Middle East."
That is, again, pure speculation on your part.
One valuable lesson that you've taught TAC readers over the years, Philip: That we need to carefully examine the sources of
information – and the sources of dis-information.
Yet again from Giraldi: the problem isn't that the POTUS is ignorant and incompetent; we should all be more concerned that the
Deep State is leaking the proof.
Trump has now essentially confirmed the story from the Post and contradicted the denials from McMaster – he shared specific intelligence
to demonstrate his willingness to work with the Russians. Moreover, it seems that Israel was the ally that provided this intelligence.
The author and others will defend this, but I can only see this as a reckless and impulsive decision that only causes Russia and
our allies to trust the US less.
So there's no wall, and Obama's amnesties look like they are here to
stay. Do you still trust Trump?
Uhhhh. I'm not very happy with
what has happened so far. I guess we have to try to push him to keep his
promises. But this isn't North Korea, and if he doesn't keep his promises
I'm out. This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him
knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.
I hate to say it, but I agree with every line in my friend Frank Bruni's
op-ed in The New York Times
today. Where is the great negotiation? Where
is the bull in the china shop we wanted? That budget the Republicans pushed
through was like a practical joke Did we win anything? And this is the
great negotiator?
You said during the election and in columns that if there is no
wall it's the end of America.
Trump was our last shot. I kind of thought it was Romney, and then lo and
behold like a miracle Trump comes along. I still believe in Trump_vs_deep_state. I have
no regrets for ferociously supporting him. What choice did we have?
We had no choice. Yeah, I mean, my fingers are still crossed. It's not
like I'm out yet, but boy, things don't look good. I've said to other
people, "It's as if we're in Chicago and Trump tells us he's going to get us
to LA in six days. But for the first three days we are driving towards New
York. Yes, it is true he can still turn around and get us to LA in three
days, but I'm a little nervous.
The article , written by Farhad Manjoo, is titled "Can Facebook Fix Its Own Worst Bug?" and poses the question: "Mark Zuckerberg
now acknowledges the dangerous side of the social revolution he helped start. But is the most powerful tool for connection in human
history capable of adapting to the world it created?"
The article discusses the mood in Silicon Valley days before Donald Trump's inauguration, describing the general mood as "grim."
But Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly quite positive about the future, describing 2016 as an "interesting year for
us [Facebook]."
The article later describes Silicon Valley's detachment from real world events, saying, "In Silicon Valley, current events tend
to fade into the background. The Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war, the financial crisis and every recent presidential election occurred,
for the tech industry, on some parallel but distant timeline divorced from the everyday business of digitizing the world."
But the election of Donald Trump caused many in Silicon Valley to suddenly take notice of the political world, "Then Donald Trump
won. In the 17 years I've spent covering Silicon Valley, I've never seen anything shake the place like his victory," Manjoo writes.
"In the span of a few months, the Valley has been transformed from a politically disengaged company town into a center of anti-Trump
resistance and fear."
"A week after the election, one start-up founder sent me a private message on Twitter: 'I think it's worse than I thought,' he
wrote. 'Originally I thought 18 months. I've cut that in half,'" Manjoo recalls. "Until what? 'Apocalypse. End of the world.'"
The description of Silicon Valley as the "center of anti-Trump resistance" is unsurprising, Google employees and executives
previously held rallies at Google offices across the United States in protest of President Trump's temporary travel halt from
nations associated with terrorism.
"... Trump is another vassal/tool of the power elite. as all Presidents have been for decades. Some unhappily, but all completely. ..."
"... Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms. Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat Senators. ..."
"... He is thinning out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. ..."
"... "EXPANDING" H2B visas ? The mere EXISTENCE of such a visa leaves me mindboggled. A visa to import landscapers, waiters & retail workers ?? In a country of over 320 million & a "real" unemployment rate over 8% ? Oh, give me a break -- ..."
"... Trump's plan was to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Not to hit Congress for the money. If Trump doesn't get Mexico to pay it, he doesn't get his wall. Period. For the rest of the agenda other than the wall – I agree, but Trump was elected as the lesser evil of two. Not because his agenda is supported by a majority. ..."
"... The other 10% that gave Trump an electoral college victory voted because they wanted to keep Hillary away from the levers of power. Not because they care for Trump's agenda. ..."
"... Mission accomplished on dodging the danger of a Hillary presidency. Now Trump is evaluated on his own dangerousness and needs to be reigned in. ..."
"... Nobody here ever thought that. We fully expected the Trump presidency to be even more difficult than the campaign, not less. We are angry because Trump has reversed himself and sold out to the swamp. He is putting zero or negative effort into the core issues that got him elected. ..."
The Trumpocalypse is already building a wall in the minds of the
prospective immigrant.
Amid immigration setbacks, one Trump strategy seems to be working:
Fear
Most notably, Trump signed an executive order during his
first week in office that, among other things, vastly expanded the
pool of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants who are deemed
priorities for deportation. [...] The most vivid evidence that Trump's
tactics have had an effect has come at the southern border with
Mexico, where the number of apprehensions made by Customs and Border
Patrol agents plummeted from more than 40,000 per month at the end of
2016 to just 12,193 in March, according to federal data.
Had a similar story, mutatis mutandis, been written by somone French in
France about French immigration, he or she would have been labeled
extreme right, or even fascist.
Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated
government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got
entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and
influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to
front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms.
Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat
Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning
out the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US
embassy in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles
airport. Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by
stepping on US soil. Making health care a matter for the states to
determine will erode Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford
to hand out free medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but
with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal
bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing
their thing it will start to dry up.
"EXPANDING" H2B visas ? The mere EXISTENCE of such a visa leaves me
mindboggled. A visa to import landscapers, waiters & retail workers ?? In
a country of over 320 million & a "real" unemployment rate over 8% ? Oh,
give me a break --
H2B is a clear example that those researchers from Stanford (?) where
right: that the views/interests etc of 80-90% of Americans has exactly
ZERO influence over government/s policy.
Sounds exactly like all the previous "conservative" parties in US or UK
government over the past few decades, then. It's a double sided ratchet
process.
Trump's plan was to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Not to hit
Congress for the money. If Trump doesn't get Mexico to pay it, he doesn't
get his wall. Period.
For the rest of the agenda other than the wall –
I agree, but Trump was elected as the lesser evil of two. Not because
his agenda is supported by a majority. The 40% approval rating Trump
enjoys – that's how many support his agenda. It's not a majority.
The
other 10% that gave Trump an electoral college victory voted because they
wanted to keep Hillary away from the levers of power. Not because they
care for Trump's agenda.
Mission accomplished on dodging the danger of a
Hillary presidency. Now Trump is evaluated on his own dangerousness and
needs to be reigned in. His agenda is not particulary popular among
people that voted against Hillary, not for Trump. Support for it is soft,
and as Trump continues a divisive agenda push that creates too much
opposition – soft support withers away.
he is going to be the same in office as all previous Republican
administrations
. Worse: Hard to see how the following story can be
interpreted as anything up Trump-Kushner selling visas for personal
enrichment. This is FILLING the swamp with corrupt Chinese .
There's been all kinds of cucking from Trump. I knew it would happen
eventually, but never dreamed it would happen within the first 100 days.
His latest cuck is leaving DACA in place and agreeing to accept the
1250 Muslim refugees who Australia did not want after blustering that
Obama made a "stupid deal" and we would not take them. You can't take
anything Trump says to the bank as it could change tomorrow or next week
and he acts like it's nothing.
@unit472
Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated
government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got
entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and
influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to
front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms.
Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat
Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out
the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy
in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport.
Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US
soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode
Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free
medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but
with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal
bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing
their thing it will start to dry up.
Please, someone come up with a better word than "cuck" for describing
cowardly or fake conservatives. (Or two words - one for cowards and one
for fakes.)
Where I live, in Montana, young white guys still work construction and
landscaping jobs. It's an amazing oasis, really.
What scares me is that
immigration decisions are being made by people who just
can't imagine
themselves or their family ever working these kinds of jobs or
anything close. They're out of touch. They have no right to capitulate
like this.
@unit472
Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated
government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got
entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and
influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to
front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms.
Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat
Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out
the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy
in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport.
Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US
soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode
Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free
medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but
with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal
bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing
their thing it will start to dry up.
@unit472
Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated
government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got
entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and
influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to
front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms.
Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat
Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out
the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy
in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport.
Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US
soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode
Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free
medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but
with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal
bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing
their thing it will start to dry up.
Sounds exactly like all the previous "conservative" parties in US or UK
government over the past few decades, then. It's a double sided ratchet
process.
@unit472
Anyone who thought Trump could wipe clean 50 years of accumulated
government grime in 100 days has excrement for brains. He's got
entrenched interests in D.C. that will not just give up their incomes and
influence. He's got a hostile media eager to bring the 'homeless' back to
front page status after they miraculously vanished during Obama's terms.
Sob stories without end. A Congress that is full of RINOs and 48 Democrat
Senators.
But progress is being made if you look. He is thinning out
the herd of visa issuing State Department apparatchiks. If the US embassy
in Yemen is closed there can be no Yemenis showing up in Dulles airport.
Cubans can no longer gain permanent residency in the US by stepping on US
soil. Making health care a matter for the states to determine will erode
Medicaid outlays as the states simply cannot afford to hand out free
medical care to their 'needy'.
It will take time to drain the swamp and it will be incremental but
with every judge he appoints to the Federal courts, with every Federal
bureaucrat retiring and with Republican Governors and legislatures doing
their thing it will start to dry up.
Trump evolved in the cut throat world of real estate and mega deals big
business over decades of time. It took dozens of years of deal making to
become powerful, wealthy, and President of the United States. He is in
this for the long game. He has to make deals with the worst sort of
political, military, and business psychopaths, to play the long game. He
has to trade the best outcomes for the people in exchange for not letting
the very worst outcomes prevail. His (and our) insane and ruthless
opponents still have great power and influence. Attacking them directly
in a frontal attack would be political suicide. Always the pretend
retreat then flank attack when the enemy loses cohesion and unity.
@ThreeCranes
A former psychology professor of mine who also worked as a counselor at a
crisis center told our class that he could tell the real suiciders from
the wannabes by whether, after the "bang" of the supposed gunshot to the
head, he could actually hear the phone dropping onto the floor. If he
didn't, then presumably the caller was clinging to some hope, which it
was his job to nurture.
Mr. Derbyshire, like you I chuckle whenever Pres. Trump's makes the PC
crowd clamor for a safe space. But if you are concerned with the
vilification and death of traditional America then snark doesn't cut it.
If you voted for Trump, then sorry, the joke' on you, bloke.
We probably both miss the Scranton PA or Binghamton NY of 1955, but
Trump or any pol is powerless to bring them back. The best we rubes stuck
in the heartland can hope for is that the transfer payments from the
costal elites keep coming, and that the dollar remains a reserve currency
so that the government can borrow to support us. As I see it, Trumps
policies , gutting healthcare, tax cuts for the investor class, will hurt
us "badwhites". That is a bad bargain for seing Rosie ODonnell cry, no
matter how sweet.
@Clark Westwood
Please, someone come up with a better word than "cuck" for describing
cowardly or fake conservatives. (Or two words -- one for cowards and one
for fakes.)
" How were these reptiles able to get their way on a major issue in the
Trump electoral agenda"
Very simple : Because they, the Democrats, own
and wield the "Racism" bludgeon, and there is nothing which terrifies a
meek, mild-mannered "Fair" Republican politico more than being labeled as
a :
RACIST
( not forgetting : " Enemy of women" , Homophobe, etc)
period.
And until these cowards learn to do their duty and persue that which
they were elected for, and ignore the tauntings of racism, and until they
begin to just throw it back, the racist label, at the crazy democrats,
they will be in the losers seat, period.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member since 1973, airborne qualified
US Army vet, and pro jazz artist.
Nobody here thinks that, you sanctimonious jerk-store.
Nobody here ever thought that. We fully expected the Trump presidency to
be even more difficult than the campaign, not less. We are angry because
Trump has reversed himself and sold out to the swamp. He is putting zero
or negative effort into the core issues that got him elected.
Worry not! The vice grip has been tightened , and now it's welded. You
think a con man from New York will betray his cabal buddies for a down on
his luck, beer chugging, and his world possession of a lifted 4×4, when
he has resorts to build and secure his little Zionist grand children that
one day will inherit the earth .Keep dreaming!
@Joe Hide
Trump evolved in the cut throat world of real estate and mega deals big
business over decades of time. It took dozens of years of deal making to
become powerful, wealthy, and President of the United States. He is in
this for the long game. He has to make deals with the worst sort of
political, military, and business psychopaths, to play the long game. He
has to trade the best outcomes for the people in exchange for not letting
the very worst outcomes prevail. His (and our) insane and ruthless
opponents still have great power and influence. Attacking them directly
in a frontal attack would be political suicide. Always the pretend
retreat then flank attack when the enemy loses cohesion and unity.
In First 2 Months in Office – Trump
Reduces Debt by $100 Billion – Obama Increased Debt by $400 Billion –
Half a Trillion Dollar Difference!
The increased debt incurred under Obama equals approximately $76,000 for
every person in the United States who had a full-time job in December,
2016. That debt is far more debt than was accumulated by any previous
president. It equals nearly twice as much as the $4,889,100,310,609.44 in
additional debt that piled up during the eight years George W. Bush
served as president.
Trump's 100 Days a Success
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/28/making-america-great-again-donald-trumps-100-day-success/
Illegal Immigration Down by Unprecedented 73%
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/29/trump-illegal-immigration-down-by-unprecedented-73/
20 Ways Trump Unraveled the Administrative State
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/11/20-ways-trump-unraveled-administrative-state/
Bit by bit, Trump methodically undoing Obama policies
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2017-04-03-US--Trump-Undoing%20Obama/id-c4fa9fa659394514aa645a7cfd3c31ed
Illegal Entrance into U.S. Lowest in 17 Years, Mexicans Too Afraid of
Trump
https://www.prisonplanet.com/illegal-entrance-into-u-s-lowest-in-17-years-mexicans-too-afraid-of-trump.html
2010 Dems lost the House
The Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats at the federal and state
level during Obama's presidency, including 9 Senate seats, 62 House
seats, 12 governorships, and a startling 958 state legislative seats.
Congress is the problem – not the president. Congress is dysfunctional.
Getting reelected is everything to those people. First and foremost,
congress people represent themselves – not their voters. Taking campaign
money from lobbyists to stop challengers in jerrymandered districts and
blue or red states, is paramount.
The last time congress really accomplished something was in the
Clinton administration. Newt Gingrich did good things (balancing the
budget and changed welfare). Other than open ended war, Bush congresses
did nothing. Obama's congress got a disastrously bad healthcare bill
passed and nothing else.
For sixteen years, the Bush and Obama congresses just spent more and
more money driving up the debt.
Trump is going to show his colors, when in a couple of months – a new
long-term spending bill is coming up for a monumental vote.
Will Trump veto the trillion-dollar deficit that congress will send to
him or not?
In First 2 Months in Office – Trump
Reduces Debt by $100 Billion – Obama Increased Debt by $400 Billion –
Half a Trillion Dollar Difference!
The increased debt incurred under Obama equals approximately $76,000 for
every person in the United States who had a full-time job in December,
2016. That debt is far more debt than was accumulated by any previous
president. It equals nearly twice as much as the $4,889,100,310,609.44 in
additional debt that piled up during the eight years George W. Bush
served as president.
Trump's 100 Days a Success
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/28/making-america-great-again-donald-trumps-100-day-success/
Illegal Immigration Down by Unprecedented 73%
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/29/trump-illegal-immigration-down-by-unprecedented-73/
20 Ways Trump Unraveled the Administrative State
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/11/20-ways-trump-unraveled-administrative-state/
Bit by bit, Trump methodically undoing Obama policies
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2017-04-03-US--Trump-Undoing%20Obama/id-c4fa9fa659394514aa645a7cfd3c31ed
Illegal Entrance into U.S. Lowest in 17 Years, Mexicans Too Afraid of
Trump
https://www.prisonplanet.com/illegal-entrance-into-u-s-lowest-in-17-years-mexicans-too-afraid-of-trump.html
2010 Dems lost the House
The Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats at the federal and state
level during Obama's presidency, including 9 Senate seats, 62 House
seats, 12 governorships, and a startling 958 state legislative seats.
"... Prescott Bush and the Smedley Butler " Business Plot " Bush's Grandfather Planned Fascist Coup In America Nazis, he has praised
Hitler, he talked last night in ... ..."
I wonder why this is never mentioned in history classes in the US.
And I wonder why the US media has not frankly discussed what
happened. Is it because it would embarrass powerful figures still on the scene today?
I wonder why there is no frank discussion of the Wall Street interests who helped to finance the fascists in Europe, including
the National Socialists in Germany, even during the 1940's?
When the going gets tough, the moneyed interests seem to invariably reach for fascism to maintain the status quo.
We keep too many things hidden 'for the sake of the system.' This obsession with secrecy is all too often the cover to hide misdeeds,
incompetency, abuses of the system, and outright crimes.
If some things cannot bear the light of day, the chances are pretty good that they can remain a festering sore and a moral hazard
for the future.
Here is a BBC documentary about what had happened.
Mirrored from TheRapeOfJustice (exceptional channel for large library of relevant historical broadcasts and documentaries)
http://www.youtube.com/user ...
Prescott
Bush and the Smedley Butler "Business Plot" Bush's Grandfather Planned Fascist
Coup In America Nazis, he has praised Hitler, he talked last night in ...
Billionaire businessman
Marc Cuban
insists
that the H-1B visa racket is a
feature of the vaunted American free market.
This is nonsense on stilts. It can't go
unchallenged.
Another
billionaire, our president, has
ordered
that the H-1B program be reformed.
This, too, is disappointing. You'll see why.
First, let's
correct Mr. Cuban: America has not a free
economy, but a mixed-economy. State and markets
are intertwined. Trade, including trade in
labor, is not free; it's regulated to the hilt.
If anything, the labyrinth of work visas is an
example of a fascistic government-business
cartel in operation.
The H-1B
permit, in particular, is part of that
state-sponsored visa system. The primary H-1B
hogs-Infosys (and another eight, sister Indian
firms), Microsoft, and Intel-import labor with
what are grants of government privilege. Duly,
the corporations that hog H-1Bs act like
incorrigibly corrupt rent seekers. Not only do
they get to replace the American worker, but
they get to do so at his expense.
Here's how:
Globally, a
series of sordid liaisons ensures that American
workers are left high and dry. Through the
programs of the International Trade
Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the
Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the
International Monetary Fund, and other
oink-operations, the taxpaying American worker
is forced to subsidize and underwrite the
investment risks of the very corporations that
have given him the boot.
Domestically,
the fascistic partnership with the State amounts
to a subsidy to business at the expense of the
taxpayer. See, corporations in our democratic
welfare state externalize their employment costs
onto the taxpayers.
So while
public property is property funded by taxpayers
through expropriated taxes; belongs to
taxpayers; is to be managed for their benefit-at
least one million additional immigrants a year,
including recipients of the H-1B visa, are
allowed the free use of taxpayer-supported
infrastructure and amenities. Every new arrival
avails himself of public works such as roads,
hospitals, parks, libraries, schools, and
welfare.
Does this
epitomize the classical liberal idea of
laissez faire
?
Moreover,
chain migration or family unification means
every H-1B visa recruit is a ticket for an
entire tribe. The initial entrant-the meal
ticket-will pay his way. The honor system not
being an especially strong value in the Third
World, the rest of the clan will be America's
problem. More often than not, chain-migration
entrants become wards of the American taxpayer.
Spreading like
gravy over a tablecloth, this rapid, inorganic
population growth is detrimental to all
ecosystems: natural, social and political.
Take Seattle
and its surrounding counties. Between April 2015
and 2016, the area was inundated with "86,320
new residents, marking it the region's biggest
population gains this century. Fueled in large
part by the technology industry, an average of
236 people is moving to the Seattle area each
day,"
reported
Geekwire.com. (Reporters for our
local fish-wrapper-in my case, parrot-cage
liner-have discharged their journalistic duties
by inviting readers to "share" their traffic-jam
stories.)
Never as dumb
as the local reporters, the likes of Bill Gates,
Steve Ballmer, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Cuban
are certainly as detached.
Barricaded in
their obscenely lavish compounds-from the
comfort of their monster mansions-these social
engineers don't experience the "environmental
impacts of rapid urban expansion"; the
destruction of verdant open spaces and farmland;
the decrease in the quality of the water we
drink and air we breathe, the increase in
traffic and traffic accidents, air pollution,
the cellblock-like housing erected to
accommodate their imported I.T. workers and
extended families, the delicate bouquet of amped
up waste management and associated seepages.
For locals,
this lamentable state means an inability to
afford homes in a market in which property
prices have been artificially inflated. Young
couples lineup to view tiny apartments. They
dream of that picket fence no more. (And our
"stupid leaders," to quote the president before
he joined leadership, wonder why birthrates are
so low!)
In a true free
market, absent the protectionist state,
corporate employers would be accountable to the
community, and would be wary of the strife and
lowered productivity brought about by a
multiethnic and multi-linguistic workforce. All
the more so when a foreign workforce moves into
residential areas almost overnight as has
happened in Seattle and its surrounds.
Alas, since
the
high-tech traitors
can externalize their
employment costs on to the community; because
corporations are subsidized at every turn by
their victims-they need not bring in the best.
Cuban thinks
they do. High tech needs to be able to "search
the world for the best applicants," he
burbled
to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Yet more crap.
Why doesn't
the president know that the H-1B visa category
is not a special visa for highly skilled
individuals, but goes mostly to average workers?
"Indian business-process outsourcing companies,
which predominantly provide technology support
to corporate back offices," by
the Economist's accounting.
Overall, the
work done by the H1-B intake does not require
independent judgment, critical reasoning or
higher-order thinking. "Average workers;
ordinary talent doing ordinary work," attest the
experts who've been studying this intake for
years. The master's degree is the exception
within the H1-B visa category.
More
significant: THERE IS a visa category that is
reserved exclusively for individuals with
extraordinary abilities and achievement. I know,
because the principal sponsor in our family
received this visa. I first
wrote
about the visa that doesn't displace
ordinary Americans
in 2008
:
It's the O-1
visa.
"Extraordinary
ability in the fields of science, education,
business or athletics,"
states
the Department of Homeland Security,
"means a level of expertise indicating that the
person is one of the small percentage who has
risen to the very top of the field of endeavor."
Most
significant:
There is no cap on the number
of O-1 visa entrants allowed. Access to this
limited pool of talent is unlimited.
My point
vis-à-vis the O-1 visa is this: The H-1B hogs
are forever claiming that they are desperate for
talent. In reality, they have unlimited access
to individuals with unique abilities through the
open-ended O-1 visa program.
There is no
limit to the number of geniuses American
companies can import.
Theoretically,
the H-1B program could be completely abolished
and all needed Einsteins imported through the
O-1 program. (Why, even future first ladies
would stand a chance under the business category
of the O-1A visa, as a wealth-generating
supermodel could certainly qualify.)
Now you
understand my disappointment. In his
April 18 Executive Order,
President Trump
promised to merely reform a program that needs
abolishing. That is if "Hire American" means
anything to anybody anymore.
This four seasons theory looks to me like some king of amateur dialectics...
80 years is close to Kondratiev cycles length.
Notable quotes:
"... Stephen K. Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years. ..."
"... This prophecy, which is laid out in a 1997 book, "The Fourth Turning," by two amateur historians, makes the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each that can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter. ..."
"... In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bannon said, "Everything President Trump is doing - all of it - is to get ahead of or stop any potential crisis." But the magnitude of this crisis - and who is ultimately responsible for it - is an unknown that Mr. Trump can use to his political advantage. This helps explain Mr. Trump's tendency to emphasize crime rates, terrorist attacks and weak border control. ..."
"... We should shed and simplify the federal government in advance of the Crisis by cutting back sharply on its size and scope but without imperiling its core infrastructure. ..."
"... One of the authors' major arguments is that Western society - particularly American culture - has denied the significance of cyclical patterns in history in favor of the more palatable and self-serving belief that humans are on an inexorable march toward improvement. They say this allows us to gloss over the flaws in human nature that allow for bad judgment - and bad leaders that drive societies into decline. ..."
"... The authors envision a return to a more traditional, conservative social order as one outcome of a crisis. They also see the possibility of retribution and punishment for those who resist or refuse to comply with the new expectations for conformity. Mr. Trump's "with us or against us" attitude raises questions about what kind of leader he would be in such a crisis - and what kind of loyalty his administration might demand. ..."
Stephen K. Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues
that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the
most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years.
This prophecy, which is laid out in a 1997 book, "The Fourth Turning," by two amateur historians,
makes the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each that can be
divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies
have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary
as spring, summer, fall and winter.
Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to
see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.
But what does the book tell us about how Mr. Bannon is approaching his job as President Trump's
chief strategist and what he sees in the country's future? Here are some excerpts from the book,
with explanations from The New York Times.
'Winter Is Coming,' and We'd Better Be Prepared
History is seasonal, and winter is coming. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake.
Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, one commensurate
with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World
War II. The risk of catastrophe will be high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil
violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule.
The "Fourth Turning" authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, started using that phrase before
it became a pop culture buzzword courtesy of HBO's "Game of Thrones." But, as the authors point out,
some winters are mild. And sometimes they arrive late. The best thing to do, they say, is to prepare
for what they wrote will be "America's next rendezvous with destiny."
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bannon said, "Everything President Trump is doing - all of
it - is to get ahead of or stop any potential crisis." But the magnitude of this crisis - and who
is ultimately responsible for it - is an unknown that Mr. Trump can use to his political advantage.
This helps explain Mr. Trump's tendency to emphasize crime rates, terrorist attacks and weak border
control.
The 'Deconstruction of the Administrative State,' and Much More, Is Inevitable
The Fourth Turning will trigger a political upheaval beyond anything Americans could today imagine.
New civic authority will have to take root, quickly and firmly - which won't be easy if the discredited
rules and rituals of the old regime remain fully in place. We should shed and simplify the federal
government in advance of the Crisis by cutting back sharply on its size and scope but without imperiling
its core infrastructure.
The rhythmic, seasonal nature of history that the authors identify foresees an inevitable period
of decay and destruction that will tear down existing social and political institutions. Mr. Bannon
has famously argued that the overreaching and ineffective federal government - "the administrative
state," as he calls it - needs to be dismantled. And Mr. Trump, he said, has just begun the process.
As Mr. Howe said in an interview with The Times: "There has to be a period in which we tear down
everything that is no longer functional. And if we don't do that, it's hard to ever renew anything.
Forests need fires, and rivers need floods. These happen for a reason."
'The American Dream Is Dead'
James Truslow Adams (wrote) of an 'American Dream' to refer to this civic faith in linear advancement.
Time, they suggested, was the natural ally of each successive generation. Thus arose the dogma of
an American exceptionalism, the belief that this nation and its people had somehow broken loose from
any risk of cyclical regress . Yet the great weakness of linear time is that it obliterates time's
recurrence and thus cuts people off from the eternal - whether in nature, in each other, or in ourselves.
One of the authors' major arguments is that Western society - particularly American culture -
has denied the significance of cyclical patterns in history in favor of the more palatable and self-serving
belief that humans are on an inexorable march toward improvement. They say this allows us to gloss
over the flaws in human nature that allow for bad judgment - and bad leaders that drive societies
into decline.
Though he probably did not intentionally invoke Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe, Mr. Trump was channeling
their thesis when he often said during his campaign, "The American dream is dead." One of the scenarios
the book puts forward is one in which leaders who emerge during a crisis can revive and rebuild dead
institutions. Mr. Trump clearly saw himself as one of these when he said his goal would be to bring
back the American dream.
Conform, or Else
In a Fourth Turning, the nation's core will matter more than its diversity. Team, brand, and standard
will be new catchwords. Anyone and anything not describable in those terms could be shunted aside
- or worse. Do not isolate yourself from community affairs . If you don't want to be misjudged,
don't act in a way that might provoke Crisis-era authority to deem you guilty. If you belong to a
racial or ethnic minority, brace for a nativist backlash from an assertive (and possibly authoritarian)
majority.
The authors envision a return to a more traditional, conservative social order as one outcome
of a crisis. They also see the possibility of retribution and punishment for those who resist or
refuse to comply with the new expectations for conformity. Mr. Trump's "with us or against us" attitude
raises questions about what kind of leader he would be in such a crisis - and what kind of loyalty
his administration might demand.
"Okay, step back and
absorb this one. Mr. Prasad is saying that millions of manufacturing workers in the Midwest lost
their jobs and saw their communities decimated because the Bush administration wanted to press China
to enforce Pfizer's patents on drugs, Microsoft's copyrights on Windows, and to secure better access
to China's financial markets for Goldman Sachs.
This is not a new story, in fact I say it all the time. But it's nice to have the story confirmed
by the person who occupied the International Monetary Fund's China desk at the time.
Porter then jumps in and gets his story completely 100 percent wrong:
"At the end of the day, economists argued at the time, Chinese exchange rate policies didn't cost
the United States much. After all, in 2007 the United States was operating at full employment. The
trade deficit was because of Americans' dismal savings rate and supercharged consumption, not a cheap
renminbi. After all, if Americans wanted to consume more than they created, they had to get it somewhere."
Sorry, this was the time when even very calm sensible people like Federal Reserve Board Chair
Ben Bernanke were talking about a "savings glut." The U.S. and the world had too much savings, which
lead to a serious problem of unemployment. Oh, we did eventually find a way to deal with excess savings.
Anyone remember the housing bubble?"
I don't remember Krugman or PGL saying China or trade policy was a problem at the time. They'd
just argue the Fed needs to lower rates to compensate.
Trump Isn't Wrong on China Currency Manipulation, Just Late
by Eduardo Porter
ECONOMIC SCENE APRIL 11, 2017
Has the United States mismanaged the ascent of China?
By April 15, the Treasury Department is required to present to Congress a report on the
exchange rate policies of the country's major trading partners, intended to identify manipulators
that cheapen their currency to make their exports more attractive and gain market share in
the United States, a designation that could eventually lead to retaliation.
It would be hard, these days, to find an economist who feels China fits the bill. Under
a trade law passed in 2015, a country must meet three criteria: It would have to have a "material"
trade surplus with the rest of the world, have a "significant" surplus with the United States,
and intervene persistently in foreign exchange markets to push its currency in one direction.
While China's surplus with the United States is pretty big - almost $350 billion - its global
surplus is modest, at 2.4 percent of its gross domestic product last year. Most significant,
it has been pushing its currency up, not down. Since the middle of 2014 it has sold over $1
trillion from its reserves to prop up the renminbi, under pressure from capital flight by Chinese
companies and savers.
Even President Trump - who as a candidate promised to label China a currency manipulator
on Day 1 and put a 45 percent tariff on imports of Chinese goods - seems to be backing away
from broad, immediate retaliation.
And yet the temptation remains. "When you talk about currency manipulation, when you talk
about devaluations," the Chinese "are world champions," Mr. Trump told The Financial Times,
ahead of the state visit of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to the United States last week.
For all Mr. Trump's random impulsiveness and bluster - and despite his lack of a coherent
strategy to engage with what is likely soon to become the world's biggest economy - he is not
entirely alone with his views.
Many learned economists and policy experts ruefully acknowledge that the president's intuition
is broadly right: While labeling China a currency manipulator now would look ridiculous, the
United States should have done it a long time ago.
"With the benefit of hindsight, China should have been named," said Brad Setser, an expert
on international economics and finance who worked in the Obama administration and is now at
the Council on Foreign Relations.
There were reasonable arguments against putting China on the spot and starting a process
that could eventually lead to American retaliation.
Yet by not pushing back against China's currency manipulation, and allowing China to deploy
an arsenal of trade tactics of dubious legality to increase exports to the United States, successive
administrations - Republican and Democratic - arguably contributed to the economic dislocations
that pummeled so many American workers over more than a decade. Those dislocations helped propel
Mr. Trump to power.
From 2000 to 2014 China definitely suppressed the rise of the renminbi to maintain a competitive
advantage for its exports, buying dollars hand over fist and adding $4 trillion to its foreign
reserves over the period. Until 2005, the Chinese government kept the renminbi pegged to the
dollar, following it down as the greenback slid against other major currencies starting in
2003.
American multinationals were flocking into China, taking advantage of its entry into the
World Trade Organization in December 2001, which guaranteed access to the American and other
world markets for its exports. By 2007, China's broad trade surplus hit 10 percent of its gross
domestic product - an unheard-of imbalance for an economy this large. And its surplus with
the United States amounted to a full third of the American deficit with the world.
Though the requirement that the Treasury identify currency manipulators "gaining unfair
competitive advantage in international trade" dates back to the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness
Act of 1988, China was never called out.
There were good reasons. Or at least they seemed so at the time. For one, China hands in
the administration of George W. Bush argued that putting China on the spot would make negotiations
more difficult, because even Chinese leaders who understood the need to allow their currency
to rise could not be seen to bow to American pressure.
Labeling China a manipulator could have severely hindered progress in other areas of a complex
bilateral economic relationship. And the United States had bigger fish to fry.
"There were other dimensions of China's economic policies that were seen as more important
to U.S. economic and business interests," Eswar Prasad, who headed the China desk at the International
Monetary Fund and is now a professor at Cornell, told me. These included "greater market access,
better intellectual property rights protection, easier access to investment opportunities,
etc."
At the end of the day, economists argued at the time, Chinese exchange rate policies didn't
cost the United States much. After all, in 2007 the United States was operating at full employment.
The trade deficit was because of Americans' dismal savings rate and supercharged consumption,
not a cheap renminbi. After all, if Americans wanted to consume more than they created, they
had to get it somewhere.
And the United States had a stake in China's rise. A crucial strategic goal of American
foreign policy since Mao's death had been how to peacefully incorporate China into the existing
order of free-market economies, bound by international law into the fabric of the postwar multilateral
institutions.
And the strategy even worked - a little bit. China did allow its currency to rise a little
from 2005 to 2008. And when the financial crisis hit, it took the foot off the export pedal
and deployed a giant fiscal stimulus, which bolstered internal demand.
Yet though these arguments may all be true, they omitted an important consideration: The
overhaul of the world economy imposed by China's global rise also created losers.
In a set of influential papers that have come to inform the thinking about the United States'
relations with China, David Autor, Daron Acemoglu and Brendan Price from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; Gordon Hanson from the University of California, San Diego; and David
Dorn from the University of Zurich concluded that lots of American workers, in many communities,
suffered a blow from which they never recovered.
Rising Chinese imports from 1999 to 2011 cost up to 2.4 million American jobs, one paper
estimated. Another found that sagging wages in local labor markets exposed to Chinese competition
reduced earnings by $213 per adult per year.
Economic theory posited that a developed country like the United States would adjust to
import competition by moving workers into more advanced industries that competed successfully
in global markets. In the real world of American workers exposed to the rush of imports after
China erupted onto world markets, the adjustment didn't happen.
If mediocre job prospects and low wages didn't stop American families from consuming, it
was because the American financial system was flush with Chinese cash and willing to lend,
financing their homes and refinancing them to buy the furniture. But that equilibrium didn't
end well either, did it?
What it left was a lot of betrayed anger floating around among many Americans on the wrong
end of these dynamics. "By not following the law, the administration sent a political signal
that the U.S. wouldn't stand up to Chinese cheating," said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations. "As we can see now, that hurt in terms of maintaining political
support for open trade."
If there was a winner from this dynamic, it was Mr. Trump.
Will Mr. Trump really go after China? In addition to an expected executive order to retaliate
against the dumping of Chinese steel, he has promised more. He could tinker with the definitions
of "material" and "significant" trade surpluses to justify a manipulation charge.
And yet a charge of manipulation would add irony upon irony. "It would be incredibly ironic
not to have named China a manipulator when it was manipulating, and name it when it is not,"
Mr. Setser told me. And Mr. Trump would be retaliating against the economic dynamic that handed
him the presidency.
"What it left was a lot of betrayed
anger floating around among many Americans on the wrong end of these dynamics. "By not following
the law, the administration sent a political signal that the U.S. wouldn't stand up to Chinese
cheating," said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "As we can
see now, that hurt in terms of maintaining political support for open trade."
If there was
a winner from this dynamic, it was Mr. Trump."
So PGL the Facile and Krugman - the New Democrats - helped elect with their corporate free
trade.
In the days since Trump brought the U.S. deeper into that country's six-year-old civil war,
his most fervent right-wing supporters have lashed out online, with many saying they feel
betrayed.
Watch "NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt," providing reports and analysis of the day's most
newsworthy national and international events.
John
58 seconds ago
It's true. Trump has broken his campaign promises, and stabbed his supporters in the back.
He has done exactly what I expected Hillary and Jeb to do ... left Obamacare in place and
launched a sneak attack on Syria.
What's the point of voting in 2018?
wolf pfizer
1 minute ago
It's inter-religion war. Shiait Asad and sunni Rebels. We don't need to get involved
except for providing humanitarian assistance. There is a false narrative that is
being propagated here in the US about Rebels that somehow they are for democracy.
Don't be in any illusion that these Rebels are fighting for democracy. Average Syrian
enjoyed more personal freedom under Asad Regime compared to other Arab countries in
that part of the world. About the Chemical attack, the Rebels are vicious enough to
carry out such attack and pin it on Asad. Let neighboring countries take care of the
situation. We should stay out and concentrate on our homeland. We enough problems of
our own here.
Cory
3 minutes ago
As Americans we NEVER like to admit when we get something wrong. We always try to
justify things by blaming someone else. The Dems blame the GoP. The GoP blame the
Dems. It's always something. The older generation likes to blame the younger and
vice- versa. The real fact is everything that is right or wrong in this country is
the result of all of us. The past 50 years BOTH parties have had ample opportunity to
make changes and neither party has done anything to make changes. Any policy Trump
makes now someone else will change down the road, much like Trump has done to Obama.
Welcome to the new age of instability.
notinmymane
6 minutes ago
You Trumpanzees got conned by a snake-oil salesman. Didn't you know that he was a conman
before you voted for him? Stuuuuupid!
The Hated Stooge
6 minutes ago
And The Trump Vaudeville Act circle's the globe with Creepy Kushner leading the way.
Kushner will fix everything.
scrub
11 minutes ago
For every Trump supporter who is upset with his decision to bomb Syria there are a dozen or
more who still stand behind him and that decision. Why won't you do an article on that,
Yahoo? Have you informed all the readers, pro and anti-Trump alike, that Obama managed to
bomb at least one Middle East country every day that he was in office (8 fecking years, and
that was over oil, not inhumane treatment of people)? Where's the outrage over that?
Gertwise
12 minutes ago
This is exactly what they voted for. They were warned, pleaded with, shown facts, and they
still voted him into office. You reap what you sow.
Alex Verne
12 minutes ago
He does not need us anymore, ho ha new friends now. Neocons, Zionists even Clinton.
The SWAMP loves him now, he IS the SWAMP now.
Edward
20 minutes ago
They also think Bannon is still relevant.
Missile strike demonstrates American leadership. Always bipartisan support for that. Death chemical warfare agents unacceptable so must do something. Didn't I read a Syrian quoted the other day "I buried my family today. If they had been killed by barrel bombs I could have given Assad a pass but death by chemical weapons is unacceptable."? Did I not read that? That aside, clearly there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to kill civilians. Assad crossed that line and we had to do something.
PS Real men don't consult Congress before ordering missile strikes on sovereign nations. It'd be un-American to question the wisdom of bombing a butcher like Assad. What downside could there be?
Incompetent hawks are
awful. We can at least
take some comfort that
Schumer and Pelosi
called out Trump for
acting recklessly...
Oh, wait, that was in
an alternate reality
where they did that.
@#$%.
If it weren't for
incompetence and
belligerence we would
have any foreign
policy at all.
"... you like most losers are driven by your own projections. You projected your hopes and wishful thinking on Trump and it worked perfectly for him. He got elected. ..."
"... now after firing Bannon there is nothing left. He was the last and the only guarantor of your hopes. That's why MSM hated Bannon so much. ..."
"... torture, Guantanamo and stealing their oil ..."
This turn of events is the biggest challenge ever to my support of Trump. If he really goes
the way he is indicating, he will lose the support of people like me -- and there may be millions
like me. We have no alternative candidate, but we will never again be led down this road.
If Trump turns, that is the end of everything.
" we will never again be led down this road." You will, you will because you like most losers
are driven by your own projections. You projected your hopes and wishful thinking on Trump and
it worked perfectly for him. He got elected.
But now after firing Bannon there is nothing left. He was the last and the only guarantor of
your hopes. That's why MSM hated Bannon so much.
The only pre-election promises that actually will be retained are torture, Guantanamo and stealing
their oil. Did you vote for these items? Anyway, that is all you are left with. Get used to it:
"... "Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration. I was put on to ensure that it was de-operationalized," Bannon said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. ..."
"... "General McMaster has returned the NSC to its proper function," he added. ..."
President Donald Trump has reorganized the National Security Council,
and his Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon is apparently no longer on the
Principals Committee, according to a memo that has surfaced.
Bloomberg has posted a
memo
from Trump, dated April 4, reorganizing the National Security
Council and updating the list of officials who sit on its Principals
Committee. The document shows no role for Bannon and a reduced role
for Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert.
Director of National
Intelligence Dan Coats and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Marine General Joseph Dunford, are again considered
"regular
attendees"
of the principals committee.
In addition to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, the regular
attendees will be the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy,
Homeland Security and the Attorney General; the national and homeland
security advisers; and the US envoy to the UN, as well as the CIA
director, in addition to the Joint Chiefs chair and the DNI.
The White House chief of staff, counsel and deputy counsel for
national security, and the director of the Office of Management and
Budget are also invited to attend any NSC meeting, the memo says.
"Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last
administration. I was put on to ensure that it was de-operationalized,"
Bannon said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.
"General McMaster has returned the NSC to its proper function,"
he added.
International Trade Lessons for the New York Times
The New York Times told readers * that Mexico is preparing to "play the corn card" in its negotiations
with Donald Trump. The piece warns:
"Now corn has taken on a new role - as a powerful lever for Mexican officials in the run-up
to talks over Nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"The reason: Much of the corn that Mexico consumes comes from the United States, making it
America's top agricultural export to its southern neighbor. And even though President Trump appears
to be pulling back from his vows to completely overhaul Nafta, Mexico has taken his threats to
heart and has begun flexing its own muscle.
"The Mexican government is exploring buying its corn elsewhere - including Argentina or Brazil
- as well as increasing domestic production. In a fit of political pique, a Mexican senator even
submitted a bill to eliminate corn purchases from the United States within three years."
It then warns of the potential devastation from this threat:
"The prospect that the United States could lose its largest foreign market for corn and other
key products has shaken farming communities throughout the American Midwest, where corn production
is a vital part of the economy. The threat is particularly unsettling for many residents of the
Corn Belt because much of the region voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump in the presidential election.
" 'If we lose Mexico as a customer, it will be absolutely devastating to the ag economy,' said
Philip Gordon, 68, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on a farm in Saline, Mich., that has been
in his family for 140 years."
Okay, I hate to spoil a good scare story with a dose of reality, but let's think this one through
for a moment. According to the piece, instead of buying corn from the United States, Mexico might
buy it from Argentina or Brazil. So, we'll lose our Mexican market to these two countries.
But who is buying corn from Argentina and Brazil now? If this corn had previously been going
to other countries, then presumably these other countries will be looking to buy corn from someone
else, like perhaps U.S. farmers?
It is of course possible that Argentina and Brazil will switch production away from other crops
to corn to meet Mexico's demand, but that would likely leave openings in these other crops for
U.S. farmers. The transition to new markets for corn crops or a switch from corn to the crops
vacated by Brazil and Argentina would not be costless, but it also may not imply the sort of devastation
promised by the New York Times.
See, market economies are flexible. This is something that economists know, as should reporters
who write on economic issues. This may undermine scare stories that are being told to push an
agenda, but life is tough.
Not mentioned is that Mexico is the home of corn, that thousands of farmers who used to make their
livings raising native corns lost their farms to market rate competition from the USA under NAFTA.
"I do think there is a crisis, on many fronts," Drudge admitted.
"Is some of it of his own making?" he asked before going to calls.
The DrudgeReport.com founder indeed invoked his former radio host days when he joined Savage in California to celebrate the
veteran broadcaster's 75th birthday.
"We're trying to save this young Trump administration," Drudge declared.
Drudge claimed Trump single-handedly saved floundering leftist media outlets like the New York Times and Vanity Fair, which
seemed destined to fail before the "opposition" party "consolidated."
"I'm getting a little bit nervous about the media situation. Do you know, the media was near death. The New York Times was
hanging on the short hairs. Do you know Vanity Fair was going under. CNN barely had a fraction," Drudge said. "Trump has saved
the media."
The influential news figure also called attention to the president's flagging approval ratings in Rasmussen polls, which he
is concerned currently spell danger for the Trump administration.
Nick Begich - Wikipedia
Dr. Nick Begich
is the eldest son of the late United States Congressman from Alaska, Nick Begich Sr., and political
activist Pegge Begich. He is well known in Alaska for his own political activities. He was twice
elected President of both the Alaska Federation of Teachers and the Anchorage Council of Education.
He has been pursuing independent research in the sciences and politics for most of his adult life.
Begich received Doctor of Medicine (Medicina Alternitiva), honoris causa, for independent work in
health and political science, from The Open International University for Complementary Medicines,
Colombo, Sri Lanka, in November 1994.
"... What is being developed in the US under the codename Prompt Global Strike are non-nuclear strategic weapons. ..."
"... they will be more humane than nuclear weapons, because there will be no radiation, no Hiroshima or Nagasaki effect. However, in terms of military superiority, my friends at the Defence Ministry tell me the effect will be more devastating than from a modern nuclear bomb. ..."
"... What's more, our American partners are not abandoning the programme of deploying weapons in outer space, and they are essentially alone in voting against the initiatives co-sponsored by us, China and many other colleagues to commit not to do so. ..."
"... The Americans refuse to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is also an important strategic stability factor. And of course the global missile defence system has an absolutely direct impact on strategic stability. ..."
"... Another point: imbalances in conventional weapons, which are also being modernised very quickly. ..."
Question: US President Donald Trump, in a recent statement,
unexpectedly proposed revisiting the issue of reducing strategic arms as a platform for bargaining.
Should strategic nuclear forces today be a subject of negotiations with the Americans or would it
be advisable at this point to put them outside the bounds of Russian-US relations?
Sergey Lavrov: To a very large extent, President Trump's position on the majority
of key issues on the foreign policy agenda, including further steps to limit strategic nuclear weapons
as you've mentioned, has yet to be finalized. By the way, if I remember right, Donald Trump mentioned
the issue of cooperation with us in this field as an example. He was asked whether he would be prepared
to lift sanctions on Russia. I believe that was the way the question was formulated. He responded
by saying they should see if there were issues on which they could cooperate with Russia on a mutually
beneficial basis in US interests, in particular, mentioning nuclear arms control.
At the same time, as you know, the US president said the Americans should modernise and build
up their nuclear triad. We need to wait until the military budget is finally approved under the new
administration and see what its priorities and objectives are and how these funds will be spent.
As for our further conversation, I briefly mentioned in my address that we are ready for such
a conversation but it should be conducted with acknowledgment of all strategic stability factors
without exception. Today, those who propose implementing the so-called nuclear zero initiative as
soon as possible, banning and destroying nuclear weapons and generally outlawing them absolutely,
ignore the fact that since the nuclear bomb was made and this new kind of weapon began to be produced
on a large scale in the USSR, the US, China, France and the UK, colossal changes have taken place
in military science and technology.
What is being developed in the US under the codename Prompt Global Strike are non-nuclear
strategic weapons. If they are developed (and this work is moving forward very actively, with
the objective of reaching any point in the world within an hour), of course, they will be more
humane than nuclear weapons, because there will be no radiation, no Hiroshima or Nagasaki effect.
However, in terms of military superiority, my friends at the Defence Ministry tell me the effect
will be more devastating than from a modern nuclear bomb.
What's more, our American partners are not abandoning the programme of deploying weapons in
outer space, and they are essentially alone in voting against the initiatives co-sponsored by us,
China and many other colleagues to commit not to do so.
The Americans refuse to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is also an important
strategic stability factor. And of course the global missile defence system has an absolutely direct
impact on strategic stability.
Another point: imbalances in conventional weapons, which are also being modernised very quickly.
We always begin our dialogue with NATO by stressing the need to restore normal relations. We
propose normalisation and agreements on mutual verification measures but before that, it is necessary
to sit down and look at what each of us has deployed in proximity to each other, as well as in the
entire Euro-Atlantic region. There are a lot of factors that need to be considered if we want not
simply to ban nuclear weapons as idealists, but to ensure peace and security in the world and ensure
strategic stability that will be sustainable and based on global parity. Everything that I've mentioned
needs to be discussed. I may have missed some other factors.
I should also add that restrictions imposed by Russia and the US on each other have reached a
point where it is hard to say that we will be able to do a great deal together anymore. All states
that have nuclear weapons should be brought in – importantly, not only those that have them officially
but also de facto.
Yes, There Really Are Things We Can Do to Reduce the Trade Deficit
Donald Trump's bluster about imposing large tariffs and force companies to make things in America
has led to backlash where we have people saying things to the effect that we are in a global economy
and we just can't do anything about shifting from foreign produced items to domestically produced
items. Paul Krugman's blogpost * on trade can be seen in this light, although it is not exactly what
he say and he surely knows better.
The post points out that imports account for a large percentage of the cost of many of the goods
we produce here. This means that if we raise the price of imports, we also make it more expensive
to produce goods in the United States.
This is of course true, but that doesn't mean that higher import prices would not lead to a shift
towards domestic production. For example, if we take the case of transport equipment he highlights,
if all the parts that we imported cost 20 percent more, then over time we would expect car producers
in the United States to produce with a larger share of domestically produced parts than would otherwise
be the case. This doesn't mean that imported parts go to zero, or even that they necessarily fall,
but just that they would be less than would be the case if import prices were 20 percent lower. This
is pretty much basic economics -- at a higher price we buy less.
While arbitrary tariffs are not a good way to raise the relative price of imports, we do have
an obvious tool that is designed for exactly this purpose. We can reduce the value of the dollar
against the currencies of our trading partners. This is probably best done through negotiations,
** which would inevitably involve trade-offs (e.g. less pressure to enforce U.S. patents and copyrights
and less concern about access for the U.S. financial industry). Loud threats against our trading
partners are likely to prove counter-productive. (We should also remove the protectionist barriers
that keep our doctors and dentists from enjoying the full benefits of international competition.)
Anyhow, we can do something about our trade deficits if had a president who thought seriously
about the issue. As it is, the current occupant of the White House seems to not know which way is
up when it comes to trade.
The post points out that imports account for a large percentage of the cost of many of the
goods we produce here. This means that if we raise the price of imports, we also make it more
expensive to produce goods in the United States.
== end of quote ==
People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones ...
The problems is that many strategically important, high technology components production
is offshored.
"... " This looks more like what you'd see in a banana republic, " says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group. " You've got a strongman who surrounds himself with billionaires or wealthy advisers who conduct the business of government to benefit their business. " ..."
"... In the first paragraph, we're told that jobs are moving to Mexico -- as usual. It's taken for granted (and without much concern here from Krugman) that US employers are going to keep exporting manufacturing jobs. This is followed by a defense of NAFTA, an attack on protectionism, and the suggestion that there is no alternative better than the status quo. And Democrats wonder why they're losing the Rust Belt states? ..."
"... The governmental action that was probably most important in creating the rust belt was the Reagan tax cuts. Those came as the Volcker effort to end inflation was still happening. That had to be continued, so the Reagan deficit could not be paid by inflating the money supply, and the necessary US bond sales kept our interest rate up, making the US the best place in the world to park money. Foreign exchange poured in, and the dollar's value soared by 70%. That rise made foreign production cheaper to Americans, and made US production uncompetitive elsewhere. ..."
"... Isn't this the same question that the British asked in 1845. The only thing we really know is that there are millions who no longer have a role in our economy. ..."
"... Liberals and Conservatives will not emerge until after the purge. Paul Krugman and Paul Ryan are part of the same priesthood of the only acceptable theology the Church of Neoliberalism. The belong to the same Tory Party of Robert Peel the only debate is about how best to grow the economy. ..."
"... The world's financial elite all fly the same flag called the Jolly Roger and finally we have a US government not ashamed to unfurl it. ..."
"... globalization has clearly not produced the promised big boost in overall growth in this country - economists would not be talking about "secular stagnation" if it had. ..."
"... Instead of denying the obvious facts and trying to divert the discussion with false claims about robots, why don't US economist try to work through the complications of trade and aim at policies which really would benefit US workers and might reduce the ever-growing inequality? Do they need to devote all their attention to defending the Democratic political establishment and their own failed theories and assumptions? ..."
"... It is obvious to most that the huge trade surge with China disrupted many commodity industries, steel, solar cells, electronics. ..."
"... If you do not see nothing obviously wrong, when a US company , bailed out by the US taxpayer, thanks the tax payer by importing cars made at Chinese wages to the US, putting out of work US workers, you must be a macro economist. ..."
"... Nowhere on the GM website is mentioned that those cars are made in China. Check ..."
"... the effective ban on big Western internet services like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as local data storage rules for those who are allowed to operate. It's all done in the name of security ..."
Amazing how so many conservatives dismiss what Krugman as to say since he's so clearly a 'commie.'
Then they support Trump the capitalist businessman who will get things done.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Krugman is writing capitalist essays on his blog about the benefits
of Trade, and trump is running a kleptocracy that seeks to bring back a disproven form of protectionism
that would be much more at home among early 20th century socialists than with Milton Freedman
or Adam Smith.
It goes to show that the Republicans are a party without a purpose. They have given up on their
capitalist roots and instead just cater to the whims of the highest bidding campaign contributors
and the worst instincts of their bigoted base.
Paul Mathisis a trusted commenter Fairfax, Virginia
1 day ago
Nobody Knew Trade Could Be So Complicated!
Actually everybody knows that negotiating trade deals takes years of intensive efforts because
there are many moving parts that all affect each other.
Since Trump has the attention span of the average 3 year old, he has no time for anything more
complicated than banning Muslims from traveling to America. That simple "solution" did not work
out either.
So Trump is not going to do anything on trade simply because it is way too complicated and
time consuming. After all, he couldn't even spend 3 weeks on replacing Obamacare with his "fantastic"
plan. One month ago:
"We have a plan that I think is going to be fantastic. . . . I think it's going to be something
special ... I think you're going to like what you hear." --CNN
Re: "Oh, and China currency manipulation was an issue 5 years ago - but isn't now." I find
this interesting. Five years ago China was building up their reserves by purchasing US government
and agency bonds to keep their exchange rate low. Today those reserves of government and agency
bonds are falling as they are converted into US real estate and corporate assets while the trade
deficit remains at some $500 billion. This is supposed to make everything OK. What am I missing
here? http://www.rweconomics.com/htm/WDCh_2.htm
China has more than 1.3 billion people, and wages in China have risen faster for a longer period
of time than anywhere ever.
It's not a mystery why wages in China are what they are. It started as a poor country with
an enormous, mostly rural population. If anything, the surprise is that they have managed to increase
wages so strongly for so long.
There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about trade and immigration, of course, but understanding
Trump requires one to abandon the notion that he is appealing to legitimate concerns.
He is appealing to spite. Anything resembling a legitimate concern is pretense, to give cover
to what would otherwise be recognized as ugly and deplorable. He says the spiteful parts loudly
and doesn't even feign competence or coherence on policy.
Once this is fully recognized, all that he says and does makes sense. It also suggests that
people interested in real substantive policy discussions should disregard Trump entirely.
Dr. K. is correct we should watch what DJT actually does, instead of what he says, though what
DJT says is designed to whip up his partisans by pointing to real issues, but instead of blaming
the ' lost factories ' and ' stripped wealth ' on the portion of economic strata DJT inhabits
- which is where the wealth stripping/lost factory hedgies and sacrosanct banker pay contract
holders also exist - DJT always points somewhere else.
Somewhere else is a moving target that can shift each time a new sun rises on the Twitter-verse.
And it's hard to see how everyone will continue to admire the Emperor's new clothes when the
stock markets reverse course, or if there is a 2011 re-dux next month over House GOP'ers raising
the debt ceiling.
Anyhoooo, the best indicator of how things are going regarding economic policies at the White
House is to see how DJT adviser Carl Icahn has benefited from specific policy carve-outs:
" This looks more like what you'd see in a banana republic, " says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen,
a liberal watchdog group. " You've got a strongman who surrounds himself with billionaires or
wealthy advisers who conduct the business of government to benefit their business. "
Though DJT may be correct there are issues with NAFTA and at WTO, those issues are preferable
to bald-faced kleptocracy.
In the first paragraph, we're told that jobs are moving to Mexico -- as usual. It's taken for
granted (and without much concern here from Krugman) that US employers are going to keep exporting
manufacturing jobs. This is followed by a defense of NAFTA, an attack on protectionism, and the
suggestion that there is no alternative better than the status quo. And Democrats wonder why they're
losing the Rust Belt states?
Trump's record low approval rating is likely to take a further hit in the near future from
deteriorating economic conditions. Measures of consumer and business confidence soared since the
election yet hard economic data continues to weaken with the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow estimate of
first quarter GDP growth falling to just 0.9%, after this morning's weak personal income and spending
report. Indeed, growth in real personal consumption expenditures peaked way back in January 2015.
While there was a mild rebound that started in March 2016 the trend has since turned negative
since the start of the 2017. See chart:
Interesting fact is the recent polarization of consumer confidence readings. Democrats are
generally pessimists while Republicans are optimistic about the economy. That suggests consumer
confidence readings will fall when Republicans get over their infatuation with Trump. And will
most likely be driven by disappointing economic growth -- actual growth and not empty promises.
Trump promised 4% growth which is impossible over the long term due to slow population growth.
Yet, that growth rate now looks far out of reach even for a single quarter and fiscal stimulus
looks less and less likely to happen even if some tax cuts for the wealthy do manage to pass Congress.
Tax cuts are not stimulative if they heavily favor the wealthy. Probably the opposite is true
considering the Bush tax cuts were so ineffective.
Krugman is an economist; he's not merely trying to sway voters. And he knows that the decline
in industrial jobs is more due to productivity gains than factories' moving abroad. In any case,
measures like Trump's scolding businessmen is not and will not be important in keeping jobs from
leaving. More important is the exchange rate.
The governmental action that was probably most important in creating the rust belt was the
Reagan tax cuts. Those came as the Volcker effort to end inflation was still happening. That had
to be continued, so the Reagan deficit could not be paid by inflating the money supply, and the
necessary US bond sales kept our interest rate up, making the US the best place in the world to
park money. Foreign exchange poured in, and the dollar's value soared by 70%. That rise made foreign
production cheaper to Americans, and made US production uncompetitive elsewhere.
But the decline in manufacturing would be happening regardless. It is the same process that
did in most US family farms throughout the 20th century. US farming is now so efficient that farmers,
once 3/4 of us, are now as small a fraction of Americans as "gardeners, groundskeepers, and growers
of ornamental plants." The same thing is now happening to factories; we're just too efficient
at making things to require the number of manufacturing workers we once did.
Ron Cohenis a trusted commenter Waltham, MA
20 hours ago
Prof. Krugman, in your column today about Coal Country, you rightfully identify it as a state
of mind. But that state of mind is not nostaglia as you argue. Rather, it is a profound cultural
resentment that motivates the voters of West Virginia.
For perspective on this subject, I urge you to read Arlie Hochschild's, widely praised, "Strangers
in Their Own Land." http://thenewpress.com/node/10362
.
All but one of the columns, below, are from The New York Times. Taken together, they form a
coda to Hochschild's book. I suggest you start with the last one, Sabrina Tavernise's piece.
Bernie Sanders Has A Plan To Win Back Trump Voters, The Huffington Post, March 9, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/zy2nzxh
Trump Budget Proposal Reflects Working-Class Resentment of the Poor, Eduardo Porter, March
7, 2017 http://tinyurl.com/ho5zkha
Thank you or the opportunity of answering your question with my question.
Isn't this the same question that the British asked in 1845. The only thing we really know
is that there are millions who no longer have a role in our economy.
Liberals and Conservatives will not emerge until after the purge. Paul Krugman and Paul
Ryan are part of the same priesthood of the only acceptable theology the Church of Neoliberalism.
The belong to the same Tory Party of Robert Peel the only debate is about how best to grow the
economy.
The question that comes to my mind is why do we want to grow an economy where production exceeds
demand every day and our ideological Dogma says we must work even harder than ever to increase
the inequality between supply and demand?
We have ceded control to the Whigs and I fear it isn't only 3 million Irish peasants who will
disappear. The conversion of dollars into real estate really struck a high note as those worthless
hovels that housed 3 million economically worthless peasants provided room for what was most important
in the Irish economy pigs and cattle. Again I feel I must repeat there was no famine in Ireland
it was a failure of potato crops and each year Ireland exported enough food to feed all of Ireland's
hungry for seven potatoless years. Then as now the bible was The Economist.
The world's financial elite all fly the same flag called the Jolly Roger and finally we
have a US government not ashamed to unfurl it.
A good start would be to insist on living wages in mexico and Asia along with humane working
conditions. That's a starting position a trump or Clinton administration would never consider,
but Sanders would have. Bringing those changes about would create more of a level playing field
for US workers. Also if China isn't controlling currency anymore why is labor still so cheap.?
It can't be fully explained by excess labor supply. Something must be going on, and we should
be trying to figure it out.
skeptonomistis a trusted commenter Tennessee
1 day ago
lt's true that modern trade is very complicated but certain things are obvious. One is that
the US runs huge trade deficits, amounting to nearly $750 billion in goods. Yes, this is obviously
bigly unfair to the United States, that is considering the majority of its citizens and especially
wage earners, who have been put into competition with those in developing countries, rather than
the capitalists whose profits have been increased by the lower wage costs. Those goods represent
a very large number of jobs that are now in other countries. Another is that globalization has
clearly not produced the promised big boost in overall growth in this country - economists would
not be talking about "secular stagnation" if it had.
Instead of denying the obvious facts and trying to divert the discussion with false claims
about robots, why don't US economist try to work through the complications of trade and aim at
policies which really would benefit US workers and might reduce the ever-growing inequality? Do
they need to devote all their attention to defending the Democratic political establishment and
their own failed theories and assumptions?
Trade is a tough policy to debate with people and come to consensus. It is obvious to most
that the huge trade surge with China disrupted many commodity industries, steel, solar cells,
electronics. More should have been done to minimize the disruption. That said we are where we
are.
Our manufacturing now is higher up the value chain. Our commodity mills now need to innovate
to take advantage of niche higher value low volume markets that big producers can't supply effectively.
Innovate to develop new materials and specialized processes that displace current materials. Innovation,
flexibility and agility is our competitive advantage. Time to make the jobs of the future, commodity
production is in the past.
"But even there it's not obvious what you would demand from a new agreement."
Let me help out the professor with an article from the NY Times 3/30/17 and provide an obvious
example
"China's Taxes on Imported Cars Feed Trade Tensions With U.S."
reporting that a Jeep retailing for $ $40,530 in the US cost in China , quote " $ $71,000,
mostly because of taxes that Beijing charges on every car, minivan and sport utility vehicle that
is made in another country"
Meanwhile , quote "General Motors started shipping the Buick Envision model from a factory
in eastern China's Shandong Province to the United States last year. That decision irritated the
United Automobile Workers union"
But that is not all. The NY Times reported on 1/29/16 that GM's Cadillac devision started to
import its " plug-in hybrid version of its new CT6 flagship sedan from China " and "A PEEK under
the hood of three new cars from Buick and Cadillac will not reveal a Made in China label"
If you do not see nothing obviously wrong, when a US company , bailed out by the US taxpayer,
thanks the tax payer by importing cars made at Chinese wages to the US, putting out of work US
workers, you must be a macro economist.
Either US consumer win (cheaper cars) or US companies (more profit for the stock holders).
Final Note
Nowhere on the GM website is mentioned that those cars are made in China. Check
Ron,
Europe's parliamentary democracies have always given the 20% an outsized role in elections and
governance because coalitions are the rule not the exception and 20% is a lot of seats.
From here on a less than 4 hour drive to Waltham it looks like your 20% has the house, the senate,
the executive and soon the courts and the Supreme Court.
Donald Trump was a wake-up call for the world's 80% as Europe like North America is over 80% urban.
If Trump had the attention span and work ethic needed to become a dictator, he would seek the
confrontation over expelling the undocumented, not over trade. Trade isn't visceral enough, not
existential enough, to sustain the fear of the Other a dictator needs.
On China, there actually are a few obvious imbalances that affect the tech industry, though
it's doubtful the US has the leverage to change them.
The first comes from the Chinese government's drive to build their domestic tech industry by
coercing technology transfer from Western firms outsourcing manufacturing in China.
The second is the effective ban on big Western internet services like Google, Facebook, and
Twitter, as well as local data storage rules for those who are allowed to operate. It's all done
in the name of security (and censorship), of course, but it's also an obvious form of protectionism. Baidu and Weibo might not exist otherwise.
The government is also investing in a Chinese variant
of Linux, no doubt with the ultimate goal of gaining complete control over all software running
inside the country.
Indeed for Mr. McCain the
belief that Russia
must be destroyed has been elevated to the status of a self evident and received truth.
Origins of the 'Dodgy Dossier'
It was McCain who passed
the "dodgy dossier" on Trump to the FBI, after receiving it from former UK ambassador to Russia, Sir Andrew Wood. Contained
within the dossier is information purporting to reveal how Trump has been compromised by Russian intelligence over various sexual
encounters with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. Compounding the scandal, adding to the lurid nature of it, are reports of
the existence of a second Russian dossier on the President-elect.
The dossier's originator has been revealed as former British MI6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who now runs a private
intelligence company and has, according to reports, gone into hiding in the UK, supposedly fearing assassination by Russian agents.
The fact that Mr. Steele hasn't set foot in Russia for a number of years and reportedly, on behalf of Trump's enemies within
the Republican Party establishment, paid for the information contained in the 35-page dossier, recently released with the caveat
that its contents cannot be verified, should have been more than enough to have it instantly dismissed as, well, fake news?
In an
article that appeared on the UK's Independent newspaper website - titled "The dodgy Donald Trump dossier reminds
me of the row over Saddam Hussein and his fictitious weapons of mass destruction" - Patrick Cockburn writes, "I read the text
of the dossier on
Donald Trump's alleged dirty dealings with a scepticism that soon turned into complete disbelief." Later in the same
article he observes, "In its determination to damage Trump, the US press corps has been happy to suspend disbelief in this dubious
document."
More significant than the fact this dossier was not immediately dismissed is the timing of its emergence and subsequent publication
by the US news site, BuzzFeed. It comes on the very cusp of President-elect Donald Trump's official inauguration as the 45
th President of the United States on January 20th, and the very point at which his cabinet appointees were being grilled
over their views of Russia, the threat Russia allegedly poses to the US and the West, during their official Senate confirmation
hearings.
Political Coup Underway Against Trump
By now most people are aware, or at least should be, of Washington's long and ignoble history when it comes to fomenting, planning,
supporting, and funding political and military coups around the world - in Central and Latin America, the Middle East, Africa,
and elsewhere the CIA and other US agencies have brought down countless leaders and governments that have refused to toe the line
when it comes to serving US interests.
In unprecedented fashion, what we have in this instance are those same deep state actors, working in conjunction with the US
liberal establishment, currently engaged in a coup designed to destroy the Trump presidency - if not before it begins then certainly
soon after, with the prospect of impeachment proceedings against him already being
mooted in Washington circles.
During his recent press
conference , Trump felt minded to declaim against Washington's bloated intelligence community, accusing it of releasing the
dossier to the media, an allegation US intelligence chiefs have denied. The result is an unprecedented open war between the country's
next president and his soon-to-be intelligence services that has pitched the country into a political crisis that grows deeper
by the day.
The Power of the Military Industrial Complex
On the question of why the US deep state and Washington's liberal establishment is so intent on maintaining Russia in the role
of deadly enemy, the answer is very simple - money.
Huge and powerful economic and ideological interests are tied up in the new Сold War of the past few years.
We're talking the country's previously mentioned gargantuan defense and intelligence budgets, continuing US support and financing
of NATO, along with reason for the continued existence and funding of the vast network of political think tanks in Washington
and throughout the West, all of which are committed to sustaining a status quo of US hegemony and unipolarity.
Russia's emergence as a strategic counterweight to the West in recent years has and continues to challenge this hitherto uncontested
hegemony, providing lucrative opportunities for organizations, groups, and individuals with a vested interest in the resulting
new Cold War. For those of a skeptical persuasion in this regard, I refer you to the chilling warning issued by former US President
Dwight D. Eisenhower prior to leaving office in 1960 to make way for his replacement, John F. Kennedy.
In his televised farewell address
to the American people in 1961, Eisenhower said, "We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast
proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually
spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations."
He continued:
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources
and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society."
Finally, Eisenhower warned the American people how, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist."
Though neoconservatives may no longer be in the driving seat in Washington, neoconservative ideas undoubtedly are. And prime
among them is the idea that not only must Russia be destroyed but also anyone who would dare stand in the way of this narrative,
up to and including President-elect Donald J. Trump.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position
of Sputnik.
"... What's more, the overall numbers hide serious declines in most areas of manufacturing. A 2013 paper by Susan Houseman, Timothy Bartik and Timothy Sturgeon found that strong growth in computer-related manufacturing obscured a decline in almost all other areas. "In most of manufacturing," they write, "real GDP growth has been weak or negative and productivity growth modest." ..."
"... And, more troubling, the U.S. is now losing computer manufacturing. Houseman et al. show that U.S. computer production began to fall during the Great Recession. In semiconductors, output has grown slightly, but has been far outpaced by most East Asian countries. Meanwhile, trade deficits in these areas have been climbing. ..."
"... He cites Sematech, a government-led consortium that tried to help the U.S. retain its lead in semiconductor manufacturing in the 1980s and 1990s, as a successful example of high-tech industrial policy. ..."
Staying Rich
Without Manufacturing
Will Be Hard
MARCH 28, 2017 8:00
AM EDT
Discussions about
manufacturing tend to
get very contentious.
Many economists and
commentators believe
that there's nothing
inherently special
about making things
and that efforts to
restore U.S.
manufacturing to its
former glory reek of
industrial policy,
protectionism,
mercantilism and
antiquated thinking.
But in their
eagerness to guard
against the return of
these ideas,
manufacturing's
detractors often
overstate their case.
Manufacturing is in
bigger trouble than
the conventional
wisdom would have you
believe.
One common
assertion is that
while manufacturing
jobs have declined,
output has actually
risen. But this piece
of conventional wisdom
is now outdated. U.S.
manufacturing output
is almost exactly the
same as it was just
before the financial
crisis of 2008:
[chart]
In the 1990s, it
really was true that
manufacturing
production was booming
even though employment
in the sector was
falling. During that
decade, output rose by
almost half. That's
almost a 4 percent
annualized growth
rate. The expansion of
the early 2000s, in
contrast, saw
manufacturing increase
by only about 15
percent peak-to-peak
over eight years --
less than a 2 percent
annual growth rate.
And in the eight years
between 2008 and 2016,
the growth rate has
averaged zero.
But even this may
overstate U.S.
manufacturing's
performance. An
alternative measure,
called industrial
production, shows an
outright decrease from
a decade ago:
[chart]
So it isn't just
manufacturing
employment and the
sector's share of
gross domestic product
that are hurting in
the U.S. It's total
output. The U.S.
doesn't really make
more stuff than it
used to.
What's more, the
overall numbers hide
serious declines in
most areas of
manufacturing. A 2013
paper by Susan
Houseman, Timothy
Bartik and Timothy
Sturgeon found that
strong growth in
computer-related
manufacturing obscured
a decline in almost
all other areas. "In
most of
manufacturing," they
write, "real GDP
growth has been weak
or negative and
productivity growth
modest."
And, more
troubling, the U.S. is
now losing computer
manufacturing.
Houseman et al. show
that U.S. computer
production began to
fall during the Great
Recession. In
semiconductors, output
has grown slightly,
but has been far
outpaced by most East
Asian countries.
Meanwhile, trade
deficits in these
areas have been
climbing.
In other words,
Asia is still
solidifying its place
as the workshop of the
world, while the U.S.
de-industrializes. The
1990s provided a brief
respite from this
trend, as new
industries arose to
replace the ones that
had been lost. But the
years since the turn
of the century have
reversed this short
renaissance, and
manufacturing is once
more migrating
overseas.
Manufacturing
skeptics often draw
parallels to what
happened to
agriculture in the
Industrial Revolution.
But the two situations
aren't analogous. In
the 20th century, U.S.
agricultural output
soared even as it shed
jobs and shrank as a
percent of GDP.
Machines replaced most
human farmers, but the
total value of U.S.
crops kept climbing.
Meanwhile, the U.S.
to this day runs a
trade surplus in
agriculture even as it
runs a huge deficit in
manufactured products.
America pays for
computers and cars and
phones with soybeans
and corn and beef.
So U.S.
manufacturing is
hurting in ways that
U.S. agriculture never
did. The common
refrain that the
modern shift to
services parallels the
earlier shift to
industry might turn
out to be true, but
the parallels are not
encouraging.
Faced with this
evidence, many
skeptics will question
why the sector is
important at all. Why
should a country
specialize in making
things, when it can
instead specialize in
designing, marketing
and financing the
making of things?
This is a
legitimate question,
but there are reasons
to think a successful
developed nation still
needs a healthy
manufacturing sector.
Harvard University's
Kennedy School of
Government economist
Ricardo Hausmann
believes that a
country's economic
development depends
crucially on where it
lies in the so-called
product space. If a
country makes complex
products that are
linked to many other
industries -- such as
computers, cars and
chemicals -- it will
be rich. But if it
makes simple products
that don't have much
of a supply chain --
soybeans or oil -- it
will stay poor. In the
past, the U.S. was
very successful at
positioning itself at
the top of the global
value chain. But with
manufacturing's
decline, the rise of
finance, real estate
and other orphaned
service industries may
not be enough to keep
the country rich in
the long run.
More top economists
are starting to come
around to the view
that manufacturing is
important.
Massachusetts
Institute of
Technology economist
David Autor, in a
recent phone
conversation, told me
he now believes that
the U.S. should focus
more on industrial
policy designed to
keep cutting-edge
manufacturing
industries in the
country. He cites Sematech, a
government-led
consortium that tried
to help the U.S.
retain its lead in
semiconductor
manufacturing in the
1980s and 1990s, as a
successful example of
high-tech industrial
policy.
The stellar
performance of
semiconductor
manufacturing in the
1990s and 2000s
relative to other
industries in the
sector, as reported by
Houseman et al., seems
like something the
U.S. should aim to
emulate with
next-generation
industries.
So U.S. leaders
should listen to
manufacturing skeptics
a little bit less, and
pay more attention to
those who say the
sector is crucial.
It's worth noting that
President Donald
Trump, who was elected
on a promise to
restore American
manufacturing, has
shown more interest in
cutting government
programs designed to
give industry a
helping hand. If
there's going to be a
U.S. industrial policy
renaissance, it might
not be his
administration that
leads it.
"... The GOP and this administration are overwhelmingly self-avowed Christians yet they try to deny the poor to benefit the rich. This is not Christian but evil pure and simple. ..."
"... They are an American Taliban, just going about their subversion in a less overtly violent way. ..."
"... Much like Russian people viewed the country under Bolshevism, outside of brief WWII period. That's probably why we have Anti-Russian witch hunt now. To stem this trend. But it is the US neoliberal elite, not Russians, who drive the country to this state of affairs. By spending God knows how many trillions of dollar of wars of neoliberal empire expansion and by drastic redistribution of wealth up. And now the majority of citizens is facing substandard medical care, sliding standard of living and uncertain job prospects. ..."
"... US elections have been influenced by anyone with huge money or oil since the Cold War made an excuse for the US' trade empire enforced by half the world's war spending. ..."
"... The fake 'incidental' surveillance of other political opponents is a gross violation of human rights and the US' Bill of Rights. ..."
"... The disloyal opposition and its propagandists are running Stalin like show trails in their media... ..."
The GOP and this administration are overwhelmingly self-avowed Christians yet they
try to deny the poor to benefit the rich. This is not Christian but evil pure and simple.
I would love to see this lying, cheating, selfish, crazy devil (yeah, I know I sound
a bit OTT but the description is fact based) of a president and his enablers challenged
on their Christian values.
They are an American Taliban, just going about their subversion in a less overtly
violent way.
Are the people who consider our current rulers to be "American Taliban" inclined to become
"leakers" of government activities against the citizens, because they definitely stop to consider
the country as their own and view it as occupied by dangerous and violent religious cult?
Much like Russian people viewed the country under Bolshevism, outside of brief WWII period.
That's probably why we have Anti-Russian witch hunt now. To stem this trend. But it is the US
neoliberal elite, not Russians, who drive the country to this state of affairs. By spending God
knows how many trillions of dollar of wars of neoliberal empire expansion and by drastic redistribution
of wealth up. And now the majority of citizens is facing substandard medical care, sliding standard
of living and uncertain job prospects.
ilsm -> libezkova... March 26, 2017 at 05:42 AM
I see the angst over Sessions talking to a Russia diplomat twice as a red herring.
US elections have been influenced by anyone with huge money or oil since the Cold War made
an excuse for the US' trade empire enforced by half the world's war spending.
The fake 'incidental' surveillance of other political opponents is a gross violation of human
rights and the US' Bill of Rights.
The disloyal opposition and its propagandists are running Stalin like show trails in their
media.....
"... "They're taking in fundamentally the entire fiber network inside the United States and collecting all that data and storing it, in a program they call Stellar Wind," Binney said. ..."
"... "That's the domestic collection of data on US citizens, US citizens to other US citizens," he said. "Everything we're doing, phone calls, emails and then financial transactions, credit cards, things like that, all of it." ..."
"... "I mean, that's just East German," Tucker responded. ..."
"... Rather than help prevent terrorist attacks, Binney said collecting so much information actually makes stopping attacks more difficult. ..."
"... "This bulk acquisition is inhibiting their ability to detect terrorist threats in advance so they can't stop them so people get killed as a result," he said. ..."
"... "Which means, you know, they pick up the pieces and blood after the attack. That's what's been going on. I mean they've consistently failed. When Alexander said they'd stop 54 attacks and he was challenged to produce the evidence to prove that he failed on every count." ..."
"... Binney concludes ominously indicating the origin of the deep state... "They are like the praetorian guard, they determine what the emperor does and who the emperor is..." ..."
NSA whistleblower William Binney told Tucker Carlson on Friday that the NSA is spying on "all
the members of the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, both House and Senate, as
well as the White House."
Binney, who served the NSA for 30 years before blowing the whistle on domestic spying in 2001, told
Tucker he firmly believes that Trump was spied on.
"They're taking in fundamentally the entire fiber network inside the United States and collecting
all that data and storing it, in a program they call Stellar Wind," Binney said.
"That's the domestic collection of data on US citizens, US citizens to other US citizens," he
said. "Everything we're doing, phone calls, emails and then financial transactions, credit cards,
things like that, all of it."
"Inside NSA there are a set of people who are -- and we got this from another NSA whistleblower
who witnessed some of this -- they're inside there, they are targeting and looking at all the members
of the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, both House and Senate, as well as the
White House," Binney said.
"And all this data is inside the NSA in a small group where they're looking at it. The idea is
to see what people in power over you are going to -- what they think, what they think you should
be doing or planning to do to you, your budget, or whatever so you can try to counteract before it
actually happens," he said.
"I mean, that's just East German," Tucker responded.
Rather than help prevent terrorist attacks, Binney said collecting so much information actually
makes stopping attacks more difficult.
"This bulk acquisition is inhibiting their ability to detect terrorist threats in advance so they
can't stop them so people get killed as a result," he said.
"Which means, you know, they pick up the pieces and blood after the attack. That's what's been
going on. I mean they've consistently failed. When Alexander said they'd stop 54 attacks and he was
challenged to produce the evidence to prove that he failed on every count."
Binney concludes ominously indicating the origin of the deep state... "They are like the praetorian guard, they determine what the emperor does and who the emperor
is..."
Bringing history more up to date, this is Stalinism, i.e., fascism. As John
T. Flynn states, "Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator." Neo-fascism of course
is Stalinism-blame Hitler.
So, is it fascism?
Yes, says Major Todd Pierce (retired) in an interview with Philip Weiss of
Mondoweiss - who says NSA whistle blower Bill Binney has "got to be one of the smartest
people in the world, I don't think that's an exaggeration. He was one of the smartest
people at the NSA.
Says Weiss: "And he agrees with me fully. Because he's seen the NSA. We're
a more sophisticated form of what I think has to be called fascism. The term fascism was
applied to the way the communists and Stalin got on as well. You bring the term fascist to what
it really means, and that ultimately is, ultramilitarism and authoritarianism combined with
an expansionist foreign policy. And that's us-what you can see us becoming."
The Roman Empire's death was far more complicated than "moral rot" and its "currency
devaluation." Read some history books.
Chris Hedges makes the observation that ALL empires that are scourges of the earth,
eventually turn inwards. As the empire begins its fatal decline, the terror they inflicted on
outsiders, is then turned against its own citizens.
We now see that happening in America. Banks, corporations, intel/military, etc. are turning
inward: destroying meaningful employment, humane health care, and pilfering billions of $s
reserved for the 1%.
Just Another Vi... -> FriendlyAquaponics •Mar 25, 2017 8:05 PM
A video worth revisiting......
Reuters ..........
... Obama criticizes Donald Trump endlessly....over Trumps assertions that the election is
rigged..,
telling the candidate to "stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."
That's right, the DOD. They can't go completely rogue, without the explicit or implicit
approval of the Secretary of Defense and his Deputies.
It is rather phoney and hypocritical of any POTUS - including Pres. Thump - to moan about the
NSA, without loping off heads at the DOD and NSA. By that, I include all the Deputies, who do
the real work and know the real secrets.
It's time that Thump had a "Come to Jesus" meeting with all these guys. Else he's part of the
problem, and no amount of sugar coating can stop a turd being a turd.
TheReplacement -> HRClinton •Mar 25, 2017 9:42 PM
In an honest world, sure.
In reality, no. Like Binney said, they don't have to do anything they don't like because
NOBODY can prove they haven't complied with orders. There is nobody who can watch the
watchers. They can blackmail anyone.
'Gosh, I have no idea how that child porn got on my computer.'
CIA or NSA knows exactly how it got there. They put it there.
Trump has described his son-in-law as a "great guy". The president-elect has also reportedly taken
the unprecedented step of requesting security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential
briefings, the first one of which was on Tuesday. It's unclear if the request will be approved. It
marks an astonishing departure and invites the accusation of nepotism.
Kushner's options for a White House job are limited given his family ties to the president, Richard
Painter, who served as President George W Bush's White House ethics lawyer, told the Associated Press.
Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits the president from appointing a family
member – including a son-in-law – to work in the office or agency they oversee. The measure was passed
after President John F Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as attorney general.
But the law does not appear to prevent Kushner from serving as an unpaid adviser, and few doubt
that Kushner will play a decisive role in shaping the Trump presidency, acting as policy adviser
and gate-keeper. As
Trump and Barack Obama met privately at the White House last week, Kushner strolled the mansion's
South Lawn, deep in conversation with Obama's chief of staff. As Kushner walked through the bustling
West Wing during Trump's visit last week, he was heard asking Obama aides: "How many of these people
stay?", apparently blissfully unaware that the entire West Wing staff will leave at the end of Obama's
term.
His contacts already include Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch; he has received foreign ambassadors.
Like Trump, Kushner has never had a formal role in government, but he now appears set to be more
important than many who do.
we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but far fewer
are paying for it. And advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. So you can see why
we need to ask for your help. The Guardian's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of
time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because
it might well be your perspective, too.
Fund our journalism and together we can keep the world informed.
"... Now we have "synthetic" surveillance. You don't even need a court order. Now all incidental communication intercepts can be
unmasked. One can search their huge databases for all the incidental communications of someone of interest, then collect all of the
unmasked incidental communications that involve that person and put them together in one handy dandy report. Viola! You can keep tabs
on them every time they end up being incidentally collected. ..."
"... You ever went to an embassy party? Talked to a drug dealer or mafia guy without being aware of it? Correspond overseas? Your
communications have been "incidentally" collected too. There is so much surveillance out there we have probably all bounced off various
targets over the last several years. ..."
"... This is what police states do. In the past it was considered scandalous for senior U.S. officials to even request the identities
of U.S. officials incidentally monitored by the government (normally they are redacted from intelligence reports). John Bolton's nomination
to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was derailed in 2006 after the NSA confirmed he had made 10 such requests when he was Undersecretary
of State for Arms Control in George W. Bush's first term. The fact that the intercepts of Flynn's conversations with Kislyak appear
to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag. ..."
"... Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told me Monday
that he saw the leaks about Flynn's conversations with Kislyak as part of a pattern. ..."
"... The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal
on N.Korea etc? ..."
"... But no matter what Flynn did, it is simply not the role of the deep state to target a man working in one of the political branches
of the government by dishing to reporters about information it has gathered clandestinely. ..."
"... It is the role of elected members of Congress to conduct public investigations of alleged wrongdoing by public officials..
..."
The rank and file of the IC are not involved in this. So let's not tar everyone with the same brush, but Obama revised executive
order 12333 so that communication intercepts incidentally collected dont have to be masked and may be shared freely in the IC.
Now we have "synthetic" surveillance. You don't even need a court order. Now all incidental communication intercepts can
be unmasked. One can search their huge databases for all the incidental communications of someone of interest, then collect all
of the unmasked incidental communications that involve that person and put them together in one handy dandy report. Viola! You
can keep tabs on them every time they end up being incidentally collected.
You ever went to an embassy party? Talked to a drug dealer or mafia guy without being aware of it? Correspond overseas?
Your communications have been "incidentally" collected too. There is so much surveillance out there we have probably all bounced
off various targets over the last several years.
What might your "synthetic" surveillance report look like?
There's way more going on here then first alleged. From Bloomberg, not my choice for news, but There is another component to
this story as well -- as Trump himself just tweeted.
It's very rare that reporters are ever told about government-monitored communications of U.S. citizens, let alone senior U.S.
officials. The last story like this to hit Washington was in 2009 when Jeff Stein, then of CQ, reported on intercepted phone calls
between a senior Aipac lobbyist and Jane Harman, who at the time was a Democratic member of Congress.
Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason.
Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy
reputations from the cloak of anonymity.
This is what police states do. In the past it was considered scandalous for senior U.S. officials to even request the identities
of U.S. officials incidentally monitored by the government (normally they are redacted from intelligence reports). John Bolton's
nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was derailed in 2006 after the NSA confirmed he had made 10 such requests
when he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control in George W. Bush's first term. The fact that the intercepts of Flynn's conversations
with Kislyak appear to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag.
Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told me Monday
that he saw the leaks about Flynn's conversations with Kislyak as part of a pattern. "There does appear to be a well orchestrated
effort to attack Flynn and others in the administration," he said. "From the leaking of phone calls between the president and
foreign leaders to what appears to be high-level FISA Court information, to the leaking of American citizens being denied security
clearances, it looks like a pattern."
@?realDonaldTrump?
The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening
as I deal on N.Korea etc?
President Trump was roundly mocked among liberals for that tweet. But he is, in many ways, correct. These leaks are an enormous
problem. And in a less polarized context, they would be recognized immediately for what they clearly are: an effort to manipulate
public opinion for the sake of achieving a desired political outcome. It's weaponized spin.............
But no matter what Flynn did, it is simply not the role of the deep state to target a man working in one of the political
branches of the government by dishing to reporters about information it has gathered clandestinely.
It is the role of elected members of Congress to conduct public investigations of alleged wrongdoing by public officials..
..... But the answer isn't to counter it with equally irregular acts of sabotage - or with a disinformation campaign waged
by nameless civil servants toiling away in the surveillance state.....
Donald Trump is about to break the record of withdrawing his promises faster than any other US
president in history. It's not only the fact that his administration has been literally taken over
by Goldman Sachs, the top vampire-bank of the Wall Street mafia.
Recently, Trump announced another big alliance with the vulture billionaire, Paul Singer, who,
initially, was supposedly against him. It looks like the Trump big show continues.
The 'anti-establishment Trump' joke has already collapsed and the US middle class is about be
eliminated by the syndicate of the united billionaires under Trump administration.
As Greg Palast told to Thom Hartmann:
Paul Singer whose nickname is "the vulture", he didn't get that nickname because he is a sweet
an honest businessman. This is the guy who closed the Delphi auto plants in Ohio and sent them to
China and also to Monterrey-Mexico. Donald Trump as a candidate, excoriated the billionaires who
sent Delphi auto parts company down to Mexico.
Paul Singer has two concerns: one of them is that we eliminate the banking regulations known as
Dodd–Frank. He is called 'the vulture' cause he eats companies that died. He has invested heavily
in banks that died. He makes his billions from government bail-outs, he has never made a product
in his life, it's all money and billions made from your money, out of the US treasury.
He is against what Obama created, which is a system under Dodd–Frank, called 'living wheels',
where if a bank starts going bankrupt, they don't call the US treasury for bail-out. These banks
go out of business and they are broken up so we don't have to pay for the bail-out. Singer wants
to restore the system of bailouts because that's where he makes his money.
The Mercers are the real big money behind Donald Trump. When Trump was in trouble in the general
election he was out of money and he was out of ideas and he was losing. It was the Mercers, Robert,
who is the principal at the Renaissance Technologies, basically investment banking sharks, that's
all they are. They are market gamblers and banking sharks, and that's how he made his billions, he
hasn't created a single job as Donald Trump himself like to mention.
Both the vulture and the Mercers, they don't pay the same taxes as the rest. They don't pay regular
income taxes. They have a special billionaires loophole called 'carried interest'. They were two
candidates who said that they would close that loophole: one was Bernie Sanders and the other, believe
it or not, was Donald Trump, it was part of his populist movie, he said ' These Wall Street sharks,
they don't build anything, they don't create a single job, when they lose we pay, when they win,
they get a tax-break called carried interest. I will close that loophole. ' Has he said a word
about that loophole? It passed away.
His political activities include funding the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and he has
written against raising taxes for the 1% and aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act. Singer is active in Republican
Party politics and collectively, Singer and others affiliated with Elliott Management are "the top
source of contributions" to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
A number of sources have branded him a "vulture capitalist", largely on account of his role at
EMC, which has been called a vulture fund. Elliott was termed by The Independent as "a pioneer in
the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid
debts", and in 1996, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in
or near default-such as Argentina, ]- through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through
Kensington International Inc. Singer's business model of purchasing distressed debt from companies
and sovereign states and pursuing full payment through the courts has led to criticism, while Singer
and EMC defend their model as "a fight against charlatans who refuse to play by the market's rules."
In 1996, Elliott bought defaulted Peruvian debt for $11.4 million. Elliott won a $58 million judgement
when the ruling was overturned in 2000, and Peru had to repay the sum in full under the pari passu
rule. When former president of Peru Alberto Fujimori was attempting to flee the country due to facing
legal proceedings over human rights abuses and corruption, Singer ordered the confiscation of his
jet and offered to let him leave the country in exchange for the $58 million payment from the treasury,
an offer which Fujimori accepted. A subsequent 2002 investigation by the Government of Peru into
the incident and subsequent congressional report, uncovered instances of corruption since Elliott
was not legally authorized to purchase the Peruvian debt from Swiss Bank Corporation without the
prior approval of the Peruvian government, and thus the purchase had occurred in breach of contract.
At the same time, Elliott's representative, Jaime Pinto, had been formerly employed by the Peruvian
Ministry of Economy and Finance and had contact with senior officials. According to the Wall Street
Journal, the Peruvian government paid Elliott $56 million to settle the case.
After Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2002, the Elliott-owned company NML Capital Limited refused
to accept the Argentine offer to pay less than 30 cents per dollar of debt. With a face value of
$630 million, the bonds were reportedly bought by NML for $48 million, with Elliott assessing the
bonds as worth $2.3 billion with accrued interest. Elliott sued Argentina for the debt's value, and
the lower UK courts found that Argentina had state immunity. Elliott successfully appealed the case
to the UK Supreme Court, which ruled that Elliott had the right to attempt to seize Argentine property
in the United Kingdom. Alternatively, before 2011, US courts ruled against allowing creditors to
seize Argentine state assets in the United States. On October 2, 2012 Singer arranged for a Ghanaian
Court order to detain the Argentine naval training vessel ARA Libertad in a Ghanaian port, with the
vessel to be used as collateral in an effort to force Argentina to pay the debt. Refusing to pay,
Argentina shortly thereafter regained control of the ship after its seizure was deemed illegal by
the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Alleging the incident lost Tema Harbour $7.6 million
in lost revenue and unpaid docking fees, Ghana in 2012 was reportedly considering legal action against
NML for the amount.
His firm... is so influential that fear of its tactics helped shape the current 2012 Greek debt
restructuring." Elliott was termed by The Independent as "a pioneer in the business of buying up
sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid debts", and in 1996, Singer
began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near default-such as Argentina,
Peru-through his NML Capital Limited and Congo-Brazzaville through Kensington International Inc.
In 2004, then first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund Anne Osborn Krueger
denounced the strategy, alleging that it has "undermined the entire structure of sovereign finance."
we wrote that " Trump's rhetoric is concentrated around a racist delirium.
He avoids to take direct position on social matters, issues about inequality, etc. Of course he does,
he is a billionaire! Trump will follow the pro-establishment agenda of protecting Wall Street and
big businesses. And here is the fundamental difference with Bernie Sanders. Bernie says no more war
and he means it. He says more taxes for the super-rich and he means it. Free healthcare and education
for all the Americans, and he means it. In case that Bernie manage to beat Hillary, the establishment
will definitely turn to Trump who will be supported by all means until the US presidency. "
Yet, we would never expect that Trump would verify us, that fast.
"... Past administrations of both parties have been vigorous supporters of longer and stronger patent and copyright protections. These protections can raise the price of protected items by factors of ten or even a hundred, making them equivalent to tariffs of 1000 and 10,000 percent. These protections lead to the same sorts of economic distortion and corruption that economists would predict from tariffs of this size. ..."
"... Trump administration officials at a Group of 20 summit rejected concerns about spreading protectionism and made clear that the new administration would seek different approaches to global commerce. ..."
"... The United States influence over the Group of 20 nations, even when the US is supposedly taking generally unpopular stances is striking and makes me wonder why there is no open dissent. What is supposed to be unpopular may be less so among G20 governments than commonly assumed. ..."
The United States Has Been for Selective Protectionism, Not Free Trade
The New York Times might have wrongly lead readers to believe that presidents prior to Donald
Trump supported free trade in an article * noting his refusal to go along with a G-20 statement proclaiming
the importance of free trade. This is not true.
Past administrations of both parties have been vigorous supporters of longer and stronger patent
and copyright protections. These protections can raise the price of protected items by factors of
ten or even a hundred, making them equivalent to tariffs of 1000 and 10,000 percent. These protections
lead to the same sorts of economic distortion and corruption that economists would predict from tariffs
of this size.
Past administrations have also supported barriers that protect our most highly paid professionals,
such as doctors and dentists, from foreign competition. They apparently believed that these professionals
lack the skills necessary to compete in the global economy and therefore must be protected from the
international competition. The result is that the rest of us pay close to $100 billion more each
year for our medical bills ($700 per family).
U.S. Breaks With Allies Over Trade Issues Amid Trump's 'America First' Vows
By JACK EWING
Trump administration officials at a Group of 20 summit rejected concerns about spreading
protectionism and made clear that the new administration would seek different approaches to
global commerce.
Financial officials from the world's biggest economies have dropped from a joint statement
any mention of financing action on climate change, reportedly following pressure from the US
and Saudi Arabia....
The United States influence over
the Group of 20 nations, even when the US is supposedly taking generally unpopular stances
is striking and makes me wonder why there is no open dissent. What is supposed to be unpopular
may be less so among G20 governments than commonly assumed.
It has long been a mystery to
me why European nations adopt policies that hurt their economies just to pander to the whims
of US geopolitics. Cases in point: sanctions on Iran and Russia and support for Israel.
Does Immigration Help The Economy? Trump Administration To
Reopen H-1B Visa Program
By Lydia O'Neal @LydsONeal On 03/15/17 AT 4:30 PM
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
announced Wednesday that it would not draw down the number of
H-1B visas doled out to foreign workers for fiscal year 2018,
leaving the total cap at 85,000, and would begin accepting
applications April 3.
The decision came less than two weeks after USCIS alarmed
proponents of freer immigration for skilled workers when it
suspended the premium processing route for H-1B visas, which
allows companies to import workers quickly with just 15
waiting days and a $1,225 fee, for a period of at least six
months.
The agency attributed the decision to its need to "process
long-pending petitions, which we have currently been unable
to process due to the high volume of incoming petitions and
the significant surge in premium processing requests over the
past few years," according to a USCIS press release. USCIS
also kept its expedited processing route, which is reserved
for emergency situations, in place.
H-1B visas are reserved for foreign nationals with a clear
relationship with the American company seeking to hire them,
as well as a bachelor's degree or higher in a "specialty
occupation," defined by USCIS as "in fields such as
engineering, math and business, as well as many technology
fields."
H-1B Visa Petitions Approved in 2014 by Level of Education
Showing petitions approved in the 2014 fiscal year by
level of education. Approved petitions exceed the number of
individual H-1B workers sponsored because multiple types of
petitions can be filed for a single worker. The U.S. caps the
number of H-1B workers that can be given a visa at 65,000 per
fiscal year.
The tech industry often cites the program, which primarily
benefits Indian workers and companies, as a necessary tool to
compensate for labor shortages, but the existence of that
shortage has long been disputed.
A recent study found that, had the program not been in
place between 1994 and 2001, tech workers' salaries would've
been up to 5 percent higher, while their employment would've
grown by up to 11 percent. The paper, by researchers at the
University of Michigan and the University of California, San
Diego, also pointed out that productivity in the sector rose
by as much as 2.5 percent, while consumer prices fell,
ultimately benefitting information technology firms.
Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the
Question of Apartheid: Palestine and the Israeli Occupation
By United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western
Asia
Executive Summary
This report concludes that Israel has established an
apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a
whole. Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the
authors of the report conclude that available evidence
establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty
of policies and practices that constitute the crime of
apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international
law.
The analysis in this report rests on the same body of
international human rights law and principles that reject
anti-Semitism and other racially discriminatory ideologies,
including: the Charter of the United Nations (1945), the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination (1965). The report relies for its
definition of apartheid primarily on article II of the
International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of
the Crime of Apartheid (1973, hereinafter the Apartheid
Convention):
The term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include
similar policies and practices of racial segregation and
discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply
to inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing
and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons
over any other racial group of persons and systematically
oppressing them.
Although the term "apartheid" was originally associated
with the specific instance of South Africa, it now represents
a species of crime against humanity under customary
international law and the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court, according to which:
"The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts committed in
the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic
oppression and domination by one racial group over any other
racial group or groups and committed with the intention of
maintaining that regime.
Against that background, this report reflects the expert
consensus that the prohibition of apartheid is universally
applicable and was not rendered moot by the collapse of
apartheid in South Africa and South West Africa (Namibia).
The legal approach to the matter of apartheid adopted by
this report should not be confused with usage of the term in
popular discourse as an expression of opprobrium. Seeing
apartheid as discrete acts and practices (such as the
"apartheid wall"), a phenomenon generated by anonymous
structural conditions like capitalism ("economic apartheid"),
or private social behaviour on the part of certain racial
groups towards others (social racism) may have its place in
certain contexts. However, this report anchors its definition
of apartheid in international law, which carries with it
responsibilities for States, as specified in international
instruments.
The choice of evidence is guided by the Apartheid
Convention, which sets forth that the crime of apartheid
consists of discrete inhuman acts, but that such acts acquire
the status of crimes against humanity only if they
intentionally serve the core purpose of racial domination.
The Rome Statute specifies in its definition the presence of
an "institutionalized regime" serving the "intention" of
racial domination. Since "purpose" and "intention" lie at the
core of both definitions, this report examines factors
ostensibly separate from the Palestinian dimension -
especially, the doctrine of Jewish statehood as expressed in
law and the design of Israeli State institutions - to
establish beyond doubt the presence of such a core purpose.
That the Israeli regime is designed for this core purpose
was found to be evident in the body of laws, only some of
which are discussed in the report for reasons of scope. One
prominent example is land policy. The Israeli Basic Law
(Constitution) mandates that land held by the State of
Israel, the Israeli Development Authority or the Jewish
National Fund shall not be transferred in any manner, placing
its management permanently under their authority. The State
Property Law of 1951 provides for the reversion of property
(including land) to the State in any area "in which the law
of the State of Israel applies". The Israel Lands Authority
(ILA) manages State land, which accounts for 93 per cent of
the land within the internationally recognized borders of
Israel and is by law closed to use, development or ownership
by non-Jews. Those laws reflect the concept of "public
purpose" as expressed in the Basic Law. Such laws may be
changed by Knesset vote, but the Basic Law: Knesset prohibits
any political party from challenging that public purpose.
Effectively, Israeli law renders opposition to racial
domination illegal.
Demographic engineering is another area of policy serving
the purpose of maintaining Israel as a Jewish State. Most
well known is Israeli law conferring on Jews worldwide the
right to enter Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship
regardless of their countries of origin and whether or not
they can show links to Israel-Palestine, while withholding
any comparable right from Palestinians, including those with
documented ancestral homes in the country. The World Zionist
Organization and Jewish Agency are vested with legal
authority as agencies of the State of Israel to facilitate
Jewish immigration and preferentially serve the interests of
Jewish citizens in matters ranging from land use to public
development planning and other matters deemed vital to Jewish
statehood. Some laws involving demographic engineering are
expressed in coded language, such as those that allow Jewish
councils to reject applications for residence from
Palestinian citizens. Israeli law normally allows spouses of
Israeli citizens to relocate to Israel but uniquely prohibits
this option in the case of Palestinians from the occupied
territory or beyond. On a far larger scale, it is a matter of
Israeli policy to reject the return of any Palestinian
refugees and exiles (totalling some six million people) to
territory under Israeli control.
Two additional attributes of a systematic regime of racial
domination must be present to qualify the regime as an
instance of apartheid. The first involves the identification
of the oppressed persons as belonging to a specific "racial
group". This report accepts the definition of the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination of "racial discrimination" as "any
distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on
race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has
the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the
recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of
human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political,
economic, social, cultural or any other field of public
life". On that basis, this report argues that in the
geopolitical context of Palestine, Jews and Palestinians can
be considered "racial groups". Furthermore, the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination is cited expressly in the Apartheid
Convention.
The second attribute is the boundary and character of the
group or groups involved. The status of the Palestinians as a
people entitled to exercise the right of self-determination
has been legally settled, most authoritatively by the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 2004 advisory
opinion on Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall
in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. On that basis, the
report examines the treatment by Israel of the Palestinian
people as a whole, considering the distinct circumstances of
geographic and juridical fragmentation of the Palestinian
people as a condition imposed by Israel. (Annex II addresses
the issue of a proper identification of the "country"
responsible for the denial of Palestinian rights under
international law.)
This report finds that the strategic fragmentation of the
Palestinian people is the principal method by which Israel
imposes an apartheid regime. It first examines how the
history of war, partition, de jure and de facto annexation
and prolonged occupation in Palestine has led to the
Palestinian people being divided into different geographic
regions administered by distinct sets of law. This
fragmentation operates to stabilize the Israeli regime of
racial domination over the Palestinians and to weaken the
will and capacity of the Palestinian people to mount a
unified and effective resistance. Different methods are
deployed depending on where Palestinians live. This is the
core means by which Israel enforces apartheid and at the same
time impedes international recognition of how the system
works as a complementary whole to comprise an apartheid
regime.
Since 1967, Palestinians as a people have lived in what
the report refers to as four "domains", in which the
fragments of the Palestinian population are ostensibly
treated differently but share in common the racial oppression
that results from the apartheid regime. Those domains are:
1. Civil law, with special restrictions, governing
Palestinians who live as citizens of Israel;
2. Permanent residency law governing Palestinians living
in the city of Jerusalem;
3. Military law governing Palestinians, including those in
refugee camps, living since 1967 under conditions of
belligerent occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip;
4. Policy to preclude the return of Palestinians, whether
refugees or exiles, living outside territory under Israel's
control....
The proposal from the State Department would reverse a
decision made late in the Obama administration to suspend the
sale of precision guided munitions to Riyadh, which leads a
mostly Arab coalition conducting air strikes against
Iran-backed Al Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's approval this week of the
measure, which officials say needs White House backing to go
into effect, provides an early indication of the new
administration's more Saudi-friendly approach to the conflict
in Yemen, and a sign of its more hawkish stance on Iran.
It also signals a break with the more conservative approach
of Obama's administration about US involvement in the
conflict.
The move takes place as the Trump administration considers
its approach to the Yemeni war, which has pitted US and
Saudi-backed Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi against
an alliance of ousted Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and
Al Houthi rebels.
...a winning strategy so far. 15 years into the GWOT, the
only light at the end of the tunnel is generated by IEDs.
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern
Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer
By Dean Baker
The Old Technology and Inequality Scam: The Story of
Patents and Copyrights
One of the amazing lines often repeated by people in
policy debates is that, as a result of technology, we are
seeing income redistributed from people who work for a living
to the people who own the technology. While the
redistribution part of the story may be mostly true, the
problem is that the technology does not determine who "owns"
the technology. The people who write the laws determine who
owns the technology.
Specifically, patents and copyrights give their holders
monopolies on technology or creative work for their duration.
If we are concerned that money is going from ordinary workers
to people who hold patents and copyrights, then one policy we
may want to consider is shortening and weakening these
monopolies. But policy has gone sharply in the opposite
direction over the last four decades, as a wide variety of
measures have been put into law that make these protections
longer and stronger. Thus, the redistribution from people who
work to people who own the technology should not be
surprising - that was the purpose of the policy.
If stronger rules on patents and copyrights produced
economic dividends in the form of more innovation and more
creative output, then this upward redistribution might be
justified. But the evidence doesn't indicate there has been
any noticeable growth dividend associated with this upward
redistribution. In fact, stronger patent protection seems to
be associated with slower growth.
Before directly considering the case, it is worth thinking
for a minute about what the world might look like if we had
alternative mechanisms to patents and copyrights, so that the
items now subject to these monopolies could be sold in a free
market just like paper cups and shovels.
The biggest impact would be in prescription drugs. The
breakthrough drugs for cancer, hepatitis C, and other
diseases, which now sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of
dollars annually, would instead sell for a few hundred
dollars. No one would have to struggle to get their insurer
to pay for drugs or scrape together the money from friends
and family. Almost every drug would be well within an
affordable price range for a middle-class family, and
covering the cost for poorer families could be easily managed
by governments and aid agencies.
The same would be the case with various medical tests and
treatments. Doctors would not have to struggle with a
decision about whether to prescribe an expensive scan, which
might be the best way to detect a cancerous growth or other
health issue, or to rely on cheaper but less reliable
technology. In the absence of patent protection even the most
cutting edge scans would be reasonably priced.
Health care is not the only area that would be transformed
by a free market in technology and creative work. Imagine
that all the textbooks needed by college students could be
downloaded at no cost over the web and printed out for the
price of the paper. Suppose that a vast amount of new books,
recorded music, and movies was freely available on the web.
People or companies who create and innovate deserve to be
compensated, but there is little reason to believe that the
current system of patent and copyright monopolies is the best
way to support their work. It's not surprising that the
people who benefit from the current system are reluctant to
have the efficiency of patents and copyrights become a topic
for public debate, but those who are serious about inequality
have no choice. These forms of property claims have been
important drivers of inequality in the last four decades.
The explicit assumption behind the steps over the last
four decades to increase the strength and duration of patent
and copyright protection is that the higher prices resulting
from increased protection will be more than offset by an
increased incentive for innovation and creative work. Patent
and copyright protection should be understood as being like
very large tariffs. These protections can often the raise the
price of protected items by several multiples of the free
market price, making them comparable to tariffs of several
hundred or even several thousand percent. The resulting
economic distortions are comparable to what they would be if
we imposed tariffs of this magnitude.
The justification for granting these monopoly protections
is that the increased innovation and creative work that is
produced as a result of these incentives exceeds the economic
costs from patent and copyright monopolies. However, there is
remarkably little evidence to support this assumption. While
the cost of patent and copyright protection in higher prices
is apparent, even if not well-measured, there is little
evidence of a substantial payoff in the form of a more rapid
pace of innovation or more and better creative work....
In the GE Aviation
lobby, as Indiana
Governor Holcomb
rocked slightly in
custom-made cowboy
boots – black, pointed
toes, an outline of
Indiana on the front
of the shaft – and the
sound of the ignition
of his SUV signaling
the end of a Wednesday
afternoon at the GE
plant, Plant Manager
Matteson added one
more thing:
Immigration reform
would really help on a
number of fronts,
starting with clearing
the way for the talent
pool coming out of
Indiana Universities
and other engineering
schools.
This is the
new manufacturing that
is replacing the
factories being
shuttered. They are
run by engineers, many
of them foreign. They
hire workers who they
will train and workers
must be capable of
learning and fitting
in with the work
culture. Manufacturing
is locating in urban
areas and near
Universities where
they can find a pool
of high skill talent
and a workforce that
is accustomed to
diversity. They will
NOT go to a redneck
sundown town where the
Indian engineers are
going to be harassed
and maybe shot. The
Sundown towns are
chasing away the very
people they need to
save their
communities. The
denigrate education
and fail to teach
their children the
math skills they would
need to become high
skill engineering
talent. Low skill jobs
cannot have high pay
without unions. These
voters have voted for
politicians who have
destroyed their unions
with Right to Work
laws and other bad
policy.
They are egged on
by Trump who
understands none of
this and promises to
return their low skill
jobs. The GOP and
Trump blame trade and
immigrants, pushing
the cultural buttons
to deflect attention
to their complicity in
destroying unions,
underfunding education
and failure to invest
in the workforce
Yep. There is certainly a roach motel policy aspect to
globalization. Dependencies upon existing supply chains both
for wage and regulatory arbitrage pricing and for invested
fixed capital stock impose yuuge drags on on-shoring efforts.
The poverty economics from 40 acres and mule all the way to
single parent eligibility requirements and subsequent
"reforms" for family financial aid were also roach motel
economics. Now we have the irony of the sharing economy
further suppressing wages.
Thought-provoking, wide-ranging blog post by Jared* on
international trade. I guess PGL only had time to read Timmy
Taylor in his rush to post first.
He disagrees with
Navarro** about trade deficits always being a problem and
notes that there are two sides or aspects to the equation.
"As long as the world's excess global savings continue to
flow to our shores, our trade deficit will persist, and going
after bilateral deficits one at a time becomes a game of
whack-a-mole that we can't win."
Jared notes how Brad Setser suggests a solution: "As Brad
Setser convincingly argues, encouraging countries with large
surpluses (which must show up as deficits somewhere else) to
engage in more internal investment is a far preferable way to
reduce our own imbalances than tariffs and trade barriers."
Too bad we don't have a WTO that could force surplus
nations like Germany and China to do this.
But Jared admits Navarro isn't always wrong (something PGL
can't bring himself to do given his hateful nature.)
"Second, Navarro is not wrong to worry about the drag on
demand from negative net exports, but only when there's
nothing in the pipeline to offset it. The Federal Reserve can
lower interest rates to offset the drag, but not if they're
near zero, or in "normalization" mode (raising rates), both
of which are operative today. Fiscal policy can pick up the
slack, but not if Congress refuses to step up.
So yeah, today's trade deficits are a problem. They've not
been large enough to keep the economy from growing and
unemployment from falling, but remember, it's year eight of
an economic expansion and we've still not fully closed the
GDP output gap (and that's even the case as potential GDP has
been lowered). In the absence of offsets, we could have used
that extra demand."
This is what the neoliberals like PGL and Sanjait don't
understand or can't admit. Why? Because of politics and how
Democrats like Bill Clinton and Obama pushed corporate free
trade deals and trade policy. Because critics like Navarro
and Bernie Sanders have struck a cord with populist voters
concerned about corporate trade.
Jared Bernstein wraps up with a plea for infrastructure
spending given the threat of the SecStags.
"But given the existential threat of climate change, or
for that matter, the general state of our public goods, I
find it awfully hard to accept the contention that there's
nothing productive in which to invest the excess savings
surplus countries continue to send our way."
Compare with Hillary' modest fiscal action which Alan
Blinder said wouldn't effect the Fed's reaction function.
DeLong still backed her over Sanders despite the threat of
the Secstags. Critics of Fed policy like Sanjait and PGL
still backed Hillary even though she had no criticisms of the
Fed or plans to reform its policy.
* like PGL, I pretend to know the write to give myself the
appearance more authority.
** PGL's bete noir.
Flynn definitely was compromised deliberately, because he just spoke with Russian ambassador as a private person (but may be on
instructions from Trump) and then understanding that lied to the vice president. So releasing his conversations was a part "color revolution"
against Trump, launched by neocons in intelligence services. As for the role of Jews in this affair is is naive to consider neocons
to be purely ethnically based, although "Israel firster" are an important part of them. So in Fred C. Dobbs post below one needs
to replace "Jew" with "Neocon" in Nixon's remarks. You will instantly see the point and it is difficlut nt to agree with Nixon that
neocons influence is huge threat to the USA. In this sense Nixon proved again that his was very talented, pretty shred politician...
Notable quotes:
"... Looks like "Color revolution" came to the USA and you being the US citizen better to learn what it means. And it means a lot (among other things that means an immediate end of remnants of democracy left; Welcome to the USSR, in other words.) ..."
"... Tom Clancy eat your heart out, this is as real as Dennis Kucinitch describes it as. The sinister globalist elite will stop at nothing in establishing their Luciferian dreams of the Novus Ordo Seclorum (New World Order). ..."
"... The old Elites need conflicts, so they can keep power. ..."
"... Yep. Trillion dollar military industrial complex is a lot of motivation for the establishment to revive the cold war and to keep the IC involved in the Saudi's proxy war via ISIS in the middle east. The CIA isn't interested in peace. It wants power. ..."
"... Yes, that appears to be their Operandi--to not only keep us distracted and our resources drained to continually feed their purses and purposes (to confiscate more wealth and usurp more power)...so, now that we are aware of this what are we doing to do to put a stop to it since we are Sovereign, and supposed to be in charge (self-governing). It appears we have not been taking our responsibility seriously and trusting our "servants" whilst they have been plotting and scheming against us. ..."
"... Trump is the last, best hope to disband the US' neolib version of the Gestapo ..."
"... if Clinton won there would never be a political opponent free from her deep state surveillance ..."
"... ... "The Jews are all over the government," Nixon complained to his chief of staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, in an Oval Office meeting recorded on one of a set of White House tapes released yesterday at the National Archives. Nixon said the Jews needed to be brought under control by putting someone "in charge who is not Jewish" in key agencies. ..."
"... Washington "is full of Jews," the president asserted. "Most Jews are disloyal." He made exceptions for some of his top aides, such as national security adviser Henry Kissinger, his White House counsel, Leonard Garment, and one of his speechwriters, William Safire, and then added: ..."
"... "But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right? ..."
"... The fact the nation's now-departed senior guardian of national security was unmoored by a scandal linked to a conversation picked up on a wire offers a rare insight into how exactly America's vaunted Deep State works. It is a story not about rogue intelligence agencies running amok outside the law, but rather about the vast domestic power they have managed to acquire within it. ..."
"... We know now that the FBI and the NSA, under their Executive Order 12333 authority and using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as statutory cover, were actively monitoring the phone calls and reading text messages sent to and from the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. ..."
"... Although the monitoring of any specific individual is classified TOP SECRET, and cannot be released to foreigners, the existence of this monitoring in general is something of an open secret, and Kislyak probably suspected he was under surveillance. ..."
"... The way it's supposed to work is that any time a "U.S. person" - government speak for a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, even a U.S. company, located here or abroad - finds his or her communications caught up in Kislyak's, the entire surveillance empire, which was designed for speed and efficiency, and which, we now know, is hard to manage, grinds to a halt. That's a good thing. Even before Snowden, of course, the FBI would "minimize" the U.S. end of a conversation if analysts determined that the calls had no relevance to a legitimate intelligence gathering purpose. A late night call to order pizza would fall into this category. ..."
"... But if the analyst listening to Kislyak's call hears someone identify himself as an agent of the U.S. government - "Hi! It's Mike Flynn" certainly qualifies - a number of things have to happen, according to the government's own rules ..."
"... At this stage, the actual audio of the call and any transcript would be considered "Raw FISA-acquired information," and its distribution would be highly restricted. At the NSA, not more than 40 or so analysts or senior managers would be read into the classification sub-sub compartment that contains it, called RAGTIME-A,B,C D or P, where each letter stands for one of five different categories of foreign intelligence. ..."
Is this Intel community trying to undermine Trump's presidency? If so congratulations ask yourself if are living in a modern incarnation
of a police state. Intelligence agencies as a pinnacle of political power == police state.
The swamp lost part of the power and fights back.
Looks like "Color revolution" came to the USA and you being the US citizen better to learn what it means. And it means
a lot (among other things that means an immediate end of remnants of democracy left; Welcome to the USSR, in other words.)
All standard tricks used to depose governments like Yanukovych in Ukraine are now played against Trump. Media dominance is
one essential part. Coordinated series of leaks is a standard scenarios.
Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Gen. Michael Flynn resigning as President Trump's National Security Advisor and the
divide between the intelligence community and Trump.
"Who knows what is truth anymore. It's like a version of Mad magazine". -- Kusinich
All standard tricks used to depose governments like Yanukovych in Ukraine are now played against Trump.
Media dominance and hostility of media to the government is one essential part of any color revolution. That's what we have
now in the USA. Here is Kucinich warning:
Tom Clancy eat your heart out, this is as real as Dennis Kucinitch describes it as. The sinister globalist elite will
stop at nothing in establishing their Luciferian dreams of the Novus Ordo Seclorum (New World Order). Death to the Globalist/Islamic/Leftist
alliance. Deus Vult!
Mike V
In 2009, the Haitian parliament voted unanimously to raise the minimum wage, up to 61 cents per hour. US-based multinational
textile corporations such as Hanes and Levi's objected, claiming that paying these workers slightly more would cut into their
profits. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton intervened and pressured Haiti to back off - blocking the raise. We only know
about this from WikiLeaks.
How on Earth is that something a communist would do? Communists want workers to unite and fire their bosses. Communists
want the workers to run the factories. How on God's green Earth does a Communist - who wants the workers to directly control
the means of production - intervene to block a tiny wage increase for those same workers.
Calling corporate Democrats like Clinton and Obama "communist" and "socialist" is so mindbogglingly stupid that I don't
even know how to respond to someone so blinded by partisanship.
Gg Mo
See: The Young Hegelians . CRONY Totalitarian "Communism" is the Goal, and the Minions are screaming for it , in their estrogen
soaked , Marxist indoctrinated IDIOCY.
IT WIZARD
Trump needs to drain the swamp on the Intel community
Joe
The old Elites need conflicts, so they can keep power.
sequorroxx
Yep. Trillion dollar military industrial complex is a lot of motivation for the establishment to revive the cold war
and to keep the IC involved in the Saudi's proxy war via ISIS in the middle east. The CIA isn't interested in peace. It wants
power.
Trisha Holmeide
Yes, that appears to be their Operandi--to not only keep us distracted and our resources drained to continually feed
their purses and purposes (to confiscate more wealth and usurp more power)...so, now that we are aware of this what are we
doing to do to put a stop to it since we are Sovereign, and supposed to be in charge (self-governing). It appears we have not
been taking our responsibility seriously and trusting our "servants" whilst they have been plotting and scheming against us.
Trump is the last, best hope to disband the US' neolib version of the Gestapo. As the Japanese Imperial Army noted, never
invade America there would be a "rifle behind every blade of grass"
In Nixon's day, the Deep State was all about 'Jews in the Guv'mint'. Not gonna happen on Trump's watch, not yet anyway, so that's
something. Now, it's 'Progressives', presumably. Call them NeoLiberals if you like.
... "The Jews are all over the government," Nixon complained to his chief of staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, in an Oval
Office meeting recorded on one of a set of White House tapes released yesterday at the National Archives. Nixon said the Jews
needed to be brought under control by putting someone "in charge who is not Jewish" in key agencies.
Washington "is full of Jews," the president asserted. "Most Jews are disloyal." He made exceptions for some of his top
aides, such as national security adviser Henry Kissinger, his White House counsel, Leonard Garment, and one of his speechwriters,
William Safire, and then added:
"But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?"
Haldeman agreed wholeheartedly. "Their whole orientation is against you. In this administration, anyway. And they are smart.
They have the ability to do what they want to do--which is to hurt us." ...
The who, what, where, and why of the Trump administration's first major scandal - Michael Flynn's ignominious resignation on
Monday as national security advisor - have all been thoroughly discussed. Relatively neglected, and deserving of far more attention,
has been the how.
The fact the nation's now-departed senior guardian of national security was unmoored by a scandal linked to a conversation
picked up on a wire offers a rare insight into how exactly America's vaunted Deep State works. It is a story not about rogue intelligence
agencies running amok outside the law, but rather about the vast domestic power they have managed to acquire within it.
We know now that the FBI and the NSA, under their Executive Order 12333 authority and using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act as statutory cover, were actively monitoring the phone calls and reading text messages sent to and from the Russian ambassador
to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.
Although the monitoring of any specific individual is classified TOP SECRET, and cannot be released to foreigners, the
existence of this monitoring in general is something of an open secret, and Kislyak probably suspected he was under surveillance.
But a welter of laws, many of them tweaked after the Snowden revelations, govern the distribution of any information that is
acquired by such surveillance. And this is where it's highly relevant that this scandal was started by the public leaking of information
about Mike Flynn's involvement in the monitoring of Kisylak.
The way it's supposed to work is that any time a "U.S. person" - government speak for a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent
resident, even a U.S. company, located here or abroad - finds his or her communications caught up in Kislyak's, the entire surveillance
empire, which was designed for speed and efficiency, and which, we now know, is hard to manage, grinds to a halt. That's a good
thing. Even before Snowden, of course, the FBI would "minimize" the U.S. end of a conversation if analysts determined that the
calls had no relevance to a legitimate intelligence gathering purpose. A late night call to order pizza would fall into this category.
But if the analyst listening to Kislyak's call hears someone identify himself as an agent of the U.S. government - "Hi!
It's Mike Flynn" certainly qualifies - a number of things have to happen, according to the government's own rules
At this stage, the actual audio of the call and any transcript would be considered "Raw FISA-acquired information," and
its distribution would be highly restricted. At the NSA, not more than 40 or so analysts or senior managers would be read into
the classification sub-sub compartment that contains it, called RAGTIME-A,B,C D or P, where each letter stands for one of five
different categories of foreign intelligence.
For anything out of the ordinary - and, again, Flynn's status qualifies - the head of the National Security Division would
be notified, and he or she would bring the raw FISA transcript to FBI Director James Comey or his deputy. Then, the director and
his deputy would determine whether to keep the part of the communication that contained Flynn's words. The NSA has its own procedures
for determining whether to destroy or retain the U.S. half of an intercepted communication.
In this case, there were three sets of communications between Flynn and Kislyak, at least one of which is a text message. The
first occurs on Dec. 18. The last occurs on Dec. 30, a day after sanctions were levied against people that the Russian ambassador
knew - namely, spies posing as diplomats.
The factors FBI Director Comey and his deputy would have had to consider in this case are complex. Flynn was a former senior
intelligence official not in power at the time of the communications, though he did have an interim security clearance. Then there
was the policy context: The United States wanted to know why Russia decided not to retaliate, according to the Washington Post.
(Justice Department warned White House that
Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail,
officials say https://wpo.st/fthc2 Feb 13)
But the most important factor would have been that Flynn was talking to the ambassador of a country who has been credibly accused
of interfering in the election of his boss. Regardless of the content of Flynn's side of the call, it would be negligent if the
FBI decided to minimize, or ignore, these calls, simply because Flynn is a citizen who is not subject to surveillance himself.
But what Flynn said in the calls would have played a role in the FBI's determination to keep the transcripts unminimized - a fancy
way of saying "unredacted."
The Justice Department would then decide whether to pursue the matter further. If they thought Flynn was acting as an agent
of a foreign government - and there's not a gram of evidence for this - they could apply for a normal surveillance warrant under
Title III of the U.S. code.
It is rare for the FBI or NSA to distribute raw, unminimized FISA material outside of controlled channels. But given the intelligence
questions at stake, they would have had an obligation to circulate the Flynn transcripts to the National Security Council, which,
during most of January, was peopled with President Obama's staff and detailees from other government agencies.
Sometime before January 12, the fact that these conversations had occurred was disclosed to David Ignatius, who wrote about
them. That day, Sean Spicer asked Flynn about them. Flynn denied that the sanctions were discussed. A few days later, on January
16, Vice President Mike Pence repeated Flynn's assurances to him that the calls were mostly about the logistics of arranging further
calls when Trump was President.
At this moment, we are four days away from Trump's inauguration. The FBI agents and analysts who monitored the calls, as well
as some NSC officials in the Obama administration, along with a few senior Justice Department attorneys, all knew with certainty
that the content of the calls contradicted Flynn's account of them. The transcript of the Dec. 30 call proved as much.
For reasons unclear to us, the FBI director, James Comey, did not believe that Flynn's misrepresentations amounted to a sufficient
national security risk on January 16 to spring FBI investigators on the Trump team, or even on Flynn. Perhaps he felt that doing
so right before the inauguration would have been too unseemly.
But he did want to know more. In an extraordinary turn, agents were sent to the White House to interview Flynn just a few days
after Trump was sworn in, according to the New York Times. We don't know what they learned. But by January 26, Comey had dropped
his objections to notifying the White House. (In the interim, Sean Spicer was asked about the calls again, and repeated the Flynn
untruth.)
Acting attorney general Sally Yates informed the White House counsel, Don McGahn, that their account of what Flynn said did
not match what Flynn insisted he said.
McGahn had the clearance to see the transcript, but it's fair to assume that many members of Trump's team probably did not.
But that does not explain why it took 11 days for Vice President Pence, who certainly did have such clearance, to learn about
the Justice Department warning. And it does not explain what the White House was doing as it mulled over this information for
weeks.
Here we have to leave the realm of reasonable conjecture, but the best explanation might be the easiest: incompetence or ineffectiveness
from the White House counsel and an inability to foresee the real world consequences of their own decisions by White House principals.
The country's intelligence agencies, by contrast, were far more clear-sighted in the use of their prerogatives and power.
Washington Post Lies to Readers Again: Job Loss in
Manufacturing Due to Trade, not Automation
The Washington Post must think that U.S. trade policy
is really awful. Why else would they continually lie to
their readers * and claim that the cause of the sharp job
loss in manufacturing in recent years was automation?
For fans of data rather than myths, the basic story is
that manufacturing has been declining as a share of total
employment since 1970. However there was relatively little
change in the number of jobs until the trade deficit
exploded in the last decade. Here's the graph.
[Manufacturing Employment, 1970-2017]
And, there was no great uptick in productivity **
coinciding with the plunge in employment at the start of
the last decade. It would be nice if the Washington Post
could discuss trade honestly. This sort of reporting gives
fuel to the Donald Trumps of the world.
In this context it is probably worth once again
mentioning that the Washington Post still refuses to
correct its pro-NAFTA editorial in which it made the
absurd claim *** that Mexico's GDP quadrupled from 1987 to
2007. The actual figure was 83 percent, according to the
International Monetary Fund.
"... He was elected not for his personal qualities, but despite them, as a symbol of anti-neoliberal movement. As the only candidate that intuitively felt the need for the new policy due to crisis of neoliberalism ("secular stagnation" to be exact) impoverishment of lower 80% and "appropriated" anti-neoliberal sentiments. ..."
"... And he is expected to accomplish at least two goals: ..."
"... Stop the wars of expansion of neoliberal empire fought by previous administration. Achieve détente with Russia as Russia is more ally then foe in the current international situation and hostility engineered by Obama administration was based on Russia resistance to neoliberalism ..."
"... Reverse or at least stem destruction of jobs and the standard of living of lower 80% on Americans due to globalization and, possibly, slow down or reverse the process of globalization itself. ..."
"... "And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place," ..."
"... This is anathema for neoliberalism and it is neoliberals who ruled the country since 1980. So it is not surprising that they now are trying to stage a color revolution in the USA to return to power. See also pretty interesting analysis at ..."
The important mission has been accomplished - Trump has become president. What would motivate
many people to go out for weekend rallies now?
libezkova -> cm... , -1
"The important mission has been accomplished - Trump has become president."
You are absolutely wrong. Mission is not accomplished. It is not even started.
Trump IMHO was just a symbol of resistance against neoliberalism that is growing in the USA.
He was elected not for his personal qualities, but despite them, as a symbol of anti-neoliberal
movement. As the only candidate that intuitively felt the need for the new policy due to crisis
of neoliberalism ("secular stagnation" to be exact) impoverishment of lower 80% and "appropriated"
anti-neoliberal sentiments.
And he is expected to accomplish at least two goals:
Stop the wars of expansion of neoliberal empire fought by previous administration. Achieve
détente with Russia as Russia is more ally then foe in the current international situation and
hostility engineered by Obama administration was based on Russia resistance to neoliberalism
(despite
being neoliberal country with neoliberal President -- Putin is probably somewhat similar to Trump
"bastard neoliberal" a strange mixture of neoliberal in domestic politics with "economic nationalist"
on international arena that rejects neoliberal globalization, on term favorable to multinational
corporations).
Reverse or at least stem destruction of jobs and the standard of living of lower 80% on
Americans due to globalization and, possibly, slow down or reverse the process of globalization
itself.
The problem is there is extremely powerful and influential "fifth column" of globalization
within the country and they can't allow Trump to go this path. As Senator Dick Durbin said about
banks and the US Congress
== quote ==
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has been battling the banks the last few weeks in an effort to
get 60 votes lined up for bankruptcy reform. He's losing.
On Monday night in an interview with a radio host back home, he came to a stark conclusion:
the banks own the Senate.
"And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many
of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly
own the place,"
== end of the quote ==
This is anathema for neoliberalism and it is neoliberals who ruled the country since 1980.
So it is not surprising that they now are trying to stage a color revolution in the USA to
return to power. See also pretty interesting analysis at
"... The two thinkers, recently in the news thanks to Steve Bannon, had different views on human nature. ..."
"... if human nature is universal, cultural convergence seems to be the logical outcome of a globalized world. ..."
"... Spengler's views can be seen in the context of a movement known as historicism, the idea that human societies were the products of historical and material circumstances, which arose as a result of the universalism propagated by the Enlightenment and spread by the French Revolution. While Spengler makes some valid points, particularly in arguing against the idea that history is goal-oriented and directional, his view denies the very concept of empathy, that one can look at, say, Caesar, and see things through his eyes. ..."
"... In other words, Evola believed that there was a common core to human beings, a set of higher principles and heroic "traditional" values that lay at the root of every successful civilization. Even when eclipsed, these values remained in a dormant form, waiting to be reactivated. It is not surprising, then, that Evola is popular among nationalists and reactionaries today, because his framework allows for a shared nationalistic struggle that is simultaneously individualistic and universal in the chivalric sense that true warriors always recognize and respect each other even when serving different causes. ..."
"... The problem is that the mere existence of human nature is no guarantee of its consummation. Human beings may live pathetic or ignoble or fragmentary lives. Evola's concern (whatever one might think of it) was with encouraging the perfection of human nature through political means. That perfection may have little to do with the commonest "material, psychological, and emotional factors"; indeed, it most certainly requires their overcoming. ..."
"... This is important, because it forms one of the strongest critiques that the far right brings against democratic republics: namely, that they are materialistic and emotionally hollow; that they provide no transcendental or ennobling vision of the life of human beings and the destiny of societies. ..."
The two thinkers, recently in the news thanks to Steve Bannon, had different views on human
nature.
The apocalyptic worldview promoted by prominent political figures such as Steve Bannon in the United
States and Aleksandr Dugin in Russia is premised on the notion that ordinary political and legislative
battles are more than just quibbles over contemporary issues. Rather, political debates are
fronts in a greater battle of ideas , and everything is a struggle for the meaning of civilization
and human nature. Bannon's worldview is preceded by the thought of two early-20th-century thinkers,
Oswald Spengler and Julius Evola-and his passing mention of the latter in a 2014 speech has caused
some controversy in recent weeks, including a New York Times article entitled
"Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists."
These thinkers wrote at a time when the Western narrative of progress and improvement was shattered
after World War I. Interest in both Spengler and Evola has recently revived, though Spengler was
always fairly well-known for his thesis that civilizations grew and declined in a cyclical fashion.
Although both Spengler and Evola shared a pessimism over the direction of modern Western civilization,
they differed on human nature. Is there a way to reconcile two vastly different observations?
The first is that people in different eras and locales display a remarkable degree of behavioral
similarity; id est , human nature is universal and constant. However, on the other hand, the
peculiarities and differences between some cultures are so great that it is hard to see how these
are derived from a common source. This question is really what lies at the root of the current argument
between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. For if human nature is universal, cultural convergence
seems to be the logical outcome of a globalized world.
Are there alternatives? Building off of ideas introduced in the early 19th century by Hegel, Spengler
argued that the very framework of human experience was limited by the time and the civilization
in which the person lived:
"Mankind" has no aim, no idea, no plan [and] is a zoological expression, or an empty word.
But conjure away the phantom, break the magic circle, and at once there emerges an astonishing
wealth of actual forms. I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can
be kept up only by shutting one's eyes to the overwhelming multitier of facts, the drama of a
number of mighty Cultures. There is not one sculpture, one painting, one mathematics, one physics,
but many, each in its deepest essence different from the others, each limited in duration and
self-contained.
Spengler's views can be seen in the context of a movement known as historicism, the idea that
human societies were the products of historical and material circumstances, which arose as a result
of the universalism propagated by the Enlightenment and spread by the French Revolution. While Spengler
makes some valid points, particularly in arguing against the idea that history is goal-oriented and
directional, his view denies the very concept of empathy, that one can look at, say, Caesar, and
see things through his eyes.
Age after age, people look back on history for inspiration, and it is hard to accept this lack
of commonality with historical figures: the idea of a common human nature is a compelling concept.
It also has the weight of historical, literary, and anthropological evidence behind it. But it does
not follow that the idea of a fixed human nature leads to a form of neoliberal universalism.
One alternative was provided by Evola, who sought to reclaim the idea of human nature from the
Enlightenment and reconcile it with the observations described by Spengler and Hegel. Instead of
the liberal, convergent universalism championed by the Enlightenment, Evola advocated a traditionalist
universalism, because "there is no form of traditional organization that does not hide a higher
principle." In an
argument that echoes Plato's Theory of Forms, he wrote:
The supreme values and the foundational principles of every healthy and normal institution
are not liable to change. In the domain of these values there is no "history" and to think about
them in historical terms is absurd even where these principles are objectified in a historical
reality, they are not at all conditioned by it; they always point to a higher, meta-historical
plane, which is their natural domain and where there is no change.
In other words, Evola believed that there was a common core to human beings, a set of higher
principles and heroic "traditional" values that lay at the root of every successful civilization.
Even when eclipsed, these values remained in a dormant form, waiting to be reactivated. It is not
surprising, then, that Evola is popular among nationalists and reactionaries today, because his framework
allows for a shared nationalistic struggle that is simultaneously individualistic and universal in
the chivalric sense that true warriors always recognize and respect each other even when serving
different causes.
... ... ...
Akhilesh Pillalamarri is an editorial assistant at The American Conservative . He also
writes for The National Interest and The Diplomat .
"But the truth is probably a lot simpler: people are motivated by similar and fixed material,
psychological, and emotional factors across time and space, not by any liberal or 'meta-historical'
purposes."
Yet it seems to me that everything depends on just who the "people" in question are,
and what their relation is to the wellsprings of power. The motivations of the American electorate
are not those of a Napoleon; and these motivations in turn are not identical to those those of,
say, the Venetian Doge in the Renaissance. The character of the very social order changes dramatically
on the basis of the motivations of its rulers.
The problem is that the mere existence of human nature is no guarantee of its consummation.
Human beings may live pathetic or ignoble or fragmentary lives. Evola's concern (whatever one
might think of it) was with encouraging the perfection of human nature through political means.
That perfection may have little to do with the commonest "material, psychological, and emotional
factors"; indeed, it most certainly requires their overcoming.
This is important, because it forms one of the strongest critiques that the far right brings
against democratic republics: namely, that they are materialistic and emotionally hollow; that
they provide no transcendental or ennobling vision of the life of human beings and the destiny
of societies.
Until democratic republics can answer that charge, which is a poetic, a spiritual, a philosophical
charge, they will remain vulnerable to the peril of "fascist revolt."
"... an unwillingness or inability among Americans to question the country's sinlessness feeds a culture of public conformism, ..."
"... he daringly points out America's "hypocrisy," which also is corroborated by other scholars, among them James Hillman in his recent book "A Terrible Love of War" in which he characterizes hypocrisy as quintessentially American. ..."
"... The combined resentments lead to a sort of chip on the shoulder patriotism which so characterizes American nationalism. ..."
"... The book suggests that the Republican Party is really like an old style European nationalist party. Broadly serving the interests of the moneyed elite but spouting a form of populist gobbledygook, which paints America as being in a life and death, struggle with anti-American forces at home and abroad. It is the reason for Anne Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. That is the rhetoric of struggle acts as a cover for political policies that benefit a few and lay the blame for the problems of ordinary Americans on fictitious entities. ..."
"... The main side effects of the nationalism are the current policies which shackles America to Israel uncritically despite what that country might and how its actions may isolate America from the rest of the world. It also justifies America on foreign policy adventures such as the invasion of Iraq. ..."
"... " The [U. S.] conduct of the war against terrorism looks more like a baroque apotheosis of political stupidity;" ..."
"... "One strand of American nationalism is radical...because it continually looks backward at a vanished and idealized national past; " ..."
"... " [George W.] Bush, his leading officials, and his intellectual and media supporters..., as nationalists, [are] absolutely contemptuous of any global order involving any check whatsoever on American behavior and interests ;" ..."
"... I find that Mr. Lieven's assessment of both the United States' and Israel's role rings true. While he does not excuse Arab leaders for their misdeeds, he clearly documents a history in which the United States has repeatedly subordinated vital U.S. regional interests in favor of accepting whatever Israel chooses to do. ..."
... While there are incontestable civilizing elements to America's nationalism, there are
also dangerous and destructive ingredients, a sort of Hegelian thesis and antithesis theme
which places a strong question mark in America's historical theme of exceptionalism.
Unlike in other post-World War II nations, America's nationalism is permeated by values
and religious elements derived mostly from the South and the Southern Baptists, though the
fears and panics of the embittered heartland provide additional fuel.
Lieven's book, among other elements, is also a summation of lots of minor observations--even
personal ones he made as a student in the small town of Troy, Alabama--and historical details
which reflect the grand evolution of America's nationalism. When he says that "an unwillingness
or inability among Americans to question the country's sinlessness feeds a culture of public
conformism," then he has the support of Mark Twain who said something to the effect
that we are blessed with three things in this country, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience
and, thirdly, the common sense to practice neither one! Ditto when he daringly points
out America's "hypocrisy," which also is corroborated by other scholars, among them James Hillman
in his recent book "A Terrible Love of War" in which he characterizes hypocrisy as quintessentially
American.
Lieven continues with the impact of the Cold War on America's nationalism and then, having
always expanded the theme of Bush's foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, examines
with commendable perspective the complex and very much unadmitted current aspects of the U.S.'s
relationships with the Moslems, the Iraq War and the impact of the pro-Israeli lobby. It
is the sort of assessment one rarely finds in the U.S. media . He exposes the alienation
the U.S. caused among allies and, in particular, the Arabs and the EU.
Lieven wrote this book with passion and commendable sincerity. Though it comes from a foreigner,
its advice would without question serve not only America's interest but also provide a substantial
basis for a detached and objective approach to solving the intractable Israeli-Palestinian
conflict to the satisfaction of all involved before worse deeds and more burdens materialize.
Tom Munro:
What this book suggests is that a significant number of Americans have an outlook similar
to European countries around 1904. A sense of identification with an idea of nation and a dismissive
approach to other countries and cultures. Whilst in Europe the experience of the first
and second world wars put paid to nationalism in America it is going strong. In fact Europeans
see themselves less as Germans or Frenchmen today than they ever have.
The reason for American nationalism springs from a pride in American institutions but
it also contains a deep resentment that gives it its dynamism . Whilst America as a nation
has not lost a war there are a number of reasons for resentment. The South feels that its values
are not taken seriously and it is subject to ridicule by the seaboard states. Conservative
Christians are concerned about modernism. The combined resentments lead to a sort of chip
on the shoulder patriotism which so characterizes American nationalism.
Of course these things alone are not sufficient. Europeans live in countries that are small
geographically. They travel see other countries and are multilingual. Most Americans do not
travel and the education they do is strong in ideology and weak in history. It is thus easier
for some Americans to develop a rather simple minded view of the world.
The book suggests that the Republican Party is really like an old style European nationalist
party. Broadly serving the interests of the moneyed elite but spouting a form of populist
gobbledygook, which paints America as being in a life and death, struggle with anti-American
forces at home and abroad. It is the reason for Anne Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.
That is the rhetoric of struggle acts as a cover for political policies that benefit a few
and lay the blame for the problems of ordinary Americans on fictitious entities.
The main side effects of the nationalism are the current policies which shackles America
to Israel uncritically despite what that country might and how its actions may isolate America
from the rest of the world. It also justifies America on foreign policy adventures such as
the invasion of Iraq.
The book is quite good and repeats the message of a number of other books such as "What
is wrong with America". Probably there is something to be said for the books central message.
Keith Wheelock (Skillman, NJ USA)
A Socratic 'America know thyself': READ IT!, August 13, 2010
Foreigners, from de Tocqueville and Lord Bryce to Hugh Brogan and The Economist's John Micklethwait
and Adrian Woodridge, often see America more clearly than do Americans. In the post-World War
II period, R. L. Bruckberger's IMAGES OF AMERICA (1958) and Jean -Jacques Servan-Schreiber's
THE AMERICAN CHALLENGE (1967) presented an uplifting picture of America.
Two generations later, Englishman Anatol Lieven paints a troubling picture of a country
that is a far cry from John Winthrop's' "city upon a hill."
Has America changed so profoundly over the past fifty years or is Mr. Lieven simply highlighting
historical cycles that, at least for the moment, had resulted in a near `perfect storm?' His
2004 book has prompted both praise [see Brian Urquhart's Extreme Makeover in the New York Review
of Books (February 24, 2005)] and brick bats. This book is not a polemic. Rather, it is a scholarly
analysis by a highly regarded author and former The Times (London) correspondent who has lived
in various American locales. He has a journalist's acquaintance of many prominent Americans
and his source materials are excellent.
I applaud his courage for exploring the dark cross currents in modern-day America. In the
tradition of the Delphic oracle and Socrates, he urges that Americans `know thy self.' The
picture he paints should cause thoughtful Americans to shudder. Personally, I found his
book of a genre similar to Cullen Murphy's ARE WE ROME? THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE AND THE FATE
OF AMERICA.
I do not consider Mr. Lieven anti-American in his extensive critique of American cross
currents. That he wrote this in the full flush of the Bush/Cheney post-9/11 era suggests that
he might temper some of his assessments after the course corrections of the Obama administration.
My sense is that Mr. Lieven admires many of America's core qualities and that this `tough love'
essay is his effort to guide Americans back to their more admirable qualities.
Mr. Lieven boldly sets forth his book's message in a broad-ranging introduction:
" The [U. S.] conduct of the war against terrorism looks more like a baroque apotheosis
of political stupidity;"
"Aspects of American nationalism imperil both the nation's global leadership and its
success in the struggle against Islamic terror and revolution;"
"Insofar as American nationalism has become mixed up with a chauvinist version of Israeli
nationalism, it also plays an absolutely disastrous role in U.S. relations with the Muslim
world and in fueling terrorism;"
"American imperialists trail America's coat across the whole world while most ordinary
Americans are not looking and rely on those same Americans to react with `don't tread on
me' nationalist fury when the coat is trodden on;"
"One strand of American nationalism is radical...because it continually looks backward
at a vanished and idealized national past; "
"America is the home of by far the most deep, widespread and conservative religious
belief in the Western world;"
"The relationship between the traditional White Protestant world on one hand and the
forces of American economic, demographic, social and cultural change on the other may be
compared to the genesis of a hurricane;"
"The religious Right has allied itself solidly with extreme free market forces in the
Republican Party although it is precisely the workings of unrestricted American capitalism
which are eroding the world the religious conservatives wish to defend;"
"American nationalism is beginning to conflict very seriously with any enlightened,
viable or even rational version of American imperialism;"
" [George W.] Bush, his leading officials, and his intellectual and media supporters...,
as nationalists, [are] absolutely contemptuous of any global order involving any check whatsoever
on American behavior and interests ;"
"Nationalism therefore risks undermining precisely those American values which make
the nation most admired in the world;" and
"This book...is intended as a reminder of the catastrophes into which nationalism and
national messianism led other great countries in the past."
Mr. Lieven addressed the above points in six well-crafted and thought-provoking chapters
that I find persuasive. For some readers Chapter 6, Nationalism, Israel, and the Middle East,
may be the most controversial. I am the only living person who has lunched with Gamal Abdel
Nasser and David Ben-Gurion in the same week. I have maintained an interest in Arab-Israeli
matters ever since. I find that Mr. Lieven's assessment of both the United States' and Israel's
role rings true. While he does not excuse Arab leaders for their misdeeds, he clearly documents
a history in which the United States has repeatedly subordinated vital U.S. regional interests
in favor of accepting whatever Israel chooses to do.
In 1955 American historian Richard Hofstadter wrote,
"The most prominent and persuasive failing [of political culture] is a certain proneness
to fits of moral crusading that would be fatal if they were not sooner or later tempered
with a measure of apathy and common sense."
I am confident that Professor Hofstadter would agree with me that AMERICA RIGHT OR WRONG
is a timely and important book.
Not every globalist is a (((globalist))), but an important globalist is usually a (((globalist))).
Thank you if you are really fighting globalism and not being just another controlled opposition.
+Jake Coughlin People like Clinton and Merkel don't truly believe in globalism either, they
are just opportunists. I like to look at them as just pawns in this game. Clinton could never
be an independent politician, since she is receiving so much money from very controversial sources.
I really like Ron Paul too, he is awesome and he is addressing some very important subjects.
Thanks to globalism, The Rebel has media outlets that can transmit to other countries. Thanks
to globalism, they can buy high performance cameras to film their anti-globalism videos.
Thanks to globalism, you can buy a vast variety of products at a cheap price. Globalism is
what makes free markets possible.
In other words globalism is the very definition of freedom of businesses. Thanks to globalism,
you don't have to live in a primitive, nationalist, isolated, 1800s society where you have Kings
and Queens who rule like conservative tyrants and keep the population ignorant as peasants. Globalism
is capitalism, the very value that made America so notorious.
Nationalism is feeling that one's country is superior to another. That's not pride in one's
country, don't get it twisted. Patriotism is pride in one's country and its values. Don't let
the nationalist confuse you with their twisted definitions of globalism.
Nationalism is what tyrants during WW1 and WW2 fed to the people in order to make them sign
up for a war that would only benefit those monarchies. Nationalism appeals to a very primitive
feeling of pride instead of logic and progress. Nationalism goes hand in hand with isolationism
which prevents small businesses to grow and limits the country to a very small group of overpriced
home products. Nationalism is regressive thinking. It opposes development and growth.
Technological progress is not globalism. Trade agreements between countries are not globalism.
You don't have to destroy all independent countries to have free markets. Poor kid... this is
how severe case of globalist brainwashing looks like.
"... US companies were always able to offshore work. Before commodity internet, telecom, and international transport (OK in good part enabled by international trade/etc. deals), that was much more costly. ..."
"... IT has made it possible to effectively manage larger business/institutional aggregate than before on an industrial scale and using industrial management paradigms. Others and I have made that case before. ..."
"... Put yourself in 1980, though. Think about the coordination you can organize. Think about sending components to a low labor cost jurisdiction for assembly. Perhaps paying a tariff and transportation to get there, then a tariff and transportation to get back. The labor is essentially free, but the other is real money. Ten years later the tariffs start to disappear. Containerization continues to drive down transport per unit. ..."
"... Sure, by now the best manufacturers are often foreign. They did not get there without our help. ..."
"... In the case of subsidiaries, this requires international legal frameworks allowing US companies to operate foreign subsidiaries, or buying foreign companies, with low enough overheads ("compliance" etc.) to make distributing work worthwhile. ..."
"... The general sentiment seems to be that people in "low cost geographies" are of lesser quality at least as concerns the subject matter. This is not my experience. What used to lack (as of today I would doubt even that) is years of experience, as the offshoring industry branches hadn't existed in the remote locations, so all you could hire was freshers; or a lag in access to bleeding edge Western technology and research literature. This is no longer the case, and hasn't been the case for about a decade. ..."
"... That IN THEORY, the exchange rate and other prices should adjust to any change in tax or regulatory regime to at least partly offset it. A lot of the practical problems arise, because price adjustments do not actually seem to happen to the extent predicted, and large financial imbalances are seen to become secular features of the economic landscape. ..."
"Revoking Trade Deals Will Not Help American Middle Classes."
Brad lives in a world with jump discontinuities in the distribution of expected returns from
labor arbitrage. That changing the cost of doing a deal will not reduce or unwind deals because
the gains from trade individually exceed any costs that could be imposed. So he can say, elsewhere,
the jobs ain't coming back, full stop.
"If the United States had imposed barriers to the construction of intercontinental value chains
would the semi-skilled and skilled manufacturing workers of the U.S. be better off?"
Brad does not find any relation between "imposing barriers" and "removing subsidy". Or in establishing
the older trade deals, between "removing barriers" and "subsidizing foreign labor". Where the
foreign labor operated in a low environmental protection environment, a low labor protection environment,
and probably others, it seems enabling US firms to invest in foreign operations to reap the savings
of less protection should be seen as subsidy.
US companies were always able to offshore work. Before commodity internet, telecom, and
international transport (OK in good part enabled by international trade/etc. deals), that was
much more costly.
IMO, offshoring has largely been an automation and IT story.
Likewise domestic/national level business consolidation.
IT has made it possible to effectively manage larger business/institutional aggregate than
before on an industrial scale and using industrial management paradigms. Others and I have made
that case before.
This is not a new insight, but probably still not an obvious one.
Put yourself in 1980, though. Think about the coordination you can organize. Think about sending
components to a low labor cost jurisdiction for assembly. Perhaps paying a tariff and transportation
to get there, then a tariff and transportation to get back. The labor is essentially free, but
the other is real money. Ten years later the tariffs start to disappear. Containerization continues
to drive down transport per unit.
Point one is that Brad assumes there is no one doing this now who is near break-even and would
go upside down with any change in tariff regime, so there is no one to relocate to the USA.
Point two is that we import environmental degradation and below market labor when we allow/encourage
these to be part of the ROI calculation through tariff policy.
Sure, by now the best manufacturers are often foreign. They did not get there without our help.
Well, one can argue that environmental improvements credited to regulation were in part exporting
environmental degradation, simply by moving polluting production facilities "over there".
E.g. I have seen it in my own work and with many others: companies can farm out any work to foreign
subsidiaries or contractors they don't want to keep stateside for some reason. In the case of
subsidiaries, this requires international legal frameworks allowing US companies to operate foreign
subsidiaries, or buying foreign companies, with low enough overheads ("compliance" etc.) to make
distributing work worthwhile.
Considering the case of US vs. Asia - depending on where you are in the US, Asia/PAC (India/Far
East/Pacific) business hours are off by about a half day because of time zone effects. To a lesser
but similar degree this applies to Europe and the Middle East.
The general sentiment seems to be that people in "low cost geographies" are of lesser quality
at least as concerns the subject matter. This is not my experience. What used to lack (as of today
I would doubt even that) is years of experience, as the offshoring industry branches hadn't existed
in the remote locations, so all you could hire was freshers; or a lag in access to bleeding edge
Western technology and research literature. This is no longer the case, and hasn't been the case
for about a decade.
Then there is the aspect that people in "some" geographies are more habituated to top-down
management styles, talking back less, etc. which may be an advantage or liability depending on
what the business requires of them.
I think one thing that is forgotten almost always in such discussions is that the arguments for
or against trade start with barter not so much with monetary exchange.
That IN THEORY, the exchange
rate and other prices should adjust to any change in tax or regulatory regime to at least partly
offset it. A lot of the practical problems arise, because price adjustments do not actually seem
to happen to the extent predicted, and large financial imbalances are seen to become secular features
of the economic landscape.
This is why I'm inclined to say that trade barriers are a bit of red
herring, the really big issues are financial (including the need for finding ways to repair damaged
middle class balance sheets). We need to stop seeing redistribution as a dirty word. It is what
democratic governments worth the name should be doing.
"... When Mr. Bannon spoke on Thursday of "deconstructing the administrative state," it may have sounded like gobbledygook outside the hall, but it was an electrifying profession of faith for the attendees. It is through Mr. Bannon that Trump_vs_deep_state can be converted from a set of nostalgic laments and complaints into a program for overhauling the government. ..."
"... Mr. Bannon's film features predictable interviews with think-tank supply siders and free marketers fretting about big government. But new, less orthodox voices creep in, too, from the protectionist newscaster Lou Dobbs to the investment manager Barry Ritholtz. They question whether the free market is altogether free. Mr. Ritholtz says that the outcome of the financial crisis has been "socialism for the wealthy but capitalism for everybody else." ..."
"... By 2014, Mr. Bannon's own ideology had become centered on this distrust. He was saying such things about capitalism himself. "Think about it," he said in a talk hosted by the Institute for Human Dignity. "Not one criminal charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis." He warned against "the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism," by which he meant "a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people." Capitalism, he said, ought to rest on a "Judeo-Christian" foundation. ..."
"... If so, this was bad news for the Republican Party. By the time Mr. Bannon spoke, Ayn Rand-style capitalism was all that remained of its Reagan-era agenda. Free-market thinking had swallowed the party whole, and its Judeo-Christian preoccupations - "a nation with a culture" and "a reason for being" - along with it. A business orientation was what donors wanted. ..."
Weekly Standard senior editor Christoper Caldwell writes at the
New York Times
:
President Trump presents a problem to those who look at politics in terms of
systematic ideologies. He is either disinclined or unable to lay out his agenda
in that way. So perhaps it was inevitable that Mr. Trump's chief strategist,
Stephen K. Bannon, who does have a gift for thinking systematically, would be
so often invoked by Mr. Trump's opponents. They need him not just as a hate
object but as a heuristic, too. There may never be a "Trump_vs_deep_state," and unless one
emerges, the closest we may come to understanding this administration is as an
expression of "Bannonism."
Mr. Bannon, 63, has won a reputation for abrasive brilliance at almost every
stop in his unorthodox career - as a naval officer, Goldman Sachs mergers
specialist, entertainment-industry financier, documentary screenwriter and
director, Breitbart News cyber-agitprop impresario and chief executive of Mr.
Trump's presidential campaign. One Harvard Business School classmate described
him to The Boston Globe as "top three in intellectual horsepower in our class -
perhaps the smartest." Benjamin Harnwell of the Institute for Human Dignity, a
Catholic organization in Rome, calls him a "walking bibliography." Perhaps
because Mr. Bannon came late to conservatism, turning his full-time energy to
political matters only after the Sept. 11 attacks, he radiates an excitement
about it that most of his conservative contemporaries long ago lost.
Many accounts of Mr. Bannon paint him as a cartoon villain or internet troll
come to life, as a bigot, an anti-Semite, a misogynist, a crypto-fascist. The
former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat
of New York, have even called him a "white nationalist." While he is certainly
a hard-line conservative of some kind, the evidence that he is an extremist of
a more troubling sort has generally been either massaged, misread or hyped up.
There may be good reasons to worry about Mr. Bannon, but they are not the
ones everyone is giving. It does not make Mr. Bannon a fascist that he happens
to know who the 20th-century Italian extremist Julius Evola is. It does not
make Mr. Bannon a racist that he described Breitbart as "the platform for the
alt-right" - a broad and imprecise term that applies to a wide array of
radicals, not just certain white supremacist groups.
Where Mr. Bannon does veer sharply from recent
mainstream Republicanism is in his all-embracing nationalism. He speaks of
sovereignty, economic nationalism, opposition to globalization and finding
common ground with Brexit supporters and other groups hostile to the
transnational European Union. On Thursday, at this year's Conservative
Political Action Conference, he described the "center core" of Trump
administration philosophy as the belief that the United States is more than an
economic unit in a borderless word. It is "a nation with a culture
"
and
"
a reason for being."
...
When Mr. Bannon spoke on Thursday of "deconstructing the administrative
state," it may have sounded like gobbledygook outside the hall, but it was an
electrifying profession of faith for the attendees. It is through Mr. Bannon
that Trump_vs_deep_state can be converted from a set of nostalgic laments and complaints
into a program for overhauling the government.
...
Mr. Bannon adds something personal and idiosyncratic to this Tea Party mix.
He has a theory of historical cycles that can be considered elegantly simple or
dangerously simplistic. It is a model laid out by William Strauss and Neil Howe
in two books from the 1990s. Their argument assumes an 80- to 100-year cycle
divided into roughly 20-year "highs," "awakenings," "unravelings" and "crises."
The American Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal, World War II - Mr. Bannon
has said for years that we're due for another crisis about now. His documentary
about the 2008 financial collapse, "Generation Zero," released in 2010, uses
the Strauss-Howe model to explain what happened, and concludes with Mr. Howe
himself saying, "History is seasonal, and winter is coming."
Mr. Bannon's views reflect a transformation of conservatism over the past
decade or so. You can trace this transformation in the films he has made. His
2004 documentary, "In the Face of Evil," is an orthodox tribute to the
Republican Party hero Ronald Reagan. But "Generation Zero," half a decade
later, is a strange hybrid. The financial crash has intervened.
Mr.
Bannon's film features predictable interviews with think-tank supply siders and
free marketers fretting about big government. But new, less orthodox voices
creep in, too, from the protectionist newscaster Lou Dobbs to the investment
manager Barry Ritholtz. They question whether the free market is altogether
free. Mr. Ritholtz says that the outcome of the financial crisis has been
"socialism for the wealthy but capitalism for everybody else."
By 2014, Mr. Bannon's own ideology had become centered on this distrust. He
was saying such things about capitalism himself. "Think about it," he said in a
talk hosted by the Institute for Human Dignity. "Not one criminal charge has
ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis." He warned
against "the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism," by
which he meant "a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and
to objectify people." Capitalism, he said, ought to rest on a "Judeo-Christian"
foundation.
If so, this was bad news for the Republican Party. By the time Mr.
Bannon spoke, Ayn Rand-style capitalism was all that remained of its Reagan-era
agenda. Free-market thinking had swallowed the party whole, and its
Judeo-Christian preoccupations - "a nation with a culture" and "a reason for
being" - along with it. A business orientation was what donors wanted.
But voters never more than tolerated it. It was Pat Buchanan who in his 1992
run for president first called on Republicans to value jobs and communities
over profits. An argument consumed the party over whether this was a
better-rounded vision of society or just the grousing of a reactionary. After a
generation, Mr. Buchanan has won that argument. By 2016 his views on trade and
migration, once dismissed as crackpot, were spreading so fast that everyone in
the party had embraced them - except its elected officials and its
establishment presidential candidates.
Mr. Bannon does not often go into detail about what Judeo-Christian culture is,
but he knows one thing it is not: Islam. Like most Americans, he believes that
Islamism - the extremist political movement - is a dangerous adversary. More
controversially he holds that, since this political movement is generated
within the sphere of Islam, the growth of Islam - the religion - is itself a
problem with which American authorities should occupy themselves. This is a
view that was emphatically repudiated by Presidents Obama and George W. Bush.
Mr. Bannon has apparently drawn his own views on the subject from intensive, if
not necessarily varied, reading. The thinkers he has engaged with in this area
tend to be hot and polemical rather than cool and detached. They include the
provocateur Pamela Geller, a campaigner against the "Ground Zero Mosque" who
once suggested the State Department was "essentially being run by Islamic
supremacists"; her sometime collaborator Robert Spencer, the director of the
website Jihad Watch, with whom she heads an organization called Stop
Islamization of America; and the former Department of Homeland Security
official Philip Haney, who has argued that officials in the Obama
administration had compromised "the security of citizens for the ideological
rigidity of political correctness."
He approves definition of neoliberalism as "socialism for the wealthy but capitalism for everybody
else."
Looks like his views are not very comparable with Republican Party platform (or Clinton wing
of Democratic Party platform, being "small republicans" in disguise)
== quote ==
"Think about it," he said in a talk hosted by the Institute for Human Dignity. "Not one criminal
charge has ever been brought to any bank executive associated with 2008 crisis." He warned against
"the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism," by which he meant "a capitalism
that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people." Capitalism, he said, ought
to rest on a "Judeo-Christian" foundation.
== quote ==
If so, this was bad news for the Republican Party. By the time Mr. Bannon spoke, Ayn Rand-style
capitalism was all that remained of its Reagan-era agenda. Free-market thinking had swallowed
the party whole, and its Judeo-Christian preoccupations - "a nation with a culture" and "a reason
for being" - along with it. A business orientation was what donors wanted.
"... Finally the most obvious attempt to sabotage the administration can be seen in the events in Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Senators Graham and McCain, two of the deep state's top emissaries, visited Ukraine at the beginning of the year, prompting Ukrainian troops to resume their destructive offensive against the Donbass. ..."
"... "There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers", Trump said. "Well, you think our country is so innocent?" ..."
"... What the deep state refuses to accept is that they have lost the leading role in educating the rest of the world on humanitarian issues related to the concept of democracy. The main actors of the deep state clearly understand the negative implications for them personally in economic and financial terms associated with the abandonment of the pursuit of global hegemony. For over a hundred years, no US president has ever placed their country on a par with others, has ever abandoned the concept of a nation (the US) "chosen by God". ..."
"... "Donald Trump has emerged with in mind a precise foreign policy strategy, forged by various political thinkers of the realist world such as Waltz and Mearsheimer, trashing all recent neoconservative and neoliberal policies of foreign intervention (R2P - Right to Protect) and soft power campaigns in favor of human rights. No more UN resolutions, subtly used to bomb nations (Libya). Trump doesn't believe in the central role of the UN and reaffirmed this repeatedly. ..."
"... If one wants to place weight on his words during the election campaign, it should be taken into consideration that Trump won the election thanks to the clear objectives of wanting to avoid a further spending spree on destructive wars. This priority was made clear and expressed in every possible way with the adoption of an America First policy, especially regarding domestic policy. ..."
"... The bottom line is always that Trump has the ability and willingness to be resilient to the pressures of the deep state, focusing on the needs of the average American citizen, rather than caving in to the interests of the deep state such as intelligence agencies, neocons, Israel lobby, Saudi lobby, the military-industrial complex, and many more. ..."
The first two weeks of the new presidency have already provided a few significant events. The
operation that took place in Yemen, conducted by the American special forces and directed against
Al Qaeda, has reprised the previous administration. Being a complex operation that required thorough
preparation, the new administration thereby had to necessarily represent a continuation of the old
one.
Details are still vague, but looking at the outcome, the mission failed as a result of incompetence.
The American special forces were spotted before arriving at al Qaeda's supposed base. This resulted
in the shooting of anything that moved, causing more than 25 civilian deaths.
The media that had been silent during the Obama administration was rightfully quick to condemn
the killing of innocent people, and harsh criticism was directed at the administration for this operation.
It is entirely possible that the operation was set up to fail, intended to delegitimize the operational
capabilities of the new Trump team. Given the links between al Qaeda, the Saudis and the neoconservatives,
something historically proven, it is not unthinkable that the failure of the operation was a consequence
of an initial attempt at sabotaging Trump on a key aspect of his presidency, namely the successful
execution of counter-terrorist efforts against Islamist terrorism.
Another structural component in the attempts to undermine the Trump administration concern the
deployment of NATO and US troops on the western border of the Russian Federation. This attempt is
obvious and is one of the strategies aimed at preventing a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow.
The EU persists in its self-defeating policy, focusing its attention on foreign policy instead of
gaining strategic independence thanks to the new presidency. It is now even more clear that European
Union leaders, and in particular the current political representatives in Germany and France, have
every intention of continuing in the direction set by the Obama presidency, seeking a futile confrontation
with the Russian Federation instead of a sensible rapprochement.
Europe continues to insist on failed economic and social policies that will lead to bankruptcy,
using foreign-policy issues as diversions and excuses. The consequences of these wrongheaded efforts
will inevitably favor the election of nationalist and populist parties, as seen in the United States
and other countries, which will end in the destruction of the EU. For the US deep state and their
long-term objectives, this tactic has a dual effect: it prevents the proper functioning of the EU
as well as significantly halts any rapprochement between the EU and the Russian Federation. The latter
strategy looks more and more irreversible given the current European Union elites. In this sense,
the UK, thanks to Brexit, seems to have broken free and started to slowly restructure its foreign-
policy priorities, in close alignment to Trump's isolationism.
Finally the most obvious attempt to sabotage the administration can be seen in the events
in Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Senators Graham and McCain, two of the deep state's top emissaries, visited
Ukraine at the beginning of the year, prompting Ukrainian troops to resume their destructive offensive
against the Donbass. The intentions are clear and assorted. First is the constant attempt to
sabotage any rapprochement between Moscow and Washington, hoping to engulf Trump in an American/NATO
escalation of events in Ukraine. Second, given the critical situation in Europe, is the effort to
push Berlin to assume the burden of economically supporting the failing administration in Kiev. Third
is the increasing pressure applied to Russia and Putin, as was already seen in 2014, in an effort
to actively involve the Russian Federation in the Ukrainian conflict so as to justify NATO's direct
involvement or even that of the United States. The latter situation would be the dream of the neoconservatives,
setting Trump and Putin on a direct collision course.
The new American administration has thus far suffered at least three sabotage attempts, and it
is the attitude Trump intends to have with the rest of the world that has spurred them. In an interview
with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, Trump reiterated that his primary focus is not governed by the doctrine
of American exceptionalism, a concept he does not subscribe to anyhow. The religion driving democratic
evangelization looks more likely to be replaced with a pragmatic, realist geopolitical stance.
This is how one could sum up Trump's words to Bill O'Reilly:
"There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers", Trump said. "Well, you think our country
is so innocent?"
What the deep state refuses to accept is that they have lost the leading role in educating
the rest of the world on humanitarian issues related to the concept of democracy. The main actors
of the deep state clearly understand the negative implications for them personally in economic and
financial terms associated with the abandonment of the pursuit of global hegemony. For over a hundred
years, no US president has ever placed their country on a par with others, has ever abandoned the
concept of a nation (the US) "chosen by God".
In an
article a few weeks ago, I tried to lay the foundations for a future US administration, placing
a strong focus on foreign policy and revealing a possible shift in US historic foreign relations.
In a passage I wrote:
"Donald Trump has emerged with in mind a precise foreign policy strategy, forged by various
political thinkers of the realist world such as Waltz and Mearsheimer, trashing all recent neoconservative
and neoliberal policies of foreign intervention (R2P - Right to Protect) and soft power campaigns
in favor of human rights. No more UN resolutions, subtly used to bomb nations (Libya). Trump doesn't
believe in the central role of the UN and reaffirmed this repeatedly.
In general, the Trump administration intends to end the policy of regime change, interference
in foreign governments, Arab springs and color revolutions. They just don't work. They cost too much
in terms of political credibility, in Ukraine the US are allied with supporters of Bandera (historical
figure who collaborated with the Nazis) and in Middle East they finance or indirectly support al
Qaeda and al Nusra front".
The recent meeting in Washington with Theresa May, the first official encounter with a prominent
US ally, revealed, among other things, a possible dramatic change in US policy. The Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom expressed her desire to follow a new policy of non-intervention, in line with
the isolationist strategy Trump has spoken about since running for office. In a joint press conference
with the American president, May said: "The era of military intervention is over. London and Washington
will not return to the failed policy in the past that has led to intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Libya".
During the election campaign, Trump made his intentions clear in different contexts, but always
coming from the standpoint of non-interventionism inspired by the concept of isolationism. It is
becoming apparent that these intentions are being put into action, though the rhetoric regarding
Iran has become alarming. In typical Trump fashion (which contrasts with the Iran issue), the situation
in Syria is normalizing and the initial threats directed at China appear to have been put aside.
The case of Iran is a different and complex story, requiring a deeper analysis that deserves a separate
article. What will gradually be important, as the Presidency progresses, is understanding the necessity
to distinguish between words and actions, separating provocations from intentions.
Conclusions and future questions
There is a whole list of Trump statements that are seen as threats to other countries, primarily
Iran. The next article will further explain the possible strategy to be employed by Donald Trump
to fight these attempts to sabotage his administration, a strategy that seems to be based on silences,
bluffs and admissions to counter the perpetual attempts to influence his presidency. If one wants
to place weight on his words during the election campaign, it should be taken into consideration
that Trump won the election thanks to the clear objectives of wanting to avoid a further spending
spree on destructive wars. This priority was made clear and expressed in every possible way with
the adoption of an America First policy, especially regarding domestic policy.
The bottom line is always that Trump has the ability and willingness to be resilient to the pressures
of the deep state, focusing on the needs of the average American citizen, rather than caving in to
the interests of the deep state such as intelligence agencies, neocons, Israel lobby, Saudi lobby,
the military-industrial complex, and many more. It is only in the next few months that we will come
to understand if Trump will be willing to continue the fight against war or bend the knee and pay
the price.
" What the deep state refuses to accept is that they have lost the leading role in educating
the rest of the world on humanitarian issues related to the concept of democracy."
This was a strange article, but after reading the above quote I had to laugh and could not
find the gumption to continue reading.
The Deep State ought to have beaten Trump already - one way or another...! But somebody with
brains has realised that it's not just Trump. It's the political movement that he heads***. Even
if they killed DT tomorrow (and it's certain to have been on their agenda), the Trumpista Party
would survive: it's too active and too popular to disappear. So the establishment pretty much
has to wrap up the entire movement. They have left things dangerously late, from their point of
view.
*** I know he didn't start it; it's the old Pat Buchanan + Ron Paul gang, but Donald is twice
as cunning as those chaps. I really don't think he'll win his war with the bad guys - the War
Party - but his influence will be quite long-lasting. And of course he is our last hope to roll
back the spectre of "1984".
Authors outlined important reasons of the inevitability of the dominance of chicken hawks and jingoistic
foreign policy in the USA political establishment:
.
"...Beyond the problems our delusions of grandeur have caused in the wider world, there are enormous
domestic consequences of prolonged war and interventionism. We shell out
over $1 trillion a year in military-related expenses even as our social safety net frays and our
infrastructure crumbles. Democracy
itself has become virtually dysfunctional."
.
"...leading presidential candidates are
tapping neoconservatives like
John Bolton and
Paul Wolfowitz
- who still think the answer to any foreign policy quandary is military power - for advice. Our leaders
seem to forget that following this lot's advice was exactly what caused the meltdown in the first place.
War still excites them, risks and consequences be damned."
.
"...A "war first" policy in places like Iran and Syria is being strongly pushed by neoconservatives
like former Vice President
Dick Cheney and
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
John McCain.
"
.
"...But challenging the "exceptionalism" myth courts the danger of being labeled "unpatriotic" and
"un-American," two powerful ideological sanctions that can effectively silence critical or questioning
voices."
.
"...The United States did not simply support Kosovo's independence, for example. It bombed Serbia
into de facto acceptance. When the U.S. decided to remove the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi
from power, it just did so. No other country is capable of projecting that kind of force in regions
thousands of miles from its borders."
.
"...The late political scientist Chalmers Johnson estimated that the U.S. has some 800 bases worldwide,
about the same as the British Empire had at its height in 1895.
. The United States has long relied on a military arrow in its diplomatic quiver, and Americans have
been at war almost continuously since the end of World War II. Some of these wars were major undertakings:
Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), Libya. Some were quick "smash and
grabs" like Panama and Grenada. Others are "shadow wars" waged by Special Forces, armed drones, and
local proxies. If one defines the term "war" as the application of organized violence, the U.S. has
engaged in close to 80 wars since 1945."
.
"...The state of ceaseless war has deeply damaged our democracy, bringing our surveillance and security
state to levels that many dictators would envy. The
Senate torture report, most
of it still classified, shatters the trust we are asked to place in the secret, unaccountable apparatus
that runs
the
most extensive Big Brother spy system ever devised."
.
"...the U.S. always reserves the right to use military force. The 1979 "Carter
Doctrine" - a document that mirrors the 1823 Monroe Doctrine about American interests in Latin America
- put that strategy in blunt terms vis-à-vis the Middle East:"
.
"...In early 2014, some 57 percent of Americans
agreed
that "over-reliance on military force creates more hatred leading to increased terrorism." Only 37 percent
believed military force was the way to go. But once the hysteria around the Islamic State began, those
numbers shifted to pretty much an even split: 47 percent supported the use of military force, 46
percent opposed it.
.
It will always be necessary in each new crisis to counter those who mislead and browbeat the public
into acceptance of another military intervention. But in spite of the current hysterics about ISIS,
disillusionment in war as an answer is probably greater now among Americans and worldwide than it has
ever been. That sentiment may prove strong enough to produce a shift away from perpetual war, a shift
toward some modesty and common-sense realism in U.S. foreign policy."
Notable quotes:
"... Beyond the problems our delusions of grandeur have caused in the wider world, there are enormous domestic consequences of prolonged war and interventionism. We shell out over $1 trillion a year in military-related expenses even as our social safety net frays and our infrastructure crumbles . Democracy itself has become virtually dysfunctional. ..."
"... leading presidential candidates are tapping neoconservatives like John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz - who still think the answer to any foreign policy quandary is military power - for advice. Our leaders seem to forget that following this lot's advice was exactly what caused the meltdown in the first place. War still excites them, risks and consequences be damned. ..."
"... A "war first" policy in places like Iran and Syria is being strongly pushed by neoconservatives like former Vice President Dick Cheney and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain . ..."
"... But challenging the "exceptionalism" myth courts the danger of being labeled "unpatriotic" and "un-American," two powerful ideological sanctions that can effectively silence critical or questioning voices. ..."
"... The United States did not simply support Kosovo's independence, for example. It bombed Serbia into de facto acceptance. When the U.S. decided to remove the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi from power, it just did so. No other country is capable of projecting that kind of force in regions thousands of miles from its borders. ..."
"... As military expenditures dwarf funding for deteriorating social programs, they drive economic inequality. The poor and working millions are left further and further behind. Meanwhile the chronic problems highlighted at Ferguson, and reflected nationwide, are a horrific reminder of how deeply racism - the unequal economic and social divide and systemic abuse of black and Latino youth - continues to plague our homeland . ..."
"... The state of ceaseless war has deeply damaged our democracy, bringing our surveillance and security state to levels that many dictators would envy. The Senate torture report , most of it still classified, shatters the trust we are asked to place in the secret, unaccountable apparatus that runs the most extensive Big Brother spy system ever devised. ..."
"... the U.S. always reserves the right to use military force. ..."
"... In early 2014, some 57 percent of Americans agreed that "over-reliance on military force creates more hatred leading to increased terrorism." Only 37 percent believed military force was the way to go. But once the hysteria around the Islamic State began, those numbers shifted to pretty much an even split: 47 percent supported the use of military force, 46 percent opposed it. It will always be necessary in each new crisis to counter those who mislead and browbeat the public into acceptance of another military intervention. But in spite of the current hysterics about ISIS, disillusionment in war as an answer is probably greater now among Americans and worldwide than it has ever been. That sentiment may prove strong enough to produce a shift away from perpetual war, a shift toward some modesty and common-sense realism in U.S. foreign policy. ..."
U.S. foreign policy is dangerous, undemocratic, and deeply out of sync with real global
challenges. Is continuous war inevitable, or can we change course?
There's something fundamentally wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
Despite glimmers of hope - a tentative
nuclear agreement with Iran, for one, and a long-overdue thaw with Cuba - we're locked into seemingly
irresolvable conflicts in most regions of the world. They range from tensions with nuclear-armed
powers like Russia and China to actual combat operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
Why? Has a state of perpetual warfare and conflict become inescapable? Or are we in a self-replicating
cycle that reflects an inability - or unwillingness - to see the world as it actually is?
The United States is undergoing a historic transition in our relationship to the rest of the world,
but this is neither acknowledged nor reflected in U.S. foreign policy. We still act as if our enormous
military power, imperial alliances, and self-perceived moral superiority empower us to set the terms
of "world order."
While this illusion goes back to the end of World War II, it was the end of the Cold War and collapse
of the Soviet Union that signaled the beginning of a self-proclaimed "American Century." The idea
that the United States had "won" the Cold War and now - as the world's lone superpower - had the
right or responsibility to order the world's affairs led to a series of military adventures. It started
with President Bill Clinton's intervention in the Yugoslav civil war, continued on with George W.
Bush's disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and can still be seen in the Obama administration's
own misadventures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and beyond.
In each case, Washington chose war as the answer to enormously complex issues, ignoring the profound
consequences for both foreign and domestic policy. Yet the world is very different from the assumptions
that drive this impulsive interventionism.
It's this disconnect that defines the current crisis.
Acknowledging New Realities
So what is it about the world that requires a change in our outlook? A few observations come to
mind.
First, our preoccupation with conflicts in the Middle East - and to a significant extent,
our tensions with Russia in Eastern Europe and with China in East Asia - distract us from the
most compelling crises that threaten the future of humanity. Climate change and environmental
perils have to be dealt with now and demand an unprecedented level of international collective
action. That also holds for the resurgent danger of nuclear war.
Second, superpower military interventionism and far-flung acts of war have only intensified
conflict, terror, and human suffering. There's no short-term solution - especially by force -
to the deep-seated problems that cause chaos, violence, and misery through much of the world.
Third, while any hope of curbing violence and mitigating the most urgent problems depends
on international cooperation, old and disastrous intrigues over spheres of influence dominate
the behavior of the major powers. Our own relentless pursuit of military advantage on every continent,
including through alliances and proxies like NATO, divides the world into "friend" and "foe" according
to our perceived interests. That inevitably inflames aggressive imperial rivalries and overrides
common interests in the 21st century.
Fourth, while the United States remains a great economic power, economic and political influence
is shifting and giving rise to national and regional centers no longer controlled by U.S.-dominated
global financial structures. Away from Washington, London, and Berlin,
alternative centers of
economic power are taking hold in Beijing, New Delhi, Cape Town, and Brasilia. Independent
formations and alliances are springing up: organizations like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,
China, and South Africa); the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (representing 2.8 billion people);
the Union of South American Nations; the Latin American trade bloc, Mercosur; and others.
Beyond the problems our delusions of grandeur have caused in the wider world, there are enormous
domestic consequences of prolonged war and interventionism. We shell out
over $1 trillion a year in military-related expenses even as our social safety net frays and
our infrastructure crumbles.
Democracy itself has become virtually dysfunctional.
Short Memories and Persistent Delusions
But instead of letting these changing circumstances and our repeated military failures give us
pause, our government continues to act as if the United States has the power to dominate and dictate
to the rest of the world.
The responsibility of those who set us on this course fades into background. Indeed, in light
of the ongoing meltdown in the Middle East, leading presidential candidates are
tapping neoconservatives like
John Bolton
and Paul Wolfowitz
- who still think the answer to any foreign policy quandary is military power - for advice. Our leaders
seem to forget that following this lot's advice was exactly what caused the meltdown in the first
place. War still excites them, risks and consequences be damned.
While the Obama administration has sought, with limited success, to end the major wars it inherited,
our government makes wide use of killer drones in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and has put troops
back into Iraq to confront the religious fanaticism and brutality of the so-called Islamic State
(ISIS) - itself a direct consequence of the last U.S. invasion of Iraq. Reluctant to find common
ground in the fight against ISIS with designated "foes" like Iran and Syria, Washington clings to
allies like Saudi Arabia, whose leaders are fueling the crisis of religious fanaticism and internecine
barbarity. Elsewhere, the U.S. also continues to give massive support to the Israeli government,
despite its expanding occupation of the West Bank and its horrific recurring assaults on Gaza.
A "war first" policy in places like Iran and Syria is being strongly pushed by neoconservatives
like former Vice President
Dick Cheney
and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
John McCain.
Though it's attempted to distance itself from the neocons, the Obama administration adds to tensions
with planned military realignments like the "Asia
pivot" aimed at building up U.S. military forces in Asia to confront China. It's also taken a
more aggressive position than even other NATO partners in fostering a new cold war with Russia.
We seem to have missed the point: There is no such thing as an "American Century." International
order cannot be enforced by a superpower alone. But never mind centuries - if we don't learn to take
our common interests more seriously than those that divide nations and breed the chronic danger of
war, there may well be no tomorrows.
Unexceptionalism
There's a powerful ideological delusion that any movement seeking to change U.S. foreign policy
must confront: that U.S. culture is superior to anything else on the planet. Generally going by the
name of "American exceptionalism," it's the deeply held belief that American politics (and medicine,
technology, education, and so on) are better than those in other countries. Implicit in the belief
is an evangelical urge to impose American ways of doing things on the rest of the world.
Americans, for instance, believe they have the best education system in the world, when in fact
they've dropped from 1st place to 14th place in the number of college graduates.
We've made students of higher education the most indebted section of our population, while falling
to 17th place in international education ratings. According to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation, the average American pays more than twice as much for his or her education than those
in the rest of the world.
Health care is an equally compelling example. In the World Health Organization's ranking of health
care systems in 2000, the United States was ranked 37th. In a more recent
Institute of Medicine report in 2013, the U.S. was ranked the lowest among 17 developed nations
studied.
The old anti-war slogan, "It will be a good day when schools get all the money they need and the
Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier" is as appropriate today as it was in the
1960s. We prioritize corporate subsidies, tax cuts for the wealthy, and massive military budgets
over education. The result is that Americans are no longer among the most educated in the world.
But challenging the "exceptionalism" myth courts the danger of being labeled "unpatriotic"
and "un-American," two powerful ideological sanctions that can effectively silence critical or questioning
voices.
The fact that Americans consider their culture or ideology "superior" is hardly unique. But no
other country in the world has the same level of economic and military power to enforce its worldview
on others.
The United States did not simply support Kosovo's independence, for example. It bombed Serbia
into de facto acceptance. When the U.S. decided to remove the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar
Gaddafi from power, it just did so. No other country is capable of projecting that kind of force
in regions thousands of miles from its borders.
The U.S. currently accounts for anywhere from 45 to 50 percent of the world's military spending.
It has hundreds of overseas bases, ranging from huge sprawling affairs like Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo
and unsinkable aircraft carriers around the islands of Okinawa, Wake, Diego Garcia, and Guam to tiny
bases called "lily
pads" of pre-positioned military supplies. The late political scientist Chalmers Johnson
estimated that the U.S. has some 800 bases worldwide, about the same as the British Empire had at
its height in 1895.
The United States has long relied on a military arrow in its diplomatic quiver, and Americans
have been at war almost continuously since the end of World War II. Some of these wars were
major undertakings: Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), Libya. Some
were quick "smash and grabs" like Panama and Grenada. Others are "shadow wars" waged by Special Forces,
armed drones, and local proxies. If one defines the term "war" as the application of organized
violence, the U.S. has engaged in close to 80 wars since 1945.
The Home Front
The coin of empire comes dear, as the old expression goes.
According Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the final butcher bill for the Afghanistan
and Iraq wars - including the long-term health problems of veterans - will cost U.S. taxpayers around
$6 trillion. One can add to that the over $1 trillion the U.S. spends each year on defense-related
items. The "official" defense budget of some half a trillion dollars doesn't include such items as
nuclear weapons, veterans' benefits or retirement, the CIA and Homeland Security, nor the billions
a year in interest we'll be paying on the debt from the Afghan-Iraq wars. By 2013 the U.S. had already
paid out $316 billion
in interest.
The domestic collateral damage from that set of priorities is numbing.
We spend more on our "official" military budget than we do on Medicare, Medicaid, Health and Human
Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development combined. Since 9/11,
we've
spent $70 million an hour on "security" compared to $62 million an hour on all domestic programs.
As military expenditures dwarf funding for deteriorating social programs, they drive economic
inequality. The poor and working millions are left further and further behind. Meanwhile the chronic
problems highlighted at Ferguson, and reflected nationwide, are a horrific reminder of how deeply
racism - the unequal economic and social divide and systemic abuse of black and Latino youth -
continues to plague our homeland.
The state of ceaseless war has deeply damaged our democracy, bringing our surveillance and
security state to levels that many dictators would envy. The
Senate torture report, most
of it still classified, shatters the trust we are asked to place in the secret, unaccountable apparatus
that runs
the most extensive Big Brother spy system ever devised.
Bombs and Business
President Calvin Coolidge was said to have remarked that "the business of America is business."
Unsurprisingly, U.S. corporate interests play a major role in American foreign policy.
Out of the top 10 international arms producers, eight are American. The arms industry spends millions
lobbying Congress and state legislatures, and it defends its turf with an efficiency and vigor that
its products don't always emulate on the battlefield. The F-35 fighter-bomber, for example - the
most expensive weapons system in U.S. history - will cost $1.5 trillion and doesn't work. It's over
budget, dangerous to fly, and riddled with defects. And yet few lawmakers dare challenge the powerful
corporations who have shoved this lemon down our throats.
Corporate interests are woven into the fabric of long-term U.S. strategic interests and goals.
Both combine to try to control energy supplies, command strategic choke points through which oil
and gas supplies transit, and ensure access to markets.
Many of these goals can be achieved with standard diplomacy or economic pressure, but the
U.S. always reserves the right to use military force. The 1979 "Carter
Doctrine" - a document that mirrors the 1823 Monroe Doctrine about American interests in Latin
America - put that strategy in blunt terms vis-à-vis the Middle East:
"An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded
as an assault on the vital interests of the United States, and such an assault will be repelled
by any means necessary, including military force."
It's no less true in East Asia. The U.S. will certainly engage in peaceful economic competition
with China. But if push comes to shove, the Third, Fifth, and Seventh fleets will back up the interests
of Washington and its allies - Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Australia.
Trying to change the course of American foreign policy is not only essential for reducing international
tensions. It's critically important to shift the enormous wealth we expend in war and weapons toward
alleviating growing inequality and social crises at home.
As long as competition for markets and accumulation of capital characterize modern society, nations
will vie for spheres of influence, and antagonistic interests will be a fundamental feature of international
relations. Chauvinist reaction to incursions real or imagined - and the impulse to respond by military
means - is characteristic to some degree of every significant nation-state. Yet the more that some
governments, including our own, become subordinate to oligarchic control, the greater is the peril.
Finding the Common Interest
These, however, are not the only factors that will shape the future.
There is nothing inevitable that rules out a significant change of direction, even if the demise
or transformation of a capitalistic system of greed and exploitation is not at hand. The potential
for change, especially in U.S. foreign policy, resides in how social movements here and abroad respond
to the undeniable reality of: 1) the chronic failure, massive costs, and danger inherent in "American
Century" exceptionalism; and 2) the urgency of international efforts to respond to climate change.
There is, as well, the necessity to respond to health and natural disasters aggravated by poverty,
to rising messianic violence, and above all, to prevent a descent into war. This includes not only
the danger of a clash between the major nuclear powers, but between regional powers. A nuclear exchange
between Pakistan and India, for example, would affect the whole world.
Without underestimating the self-interest of forces that thrive on gambling with the future of
humanity, historic experience and current reality elevate a powerful common interest in peace and
survival. The need to change course is not something that can be recognized on only one side of an
ideological divide. Nor does that recognition depend on national, ethnic, or religious identity.
Rather, it demands acknowledging the enormous cost of plunging ahead as everything falls apart around
us.
After the latest U.S. midterm elections, the political outlook is certainly bleak. But experience
shows that elections, important as they are, are not necessarily indicators of when and how significant
change can come about in matters of policy. On issues of civil rights and social equality, advances
have occurred because a dedicated and persistent minority movement helped change public opinion in
a way the political establishment could not defy.
The Vietnam War, for example, came to an end, despite the stubbornness of Democratic and Republican
administrations, when a stalemate on the battlefield and growing international and domestic opposition
could no longer be denied. Significant changes can come about even as the basic character of society
is retained. Massive resistance and rejection of colonialism caused the British Empire and other
colonial powers to adjust to a new reality after World War II. McCarthyism was eventually defeated
in the United States. President Nixon was forced to resign. The use of landmines and cluster bombs
has been greatly restricted because of the opposition of a small band of activists whose initial
efforts were labeled "quixotic."
There are diverse and growing political currents in our country that see the folly and danger
of the course we're on. Many Republicans, Democrats, independents, and libertarians - and much of
the public - are beginning to say "enough" to war and military intervention all over the globe, and
the folly of basing foreign policy on dividing countries into "friend or foe."
This is not to be Pollyannaish about anti-war sentiment, or how quickly people can be stampeded
into supporting the use of force. In early 2014, some 57 percent of Americans
agreed
that "over-reliance on military force creates more hatred leading to increased terrorism." Only 37
percent believed military force was the way to go. But once the hysteria around the Islamic State
began, those
numbers shifted to pretty much an even split: 47 percent supported the use of military force,
46 percent opposed it.
It will always be necessary in each new crisis to counter those who mislead and browbeat the public
into acceptance of another military intervention. But in spite of the current hysterics about ISIS,
disillusionment in war as an answer is probably greater now among Americans and worldwide than it
has ever been. That sentiment may prove strong enough to produce a shift away from perpetual war,
a shift toward some modesty and common-sense realism in U.S. foreign policy.
Making Space for the Unexpected
Given that there is a need for a new approach, how can American foreign policy be changed?
Foremost, there is the need for a real debate on the thrust of a U.S. foreign policy that chooses
negotiation, diplomacy, and international cooperation over the use of force.
However, as we approach another presidential election, there is as yet no strong voice among the
candidates to challenge U.S. foreign policy. Fear and questionable political calculation keep even
most progressive politicians from daring to dissent as the crisis of foreign policy lurches further
into perpetual militarism and war. That silence of political acquiescence has to be broken.
Nor is it a matter of concern only on the left. There are many Americans - right, left, or neither
- who sense the futility of the course we're on. These voices have to be represented or the election
process will be even more of a sham than we've recently experienced.
One can't predict just what initiatives may take hold, but the recent U.S.-China climate agreement
suggests that necessity can override significant obstacles. That accord is an important step forward,
although a limited bilateral pact
cannot
substitute for an essential international climate treaty. There is a glimmer of hope also in
the U.S.-Russian joint action that
removed
chemical weapons from Syria, and in negotiations with Iran, which continue despite
fierce opposition
from U.S. hawks and the Israeli government. More recently, there is Obama's bold move - long overdue
- to restore diplomatic
relations with Cuba. Despite shifts in political fortunes, the unexpected can happen if there
is a need and strong enough pressure to create an opportunity.
We do not claim to have ready-made solutions to the worsening crisis in international relations.
We are certain that there is much we've missed or underestimated. But if readers agree that U.S.
foreign policy has a national and global impact, and that it is not carried out in the interests
of the majority of the world's people, including our own, then we ask you to join this conversation.
If we are to expand the ability of the people to influence foreign policy, we need to defend democracy,
and encourage dissent and alternative ideas. The threats to the world and to ourselves are so great
that finding common ground trumps any particular interest. We also know that we won't all agree with
each other, and we believe that is as it should be. There are multiple paths to the future. No coalition
around changing foreign policy will be successful if it tells people to conform to any one pattern
of political action.
So how does the call for changing course translate to something politically viable, and how do
we consider the problem of power?
The power to make significant changes in policy ranges from the persistence of peace activists
to the potential influence of the general public. In some circumstances, it becomes possible - as
well as necessary - to make significant changes in the power structure itself.
Greece comes to mind. Greek left organizations came together to form Syriza, the political party
that was successfully elected to power
on a platform of ending austerity. Spain's anti-austerity Podemos Party - now the number-two party
in the country - came out of massive demonstrations in 2011 and was organized from the grassroots
up. We do not argue one approach over the over, but the experiences in both countries demonstrate
that there are multiple paths to generating change.
Certainly progressives and leftists grapple with the problems of power. But progress on issues,
particularly in matters like war and peace and climate change, shouldn't be conceived of as dependent
on first achieving general solutions to the problems of society, however desirable.
... ... ...
Conn Hallinan is a journalist and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. His writings appear
online at Dispatches From
the Edge. Leon Wofsy is a retired biology professor and long-time political activist. His comments
on current affairs appear online at Leon's
OpEd.
David Stockman provides one of the best commentaries on Flynn assassination by deep state and Obama neocon holdovers in the administration.
This is a really powerful astute, first class analysis of the situation:
Flynn's Gone But They're Still Gunning For You, Donald
== quote ==
... ... ...
This is the real scandal as Trump himself has rightly asserted. The very idea that the already announced #1 national security advisor
to a President-elect should be subject to old-fashion "bugging," albeit with modern day technology, overwhelmingly trumps the utterly
specious Logan Act charge at the center of the case.
As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted
conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with envy:
Now, information leaks that Sally Yates knew about surveillance being conducted against potential members of the Trump administration,
and disclosed that information to others. Even Richard Nixon didn't use the government agencies themselves to do his black bag surveillance
operations. Sally Yates involvement with this surveillance on American political opponents, and possibly the leaking related thereto,
smacks of a return to Hoover-style tactics. As writers at Bloomberg and The Week both noted, it wreaks of 'police-state' style tactics.
But knowing dear Sally as I do, it comes as no surprise.
Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind to continue the 2016 election by other
means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only
be described as an audacious and self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State.
Indeed, it seems that the layers of intrigue have gotten so deep and convoluted that the nominal leadership of the permanent government
machinery has lost track of who is spying on whom. Thus, we have the following curious utterance by none other than the Chairman
of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes:
'I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,' he told The Washington Post. 'The big
problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.'
Well, yes. That makes 324 million of us, Congressman.
But for crying out loud, surely the oh so self-important chairman of the House intelligence committee knows that everybody is
bugged. But when it reaches the point that the spy state is essentially using its unconstitutional tools to engage in what amounts
to "opposition research" with the aim of election nullification, then the Imperial City has become a clear and present danger to
American democracy and the liberties of the American people.
As Robert Barnes of LawNewz further explained, Sally Yates, former CIA director John Brennan and a large slice of the Never Trumper
intelligence community were systematically engaged in "opposition research" during the campaign and the transition:
According to published reports, someone was eavesdropping, and recording, the conversations of Michael Flynn, while Sally Yates
was at the Department of Justice. Sally Yates knew about this eavesdropping, listened in herself (Pellicano-style for those who remember
the infamous LA cases), and reported what she heard to others. For Yates to have such access means she herself must have been involved
in authorizing its disclosure to political appointees, since she herself is such a political appointee. What justification was there
for an Obama appointee to be spying on the conversations of a future Trump appointee?
Consider this little tidbit in The Washington Post . The paper, which once broke Watergate, is now propagating the benefits of
Watergate-style surveillance in ways that do make Watergate look like a third-rate effort. (With the) FBI 'routinely' monitoring
conversations of Americans...... Yates listened to 'the intercepted call,' even though Yates knew there was 'little chance' of any
credible case being made for prosecution under a law 'that has never been used in a prosecution.'
And well it hasn't been. After all, the Logan Act was signed by President John Adams in 1799 in order to punish one of Thomas
Jefferson's supporters for having peace discussions with the French government in Paris. That is, it amounted to pre-litigating the
Presidential campaign of 1800 based on sheer political motivation.
According to the Washington Post itself, that is exactly what Yates and the Obama holdovers did day and night during the interregnum:
Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale secret investigation of her political
opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political adversaries.
So all of the feigned outrage emanating from Democrats and the Washington establishment about Team Trump's trafficking with the
Russians is a cover story. Surely anyone even vaguely familiar with recent history would have known there was absolutely nothing
illegal or even untoward about Flynn's post-Christmas conversations with the Russian Ambassador.
Indeed, we recall from personal experience the thrilling moment on inauguration day in January 1981 when word came of the release
of the American hostages in Tehran. Let us assure you, that did not happen by immaculate diplomatic conception -- nor was it a parting
gift to the Gipper by the outgoing Carter Administration.
To the contrary, it was the fruit of secret negotiations with the Iranian government during the transition by private American
citizens. As the history books would have it because it's true, the leader of that negotiation, in fact, was Ronald Reagan's national
security council director-designate, Dick Allen.
As the real Washington Post later reported, under the by-line of a real reporter, Bob Woodward:
Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described 'Iranian exile' who offered,
on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan, not Carter, in order to ensure Carter's defeat in the November
4, 1980 election.
The American participants were Richard Allen, subsequently Reagan's first national security adviser, Allen aide Laurence Silberman,
and Robert McFarlane, another future national security adviser who in 1980 was on the staff of Senator John Tower (R-TX).
To this day we have not had occasion to visit our old friend Dick Allen in the US penitentiary because he's not there; the Logan
Act was never invoked in what is surely the most blatant case ever of citizen diplomacy.
So let's get to the heart of the matter and be done with it. The Obama White House conducted a sour grapes campaign to delegitimize
the election beginning November 9th and it was led by then CIA Director John Brennan.
That treacherous assault on the core constitutional matter of the election process culminated in the ridiculous Russian meddling
report of the Obama White House in December. The latter, of course, was issued by serial liar James Clapper, as national intelligence
director, and the clueless Democrat lawyer and bag-man, Jeh Johnson, who had been appointed head of the Homeland Security Department.
Yet on the basis of the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and "assessments", the Obama White House
imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a handful of Putin's cronies.
Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would be soon reversed!
But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly about the fact that the very day following
Flynn's call -- Vladimir Putin announced that he would not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter,
the Donald tweeted that Putin had shown admirable wisdom.
That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas Truce of 2016. But like its namesake
of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive.
"... Yet, a return to protectionism is not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost ground due to globalisation without appropriate compensation of its 'losers', and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies. The world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation. ..."
"... From an energy point of view globalisation is a disaster. The insane level of fossil fuels that this current world requires for transportation of necessities (food and clothing) is making this world an unstable world. Ipso Facto. ..."
"... Those who believe that globalisation is bringing value to the world should reconsider their views. The current globalisation has created both monopolies on a geopolitical ground, ie TV make or shipbuilding in Asia. ..."
"... Do you seriously believe that these new geographical and corporate monopolies does not create the kind bad outcomes that traditional – country-centric ones – monopolies have in the past? ..."
"... Then there is the practical issue of workers having next to no bargaining power under globalization. Do people really suppose that Mexican workers would be willing to strike so that their US counterparts, already making ficew times as much money, would get a raise? ..."
"... Basically our elite sold us a bill of goods is why we lost manufacturing. Greed. Nothing else. ..."
"... So proof is required to rollback globalization, but no proof was required to launch it or continue dishing it out? It's good to be the King, eh? ..."
"... America hasn't just gotten rid of the low level jobs. It has also gotten rid of supervisors and factory managers. Those are skills you can't get back overnight. For US plants in Mexico, you might have US managers there or be able to get special visas to let those managers come to the US. But US companies have shifted a ton, and I meant a ton, to foreign subcontractors. Some would put operations in the US to preserve access to US customers, but their managers won't speak English. How do you make this work? ..."
"... The real issue is commitment. Very little manufacturing will be re-shored unless companies are convinced that it is in their longterm interest to do so. ..."
"... There is also what I've heard referred to as the "next bench" phenomenon, in which products arise because someone designs a new product/process to solve a manufacturing problem. Unless one has great foresight, the designer of the new product must be aware there is a problem to solve. ..."
"... When a country is involved in manufacturing, the citizens employed will have exposure to production problems and issues. ..."
"... After his speech he took questions. I asked "Would Toyota ever separate design from manufacturing?" as HP had done, shipping all manufacturing to Asia. "No" was his answer. ..."
"... In my experience, it is way too useful to have the line be able to easily call the designer in question and have him come take a look at what his design is doing. HP tried to get around that by sending part of the design team to Asia to watch the startup. Didn't work as well. And when problems emerged later, it was always difficult to debug by remote control. ..."
"... How about mass imports of cheap workers into western countries in the guise of emigrants to push down worker's pay and gut things like unions. That factor played a decisive factor in both the Brexit referendum and the US 2016 elections. Or the subsidized exportation of western countries industrial equipment to third world countries, leaving local workers swinging in the wind. ..."
"... The data sets do not capture some of the most important factors in what they are saying. It is like putting together a paper on how and why white men voted in the 2016 US elections as they did – and forgetting to mention the effect of the rest of the voters involved. ..."
"... I had a similar reaction. This research was reinforcing info about everyone's resentment over really bad distribution of wealth, as far as it went, but it was so unsatisfying ..."
"... "Right to work" is nothing other than a way to undercut quality of work for "run-to-the-bottom competitive pay." ..."
"... I've noticed that the only people in favor of globalization are those whose jobs are not under threat from it. ..."
"... First off, economic nationalism is not necessarily right wing. I would certainly classify Bernie Sanders as an economic nationalist (against open borders and against "free" trade). Syriza and Podemos could arguably be called rather ineffective economic nationalist parties. I would say the whole ideology of social democracy is based on the Swedish nationalist concept of a "folkhem", where the nation is the home and the citizens are the folk. ..."
"... So China is Turmpism on steroids. Israel obviously is as well. Why do some nations get to be blatantly Trumpist while for others these policies are strictly forbidden? ..."
"... One way to look at Globalization is as an updated version of the post WW1 Versailles Treaty which imposed reparations on a defeated Germany for all the harm they caused during the Great War. The Globalized Versailles Treaty is aimed at the American and European working classes for the crimes of colonialism, racism, slavery and any other bad things the 1st world has done to the 3rd in the past. ..."
"... And yes, this applies to Bernie Sanders as well. During that iconic interview where Sanders denounced open borders and pushed economic nationalism, the Neoliberal interviewer immediately played the global guilt card in response. ..."
"... During colonialism the 3rd world had a form of open borders imposed on it by the colonial powers, where the 3rd world lost control of who what crossed their borders while the 1st world themselves maintained a closed border mercantilist regime of strict filters. So the anti-colonialist movement was a form of Trumpist economic nationalism where the evil foreigners were given the boot and the nascent nations applied filters to their borders. ..."
"... Nationalism (my opinion) can do this – economic nationalism. And of course other people think oh gawd, not that again – it's so inefficient for my investments- I can't get fast returns that way but that's just the point. ..."
"... China was not a significant exporter until the 2001 inclusion in WTO: it cannot possibly have caused populist uprisings in Italy and Belgium in the 1990s. It was probably too early even for Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, who was killed in 2002, Le Pen's electoral success in the same year, Austria's FPOE in 1999, and so on. ..."
"... In the 1930s Keynes realized, income was just as important as profit as this produced a sustainable system that does not rely on debt to maintain demand. ..."
"... "Although commercial banks create money through lending, they cannot do so freely without limit. Banks are limited in how much they can lend if they are to remain profitable in a competitive banking system." ..."
"... The Romans are the basis. Patricians, Equites and Plebs. Most of us here are clearly plebeian. Time to go place some bets, watch the chariot races and gladiatorial fights, and get my bread subsidy. Ciao. ..."
"... 80-90% of Bonds and Equities ( at least in USA) are owned by top 10 %. 0.7% own 45% of global wealth. 8 billionaires own more than 50% of wealth than that of bottom 50% in our Country! ..."
"... Globalisation has caused a surge in support for nationalist and radical right political platforms. ..."
"... Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership seems to be a move in that direction. ..."
"... Yet, a return to protectionism is not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost ground due to globalisation without appropriate compensation of its 'losers' ..."
"... and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies. ..."
"... The world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation. ..."
Definitely a pleasant read but IMHO wrong conclusion: Yet, a return to protectionism is
not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost ground due to globalisation without appropriate
compensation of its 'losers', and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies. The
world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation.
From an energy point of view globalisation is a disaster. The insane level of fossil fuels
that this current world requires for transportation of necessities (food and clothing) is making
this world an unstable world. Ipso Facto.
We need a world where goods move little as possible (yep!) when smart ideas and technology
(medical, science, industry, yep that's essential) move as much as possible. Internet makes this
possible. This is no dream but a XXIth century reality.
Work – the big one – is required and done where and when it occurs. That is on all continents
if not in every country. Not in an insanely remote suburbs of Asia.
Those who believe that globalisation is bringing value to the world should reconsider their
views. The current globalisation has created both monopolies on a geopolitical ground, ie TV make
or shipbuilding in Asia.
Do you seriously believe that these new geographical and corporate monopolies does not
create the kind bad outcomes that traditional – country-centric ones – monopolies have in the
past?
Yves Smith can have nasty words when it comes to discussing massive trade surplus and policies
that supports them. That's my single most important motivation for reading this challenging blog,
by the way.
Another thing is that reliance on complex supply chains is risky. The book 1177 B.C.: The Year
Civilization Collapsed describes how the ancient Mediterranian civilization collapsed when the
supply chains stopped working.
Then there is the practical issue of workers having next to no bargaining power under globalization.
Do people really suppose that Mexican workers would be willing to strike so that their US counterparts,
already making ficew times as much money, would get a raise?
Is Finland somehow supposed to force the US and China to adopt similar worker rights and environmental
protections? No, globalization, no matter how you slice it,is a race to the bottom.
I do not agree with the article's conclusion either.
Reshoring would have 1 of 2 outcomes:
Lots of manufacturing jobs and a solid middle class. We may be looking at more than 20
percent total employment in manufacturing and more than 30 percent of our GDP in manufacturing.
If the robots take over, we still have a lot of manufacturing jobs. Japan for example has
the most robots per capita, yet they still maintain very large amounts of manufacturing employment.
It does not mean the end of manufacturing at all, having worked in manufacturing before.
Basically our elite sold us a bill of goods is why we lost manufacturing. Greed. Nothing
else.
The conclusion is the least important thing. Conclusions are just interpretations, afterthoughts,
divagations (which btw are often just sneaky ways to get your work published by TPTB, surreptitiously
inserting radical stuff under the noses of the guardians of orthodoxy).
The value of these reports is in providing hardcore statistical evidence and quantification
for something for which so many people have a gut feeling but just cann't prove it (although many
seem to think that just having a strong opinion is sufficient).
Yes, correct. Intuition is great for coming up with hypotheses, but it is important to test
them. And while a correlation isn't causation, it at least says the hypothesis isn't nuts on its
face.
In addition, studies like this are helpful in challenging the oft-made claim, particularly
in the US, that people who vote for nationalist policies are bigots of some stripe.
You are missing the transition costs, which will take ten years, maybe a generation.
America hasn't just gotten rid of the low level jobs. It has also gotten rid of supervisors
and factory managers. Those are skills you can't get back overnight. For US plants in Mexico,
you might have US managers there or be able to get special visas to let those managers come to
the US. But US companies have shifted a ton, and I meant a ton, to foreign subcontractors. Some
would put operations in the US to preserve access to US customers, but their managers won't speak
English. How do you make this work?
The only culture with demonstrated success in working with supposedly hopeless US workers is
the Japanese, who proved that with the NUMMI joint venture with GM in one of its very worst factories
(in terms of the alleged caliber of the workforce, as in many would show up for work drunk). Toyota
got the plant to function at better than average (as in lower) defect levels and comparable productivity
to its plants in Japan, which was light years better than Big Three norms.
I'm not sure any other foreign managers are as sensitive to detail and the fine points of working
conditions as the Japanese (having worked with them extensively, the Japanese hear frequencies
of power dynamics that are lost on Westerners. And the Chinese do not even begin to have that
capability, as much as they have other valuable cultural attributes).
That is really interesting about the Japanese sensitivity to detail and power dynamics. If
anyone has managed to describe this in any detail, I would love to read more, though I suppose
if their ability is alien to most Westerners the task of describing it might also be too much
to handle.
I lean more to ten years than a generation. And in the grand scheme of things, 10 years is
nothing.
The real issue is commitment. Very little manufacturing will be re-shored unless companies
are convinced that it is in their longterm interest to do so. Which means having a sense
that the US government is serious, and will continue to be serious, about penalizing off-shoring.
Regardless of Trump's bluster, which has so far only resulted in a handful of companies halting
future offshoring decisions (all to the good), we are nowhere close to that yet.
There is also what I've heard referred to as the "next bench" phenomenon, in which products
arise because someone designs a new product/process to solve a manufacturing problem. Unless one
has great foresight, the designer of the new product must be aware there is a problem to solve.
When a country is involved in manufacturing, the citizens employed will have exposure to
production problems and issues.
Sometimes the solution to these problems can lead to new products outside of one's main
business, for example the USA's Kingsford Charcoal arose from a scrap wood disposal problem that
Henry Ford had.
If one googles for "patent applications by countries" one gets these numbers, which could be
an indirect indication of some of the manufacturing shift from the USA to Asia.
Patent applications for the top 10 offices, 2014
1. China 928,177
2. US 578,802
3. Japan 325,989
4. South Korea 210,292
What is not captured in these numbers are manufacturing processes known as "trade secrets"
that are not disclosed in a patent. The idea that the USA can move move much of its manufacturing
overseas without long term harming its workforce and economy seems implausible to me.
While a design EE at HP, they brought in an author who had written about Toyota's lean design
method, which was currently the management hot button du jour. After his speech he took questions.
I asked "Would Toyota ever separate design from manufacturing?" as HP had done, shipping all manufacturing
to Asia. "No" was his answer.
In my experience, it is way too useful to have the line be able to easily call the designer
in question and have him come take a look at what his design is doing. HP tried to get around
that by sending part of the design team to Asia to watch the startup. Didn't work as well. And
when problems emerged later, it was always difficult to debug by remote control.
And BTW, after manufacturing went overseas, management told us for costing to assume "Labor
is free". Some level playing field.
Oh gawd! The man talks about the effects of globalization and says that the solution is a "a
more inclusive model of globalization"? Seriously? Furthermore he singles out Chinese imports
as the cause of people being pushed to the right. Yeah, right.
How about mass imports of cheap workers into western countries in the guise of emigrants
to push down worker's pay and gut things like unions. That factor played a decisive factor in
both the Brexit referendum and the US 2016 elections. Or the subsidized exportation of western
countries industrial equipment to third world countries, leaving local workers swinging in the
wind.
This study is so incomplete it is almost useless. The only thing that comes to mind to say
about this study is the phrase "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" And what form
of appropriate compensation of its 'losers' would they suggest? Training for non-existent jobs?
Free moving fees to the east or west coast for Americans in flyover country? Subsidized emigration
fees to third world countries where life is cheaper for workers with no future where they are?
Nice try fellas but time to redo your work again until it is fit for a passing grade.
Aw jeez, mate – you've just hurt my feelings here. Take a look at the actual article again.
The data sets do not capture some of the most important factors in what they are saying. It
is like putting together a paper on how and why white men voted in the 2016 US elections as they
did – and forgetting to mention the effect of the rest of the voters involved.
Hey, here is an interesting thought experiment for you. How about we apply the scientific method
to the past 40 years of economic theory since models with actual data strike your fancy. If we
find that the empirical data does not support a theory such as the theory of economic neoliberalism,
we can junk it then and replace it with something that actually works then. So far as I know,
modern economics seems to be immune to scientific rigour in their methods unlike the real sciences.
Not all relevant factors need to be included for a statistical analysis to be valid, as long
as relevant ignored factors are randomized amongst the sampling units, but you know that of course.
Thanks for you kind words about the real sciences, we work hard to keep it real, but once again,
in all fairness, between you and me mate, is not all rigour, it is a lot more Feyerabend than
Popper.
What you say is entirely true. The trouble has always been to make sure that that statistical
analysis actually reflects the real world enough to make it valid. An example of where it all
falls apart can be seen in the political world when the pundits, media and all the pollsters assured
America that Clinton had it in the bag. It was only after the dust had settled that it was revealed
how bodgy the methodology used had been.
By the way, Karl Popper and Paul Feyerabend sound very interesting so thanks for the heads
up. Have you heard of some of the material of another bloke called Mark Blyth at all? He has some
interesting observations to make on modern economic practices.
I had a similar reaction. This research was reinforcing info about everyone's resentment
over really bad distribution of wealth, as far as it went, but it was so unsatisfying and
I immediately thought of Blyth who laments the whole phylogeny of economics as more or less serving
the rich.
The one solution he offered up a while ago was (paraphrasing) 'don't sweat the deficit spending
because it is all 6s in the end' which is true if distribution doesn't stagnate. So as it stands
now, offshoring arms, legs and firstborns is like 'nothing to see here, please move on'. The suggestion
that we need a more inclusive form of global trade kind of begs the question. Made me uneasy too.
"Gut things like unions." How so? In my recent interaction with my apartment agency's preferred
contractors, random contractors not unionized, I experienced a 6 month-long disaster.
These construction workers bragged that in 2 weeks they would have the complete job done -
a reconstructed deck and sunroom. Verbatim quote: "Union workers complete the job and tear it
down to keep everyone paying." Ha Ha! What a laugh!
Only to have these same dudes keep saying "next week", "next week", "next week", "next week".
The work began in August and only was finished (not completely!) in late January. Sloppy crap!
Even the apartment agency head maintenance guy who I finally bitched at said "I guess good work
is hard to come by these days."
Of the non-union guys he hired.
My state just elected a republican governor who promised "right to work." This was just signed
into law.
Immigrants and Mexicans had nothing to do with it. They're not an impact in my city. "Right
to work" is nothing other than a way to undercut quality of work for "run-to-the-bottom competitive
pay."
Now I await whether my rent goes up to pay for this nonsense.
They look at the labor cost, assume someone can do it cheaper. They don't think it's that difficult.
Maybe it's not. The hard part of any and all construction work is getting it finished. Getting
started is easy. Getting it finished on time? Nah, you can't afford that.
I've noticed that the only people in favor of globalization are those whose jobs are not
under threat from it. Beyond that, I think the flood of cheap Chinese goods is actually helping
suppress populist anger by allowing workers whose wages are dropping in real value terms to maintain
the illusion of prosperity. To me, a more "inclusive" form of globalization would include replacing
every economist with a Chinese immigrant earning minimum wage. That way they'd get to "experience"
how awesome it is and the value of future economic analysis would be just as good.
I'm going to question a few of the author's assumptions.
First off, economic nationalism is not necessarily right wing. I would certainly classify
Bernie Sanders as an economic nationalist (against open borders and against "free" trade). Syriza
and Podemos could arguably be called rather ineffective economic nationalist parties. I would
say the whole ideology of social democracy is based on the Swedish nationalist concept of a "folkhem",
where the nation is the home and the citizens are the folk.
Secondly, when discussing the concept of economic nationalism and the nation of China, it would
be interesting to discuss how these two things go together. China has more billionaires than refugees
accepted in the past 20 years. Also it is practically impossible for a non Han Chinese person
to become a naturalized Chinese citizen. And when China buys Boeing aircraft, they wisely insist
on the production being done in China. A close look at Japan would yield similar results.
So China is Turmpism on steroids. Israel obviously is as well. Why do some nations get
to be blatantly Trumpist while for others these policies are strictly forbidden?
One way to look at Globalization is as an updated version of the post WW1 Versailles Treaty
which imposed reparations on a defeated Germany for all the harm they caused during the Great
War. The Globalized Versailles Treaty is aimed at the American and European working classes for
the crimes of colonialism, racism, slavery and any other bad things the 1st world has done to
the 3rd in the past.
Of course during colonialism the costs were socialized within colonizing states and so it was
the people of the colonial power who paid those costs that weren't borne by the colonial subjects
themselves, who of course paid dearly, and it was the oligarchic class that privatized the colonial
profits. But the 1st world oligarchs and their urban bourgeoisie are in strong agreement that
the deplorable working classes are to blame for systems that hurt working classes but powerfully
enriched the wealthy!
And so with the recent rebellions against Globalization, the 1st and 3rd world oligarchs are
convinced these are nothing more than the 1st world working classes attempting to shirk their
historic guilt debt by refusing to pay the rightful reparations in terms of standard of living
that workers deserve to pay for the crimes committed in the past by their wealthy co-nationals.
And yes, this applies to Bernie Sanders as well. During that iconic interview where Sanders
denounced open borders and pushed economic nationalism, the Neoliberal interviewer immediately
played the global guilt card in response.
Interesting. Another way to look at it is from the point of view of entropy and closed vs open
systems. Before globalisation the 1st world working classes enjoyed a high standard of living
which was possible because their system was relatively closed to the rest of the world. It was
a high entropy, strongly structured socio-economic arrangement, with a large difference in standard
of living between 1st world and 3rd world working classes. Once their system became more open
by virtue (or vice) of globalisation, entropy increased as commanded by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
so the 1st world and 3rd world working classes became more equalised. The socio-economic arrangements
became less structured. This means for the Trumpening kind of politicians it is a steep uphill
battle, to increase entropy again.
Yes, I agree, but if we step back in history a bit we can see the colonial period as a sort
of reverse globalization which perhaps portends a bit of optimism for the Trumpening.
I use the term open and closed borders but these are not precise. What I am really saying is
that open borders does not allow a country to filter out negative flows across their border. Closed
borders does allow a nation to impose a filter. So currently the US has more open borders (filters
are frowned upon) and China has closed borders (they can filter out what they don't want) despite
the fact that obviously China has plenty of things crossing its border.
During colonialism the 3rd world had a form of open borders imposed on it by the colonial
powers, where the 3rd world lost control of who what crossed their borders while the 1st world
themselves maintained a closed border mercantilist regime of strict filters. So the anti-colonialist
movement was a form of Trumpist economic nationalism where the evil foreigners were given the
boot and the nascent nations applied filters to their borders.
So the 3rd world to some extent (certainly in China at least) was able to overcome entropy
and regain control of their borders. You are correct in that it will be an uphill struggle for
the 1st world to repeat this trick. In the ideal world both forms of globalization (colonialism
and the current form) would be sidelined and all nations would be allowed to use the border filters
they think would best protect the prosperity of their citizens.
Another good option would be a version of the current globalization but where the losers are
the wealthy oligarchs themselves and the winners are the working classes. It's hard to imagine
it's easy if you try!
What's interesting about the concept of entropy is that it stands in contradiction to the concept
of perpetual progress. I'm sure there is some sort of thesis, antithesis, synthesis solution to
these conflicting concepts.
To overcome an entropy current requires superb skill commanding a large magnitude of work applied
densely on a small substratum (think of the evolution of the DNA, the internal combustion engine).
I believe the Trumpening laudable effort and persuasion would have a chance of success in a country
the size of The Netherlands, or even France, but the USA, the largest State machinery in the world,
hardly. When the entropy current flooded the Soviet system the solution came firstly in the form
of shrinkage.
We need to think more about it, a lot more, in order to succeed in this 1st world uphill struggle
to repeat the trick. I am pretty sure that as Pierre de Fermat famously claimed about his alleged
proof, the solution "is too large to fit in the margins of this book".
My little entropy epiphany goes like this: it's like boxes – containers, if you will, of energy
or money, or trade goods, the flow of which is best slowed down so everybody can grab some. Break
it all down, decentralize it and force it into containers which slow the pace and share the wealth.
Nationalism (my opinion) can do this – economic nationalism. And of course other
people think oh gawd, not that again – it's so inefficient for my investments- I can't get fast
returns that way but that's just the point.
Don't you mean "It was a LOWER entropy (as in "more ordered"), strongly structured socio-economic
arrangement, with a large difference in standard of living between 1st world"?
The entropy increased as a consequence of human guided globalization.
Of course, from a thermodynamic standpoint, the earth is not a closed system as it is continually
flooded with new energy in the form of solar radiation.
The Globalized Versailles Treaty -- Permit me a short laughter . The terms of the crippling
treaty were dictated by the victors largely on insecurities of France.
The crimes of the 1st against the 3rd go on even now- the only difference is that some of the
South like China and India are major nuclear powers now.
The racist crimes in the US are even more flagrant- the Blacks whose labour as slaves allowed
for cotton revolution enabling US capitalists to ride the industrial horse are yet to be rehabilitated
, Obama or no Obama. It is a matter of profound shame.
The benefits of Globalization have gone only to the cartel of 1st and 3rd World Capitalists.
And they are very happy as the lower classes keep fighting. Very happy indeed.
The gorgon cry of the past is all over the present , including in " unsuspecting" paying folks
of today! Blacks being brought to US as slave agricultural labour was Globalisation. Their energy
vibrated the machinery of Economics subsequently. What Nationalism and where is it hiding pray?
Bogus analysis here , yes.
The reigning social democratic parties in Europe today are not the Swedish traditional parties
of yesteryear they have morphed into neoliberal austerians committed to globalization and export
driven economic models at any cost (CETA vote recently) and most responsible for the economic
collapse in the EU
I wonder they chose Chinese imports as the cause of the right-wing shift, when they themselves
admit that the shift started in the 1990s. At that time, there were few Chinese imports and China
was not even part of the WHO.
If they are thinking of movements like the Lega Nord and Vlaams Blok, the reasons are clearly
not to be found in imports, but in immigration, the welfare state and lack of national homogeneity,
perceived or not.
And the beginnings of the precariat.
So it is not really the globalization of commerce that did it, but the loss of relevance of
national and local identities.
Correlation does not imply causation, but lack of correlation definitely excludes it.
The Lega was formed in the 1980s, Vlaams Blok at the end of the '70s. They both had their best
days in the 1990s. Chinese imports at the time were insignificant.
I cannot find the breakdown of Chinese imports per EU country, but here are the total Chinese
exports since 1983:
China was not a significant exporter until the 2001 inclusion in WTO: it cannot possibly
have caused populist uprisings in Italy and Belgium in the 1990s. It was probably too early even
for Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, who was killed in 2002, Le Pen's electoral success in the
same year, Austria's FPOE in 1999, and so on.
The timescales just do not match. Whatever was causing "populism", it was not Chinese imports,
and I can think of half a dozen other, more likely causes.
Furthermore, the 1980s and 1990s were something of an industrial renaissance for Lombardy and
Flanders: hardly the time to worry about Chinese imports.
And if you look at the map. the country least affected by the import shock (France) is the
one with the strongest populist movement (Le Pen).
People try to conflate Trump_vs_deep_state and Brexit with each other, then try to conflate this "anglo-saxon"
populism with previous populisms in Europe, and try to deduce something from the whole exercise.
That "something" is just not there and the exercise is pointless. IMHO at least.
European regionalism is often the result of the rise of the EU as a new, alternative national
government in the eyes of the disgruntled regions. Typically there are three levels of government,
local, regional (states) and national. With the rise of the EU we have a fourth level, supra-national.
But to the Flemish, Scottish, Catalans, etc, they see the EU as a potential replacement for the
National-level governments they currently are unhappy being under the authority of.
Capitalism should be evolving but it went backwards. Keynesian capitalism evolved from the
free market capitalism that preceded it. The absolute faith in markets had been laid low by 1929
and the Great Depression.
After the Keynesian era we went back to the old free market capitalism of neoclassical economics.
Instead of evolving, capitalism went backwards. We had another Wall Street Crash that has laid
low the once vibrant global economy and we have entered into the new normal of secular stagnation.
In the 1930s, Irving Fisher studied the debt deflation caused by debt saturated economies. Today
only a few economists outside the mainstream realise this is the problem today.
In the 1930s, Keynes realized only fiscal stimulus would pull the US out of the Great Depression,
eventually the US implemented the New Deal and it started to recover. Today we use monetary policy
that keeps asset prices up but cannot overcome the drag of all that debt in the system and its
associated repayments.
In the 1920s, they relied on debt based consumption, not realizing how consumers will eventually
become saturated with debt and demand will fail. Today we rely on debt based consumption again,
Greece consumed on debt. until it maxed out on debt and collapsed.
In the 1930s Keynes realized, income was just as important as profit as this produced a
sustainable system that does not rely on debt to maintain demand. Keynes was involved with
the Bretton-Woods agreement after the Second World War and recycled the US surplus to Europe to
restore trade when Europe lay in ruins. Europe could rebuild itself and consume US products, everyone
benefitted.
Today there are no direct fiscal transfers within the Euro-zone and it is polarizing. No one
can see the benefits of rebuilding Greece, to allow it to carry on consuming the goods from surplus
nations and it just sinks further and further into the mire. There is a lot to be said for capitalism
going forwards rather than backwards and making the same old mistakes a second time.
The ECB didn't listen and killed Greece with austerity and is laying low the Club-Med nations.
Someone who knows what they are doing, after studying the Great Depression and Japan after 1989.
Let's keep him out of the limelight; he has no place on the ship of fools running the show.
DEBT on Debt with QEs+ ZRP ( borrowing from future) was the 'solution' by Bernanke to mask
the 2008 crisis and NOT address the underlying structural reforms in the Banking and the Financial
industry. He was part of the problem for housing problem and occurred under his watch! He just
kicked the can with explosive credit growth ( but no corresponding growth in the productive Economy!)and
easy money!
We have a 'Mother of all bubbles' at our door step. Just matter of time when it will BLOW and
NOT if! There is record levels of DEBT ( both sovereign, public and private) in the history of
mankind, all over the World.
DEBT has been used as a panacea for all the financial problems by CBers including Bernanke!
Fed's balance sheet was than less 1 Trillion in 2008 ( for all the years of existence of our Country!)
but now over 3.5 Trillions and climbing!
Kicking the can down the road is like passing the buck to some one (future generations!). And
you call that solution by Mr. Bernanke? Wow!
Will they say again " No one saw this coming'? when next one descends?
The independent Central Banks that don't know what they are doing as can be seen from their
track record.
The FED presided over the dot.com bust and 2008, unaware that they were happening and of their
consequences. Alan Greenspan spots irrational exuberance in the markets in 1996 and passes comment.
As the subsequent dot.com boom and housing booms run away with themselves he says nothing.
The money supply is flat in the recession of the early 1990s.
Then it really starts to take off as the dot.com boom gets going which rapidly morphs into
the US housing boom, courtesy of Alan Greenspan's loose monetary policy.
When M3 gets closer to the vertical, the black swan is coming and you have an out of control
credit bubble on your hands (money = debt).
We can only presume the FED wasn't looking at the US money supply, what on earth were they
doing?
The BoE is aware of how money is created from debt and destroyed by repayments of that debt.
"Although commercial banks create money through lending, they cannot do so freely without
limit. Banks are limited in how much they can lend if they are to remain profitable in a competitive
banking system."
The BoE's statement was true, but is not true now as banks can securitize bad loans and get
them off their books. Before 2008, banks were securitising all the garbage sub-prime mortgages,
e.g. NINJA mortgages, and getting them off their books. Money is being created freely and without
limit, M3 is going exponential before 2008.
Bad debt is entering the system and no one is taking any responsibility for it. The credit
bubble is reflected in the money supply that should be obvious to anyone that cares to look.
Ben Bernanke studied the Great Depression and doesn't appear to have learnt very much.
Irving Fisher studied the Great Depression in the 1930s and comes up with a theory of debt
deflation. A debt inflated asset bubble collapses and the debt saturated economy sinks into debt
deflation. 2008 is the same as 1929 except a different asset class is involved.
1929 – Margin lending into US stocks
2008 – Mortgage lending into US housing
Hyman Minsky carried on with his work and came up with the "Financial Instability Hypothesis"
in 1974.
Steve Keen carried on with their work and spotted 2008 coming in 2005. We can see what Steve
Keen saw in 2005 in the US money supply graph above.
The independent Central Banks that don't know what they are doing as can be seen from their
track record.
Good to see studies confirming what was already known.
This apparently surprised:
On the contrary, as globalisation threatens the success and survival of entire industrial
districts, the affected communities seem to have voted in a homogeneous way, regardless of
each voter's personal situation.
It is only surprising for people not part of communities, those who are part of communities
see how it affects people around them and solidarity with the so called 'losers' is then shown.
Seems like radical right is the preferred term, it does make it more difficult to sympathize
with someone branded as radical right . The difference seems to be between the radical liberals
vs the conservative. The radical liberals are too cowardly to propose the laws they want, they
prefer to selectively apply the laws as they see fit. Either enforce the laws or change the laws,
anything else is plain wrong.
Socialism for the upper classes, capitalism for the lower classes? That will turn out well.
Debt slaves and wage slaves will revolt. That is all the analysis the OP requires. The upper class
will respond with suppression, not policy reversal every time. Socialism = making everyone equally
poor (obviously not for the upper classes who benefit from the arrangement).
Regrettably today we have socialism for the wealthy, with all the benefits of gov regulations,
sympathetic courts and legislatures etc. etc.
Workers are supposed to take care for themselves and the devil take the hind most. How many
workers get fired vs the 1%, when there is a failure in the company plan?
The Romans are the basis. Patricians, Equites and Plebs. Most of us here are clearly plebeian.
Time to go place some bets, watch the chariot races and gladiatorial fights, and get my bread
subsidy. Ciao.
Globalization created winners and losers throughout the world. The winners liked it, the losers
didn't. Democracy is based on the support of the majority.
The majority in the East were winners. The majority in the West were losers.
The Left has maintained its support of neoliberal globalisation in the West. The Right has
moved on. There has been a shift to the Right. Democracy is all about winners and losers and whether
the majority are winning or losing. It hasn't changed.
Globalization( along with communication -internet and transportation) made the Labor wage arbitration,
easy in favor of capital ( Multi-Nationals). Most of the jobs gone overseas will NEVER come back.
Robotic revolution will render the remaining jobs, less and less!
The 'new' Economy by passed the majority of lower 80-90% and favored the top 10%. The Losers
and the Winners!
80-90% of Bonds and Equities ( at least in USA) are owned by top 10 %. 0.7% own 45% of
global wealth. 8 billionaires own more than 50% of wealth than that of bottom 50% in our Country!
The Rich became richer!
The tension between Have and Have -Nots has just begun, as Marx predicted!
I think it's about time that we stopped referring to opposition to globalization as a product
or policy of the "extreme right". It would be truer to say that globalization represents a temporary,
and now fading, triumph of certain ideas about trade and movement of people and capital which
have always existed, but were not dominant in the past. Fifty years ago, most mainstream political
parties were "protectionist" in the sense the word is used today. Thirty years ago, protectionism
was often seen as a left)wing idea, to preserve standards of living and conditions of employment
(Wynne Godley and co). Today, all establishment political parties in the West have swallowed neoliberal
dogma, so the voters turn elsewhere, to parties outside the mainstream. Often, it's convenient
politically to label them "extreme right", although in Europe some left-wing parties take basically
the same position. If you ignore peoples' interests, they won't vote for you. Quelle surprise!
as Yves would say.
Yes, there are many reasons to be skeptical of too much globalization such as energy considerations.
I think another interesting one is exchange rates.
One of the important concepts of MMT is the importance of having a flexible exchange rate to
have full power over your currency. This is fine as far as it goes but tends to put hard currencies
against soft currencies where a hard currency can be defined as one that has international authority/acceptance.
Having flexible exchange rates also opens up massive amounts of financial speculation relative
to fluctuations of these currencies against each other and trying to protect against these fluctuations.
""Keynes' proposal of the bancor was to put a barrier between national currencies, that is
to have a currency of account at the global level. Keynes warned that free trade, flexible exchange
rates and free movement of capital globally were incompatible with maintaining full employment
at the local level""
""Sufficiency provisioning also means that trade would be discouraged rather than encouraged.""
Local currencies can work very well locally to promote employment but can have trouble when
they reach out to get resources outside of their currency space especially if they have a soft
currency. Global sustainability programs need to take a closer look at how to overcome this sort
of social injustice. (Debt or Democracy)
As has already been pointed out so eloquently here in the comments section, economic nationalism
is not necessarily the preserve of the right, nor is it necessarily the same thing as nationalism.
In the UK the original, most vociferous objectors to EEC membership in the 70s (now the EU)
were traditionally the Left, on the basis that it would gradually erode labour rights and devalue
the cost of labour in the longer term. Got that completely wrong obviously .
In the same way that global trade has become synonymous with globalisation, the immigration
debate has been hijacked and cynically conflated with free movement of (mainly low cost, unskilled)
labour and race when they are all VERY different divisive issues.
The other point alluded to in the comments above is the nature of free trade generally. The
accepted (neoliberal) wisdom being that 'collateral damage' is unfortunate but inevitable, but
it is pretty much an unstoppable or uncontrollable force for the greater global good, and the
false dichotomy persists that you either embrace it fully or pull up all the drawbridges with
nothing in between.
One of the primary reasons that some competing sectors of some Western economies have done
so badly out of globalisation is that they have adhered to 'free market principles' whilst other
countries, particularly China, clearly have not with currency controls, domestic barriers to trade,
massive state subsidies, wage suppression etc
The China aspect is also fascinating when developed nations look at the uncomfortable 'morality
of global wealth distribution' often cited by proponents of globalisation as one of their wider
philanthropic goals. Bless 'em. What is clear is that highly populated China and most of its people,
from the bottom to the top, has been the primary beneficiaries of this global wealth redistribution,
but the rest of the developing world's poor clearly not quite so much.
The map on it's own, in terms of the English one time industrial Midlands & North West being
shown as an almost black hole, is in itself a kind of " Nuff Said ".
It is also apart from London, where the vast bulk of immigrants have settled.
The upcoming bye-election in Stoke, which could lead to U-Kip taking a once traditionally always
strong Labour seat, is right in the middle of that dark cloud.
The problem from the UK 's position, I suggest, is that autarky is not a viable proposition
so economic nationalism becomes a two-edged sword. Yes, of course, the UK can place restrictions
on imports and immigration but there will inevitably be retaliation and they will enter a game
of beggar my neighbour. The current government talks of becoming a beacon for free trade. If we
are heading to a more protectionist world, that can only end badly IMHO.
Unless we get some meaningful change in thinking on a global scale, I think we are heading
somewhere very dark whatever the relative tinkering with an essentially broken system.
The horse is long gone, leaving a huge pile of shit in it's stable.
As for what might happen, I do not know, but I have the impression that we are at the end of
a cycle.
This is quite interesting, but only part of the story. Interestingly the districts/provinces
suffering the most from the chinese import shock are usually densely populated industrial regions
of Europe. The electoral systems in Europe (I think all, but I did not check) usually do not weight
equally each district, favouring those less populated, more rural (which by the way tend to be
very conservative but not so nationalistic). These differences in vote weigthing may have somehow
masked the effect seen in this study if radical nationalistic rigth wing votes concentrate in
areas with lower weigthed value of votes. For instance, in Spain, the province of Soria is mostly
rural and certainly less impacted by chinese imports compared with, for instance, Madrid. But
1 vote in Soria weigths the same as 4 votes in Madrid in number of representatives in the congress.
This migth, in part, explain why in Spain, the radical rigth does not have the same power as in
Austria or the Netherlands. It intuitively fits the hypothesis of this study.
Nevertheless, similar processes can occur in rural areas. For instance, when Spain entered
the EU, french rural areas turned nationalistic against what they thougth could be a wave of agricultural
imports from Spain. Ok, agricultural globalization may have less impact in terms of vote numbers
in a given country but it still can be politically very influential. In fact spanish entry more
that 30 years ago could still be one of the forces behind Le Penism.
All this statistical math and yada yada to explain a rise in vote for radical right from 3%
in 1985 to 5% now on average? And only a 0.7% marginal boost if your the place really getting
hammmered by imports from China? If I'm reading it right, that is, while focusing on Figure 2.
The real "shock" no pun intended, is the vote totals arent a lot higher everywhere.
Then the Post concludes with reference to a "surge in support" - 3% to 5% or so over 30 years
is a surge? The line looks like a pretty steady rise over 3 decades.
Maybe I'm missing sommething here.
Also what is this thing they're callling an "Open World" of the past 30 years? And why is that
in danger from more balanced trade? It makes no sense. Even back in the 60s and 70s people could
go alll over the world for vacations. Or at least most places they coould go. If theh spent their
money they'd make friends. Greece even used to be a goood place people went and had fun on a beach.
I think this one is a situation of math runing amuck. Math running like a thousand horses over
a hill trampling every blade of grass into mud.
I bet the China factor is just a referent for an entire constellatio of forces that probably
don't lend themselves (no pun intended) partiicularly well to social science and principal component
analysis - as interesting as that is for those who are interested in that kind of thing (which
I am acctually).
Also, I wouldn't call this "free trade". Not that the authors do either, but trade means reciprocity
not having your livelihood smashed the like a pinata at Christmas with all your candy eaten by
your "fellow countrymen". I wouldn't call that "trade". It's something else.
Regarding your first point, it is a small effect but it is all due to the China imports impact,
you have to add the growth of these parties due to other reasons such as immigration to get the
full picture of their growth. Also I think the recent USA election was decided by smaller percentage
advantages in three States?
Globalisation is nothing but free trade extended to the entire world. Free trade is a tool
used to prevent competition. By flooding countries with our cheaper exports, they do not develop
the capacity to compete with us by making their own widgets. So, why are we shocked when those
other countries return the favor and when they get the upper hand, we respond in a protectionist
way? It looks to me that those countries who are now competing with us in electronics, automobiles,
etc. only got to develop those industries in their countries because of protectionism.
Refugees in great numbers are a symptom of globalization, especially economic refugees but
also political and environmental ones. This has strained the social order in many countries that
have accepted them in and it's one of the central issues that the so-called "right" is highlighting.
It is no surprise there has been an uproar over immigration policy in the US which is an issue
of class as much as foreign policy because of the disenfranchisement of large numbers of workers
on both sides of the equation - those who lost their jobs to outsourcing and those who emigrated
due to the lack of decent employment opportunities in their own countries.
We're seeing the tip of the iceberg. What will happen when the coming multiple environmental
calamities cause mass starvation and dislocation of coastal populations? Walls and military forces
can't deter hungry, desperate, and angry people.
The total reliance and gorging on fossil energy by western countries, especially the US, has
mandated military aggression to force compliance in many areas of the world. This has brought
a backlash of perpetual terrorism. We are living under a dysfunctional system ruled by sociopaths
whose extreme greed is leading to world war and environmental collapse.
Who created the REFUGEE PROBLEMS in the ME – WEST including USA,UK++
Obama's DRONE program kept BOMBING in SEVEN Countries killing innocents – children and women!
All in the name of fighting Terrorism. Billions of arms to sale Saudi Arabia! Wow!
Where were the Democrats and the Resistance and Women's march? Hypocrites!
Globalisation has caused a surge in support for nationalist and radical right political
platforms.
Just a reminder that nationalism doesn't have to be associated with the radical right. The left
is not required to reject it, especially when it can be understood as basically patriotism, expressed
as solidarity with all of your fellow citizens.
Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership seems to be a move in that direction.
Well, that may be true as far as Trump's motivations are concerned, but a major component (the
most important?) of the TPP was strong restraint of trade, a protectionist measure, by intellectual
property owners.
Yet, a return to protectionism is not likely to solve the problems of those who have lost
ground due to globalisation without appropriate compensation of its 'losers'
Japan has long been 'smart' protectionist, and this has helped prevent the 'loser' problem, in
part because Japan, being nationalist, makes it a very high priority to create/maintain a society
in which almost all Japanese are more or less middle class. So, it is a fact that protectionism
has been and can be associated with more egalitarian societies, in which there are few 'losers'
like we see in the West. But the U.S. and most Western countries have a long way to go if they
decide to make the effort to be more egalitarian. And, of course, protectionism alone is not enough
to make most of the losers into winners again. You'll need smart skills training, better education
all around, fewer low-skill immigrants, time, and, most of all strong and long-term commitment
to making full employment at good wages national priority number one.
and is bound to harm growth especially in emerging economies.
Growth has been week since the 2008, even though markets are as free as they've ever been. Growth
requires a lot more consumers with willingness and cash to spend on expensive, high-value-added
goods. So, besides the world finally escaping the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, exporting
countries need prosperous consumers either at home or abroad, and greater economic security. And
if a little bit of protectionism generates more consumer prosperity and economic stability, exporting
countries might benefit overall.
The world rather needs a more inclusive model of globalisation.
Well, yes, the world needs more inclusivity, but globalization doesn't need to be part of the
picture. Keep your eyes on the prize: inclusivity/equality, whether latched onto nationally, regionally,
'internationally' or globally, any which way is fine! But prioritization of globalization over
those two is likely a victory for more inequality, for more shoveling of our wealth up to the
ruling top 1%.
"... In the conclusion, he says "I argued that it is the roach motel of currencies. Like the Hotel
California of the song: you can check in, but you can't check out." To be precise, that's true of the
Roach Motel (see here , if you don't know what that's all about), but, according to the Eagles, you
can actually check out of the Hotel California, though you can never leave (hmm... sounds kind of like
"Brexit"...). ..."
"... In any case, the fact it hangs together because eurozone members feel trapped by the costs
of exit is hardly an affirmative case for the single currency. ..."
Barry Eichengreen column headlined "Don't Sell the Euro Short. It's Here to Stay"
He writes:
Two forms of glue hold the euro together. First, the economic costs of break-up would be great.
The minute investors heard that Greece was seriously contemplating reintroducing the drachma with
the purpose of depreciating it against the euro, or against a "new Deutsche mark," they would
wire all their money to Frankfurt. Greece would experience the mother of all banking crises. The
"new Deutsche mark" would then shoot through the roof, destroying Germany's export industry.
More generally, those predicting, or advocating, the euro's demise tend to underestimate the
technical difficulties of reintroducing national currencies.
In the conclusion, he says "I argued that it is the roach motel of currencies. Like the Hotel
California of the song: you can check in, but you can't check out." To be precise, that's true of
the Roach Motel (see here
, if you don't know what that's all about), but,
according to the Eagles,
you can actually check out of the Hotel California, though you can never leave (hmm... sounds
kind of like "Brexit"...).
In any case, the fact it hangs together because eurozone members feel trapped by the costs
of exit is hardly an affirmative case for the single currency. In Greece's case, its hard to
believe that the costs of exit really would have been higher than the costs of staying; this
FT Alphablog post by Matthew Klein pointed out this figure from the
IMF's Article IV report :
The fact that the eurozone rolls on with no sign that a depression in one of its smaller constituent
economies is enough to bring about a fundamental change is disturbing. It wouldn't be able to ignore
an election of Marine LePen as President of France -
Gavyn Davies
considers the consequences of that.
"The fact that the eurozone rolls on with no sign that a depression in one of its smaller
constituent economies is enough to bring about a fundamental change is disturbing."
Why so? Isn't it in fact encouraging, a sign that the eurozone can withstand such problems
(especially a problem in one of its smaller economies)? There's scant reason to think it would
be a good thing if the eurozone opted for "fundamental change" every time one of its constituent
nations experienced a problem.
Fair enough - it is true that the Greek crisis didn't cause the euro to break up at least.
But I think what happened in Greece (and Ireland to an extent) is more than a local problem; it
revealed a fundamental design flaw which they haven't fully confronted - the lack of a "banking
union". From the outset, economists doubted whether the euro area met the traditional criteria
for an optimum currency area (OCA), and those issues are relevant, but I think Greece shows that
a banking union (i.e., shared lender of last resort, banking regulation and deposit insurance)
is necessary to make it work. I.e., if Greek banks were european banks, the bank-sovereign "doom
loop" could be circumvented. The euro area needs a way for countries to go bankrupt without bringing
their banks down with them.
I tend to agree with you regarding the necessity for a "banking union"; not having one is
indeed a design flaw, and no, it hasn't been confronted. Does that mean the eurozone's days are
numbered? Could be, but of course we won't know for certain-sure until the breakup does (or doesn't)
happen. So it goes.
...So my question for the degrowth community is whether declining investment is an occasion
for celebration? Does this mean that economic policy is actually getting something right?
Here's one answer I won't accept: we don't care about growth in general, just growth of bad
stuff, like fossil fuels, accumulation of waste, destruction of coastlines, etc. That isn't a
degrowth position. Everyone wants more of the good and less of the bad, however they define it.
I'm in favor of only toothsome pizza crusts and I'm dead set against the soggy kind, but that's
not the same as being on a diet.
This is a practical, policy-relevant question. There are many smart economists trying to understand
the investment slump so they can devise policies to turn it around. You'll notice this concern
is prominent in the writing on increasing industrial concentration, the shareholder value obsession,
globalization and outsourcing, and other topics. The goal of these researchers is to reform corporate
and market structure in order to restore a higher rate of investment, among other things. That
of course would tend to accelerate economic growth. So what's the degrowth position on all this?
Should economists be looking for additional measures to discourage investment?
Again, please don't tell me that it's just investment in "bads" that needs to be discouraged.
That's a given across the entire spectrum of economic rationality (which is admittedly somewhat
narrower than the political spectrum). In the aggregate, is it good that investment is trending
down?
My own view, as readers of this blog will know (see here and here), is that degrowth is a suicide
cult masquerading as a political position. I'm pretty sure that radically transforming our economy
to make it sustainable will involve a tremendous amount of investment and new production, and
it seems clear to me that boosting living standards through more and better consumption is both
politically and ethically essential. But I could be wrong. I would sincerely appreciate intelligent
arguments from the degrowth side.
[Asked and answered, sort of. Degrowth or beneficial degrowth is relative to what metrics (i.e.,
resources rather than capital) and realistically a far enough ways from where we are now to be
moot.]
I think this is too simplistic. There is (and has always been) a growing realization that more
is not always better. This insight is not uniform for any given geographic or socioeconomic population
group, but often informed by how one relates to the economic process (which correlates with age),
individually as well as at the peer group level.
When a larger group is exposed to a situation where the trappings of success are hard to obtain
(e.g. younger people coming out of school/college into a bad job market), or where there is an
appearance that new technology/gadgets may be initially exciting but don't really translate into
better quality of life or better effectiveness of work/activities ("productivity"), or even degrade
either (more typical for older people who are not seeing new gadgets/technologies for the first
time?), then rejection of whatever is proclaimed as "improvement" can become socially acceptable.
I'm also at the point where I don't really want new stuff, because my impression is that it
is generally not better than the previous edition, or if better, then not better in a write-home-about-it
way. And the realization many acquisitions create more liabilities than benefits in the long term
(for one thing, accumulation of junk and need to throw out "something" - which I may not really
want to throw out).
Trump Chooses H.R. McMaster as National
Security Adviser
https://nyti.ms/2lo3mNK
NYT - PETER BAKER - February 20, 2017
WASHINGTON - President Trump picked Lt. Gen. H.R.
McMaster, a widely respected military strategist, as his new
national security adviser on Monday, calling him "a man of
tremendous talent and tremendous experience."
Mr. Trump made the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago getaway
in Palm Beach, Fla., where he has been interviewing
candidates to replace Michael T. Flynn, who was forced out
after withholding information from Vice President Mike Pence
about a call with Russia's ambassador.
The choice continued Mr. Trump's reliance on high-ranking
military officers to advise him on national security. Mr.
Flynn was a retired three-star general and Defense Secretary
Jim Mattis is a retired four-star general. His first choice
to replace Mr. Flynn, who turned the job down, and two other
finalists were current or former senior officers as well.
Shortly before announcing his appointment, Mr. Trump wrote
on Twitter: "Meeting with Generals at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Very interesting!"
General McMaster is seen as one of the Army's leading
intellectuals, first making a name for himself with a searing
critique of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their performance
during the Vietnam War and later criticizing the way
President George W. Bush's administration went to war in
Iraq.
As a commander, he was credited with demonstrating how a
different counterterrorism strategy could defeat insurgents
in Iraq, providing the basis for the change in approach that
Gen. David H. Petraeus adopted to shift momentum in a war
that the United States was on the verge of losing.
A problem with today's views about globalization is that they look backward rather than forward.
The future's globalization is much different from the past's globalization. In particular, growing
nationalism is the future in the places, such as China, that have benefited from globalization.
By that I mean China is beginning to produce goods for China firms rather than for western firms
to compete with goods produced for western (American) firms including goods produced in China
for western firms.
It's a much different dynamic than what we have experienced in the past 30 years. And the response
to the new globalization should (and will) be much different.
Ironically, Trump's views about globalization come closer to what will be the response as western
firms adjust to the new globalization. Is Trump that smart? No, it's just that everybody else
is that dumb.
"... The revival of nationalism in western Europe, which began in the 1990s, has been associated
with increasing support for radical right parties. This column uses trade and election data to show
that the radical right gets its biggest electoral boost in regions most exposed to Chinese exports.
Within these regions communities vote homogenously, whether individuals work in affected industries
or not. ..."
"... "Chinese imports" is only an expression, or correlate, of something else - the neoliberal YOYO
principle and breakdown/deliberate destruction of social cohesion ..."
"... As a side effect, this removes the collective identity, and increased tribalism is the compensation
- a large part it is an attempt to find/associate with a group identity, which of course gives a large
boost to readily available old identities, which were in the past (ab)used by nationalist movements,
largely for the same reasons. ..."
The revival of nationalism in western Europe, which began in the 1990s, has been associated
with increasing support for radical right parties. This column uses trade and election data to
show that the radical right gets its biggest electoral boost in regions most exposed to Chinese
exports. Within these regions communities vote homogenously, whether individuals work in affected
industries or not.
"Chinese imports" is only an expression, or correlate, of something else - the neoliberal
YOYO principle and breakdown/deliberate destruction of social cohesion.
As a side effect, this removes the collective identity, and increased tribalism is the
compensation - a large part it is an attempt to find/associate with a group identity, which of
course gives a large boost to readily available old identities, which were in the past (ab)used
by nationalist movements, largely for the same reasons.
It seems to be quite apparent to me that the loss of national/local identity has not (initially?)
promoted nationalist movements advocating a stronger national identity narrative, but a "rediscovery"
of regional identities - often based on or similar to the geography of former kingdoms or principalities
prior to national unification, or more local municipal structures (e.g. local administrations,
business, or interest groups promoting a historical narrative of a municipal district as the village
or small town that it descended from, etc. - with the associated idyllic elements).
In many cases these historical identity narratives had always been undercurrents, even when
the nation state was strong.
And I mean strong not in the military or executive strength sense, but accepted as legitimate
and representing the population and its interests.
In these days, national goverments and institutions (state/parties) have been largely discredited,
not least due to right wing/elite propaganda (and of course due to observed corruption promoted
from the same side).
I'm not aware that either have discredited any deep state (BTW which Clinton?). The first thing
I would ask for is clarification what you mean by "deep state" - can you provide a usable definition?
Obama has rejected calls for going after US torturers ("we want to move past this").
And if you don't know where the 6 months of innuendo about the Russians comes from since Aug
16 you are reading the treasonous agitprop from the democrat wind machine centered in NY, Boston
and LA.
I'm not sure this answers my question, and it seems to accuse me of something I have not said
or implied (taking treason lightly) - or perhaps cautioning me against such?
Are you willing to define the terms you are discussing? (Redirecting me to a google search
etc. will not address my question. How exactly do you define "deep state"? You can quote from
the internet of course.)
From a previous life I know a concept of "a state within the state" (concretely referring to
the East German Stasi and similar services in other "communist" countries in concept but only
vaguely in the details). That is probably related to this, but I don't want to base any of this
on speculation and unclear terms.
1) Mexican workers are paid ~$1 an
hour and US workers doing the same work are paid ~$13 hour
and US plants are closing and moving to Mexico
and
2) ..."But some companies that produce goods in Mexico say
there's no going back to the U.S. That includes Delphi.
The company just announced a plan for more layoffs in
Warren, where only 1,500 employees remain.
Speaking at Barclay's Global Automotive Conference in New
York in December, Delphi's chief financial officer Joe
Massaro explained what he thought would happen to Delphi
under several Trump trade scenarios.
If Trump were to close the border with Mexico outright,
"in less than a week, all the people who voted for him in
Michigan and Ohio would be out of work," Massaro argued,
underscoring the fact that many factories in the U.S.,
including car makers in Detroit, depend on parts made in
Mexico.
If the United States were to withdraw from NAFTA and start
taxing imports from Mexico again, Delphi would continue doing
business in Mexico, he said. The company would pass on the
extra cost to its suppliers or to consumers, or would find a
way to reduce its production costs - which could mean layoffs
or salary cuts in Mexico."...
Trump can't fix that discrepancy in worker pay. Reagan's
so-called Free Trade began a race to the bottom for US
workers. It was known and discussed at the time. Reagan and
the Republican Party did not stand up for US workers and
neither did the Democrats in the day. Workers pay was
bartered off for cheaper goods to be bought at our stores.
That's the bargain made by Wall Street and D.C. and accepted
by American Workers who liked paying less at the store, not
realizing it meant they would be paid less - eventually.
And they certainly never dreamed it meant that in 20+
years their jobs would disappear overseas too.
"... Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters discuss the bitter establishment's desperation to manufacture a Trump scandal ..."
"... Most people don't know that after the 134 men died on the Forrestal fire in 1967 McCain was the ONLY person helicoptered off the ship. It was done for his own safety as many on the ship blamed him for causing the fire by "wet" starting his jet causing a plume of fire to shoot out his plane's exhaust and into the plane behind McCain causing the ordnance to cook off on that jet. McCain then panicked and dropped his own bombs onto the deck making matters much worse. McCain should have ended his career in jail. Oh, wait, he kinda did, maybe karma justice? ..."
"... FakeStream Media ..."
"... The very Fake Media has met their match ..."
Pete Hegseth and Jesse Watters discuss the bitter establishment's desperation to manufacture
a Trump scandal
TheBase1aransas 3 minutes ago
Alvina I think people that believe in freedom is not only the Best thing, but what built it.
We finally have Trump to speak for us.
Christine Lesch 4 hours ago
McCains a shumuck
Herbert Stewart 11 minutes ago
@Christine Lesch
I feel sorry for Arizona they are stuck with this guy. he needs to change parties
he had his turn and LOST1 america first!
Geoffry Allan
it appears quite apparent
that you people are really sad. trump is above all else, a good american. so.... stop being a
moron.
hexencoff 3 hours ago
no one gives a shit what John McCain says he's a scumbag!
hexencoff 3 hours ago
Jodi Boin i hope so too it's honestly very scary how far we have regressed as a country we are
fighting about the same things from 50 years ago everyone has their own beliefs and opinions and
some how adult conversation has been thrown away i mean we are still fighting over race relations
for crying out loud
Louis John 2 hours ago
@hexencoff
McCain is a trouble maker. supporter of the terrorist and warmonger Iraq Libya
Syria he is behind all the trouble scumbag
Gary M 3 hours ago
McCain is a globalist
belaghoulashi 2 hours ago
(edited) McCain has always been full of horseshit. And he has always relied on people calling
him a hero to get away with it. That schtick is old, the man is a monumental failure for this
country, and he needs to have his sorry butt kicked.
ryvr madduck 1 hour ago
+belaghoulashi
Most people don't know that after the 134 men died on the Forrestal fire in 1967 McCain was the
ONLY person helicoptered off the ship. It was done for his own safety as many on the ship blamed
him for causing the fire by "wet" starting his jet causing a plume of fire to shoot out his plane's
exhaust and into the plane behind McCain causing the ordnance to cook off on that jet. McCain
then panicked and dropped his own bombs onto the deck making matters much worse. McCain should
have ended his career in jail. Oh, wait, he kinda did, maybe karma justice?
Michael Cambo 4 hours ago
When you start to drain the swamp, the swamp creatures start to show.
Alexus Highfield 3 hours ago
@Michael Cambo
don't they...they do say shit floats.
Geoffry Allan 41 minutes ago
@Michael Cambo
- Trump has not drained the swamp he has surrounded himself with billionaires in his cabinet who
don't give a damn about the working middle class who struggle e eryday to make a living -
explain to me how he is draining the swamp
tim sparks 3 hours ago
Trump is trying so fucking hard to do a good job for us.
Integrity Truth-seeker 2 hours ago
@tim sparks
He is not trying... HE IS DOING IT... Like A Boss. Thank God Mark Taylor Prophecies
2017 the best is yet to come
Jodi Boin 3 hours ago
McCain is a traitor and is bought and paid for by Soros.
Grant Davidson 4 hours ago
Love him or hate him. The guy is a frikkin Genius...
Patrick Reagan 4 hours ago
FakeStream Media
Michael Cambo 4 hours ago
@Patrick Reagan
Very FakeStream Media
aspengold5 4 hours ago
I am so disappointed in McCain.
orlando pablo 4 hours ago
my 401k is keep on going up....thank u mr trump....
Dumbass Libtard 3 hours ago
McCain is not a Republican. He is a loser. Yuge difference.1
Mitchel Colvin 3 hours ago
Shut up McCain! I can't stand this clown anymore! Unfortunately, Arizona re-elected him for six
more years!
robert barham 4 hours ago
The very Fake Media has met their match
H My ways of thinking! 3 hours ago
Why does everyone feel that if they don't kiss McCain's ass, they are being un American? Mccain
has sold out to George Soros. He is a piece of shit who is guilty of no less than treason! Look
up the definition for treason if you're in doubt!
Sam Nardo 3 hours ago
(edited) Mc Cain and Graham are two of the best democrats in the GOP. They are called RINOS
kazzicup 3 hours ago
We love and support our President Donald Trump. The media is so dishonest. CNN = Criminal News
Network.
Geoffry Allan 34 minutes ago
@kazzicup - yeah if you get rid of the media Trump becomes
a dictator - is that what you want he will censor everything and tell you what he wants - Trump
is still president and he is doing his job and fulfilling his promises even though the media is
there and reporting - so what's the problem - I don't want a got damn dictator running this country
- if you don't like the media then just listen to Trump - 2nd amendment free speech and the right
to bear arms we have to respect it even if we may disagree
The "neoliberal establishment" (aka Washington Swamp) is deeply unpopular with American people.
Trump is not that popular, but he definitely less unpopular. Such statements s of "the
national media is the enemy" would be unthinkable a decade or two ago.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Media is the enemy. They are minor birds, repeaters of what the establishment wants parroted. They can no longer be considered American citizen friendly. They are indeed part of the Swamp to be drained. ..."
The National Media is the enemy. They are minor birds, repeaters of what the establishment
wants parroted. They can no longer be considered American citizen friendly. They are indeed part
of the Swamp to be drained.
Like former, despise current president matters not. We are still a nation of laws. The people
have spoken. We want the laws followed period. CNN, MSNBC, and others who continue to go after
our president will be met with an unbridled wave of conservative determination to restore law
and order.
Flynn could have said something
"inappropriate" by a Clintonista definition of "inappropriate", and he "could" be prosecuted
under a law designed to muzzle US citizens, that has never been tried bc a Bill of rights argument
would win!
How do you like the NKVD libruls afraid of Trump bringing fascism who were running
a gestapo (the FBI wiring tapping other country's Ministers) on US citizens of the opposing
party?
If the fascists are coming they would keep Obama's FBI!
Be worried: maybe they can. Since the hounding of Flynn, Trump has joined the
anti-Russia bandwagon, demanding that Russia return to Crimea to Ukraine, and making no
mention of removing sanctions. So all the threats and intimidation from the "intelligence
community" and the MSM
worked
, didn't they? Waiting for Trump to show some
real guts here. Waiting
"... The neocons and neoliberals want war. The cia/fbi/nsa wants to take away my freedom. The fake news wants to spread lies. This military industrial complex wants to send hundreds of millions to their deaths. As a nation, we are fucked. I'm guessing lots of innocent people are going to be slaughtered in the name of freedom. ..."
A Medical Theory for Donald Trump's Bizarre Behavior ... Many mental health professionals believe the president is ill. But what if the cause is an untreated STD? ... Al Franken recently raised a provocative question about Donald Trump: Is he mentally ill? On HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher last week, the Minnesota senator claimed that some of his Republican colleagues have "great concern about the president's temperament," adding that "there's a range in what they'll say, and some will say that he's not right mentally. And some are harsher." Two days later, he told CNN's Jake Tapper, "We all have this suspicion that-you know, that he's not-he lies a lot And, you know, that is not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a human being." -
The New Republic
So according to the The New Republic, President Donald Trump may have syphilis and should explore
treatment option as necessary with his personal physician.
He may have contracted it, according to the magazine, in the 1970s of 1980s when syphilis was on
the rise. If he didn't get it treated, it would be far advanced by now.
Advanced syphilis, neurosyphilis, and manifest itself in numerous ways, according to the article.
"Commonly recognized symptoms include irritability, loss of ability to concentrate, delusional thinking,
and grandiosity. Memory, insight, and judgment can become impaired. Insomnia may occur. Visual problems
may develop, including the inability of pupils to react to the light. This, along other ocular pathology,
can result in photophobia, dimming of vision, and squinting. All of these things have been observed
in Trump. Dementia, headaches, gait disturbances. and patchy hair loss can also be seen in later
stages of syphilis."
The neocons and neoliberals want war. The cia/fbi/nsa wants to take away my freedom. The fake news wants to spread lies. This military industrial complex wants to send hundreds of millions to their deaths. As a nation, we are fucked. I'm guessing lots of innocent people are going to be slaughtered in the name of freedom.
Interesting. When Hillary was followed by an ambulance, had crazy eyes, needed to be carried
to her car from time to time, had spasms, was delusional, was irritable, and had a dozen other
symptoms of medical problems, the media whores told us that she had pneumonia for one day. Now
they tell us that someone who puts them in their place is mentally ill. They are digging their
own grave. Soon nobody will believe the retard media.
Hard to believe the New Republic wasn't being satirical with their "syphilis" theory.
It seems that psychiatry wishes to make every personality type a disorder, in an effort to
convince people that their specialty is based on science and perhaps to drum up business, so Trump
has "Narcissistic Personality Disorder".
Narcissim is pretty common in US presidents, and is seen as a positive trait in many respects.
Research has estimated that the average US president's narcissism is about a standard deviation
beyond the average citizen – and even higher than that of the average reality television star.
We also know that narcissism in US presidents is linked to ratings of greatness. Highly narcissistic
presidents like Lyndon Johnson are leaders who make big changes. Less narcissistic presidents
like Jimmy Carter are rated as mediocre (but, in the case of Carter, also regarded as admired
ex-presidents because they are seen as moral and caring).
The globalist mafia is trying to destroy Trump. There might be the same part of intelligence
community which is still loyal to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Still Flynn discussing sanctions, which could have been a violation of an 18th century
law, the Logan Act, that bars unauthorized citizens from brokering deals with foreign governments
involved in disputes with the United States.
Keith Kellogg links with Oracle my be as asset to Trump team.
As far back as the passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11, civil libertarians worried about
the surveillance state, the Panopticon, the erosion of privacy rights and due process in the name
of national security.
Paranoid fantasies were floated that President George W. Bush was monitoring the library cards
of political dissidents. Civil libertarians hailed NSA contractor Edward Snowden as a hero, or at
least accepted him as a necessary evil, for exposing the extent of Internet surveillance under President
Barack Obama.
Will civil libertarians now speak up for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whose
career has been destroyed with a barrage of leaked wiretaps? Does anyone care if those leaks were
accurate or legal?
Over the weekend, a few honest observers of the Flynn imbroglio
noted that none of the strategically leaked intercepts of his conversations with Russian Ambassador
Sergey Kislyak proved he actually did anything wrong .
The media fielded accusations that Flynn discussed lifting the Obama administration's sanctions
on Russia – a transgression that would have been a serious violation of pre-inauguration protocol
at best, and a prosecutable offense at worst. Flynn ostensibly sealed his fate by falsely assuring
Vice President Mike Pence he had no such discussions with Kislyak, prompting Pence to issue a robust
defense of Flynn that severely embarrassed Pence in retrospect.
On Tuesday, Eli Lake of
Bloomberg News joined the chorus of skeptics who said the hive of anonymous leakers infesting
the Trump administration never leaked anything that proved Flynn lied to Pence:
He says in his resignation letter that he did not deliberately leave out elements of his conversations
with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he recounted them to Vice President Mike Pence. The New York
Times and Washington Post reported that the transcript of the phone call reviewed over the weekend
by the White House could be read different ways. One White House official with knowledge of the
conversations told me that the Russian ambassador raised the sanctions to Flynn and that Flynn
responded that the Trump team would be taking office in a few weeks and would review Russia policy
and sanctions . That's neither illegal nor improper.
Lake also noted that leaks of sensitive national security information, such as the transcripts
of Flynn's phone calls to Kislyak, are extremely rare. In their rush to collect a scalp from
the Trump administration, the media forgot to tell its readers how unusual and alarming the Flynn-quisition
was:
It's very rare that reporters are ever told about government-monitored communications of U.S.
citizens, let alone senior U.S. officials. The last story like this to hit Washington was in 2009
when Jeff Stein, then of CQ, reported on intercepted phone calls between a senior Aipac lobbyist
and Jane Harman, who at the time was a Democratic member of Congress.
Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government
secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored
by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of
anonymity. This is what police states do.
In the past it was considered scandalous for senior U.S. officials to even request the identities
of U.S. officials incidentally monitored by the government (normally they are redacted from intelligence
reports). John Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was derailed in
2006 after the NSA confirmed he had made 10 such requests when he was Undersecretary of State
for Arms Control in George W. Bush's first term. The fact that the intercepts of Flynn's conversations
with Kislyak appear to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag.
While President Trump contemplated Flynn's fate on Monday evening, the
Wall Street Journal suggested: "How about asking if the spooks listening to Mr. Flynn
obeyed the law?" Among the questions the WSJ posed was whether intelligence agents secured proper
FISA court orders for the surveillance of Flynn.
That s the sort of question that convulsed the entire political spectrum, from liberals to libertarians,
after the Snowden revelations. Not long ago, both Democrats and Republicans were deeply concerned
about accountability and procedural integrity for the sprawling surveillance apparatus developed
by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Those are among the most serious concerns of the
Information Age, and they should not be cast aside in a mad dash to draw some partisan blood.
There are several theories as to exactly who brought Flynn down and why. Was it an internal White
House power struggle, the work of Obama administration holdovers, or the alligators of the "Deep
State" lunging to take a bite from the president who promised to "drain the swamp?"
The
Washington Free Beacon has sources who say Flynn's resignation is "the culmination of
a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald
Trump's national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran."
Flynn has prominently opposed that deal. According to the Free Beacon, this "small task
force of Obama loyalists" are ready to waylay anyone in the Trump administration who threatens the
Iran deal, their efforts coordinated by the sleazy Obama adviser who boasted of his ability to manipulate
the press by feeding them lies, Ben Rhodes.
Some observers are chucking at the folly of Michael Flynn daring to take on the intelligence community,
and paying the price for his reckless impudence. That is not funny – it is terrifying. In
fact, it is the nightmare of the rogue NSA come to life, the horror story that kept privacy advocates
tossing in their sheets for years.
Michael Flynn was appointed by the duly elected President of the United States. He certainly should
not have been insulated from criticism, but if he was brought down by entrenched, unelected agency
officials, it is nearly a coup – especially if, as Eli Lake worried on Twitter, Flynn's resignation
inspires further attacks with even higher-ranking targets:
Lake's article caught the eye of President Trump, who endorsed his point that intelligence and
law enforcement agencies should not interfere in U.S. politics:
Thank you to Eli Lake of The Bloomberg View – "The NSA & FBI should not interfere in our politics and
is" Very serious situation for USA
On the other hand, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard openly endorsed the Deep State overthrowing
the American electorate and overturning the results of the 2016 election:
Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to
it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state.
Among the many things hideously wrong with this sentiment is that the American people know absolutely
nothing about the leakers who brought Flynn down, and might be lining up their next White House targets
at this very moment. We have no way to evaluate their motives or credibility. We didn't vote for
them, and we will have no opportunity to vote them out of office if we dissent from their agenda.
As mentioned above, we do not know if the material they are leaking is accurate .
Byron York of the Washington Examiner addressed the latter point by calling for full disclosure:
Important that entire transcript of Flynn-Kislyak conversation be released. Leakers have already
cherrypicked. Public needs to see it all.
That is no less important with Flynn's resignation in hand. We still need to know the full story
of his downfall. The American people deserve to know who is assaulting the government they voted
for in 2016. They deserve protection from the next attempt to manipulate our government with cherry
picked leaks.
They also deserve some intellectual consistency from those who have long and loudly worried about
the emergence of a surveillance state, and from conservatives who claim to value the rule of law.
Unknown persons with a mysterious agenda just made strategic use of partial information from a surveillance
program of uncertain legality to take out a presidential adviser.
Whether it's an Obama shadow government staging a Beltway insurrection, or Deep State officials
protecting their turf, this is the nightmare scenario of the post-Snowden era or are we not having
that nightmare anymore, if we take partisan pleasure in the outcome?
"... Support James Howard Kunstler blog by visiting Jim's Patreon Page -- ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds ..."
"... Did the Russians make Hillary Clinton look bad? Or did Hillary Clinton manage to do that herself? The NSA propaganda was designed as a smokescreen to conceal the veracity of the Wikileaks releases. Whoever actually rooted out the DNC and Podesta emails for Wikileaks ought to get the Pulitizer Prize for the outstanding public service of disclosing exactly how dishonest the Hillary operation was. ..."
"... The story may have climaxed with Trump's Friday NSA briefing, the heads of the various top intel agencies all assembled in one room to emphasize the solemn authority of the Deep State's power. ..."
"... This hulking security apparatus has become a menace to the Republic. ..."
"... Whether Trump himself is a menace to the Republic remains to be seen. Certainly he is the designated bag-holder for all the economic and financial depravity of several preceding administrations. When the markets blow, do you suppose the Russians will be blamed for that? Did Boris Yeltsin repeal the Glass-Steagall Act? Was Ben Bernanke a puppet of Putin? No, these actions and actors were homegrown American. For more than thirty years, we've been borrowing too much money so we can pretend to afford living in a blue-light-special demolition derby. And now we can't do that anymore. The physics of capital will finally assert itself. ..."
"... perhaps it's a good thing that the American people for the moment cannot tell exactly what the fuck is going on in this country, because from that dismal place there is nowhere to go but in the direction of clarity. ..."
The bamboozlement of the public is nearly complete. The Deep State has persuaded 80 percent of
Americans that all news is propaganda, especially the news emanating from the Deep State's own intel
department. They're still shooting for 100 percent. The fakest of all "fake news" stories turns out
to be "Russia Hacks Election." It was reported conclusively Saturday on the front page of The
New York Times , a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Deep State:
Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds
WASHINGTON - President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia directed a vast cyberattack aimed at denying
Hillary Clinton the presidency and installing
Donald
J. Trump in the Oval Office, the nation's top intelligence agencies said in an extraordinary
report they delivered on Friday to Mr. Trump.
You can be sure that this is now the "official" narrative aimed at the history books, sealing
the illegitimacy of Trump's election. It was served up with no direct proof, only the repeated "assertions"
that it was so. In fact, it's just this repetition of assertions-without-proof that defines propaganda.
It can also be interpreted as a declaration of war against an incoming president. The second civil
war now takes shape: It begins inside the groaning overgrown apparatus of the government itself.
Perhaps after that it spreads to the WalMart parking lots that have become America's new town square.
(WalMart sells pitchforks and patio torches.)
Did the Russians make Hillary Clinton look bad? Or did Hillary Clinton manage to do that herself?
The NSA propaganda was designed as a smokescreen to conceal the veracity of the Wikileaks releases.
Whoever actually rooted out the DNC and Podesta emails for Wikileaks ought to get the Pulitizer Prize
for the outstanding public service of disclosing exactly how dishonest the Hillary operation was.
The story may have climaxed with Trump's Friday NSA briefing, the heads of the various top
intel agencies all assembled in one room to emphasize the solemn authority of the Deep State's power.
Trump worked a nice piece of ju-jitsu afterward, pretending to accept the finding as briefly and
hollowly as possible and promising to "look into the matter" after January 20 th - when
he can tear a new asshole in the NSA. I hope he does. This hulking security apparatus has become
a menace to the Republic.
Whether Trump himself is a menace to the Republic remains to be seen. Certainly he is the
designated bag-holder for all the economic and financial depravity of several preceding administrations.
When the markets blow, do you suppose the Russians will be blamed for that? Did Boris Yeltsin repeal
the Glass-Steagall Act? Was Ben Bernanke a puppet of Putin? No, these actions and actors were homegrown
American. For more than thirty years, we've been borrowing too much money so we can pretend to afford
living in a blue-light-special demolition derby. And now we can't do that anymore. The physics of
capital will finally assert itself.
What we're actually seeing in the current ceremonial between the incoming Trump and the outgoing
Obama is the smoldering wreckage of the Democratic Party (which I'm still unhappily enrolled in),
and flames spreading into the Republican party - as idiots such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain
beat their war drums against Russia. The suave Mr. Obama is exiting the scene on a low wave of hysteria
and the oafish Trump rolls in on the cloudscape above, tweeting his tweets from on high, and
perhaps it's a good thing that the American people for the moment cannot tell exactly what the fuck
is going on in this country, because from that dismal place there is nowhere to go but in the direction
of clarity.
BY: Right. Brexit and maybe even Trump's
victory say something about the arrogance of the elite.
Bankers say that free trade should prevail. Even we,
academics-how many of us are actually looking into
distribution and redistribution? Few. We're still spending
time on writing dynamic models to talk about the gains of
trade.
Even if old-fashioned free trade is correct, the speed of
adjustment is very important. We know that rapid adjustment
is no good. How many of us ask ourselves what should be the
adjustment in trade? We rarely talk about that.
The world may have changed. I gave you my conjecture. But we
are also arrogant. We hold on to our old beliefs on the gains
of trade.
----
Very Dani Rodrick, I thought. Interesting stuff.
Also, this is something that I think you'll like. I have not
read all of it yet but here is the link and an excerpt:
http://evonomics.com/time-new-economic-thinking-based-best-science-available-not-ideology/
"Some will cling on to the idea that the consensus can be
revived. They will say we just need to defend it more
vigorously, the facts will eventually prevail, the populist
wave is exaggerated, it's really just about immigration,
Brexit will be a compromise, Clinton won more votes than
Trump, and so on. But this is wishful thinking. Large swathes
of the electorate have lost faith in the neoliberal
consensus, the political parties that backed it, and the
institutions that promoted it. This has created an
ideological vacuum being filled by bad old ideas, most
notably a revival of nationalism in the US and a number of
European countries, as well as a revival of the hard
socialist left in some countries."
I think Peter K has been making similar points for a long
time now. Interesting stuff.
Consensus among whom? The economic-political elite? Maybe;
but certainly not among the general electorate. Most voters
were voting for parties out of habit, or on cultural issues
(for or against diversity and civil rights), or bread &
butter economic issues ("the Republicans will cut my taxes
and the regulation of my business" versus "the Democrats will
preserve my Medicare and Social Security"). I don't think
most voters had/have any clue of what neoliberalism is.
Well, you raise an excellent point. I don't have a solid
rejoinder but I will note that if even 5% of the electorate
changes its mind an election result can flip one way or the
other. But, yes, I agree with you that most voters are not
selecting a candidate based on which candidate's economic
philosophy is most closely aligned with theirs. Still,
especially in the primaries, where the voters are a different
population than the general, it could make a difference. I
would argue that it was just this difference that made
Sanders surprisingly popular among the Democratic primary
voters.
The question is to what extent people were voting FOR a
candidate, as AGAINST a candidate or the status quo. That's
the only point I was trying to make.
Most voters have neither the time, energy, inclination, or
knowledge base to delve into the issues to make an informed
decision on which candidate/platform most reflects their
values and aspirations. They subcontract out that vetting of
individual candidates to parties that they believe are
broadly reflective of their views.
This past general election, and its preceding primaries,
was the result of a broad revolt against the candidates
anointed by the parties' elites, indicating deep
dissatisfaction with the status quo.
"I think Peter K has been making similar points for a long
time now. Interesting stuff."
Yes I liked the as well.
Luigi Zingales is a member of the editorial board for Pro
Market and he had some piece published in the New York Times
about economics and politics (specifically Italian I think).
He was the first I read who compared Trump with Silvio
Berlusconi. Zingales discussed how Berlusconi was brought
down, by being treated as an ordinary conservative
politician. Perhaps the same will work with Trump.
Yes, I had read the evonomics piece and thought it was good.
Thanks. Eric Beinhocker makes some good points. I liked his
optimism as far as some forms of populism were concerned, and
had a slight hope that Donald Trump might turn into a
Theodore Roosevelt type of populist. That hope has
disappeared completely and now we face the realization that
we are truly completely screwed.
asymmetric information, and the recent illuminating example
of Wells Fargo's excellence in pushing products that
customers did not want nor need.
BY: Some financial "innovation" is faddish. It does not
create value.
GR: Approximately 9 percent of U.S. GDP is finance. Some
economists argue that probably 3-5 percent is useful for
allocating capital, storing value, smoothing consumptions,
and creating competition, and the rest is preying on
asymmetric information
"
~~Guy Roinik~
Do you see how this asymmetric information
plays out?
It is the retail vendor who keeps better information than
the retail customer. It is the vendor's expectations of
disinflation vs inflation rather than the customer's
expectations that control the change in M2V. Got it?
When vendor expects deflation he dumps inventory, but when
he expects inflation he holds on to inventory as he waits for
higher profit margins to arrive. He holds onto merchandise by
simply raising prices. But why do economists advertise the
reverse mechanism? Why does the status quo have a need for
distorting truth?
Inflation is offered to the proles as a substitute for tax
relief to the impoverished. Do you see how it works?
"
Tax relief for the wealthy will give you delicious inflation.
Now jump for it!
"
~~The Yea Sayers~
... A 2015 survey by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation
found there are more than 450 structurally deficient bridges
in the state, although the number is down from previous
years. Every working day, nearly 10 million cars, trucks, and
school buses cross these deteriorating overpasses. And then
there's the nation's rail system and airports, which lag far
behind other nations in speed, efficiency, and modernization.
...
Bridgework and a partial plate! Should we shift gears on
our interstate construction?
By building our long haul interstates as one-way roads
interleaved with roads going in other direction, we could
have twice as many roads but intersections could be much
simpler, efficient, and less confusing. Freeflow
overpass/underpass with turning ramps will save fuel thus
environment. Sure!
We waste lot of traffic control man hours and squad cars
that could be otherwise deployed towards solving crime and
crushing the mob. By proper design and construction of speed
bumps some of this highway patrol could be eliminated. Ceu!
Rather that short 2 foot bumps in the road, build smooth
slow and long valley and knoll that will not rattle your
frame and bill you for steering realignment but instead send
an 18 wheeler up into the air for a half gainer. This kind of
speed trap could eliminate lot of bad
"... And I am not sure that it was neoliberal globalization as the only factor in rasining the standards of living in case of China. They have also industrialization process going on, give or take. Chinese maquiladoras were allowed under strict conditions of transferring technology. That's what distinguishes China from India or Mexico, where neoliberal administrations were much less protective of interest of their nations and allowed Western monopolies more freedom. ..."
"... On the basis of careful empirical work, Rodrik concluded that "globalization makes it difficult to sustain the postwar social bargain" of labor peace in exchange for "steadily improving worker pay and benefits." ..."
"... It's not globalization, it's "neoliberal globalization" and neoliberalism in general which killed the New Deal capitalism. As soon as the US elite realized the cookies are not enough for everybody they start withdrawing them from the table. Stagnation and the subsequent collapse of the USSR also played an important role, allowing neoliberal propagandists to claim the victory. ..."
""seem unimpressed by the fact that globalization has lifted
hundreds of millions of desperately poor people in China and
India into the global middle class. ""
Ergo enabling the savaging
of working class people in the US was worth it.
And I am not sure that it was neoliberal globalization as the
only factor in rasining the standards of living in case of China. They have also industrialization process going on, give or
take. Chinese maquiladoras were allowed under strict conditions
of transferring technology. That's what distinguishes China from
India or Mexico, where neoliberal administrations were much less
protective of interest of their nations and allowed Western monopolies
more freedom.
After all the Communist Party is still a ruling Party of China.
With a neoliberal twist yes, but they still adhere to the ideas
of Marx.
Kuttner really captures the contributions of Dani Rodrik. If
I had to pick one sentence to capture this review - it would
be this:
On the basis of careful empirical work, Rodrik concluded
that "globalization makes it difficult to sustain the postwar
social bargain" of labor peace in exchange for "steadily
improving worker pay and benefits."
libezkova -> pgl...
, -1
It's not globalization, it's "neoliberal globalization" and neoliberalism
in general which killed the New Deal capitalism. As soon as the US elite realized the cookies are not enough
for everybody they start withdrawing them from the table.
Stagnation and the subsequent collapse of the USSR also played
an important role, allowing neoliberal propagandists to claim
the victory.
"... Block refugee admissions from the war-torn country of Syria indefinitely. ..."
"... Suspend refugee admissions from all countries for 120 days. After that period, the U.S. will only accept refugees from countries jointly approved by the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the Director of National Intelligence. ..."
"... Expedite the completion of a biometric entry-exit tracking system for all visitors to the U.S. and require in-person interviews for all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa. ..."
"... Suspend the visa interview waiver program indefinitely and review whether existing reciprocity agreements are reciprocal in practice. ..."
According to the draft executive order, President
Donald Trump plans
to:
Block refugee admissions from the war-torn country of Syria indefinitely.
Suspend refugee admissions from all countries for 120 days. After that period, the U.S. will
only accept refugees from countries jointly approved by the Department of Homeland Security, the
State Department and the Director of National Intelligence.
Cap total refugee admissions for fiscal year 2017 at 50,000 ― less than half of the 110,000
proposed by the Obama administration.
Ban for 30 days all "immigrant and nonimmigrant" entry of individuals from countries designated
in Division O, Title II, Section 203 of the 2016 consolidated appropriations act: Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. These countries were
targeted last year in restrictions on dual nationals' and recent travelers' participation
in the visa waiver program.
Suspend visa issuance to countries of "particular concern." After 60 days, DHS, the State
Department and DNI are instructed to draft a list of countries that don't comply with requests
for information. Foreign nationals from those countries will be banned from entering the U.S.
Establish "safe zones to protect vulnerable Syrian populations." The executive order tasks
the secretary of defense with drafting a plan for safe zones in Syria within 90 days. This would
be be an escalation of U.S. involvement in Syria and could be the first official indication of
how Trump will approach the conflict there.
Expedite the completion of a biometric entry-exit tracking system for all visitors to the
U.S. and require in-person interviews for all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa.
Suspend the visa interview waiver program indefinitely and review whether existing reciprocity
agreements are reciprocal in practice.
The draft order, which is expected to be signed later this week, details the Trump administration's
plans to "collect and make publicly available within 180 days ... information regarding the number
of foreign-born individuals in the United States who have been radicalized after entry into the United
States and engaged in terrorism-related acts." It also describes plans to collect information about
"gender-based violence against women or honor killings" by foreign-born individuals in the U.S.
The
language is unclear as to whether the names of these individuals, which could include American citizens,
would be made public, nor does the document define "radicalized" or "terrorism-related acts," leaving
open the potential to sweep vast numbers of people onto the list.
The move is reminiscent of the
expansive enemies lists created by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover last century.
Jimmy Dore makes some great points from time to time but this
particular rant has so many flaws that it would be a real
undertaking to itemize all of them.
Millions if not billions of people, including millions of
USAmericans have been horrified at US terrorism wherever it
occurs. We weren't OK with the US terrorizing these seven
countries or any of the other countries the US has terrorized.
We protested. We talked to our political representatives. We
advised young men to refuse to volunteer to kill and be killed
for money. We did whatever we could think of to stop the
carnage. We were unsuccessful.
It's not the temporary ban on immigration that upsets people so
much as singling out people from specific countries, whether
Obama's Republican Congress in did it or Trump did it. The ban
should be on all religious extremists including apartheid
Zionists and Christian extremists. Religious extremists from all
of the major religious have committed heinous atrocities.
I could go on, but those are the main points I wanted to make.
What? Fake news isn't enough for you, so now you're engaging
in fake debate? You have problems with Jimmy's points then
argue them. Too many for you? Then pick the top six and
critique them. Otherwise stop stuffing your fingers in your
ears and loudly singing patriotic songs to drown out the
unpleasant truths. P.S. There were significant protests when
Bush Jr. was running the show but they all died out after
Obama took over the nation's reins. After that all I heard
from the American left about his constant assault on the
Constitution, keeping Guantanamo, the country's wars of
aggression, U.S. support of the military coup in Honduras,
his unconditional and unlimited subsidization of Wall Street,
his unprecedented vendetta against government whistle
blowers, and his impressive accumulation of 306 golf outings
(at a gob smacking five hours a pop!) ... was crickets.
You read different stuff than I do. I heard a fire hose
stream of Progressive/liberal criticism of Obama's
policies and enormous disappointment in Obama - including
from people like Michael Moore, Rachael Maddow, and Amy
Goodman, and especially from Glenn Greenwald, Assange and
other brilliant political thinkers as well as from
Veterans for Peace, Pro-Palestine humanitarians, and
anti-nuclear activists. Medea Benjamin has been on the
front lines for eight years attacking Obama's war
mongering. Of course we need many more like her. Unless
you are her, using a fake name, then why weren't you right
there with her?
And the Demo establishment lines up to attack Drumpf's ban;
hoping to get some easy votes for corporatist neo-con
hypocrites? Cynical demo pigs would love to impeach Drumpf and
wage nice with Pence. We are f*^ked unless we (us "lefty
ranters" and more) don't demand radical change from the
Corporatist neo-fascist establishments of both parties - the
party of dicks and the party of pant-suited V's. And the
media/wall street/military industrial complex can't get enough
of this.
BEWARE -- Why is the Zionist control media, and many Zionist
controlled organizations, so adamant about allowing people from
war torn Muslim countries come to the US ?
The main purpose of all the noise against president Trump is to
weaken him and then force him to take the positions the deep
state wants him to take. Among the many problems he has he is
only an apprentice.
Trump's Muslim ban is not about terrorism or keeping America
safe. Otherwise Saudia Arabia would have been on the top of
list. This is about countries that stand against the US/Israel
agenda.
https://www.darkmoon.me/ /dona..
.
This guy should take Wolf Blitzer's job and expose the truth on
the national media. Blitzer can be consigned to telling risible
lies on You Tube, as should most of the jokers in the so-called
mainstream media.
People attacking Trump after 11 days in office, NEVER criticized
Mrs. Clinton, Obama forblowing up and killing hundreds of
thousands in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, etc, the phony bought and
paid for Establishment Liberals who only call them 'war crimes '
when an (R) is attached to the Presidents name like: Michael
Moore, Rachael Maddow, Medea Benjamin and Amy Goodman,
all frauds and liars like CNN, CBS and NBC, who ran this slimey
headline:
"Citizens" who speak at town meetings are hired, scripted actors
"Last December, the town council in Camarillo, a small town in
southern California, a man called Prince Jordan Tyson stood up
and delivered a three minute speech as a "concerned citizen"
about a planned construction project before the council.
Tyson is not a concerned citizen of Camarillo: he's a struggling
actor from Beverly Hills, who was paid $100 to deliver a
scripted position from the podium while misrepresenting himself
as a local, sincere citizen.
Tyson worked for Adam Swart, a recent UCLA grad, who runs a
company called "Crowds on Demand," which hires actors to attend
politicians' campaign meetings, and to deliver scripted dialog
in the guise of concerned citizens. Swart says that he has been
paid by "dozens of campaigns for state officials, and 2016
presidential candidates" whom he won't name, because if he "did,
nobody would hire us."
http://boingboing.net/2016/02/19/citizens-who-spe...
All those demonstrating against Trump are a asset to the deep
state. I can't understand why those demonstrators in the UK/EU
bashing Trump, there are more pressing reasons to demonstrate
in the UK, poverty, austerity, families relying on food banks
that the supermarkets have thrown out, where are the marches
against that obscenity, instead of going along with the agenda
of the Clinton band wagon, those causing havoc in the US/UK/EU,
would be better employed in demonstrating against those who have
created all those immigrants Muslim or otherwise in the first
place, ie; bush blair obama the clintons etc; time those out on
the streets got their priorities right.
People attacking Trump after 11 days in office, NEVER criticized
Mrs. Clinton, Obama forblowing up and killing hundreds of
thousands in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, etc, the phony bought and
paid for Establishment Liberals who only call them 'war crimes '
when an (R) is attached to the Presidents name like: Michael
Moore, Rachael Maddow, Medea Benjamin and Amy Goodman,
all frauds and liars like CNN, CBS and NBC, who ran this slimey
headline:
"Citizens" who speak at town meetings are hired, scripted actors
"Last December, the town council in Camarillo, a small town in
southern California, a man called Prince Jordan Tyson stood up
and delivered a three minute speech as a "concerned citizen"
about a planned construction project before the council.
Tyson is not a concerned citizen of Camarillo: he's a struggling
actor from Beverly Hills, who was paid $100 to deliver a
scripted position from the podium while misrepresenting himself
as a local, sincere citizen.
Tyson worked for Adam Swart, a recent UCLA grad, who runs a
company called "Crowds on Demand," which hires actors to attend
politicians' campaign meetings, and to deliver scripted dialog
in the guise of concerned citizens. Swart says that he has been
paid by "dozens of campaigns for state officials, and 2016
presidential candidates" whom he won't name, because if he "did,
nobody would hire us."
http://boingboing.net/2016/02/19/citizens-who-spe...
Strife Over
Immigrants: Can California Predict the
Nation's Future?
https://nyti.ms/2jW2PTW
via
@UpshotNYT
NYT - Emily Badger - February 1, 2017
The political ads warned that illegal immigrants were dashing, by the millions, over the Mexican
border, racing to claim taxpayer-funded public services in California.
"They keep coming," the announcer intoned over grainy aerial footage and a thrumming bassline.
When viewed on YouTube today, these ads hardly seem the stuff of multicultural California as we know
it.
In 1994, though, that message helped lift California's governor, the Republican Pete Wilson, to
re-election. That same year, voters adopted a referendum, Proposition 187, denying state services
to undocumented immigrants, including public education and health care.
California is often held up as a harbinger of the demographics - and, Democrats hope, the politics
- of the nation to come. Mr. Wilson's bet against immigration is thought to have hurt Republicans
in the long run in the state. But in the dawn of the Trump era, the state is also a cautionary tale
of what happens during the tumultuous years when that change is occurring rapidly.
Donald J. Trump has taken office in a nation that is not only growing more diverse, but also growing
more diverse everywhere, because of both foreign immigration and shifting internal migration patterns
that are touching the last bastions of nearly all-white America.
After an election in which Mr. Trump appealed to unease about the nation's changing identity -
and a month when he alarmed civil rights leaders and immigration advocates - his presidency poses
a very different question from his predecessor's.
Not: Are we post-racial? But: How will we handle the racial change that is only going to accelerate?
Sociological studies suggest that increasing contact between groups can yield familiarity and
tolerance. But it can also unnerve, especially in communities where that rapid change is most visible
- and when politicians stand to gain by exploiting it. California lashed out at diversity before
embracing it.
"There's a very rich history of xenophobia, of racism, of trying to wipe each other out," said
Connie Rice, a longtime civil rights lawyer in California. "It's not like we were all of a sudden
born the Golden State." ...
Related?
More Californians dreaming of a country without
Trump: poll
http://reut.rs/2j6s8iG
Reuters - Sharon Bernstein - January 24
The election of Republican businessman Donald Trump as president of the United States has some
Californians dreaming - of their own country.
One in every three California residents supports the most populous U.S. state's peaceful withdrawal
from the union, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, many of them Democrats strongly opposed
to Trump's ascension to the country's highest office.
The 32 percent support rate is sharply higher than the last time the poll asked Californians about
secession, in 2014, when one-in-five or 20 percent favored it around the time Scotland held its independence
referendum and voted to remain in the United Kingdom.
California also far surpasses the national average favoring secession, which stood at 22 percent,
down from 24 percent in 2014.
The poll surveyed 500 Californians among more than 14,000 adults nationwide from Dec. 6 to Jan.
19 and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of one percentage point nationally and
five percentage points in California.
The idea of secession is largely a settled matter in the United States, though the impulse to
break away carries on in some corners of the country, most notably in Texas.
While interest has remained about the same nationwide, it has found more favor in California and
the concept has even earned a catchy name - "Calexit."
"I don't think it's likely to happen, but if things get really bad it could be an option," said
Stephen Miller, 70, a retired transportation planner who lives in Sacramento and told pollsters he
"tended to support" secession. ...
'Calexit' would be a disaster for progressive values
http://fw.to/ks9LHNS
LA Times - January 27
Imagine if President Trump announced that he wanted to oust California from the United States.
If it weren't for us, after all, Trump would have won the popular vote he so lusts after by 1.4 million.
Blue America would lose its biggest source of electoral votes in all future elections. The Senate
would have two fewer Democrats. The House of Representatives would lose 38 Democrats and just 14
Republicans. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, among the most liberal in the nation, would be
changed irrevocably. And the U.S. as a whole would suddenly be a lot less ethnically diverse than
it is today.
For those reasons, Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan,
Republicans with White House ambitions, opponents of legalizing marijuana, advocates of criminalizing
abortion and various white nationalist groups might all conclude –– for different reasons –– that
they would benefit politically from a separation, even as liberals and progressives across America
would correctly see it as a catastrophe.
So it makes sense that the leader of the Yes California Independence Campaign, Marcus Ruiz Evans,
was - contrary to popular assumptions - a registered Republican when he formed the separatist group
two years ago, according to the San Jose Mercury News. He briefly hosted conservative talk radio
shows in Fresno, and would not tell the newspaper if he voted for Trump. ...
Point well made! Regarding the argument that today's
immigrants aren't as willing as past immigrants to
assimilate, I recently read that 80% of 19th Century German
immigrants returned to Germany, and 30% of Italian immigrants
did the same.
Our national mythology glosses over the history of how
unwelcoming our country has mostly been to new immigrants.
The idea that America has always been a land that welcomed
immigrants and provided them immediate opportunity is very
comfortable, but it contradicts a much harsher history. It's
a real shame that so many of our fellow countrymen are
willfully ignorant of their own ancestors' struggles, and are
willing to inflict the same harshness on our newest arrivals.
On the other hand, the news coverage of this past
weekend's protests over the Trump immigration Executive Order
included a picture of a man carrying a sign saying,
"Mexican-Americans Welcome Muslim Refugees!" I can't thing of
anything that expresses the ideals of real Americanism better
than that!
President Trump signed an executive order on Friday titled "Protecting the Nation From Foreign
Terrorist Entry Into the United States." Following is the language of that order, as supplied by
the White House.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of
America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101
et seq
., and section
301 of title 3, United States Code, and to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by
foreign nationals admitted to the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Purpose
.
The visa-issuance process plays a crucial role in detecting individuals
with terrorist ties and stopping them from entering the United States. Perhaps in no instance was
that more apparent than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when State Department policy
prevented consular officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19
foreign nationals who went on to murder nearly 3,000 Americans. And while the visa-issuance process
was reviewed and amended after the September 11 attacks to better detect would-be terrorists from
receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the
United States.
Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes
since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving
visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement
program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest
increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States. The
United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those approved for
admission do not intend to harm Americans and that they have no ties to terrorism.
In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country
do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and
should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies
over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry
or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution
of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of
any race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals
who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign
nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.
Sec. 3. Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries
of Particular Concern
.
(a) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary
of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine
the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under
the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the
individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director
of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the review described
in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security's determination of
the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information,
within 30 days of the date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy
of the report to the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence.
(c) To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period
described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization
of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards
are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f)
of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the
United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12),
would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United
States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order
(excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas).
(d) Immediately upon receipt of the report described in subsection (b) of this section regarding
the information needed for adjudications, the Secretary of State shall request all foreign governments
that do not supply such information to start providing such information regarding their nationals
within 60 days of notification.
(e) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary
of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President
a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit
the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2,
G-3, and G-4 visas) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection
(d) of this section until compliance occurs.
(f) At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretary
of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security may submit to the President the names of any additional
countries recommended for similar treatment.
(g) Notwithstanding a suspension pursuant to subsection (c) of this section or pursuant to a Presidential
proclamation described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security
may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration
benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.
(h) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall submit to the President a joint report
on the progress in implementing this orderwithin 30 days of the date of this order, a second report
within 60 daysof the date of this order, a third report within 90 days of the date of this order,
and a fourth report within 120 days of the date of this order.
Sec. 4. Implementing Uniform Screening Standards for All Immigration Programs
.
(a) The
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and
the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall implement a program, as part of the adjudication
process for immigration benefits, to identify individuals seeking to enter the United States on a
fraudulent basis with the intent to cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to
their admission. This program will include the development of a uniform screening standard and procedure,
such as in-person interviews; a database of identity documents proffered by applicants to ensure
that duplicate documents are not used by multiple applicants; amended application forms that include
questions aimed at identifying fraudulent answers and malicious intent; a mechanism to ensure that
the applicant is who the applicant claims to be; a process to evaluate the applicant's likelihood
of becoming a positively contributing member of society and the applicant's ability to make contributions
to the national interest; and a mechanism to assess whether or not the applicant has the intent to
commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Secretary of State, the Director
of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, shall submit to
the President an initial report on the progress of this directive within 60 days of the date of this
order, a second report within 100 days of the date of this order, and a third report within 200 days
of the date of this order.
Sec. 5. Realignment of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for Fiscal Year 2017
.
(a) The
Secretary of State shall suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days. During
the 120-day period, the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Secretary of Homeland Security
and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall review the USRAP application
and adjudication process to determine what additional procedures should be taken to ensure that those
approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States,
and shall implement such additional procedures. Refugee applicants who are already in the USRAP process
may be admitted upon the initiation and completion of these revised procedures. Upon the date that
is 120 days after the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall resume USRAP admissions only
for nationals of countries for which the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security,
and the Director of National Intelligence have jointly determined that such additional procedures
are adequate to ensure the security and welfare of the United States.
(b) Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the
Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law,
to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided
that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality.
Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation
to the President that would assist with such prioritization.
(c) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry
of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend
any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the
USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.
(d) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry
of more than 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017 would be detrimental to the interests of the United
States, and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I determine that additional admissions
would be in the national interest.
(e) Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section,
the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the
United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they
determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest - including
when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution,
when admitting the person would enable the United States to conform its conduct to a preexisting
international agreement, or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause
undue hardship - and it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.
(f) The Secretary of State shall submit to the President an initial report on the progress of
the directive in subsection (b) of this section regarding prioritization of claims made by individuals
on the basis of religious-based persecution within 100 days of the date of this order and shall submit
a second report within 200 days of the date of this order.
(g) It is the policy of the executive branch that, to the extent permitted by law and as practicable,
State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process of determining the placement or settlement
in their jurisdictions of aliens eligible to be admitted to the United States as refugees. To that
end, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall examine existing law to determine the extent to which,
consistent with applicable law, State and local jurisdictions may have greater involvement in the
process of determining the placement or resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions, and shall
devise a proposal to lawfully promote such involvement.
Sec. 6. Rescission of Exercise of Authority Relating to the Terrorism Grounds of Inadmissibility
.
The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall, in consultation with the Attorney General,
consider rescinding the exercises of authority in section 212 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182, relating
to the terrorism grounds of inadmissibility, as well as any related implementing memoranda.
Sec. 7. Expedited Completion of the Biometric Entry-Exit Tracking System. (a) The Secretary of
Homeland Security shall expedite the completion and implementation of a biometric entry-exit tracking
system for all travelers to the United States, as recommended by the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States.
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to the President periodic reports on the progress
of the directive contained in subsection (a) of this section. The initial report shall be submitted
within 100 days of the date of this order, a second report shall be submitted within 200 days of
the date of this order, and a third report shall be submitted within 365 days of the date of this
order. Further, the Secretary shall submit a report every 180 days thereafter until the system is
fully deployed and operational.
Sec. 8. Visa Interview Security
.
(a) The Secretary of State shall immediately suspend the
Visa Interview Waiver Program and ensure compliance with section 222 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1222, which
requires that all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa undergo an in-person interview, subject
to specific statutory exceptions.
(b) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary
of State shall immediately expand the Consular Fellows Program, including by substantially increasing
the number of Fellows, lengthening or making permanent the period of service, and making language
training at the Foreign Service Institute available to Fellows for assignment to posts outside of
their area of core linguistic ability, to ensure that non-immigrant visa-interview wait times are
not unduly affected.
Sec. 9. Visa Validity Reciprocity
.
The Secretary of State shall review all nonimmigrant
visa reciprocity agreements to ensure that they are, with respect to each visa classification, truly
reciprocal insofar as practicable with respect to validity period and fees, as required by sections
221(c) and 281 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1201(c) and 1351, and other treatment. If a country does not
treat United States nationals seeking nonimmigrant visas in a reciprocal manner, the Secretary of
State shall adjust the visa validity period, fee schedule, or other treatment to match the treatment
of United States nationals by the foreign country, to the extent practicable.
Sec. 10. Transparency and Data Collection
.
(a) To be more transparent with the American
people, and to more effectively implement policies and practices that serve the national interest,
the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall, consistent
with applicable law and national security, collect and make publicly available within 180 days, and
every 180 days thereafter:
(i) information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged
with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; convicted of terrorism-related offenses
while in the United States; or removed from the United States based on terrorism-related activity,
affiliation, or material support to a terrorism-related organization, or any other national security
reasons since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later;
(ii) information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been
radicalized after entry into the United States and engaged in terrorism-related acts, or who have
provided material support to terrorism-related organizations in countries that pose a threat to the
United States, since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later; and
(iii) information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women,
including honor killings, in the United States by foreign nationals, since the date of this order
or the last reporting period, whichever is later; and
(iv) any other information relevant to public safety and security as determined by the Secretary
of Homeland Security and the Attorney General, including information on the immigration status of
foreign nationals charged with major offenses.
(b) The Secretary of State shall, within one year of the date of this order, provide a report
on the estimated long-term costs of the USRAP at the Federal, State, and local levels.
Sec. 11. General Provisions
.
(a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or
otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary,
administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability
of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies,
or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
"... I happen to think the heartlessness of this Order was a feature, not a bug, in order to garner maximum attention. I just read Mish's comment section, and Trump's base is cheering. ..."
"... silent on ethnic racism and the rest of US so much more guilty ..... on drone assassination and militarist nation building gone awry, tilting with nuclear war to keep NATO less recondite, etc, etc....... ..."
"... Before the Nazi had the power to go after the Jews they had effect the party's police state, before which ordinary Germans [and whatever police there were after the depression shuttered everything] permitted the party to do organized violence on their opponents: the social democrats, socialists, bolshevists, et al. ..."
"... The ban on returning residents is utterly against the law. ..."
'Mr. Trump's executive
order is un-American, not Christian, and hopefully
unconstitutional. This is a shameful act and no good person
can remain silent.'
Thanks for saying this Bill. JFK International had a
demonstration against this ban that featured the detention of
a brave Iraqi who helped US troops. This ban is also
incredibly stupid.
I happen to think the heartlessness of
this Order was a feature, not a bug, in order to garner
maximum attention. I just read Mish's comment section, and
Trump's base is cheering.
But on a longer term scale, heartlessness towards
Muslim immigrants and DREAMers is going to turn persuadables
against Trump. That and the next recession.
We'll differ on this one part, people that voted for Trump
are not persuadables. They have always voted the same way in
every single election they have voted in.
Amazes me that
even now people keep thinking that Trump voters are anything
but loyal GOP voters. And I think the best argument against
this (besides common sense) is the reaction of Rep leaders to
this obviously illegal action.
They're silent.
They cannot afford to speak out against this racist
policy, as their own voters are for this racist policy.
silent on ethnic racism and the rest of US so much more
guilty ..... on drone assassination and militarist nation
building gone awry, tilting with nuclear war to keep NATO
less recondite, etc, etc.......
Are the libruls all
riled up because the immigrant ban might reduce terror
shootings in US to reduce screaming for techno-murder?
There were a fair amount of voters who "came home" to the GOP
before the election, even though they found Trump himself
distasteful. At least some of those nouveau-Reagan democrats
also voted for him because of his economic agenda. They
believed that his racism was all for show.
Once upon a time, for
academic reasons I read the same book that Trump was rumored
to have by his bedside in NYC: the english translation of the
full text of Adolf Hitler's speeches. Hitler's argument for
getting ordinary Germans to go along with his extreme
anti-Semitic agenda was masterful. It went in essence like
this: "I know that there are a very few good Jews, and you
may know a few of them. But the vast majority of Jews, who
you don't know, are evil. But in order to get to the mass of
bad apples, we might have to inflict some hardship on a few
good people." By getting people to overlook their own
experience with Jews they knew, he prevailed.
In contrast - for example - gay rights triumphed when
enough people knew gays in their ordinary lives, and realized
that they were no different from anybody else. So they were
unable to see any valid reason to discriminate against them.
This ban is much more like the second situation than the
first. It is inflicting a lot of pain on a lot of good
people, in order to get to (allegedly) a few bad apples, and
people can see that. It is not going to be popular.
Before the Nazi had the power to go after the Jews they
had effect the party's police state, before which ordinary
Germans [and whatever police there were after the depression
shuttered everything] permitted the party to do organized
violence on their opponents: the social democrats,
socialists, bolshevists, et al.
"We'll differ on this one part, people that voted
for Trump are not persuadables. They have always voted the
same way in every single election they have voted in."
Reminds me of the obstinate, closed-mindedness which Trump
voters direct at immigrants and Muslims.
Neoliberals have not delivered a growing, healthy economy
despite Krugman's claims that everything is great, crime is
down, etc.
Obama's record for 8 years is an average of 1.7
percent growth. NGDP is even worse which is why I support an
NGDP target for the Fed. It would show how poorly they have
done.
This after decades of corporate trade deals and a
shrinking middle class.
People are angry. They want scapegoats. Trump provided
them with scapegoats and the uneducated white working class
took the bait.
I appreciate Bill's judgement that Trump's acts are odious,
but "un-American, not Christian, and hopefully
unconstitutional" seems to be going too far.
It only takes a quick tour of historical US acts on
immigration to find plenty of precedent.
1870-1943, Chinese.
1882, lunatics.
1907, Japanese
1921, everybody.
1923, Indians.
1932, everybody, especially Mexicans.
Mme. Chiang Kai Shek (recently
deceased at age 106 on Long Island) has much to answer for
before the bar of history, but she had one shining moment.
Supposedly at one point during WW2 both she and Winston
Churchill were living at the White House (must have made for
interesting dinner conversation). Anyway, during that time
she gave a speech to Congress. In that speech she pointed out
that Japanese militarist propaganda, that America's myth of
liberty and equality before the law was hypocritical, had one
inconvenient feature: given the Chinese and Japanese
Exclusion Acts, it was true.
This speech was so shaming that Congress changed the law
to allow Asian immigation - in a trickle at first, but
thereafter a river.
Yes, and her teenage voyage to San Francisco ended with her
being treated exactly like the people being detained at
airports this weekend. It made a lifelong impression on her.
Yes, its pretty unremarkable. And you are correct the that
Christian Arab refugees from Syria have been accepted at 5%
of the rate their population would suggest:
"But the
numbers tell a different story: The United States has
accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian.
Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801. That is to say,
one-half of 1 percent.
The BBC says that 10 percent of all Syrians are Christian,
which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious,
and President Barack Obama and Secretary John Kerry have
acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an
especially persecuted group."
Here's a quite detailed discussion of the background around
the EO and its implementation ... including the 2015 law
limiting visas from those countries, and the reference for
the above quote. It also contrasts the headlines in much of
the press. As they say, read the whole thing.
"There is a postponement of entry from 7 countries (Iraq,
Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen) previously
identified by the Obama administration as posing
extraordinary risks.
That they are 7 majority Muslim countries does not mean
there is a Muslim ban, as most of the countries with the
largest Muslim populations are not on the list (e.g., Egypt,
Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey,
Nigeria and more).
Thus, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world is not
affected.
Moreover, the "ban" is only for four months while
procedures are reviewed, with the exception of Syria for
which there is no time limit.
There is a logic to the 7 countries. Six are failed states
known to have large ISIS activity, and one, Iran, is a sworn
enemy of the U.S. and worldwide sponsor of terrorism.
And, the 7 countries on the list were not even
so-designated by Trump. Rather, they were selected last year
by the Obama administration as posing special risks for visa
entry ..."
I believe they don't mention that IIRC we were bombing 5
of the 7 counties on the list last month.
The current system relies on referrals from the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Syria's population in
2011 was 90 percent Muslim and 10 percent Christian, CNS
said. Less than 3% admitted as refugees are Christian. But
not the state dept's doing.
I've seen some farmers of late complaining about Trump's
protectionism hurting their business. Yes they are smart
enough to realize that the dollar appreciation will reduce
their exports. Too bad these rural Americans were not smart
enough on election day not to vote Trump in as President.
The man knows only what he's seen on cable TV most of which
he doesn't understand. Knows nothing about: economics, trade,
foreign affairs, government, law, ... He epitomizes the know
nothings of the world, and, the fact that he doesn't know
doesn't bother him in the least. A narcissists-grandiose type
with neither regard nor interest for the probable
consequences.
I think it's wrong to even hope Trump turns out well. I think
the country needs act to save democracy, to save itself from
traveling down the road of despots and tyrants, from the
likes of Trump who can be manipulated by the likes of Bannon.
stupid is one who ignores that Obama presidency growth
averaged 1.7% and failed to lift millions while wall street
prospered and corporate market power increased both in goods
and labor markets.
"... There has been running tension between the Trump administration and the intelligence community ..."
"... the President had argued that intelligence services were politically partisan, he dismissed their findings that Russia hacked Democratic targets during the campaign and referred slightingly to the intelligence community by tweeting with the word intelligence in quotes. ..."
"... In setting out the reorganization, Trump said that "security threats facing the United States in the 21st century transcend international boundaries. Accordingly, the United States Government's decision-making structures and processes to address these challenges must remain equally adaptive and transformative." ..."
Former Obama adviser calls Trump decision on Nat Sec panel 'stone cold crazy'
President Donald Trump's decision to reorganize the National Security Council in a way that removes the director of intelligence
and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is "stone cold crazy," former National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday.
Rice retweeted another Twitter user, P.E. Juan, who said: "Trump loves and trusts the military so much he just kicked them out
of the National Security Council and put a Nazi in their place."
Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, was reacting to an executive order signed by Trump that said that the
head of DNI and the nation's most senior military officer would be invited to attend the security meetings "where issues pertaining
to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed."
"This is stone cold crazy. After a week of crazy. Who needs military advice or intell to make policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan,
DPRK?" Rice tweeted, with DPRK referring to North Korea.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told ABC News Rice's comments were "clearly inappropriate language from a former ambassador."
DNI James Clapper was always included in Obama administration's NSC principals' meetings, CNN confirmed.
In contrast, Trump's order makes his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, a regular member of the Principals Committee. The committee
is Cabinet-level group of agencies that deal with national security that was established by President George H. W. Bush in 1989.
Every version of it has included the Joint Chiefs chairman and the director of the CIA or, once it was established, the head of the
DNI. The President's chief of staff was typically included as well.
Bannon's presence reinforces the notion he is, in essence, a co-chief of staff alongside Reince Priebus, and demonstrates the
breadth of influence the former head of Breitbart News has in the Trump administration.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, offered praise for the administration's national security team writ large, but expressed concerns
about Bannon.
"I think the national security team around President Trump is very impressive. I don't think you could ask for a better one,"
he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"I am worried about the national security council who are the members of it and who are the permanent members of it. The appointment
of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure from any national security council in history," he said. "It's of concern
this quote reorganization."
Rice continued her tweetstorm: "Chairman of Joint Chiefs and DNI treated as after thoughts in Cabinet level principals meetings.
And where is CIA?? Cut out of everything?"
And she noted a provision that would allow Vice President Michael Pence to chair NSC meetings if Trump isn't available.
"Pence may chair NSC mtgs in lieu of POTUS," Rice tweeted. "Never happened w/Obama."
And she added the observation that Trump's UN ambassador Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, was "sidelined from
Cabinet and Sub Cab mtgs."
The NSC is run by National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency until he was asked
to step down in 2014 by senior intelligence leaders.
There has been running tension between the Trump administration and the intelligence community , though during a January
22 visit to the CIA Trump declared that "nobody feels stronger about the intelligence community than Donald Trump," adding that "I
love you. I respect you."
Before then, the President had argued that intelligence services were politically partisan, he dismissed their findings that
Russia hacked Democratic targets during the campaign and referred slightingly to the intelligence community by tweeting with the
word intelligence in quotes.
In setting out the reorganization, Trump said that "security threats facing the United States in the 21st century transcend
international boundaries. Accordingly, the United States Government's decision-making structures and processes to address these challenges
must remain equally adaptive and transformative."
Regular members of the Principals Committee will include the secretary of state, the treasury secretary, the defense secretary,
the attorney general, the secretary of Homeland Security, the assistant to the President and chief of staff, the assistant to the
President and chief strategist, the national security adviser and the Homeland Security adviser.
"... There has been running tension between the Trump administration and the intelligence community ..."
"... the President had argued that intelligence services were politically partisan, he dismissed their findings that Russia hacked Democratic targets during the campaign and referred slightingly to the intelligence community by tweeting with the word intelligence in quotes. ..."
"... In setting out the reorganization, Trump said that "security threats facing the United States in the 21st century transcend international boundaries. Accordingly, the United States Government's decision-making structures and processes to address these challenges must remain equally adaptive and transformative." ..."
Former Obama adviser calls Trump decision on Nat Sec panel 'stone cold crazy'
President Donald Trump's decision to reorganize the National Security Council in a way that
removes the director of intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is "stone cold
crazy," former National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday.
Rice retweeted another Twitter user, P.E. Juan, who said: "Trump loves and trusts the military so
much he just kicked them out of the National Security Council and put a Nazi in their place."
Rice, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, was reacting to an executive order
signed by Trump that said that the head of DNI and the nation's most senior military officer
would be invited to attend the security meetings "where issues pertaining to their
responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed."
"This is stone cold crazy. After a week of crazy. Who needs military advice or intell to make
policy on ISIL, Syria, Afghanistan, DPRK?" Rice tweeted, with DPRK referring to North Korea.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told ABC News Rice's comments were "clearly
inappropriate language from a former ambassador."
DNI James Clapper was always included in Obama administration's NSC principals' meetings, CNN
confirmed.
In contrast, Trump's order makes his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, a regular member of the
Principals Committee. The committee is Cabinet-level group of agencies that deal with national
security that was established by President George H. W. Bush in 1989. Every version of it has
included the Joint Chiefs chairman and the director of the CIA or, once it was established, the
head of the DNI. The President's chief of staff was typically included as well.
Bannon's presence reinforces the notion he is, in essence, a co-chief of staff alongside
Reince Priebus, and demonstrates the breadth of influence the former head of Breitbart News has
in the Trump administration.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, offered praise for the administration's national security team
writ large, but expressed concerns about Bannon.
"I think the national security team around President Trump is very impressive. I don't think
you could ask for a better one," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"I am worried about the national security council who are the members of it and who are the
permanent members of it. The appointment of Mr. Bannon is something which is a radical departure
from any national security council in history," he said. "It's of concern this quote
reorganization."
Rice continued her tweetstorm: "Chairman of Joint Chiefs and DNI treated as after thoughts in
Cabinet level principals meetings. And where is CIA?? Cut out of everything?"
And she noted a provision that would allow Vice President Michael Pence to chair NSC meetings
if Trump isn't available.
"Pence may chair NSC mtgs in lieu of POTUS," Rice tweeted. "Never happened w/Obama."
And she added the observation that Trump's UN ambassador Nikki Haley, the former governor of
South Carolina, was "sidelined from Cabinet and Sub Cab mtgs."
The NSC is run by National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a former head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency until he was asked to step down in 2014 by senior intelligence leaders.
There has been running tension between the Trump administration and the intelligence
community
, though during a January 22 visit to the CIA Trump declared that "nobody feels
stronger about the intelligence community than Donald Trump," adding that "I love you. I respect
you."
Before then,
the President had argued that intelligence services were politically
partisan, he dismissed their findings that Russia hacked Democratic targets during the campaign
and referred slightingly to the intelligence community by tweeting with the word intelligence in
quotes.
In setting out the reorganization, Trump said that "security threats facing the United
States in the 21st century transcend international boundaries. Accordingly, the United States
Government's decision-making structures and processes to address these challenges must remain
equally adaptive and transformative."
Regular members of the Principals Committee will include the secretary of state, the treasury
secretary, the defense secretary, the attorney general, the secretary of Homeland Security, the
assistant to the President and chief of staff, the assistant to the President and chief
strategist, the national security adviser and the Homeland Security adviser.
As President Donald Trump prepares - in the words of his
chief of staff - "a buffet of options" for dealing with
Mexico, trade and immigration, it's time for the Texas
congressional delegation to make a strong statement in
support of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Though much of Trump's focus last week was on the border
wall (and ways to make Mexico pay for it), his focus next
week is expected to be on trade.
"President Trump has taken his first steps toward an
'America first' approach to international trade, pulling out
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday and reaffirming
his intent to renegotiate NAFTA, the North American Free
Trade Agreement," the Boston Globe reports. "What does this
mean for U.S. companies and American workers? Trump's
executive order to withdraw from the TPP is anticlimactic.
That agreement was already a dead-letter, having been
disclaimed by both presidential candidates and never ratified
by Congress. But a new NAFTA could upend U.S.-Mexican
relations and disrupt whole sectors of the US economy."
And that would be disastrous for Texas.
Texas companies, big and small, export a total of $92.5
billion worth of goods to Mexico each year. That figure
dwarfs second-place California, which exports just $26.8
billion of goods.
"From the booming border city of Laredo to the bustling
trading hub of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas has become the
nation's top exporter of goods, according to the Federal
Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Mexico is its biggest customer,"
the Wall Street Journal explains. "Some 382,000 jobs in Texas
alone depend on trade with Mexico, according to 2014 data
released this month by the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan global research group.
Goods exported from Texas help support more than a million
jobs across the U.S., according to the U.S. Commerce
Department."
Texas' top exports to Mexico are computer and electronic
products, petroleum and coal products, chemicals, machinery
and transportation equipment.
As University of Oregon economist Mark Thoma points out,
"NAFTA isn't the problem, and tariffs aren't the answer."
He says Trump believes that NAFTA is the reason the U.S.
has lost manufacturing jobs. But that's not the case, he
explains.
"Domestic manufacturing's employment decline began long
before NAFTA came along," Thoma wrote for CBS News.
"According to University of California Berkeley professor
Brad DeLong's calculations, 'A sector of the economy that
provided three out of 10 nonfarm jobs at the start of the
1950s and one in four nonfarm jobs at the start of the 1970s
now provides fewer than one in 11 nonfarm jobs today.
Proportionally, the United States has shed almost two-thirds
of relative manufacturing employment since 1971.' In
addition, much of that drop can be attributed to
technological change - the rise of robots and digital
technology - rather than globalization. Renegotiating trade
agreements can't change this."
It's time for the Texas delegation to Washington to stand
up and say they won't support Trump's short-sighted attempts
to kill NAFTA. Ditching NAFTA would be a mistake.
What is the answer? Seems to me that 'liberal' economists are
convinced that they know what we should NOT be doing, but
come up short on proposals that will actually solve the
problem.
All the focus on blaming trade for loss of manufacturing
distracts from the real conversation needed: How can we
better address the dislocation of workers due to advances in
technology?
Trump and the right blame trade and believe
that better trade policies or tariffs or "shaking up the
markets?" will miraculously bring back coal mining and
manufacturing.
The anti-NAFTA left is focusing on the ant and ignoring
the elephant. This enables Trump by placing all focus on
trade. Why focus on government programs to help the
dislocated if the dislocation problem can be fixed by
renegotiating NAFTA? Serious ideas such as green energy jobs
are dismissed in favor of fixing trade instead. The
conversation will never turn to real solutions about how
modern manufacturing jobs increasingly require computer
skills, education and training.
Most small towns have lost jobs because the manufacturers
they do have are hiring fewer workers or not net expanding
their workforce. At the same time, service sector jobs remain
low pay and much opposition to raising minimum wage or
Obamacare to provide them with health insurance.
Having the comparative data on manufacturing employment as a
percent of total employment for the United States, Canada,
United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands,
Australia and Japan, running from 1970 through 2012, what is
striking is the similarity of pattern.
Also striking is the
relation between gains in manufacturing productivity and
decline in percent manufacturing employment in the United
States.
Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman would appear to
be right about trade relations having fairly little to do
with the long term decline of percent of employment in
manufacturing in the United States or other developed
countries.
What Happened to Automation and Robots: WaPo Tells of
Labor Shortage in Japan
Wow, things just keep getting worse. Automation is taking
all the jobs, and the aging of the population means we won't
have any workers. Yes, these are completely contradictory
concerns, but no one ever said that our policy elite had a
clue. (No, I'm not talking about Donald Trump's gang here.)
Anyhow, the Washington Post had a front page story *
telling us how older people are now working at retirement
homes in Japan as a result of the aging of its population.
The piece includes this great line:
"That means authorities need to think about ways to keep
seniors healthy and active for longer, but also about how to
augment the workforce to cope with labor shortages."
You sort of have to love the first part, since folks might
have thought authorities would have always been trying to
think about ways to keep seniors healthy and active longer.
After all, isn't this a main focus of public health policy?
The part about labor shortages is also interesting. When
there is a shortage of oil or wheat the price rises. If there
were a labor shortage in Japan then we should be seeing
rapidly rising wages. We aren't. Wages have been virtually
flat in recent years. That would seem to indicate that Japan
doesn't have a labor shortage -- or alternatively it has
economically ignorant managers who don't realize that the way
to attract workers is to offer higher pay.
As The Hill reports
, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Sunday
said the president's executive order barring refugees and people from seven
majority-Muslim nations does not affect green card holders.
"We didn't overrule the Department of Homeland Security,
as far as green card holders moving
forward, it doesn't affect them,"
Priebus said on NBC's "Meet The
Press."
But Priebus noted if a person is traveling back and forth to one of the seven
countries included in that order, that person is likely to be "subjected temporarily
with more questioning until a better program is put in place."
"We don't want people that are traveling back and forth to one of these
seven countries that harbor terrorists to be traveling freely back and forth between
the United States and those countries,"
he said.
When pressed further on whether the order impacts green card holders, though, Priebus
appeared to reverse himself, saying, "Well, of course it does."
"If you're traveling back and forth, you're going to be subjected to
further screening,
" he said.
Furthermore, Priebus also said more countries could be added to the list already
included in the president's executive order.
"Perhaps other countries needed
to be added to an executive order going forward,"
he said.
"But in order to do this in a way that was expeditious, in a way that would pass
muster quickly, we used the 7 countries that have already been codified and
identified."
As we noted yesterday, of the seven countries that are on the banned list, we note
that the United States is actvely bombing five of them.
maybe he didn't include saudi arabia because he is a genius.
couldn't do it on the first go, but if enough people raise their
voice about that exclusion, he will be like, what do you think
folks, should I include SA? Ok, done!
The seven countries listed were already defined by the Obama
administration as principle threats, which is WHY Trump used them in
his EO of his FIRST WEEK in office. This is part of his campaign
agenda and using Obama policy was the fastest way to get it started.
You can also bet that there are PLENTY of government employees who
will do their best to make ANY such policy an embarrassment.
(f)
Suspension
of entry or imposition of restrictions by President
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens
or of any class of aliens into the United States would be
detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by
proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary,
suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as
immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens
any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the
Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed
to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating
to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent
documents used by passengers traveling to the United States
(including the training of personnel in such detection), the
Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens
transported to the United States by such airline.
Standard Disclaimer: How long do you think those planes
will keep flying when hit with a million dollar a day fee?
10M? 100M?
Or do the words "any restrictions he may deem to be
appropriate." still fail to register within that pea-sized
brain of yours.
Trump banned 7 countries who produced not a single terrorist attack on US
soil, but Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Russian, Indian and Israeli Muslims are
not in the list, such are uselessness. What about US jail system, it seems
to produce more Muslims than the immigration. Even USA army produced more
terrorists than the 7 countries.
I came here to accuse you of being full of shit but the first few were
somalia, afghanistan, pakistan. not going to dig deeper because the
conclusion is obvious - we just need a full blown muslim ban.
Where the Trump admin is clumsy, inexperience
and naive is in thinking that every move they will make will NOT be used as
an opportunity to assassinate them politically and in PR terms.
The fight happens mainly in the media, for voters minds anyway.
Trump admin should learn this. Fast.
P.S. The decision was just fucking stupid. Non-muslim, non-refugee PhDs
who've been working for US tech/aerospace/finance/medical industry were left
stranded. I'm not sure that Bubba from Alabama or Joe from Flint would get
those jobs, even if Trump kicked out every single foreign PhD working in the
US. Also, Silicon Valley would totally tank, if that happened. It was just a
stupid move. Stupid.
I think what you're missing here, along with many others, is that
this administration DOES NOT CARE what the MSM thinks. They can fabricate
all the protests and memes they want, the administration will just shrug
and say "whatever".
W said he "had a mandate", then did half-steps. Obama said he "had a
mandate" , then didn't do any of it (close Gitmo, close black sites, end
the middle east wars (hell, he more than doubled the middle east
entanglements!)), Trump isn't even bothering to say he has a mandate,
he's just proceeding as if it's a given.
So go ahead and rage MSM and associated protesters, but I doubt it'll
do you any good.
The only way for him to avoid that from occuring would be to turn over
the office to them and not make any decision they have not given approval
to.
The effectiveness of their PR using the msm and their protest
events will lessen if Trump ignores them and makes moves quickly and
moves on. They will have difficulty getting attention over last months
news - Unless they get more destructive or violent.
Sorry BigFat, I like Ron Paul as much as you do, but his Libertarian Foreign
Policy viewpoint on the Islamic issue is COMPLETELY naive. They want to
establish a caliphate REGARDLESS whether they are bombed or not. They are
inextricably linked to following what the Koran says about murdering
Christians and Jews and establishing Sharia Law to dominate and subdue
unbelievers (yes even naive Libertarians).... goodness me bro, educate
yourself. Watch this school in Britain that is teaching students crazy
Sharia Law viewpoints and ask yourself if these people in its current form
are really compatible with Western Society:
It took Charles Martel "The Hammer" to put a stop to the Islamist creed
of conquering Europe after the Moors completely took over Spain and were
headed north towards France and the rest of last vestiges of the West. It
looks as if we need a revival of his bloodline in order to really bring
about peace and security in the West.
Criminal factions in the USA created ISIS. The American people are
trying to undo that crime and bring those responsible to justice. This
ain't gonna happen in a week.
No, you are wrong, VISAS and Green Cards are NOT "Forever documents"
granting the holder full citizenship or voting rights. It CAN be suspended
for ANY reason deemed proper under the ALREADY WRITTEN LAWS. The President
can suspend ANY entry:
"8 US Code 1182 Inadmissable Aliens
Section (10) (f)
Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of
any class of aliens
into the United States would be detrimental to
the interests of the United States,
he may by proclamation, and for
such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or
any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry
of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
Whenever
the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply
with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of
airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers
traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such
detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens
transported to the United States by such airline."
Additionally, theree can be action that can be taken on any airline or
transporter that accepts fradulent documents for admission. The United
States Law on immigration was NEVER get here stay here. WE get to choose
and it is NOT for democrats or globalists or elitiets to make that call. It
is .... wait for it.... wait for it...
WE THE (FUCKING) PEOPLE. WE DECIDE. Not a bunch of libtards that gave
up on America.
The fact that even Green Card holders
are aliens (with legal permanent residence in the US) is clear. A Green
Card expirs after 10 years, you can apply for another 10 years, but then
either become a citizen or leave the country. I understand that.
I was referring to the 90-day ban in the executive order. The
executive order appears to me - among many other things - to imply, for
example, that all Green Card holders, say, from Iran that just left the
US for, say, a week to go on vacation (but have otherwise lived and
worked here for years) will be barred from re-entering the US for a
period of 90 days until various objectives in the executive order are
worked out.
From Trump's executive order, Sec. 3. (c): '... I hereby proclaim that
the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens
from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C.
1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States,
and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and
nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order'
The way I read this is that if I am a Green Card holder from Syria who
has lived in the US for the past 17 years and has studied and worked
here, but who went on vacation to Venice, Italy, I WILL BE (no exception)
barred from re-entering the US for 90 days. While your quote of 8 U.S.C.
1182(f) appears to indicate that the president can do exactly that I
still think it is not clear cut from a legal perspective. We will see. If
I am wrong I am wrong. I maintain that the Trump administration did not
think through this executive order carefully. We can reconvene in the
near future once this initial transient period is over to see where we
are.
You obviously don't understand the size and scope of the problems this
administration is inheriting. Your agenda is clear. Bash Trump at every turn
and deflect from Obama's disastrous policies.
I find it interesting that you claim that my agenda is clear from just
reading one of my posts. That is not enough information that would allow
you make such a grand claim. Maybe you should go back and only claim
things, for which you have sufficient evidence. BTW, in my original post
I actually do bash the previous administration.
ANOTHER OBAMA DHS SCREW UP: 20,000 GREEN CARDS HANDED OUT LIKE CANDY
In the latest instance of the Obama administration's neglect and
indifference toward America's immigration problem, around 20,000 green cards
have been wrongly distributed or contained false information.
The DHS report highlights that at least 19,000 green cards were issued with
either incorrect information or sent in duplicate, while the USCIS also
received over 200,000 complaints that cards had either been sent to the wrong
address or not received at all.
Furthermore, the OIG report found that over 2,400 immigrants who had only
been cleared for two-year conditional residence status were inadvertently
issued cards that don't expire for 10 years.
Oh, and BTW, these countries
where Drumpf has businesses or business interests are exempt:
1. Saudi Arabia
2. United Arab Emirates
3, Turkey
4. Indonesia
Of course, no terrorists ever came from those nations. Oh,
wait...
It's one thing to try to tighten immigration overview.
Quite another to knee-jerk your way into an international
political blow-up with a fucked-up bull-in-china-shop
approach to strategy and tactics.
1. Saudi Arabia is the centerpiece of the petrodollar. An attack on Saudi
Arabia is an attack on the dollar and worthy of a military response. Nixon and
Kissinger laid the foundation of this monetary order and Carter made it very
clear about US defending Saudi Arabia.
2. UAE is a key ally of Saudi Arabia.
3. Turkey is a key NATO member, contributing a large percentage of troops
and vehicles, and also controls a key outlet for Russian warships based in
Crimea.
4. Indonesia controls the Strait of Malacca, a strategic chokepoint for oil
headed to East Asia.
I would refer everyone complaining about KSA and friends not being on the
list to your post.
Become self-sufficient (money/energy/manufacturing not
critically dependant on others), then you can tell KSA what you really think
of them. With all the winning these days, maybe it's not so far-fetched a
dream...
It's a difficult issue. We can't have our cake and eat it too. Some risk must be
accepted in order to remain within the law. Obama issued these visas and we have
to abide by them and that is that. We can not have witch hunts in this country.
Fortunately going forward, we can refuse new visas. And what is taking President
Trump so long to ban new border crossing "refugee" claims? That is actually a
more pressing issue.
It is not a matter of we vs. them, it's we vs. us. This Administration is proving
in 7 days to be rank amateurs.
So many statements and decrees have been walked
back, cancelled or corrected. No one thinks these things through or understands
what is lawful or possible.
So many statements and numbers have been proven objectively wrong and changed
on the fly.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, he cannot be trusted.
The Administration appointees and the Vampire Squid already control more wealth
than 1/3rd of the population.
Today we learn that the National Security Council has been downsized so as not
to include the Dec Def, or White House Security Adviser. A joke that only
President Paranoid can love.
When will the loyalists realize we have been PUNKED by this Administration?
Good thing there's no Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, nor anti-Western Jihadis in
Turkey, etc.
What I want to know is - regarding the drone ordering, cakewalk
promising, WMD swearing terrorists who started all shit to begin with - when will
they
be banned permanently from sunlight and fresh air?
Do you really think for a moment that Google is so desperate to hire good
programmers that it needs to recruit from Syria/Iraq/etc???
The Obama
administration and its henchmen for years has preyed upon the generosity of
businesses like those in Silicon Valley, to get them to hire from these Muslim
countries. This is how a Muslim governs. Obama did this with the express intent
of cirumventing any limitations on refugees, this way their status was immediately
legal.
This is a Muslim invasion. They are not refugees. And Islam is an evil cult,
which should not be given the title of 'religion'.
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in
the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison
This story is about an investigation by George Webb that
takes us back to the Dulles Brothers and the birth of the CIA in 1947. It
includes a cast of characters, entities, and events leading up to Snowden;
including Booze Allen; the Carlie Group; the Enron scandal; Kosovo; Somalia;
Argentina; East Timor; the Clinton Foundation in Haiti; Hillary's arming of ISIS,
and destruction of Libya. And then there's the FALSE FLAG attack on Syria, using
Sarin Gas from Libya, for which Assad was blamed.
Webb began investigating of the Clinton Foundation and has
descended into a labyrinth of a Rabbit hole. Be assured the prima facie evidence
against Hillary in Libya and the Foundation, including Bill, is overwhelming.
If you are interested in the depth of the Rabbit Hole and the
psychopaths within, please see:
Good point. Much as I disagree with both bombing Muslims and
denying refugees, it is refreshing to see a president
actually try to accomplish what he believes in...after eight
years of a president who just shrugged his shoulders, told us
it can't be done, and that Americans should just suck it
up...the jobs are never coming back!
What 'liberal's fail
to understand is that Trump probably cares less about whether
he succeeds in banning Muslim immigrants and is more
concerned about how deplorables perceive how hard he is
trying.
If Obama and Hillary had tried half as hard as Trump to
accomplish things that working Americans wanted, then Trump
wouldn't be president. It is tragic that Democrats were more
interested in rolling over and having their bellies rubbed by
wealthy and powerful interests than beating their heads
against the wall for American workers.
In one way, the things that Trump is doing are similar to
what other newly elected presidents have done. In their first
weeks they try to reward the base voters by pushing through a
huge number of changes that are high on those voters'
agendas. Then they turn back to more normal, professional,
DC-oriented politics.
But in this case, we might not get a
return to normal. Possibly the most worrisome thing he is
done yet is put the lunatic cretin Bannon on the NSC, and
demote the Joint Chiefs and DNI. He's creating his own little
radical, ideological national security directorate of
wild-eyed, amateur outsiders and Holy Warriors.
He has already started a process for reviewing the US's
ISIS policies, including looking for ways to avoid
international law constraints. I expect that within a
relatively short time, he will launch a major, ruthless
military blitz against ISIS. He will team up with Putin to do
it. It will be combined with a domestic campaign of
persecution and intimidation directed against various kinds
of Muslims and non-Muslim political dissidents.
Trump believes he's the head of a movement, one that
overthrew the Republican establishment and faces unyielding
opposition from the press.
It's the economic and cultural nationalism of Jeff
Sessions and Bannon etc. He's a populist which is why he is
concerned with how popular he is. It's why the size of crowds
matters to him. It's why it matters whether or not he won the
popular vote. It's why he tweets directly at his supporters.
He repeatedly called Iraq a disaster on the campaign
trail. Many of his voters agree. I don't see him putting
boots on the ground, at least not for any extended period of
time or for an occupation. He's isolationist. America First.
They want to withdraw from the world, from alliances.
His Defense Secretary Mattis says torture doesn't work and
Trump said he'll defer to him. We'll see. Yes he'll probably
do some sort of military adventure but it will be drawn up by
Mattis and the generals. He'll declare victory and go home
and change the subject. When all is said and done he's a
real-estate developer and a con man. He'll use bombing ISIS
as a distraction. I see him as more like Berlusconi. Corrupt.
How many of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia? So if
all but one came from that country the travel ban on people
from 7 countries must certainly include Saudi Arabia, right?
No apparently not - because it could hurt Trumps personal
business deals. The criteria to select countries for this
cruel and completely unnecessary travel ban (leaving many
students at american universities stranded in their home
countries) has apparently not been designed based on actual
likelihood of terrorism.
Judge Blocks Trump Order on Refugees Amid Chaos
and Outcry Worldwide
https://nyti.ms/2jHS6tQ
NYT - MICHAEL D. SHEAR, NICHOLAS KULISH and ALAN FEUER - Jan
28
WASHINGTON - A federal judge in Brooklyn came to the aid
of scores of refugees and others who were trapped at airports
across the United States on Saturday after an executive order
signed by President Trump, which sought to keep many
foreigners from entering the country, led to chaotic scenes
across the globe.
The judge's ruling blocked part of the president's
actions, preventing the government from deporting some
arrivals who found themselves ensnared by the presidential
order. But it stopped short of letting them into the country
or issuing a broader ruling on the constitutionality of Mr.
Trump's actions. ...
In a rare middle-of-the night decision, two federal judges
in Boston temporarily halted President Trump's executive
order blocking immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations
from entering the United States.
At 1:51 a.m., Judge Allison Burroughs and Magistrate Judge
Judith Dein imposed a seven-day restraining order against
Trump's executive order, clearing the way for lawful
immigrants from the seven barred nations – Iran, Iraq, Yemen,
Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Syria – to enter the US.
"It's a great victory today," said Susan Church, a lawyer who
argued the case in court. "What's most important about today
is this is what makes America great, the fact that we have
the rule of law."
The ruling prohibits federal officials from detaining or
deporting immigrants and refugees with valid visas or green
cards or forcing them to undergo extra security screenings
based solely on Trump's order. The judges also instructed
Customs and Border Protection to notify airlines overseas
that it is safe to put immigrants on US-bound flights. ...
Judge Who Blocked Trump's Refugee Order Praised
for 'Firm Moral Compass'
https://nyti.ms/2jDI930
NYT - CHRISTOPHER MELE - January 29, 2017
The federal judge who blocked part of President Trump's
executive order on immigration on Saturday night worked for
years in the Manhattan district attorney's office, where she
was one of the lead prosecutors on the high-profile Tyco
International fraud trial.
Colleagues remembered the judge, Ann M. Donnelly, as an
astute lawyer unfazed by the spotlight. She found herself in
its glare unexpectedly on Saturday night, when she heard an
emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union
challenging the executive order barring refugees. She granted
a temporary stay, ordering that refugees and others detained
at airports across the United States not be sent back to
their home countries.
Enforcing Mr. Trump's order by sending the travelers home
could cause them "irreparable harm," Judge Donnelly ruled.
The order, just before 9 p.m., capped an intense day of
protests across the country by opponents of the order, which
suspended the entry of all refugees to the United States for
120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocked
entry for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim
countries. ...
Protest Grows 'Out of Nowhere' at Kennedy Airport
After Iraqis Are Detained
https://nyti.ms/2jDgKhA
NYT - ELI ROSENBERG - January 28, 2017
It began in the morning, with a small crowd chanting and
holding cardboard signs outside Kennedy International
Airport, upset by the news that two Iraqi refugees had been
detained inside because of President Trump's executive order.
By the end of the day, the scattershot group had swelled
to an enormous crowd.
They filled the sidewalks outside the terminal and packed
three stories of a parking garage across the street, a mass
of people driven by emotion to this far-flung corner of the
city, singing, chanting and unfurling banners.
This was the most public expression of the intense
reaction generated across the country by Mr. Trump's
polarizing decision. While those in some areas of the country
were cheered (#) by the executive order, the reaction was
markedly different for many in New York. References to the
Statue of Liberty and its famous inscription became a
rallying cry.
Similar protests erupted at airports around the country.
Word of the protest at Kennedy first filtered out on
social media from the immigrant-advocacy groups Make the Road
New York and the New York Immigration Coalition. It seemed
like it might stay small.
But the drama seemed to rise throughout the day. ...
#- Trump's Immigration Ban Draws Deep Anger
and Muted Praise
https://nyti.ms/2jBezLG
NYT - RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA - Jan 28, 2017
A group of Nobel Prize winners said it would damage
American leadership in higher education and research. House
Speaker Paul D. Ryan and some relatives of Americans killed
in terrorist attacks said it was right on target. An
evangelical Christian group called it an affront to human
dignity.
The reaction on Saturday to President Trump's ban on
refugees entering the United States, with particular focus on
certain Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa, was
swift, certain - and sharply divided.
The order drew sharp and widespread condemnation Saturday
from Democrats, religious groups, business leaders, academics
and others, who called it inhumane, discriminatory and akin
to taking a "wrecking ball to the Statue of Liberty."
Thousands of professors, including several Nobel laureates,
signed a statement calling it a "major step towards
implementing the stringent racial and religious profiling
promised on the campaign trail." ...
'Give me your tired, your poor:' The story behind the Statue
of Liberty's famous immigration poem
http://ti.me/2keeIFr
Time - Katie Reilly - January 28, 2017
In the wake of
President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration
Friday, many critics quickly took up a familiar rallying cry,
lifting words from the Statue of Liberty that have for
decades represented American immigration: "Give me your
tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free."
Former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin,
Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison and former Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright all invoked those words - written by
American author and poet Emma Lazarus in 1883 - as they
condemned Trump's suspension of the country's refugee
assistance program. ...
The poet James Russell Lowell said he liked the poem "much
better than I like the Statue itself" because it "gives its
subject a raison d'être which it wanted before," according to
the New York Times.
"Emma Lazarus was the first American to make any sense of
this statue," Esther Schor, who wrote a biography on Lazarus,
told the Times in 2011. ...
"Wherever there is humanity, there is the theme for a
great poem," she once said, according to the Jewish Women's
Archives.
The poem was later published in New York World and the New
York Times, just a few years before Lazarus died in 1887.
The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York in 1885 and was
officially unveiled in 1886, but Lazarus' poem did not become
famous until years later, when in 1901, it was rediscovered
by her friend Georgina Schuyler. In 1903, the last lines of
the poem were engraved on a plaque and placed on the pedestal
of the Statue of Liberty, where it remains today.
The poem, in its entirety, is below:
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
"... By Naked Capitalism reader aliteralmind, aka Jeff Epstein. Jeff, a progressive activist and journalist, was one of only around forty candidates in the county to be personally endorsed by Bernie Sanders, and was a pledged delegate for him at the DNC. Jeff is also currently starring in Feel The Bern-The Musical , which will very soon be performed in New York. Originally posted on Citizens' Media TV ..."
"... "to be in the tank is to be "lovingly enthralled; foolishly enraptured; passionately bedazzled"" ..."
"... Today, the President announced a major new step that his Administration is taking to make mortgages more affordable and accessible for creditworthy families. ..."
Posted on
January 28, 2017 by
Yves Smith By
Naked Capitalism reader aliteralmind, aka Jeff Epstein. Jeff, a progressive activist and journalist,
was one of only around forty candidates in the county to be personally endorsed by Bernie Sanders,
and was a pledged delegate for him at the DNC. Jeff is also currently starring in
Feel
The Bern-The Musical , which will very soon be performed in New York. Originally posted on
Citizens'
Media TV
But while it is technically true that Trump did sign the order reversing the decrease, it is a
misleading picture. This story is more a negative reflection on President Obama than it is on Trump.
A Brief Tutorial From Someone Who Is Learning the Subject Right Along With You
Generally speaking, if you are a first time homebuyer and purchase a house with a down payment
of less than 20% of the home's worth, you are required to purchase mortgage insurance. This insurance
is to protect the the lender in case you default on your payments.
Let's use the example of a $200,000 home with a $10,000 (5%) down payment. So you need to borrow
$190,000.
And then every year, you pay the annual premium of $1,520.
$190,000 * .008 = $1,520
As you pay off your principal, this number goes down.
The
Obama administration's reduction of the annual premium rate is .25 points (the upfront premium
remains unchanged). So with the same loan above, your annual premium would instead be $1,045.
.008 - .0025 = .0055
$190,000 * .0055 = $1,045
That's a savings of $475 a year, or about $40 a month.
$1,520 - $1,045 = $475
$475 / 12 months = $39.59
Backlash Against Trump
The criticism of Trump for this move has been unrelenting and, at least in my internet bubble,
unanimous. I have not seen any criticism of the Obama administration at all; including by, disappointingly,
one of my primary sources of news, The Young Turks. (Can't find the video at the moment, but they
briefly criticized Trump for the move, without looking further into the issue.)
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday that Trump's words in his inaugural
speech "ring hollow" following the mortgage premium action.
"In one of his first acts as president, President Trump made it harder for Americans to afford
a mortgage," he said. "What a terrible thing to do to homeowners. Actions speak louder than
words."
"This action is completely out of alignment with President Trump's words about having the government
work for the people," said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition,
through a spokesman. "Exactly how does raising the cost of buying a home help average people?"
Sarah Edelman, director of housing policy for the left-leaning Center for American Progress,
in an e-mail wrote, "On Day 1, the president has turned his back on middle-class families - this
decision effectively takes $500 out of the pocketbooks of families that were planning to buy a
home in 2017. This is not the way to build a strong economy."
"Donald Trump's inaugural speech proclaimed he will govern for the people, instead of the political
elite," [Liz Ryan Murray, policy director for national grassroots advocacy group People's Action]
said. "But minutes after giving this speech, he gave Wall Street a big gift at the expense of
everyday people. Trump may talk a populist game, but policies like this make life better for hedge
fund managers and big bankers like his nominee for Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, not for everyday
people."
The Full Picture
To say that Trump took savings away from the neediest of homebuyers is not true, because homebuyers
never had the savings to begin with. The rate reduction was not
announced until January 9 of this year–11 days before the end of Obama's eight year term–and
was not set to take effect until January 27, a full week after Trump was sworn in.
In addition, Obama's reduction decision seems to have been made without any advance notice or
even a projection document justifying the decrease.
As I understand it
, both of these things are unusual with a change of this magnitude.
Finally, with the announcement made little more than a week before the new administration was
to be sworn in, and despite Trump being entirely responsible for implementing this change, the incoming
administration was not consulted.
Trump, who claimed a populist mantle in his first speech as a president, signed the executive
order less than an hour after leaving the inaugural stage. It reverses an Obama-era policy.
"Obama-era policy" implies the reduction was made long ago, and has been in force for much of
that time.
(Rates can't be raised if they were never lowered.)
Conclusion: It Was a Set Up
Finally. After eight years of hard work and multiple requests, your boss approaches you on
a Monday morning and says, "Good news! Starting in two weeks, I'm giving you a raise. Congratulations."
Two days later, you find out that he decided to leave the company months ago, and his final
day is Friday. Your raise doesn't start until a week after that.
You ask him about your new boss. "Well, he's a pretty strict guy." He leans in, puts the back
of his hand to the side of his mouth, lowers his voice, and continues, "Honesty, I hear he is
a bit difficult to work with. Real penny pincher." He sits up, his voice back to its normal cadence,
"But don't worry. I'm leaving a note on his desk telling him just how important this raise is
to you and your family." He stands up and slaps you on the back as he walks away. "I'm sure he'll
keep my word."
If that were me, I would be upset at my new boss, but I would be furious at my old one. He
had eight years to do something.
This was nothing more than an opportunistic political maneuver by the outgoing president, to set
the incoming president up for failure. All while pretending to care about American homeowners. If
the President Obama really wanted to help Americans, he would've considered this move–or something
similar–long ago. Instead, he told them he was giving them a gift and promised that it would be delivered
by Trump, knowing full well that he would never follow through. Lower-income Americans were used
as pawns in a cheap political game.
"The Trump administration would be accused on day one of raising mortgage costs for average
Americans if it reverses the FHA move," analyst Jaret Seiberg, managing director at Cowen Group
Inc., wrote in a note to clients. "Trump's career has been real estate. It would seem out of
character for him to be aggressively negative on real estate in his first week in office."
[ ]
"I have no reason to believe this will be scaled back," [HUD Secretary Julian] Castro told
reporters. The premium cut "offers a good benefit to hardworking American families out there
at a time when interest rates might well continue to go up."
It is not Trump's responsibility to keep the promises that Obama makes on his way out the door.
It is Obama's responsibility to not promise what is not promiseable.
There are so many things for progressives to criticize Trump about. This is not one of them.
So Who Are We Fighting Anyway?
To paraphrase Jimmy Dore ,
"The way to oppose Trump is to agree with him when he's right, and to fight him when he's wrong.
Anything else delegitimizes you, especially in the eyes of his supporters."
And again in another of his videos
: "We don't need to unite against Trump. We need to unite against corruption and corporatism."
If Democrats do something wrong, we need to fight them. If Trump does something wrong, we need
to fight him. If Trump does something right, we need to stand with him.
If we can't win with the truth, we don't deserve to win.
I agree with the sentiment but after watching the D party protest war under Bush, never talk
about it under Obama, and then cheerlead for it with Hillary I don't think they actually stand
for anything except identity politics.
Right, they traded support for real issues for identity politics. Identity politics which is
lovingly celebrated on TYT every day by the way. I'm not sure how or why anyone would go to that
rancid cesspool of biased disinformation for news, but ok.
Here is a litmus test: anyone who gave a pro forma endorsement of Hillary OK, understandable,
and I can kind of tolerate that. But for the others who were in the tank for Hillary like TYT–all
except for Jimmy Dore–those people are persona non grata from here out.
Totally disagree that TYT was in the tank for Hillary. Have watched these guys every day since
around May. They're all pro-Bernie. They clearly wanted Hillary over Trump during the general
(and I did too, but that's waaaaaay not to say I'm pro-Hillary), but I don't think "in the tank
for Hillary" is a fair characterization for any of them.
To me, the best evidence is that I have not witnessed Jimmy Dore being forced to tone his admittedly
louder and more vehement anti-Hillary ranting down on any show, including the main show. They
even gave him his own show around the end of the primaries where he gleefully goes off (Aggressive
Progressives).
As an aside, The Jimmy Dore Show seems fresher than Aggressive Progressives, I believe because
he rehearses the bits on own show first. On TJDS, he is frequently good, and consistently on fire.
Naked Cap, the entire TYT network, Glenn Greenwald, Le Show, and of course, Bernie Sanders,
are among my most important truth tellers.
It's not that clear cut. For instance, if you are a person of color, there was good reason
to be plenty worried about Trump. Violence against immigrants picked up big time in the UK after
Brexit, so there's a close parallel. And his appointment of Jeff Sessions as AG is hardly encouraging.
Did you see their election day coverage? Here are the highlights:
TYT meltdown .
My favorite part starts at 14m50s, when Kasparian rants about how she has no respect for women
who didn't vote for Clinton and calls them "f@#king dumb". Solidarity!
What the – ????? – like the right wing is not all about Identity Politics from an ethnic and
religious foundations .. errrrrrr .
Now that the Democrats embraced free market neoliberalism and went off the reservation with
non traditional views wrt whom could join the club, being the only thing separating the two, its
a bit wobbly to make out like there is some massive schism between the two.
Disheveled . you can't have a "dominate" economic purview running the ship for 50ish years
and then devolve into polemic political warfare ..
jgordon– Identity politics lovingly celebrated on that rancid cesspool of biased disinformation
every day. Wow, takes my breath away. I've watched the TYT evening news for ~10 months virtually
ever day and I'd guesstimate that I viewed 60 of their You Tube clips. Seems to me you're projecting.
Given your strident certitude you should have no trouble provide any links that convinced you
of your opinion, buttress your argument. The daily recurrences of "identity politics" put it out
there. What convinced you they were "in the tank for Hillary"? It'd be hard to come up with a
more inaccurate phrase. They full throatedly endorsed Sanders in the primaries. Cenk announced
on the Monday (IIRC) before that he would be voting for HRC so how do you arrive at using "in
the tank"? I found your remarks a "rancid cesspool of biased disinformation" long on emotion and
very short on facts and evidence. That's why it seems like projection.
The US support for the Saudi war in Yemen is the most clearcut example of the moral worthlessness
of many liberals. Actually, to their credit many Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress have
opposed it, but it isn't a big cause because Obama was the one doing it. I imagine Trump will
continue the policy, but don't expect anything to change– Trump can be opposed on other issues,
so there will be no incentive to criticize him on an issue when the Trump people can say they
are just continuing what Obama started.
It is infuriating to hear liberals mindlessly repeating how disgraceful it is to see Trump
cozying up with a dictator who has blood on his hands. It is the eternal sunshine of the spotless
mind with these people.
Hear, hear! Thanks to NC that Common Dreams piece set off my bs detector immediately. There's
a larger framing question we can add as well: who benefits from PMI?
Using the example above, the home buyer pays an upfront premium of $3,300 which gives them
no additional equity in their home, and somewhere between $1400 and $1500 a year for their premium,
which also doesn't increase their equity. And, they continue to pay PMI until they achieve a loan
to value ratio of 80%.
So you buy your 200K house and dutifully pay your mortgage and PMI, which, btw, is also not
tax deductible. You finally get to the point where through a combination of paying down your mortgage
and increasing home prices, you have 80% equity in your home. Then the housing market tanks, and
your 200K home is worth 170K. Your house is worth less than you paid for it and you're stuck paying
$1500 a year in fees that don't reduce the amount of your mortgage, that you can't deduct from
your taxes, and that you can't get rid of until you have 80% equity in your house.
Sign me up!
So who benefits? Certainly not the middle class would be homeowner, who not only gets screwed
on the finances, but thanks to inflation of home prices, is getting screwed on the finances so
that they can spend 200K on a crappy little ranch that's a 40 minute commute to their job one
way on a good day.
I also read about this on the Neocon/Neolib pro-war propaganda and general disinformation site
for women and manginas Huffington Post, and I have to say that they were spinning really hard
to make this look like something horrible Trump had done. But even in the extremely biased article
I read they surreptitiously had to admit that this was a rule the Obama regime had put in place
the midnight before Obama departed and that Trump was just reversing it. I read this before I
knew anything else about t he subject and already had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
But the above post helped a lot.
Finance benefits – they get to keep promoting unaffordable mortgages.
We refused to pay this BS insurance when purchasing our house, since it wan't insuring us against
anything but rather we'd be paying for the bank's insurance against ourselves. Seems a lot more
like a scam when you frame it that way, considering that the bank is lending you money they just
created in the first place.
Instead we saved up for another year or two until we had the whole 20% down required to avoid
the insurance. I do understand that not everyone can afford 20% down depending on their job and
where they live however if enough people refused both PMI and to purchase because they couldn't
afford 20% down on an overpriced house (and we are in another bubble already, at least in my area),
prices would drop until people could really afford them.
Finance pretends they are just trying to make the American Dream available to everybody and
too many have taken the bait to the point where finance as a percentage of GDP is near or at an
all time high. The reality is that it's mostly just a scam to benefit finance and turn the population
into debt slaves.
The home owner was able to purchase a home with less than 20% down. The PMI protects the lender
during default, which is considerably higher when borrower has no skin in the game. Also, there
are other options such as lender paid mi.
Additionally, most of you are confusing PMI – Private Mortgage Insurance- with FHA Upfront
and MIP. With the latter being required regardless of the down payment. Secondly, the author was
wrong on his facts. MIP is .85 @ 96.5% and .80 @ 30 years. 15 YR.terns offer reduced
PMI is another insurance company rip-off. Requiring people to escrow taxes with no interest
paid to them by the banks using those funds is another rip-off.
Trying to condense this whole article into a tweet is a challenge. . .
"Obama cuts mortg. ins. rate for <20% down by 25 pts ($500 on $200k home) 11days prior to exit
in con artist act sure to be dropped by Trump resulting in bogus media claims about Dem support
for working class homeowners."
I agree. If we Progressives are to make any fwd movement, we can't beat up on DJT on any and
everything. I am also cautioning friends & family to do so too. If cry "foul" everyou time he
acts, that delegitimizes us.
One recent example is the Trumps' arrivall @ wh b4 the inauguration. A snapshot shows DJT entering
WH before the Obamas and Mrs. DJT. Once posted, goes viral and the talk is how ill-mannered, selfish
is and how gracious the Obamas are for escorting the Mrs. after her "oafish" husband
What is not shown is that DJT stops, comes back, and ushers the trio ahead of him. (which you
can see on CSPAN ).
When I saw the truth of what happened, after reading the negative comments, that worried me.
We REALLY need to be more dis corning and employ critical thinking.
Have to be careful not to be swayed by bullshit, no matter where it comes from.
This explanation, while nice, only serves to make Trump look dumb. He jumped into an obvious
trap. Rather than focus on how Obama tricked him, I'm a bit more concerned with what this portends
for the future. See, if the president is unable, either for political or personal reasons, to
avoid easy pitfalls like this, the odds of his success aren't very high.
By the way, this reads like one more zing at Obama after he's already left the building. He
earned most of the criticism he got, definitely from this site, but I feel like this is overdoing
it. Criticizing him for not doing it sooner? Totally valid. Criticizing him for tripping up his
successor? Petty.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of Schumer and Kaine isn't part of that pettiness, though. That
will be useful to remember as they cozy up to the Don and claim they're doing it to "help working
families."
I am admittedly a political newbie (Bernie woke me up never did anything before him but vote),
and perhaps I am missing something, but I would be much less upset about it if he didn't screw
middle class Americans in the process.
That this is considered petty, by which I believe you mean normal politics, is exactly the
problem.
The article makes it pretty clear, if I am reading it and the links and background right, that
the screwing is principally in the form of requiring mortgage insurance to insure THE LENDER (or
note holder or whoever MERS says gets paid on default). And that the "benefit" you may feel was
(according to the spin) "taken away," was not even an "entitlement" because it would not have
even been in effect until three weeks AFTER Obama (who has screwed the middle class and everyone
else not in the Elite, nine ways from nowhere, for 8 years), and would not change the abuse that
is PMI. And would not have "put dollars in the pockets of consumers" anyway for long after that.
And how many homeowners are in the category?
And banksters and mortgage brokers and the rest, gee whiz, we mopes are supposed to be concerned
about THEM? About people whose paydays come from commissions on the dollar amount of the loans
they write? Where all the "incentives," backed by the Real Economy that undergirds the ability
of the US Government to do its fiat money forkovers to lenders that connived to change the policies
against prudential lending to inflate the bubble that crashed and burned so many, are all once
again being pointed in the direction of making Realtors ™(c)(BS) and lenders even richer on flips
and flops and dumb transactions and churning?
Just to clarify, and please anyone correct me, this was not any kind of "rate reduction." Rate
reductions are what is supposed to happen under the various homeowner "they let
you live in their house as long as you pay the rent mortgage" relief programs
that never happened except to transfer more money to the Banksters. As in "reduce the unaffordable
interest rate on oppressive mortgages." And "mark to market." And PRINCIPAL reductions
as a result. And I do know the nominal difference between "title" states and "equitable interest"
states - in either, the note holder effectively owns the house and property until the last nickel
is paid, and as seen in the foreclosure racket, often not even the. And the "homeowner" gets to
pay the taxes and maintain and maybe improve the place, to protect the note holder's equity "Fee
simple absolute" is a comforting myth.
As the article points out, the only potential reduction in money from borrower to lender/loan
servicer (since the PMI underwriters seem to have such close financial ties to the insured note
holder, there's but slim difference between the parts of the racket) might have been that tiny
reduction in the insurance PREMIUM.
Niggling over terms, maybe, but that's what "the law" is made up of.
And apologies if I mistook the referent of "he" to be "Trump" rather than Obama and his clan
- but nonetheless
This excellent analytic walkthrough is a model for what must be done to ward off any form of
"Obama 2!" as a political battle cry. It must be done relentlessly and without any consideration
of being fair to that neoliberal schemer. The Clintonites will claw their way back from the edge
of their political grave if they can draw on such sentiments.
Exactly, what we need is an FDR approach, which Bernie Sanders Democrats are far more likely
to deliver. Instead of bailing out AIG and Goldman Sachs, FDR would have set up a Homeonwers Loan
Corporation to buy up all the adjustable rate mortgages and convert them to fixed-rate mortgages,
and instead of the zero-interest loans going to Wall Street from the Fed, they'd have gone to
homeowners facing foreclosure, who could then stay in their homes and pay them off over time.
But when Obama came in, he brought in Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, who preached about "not
returning to the failed policied of FDR." What a pack of con artists. I prefer your honest hustlers
to those guys (i.e. Team Trump, American Hustle 2.0 at least you know what to expect.)
>See, if the president is unable, either for political or personal reasons, to avoid easy pitfalls
like this
How is this a pitfall? Trump puts a hold on a "last minute Obama change", lets it sit for awhile,
and then reinstates it or maybe even makes it better. Then Trump owns the reduction, not Obama.
This essay focuses on timing and tactics. Not analyzed is the essential question of What
is the appropriate premium for mortgage insurance?
It's an actuarial question based on prior loss experience. Real estate moves in long cycles.
Each trough is different in depth.
Such questions aside, HUD's annual mortgage insurance premium of 0.8% was in the middle of
the typical range of 0.5% to 1.0% charged by private mortgage insurers. Obama's short-lived cut
to 0.55% would have put HUD's premium at the low end, on what probably are higher-risk loans.
Obama's action mirrors what's seen in other gov-sponsored insurance programs, such as pension
benefit guarantee schemes which are chronically under-reserved. Cheap premiums look like a free
benefit, until the guarantee fund goes bust in a down cycle, and taxpayers get hit with a bailout.
What's so stupendously silly about Obama's diktat is that it was too late to provide
any electoral benefit. Whereas if HUD's mortgage insurance pool later went bust, it could have
been blamed on Obama for cutting premiums without any actuarial analysis.
Perhaps HUD secretary Ben Carson will ask a more fundamental question: what is HUD doing in
the mortgage insurance business, anyway? Obama's ham-handed tampering with premiums for political
purposes shows why government is not well placed to be in the insurance business - it has skewed
incentives. Ditch it, Ben!
In researching this story (I have no financial background, and have never owned anything beyond
a car), I had a theory that the reduction made no fiscal sense because the Feds raised rates for
the first time in 2016, after hovering above near zero for eight years, to .5%.
My thinking was that
the move was to discourage new borrowers by making loans more expensive, therefore increasing
the cost of mortgages and ultimately threatening the solvency of the FHA. I was wrong, which is
disappointing because it would have made for a more dramatic ending, in that Trump's revoking
the decrease would have been the "correct" thing to do.
Aye. You make an excellent point that essentially everybody in media has ignored.
What should the mortgage insurance rate actually be? And the answer is simple: It should be high
enough to cover losses incurred by mortgage defaults (plus operating expenses), but no higher.
I don't know what that rate should have actually been, but if it was 0.55%, then Obama and
the FHA should have lowered the rate years ago to avoid overcharging people. And if 0.80% was
the right rate, then Obama should never have lowered it at all, given that it would ultimately
require a taxpayer bailout. Either way , Obama is incompetent.
If the only consideration is cost to customers, then the proper rate is 0%. Offer it for free!!
But if you want to the program to actually be self-sustaining, so that it doesn't require continuous
injection of taxpayer dollars and be a perpetual target for cancellation by Congress, then you
have to charge enough to cover losses. Whether the average mortgage rate is 3.5% or 4.0% or 6.2%
matters not a whit in this calculation.
Net conclusion: Obama is either a flaming incompetent who flat-out doesn't understand the concept
of insurance, or this was a deliberate attempt to impose a political headache on Trump.
An analogy could be made to municipal bond insurance, which like mortgage insurance is intended
to protect the lender against loss of principal:
Municipal bond insurance adds a layer of protection in the rare case of default. However,
that protection is dependent on the insurance companies' credit quality.
Municipal bond insurance used to be commonplace; now it's quite rare. Why is that? As of
2008, nearly half of all newly issued municipal bonds carried some form of insurance. Today,
the share is less than 7%.
The number of municipal bond insurers has also declined and their credit ratings have fallen.
A number of bond insurers went bust during the Great Recession. Plus, a large default by
Puerto Rico has caused many municipal market participants to question the ability of insurance
companies to pay on the bonds they insure.
Muni bond insurers were publicly traded, profit seeking companies. But they underpriced their
insurance, probably because no one expected a 1930s-style crisis like 2008.
Obama had no more concept about how to price mortgage insurance than I do about how to perform
brain surgery. He was just mindlessly handing out bennies at public expense in the dark of night,
before skulking away into well-deserved obscurity.
I dunno Jim – perhaps Obama DID know (or was advised) that the rate cut was actuarially unsound
thus setting up his successor for problems down the road or bad optics upfront if the cut was
reversed.
Yep. To quote the White House press release, " Today, the President announced a major new
step that his Administration is taking to make mortgages more affordable and accessible for creditworthy
families. "
That's not a valid reason to lower PMI rates. PMI rates must cover losses, and higher
interest rates on mortgages may very well mean higher default rates. If so, PMI rates would need
to go up as well.
Now if the press release had talked about PMI overcharges by the FHA, then I might
have have bought it. But they didn't. There was no mention of actuarial soundness at all
.
For a good explanation of how mortgage insurance works and the impact of the discussed premium
increase/decrease, check out David Dayen's (a frequent contributor to NC) article on the Intercept
here . David goes more in depth on the actual numbers and what they mean.
I did briefly hear some discussion in the news about the FHA mortgage insurance program having
been underfunded in the recent past. This could have given an additional reason for Trump to block
the lower rate until the numbers could be analyzed. I did a search and found a couple of articles
from before either of these decisions that illustrate different perspectives on this issue:
The latter article is from 2009 but includes some interesting details about significant amounts
of money being transferred from the fund to the treasury department.
From the first link, as of 2015: " his recent decision to lower mortgage insurance premiums
despite the FHA falling short of its capital reserve requirement." So the fund was out of compliance
with the law, and this was a long-running point of contention between the administration and the
Republicans in Congress.
What we don't know yet is whether the fund reached its goal, which would justify lowing the
premium. The Congress members were complaining about being lied to.
"What is the appropriate premium for mortgage insurance?"
"Such questions aside, HUD's annual mortgage insurance premium of 0.8% was in the middle of
the typical range of 0.5% to 1.0% charged by private mortgage insurers. Obama's short-lived cut
to 0.55% would have put HUD's premium at the low end, on what probably are higher-risk loans."
The argument here seems to be that what is typical is appropriate. By that argument, 0.55%
which falls in that range would be ok. The argument that it's too low assumes that the range as
it stands is somehow rationally defined, which is another assumption that itself bears scrutiny.
To say that 0.5-1.0% is ok is an assumption, and should be examined in detail right along with
the 0.55 and 0.8 HUD figures before firmer conclusions could be drawn. The results would give
an informed answer to the rhetorical question " what is HUD doing in the mortgage insurance business,
anyway?" Absent that, we're reduced to arguments, tainted on both sides by political inclinations.
Jeff Epstein's clarification is exemplary.
One may be more effective, but if it's not feasible, it doesn't matter how effective it would
be in theory. See this comment by Martin from Canada a few days ago:
Maybe a viable new progressive party can be created. But it sure won't be easy. If it weren't
extremely difficult, don't you think that the Greens would have done it by now? For now, I think
that people need to be actively looking for candidates to run in the 2018 Democratic primaries.
In a few places, at the state level, this will be happening in 2017. See:
Obama came in off the golf course after Trump was elected and issued dozens of similar diktats i
recall wondering at the time that if all those moves were so important, why didn't he make them
in the 8 years he had
EZ real issue for Democrats to embrace. Stop the sales tax of food at the state/muni level.
Shift that burden (or as much as reasonably possible) to the top income brackets.
Oh wait, the places where Democrats can do this, always solidly vote D and there's no incentive.
There is an art to politics. As anyone who studies the subject knows, one has to be both "Lion
& Fox." Lion .for the strength to drive policies, but also a Fox in order to avoid "Snares and
Traps." Bannon, who actually has been writing these executive orders, stepped right into this
Trap. Rookie mistake. This is what happens when you have ideologues attempting to actually govern.
They "step in it." I believe that Jeff is a bit naive and thin skinned here as to "The Game."
Obama did indeed set a snare ..but I am a bit more concerned by Steve's arrogance for boldly stepping
in it and allowing the opposition a fine platform to grandstand on the issue. Rookie mistake.
Arrogance & Stupidity.
Afaics there are two ways in which this game can be played:
A)
1: 0bama sets the trap.
2: Trump nullifies the reduction in rates while simultaneously denouncing 0bama for setting the
trap.
3: MSMedia circus.
B)
1: 0bama sets the trap.
2: Trump nullifies the reduction in rates.
3: D-party denounces Trump.
4: MSMedia circus.
5: Trump/Bannon denounces 0bama for setting the trap.
6: MSMedia once again loses credibility, at least in the eyes of Trump supporters.
Why is option A better than B? Am I missing something here?
If everyone with less than 20% equity has PMI, why didn't it pay off after the crash and lessen
the need for a bailout? Logic would dictate most of the foreclosures were on homes people bought
most recently with less than 20% down. Did PMI pay any money during the crash and to whom and
for what?
If it didn't do any good during the last crash to lessen the public bailout, what's the point
of requiring it?
That is a very good question and I don't remember hearing anything about PMI paying out during
the crash (but that could just be my memory). In fact it never even crossed my mind but yeah you'd
think that should have mitigated some of the losses. Maybe any payout would only benefit the mortgage
holder directly and wouldn't carry through to the mortgage-based securities? That seems odd though
and if true would be a strong case for severely curtailing if not eliminating at least the more
exotic bets.
I watched a few times until what's his name, the main turk, interrupted and talked over the
female co-host too many times for my stomach. There are too many good choices to give clicks to
that type of behavior. Hey this is the 21st century.
I don't know . Obama made many policy changes after the election results came.
It's not as if government is a fast moving engine. This could have been in the works for years
and got expedited for obvious reasons. It took years for Obama to start commuting drug sentences,
also Chelsea Manning, and there was no political gain in it for him.
Unless the policy was itself a fraud, it's impossible to know whether it was implemented cynically.
I made this point below, once it escapes moderation, but basically: 1) the article fails to
tell us whether the new rate made sense; and 2) Clinton did the same thing – a bunch of last-minute
progressive moves, designed to stroke his legacy and punk his Republican successor. Let's hope
the clemency actions are less reversible than the policy moves.
The MIP rate reduction was either an ill-advised reaction to the recent spike in mortgage rates
or a simple set-up for the incoming administration. I suspect is was a combination of both, and
likely designed more for political gain than anything.
It's hard to take a guy seriously when he professes to be concerned about home affordability
when he spent the last 8 years "foaming the runway" for banks as millions of people were foreclosed
on their homes, only to watch many of those same homes get gobbled up by Wall Street and rented
back out to them.
Fewer underwater borrowers will at least curtail the path to feudalism in this new echo housing
bubble.
Another issue is who would have actually benefited from the Obama rate cut. We are supposed
to believe it would have been home buyers, but a uniform increase in the spending power of home
buyers as a group is to a large extent offset by a corresponding increase in home prices. To that
extent it would be sellers (including private equity) and not low income buyers who would benefit.
Also, as far as I'm concerned, if Obamamometer was serious about helping homeowners there are
many more better ways to do it than "foaming the runway" for banks, or preempting any meaningful
action through his statewide get out of jail free card settlement, or actually trying to stop
his buddies from blowing asset bubble after asset bubble.
Moreover, if you can´t put up more than 20% up front to buy a house maybe the problem is that
wages are shit compared to property prices and people can´t afford anything more than cheap meth
or oxycontin to cope with their sorry lives.
Pardon if this is a duplication, but: Isn't there a very large omission here? Was the premium
decrease justified, or not? It's supposed to be government insurance, so the premium should cover
the costs. Did it? Would the proposed lower premium cover them? (Yeah, I know, MMT. But apparently
the idea here was to have a self-supporting program, so it should be self-supporting unless you
announce otherwise.)
That said: this is part of a pattern. Obama made a number of progressive policy moves at the
very last minute, most of them reversible. This is nothing but legacy-stroking, as well as setting
a trap for the next Pres. Clinton did the same thing, along with some questionable pardons.
I noticed the false headlines on yahoo news (the bastion of fake and worthless news) and I
immediately checked it to find that O'Liar had planted this landmine so that it could blow up
in Trump's face. Sure enough, when Trump canceled it, he was the bad guy (even though it had never
had gone into effect as this article points out). What a cynical move by O'Liar and how cynical
can his sycophants be?
Great post! I saw the headlines when the story came out and instantly thought there was something
"off", something a little too pat about the stories. But I wasn't sure what was wrong with the
stories, and was left confused. This post of investigative reporting and facts informs me what
was actually happening. Thank you.
The reaction here puzzles me to the point of confusion. Absent any argument that the policy
didn't offer it's claimed benefits (cost savings for the middle-class), is the left so virtuous
that it will reject and refuse to fight for any advance which isn't selflessly arrived at?
Compare this to "conservatives" who successfully campaigned in 2010 against supposed Medicare
cuts related to Obamacare implementation, when they'd love nothing more than to kill the program
outright.
We, by contrast, we won't even fight for what we claim to believe in, if it isn't wrapped in
virtue.
You are missing that this is insurance, and the cost of losses must be paid for somehow. From
Bruce's comment above:
What should the mortgage insurance rate actually be? And the answer is simple: It should
be high enough to cover losses incurred by mortgage defaults (plus operating expenses), but
no higher.
I don't know what that rate should have actually been, but if it was 0.55%, then Obama and
the FHA should have lowered the rate years ago to avoid overcharging people. And if 0.80% was
the right rate, then Obama should never have lowered it at all, given that it would ultimately
require a taxpayer bailout. Either way, Obama is incompetent.
If the only consideration is cost to customers, then the proper rate is 0%. Offer it for
free!! But if you want to the program to actually be self-sustaining, so that it doesn't require
continuous injection of taxpayer dollars and be a perpetual target for cancellation by Congress,
then you have to charge enough to cover losses. Whether the average mortgage rate is 3.5% or
4.0% or 6.2% matters not a whit in this calculation.
Net conclusion: Obama is either a flaming incompetent who flat-out doesn't understand the
concept of insurance, or this was a deliberate attempt to impose a political headache on Trump.
Granted, but nobody knows the facts. Bruce wants to damn Obama for not doing it before, or
damn him now for doing it. But nothing he either did or didn't do will be deemed acceptable at
this point, even if the reduction is fully warranted.
Have we never heard politics? Process? Delay? Your net conclusion may still prove to be the
correct one, though I'm not sure that failure to implement change earlier, assuming it was warranted,
could be justly laid at the feet of Obama. But we do know?
I happen to think the heartlessness of this
Order was a feature, not a bug, in order to garner maximum
attention. I just read Mish's comment section, and Trump's
base is cheering.
But on a longer term scale, heartlessness towards Muslim
immigrants and DREAMers is going to turn persuadables against
Trump. That and the next recession.
We'll differ on this one part, people that voted for Trump
are not persuadables. They have always voted the same way in
every single election they have voted in.
Amazes me that
even now people keep thinking that Trump voters are anything
but loyal GOP voters. And I think the best argument against
this (besides common sense) is the reaction of Rep leaders to
this obviously illegal action.
They're silent.
They cannot afford to speak out against this racist
policy, as their own voters are for this racist policy.
ilsm -> EMichael...
, -1
silent on ethnic racism and the rest of US so much more
guilty ..... on drone assassination and militarist nation
building gone awry, tilting with nuclear war to keep NATO
less recondite, etc, etc.......
Are the libruls all riled
up because the immigrant ban might reduce terror shootings in
US to reduce screaming for techno-murder?
"... most reports on Mexican employment aggregate manufacturing jobs with "industry", which would include oil gas drilling and construction...i did find one graph that shows a 20%, 5 million job jump in Mexican industrial employment in the first six years after NAFTA, but they never reached their prior peak, and i find the rest of the period inconclusive, not knowing much about Mexican business cycles: ..."
The percentage of employees working in manufacturing in the
US fell in a long surprisingly straight line from the late
1960s. The big drop in employee count in 2000 was a result of
the collapse of the dot-com boom. There has been a long,
steady downward pressure on manufacturing jobs, but we see
big drops in their absolute numbers in just about every
recession.
I do know that the 1990s were a big decade for increased
manufacturing efficiency. Supercomputers and
micro-controllers changed the way we designed and built cars,
cans and washing machines, for example. I know Silicon Valley
was rapidly changing the way computers were assembled as
design rules made chip design easier and new techniques made
chip placement and connection simpler. Does anyone even use a
wire wrap gun anymore? There was also the impact of the
Japanese challenge of the 1980s which made manufacturers
rethink their supply chain and encouraging robotics and
continuous inspection.
The official story is that the adoption of computers
didn't show up in productivity figures, but if you looked at
manufacturing, their impact was pervasive. Not every industry
is going to advance at the same time, and improvements that
helped one often lower costs and help others.
If you look at the chart, the big drop in 2000 rivals the
drop in the early 1980s and the similar drop during the most
recent crash. It's like a strong gust of wind knocking down
an old tree trunk. The trunk was rotting and weakening for
years, but it was the wind storm that knocked it down.
Nope. As you say, "the 1990s were a big decade for increased
manufacturing efficiency."
And yet the number of jobs in
manufacturing in the U.S. Actually *increased* slightly. And
the increase was worldwide.
"In November 1999, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene
Barshefsky and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji made a trade deal
that led to China's admission into the World Trade
Organization (WTO) on November 10, 2001."
Offshoring intensified, according to the official
statistics of the U.S. Trade Representative. Here's the link,
showing that offshoring doubled by 2001:
http://www.trivisonno.com/offshoring
What happened that caused the decline in employment in the
U.S. To be so much more severe than in any other
industrialized country was China.
most reports on Mexican employment aggregate manufacturing
jobs with "industry", which would include oil gas drilling
and construction...i did find one graph that shows a 20%, 5
million job jump in Mexican industrial employment in the
first six years after NAFTA, but they never reached their
prior peak, and i find the rest of the period inconclusive,
not knowing much about Mexican business cycles:
Increases in productivity (technology is a broad term)
likely explain the bulk of the massive decrease in
manufacturing in both the USA and Japan. Furriners certainly
make good scapegoats, however.
"... Loss of one business is OK, two -- the same. But at some point quantity turns into quality and you get entirely new situation. Point of no return. ..."
"... If too many business close you not only lose the whole sector and but you suffer additional loses from the destruction of vertically integrated suppliers. You might lose the whole chain. ..."
"... And your "more technologically advanced facilities" will close too. I saw such a chain of event in chemical industry. And then you will get polluted ingredients from China and lose your customers to Germany. ..."
"... Looks like you do not understand the complexity of of manufacturing chains and thinking in very simplistic terms. ..."
"... And remember that your "high technological sector" is not immune. IT can be and is outsourced to India. Computers for Dell are now assembled in Taiwan. Gradually the design will move too as the best design is when you are close to production facility and understand complex processes involved in production. ..."
The problem is that you don't have the ability to compare what would have happened without NAFTA.
There is no doubt that the pain is real in those communities that saw their factory shut down
and the product being produced in Mexico instead. But would that factory have been shut down anyway
if NAFTA had not been? We know that a lot of manufacturing related to cars moved from the north
to the south within US - and from solid middle class salaries to $10-14/hour. Efficiencies and
hunts for lower cost would have continued regardless of NAFTA. So even though we know some effects
are real we don't know how much they count in the bigger picture of change.
Good point
Carrier will keep jobs here (for now) Will automate later
Try this scenario:
American businesses under pressure from shareholders and corporate raiders underinvest in their
manufacturing facilities and milk the profits. Meanwhile, new more productive competitors are
built incorporating technological advances many of them in developing countries that have strong
growth.
Recession hits and the least competitive businesses close. Those are primarily the rust belt
dinosaurs. After the recession ends, it is more competitive to increase production at more technologically
advanced facilities than to try to restart the dinosaurs. There is net loss of jobs to foreign
competition but much is due to misguided industrial and tax policy, not trade deals.
"Recession hits and the least competitive businesses close. Those are primarily the rust belt
dinosaurs. After the recession ends, it is more competitive to increase production at more
technologically advanced facilities than to try to restart the dinosaurs. There is net loss
of jobs to foreign competition but much is due to misguided industrial and tax policy, not
trade deals."
That't pure neoliberal baloney. Free market propaganda.
Loss of one business is OK, two -- the same. But at some point quantity turns into quality
and you get entirely new situation. Point of no return.
If too many business close you not only lose the whole sector and but you suffer additional
loses from the destruction of vertically integrated suppliers. You might lose the whole chain.
And your "more technologically advanced facilities" will close too. I saw such a chain
of event in chemical industry. And then you will get polluted ingredients from China and lose
your customers to Germany.
Looks like you do not understand the complexity of of manufacturing chains and thinking
in very simplistic terms.
And remember that your "high technological sector" is not immune. IT can be and is outsourced
to India. Computers for Dell are now assembled in Taiwan. Gradually the design will move too as
the best design is when you are close to production facility and understand complex processes
involved in production.
There was recently a story how Intel lost serious money just trying to move the process from
one place to another.
Another factor that outsourcing of manufacturing radically changes the balance of power between
the capital and the labor. It helped to decimate the power of organized labor, which was the explicit
goal of neoliberalism: atomization of labor force and conversion of them into autonomous "self-enhancing"
(via education and training at your own expense) units, competing with each other in the (pretty
unfair) "labor market".
It's simply amazing how many factors played in hand for neoliberal coup d'état of 1980th: computer
revolution, Internet and related communication revolution, financialization ( 401(k) plans were
enacted into law in 1978), dissolution of the USSR, outsourcing and related decimation on trade
unions power. And then came Clinton and officially buried the New Deal.
"... "[T]he decline in manufacturing employment ... is driven mainly by the secular trend of labor-saving technological progress." At this point I call nonsense. Until somebody shows me the "technological progress" that hit precisely like a tsunami in the year 2000, The argument made by DeLong and Rodrick is nonsense. I already debunked the "but, Germany!" Argument the other day, so don't even try that. ..."
"... The U.S. went from 30% of its nonfarm employees in manufacturing to 12% because of rapid growth in manufacturing productivity and limited demand, yes? The U.S. went from 12% to 9% because of stupid and destructive macro policies--the Reagan deficits, the strong-dollar policy pushed well past its sell-by date, too-tight monetary policy--that diverted it from its proper role as a net exporter of capital and finance to economies that need to be net sinks rather than net sources of the global flow of funds for investment, yes? The U.S. went from 9% to 8.7% because of the extraordinarily rapid rise of China, yes? The U.S. went from 8.7% to 8.6% because of NAFTA, yes? ..."
"... And yet the American political system right now is blaming all, 100%, every piece of that decline from 30% to 8.6% and every problem that can be laid its door on brown people from Mexico. ..."
"... Sanders addressed the issue too and for that he's insulted by the likes of Sanjait and other progressive neoliberals. ..."
What did NAFTA really do? : Brad De Long has written a
lengthy essay that defends NAFTA (and other trade deals) from the charge that they are responsible
for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. I agree with much that he says – in particular
with the points that the decline in manufacturing employment has been a long-term process that
predates NAFTA and the China shock and that it is driven mainly by the secular trend of labor-saving
technological progress. There is no way you can hold NAFTA responsible for employment de-industrialization
in the U.S. or expect that a "better" deal with Mexico will bring those jobs back.
At the same time, the essay leaves me frustrated and uneasy. It seems to gloss over the distributional
pain of NAFTA and overstate the overall gains.
So what does the evidence say on these issues? ...
A recently published academic study by Lorenzo Caliendo and Fernando Parro uses all the bells-and-whistles
of modern trade theory to produce the estimate that these overall gains amount to a "welfare"
gain of 0.08% for the U.S. That is, eight-hundredth of 1 percent! ... Trade volume impacts were
much larger: a doubling of U.S. imports from Mexico.
What is equally interesting is that fully half of the miniscule 0.08% gain for US is not an
efficiency gain, but actually a benefit due to terms-of-trade improvement. That is, Caliendo and
Parro estimate that the world prices of what the U.S. imports fell relative to what it exports.
These are not efficiency gains, but income transfers from other countries (here principally Mexico
and Canada). These gains came at the expense of other countries.
A gain, no matter how small, is still a gain. What about the distributional impacts?
The most detailed empirical analysis of the labor-market effects of NAFTA is contained in a
paper by John McLaren and Shushanik Hakobyan. They find that the aggregate effects were rather
small (in line with other work), but that impacts on directly affected communities were quite
severe. It is worth quoting John McLaren at length, from an
interview : ...
In other words, those high school dropouts who worked in industries protected by tariffs prior
to NAFTA experienced reductions in wage growth by as much as 17 percentage points relative to
wage growth in unaffected industries. I don't think anyone can argue that a 17 percentage drop
is small. As McLaren and Hakobyan emphasize, these losses were then propagated throughout the
localities in which these workers lived.
So here is the overall picture that these academic studies paint for the U.S.: NAFTA produced
large changes in trade volumes, tiny efficiency gains overall, and some very significant impacts
on adversely affected communities.
The consequences of NAFTA for Mexico are another topic which would require a separate post.
Let me just say that the great expectations the country's policy makers had for NAFTA
have not been fulfilled . ...
So is Trump deluded on NAFTA's overall impact on manufacturing jobs? Absolutely, yes.
Was he able to capitalize on the very real losses that this and other trade agreements produced
in certain parts of the country in a way that Democrats were unable to? Again, yes.
Tell me something! Who was the biggest friend NRA ever garnered?
44th President? When weapons industry was under Democratic threat of gun control did you see
lot and lot of folks rushing down to the firearms dealer for a final purchase of their favourite
hardware?
Same thing with the wall-around-USA? Under threat, consumers are now buying up all the running-shoes
in China and considering the purchase of all the tea in China-cups.
Even the wholesalers are filling their warehouse with new products from Pacific avenue in hopes
of avoiding the import duty about to befall us. Is that why all the consumer non-cyclical stocks
have shown such a splendid performance? From the expected profit on warehoused products that avoided
the new tariff If, will same trend boost same equities until the rumour becomes yesterday's news?
"[T]he decline in manufacturing employment ... is driven mainly by the secular trend of labor-saving
technological progress." At this point I call nonsense. Until somebody shows me the "technological
progress" that hit precisely like a tsunami in the year 2000, The argument made by DeLong and
Rodrick is nonsense. I already debunked the "but, Germany!" Argument the other day, so don't even
try that.
Let's try again with this fact: "the decline in manufacturing employment has been a long-term
process that predates NAFTA and the China shock". Did manufacturing employment peak exactly in
2000?
It seems manufacturing peaked during the Carter years. And then came Reagan and his toxic macroeconomic
mix which led to a massive dollar appreciation. What Krugman just wrote.
Good point. Manufacturing employment fell when Reagan came into power and it fell again after
2000. I guess the NAFTA bashers have some weird lag and lead model.
Yep. A new President Bush looking backward from the early '00s probably said, "Man, technology
is wreaking havoc on the working man. If this continues it's going to be real bad."
No, let's try again with THIS fact: manufacturing employment fell 12% during the 1980-82 recesions,
then remained stable until 2000.
Then it fell by over 30% in 10 years.
Please tell me exactly what technology improvement washed over manufacturing employment *precisely*
in the year 2000 to make it fall off a cliff exactly then? Oh and by the way, during that decade
the US$ declined in value on a trade weighted basis.
And while I am at it, Japan, Canada, France and Italy had far smaller % declines than the U.S.
C.mon, tell me what happened in the year 2000 that has made the decline in U.S. manufacturing
employment such a big outlier since then. Surely the free trade apologists here can name the productivity
improvement in the year 2000. What was it?
using the 2000 bubble is some nice cherry picking. if ones chooses the two previous recessions
the trends are very similar. there was also a distinct change in the slope of productivity per
hour starting in the late 80s so i think this is a more appropriate starting point
The U.S. Was not the only country that had a recession in 2001. Why the collapse *only* in the
U.S.?
I will move on when people admit that collapse was not due to an overnight spike in productivity.
We have double the loss of nearly any other industrialised country.
Was there possibly something else that happened in the year 2000?
ironically, i'm probably more opposed to so-called "free trade" deals than NDD. i've been gassed,
shot at, and even voted for perot despite his *repugnant* social conservatism. imo, the decimation
of labor rights and deregulation were major contributors to the ratification of trade agreements
that harmed working class people while benefiting the rich. i also believe the irrational black-white
position of many sanders social democrats on trade only helps trumpists promote america first
nationalism. union-busters, deregulators, and "job-creating" CEOs should not get a get-out-of-jail-free
card!
The percentage of employees working in manufacturing in the US fell in a long surprisingly straight
line from the late 1960s. The big drop in employee count in 2000 was a result of the collapse
of the dot-com boom. There has been a long, steady downward pressure on manufacturing jobs, but
we see big drops in their absolute numbers in just about every recession.
I do know that the 1990s were a big decade for increased manufacturing efficiency. Supercomputers
and micro-controllers changed the way we designed and built cars, cans and washing machines, for
example. I know Silicon Valley was rapidly changing the way computers were assembled as design
rules made chip design easier and new techniques made chip placement and connection simpler. Does
anyone even use a wire wrap gun anymore? There was also the impact of the Japanese challenge of
the 1980s which made manufacturers rethink their supply chain and encouraging robotics and continuous
inspection.
The official story is that the adoption of computers didn't show up in productivity figures,
but if you looked at manufacturing, their impact was pervasive. Not every industry is going to
advance at the same time, and improvements that helped one often lower costs and help others.
If you look at the chart, the big drop in 2000 rivals the drop in the early 1980s and the similar
drop during the most recent crash. It's like a strong gust of wind knocking down an old tree trunk.
The trunk was rotting and weakening for years, but it was the wind storm that knocked it down.
Nope. As you say, "the 1990s were a big decade for increased manufacturing efficiency."
And yet the number of jobs in manufacturing in the U.S. Actually *increased* slightly. And
the increase was worldwide.
"In November 1999, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji
made a trade deal that led to China's admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on November
10, 2001."
Offshoring intensified, according to the official statistics of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Here's the link, showing that offshoring doubled by 2001:
http://www.trivisonno.com/offshoring
What happened that caused the decline in employment in the U.S. To be so much more severe than
in any other industrialized country was China.
Increases in productivity (technology is a broad term) likely explain the bulk of the massive
decrease in manufacturing in both the USA and Japan. Furriners certainly make good scapegoats,
however.
"So here is the overall picture that these academic studies paint for the U.S.: NAFTA produced
large changes in trade volumes, tiny efficiency gains overall, and some very significant impacts
on adversely affected communities."
Yes the free trade cheerleaders always miss the distributional impacts. But I do remember a
few international economists when NAFTA first passed saying the efficiency gains would be only
modest. I guess they were not heard over the cheerleading.
But one should also note that shot across the bow of Team Trump that Dani took. As always -
one of the best on the issue of globalization.
Technological advances also have uneven distributional pain
Job losses to strong dollar policy have uneven distributional pain
Trump tells the lie that better Trade agreements will fix the distributional pain.
It won't because trade agreements only create a small fraction of that pain.
The elephant in the room is Technological advances. It is unwise and undesirable to fight progress
(as in Luddite)
The question obscured by scapegoating NAFTA is what policies will address dislocation? Clinton
proposed shifting dislocated miners to clean energy jobs. Dislocated miners rejected that idea
in favor of an empty promise to return mining jobs. The conversation will return to square one,
"What policies will address dislocation?" only after Trump trade policy upheaval fails because
it addresses the wrong problem
I'm not a Luddite but we could and should address those distributional consequences that you properly
note. And you are spot on - Trump is creating more dislocations with his stupid bluster.
I agree. The march of technology is responsible for the productivity gains, and those gains led
to the majority of the job losses.
But it is an economic argument that simply will not win elections when we say "only 5% of the
folks lost their jobs in manufacturing due to trade, so our recommended trade policy to you, the
American people, is to keep doing what we have been doing for the last 25 years, because it only
substantially harms a small number of Americans."
To the extent Americans vote based on trade considerations in the first place (which is unclear
to me), to win elections we need to be proposing plans for trade surpluses or balanced trade.
(My preference is to seek balanced trade.).
This is why I have been beating a drum about the Buffett plan
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/growing.pdf
trying to get you smart folks here to critique it and try to get some energy behind it, in
my own small (and ineffective way).
It is kind of hard to talk about a 13 year old plan when the updated numbers for today are much
more in favor of US. Today, if we just balanced our trade with China we would no longer have a
trade deficit.
This is a fair point. But it could be that 10 years from now we have some other cause of concern.
I seem to recall in the late 80's the concern was Japan taking over and a huge trade deficit with
Japan. That concern has receded but now the lion's share of the imbalance is with China. Can we
fix it once and for all? Also, what sort of policy proposals should people get behind that are
(A) winners politically/ help win elections, (B) economically sound, and (C) good for US workers
/ reduce inequality?
It would be great if some small group of smart folks like those who comment here could develop
such a policy prescription in the coming months by arguing and discussing amongst ourselves. If
we could do that then we could try to infect some unsuspecting politicians with the ideas, and
who knows, maybe in 4 years it could make a difference for our world.
The trade deficit is actually not that important nor is manufacturing. We are moving towards a
"Star Trek" like future where food and things can be delivered on demand without people having
to do anything. If we continue to want people to acquire those things using money, we have to
find ways to provide people with money. The reason we provide people with money via a job is that
we think there is a societal value to connecting work with getting money (to acquire stuff). I
am not sure how we can get out of that primitive mindset of "deserving" and spend our time on
something more meaningful.
"So is Trump deluded on NAFTA's overall impact on manufacturing jobs? Absolutely, yes. Was
he able to capitalize on the very real losses that this and other trade agreements produced in
certain parts of the country in a way that Democrats were unable to? Again, yes."
I guess Trump is not going to invite Dani to work for his CEA. Which is a loss for the nation.
"[H]igh school dropouts who worked in industries protected by tariffs prior to NAFTA experienced
reductions in wage growth by as much as 17 percentage points relative to wage growth in unaffected
industries."
And those high school drop outs all voted for Trump. So the bottom line is that high school
drop outs rule the nation because the rest of us don't vote as a bloc.
The problem is that you don't have the ability to compare what would have happened without NAFTA.
There is no doubt that the pain is real in those communities that saw their factory shut down
and the product being produced in Mexico instead. But would that factory have been shut down anyway
if NAFTA had not been? We know that a lot of manufacturing related to cars moved from the north
to the south within US - and from solid middle class salaries to $10-14/hour. Efficiencies and
hunts for lower cost would have continued regardless of NAFTA. So even though we know some effects
are real we don't know how much they count in the bigger picture of change.
Good point
Carrier will keep jobs here (for now) Will automate later
Try this scenario:
American businesses under pressure from shareholders and corporate raiders underinvest in their
manufacturing facilities and milk the profits. Meanwhile, new more productive competitors are
built incorporating technological advances many of them in developing countries that have strong
growth.
Recession hits and the least competitive businesses close. Those are primarily the rust belt
dinosaurs. After the recession ends, it is more competitive to increase production at more technologically
advanced facilities than to try to restart the dinosaurs. There is net loss of jobs to foreign
competition but much is due to misguided industrial and tax policy, not trade deals.
While he is generally right, this is rather disingenuous, since offshoring jobs started long before
NAFTA. It began with the maquiladora system in Mexico and by the 1990s had largely shifted to
SE Asia (anybody remember the Asian Tigers?). Even many maquiladoras relocated there. By the late
1990s, when NAFTA was signed, most of those jobs had already gone. As I keep saying, you need
to look at the details and not just the aggregates. Most the labor intensive industries relocated
to low wag/benefit countries with no labor or environmental protections before NAFTA, leaving
only those most amenable to automation. Blaming automation only works if you ignore the first
part.
The maquiladora system did start well before NAFTA. But note China has taken business away from
those maquiladoras. Putting that 20% border tax on Mexico that Trump wants means more business
for Asia.
I remember studying a prototype computer at an MIT lab in the mid-1980s. All of the chips (mainly
7400 series) were marked with Central American country names. One guy joked that he was glad we
had the contras fighting against freedom down there so we didn't have to worry about our supply
of 7404s.
What productivity increase hit like a tsunami in the U.S. and only the U.S. Precisely in the year
2000? Not in 1999 or any other year in the 1990s, but starting precisely in the year 2000.
If you can't name it, the thick skull is not mine.
"Hey look, there Dani Rodrik saying exactly what I've been saying for a while."
LOL no he's not!!!
"At the same time, the essay leaves me frustrated and uneasy. It seems to gloss over the distributional
pain of NAFTA and overstate the overall gains."
"Was he able to capitalize on the very real losses that this and other trade agreements produced
in certain parts of the country in a way that Democrats were unable to? Again, yes."
I don't want to cause more fights, and also I don't want to be the target of ridicule, but...
what is it that Dani Rodrick is saying that agrees with what you've said? I am not disputing you,
just asking for clarification, as he says several things here.
The consequences of NAFTA for Mexico are another topic which would require a separate post. Let
me just say that the great expectations the country's policy makers had for NAFTA have not been
fulfilled....
Between 1992 and 2015, real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico increased slower than
in any country in Central America, any country in south America save for unfortunate Venezuela
and slower than in Canada or the United States.
Between 1992 and 2014, total factor productivity for Mexico actually decreased. Mexico fared
more poorly in productivity than in any country for which there are records in Central America,
any country in South America other than Venezuela and more poorly than in Canada or the US.
Between 1992 and 2015, real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico increased slower than
in any country in Central America, any country in South America save for unfortunate Venezuela
and slower than in Canada or the United States.
Between 1992 and 2014, total factor productivity for Mexico actually decreased. Mexico fared
more poorly in productivity than in any country for which there are records in Central America,
any country in South America other than Venezuela and more poorly than in Canada or the US.
Between 1992 and 2015, real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico increased slower than
in the Dominican Republic or Trinidad. Jamaica however grew more slowly.
Between 1992 and 2013, the last year for which there are records, real per capita Gross Domestic
Product for Mexico increased slower than in Puerto Rico or Cuba, despite the US embargo of trade
with Cuba.
Between 1992 and 2015, real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Mexico increased slower than
in language related Spain, Portugal, Angola or the Philippines.
Anne - Google processed trade. A big deal in China. And exactly what maquiladoras are. Yes they
do compete. And workers in these sectors are making around $3 an hour regardless of nation.
Google processed trade. A big deal in China. And exactly what maquiladoras are. Yes they do compete.
And workers in these sectors are making around $3 an hour regardless of nation.
Trump wants border taxes aka tariffs. Paul Ryan wants the Destination Based Cash Flow Tax aka
border adjustments. If Trump does not know they are different, his advisers are lying to him.
Of course I am no fan of that border adjustments idea Speaker Ryan is pushing. But that is a much
deeper conversation. Let's just say - Ryan is lying every time the weasel smiles.
Trump wants border taxes aka tariffs. Paul Ryan wants the Destination Based Cash Flow Tax aka
border adjustments....
[ I am only interested in understanding the difference between a tariff and a destination tax
and who pays each. The point is to understand each of the 2 possibilities and who will pay in
each case. Tariffs are paid by consumers. Who will pay a destination tax?
Yes I am sure they understand that this will reduce the value of the peso at least by 20% so in
the end US will end up paying for the wall and then some. It is just that low information voters
and low information Presidents will think we made Mexico pay for it.
"At the same time, [DeLong's] essay leaves me frustrated and uneasy. It seems to gloss over
the distributional pain of NAFTA and overstate the overall gains."
He's a neoliberal like PGL and Sanjait.
They don't care about the distributional pain. They're hacks defending hack centrist politicians.
The distributional pain helped elect Trump and the neoliberals can't admit it.
"At the same time, [DeLong's] essay leaves me frustrated and uneasy. It seems to gloss over the
distributional pain of NAFTA and overstate the overall gains."
Rodrik could have substituted PGL or Krugman for DeLong.
"The distributional pain helped elect Trump and the neoliberals can't admit it."
Distributional pain aka the Stopler Samuelson theorem. I talk about this often. Krugman does
too. But then this requires a little bit of analytical ability which serial idiots like you don't
do. Rage on - troll.
All you and Krugman do is mock Bernie Sanders and his supporters, people who would actually
do something about the distributional pain Rodrik talks about.
Rodrik:
"At the same time, [DeLong's] essay leaves me frustrated and uneasy. It seems to gloss over
the distributional pain of NAFTA and overstate the overall gains."
Just like PGL and Krugman. That's why neoliberal Hillary lost. It's why Trump won. And the
neoliberals still won't admit it.
In short, it's complicated – not all bad, by any means, but not the pure uprising of idealists
the more enthusiastic supporters imagine.
The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels have an illuminating discussion
of Sanders support. The key graf that will probably have Berniebros boiling is this:
Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to anger,
authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent to
which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected
white men.
The point is not to demonize, but, if you like, to de-angelize. Like any political movement
(including the Democratic Party, which is, yes, a coalition of interest groups) Sandersism has
been an assemblage of people with a variety of motives, not all of them pretty. Here's a short
list based on my own encounters:
1.Genuine idealists: For sure, quite a few Sanders supporters dream of a better society, and
for whatever reason – maybe just because they're very young – are ready to dismiss practical arguments
about why all their dreams can't be accomplished in a day.
2.Romantics: This kind of idealism shades over into something that's less about changing society
than about the fun and ego gratification of being part of The Movement. (Those of us who were
students in the 60s and early 70s very much recognize the type.) For a while there – especially
for those who didn't understand delegate math – it felt like a wonderful joy ride, the scrappy
young on the march about to overthrow the villainous old. But there's a thin line between love
and hate: when reality began to set in, all too many romantics reacted by descending into bitterness,
with angry claims that they were being cheated.
3.Purists: A somewhat different strand in the movement, also familiar to those of us of a certain
age, consists of those for whom political activism is less about achieving things and more about
striking a personal pose. They are the pure, the unsullied, who reject the corruptions of this
world and all those even slightly tainted – which means anyone who actually has gotten anything
done. Quite a few Sanders surrogates were Naderites in 2000; the results of that venture don't
bother them, because it was never really about results, only about affirming personal identity.
4.CDS victims: Quite a few Sanders supporters are mainly Clinton-haters, deep in the grip of
Clinton Derangement Syndrome; they know that Hillary is corrupt and evil, because that's what
they hear all the time; they don't realize that the reason it's what they hear all the time is
that right-wing billionaires have spent more than two decades promoting that message. Sanders
has gotten a number of votes from conservative Democrats who are voting against her, not for him,
and for sure there are liberal supporters who have absorbed the same message, even if they don't
watch Fox News.
5.Salon des Refuses: This is a small group in number, but accounts for a lot of the pro-Sanders
commentary, and is of course something I see a lot. What I'm talking about here are policy intellectuals
who have for whatever reason been excluded from the inner circles of the Democratic establishment,
and saw Sanders as their ticket to the big time. They typically hold heterodox views, but those
views don't have much to do with the campaign – sorry, capital theory disputes from half a century
ago aren't relevant to the debate over health reform. What matters is their outsider status, which
gives them an interest in backing an outsider candidate – and makes them reluctant to accept it
when that candidate is no longer helping the progressive cause.
So how will this coalition of the not-always disinterested break once it's over? The genuine
idealists will probably realize that whatever their dreams, Trump would be a nightmare. Purists
and CDSers won't back Clinton, but they were never going to anyway. My guess is that disgruntled
policy intellectuals will, in the end, generally back Clinton.
The question, as I see it, involves the romantics. How many will give in to their bitterness?
A lot may depend on Sanders – and whether he himself is one of those embittered romantics, unable
to move on.
I guess I am a little confused by the way this article is laid out. The article says the overall
picture is Large trade volume change, little gain (insignificant gain) and large wage drop for
poor.
Meaning, trade has increased but it has little efficiency gain on the economy and it mainly
just depressed wages for the poor in the US. So, am I missing something here?
I thought the whole point of free trade was to lower tariffs/quotas/taxes to allow for each
country to specialize based off their advantages/cost...resulting in a lower price in the international
market. This lower price would then result in benefiting everyone that has to buy that product
ie cars. So, even though you lost your job in automobiles to Mexico you would be able to buy a
new car much cheaper because labor cost is extremely cheap in Mexico. The end result would be
short term unemployment rise but given you could find another job the medium/long run unemployment
would be in equilibrium. Thus, everyone in the medium/long run are better off because of free
trade.
Does the term, "tiny efficiency gains" mean that jobs went to mexico because it was cheaper
labor/regulations and in turn the final product came back to the U.S. virtually the same price
as it was before NAFTA? If that is the case it would make sense to scrap NAFTA.
My understanding is that the benefit of NAFTA or any free trade agreement is essentially going
to be lower cost. This is because inefficient companies or rich countries like U.S. have high
living wage causing the final product to cost more and its all protected from international prices
with quotas/tariffs/import taxes. Thats not to neglect the wage drop in the US due to free trade,
but the argument is that cheaper products is far superior than a small amount of job loss/wage
drop.
I thought the whole point of free trade was to lower tariffs/quotas/taxes to allow for each country
to specialize based off their advantages/cost...resulting in a lower price in the international
market. This lower price would then result in benefiting everyone that has to buy that product
ie cars. So, even though you lost your job in automobiles to Mexico you would be able to buy a
new car much cheaper because labor cost is extremely cheap in Mexico. The end result would be
short term unemployment rise but given you could find another job the medium/long run unemployment
would be in equilibrium. Thus, everyone in the medium/long run are better off because of free
trade....
[ I need to understand this better, but I would agree and argue the adjustment process would
have occurred had the high employment years of the Clinton presidency continued to the Bush presidency
but that was not the case. The problem of trade dislocations that were not compensated for is
found during the Bush years. ]
"The idea here is to explain why targeting the economically large and persistent US trade deficit
is a reasonable policy goal.
This view is not widely accepted among economists. Everyone gets the by identity, the trade
deficit is a drag on growth, but numerous arguments push back on the idea that it's a problem.
Dean Baker and I tackle the issue here. The punchline, as suggested above, is not that the
drag impact of the trade deficit never gets offset. It clearly does, at times. But when offsets
are less forthcoming–the Fed's run out of ammo; the fiscal authorities have gone all austere–the
demand-reducing drag from trade imbalances is a problem.
Second, even in flush times, the trade deficit, which is exclusively in manufactured goods,
affects the industrial composition of employment, and it is in this regard that Trump has been
able to so effectively tap its politics. While high-ranking democrats were running around pushing
the next trade deal, he was talking directly to those voters who clearly perceived themselves
far more hurt than helped by globalization."
The U.S. went from 30% of its nonfarm employees in manufacturing to 12% because of rapid
growth in manufacturing productivity and limited demand, yes? The U.S. went from 12% to 9% because
of stupid and destructive macro policies--the Reagan deficits, the strong-dollar policy pushed
well past its sell-by date, too-tight monetary policy--that diverted it from its proper role as
a net exporter of capital and finance to economies that need to be net sinks rather than net sources
of the global flow of funds for investment, yes? The U.S. went from 9% to 8.7% because of the
extraordinarily rapid rise of China, yes? The U.S. went from 8.7% to 8.6% because of NAFTA, yes?
And yet the American political system right now is blaming all, 100%, every piece of that
decline from 30% to 8.6% and every problem that can be laid its door on brown people from Mexico.
By not making it clear that you are talking about 0.1%-points of a 21.4%-point phenomenon,
I think you are enabling that. I don't think this is a good thing to do...
"Was Trump able to capitalize on the very real losses that this and other trade agreements produced
in certain parts of the country in a way that Democrats were unable to? Again, yes."
How did he capitalize? By addressing the issue unlike the progressive neoliberals DeLong and
PGL's candidate Hillary.
Just talking about the Stopler Samuelson theorem every now and then doesn't address the issue.
"... If the American peasants were going to revolt they would have done it already. Fortunately for the rich, the peasants have been mollified by opiates, marijuana, cheap industrial calories, videogames and unlimited trash entertainment, and a fawning endless adoration for the rich and famous. And when that fails theyve got mega churches spouting hopium too. ..."
"... By the way, look around most of the country. It's designed without public squares which are necessary for protest and assembly. Look at the BLM protests, they tried to take the freeways and the whites just got furious that their fat SUVs were impeded. ..."
"... Americans are the most apathetic population on earth ..."
"... Peasants do not start revolutions. It is members of the enlightened elite who clap their hands and trigger the avalanche. Their attempts at gradual reform begin by harnessing, and thereby empowering, the threatened, desperate lower-middle class, which turns and rends their fellows and their superiors (the 90-99% in today's jargon). The breakdown of consensus in the middle orders creates chaos, which in turn empowers those who benefit from instability, especially psychopaths, who cannot last long in places with community or corporate memory, but who flourish in civil disorder. ..."
"... They are right. A french-revolution-style reckoning is coming. We will have to dismantle and redistribute their fortunes. And those that resist will not survive. ..."
"... They should be afraid, and they should know that the later the reckoning, the angrier the mob. The angrier the mob, the likelier accidents happen. ..."
"... They are mostly blind to the need to redistribute, and those that are not are blocked by the system (the neoliberal world order) from acting. ..."
"... I guess they adhere that now-old adage: He who dies with the most toys WINS. ..."
"... This very day, NYT reports that Peter Thiel has (i.e., "bought") New Zealand citizenship. And then hilariously goes on to suggest that this expedient could well be thanks to Thiel's adolescent enthusiasm for "Lord of the Rings", which is where they produced the movie, so "becoming a citizen might be the next best thing to living in Middle-earth itself ." ..."
"... The Masque of the Red Death ..."
"... And therein lies the error: they don't judge themselves by the norms they sold (or failed to sell) to us. ..."
"... I'd count the Zuck's purchase of 700 acres (similar acreage to Central Park) as a bolt-hole. And peter Thiel's in New Zealand. Guess the help will be relegated to the Blueseed floating city ..."
"... The French aristocracy was pretty surprised in 1789 how unprepared they were. I'd tend to put them in the former group. Our oligarchy? Definitely psychopaths. ..."
"... The current hedgies should watch Adam Curtis's 4 part docu "The MayFair Set". It's on utube. Or, if 4 hours is too long, they could watch just part 2, notice James Goldsmith, and then watch part 4 starting at about minute 23. Another prepper. Why all the paranoia and prepping? ..."
"... Lavish follies apparently become tiresome or expensive to maintain or lonely or in some other way unappealing after they're built. So now one can rent a villa at Goldsmith's Mexican hideaway, for a considerable sum of course. ..."
"... IF collapse came, I absolutely WOULD go on a 1%er hunt. Open season. ..."
"... Sarcasm on. Hedge fund managers anticipate They're so good at that. That's why hedge fund yields for pension funds are so much better than other fund yields for pension funds. (8^)) Sarcasm off. ..."
"... I don't understand why these pampered, self-worshipping, self-entitled rich scumbags think that New Zealanders will welcome them with open arms if SHTF. ..."
"... Yes, that's the flaw. New Zealand would be great for their purposes if not for the small problem that it's full of New Zealanders. The society is strongly egalitarian, much more so than the US, and has different core values (less about freedom and more about fairness). ..."
"... Thiel's land purchase in the South Island has been front page news lately, along with the news that he didn't have to comply with foreign investment criteria because he is a NZ citizen (which just raised the question of how and why he received citizenship). ..."
"... "What does that really tell us about our system? It's a very odd thing. You're basically seeing that the people who've been the best at reading the tea leaves-the ones with the most resources, because that's how they made their money-are now the ones most preparing to pull the rip cord and jump out of the plane." ..."
"... buying airstrips and farms ..."
"... Prime Minister Bill English has defended a decision to grant citizenship to American tech billionaire Peter Thiel, saying "a little bit of flexibility" is useful when it comes to citizenship laws. ..."
"... English said there needed to be a balance between giving everyone a fair chance of citizenship, and encouraging those who would make a positive difference to New Zealand. ..."
"... "If people come here and invest and get into philanthropy and are supportive of New Zealand, then we're better off for their interest in our country, and as a small country at the end of the world, that's not a bad thing. ..."
"... NZ First leader Winston Peters' suggestion that the Government was selling citizenship was "ridiculous", English said. ..."
If the American peasants were going to revolt they would have done it already. Fortunately
for the rich, the peasants have been mollified by opiates, marijuana, cheap industrial calories,
videogames and unlimited trash entertainment, and a fawning endless adoration for the rich and
famous. And when that fails theyve got mega churches spouting hopium too.
By the way, look around most of the country. It's designed without public squares which
are necessary for protest and assembly. Look at the BLM protests, they tried to take the freeways
and the whites just got furious that their fat SUVs were impeded.
If you want to see the future watch Idiocracy not the French Revolution. Americans are
the most apathetic population on earth .
Maybe they just have different priorities? Maybe they have come from countries where life looks
like "the s hit the f" is the norm, but still manage to make do?
Peasants do not start revolutions. It is members of the enlightened elite who clap their
hands and trigger the avalanche. Their attempts at gradual reform begin by harnessing, and thereby
empowering, the threatened, desperate lower-middle class, which turns and rends their fellows
and their superiors (the 90-99% in today's jargon). The breakdown of consensus in the middle orders
creates chaos, which in turn empowers those who benefit from instability, especially psychopaths,
who cannot last long in places with community or corporate memory, but who flourish in civil disorder.
Is Trump the reformer who triggers the avalanche – our Duc D'Orleans, later Philippe Egalite,
under which name he was guillotined? The looks on the faces of Louis XVI and Hillary Clinton were
probably equally dumbfounded when they found themselves stymied by their respective rivals at
the "Assembly of Notables."
They are right. A french-revolution-style reckoning is coming. We will have to dismantle and
redistribute their fortunes. And those that resist will not survive.
They should be afraid, and they should know that the later the reckoning, the angrier the mob.
The angrier the mob, the likelier accidents happen.
At this point, I do not see another option. They are mostly blind to the need to redistribute,
and those that are not are blocked by the system (the neoliberal world order) from acting.
A truly nutty non-solution from the greediest nastiest bastards on the planet. Just frickin
great. They know what they should do, but they adamantly refuse to do it in order to remain mired
in the greedy proflgate ways.
I guess they adhere that now-old adage: He who dies with the most toys WINS.
I wonder when the elites will make themselves Pyramids? Or are they planning to bury themselves
inside these damn bunkers instead? Using the bunkers as necropoli probably makes more sense than
what they're actually planning to use them for.
This very day, NYT reports that Peter Thiel has (i.e., "bought") New Zealand citizenship. And
then hilariously goes on to suggest that this expedient could well be thanks to Thiel's adolescent
enthusiasm for "Lord of the Rings", which is where they produced the movie, so "becoming a citizen
might be the next best thing to living in Middle-earth itself ."
The good news is, these guys will doubtless revert to cannibalism in short order .
I guess they haven't read The Masque of the Red Death .
The story takes place at the castellated abbey of the "happy and dauntless and sagacious"
Prince Prospero. Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to
escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land.
Victims are overcome by "sharp pains", "sudden dizziness", and hematidrosis, and die within
half an hour. Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at
large; they intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of
their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut.
They don't subscribe to the propertarian patriarchal norms that they sold to the public, except
for appearances, which are often cited as pretexts for ejection from the halls of power. They
owe the public cultural shibboleths no real honor, especially not within their private practices.
They are not obligated to enact the stories they write or take to heart the submission they counsel
to us. They didn't get to group hegemony by competing.
I see the paralogic. They're American. Therefore, adversity and competition is the normal posture
for every interaction. Therefore, everything is a fair contest which they won fair and square
against us. Which suggests that they probably subscribe more perfectly to the same alleged social
"norms" they impose on us. And therein lies the error: they don't judge themselves by the norms
they sold (or failed to sell) to us.
If they were as crippled by someone having fun without them when there is plenty of fun to
be had, there would be no ruling class.
on the other hand they have more time and money to gain actually useful skills than wage slaves
EVER will. A variant of the rich get richer phenomena which seems to be how things usually work
out, rather than the poor getting even as mostly happens only in morality tales. Now get to work
and shut up about it!
I'd count the Zuck's purchase of 700 acres (similar acreage to Central Park) as a bolt-hole.
And peter Thiel's in New Zealand. Guess the help will be relegated to the Blueseed floating city
Jet = high time preference
Amel 64= low time preference, in fact not even so relevant to insist on staying on course to NZ.
http://www.amel.fr/en/amel-64/
W. Somerset Maugham's retelling of the tale (1933) "An Appointment in Samarra" comes to mind:
There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little
while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the
marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled
me.
She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away
from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.
The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks
and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace
and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening
gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?
That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished
to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
Examine the mentality of planning for a "collapse."
The hedge fund managers above all are escaping to rural areas, with clean water and air. They've
planned on how to get by with less for themselves and their families.
The article also spoke of bunkers of under ground apartment complexes, silos, etc that would be
enclaves for communities of wealthy citizens where they would ration, learn how to ration, share,
get by with less.
They all think it will be temporary while the ignorant masses destroy each other without their
surperior leadership. They imagine being able to return and begin the hard work of returning things
to the way they were, with themselves back in elite positions.
Just think. If they could imagine maybe getting by on less and used that sense of community
they expect to magically develop in their bunkers, there wouldn't be amy "collapse" to fear anyway.
If they could imagine their clean water and air natural retreats, with food, are simple things
the rest of the planet would like to enjoy and should be able to enjoy without exploitation, there
wouldn't be any collapse to fear.
So not only will their getaways be big failures, but the imagined return to the world after
the crisis is also naive.
Not only would things not be the same, you'd have to be a special kind of idoit or psycopath
to think anything would still be hunky dory with a return to the status quo..
if you survive the carnage they imagine in some kind of collapse.
"you'd have to be a special kind of idiot or psychopath"
The French aristocracy was pretty surprised in 1789 how unprepared they were. I'd tend
to put them in the former group. Our oligarchy? Definitely psychopaths.
The 0.01 percenters would much rather create doomsday bunkers than fix their own greed and
power lust. I guess they know themselves well.
I could poke so many what if holes into their daydream scenarios. Hours of fun since their
most of their scenarios depend on order and business as usual ultimately being restored. I guess
they learned nothing from what typically happens to refugees regardless of their class and they
assume that the "problem" will be localized instead of global and that their assets will be worth
more with them alive than dead.
It is impossible to convince someone afflicted with the greatest pandemic in human history
- Greed - that they are better off having a smaller % of a growing pie than a larger % of a stagnant
or shrinking pie.
The epicenters for the global pandemic are London, New York, and Washington D.C., though not
necessarily in that order.
Wait, I thought Trump was going to revoke federal funding for "sanctuary cities", as well as
the governor of Texas at the state level. Oh, wrong group?
This elite fear and their related actions have been "out there" for years. Puzzling me is what
has changed to elevate this topic in their Davos 2017 discussions?
The current hedgies should watch Adam Curtis's 4 part docu "The MayFair Set". It's on utube.
Or, if 4 hours is too long, they could watch just part 2, notice James Goldsmith, and then watch
part 4 starting at about minute 23. Another prepper. Why all the paranoia and prepping?
Maybe they should just stop destroying companies and pay taxes. They might sleep better if
they felt they were part of the country instead of pirates living apart. imo.
Lavish follies apparently become tiresome or expensive to maintain or lonely or in some other
way unappealing after they're built. So now one can rent a villa at Goldsmith's Mexican hideaway,
for a considerable sum of course.
They can never actually "go Galt" because they need us. If I remember correctly, Galt was some
sort of industrialist who built and manufactured actual things. What do most of these billionaires
provide us? It's difficult to imagine a hedge fund going very well after the apocalypse. Will
people continue updating their facebook pages when the world collapses? Can I paypal my tribal
wasteland overlord his tribute after our government has collapsed?
I suppose they'll just sitting around looking at all bank statements, bored out of their minds
waiting for the power to come back on.
It isn't just elite anxiety, this has been playing out among the lower classes as well. It's
not just prepper reality shows either; we've had almost 10 years now of zombie apocalypse themed
entertainment and a general revival of the post-apocalypse genre across multiple entertainment
platforms.
We know the empire is collapsing, we just wont acknowledge it out loud.
[Reddit CEO Steve] Huffman has calculated that, in the event of a disaster, he would seek
out some form of community: "Being around other people is a good thing. I also have this somewhat
egotistical view that I'm a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not
a slave, when push comes to shove."
Yeah, your skills running a content aggregate site that's become a haven for the alt-right,
that's going to be the things the masses will be looking for in a leader in a post-apocalyptic
society.
What if the guy fueling the jet pours some sugar into the tank? What if the guy who drives
the fuel truck to the airstrip gets "lost" on the day of the apocalypse? What if your driver on
the way to the airport pulls a gun on you? You better get a jumbo jet to fit everyone on that
could spoil your plan. It'll be like the end of the "Jerk". It is just terrible to have to rely
on people and to need all these badges of affluence. Why can't a rich soul be a rapacious rich
jerk, in peace?
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
These stories really make me hope that the collapse that these people are preparing for is
a flu pandemic. In that case, no one is going anywhere as the first thing that will be done by
states is close the borders to slow down transmission of the virus. Good luck getting to New Zealand
then!
Also, let's not forget the Archdruid's (accurate) contention that the (presumably very well
armed) security staff will be eager to hunt down the elites after society collapses.
Charles Hugh Smith in his book Survival+ however does offer some good advice for elites who
want to survive collapse indefinitely: find a tight-knit community and immediately use all the
money and resources at your disposal to make sure that they're self-sustaining, well-armed and
grateful. Then learn some useful skills like playing musical instruments or blacksmithing and
move on in. Maybe someone should send these poor deluded bunker builders a copy!
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any
material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason.
But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others,
are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing
compared with that of the rich.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
"The Age of Uncertainty" 1977
If this is a true quote, it does indeed make the blood come out one's ears that Galbraith could
have said it. It is so wrong that its vast wrongness can only be explained by knowing that the
guy was an economist by training. If he had bothered to learn any history–any history at all,
whatsoever, in any way, of any kind–he would never have been able to spout that inane nugget of
anti-truth.
Let's see: August 4, 1789. Just one notable one, among about 47 bajillion counterexamples to
bonehead Galbraith's alleged quotation.
Why don't they bail on the rest of the world now? They might as well get while the getting
is good, and the rest of the world will benefit from their absence. Seems like a win/win to me.
Ahem. This is part of the reason that some rich folks (*COUGH* Elon Musk *COUGH*) is pushing
so hard for (rich) people to pony up and help pay for a one-way trip to Mars. A bunch of pampered
rich people bailing out on Earth to go to the ULTIMATE gated community on Mars where they can
claim all the land from their feet to the horizon.
A pipe dream, of course. Such an endeavor would be ABSOLUTELY dependent upon continued upkeep
and support from Earth, AND Mars is NOT hospitable, at all Nonetheless, the impulse is there
for all to see: use your accumulated (unearned) wealth to get away from the Earth you have raped
to get where you are, before it's too late! Take all your marbles and just up and leave everyone
else to cook in the sewage and heat you've left behind. But at least your pillaging made it possible
for you and a select few others to get out.
As for fancy bunkers like converted missile silos. Note: as a veteran of the cold war and all
that nuke war shit, I KNOW how those things work (and don't work). Fancy air filters on missile
silos will filter out radiation, biological, and MOST chemical agents, but they will not, they
CANNOT, filter out oxygen displacing chemicals (carbon monoxide, halon, ammonia, etc). Some cluster
of rich douchebags and their immediate families think they can hide out for up to 5 years in a
luxury converted missile silo. Well I will just pull a car up to one of your air intakes, run
a line from my exhaust pipe to your intake, and pump your luxury bunker full of carbon monoxide.
Sleep the sleep of the dead, motherf*ckers.
BTW – many of the dystopian authors of the 40s, 50s, and 60s served in the military in WW II.
It is not an accident that they wrote these types of novels and short stories. They had observed
dystopian societies and their outcomes personally. I think the current 1% think they can control
the future in the same way that many of them thought in the 1780s and 1910-1945.
In Jack Womack's Dryco novels, Dryco (a kind of uber-Walmart-cum-Raytheon that owns everything)
becomes worried about CEO safety and covertly engineers a citizen "rebellion" on Long Island,
necessitating a permanently-stationed US military in Manhattan, to protect the elite. The Dryco
inner circle begins moving operations north, to the Bronx and Westchester County, to stay ahead
of rising sea levels. Those books were written mostly in the late '80s/early '90s but still resonate.
Sarcasm on. Hedge fund managers anticipate They're so good at that. That's why hedge fund yields for pension funds are so much better
than other fund yields for pension funds. (8^)) Sarcasm off.
Perhaps they have been reading too much economic doomer porn?
Just three months ago anybody who even considered voting for Sanders, Green, or Trump was a
selfish fool who just wanted to see the world burn. For the sake of our fellow man – consider
the children! – we were encouraged to fall in line to prevent our society from collapsing into
war and economic ruin. If only we'd have know that some of the wealthiest and most influential
people in the country were literally bracing themselves for the apocalypse with absolutely no
intention of helping a single soul escape or doing a thing to prevent the disaster. I guess if
you're rich enough it's OK not to give a shit about destroying the world.
It's important that as many people as possible read the NYT article to see just how crazy and
how horrifyingly self-serving the 1% really is. The idea that anybody will need bunkers or private
airstrips is stupid as hell and straight out of a zombie movie, but it's a perfect illustration
of how little these people care about the world around them.
Spread the word. This is the time to bail. Donald Trump is President. He is at war with corporate
media moguls. Even Bloomberg published an article on America's carnage. The suicide rate of women
under 75 is increasing. The cover-up of the neoliberal looting is collapsing. The millions of
refugees flooding Europe can't be hidden. Blaming Russia doesn't work. A world war is an extinction
event.
Who will be on the last plane out of East Hampton?
I don't understand why these pampered, self-worshipping, self-entitled rich scumbags think
that New Zealanders will welcome them with open arms if SHTF.
If the US were to go tits up the
way they fear. to such an extent that they actually felt the need to flee, the entire world would
get hit hard too. These same clowns talk about globalization and how the world is, and NEEDS to
be, interconnected. Well, you don't get to have it both ways. The US is a huge economic chunk
of the world. If it bites it, then so will a LOT of other nations, and New Zealand is not some
self-sufficient paradise that would be left untouched.
The LEGITIMATE people, the LEGITIMATE citizens of New Zealand, wouldn't take these leeches
in with open arms, strewing their walking paths with flowers and candy, if they abandon the US
in a collapse THAT THEY WERE LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR. They cannot run away and escape their culpability
and the fruits of their unending greed and selfishness.
Yes, that's the flaw. New Zealand would be great for their purposes if not for the small problem
that it's full of New Zealanders. The society is strongly egalitarian, much more so than the US,
and has different core values (less about freedom and more about fairness). If these people had
what it takes to be New Zealanders they would not need to leave the USA in the first place. Failing
that, they are going to be constantly under siege if they move here, in a figurative sense and
possibly a literal one if they try to engage in the same kind of behaviour that required them
to flee the USA.
Thiel's land purchase in the South Island has been front page news lately, along with the news
that he didn't have to comply with foreign investment criteria because he is a NZ citizen (which
just raised the question of how and why he received citizenship).
deep down they know they are a bunch of grifters who have produced nothing of any real value.
some of them are deluded but many know it has all been one big debt fueled scam, involving predatory
behavior (pirate equity) and risk free gambling (hedge scum managers, you lose and they still
win) further abetted by tax avoidance and other shifty activity.
[ "What does that really tell us about our system? It's a very odd thing. You're basically
seeing that the people who've been the best at reading the tea leaves-the ones with the most resources,
because that's how they made their money-are now the ones most preparing to pull the rip cord
and jump out of the plane." ]
The "Peak Oil Doomers" know very well why hedge fund jack offs are " buying airstrips and
farms "
"supposedly" (so take w/salt), the entire food supply of the Northeast flows through 4 highways
(I 90/80/76/95--sounds plausible). Ain't too hard to seize those chokepoints and disrupt the entire
Northeast.
Similarly the crossings of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers also are major chokepoints for
our just-in-time way of life.
We've all seen the empty bread shelves when 12″ of snow are forecast. I imagine that would
be nothing in the 1:1,000,000 chance civilization truly goes pear-shaped.
Prime Minister Bill English has defended a decision to grant citizenship to American tech billionaire
Peter Thiel, saying "a little bit of flexibility" is useful when it comes to citizenship laws.
(he didn't meet the criteria for citizenship under the law)
English said there needed to be a balance between giving everyone a fair chance of citizenship,
and encouraging those who would make a positive difference to New Zealand.
"If people come here and invest and get into philanthropy and are supportive of New Zealand,
then we're better off for their interest in our country, and as a small country at the end of
the world, that's not a bad thing.
(but he has money and spread a lot of it around and we like that)
NZ First leader Winston Peters' suggestion that the Government was selling citizenship
was "ridiculous", English said.
(even though everything I just said appears to confirm it)
"... Krugman dislikes Trump (as do I). He seems motivated to find fault with Trump's policies. In
fuzzy things like economics and their intersection with politics it is challenging, and perhaps actually
impossible, for most of us to remain balanced. If someone as smart and knowledgeable as Paul Krugman
subconsciously decides to dislike a policy, his brain is more than clever enough to invent reasonable
economic arguments against the policy. ..."
"... Cognitive bias. Using % of jobs that are manufacturing is relative to what was happening in
other job areas: like Reagan building up the military and civil service to buy weapons a tiny part of
the growth in that sector was manufacturing. ..."
"... I understand the textbook story is the Fed raises rates when the budget deficit increases.
I am not sure if the empirical data supports that though. Perhaps the Fed cares more about inflation
than budget deficits and perhaps budget deficits do not directly result in inflation? But if that is
correct, what is the basis for Professor Krugman's assertion that Trump's budget will push up interest
rates? ..."
"... It's like how Greenspan and Rubin told Clinton he had to drop his middle class spending bill
in order to focus on deficit reduction. Greenspan was threatening to raise rates and Clinton bent the
knee to the "independent" Fed. ..."
"... Krugman should remember that "Integrity, once sold, is difficult to repurchase - even at 10x
the original sales price." ..."
Reagan, Trump, and Manufacturing : It's hard to focus on ordinary economic analysis amidst this
political apocalypse. But ... like it or not the progress of
CASE NIGHTMARE
ORANGE may depend on how the economy does. So, what is actually likely to happen to trade and
manufacturing over the next few years?
As it happens, we have what looks like an unusually good model in the Reagan years... - it's not
part of the Reagan legend, but the import quota on Japanese automobiles was one of the biggest protectionist
moves of the postwar era.
I'm a bit uncertain about the actual fiscal stance of Trumponomics: deficits will surely blow
up, but I won't believe in the infrastructure push until I see it, and given savage cuts in aid to
the poor it's not entirely clear that there will be
net stimulus . But suppose there is. Then what?
Well, what happened in the Reagan years was "twin deficits": the budget deficit pushed up interest
rates, which caused a strong dollar, which caused a bigger trade deficit, mainly in manufactured
goods (which are still most of what's tradable.) This led to an accelerated decline in the industrial
orientation of the U.S. economy:
And people did notice. ...
Again, this happened despite substantial protectionism.
So Trump_vs_deep_state will probably follow a similar course; it will actually shrink manufacturing despite
the big noise made about saving a few hundred jobs here and there.
On the other hand, by then the BLS may be thoroughly politicized, commanded to report good news
whatever happens.
Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports. The agreement set total Japanese auto exports
at 1.68 million
vehicles in 1981-82, 8 percent below 1980 exports. Two years later the level was permitted to
rise to 1.85 million.(33)
Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution found that the import limits have actually cost
jobs in the U.S. auto
industry by making it possible for the sheltered American automakers to raise prices and limit
production. In 1984,
Winston writes in Blind Intersection? Policy and the Automobile Industry, 32,000 jobs were lost,
U.S. production fell
by 300,000 units, and profits for U.S. firms increased $8.9 billion. The quotas have also made
the Japanese firms
potentially more formidable rivals because they have begun building assembly plants in the United
States.(34) They
also shifted production to larger cars, introducing to American firms competition they did not
have before the quotas
were created. In 1984, it was estimated that higher prices for domestic and imported cars cost
consumers $2.2 billion a
year.(35) At the height of the dollar's exchange rate with the yen in 1984-85, the quotas were
costing American
consumers the equivalent of $11 billion a year
The Reagan Record on Trade: Rhetoric vs. Reality
By Sheldon L. Richman
Executive Summary
When President Reagan imposed a 100 percent tariff on selected Japanese electronics in 1987,
he and the press gave the impression that this was an act of desperation. Pictured was a long-forbearing
president whose patience was exhausted by the recalcitrant and conniving Japanese. After trying
for years to elicit some fairness out of them, went the story, the usually good-natured president
had finally had enough.
When newspapers and television networks announced the tariffs, the media reminded the public
that such restraints were imposed by a staunch free trader. The less-than-subtle message was that
if "Free Trader" Ronald Reagan thought the tariff necessary, then Japan surely deserved it. After
more than seven years in office, Ronald Reagan is still widely regarded as a devoted free trader.
A typical reference is that of Mark Shields, a Washington Post columnist, to Reagan's "blind devotion
to the doctrine of free trade."
If President Reagan has a devotion to free trade, it surely must be blind, because he has been
off the mark most of the time. Only short memories and a refusal to believe one's own eyes would
account for the view that President Reagan is a free trader. Calling oneself a free trader is
not the same thing as being a free trader. Nor does a free-trade position mean that the president,
but not Congress, should have the power to impose trade sanctions. Instead, a president deserves
the title of free trader only if his efforts demonstrate an attempt to remove trade barriers at
home and prevent the imposition of new ones.
By this standard, the Reagan administration has failed to promote free trade. Ronald Reagan
by his actions has become the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover, the heavyweight
champion of protectionists.
[ I appreciate this reference, which is in turn extensively referenced. ]
This is simple. It means instead of shipping low end Toyota Corolla's that were small, manual
transmission, no A/C, etc., the Japanese started to make larger, more expensive cars, even luxury
cars like Lexis, etc.
If this helps, think of Volkswagen being limited to shipping 1,000 cars to the US. They would
probably send us only the top-end Porsches (VW owns that brand) and none of the more middle class
cars.
To Anne's point on whether this is an accurate portrayal of what happened: I have no recollection
and no knowledge about this.
What really happened is simple. The Japanese car companies got that quota rents (Menzie Chinn
documented this recently) from what was effectively a quota on the imports of Japanese cars. American
consumers instead imported European cars. Any benefits to US car manufacturing was trivial and
totally undo for the aggregate US economy by the massive dollar appreciation. All one has to do
is to look at the exchange rate back then and one gets why net exports fell dramatically.
Japanese manufacturers exported more expensive models in the 1980s due to voluntary export
restraints, negotiated by the Japanese government and U.S. trade representatives, that restricted
mainstream car sales. ...
Acura holds the distinction of being the first Japanese automotive luxury brand. ... In its
first few years of existence, Acura was among the best-selling luxury marques in the US. ...
In the late 1980s, the success of the company's first flagship vehicle, the Legend, inspired
fellow Japanese automakers Toyota and Nissan to launch their own luxury brands, Lexus and Infiniti,
respectively. ...
I am reluctant to disagree with Paul Krugman, as he has forgotten more economics than I'll ever
know. But my first thought as I read this was: motivated reasoning. It is quite interesting, and
affects all of us, and the brilliant folks seem to be more susceptible to it than the average
folks.
Krugman dislikes Trump (as do I). He seems motivated to find fault with Trump's policies.
In fuzzy things like economics and their intersection with politics it is challenging, and perhaps
actually impossible, for most of us to remain balanced. If someone as smart and knowledgeable
as Paul Krugman subconsciously decides to dislike a policy, his brain is more than clever enough
to invent reasonable economic arguments against the policy.
Of course, none of this implies that Krugman is actually wrong in this case.
One question for folks. Krugman says "the budget deficit pushed up interest rates, which caused
a strong dollar, which caused a bigger trade deficit, mainly in manufactured goods (which are
still most of what's tradable.)" I am wondering why a budget deficit has to push up interest rates?
In 2009 we ran a large budget deficit at low interest rates. In WW 2 we did as well (I think,
not really sure about this). Is it well established that budget deficits push up interest rates?
Cognitive bias. Using % of jobs that are manufacturing is relative to what was happening in
other job areas: like Reagan building up the military and civil service to buy weapons a tiny
part of the growth in that sector was manufacturing.
What else was going on in late 70's early 80's... a lot of growth on service sector.
It is called cherry picking the chart to make a point with non thinkers.
Right, I think the answer is that budget deficits only push up interest rates if the Fed allows
that to happen. The Fed could keep rates low if they wanted by signaling a willingness to buy
up as much federal debt as is needed to hit some low target rate. So I think Krugman is, in effect,
predicting that they will not do that, and that they will instead counteract the fiscal expansion
with tighter monetary policy on the theory that this is needed to counteract potential "overheating".
I bought a house in 1985, I bet interest rates would go down by taking a 1 year ARM. I did quite
well each year it adjusted! I sold it in 1990 and rates were low enough to go fixed conventional
on the "trade up".
It is reputed the high rates helped cause the "Volcker" recession in the gray around 82.
Thinking about it some more. If I understand this correctly, the thought is that deficit spending
is stimulative, and the economy is already at full employment, so the Fed will raise interest
rates to prevent the economy from "overheating." The increase in rates slows the economy down
by two mechanisms:
(1) when the cost of capital is higher, fewer investments get made than when it is lower (say,
a business needs to see a higher ROI when interest rates are high than when they are low). (As
an aside, outside of the housing market, I don't think this effect is very strong. Real businesses
don't change their approach to investment if rates change by, say, 100%; from 2% to 4%. At least,
not the ones I have been exposed to, which are generally looking for ~ 15% IRR on investments.)
(2) People globally may be more inclined to hold dollars when the risk-free rate is higher,
which increases demand for the currency, which means the currency gets stronger, and exports are
less competitive and imports more competitive, counter-acting the stimulus.
The thing I don't like about this line of thought is that it is fatalist. It suggests that
fiscal policy really does not matter, it will all be offset by monetary policy. There is no real
impact to the economy whether we run huge budget deficits or surpluses. Me not liking it does
not mean it is wrong, obviously, but I just don't buy it. When I run into things like this in
economics I really start to wonder how much of macro is based on empirical observations and correlations
versus 'models.'
I think I ought to take an intro econ course and actually learn something. Or read an introductory
macro text book...
Krugman says "the budget deficit pushed up interest rates, which caused a strong dollar, which
caused a bigger trade deficit, mainly in manufactured goods (which are still most of what's tradable.)"
I am wondering why a budget deficit has to push up interest rates?
In 2009 we ran a large budget deficit at low interest rates.... Is it well established that
budget deficits push up interest rates?
[ Here then is the relevant matter to be analyzed. ]
Anne, thank you. From this plot I see that during Clinton's presidency we went from a budget deficit
to a surplus. And interest rates dropped. During the George W. Bush presidency we went from a
surplus to a deficit. And interest rates dropped.
There does not appear to be any obvious correlation between the budget deficit and interest
rates.
I understand the textbook story is the Fed raises rates when the budget deficit increases.
I am not sure if the empirical data supports that though. Perhaps the Fed cares more about inflation
than budget deficits and perhaps budget deficits do not directly result in inflation? But if that
is correct, what is the basis for Professor Krugman's assertion that Trump's budget will push
up interest rates?
With war looming, it's time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage.
It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once
financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.
From a fiscal point of view the impending war is a lose-lose proposition. If it goes badly,
the resulting mess will be a disaster for the budget. If it goes well, administration officials
have made it clear that they will use any bump in the polls to ram through more big tax cuts,
which will also be a disaster for the budget. Either way, the tide of red ink will keep on rising.
Last week the Congressional Budget Office marked down its estimates yet again. Just two years
ago, you may remember, the C.B.O. was projecting a 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. Now it projects
a 10-year deficit of $1.8 trillion.
And that's way too optimistic. The Congressional Budget Office operates under ground rules
that force it to wear rose-colored lenses. If you take into account - as the C.B.O. cannot - the
effects of likely changes in the alternative minimum tax, include realistic estimates of future
spending and allow for the cost of war and reconstruction, it's clear that the 10-year deficit
will be at least $3 trillion.
So what? Two years ago the administration promised to run large surpluses. A year ago it said
the deficit was only temporary. Now it says deficits don't matter. But we're looking at a fiscal
crisis that will drive interest rates sky-high.
A leading economist recently summed up one reason why: "When the government reduces saving
by running a budget deficit, the interest rate rises." Yes, that's from a textbook by the chief
administration economist, Gregory Mankiw.
But what's really scary - what makes a fixed-rate mortgage seem like such a good idea - is
the looming threat to the federal government's solvency.... ]
Yes, thank you for that column from 2003. Yes, Prof. K was correct about the future trend in deficits
back then, but incorrect about the future trend in interest rates.
It is certainly conceivable that he is wrong now as well.
Krugman captures very well what happened in the 1980's. He went to work for the CEA hoping to
undo this disaster. Of course the political hacks in the Reagan White House did not listen to
the CEA. Now he watches people in the Trump White House that are even more insane than these political
hacks. You draw whatever conclusion you want but his concerns strike me as real from someone who
has been there.
pgl - thank you. I am not drawing any hard and fast conclusions, just trying to learn. I appreciate
your comment that is based on both education and experience.
I am still thinking about this Buffett proposal on trade with import certificates.
http://fortune.com/2016/04/29/warren-buffett-foreign-trade/
Jared Bernstein mentioned it in passing in an opinion piece in the NY Times yesterday. I put
a comment on his website asking him to share more of his thoughts on it, and he said that he will
if/when he has time. I hope he does.
No. Budget deficits for a country such as the US do not push up interest rates. They would in
fact lower the interbank rate if not countered by Federal Reserve actions.
If budget deficits added to aggregate demand to the point that the Fed thought its inflation
target was in jeopardy, the Fed might raise its target rate of interest in the hopes of quelling
demand.
The Fed has almost complete control over the interest rate paid by the Federal government when
it decides to issue new debt. WWII is a great example of this. So is our most recent depression.
Will Fiscal Policy Really Be Expansionary?
By Paul Krugman
It's now generally accepted that Trump_vs_deep_state will finally involve the kind of fiscal stimulus
progressive economists have been pleading for ever since the financial crisis. After all, Republicans
are deeply worried about budget deficits when a Democrat is in the White House, but suddenly become
fiscal doves when in control. And there really is no question that the deficit will go up.
But will this actually amount to fiscal stimulus? Right now it looks as if Republicans are
going to ram through their whole agenda, including an end to Obamacare, privatizing Medicare and
block-granting Medicaid, sharp cuts to food stamps, and so on. These are spending cuts, which
will reduce the disposable income of lower- and middle-class Americans even as tax cuts raise
the income of the wealthy. Given the sharp distributional changes, looking just at the budget
deficit may be a poor guide to the macroeconomic impact.
Given the extent to which things are in flux, I can't put numbers on what's likely to happen.
But I was able to find matching analyses by the good folks at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
of tax * and spending ** cuts in Paul Ryan's 2014 budget, which may be a useful model of things
to come.
If you leave out the magic asterisks - closing of unspecified tax loopholes - that budget was
a deficit-hiker: $5.7 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years, versus $5 trillion in spending cuts.
The spending cuts involved cuts in discretionary spending plus huge cuts in programs that serve
the poor and middle class; the tax cuts were, of course, very targeted on high incomes.
The pluses and minuses here would have quite different effects on demand. Cutting taxes on
high incomes probably has a low multiplier: the wealthy are unlikely to be cash-constrained, and
will save a large part of their windfall. Cutting discretionary spending has a large multiplier,
because it directly cuts government purchases of goods and services; cutting programs for the
poor probably has a pretty high multiplier too, because it reduces the income of many people who
are living more or less hand to mouth.
Taking all this into account, that old Ryan plan would almost surely have been contractionary,
not expansionary.
Will Trumponomics be any different? It would matter if there really were a large infrastructure
push, but that's becoming ever less plausible. There will be big tax cuts at the top, but as I
said, the push to dismantle the safety net definitely seems to be on. Put it all together, and
it's extremely doubtful whether we're talking about net fiscal stimulus.
Now, you might think that someone will explain this to Trump, and that he'll demand a more
Keynesian plan. But I have two words for you: Larry Kudlow.
In looking at economic trends, the other issue to take into account is private lending. Individual
debt (credit cards, etc.) is already back up to the levels before the financial crisis and Trump's
appointees are determined to deregulate financial institutions, which may contribute to a return
to the predatory lending that created the last set of booms and busts. *
It's hard to focus on ordinary economic analysis amidst this political apocalypse. But getting
and spending will still consume most of peoples' energy and time; furthermore, like it or not
the progress of CASE NIGHTMARE ORANGE may depend on how the economy does. So, what is actually
likely to happen to trade and manufacturing over the next few years?
As it happens, we have what looks like an unusually good model in the Reagan years - minus
the severe recession and conveniently timed recovery, which somewhat overshadowed the trade story.
Leave aside the Volcker recession and recovery, and what you had was a large move toward budget
deficits via tax cuts and military buildup, coupled with quite a lot of protectionism - it's not
part of the Reagan legend, but the import quota on Japanese automobiles was one of the biggest
protectionist moves of the postwar era.
I'm a bit uncertain about the actual fiscal stance of Trumponomics: deficits will surely blow
up, but I won't believe in the infrastructure push until I see it, and given savage cuts in aid
to the poor it's not entirely clear that there will be net stimulus. * But suppose there is. Then
what?
Well, what happened in the Reagan years was "twin deficits": the budget deficit pushed up interest
rates, which caused a strong dollar, which caused a bigger trade deficit, mainly in manufactured
goods (which are still most of what's tradable.) This led to an accelerated decline in the industrial
orientation of the U.S. economy:
[Graph]
And people did notice. Using Google Ngram, we can watch the spread of terms for industrial
decline, e.g. here:
[Graph]
And here:
[Graph]
Again, this happened despite substantial protectionism.
So Trump_vs_deep_state will probably follow a similar course; it will actually shrink manufacturing despite
the big noise made about saving a few hundred jobs here and there.
On the other hand, by then the Bureau of Labor Statistics may be thoroughly politicized, commanded
to report good news whatever happens.
RMO declines sharply during recessions and the worse the downturn, the harder manufacturing
gets hit. Ergo, avoiding recessions is the absolute best policy for manufacturing. Trade and the
dollar's value don't have nearly as strong correlations.
RMWW rise strongly during sustained expansions of private industry employment.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USPRIV
Trade deficits have little correlation but the correlation with private industry employment growth
is strong: 16 million new jobs since 1Q2010.
All of this should be obvious, as Keynes said: "The ideas (about economics) . . . are extremely
simple and should be obvious."
"Well, what happened in the Reagan years was "twin deficits": the budget deficit pushed up
interest rates, which caused a strong dollar, which caused a bigger trade deficit, mainly in manufactured
goods (which are still most of what's tradable.)"
Deficit spending would always stimulate an economy except the Fed controls the brakes.
The Fed is especially worried about wage price inflation spirals
When inflation pops its head above target, the Fed slams on the brakes.
At the ZLB, inflation is far below target so the Fed has its foot off the brakes.
Deficit spending is stimulatory because the Fed does not apply the brakes by raising interest
rates.
This is textbook economics
The first intelligent comment here. Yes Volcker kept real interest rate very high for a while
which led to a dramatic appreciation of the dollar. But even as Volcker took off the monetary
brakes to let the economy get back to full employment, real interest rates stayed elevated and
the real appreciation was not entirely reversed. So we got a sustained trade deficit even in the
face of trade protection. That is the simple point that some here wish to duck.
Yes but historically it does not seem like it has worked that way. There does not appear to be
an obvious correlation between budget deficits and either (a) interest rates themselves, or (b)
the change in interest rates.
It seems like the Fed is acting on inflation signals. It is not so clear that (changes in)
budget deficits necessarily result in (changes in) inflation. Unless there is a direct link between
budget deficits and inflation it is hard to credibly argue that increasing the budget deficit
results in increased inflation results in Federal Reserve raising rates to choke off inflation.
The history of budget deficits and interest rates that Anne showed above don't provide much
support for Prof. Krugman's point.
Krugman is predicting that the Fed will raise rates to counter Trump's fiscal expansion and will
appreciate the dollar. That's what happened with Volcker jacking rates to fight inflation.
He doesn't spell this out exactly.
It's like how Greenspan and Rubin told Clinton he had to drop his middle class spending
bill in order to focus on deficit reduction. Greenspan was threatening to raise rates and Clinton
bent the knee to the "independent" Fed.
That's when Clinton threw a tantrum about being an "Eisenhower Republican."
The Senate Democrats like Schumer get what the populist backlash is about. That's why they're
promising $1 trillion over 10 years in government spending rather than Hillary's $275 over 5 years.
They can do the math. They know what happened in the election. It wasn't just about Comey or
the DNC hack. The election shouldn't have been that close.
"the budget deficit pushed up interest rates" We had large budget deficits during the Great Recession
and they didn't push up interest rates. In fact Obama focused too much on deficit reduction.
"... Do you see the name of an actual business, owned by Trump? ..."
"... For Donald Trump, all attempts to gain a foothold in the USSR and then in Russia in 30 years of travel and negotiations failed. Moscow did not have a Trump Tower of its own, although Trump boasted every time that he had met the most important people and was just about to invest hundreds of millions in a project that would undoubtedly be successful. ..."
"... Trumps' largest business success in Russia was the presentation of a Trump Vodka at the Millionaire Fair 2007 in Moscow. This project was also a cleansing; In 2009 the sale of Trump Vodka was discontinued. ..."
In any case, a link to the following story in Hamburg's ridiculously sober-sided Die Zeit came
over the transom:
So schockiert von Trump wie alle anderen ("So shocked by Trump like everyone else"). The reporter
is Alexej Kowaljow
, a Russian journalist based in Moscow. Before anyone goes "ZOMG! The dude is Russian
!", everything Kowaljow writes is based on open sources or common-sense information presumably
available to citizens of any nation. The bottom line for me is that if the world is coming to believe
that Americans are idiots, it's not necessarily because Americans elected Trump as President.
I'm going to lay out two claims and two questions from Kowaljow's piece. In each case, I'll quote
the conventional, Steele and intelligence community-derived wisdom in our famously free press, and
then I'll quote Kowaljow. I think Kowaljow wins each time. Easily. I don't think Google Translate
handles irony well, but I sense that Kowaljow is deploying it freely.
(1) Trump's Supposed Business Dealings in Russia Are Commercial Puffery
Here's
the
section on Russia in Time's article on Trump's business dealings; it's representative. I'm going
to quote it all so you can savor it. Read it carefully.
Donald Trump's Many, Many Business Dealings in 1 Map
Russia
"For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump
tweeted
in July, one day before he called on the country to "find" a batch of emails deleted from
Hillary Clinton's private server. Nonetheless, Russia's extraordinary meddling in the 2016 U.S.
election-a declassified report released by U.S. intelligence agencies in January disclosed that
intercepted conversations captured senior Russian officials celebrating Trump's win-as well as
Trump's complimentary remarks about Russian President have stirred widespread questions about
the President-elect's pursuit of closer ties with Moscow. Several members of Trump's inner circle
have business links to Russia, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who
consulted for pro-Russia politicians in the Ukraine. Former foreign policy adviser Carter
Page worked in Russia and
maintains ties there.
During the presidential transition, former Georgia Congressman and Trump campaign surrogate
Jack Kingston
told a gathering of businessmen in Moscow that the President-elect could lift U.S. sanctions.
According to his own son, Trump has long relied on Russian customers as a source of income. "Russians
make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," Donald Trump Jr.
told a Manhattan real estate conference in 2008 , according to an account posted on the website
of trade publication eTurboNews. "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."
Back to map .
Read that again, if you can stand it. Do you see the name of an actual business, owned by Trump?
Do you see the name of any businessperson who closed a deal with Trump? Do you, in fact, see any
reporting at all? At most, you see commercial puffery by Trump the Younger: "Russians [in Russia?]
make up a pretty [qualifier] disproportionate [whatever that means] cross-section [whatever that
means] of a lot of [qualifier] our assets."
Now Kowaljow (via Google Translate, so forgive any solecisms):
For Donald Trump, all attempts to gain a foothold in the USSR and then in Russia in 30 years
of travel and negotiations failed. Moscow did not have a Trump Tower of its own, although Trump
boasted every time that he had met the most important people and was just about to invest hundreds
of millions in a project that would undoubtedly be successful.
Trumps' largest business success in Russia was the presentation of a Trump Vodka at the Millionaire
Fair 2007 in Moscow. This project was also a cleansing; In 2009 the sale of Trump Vodka was discontinued.
Because think about it: Trump puts his name on stuff . Towers in Manhattan, hotels, casinos,
golf courses, steaks. Anything in Russia with Trump's name on it? Besides the failed vodka venture?
No? Case closed, then.
(2) Zhirinovsky Is The Very Last Person Putin Would Use For A Proxy
Five reasons intel community believes Russia interfered in election
The attacks dovetailed with other Russian disinformation campaigns
The report covers more than just the hacking effort. It also contains a detailed list account
of information warfare against the United States from Russia through other means.
Political party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who the report lists as a "pro-Kremlin proxy,"
said before the election that, if Trump won, Russia would 'drink champagne' to celebrate their
new ability to advance in Syria and Ukraine.
Now Kowaljow:
The report of the American intelligence services on the Russian interference in the US elections,
published at the beginning of January, was notoriously neglected by Russians, because the name
of Vladimir Zhirinovsky was mentioned among the "propaganda activities of Russia", which had announced
that in the event of an election victory of Trump champagne to want to drink.
Such a delicate plan – to reach the election of a President of the US by means of Zhirinovsky
– ensures a skeptical smile for every Russian at best. He is already seventy and has been at
the head of a party with a misleading name for nearly thirty years. The Liberal Democratic Party
is neither liberal nor democratic. If their policies are somehow characterized, then as right-wing
populism. Zhirinovsky is known for shrill statements; He threatened, for example, to destroy the
US by means of "gravitational weapons".
If, therefore, the Kremlin had indeed had the treacherous plan of helping Trump to power, it
would scarcely have been made known about Zhirinovsky.
The American equivalent would be . Give me a moment to think of an American politician who's both
so delusional and such a laughingstock that no American President could possibly
consider using them as a proxy in a devilishly complex informational warfare campaign Sara
Palin? Anthony Weiner? Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Na ga happen.
And now to the two questions.
(3) Why Would Russian Intelligence Agencies Sources Have Talked to Steele?
Kowaljow:
But the report, published on the BuzzFeed Internet portal, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions.
The problem is not even that there are a lot of false facts. Even the assumption that agents of
the Russian secret services are discussing the details with a former secretary of a hostile secret
service in the midst of a highly secret operation by which a future President of the US is to
be discredited appears strange.
Exactly. For the intelligence community and Democrat reliance on Steele's dossier to be plausible,
you have to assume 10-foot tall Russkis (1) with incredibly sophisticated strategic, operational,
and technical capabilities, who have (2) performed the greatest intelligence feat of the 21st
and 20th centuries, suborning the President of the United States, and whose intelligence agencies
are (3) leakly like a sieve. Does that make sense? (Of course, the devilish Russkis could have fed
Steele bad data, knowing he'd then feed it to the American intelligence agencies, who would lap it
up, but that's another narrative.)
(4) How Do You Compromise the Uncompromisable?
Funny how suddenly the word kompromat was everywhere, wasn't it? So sophisticated. Everybody
loves to learn a new word! Regarding the "Golden Showers" - more sophistication! - Kowaljow writes:
But even if such a compromise should exist, what sense should it have, since the most piquant
details have long been publicly discussed in public, and had no effect on the votes of the elected
president? Like all the other scandals trumps, which passed through the election campaign, they
also remained unresolved, including those who were concerned about sex.
This also includes what is known as a compromise, compromising material, that is, video shots
of the unsightly nature, which can destroy both the political career and the life of a person.
The word Kompromat shines today – as in the past Perestroika – in all headlines; It was not invented
in Russia, of course. But in Russia in the Yeltsin era, when the great clans in the power gave
bitter fights and intensively used the media, works of this kind have ended more than just a brilliant
career. General Prosecutor Jurij Skuratov was dismissed after a video had been shown in the country-wide
television channels: There, a person "who looks like the prosecutor's office" had sex with two
prostitutes.
Donald Trump went on Howard Stern for, like, decades. The stuff that's right out there for whoever
wants to roll those tapes is just as "compromising" as anything in the dodgy dossier, or the "grab
her by the pussy" tape, for that matter. As Kowaljow points out, none of it was mortally wounding
to Trump; after all, if you're a volatility voter who wants to kick over the table in a rigged game,
you don't care about the niceties.
Conclusion
It would be nice, wouldn't it, if our famously free press was actually covering the Trump
transition , instead of acting like their newsrooms are mountain redoubts for an irrendentist
Clinton campaign. It would be nice, for example, to know:
1) The content and impact of Trump's Executive Orders.
2) Ditto, regulations.
3) Personnel decisions below the Cabinet level. Who are the Flexians?
4) Obama policies that will remain in place, because both party establishments support them. Charters,
for example.
5) Republican inroads in Silicon Valley.
6) The future of the IRS, since Republicans have an axe to grind with it.
7) Mismatch between State expectations for infrastructure and Trump's implementation
And that's before we get to ObamaCare, financial regulation, gutting or owning the CIA (which
Trump needs to do, and fast), trade policy, NATO, China, and a myriad of other stories, all rich
with human interest, powerful narratives, and plenty of potential for scandal. Any one of them worthy
of A1 coverage, just like the Inaugural crowd size dogpile that's been going on for days.
Instead, the press seems to be reproducing the last gasps of the Clinton campaign, which were
all about the evils of Trump, the man. That tactic failed the Clinton campaign, again because volatility
voters weren't concerned with the niceties. And the same tactic is failing the press now. Failing
unless, of course, you're the sort of sleaze merchant who
downsizes the newsroom because, hey, it's all about the clicks.
"... Trump may be a Nationalist, but he is also an anti-regulatory elite with no regard for business ethics or accountability to the community. He is also for "greedy take all" and against fair distribution of profits in the economy. ..."
"... The key point here is that as long as there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism, nationalism is the only game in town for the opposition forces. That's why trade union members now abandoned neoliberal (aka Clintonized ) Democratic Party. ..."
"... Traditionally, Neoliberalism espouses privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade and reduction in government spending. ..."
"... One way to sum up neoliberalism is to say that everything-everything-is to be made over in the image of the market, including the state, civil society, and of course human beings. Democracy becomes reinterpreted as the market, and politics succumbs to neoliberal economic theory, so we are speaking of the end of democratic politics as we have known it for two and a half centuries. ..."
"... As the market becomes an abstraction, so does democracy, but the real playing field is somewhere else, in the realm of actual economic exchange-which is not, however, the market. We may say that all exchange takes place on the neoliberal surface. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is often described-and this creates a lot of confusion-as "market fundamentalism," and while this may be true for neoliberal's self-promotion and self-presentation, i.e., the market as the ultimate and only myth, as were the gods of the past, I would argue that in neoliberalism there is no such thing as the market as we have understood it from previous ideologies. ..."
"... it seeks to leave no space for individual self-conception in the way that classical liberalism, and even communism and fascism to some degree, were willing to allow. ..."
"... I am suggesting that the issue is not how strong the state is in the service of neoliberalism, but whether there is anything left over beyond the new definition of the state. Another way to say it is that the state has become the market, the market has become the state, and therefore both have ceased to exist in the form we have classically understood them. ..."
I will go with worth reading. I don't think that is controversial at all and there is way more
than an element of truth in it. But knowing is one thing and organizing politically in a manner
sufficient to bring about change is entirely another.
They are correct. We need an alternative to Nationalism and Trump.
They are not correct about mysterious elites controlling things.
The elites pursued anti-regulatory policies that allowed them to reap short term profits without
regard for stability or sustainability. It is not government control but lack of regulation that
allowed BIgF to run wild and unaccountable.
Trump may be a Nationalist, but he is also an anti-regulatory elite with no regard for
business ethics or accountability to the community. He is also for "greedy take all" and against
fair distribution of profits in the economy.
The plant closures are headlined and promote the mistaken belief that globalization is the
prime cause of job loss. These large closures are only 1/10th of the job losses and dislocations
due to automation and transformation from manufacturing to service economies. Wealthy elites are
allowed to greedily hoard all the profits from automation and not enough is being invested in
the service economy. Austerity is not a policy to control the masses, it is a policy to protect
the wealth accumulated by elites from fair distribution.
Trump is not going to bring manufacturing plants back to American rural backwaters. Those left
behind must build their own service economy or relocate to a sustainable region that is making
the transition.
The key point here is that as long as there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism,
nationalism is the only game in town for the opposition forces. That's why trade union members
now abandoned neoliberal (aka Clintonized ) Democratic Party.
All Western societies now, not only the USA, experience nationalist movements Renaissance.
And that's probably why Hillary lost as she represented "kick the can down the road" neoliberal
globalization agenda.
An important point also is that nationalism itself is not monolithic. There are at least two
different types of nationalism in the West now:
ethnic nationalism (old-style), where the "ethnicity" is the defining feature of belonging
to the "in-group"
cultural nationalism (new style), where the defining traits of belonging to the "in-group"
is the language and culture, not ethnicity.
As for your statement
"Trump may be a Nationalist, but he is also an anti-regulatory elite with no regard for
business ethics or accountability to the community. He is also for "greedy take all" and against
fair distribution of profits in the economy."
This might be true, but might be not. It is not clear what Trump actually represents. Let's
give him the benefit of doubt and wait 100 days before jumping to conclusions.
Traditionally, Neoliberalism espouses privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free
trade and reduction in government spending.
What exactly did Clinton want to privatize? What budget did she propose slashing? Did
she want to deregulate banks or environmental regulations?
She supported some trade liberalization, but also imposing sanctions. What government spending
did she want to reduce?
Fact: She supported the opposite of most of these policies.
Donald Trump promised to pursue all of these Neoliberal policies. The GOP and their propaganda
megaphone is very good at tarring the opposition as supporting the very policies they are enacting.
They made Al Gore into a liar, John Kerry into a coward with a purple band aid and Hillary into
a Wall Street shill. None of this is true. But Trump and his GOP are doing all the things you
accuse Democrats of doing.
You are wrong. Your definition of neoliberalism is formally right and we can argue along those
lines that Hillary is a neoliberal too (Her track record as a senator suggests exactly that),
it is way too narrow. There is more to it:
"One way to sum up neoliberalism is to say that everything-everything-is to be made over
in the image of the market, including the state, civil society, and of course human beings."
(see below)
"Another way to say it is that the state has become the market, the market has become the
state, and therefore both have ceased to exist in the form we have classically understood them."
"In the current election campaign, Hillary Clinton has been the most perfect embodiment
of neoliberalism among all the candidates, she is almost its all-time ideal avatar, and I believe
this explains, even if not articulated this way, the widespread discomfort among the populace
toward her ascendancy. People can perceive that her ideology is founded on a conception of
human beings striving relentlessly to become human capital (as her opening campaign commercial
so overtly depicted), which means that those who fail to come within the purview of neoliberalism
should be rigorously ostracized, punished, and excluded.
This is the dark side of neoliberalism's ideological arm (a multiculturalism founded on
human beings as capital), which is why this project has become increasingly associated with
suppression of free speech and intolerance of those who refuse to go along with the kind of
identity politics neoliberalism promotes.
And this explains why the 1990s saw the simultaneous and absolutely parallel rise, under
the Clintons, of both neoliberal globalization and various regimes of neoliberal disciplining,
such as the shaming and exclusion of former welfare recipients (every able-bodied person should
be able to find work, therefore under TANF welfare was converted to a performance management
system designed to enroll everyone in the workforce, even if it meant below-subsistence wages
or the loss of parental responsibilities, all of it couched in the jargon of marketplace incentives)."
In this sense Hillary Clinton is 100% dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal and neocon ("neoliberal with
the gun"). She promotes so called "neoliberal rationality" a perverted "market-based" rationality
typical for neoliberalism:
== quote ==
When Hillary Clinton frequently retorts-in response to demands for reregulation of finance,
for instance-that we have to abide by "the rule of law," this reflects a particular understanding
of the law, the law as embodying the sense of the market, the law after it has undergone a
revolution of reinterpretation in purely economic terms.
In this revolution of the law persons have no status compared to corporations, nation-states
are on their way out, and everything in turn dissolves before the abstraction called the market.
One way to sum up neoliberalism is to say that everything-everything-is to be made over
in the image of the market, including the state, civil society, and of course human beings.
Democracy becomes reinterpreted as the market, and politics succumbs to neoliberal economic
theory, so we are speaking of the end of democratic politics as we have known it for two and
a half centuries.
As the market becomes an abstraction, so does democracy, but the real playing field
is somewhere else, in the realm of actual economic exchange-which is not, however, the market.
We may say that all exchange takes place on the neoliberal surface.
Neoliberalism is often described-and this creates a lot of confusion-as "market fundamentalism,"
and while this may be true for neoliberal's self-promotion and self-presentation, i.e., the
market as the ultimate and only myth, as were the gods of the past, I would argue that in neoliberalism
there is no such thing as the market as we have understood it from previous ideologies.
The neoliberal state-actually, to utter the word state seems insufficient here, I would
claim that a new entity is being created, which is not the state as we have known it, but an
existence that incorporates potentially all the states in the world and is something that exceeds
their sum-is all-powerful, it seeks to leave no space for individual self-conception in
the way that classical liberalism, and even communism and fascism to some degree, were willing
to allow.
There are competing understandings of neoliberal globalization, when it comes to the question
of whether the state is strong or weak compared to the primary agent of globalization, i.e.,
the corporation, but I am taking this logic further, I am suggesting that the issue is
not how strong the state is in the service of neoliberalism, but whether there is anything
left over beyond the new definition of the state. Another way to say it is that the state has
become the market, the market has become the state, and therefore both have ceased to exist
in the form we have classically understood them.
Of course the word hasn't gotten around to the people yet, hence all the confusion about
whether Hillary Clinton is more neoliberal than Barack Obama, or whether Donald Trump will
be less neoliberal than Hillary Clinton.
The project of neoliberalism-i.e., the redefinition of the state, the institutions of society,
and the self-has come so far along that neoliberalism is almost beyond the need of individual
entities to make or break its case. Its penetration has gone too deep, and none of the democratic
figureheads that come forward can fundamentally question its efficacy.
It came as a part of series of three separate executive actions that President Trump took on
Monday.
"The first is a withdrawal of the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership," White
House chief of staff Reince Priebus said, explaining the first executive action President Trump
was taking in the list of three. The other two were one freezing hiring of all federal employees
except in the military, and one that restores the Mexico City policy.
As President Trump signed the executive action killing the TPP, he announced for the cameras
in the oval office that it was a "great thing for the American worker, what we just did."
Trump campaigned heavily against TPP, so it's only fitting he'd crush it once and for all on
his first business day as President of the United States. It's his efforts campaigning against
it-and the efforts of failed presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)-that shook Washington's
political establishment, and eventually forced failed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary
Rodham Clinton to come out against the deal that was supposed to be a legacy achievement of now
former President Barack Obama.
Trump hammered TPP repeatedly throughout his campaign and even leading up to it in speeches
and interviews, including many exclusive interviews with Breitbart News.
"... The era of neoliberalism ended in the autumn of 2008 with the bonfire of financialisation's illusions. The fetishisation of unfettered markets that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan brought to the fore in the late 1970s had been the necessary ideological cover for the unleashing of financiers to enable the capital flows essential to a new phase of globalisation in which the United States deficits provided the aggregate demand for the world's factories (whose profits flowed back to Wall Street closing the loop nicely). ..."
"... when the bottom fell out of this increasingly unstable feedback loop, neoliberalism's illusions burned down and the west's working class ended up too expensive and too indebted to be of interest to a panicking global establishment. ..."
"... Thatcher's and Reagan's neoliberalism had sought to persuade that privatisation of everything would produce a fair and efficient society unimpeded by vested interests or bureaucratic fiat. That narrative, of course, hid from public view what was really happening: a tremendous buildup of super-state bureaucracies, unaccountable supra-state institutions (World Trade Organisation, Nafta, the European Central Bank), behemoth corporations, and a global financial sector heading for the rocks. ..."
"... Their purpose was to impose acquiescence to a clueless establishment that had lost its ambition to maintain its legitimacy. When the UK government forced benefit claimants to declare in writing that "my only limits are the ones I set myself", or when the troika forced the Greek or Irish governments to write letters "requesting" predatory loans from the European Central Bank that benefited Frankfurt-based bankers at the expense of their people, the idea was to maintain power via calculated humiliation. Similarly, in America the establishment habitually blamed the victims of predatory lending and the failed health system. ..."
"... It was against this insurgency of a cornered establishment that had given up on persuasion that Donald Trump and his European allies rose up with their own populist insurgency. They proved that it is possible to go against the establishment and win. Alas, theirs will be a pyrrhic victory which will, eventually, harm those whom they inspired. The answer to neoliberalism's Waterloo cannot be the retreat to a barricaded nation-state and the pitting of "our" people against "others" fenced off by tall walls and electrified fences. ..."
"... This is all about globalisation, specifically wage deflation for the working classes from competing with emerging markets and freedom of movement, and also from offshoring of working class jobs to emerging markets. ..."
"... Until there is a viable alternative economic philosophy, nationalism is the future, whether we like it or not. ..."
"... Enough is enough. Globalisation is now only working for the rich and powerful. The model is simple - globalisation lowers the cost for consumers of everything, because the lowest cost geography produces everything (China, India etc), which is great until nobody has a job any more, so nobody can afford anything. ..."
"... The challenge is not to stick with the status quo, it's to find an alternative to nationalism that works for everyone. ..."
"... Fine words, but we're along way from that right now. What's happening in Europe, and across the Atlantic, is really only just getting started. Our elites may well be suffering from a crisis of legitimacy, and yet they are still very much in control. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is based on the acceptance that the rich elite are deserving of their wealth and privileges. The elite have used their mouthpieces, such as tabloids and think tanks, to ram this home; but the banking crisis of 2008 helped disabuse people of this myth that justifies rampant inequality in the US and the UK in particular. ..."
"... Trump and Brexit are expressions of the paradigm shift that is underway; but up till now, rather ironically, a billionaire and a rich former stockbroker have been the voice of protest, because it is they who have the money, connections and vanity to ensure they are heard. ..."
"... These classes of "globalization losers," particularly in the United States, have had little political voice or influence, and perhaps this is why the backlash against globalization has been so muted. They have had little voice because the rich have come to control the political process. The rich, as can be seen by looking at the income gains of the global top 5 percent in Figure 1, have benefited immensely from globalization and they have keen interest in its continuation. But while their use of political power has enabled the continuation of globalization, it has also hollowed out national democracies and moved many countries closer to becoming plutocracies. Thus, the choice would seem either plutocracy and globalization – or populism and a halt to globalization. ..."
"... Some of the gains of the top 5 percent could go toward alleviating the anger of the lower- and middle-class rich world's "losers." ..."
"... the history of the last quarter century during which the top classes in the rich world have continually piled up larger and larger gains, all the while socially and mentally separating themselves from fellow citizens, does not bode well for that alternative ..."
"... Social Neoliberals (mass immigration, family breakdown, individualism etc) combine with economic Neoliberals (profit maximisation, global capital movements etc) to get their way. ..."
"... I'm fairly sure that in time it will be shown that thier is a cabal of think-tanks and supranationalists who have perverted everything to thier own benefit. How and why does a Labour Peer get free accomodation on Baron Rothschilds' estate? How and why does the royal bank Coutts get bailed out by the taxpayer with no strings attached? ..."
The answer to neoliberalism's Waterloo cannot be a retreat to barricaded nation-states and the pitting
of 'our' people against 'others' fenced off by high walls
A clash of two insurgencies is now shaping the west. Progressives on both sides of the Atlantic
are on the sidelines, unable to comprehend what they are observing. Donald Trump's inauguration marks
its pinnacle.
One of the two insurgencies shaping our world today has been analysed ad nauseum. Donald Trump,
Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and the broad Nationalist International that they are loosely connected
to have received much attention, as has their success at impressing upon the multitudes that nation-states,
borders, citizens and communities matter.
However, the other insurgency that caused the rise of this Nationalist International has remained
in the shadows: an insurrection by the global establishment's technocracy whose purpose is to
retain control at all cost. Project Fear in the UK, the troika in continental Europe and the unholy
alliance of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the surveillance apparatus in the United States are
its manifestations.
The era of neoliberalism ended in the autumn of 2008 with the bonfire of financialisation's
illusions. The fetishisation of unfettered markets that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan brought
to the fore in the late 1970s had been the necessary ideological cover for the unleashing of financiers
to enable the capital flows essential to a new phase of globalisation in which the United States
deficits provided the aggregate demand for the world's factories (whose profits flowed back to Wall
Street closing the loop nicely).
Meanwhile, billions of people in the "third" world were pulled out of poverty while hundreds of
millions of western workers were slowly sidelined, pushed into more precarious jobs, and forced to
financialise themselves either through their pension funds or their homes. And when the bottom
fell out of this increasingly unstable feedback loop, neoliberalism's illusions burned down and the
west's working class ended up too expensive and too indebted to be of interest to a panicking global
establishment.
Thatcher's and Reagan's neoliberalism had sought to persuade that privatisation of everything
would produce a fair and efficient society unimpeded by vested interests or bureaucratic fiat. That
narrative, of course, hid from public view what was really happening: a tremendous buildup of super-state
bureaucracies, unaccountable supra-state institutions (World Trade Organisation, Nafta, the European
Central Bank), behemoth corporations, and a global financial sector heading for the rocks.
After the events of 2008 something remarkable happened. For the first time in modern times the
establishment no longer cared to persuade the masses that its way was socially optimal. Overwhelmed
by the collapsing financial pyramids, the inexorable buildup of unsustainable debt, a eurozone in
an advanced state of disintegration and a China increasingly relying on an impossible credit boom,
the establishment's functionaries set aside the aspiration to persuade or to represent. Instead,
they concentrated on clamping down.
In the UK, more than a million benefit applicants faced punitive sanctions. In the Eurozone, the
troika ruthlessly sought to reduce the pensions of the poorest of the poor. In the United States,
both parties promised drastic cuts to social security spending. During our deflationary times none
of these policies helped stabilise capitalism at a national or at a global level. So, why were they
pursued?
Their purpose was to impose acquiescence to a clueless establishment that had lost its ambition
to maintain its legitimacy. When the UK government forced benefit claimants to declare in writing
that "my only limits are the ones I set myself", or when the troika forced the Greek or Irish governments
to write letters "requesting" predatory loans from the European Central Bank that benefited Frankfurt-based
bankers at the expense of their people, the idea was to maintain power via calculated humiliation.
Similarly, in America the establishment habitually blamed the victims of predatory lending and the
failed health system.
It was against this insurgency of a cornered establishment that had given up on persuasion
that Donald Trump and his European allies rose up with their own populist insurgency. They proved
that it is possible to go against the establishment and win. Alas, theirs will be a pyrrhic victory
which will, eventually, harm those whom they inspired. The answer to neoliberalism's Waterloo cannot
be the retreat to a barricaded nation-state and the pitting of "our" people against "others" fenced
off by tall walls and electrified fences.
The answer can only be a Progressive Internationalism that works in practice on both sides of
the Atlantic. To bring it about we need more than fine principles unblemished by power. We need to
aim for power on the basis of a pragmatic narrative imparting hope throughout Europe and America
for jobs paying living wages to anyone who wants them, for social housing, for health and education.
Only a third insurgency promoting a New Deal that works equally for Americans and Europeans can
restore to a billion people living in the west sovereignty over their lives and communities.
bag0shite
This is all about globalisation, specifically wage deflation for the working classes
from competing with emerging markets and freedom of movement, and also from offshoring of
working class jobs to emerging markets.
Liberalism has created so much wealth for the west and has dramatically reduced inequality
over the last century, however it is no longer working for those on lower incomes in the west.
Until there is a viable alternative economic philosophy, nationalism is the future,
whether we like it or not.
chantaspell -> bag0shite 1d ago
nationalism is the future, whether we like it or not.
No it's not. Because what we've got, although flawed, is far superior to Nationalism's
false promises. Nationalism will, or perhaps already has, peaked.
bag0shite -> chantaspell
... go and tell that to all the families who don't have a job because their roles were
offshored to Eastern Europe or China. Got and tell that to truck drivers who earn a pittance
because there is essentially an infinite supply of Poles willing to do it for peanuts.
Enough is enough. Globalisation is now only working for the rich and powerful. The model
is simple - globalisation lowers the cost for consumers of everything, because the lowest cost
geography produces everything (China, India etc), which is great until nobody has a job any
more, so nobody can afford anything.
The challenge is not to stick with the status quo, it's to find an alternative to
nationalism that works for everyone.
MMGALIAS -> bag0shite 1d ago
This is all about globalisation, specifically wage deflation for the working classes
from competing with emerging markets and freedom of movement, and also from offshoring of
working class jobs to emerging markets.
The working classes have voted against their own interests in the last 3 decades, now we
are all supposed to feel sorry for them when the neoliberal policies they have voted for have
come back to bite them?
Northman1
"The answer can only be a Progressive Internationalism that works in practice on both sides
of the Atlantic. To bring it about we need more than fine principles unblemished by power. We
need to aim for power on the basis of a pragmatic narrative imparting hope throughout Europe
and America for jobs paying living wages to anyone who wants them, for social housing, for
health and education.
Only a third insurgency promoting a New Deal that works equally for Americans and Europeans
can restore to a billion people living in the West sovereignty over their lives and
communities".
These are fine aspirations. You precede them by saying that we cannot:
"...retreat to a barricaded nation-state and the pitting of 'our' people against 'others'
fenced off by tall walls and electrified fences".
This presumably refers to physical barriers to prevent illegal immigration and tariff barriers
to prevent free trade.
Tell me though how you can achieve the aspirations you set out whilst allowing millions of
people from the third world to flood into Europe at an enormous economic and social cost and
also trading freely with countries that don't trade fairly (e.g. China with its currency
manipulation, government subsidies, product dumping and lack of environmental/ safety/ worker
protection regulations)
greenwichite -> Northman1
He's brilliant on the problem...lame on the solution.
And wrong.
The answer is to only trade freely with countries that play by the same environmental,
currency and labour-rights rules as we do.
Otherwise, we are just allowing ourselves to be undercuts by cheats.
That's not "barricading" oneself anywhere...it's basic common sense, which has
unfortunately eluded our leaders for decades. In Thatcher's case, I think she was quite happy
for mercantilist, protectionist Asian powers to destroy our industry, for her own
party-political purposes.
MMGALIAS -> Northman1
and also trading freely with countries that don't trade fairly (e.g. China with its
currency manipulation, government subsidies, product dumping and lack of environmental/
safety/ worker protection regulations)
The West doesn't trade freely either, just ask the African farmers who are tariffed into
poverty by the EU.
Tiresius -> legalizefreedom
I agree. It's a well argued piece and I agree with the conclusion that neither the neo
liberal free trade consensus , nor its reaction , will provide an answer to the worsening
economic condition of the blue collar west. I also am convinced that in the longer term the
only real answer is a return to the principles of social democracy and equity of opportunity.
This will however be a long march. Neo liberalism has been in the ascendant for over 30
years , it has brought some significant benefits to a few in the west , and many elsewhere ,
and of course a lot of Chinese billionaires , a large number of western voters have lost or
are losing faith in a system that has failed to deliver rising living standards for them ,
incurred high levels of debt and reduced social mobility.
It is a failure of the narrative of the centre left that those people are persuaded by
increasing protectionism rather than social democracy. So now we will see where the reaction
to free trade liberalism takes us , it has to run its course before the prescriptions of
social democracy can be reformulated , hopefully with more inspiring leaders than at present.
Andrew Skidmore
'Only a third insurgency promoting a New Deal that works equally for Americans and
Europeans can restore to a billion people living in the West sovereignty over their lives
and communities.'
Fine words, but we're along way from that right now. What's happening in Europe, and
across the Atlantic, is really only just getting started. Our elites may well be suffering
from a crisis of legitimacy, and yet they are still very much in control.
From the Trump administration Whitehouse website:
'The Trump Administration will be a law and order administration. President Trump
will honor our men and women in uniform and will support their mission of protecting the
public. The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong. The Trump Administration
will end it.'
Hmmmmmm....?
thetowncrier -> Andrew Skidmore
As ever, a master of subtlety. I expect the American Stasi to come into being by the end of
next week, with a brand new special 'badge' to go with their black shirts.
2bveryFrank
Neoliberalism is based on the acceptance that the rich elite are deserving of their
wealth and privileges. The elite have used their mouthpieces, such as tabloids and think
tanks, to ram this home; but the banking crisis of 2008 helped disabuse people of this myth
that justifies rampant inequality in the US and the UK in particular.
Trump and Brexit are expressions of the paradigm shift that is underway; but up till
now, rather ironically, a billionaire and a rich former stockbroker have been the voice of
protest, because it is they who have the money, connections and vanity to ensure they are
heard.
They, however, are very unlikely to deliver and then true and genuine voices of the people
will emerge - voices that will target the root causes of discontent rather than convenient,
nationalistic scapegoats such as immigration.
ReasonableSoul -> 2bveryFrank
"and then true and genuine voices of the people will emerge - voices that will target
the root causes of discontent rather than convenient, nationalistic scapegoats such as
immigration."
So working class people who struggle to compete for the low wage jobs and strained welfare
services that are taken by migrants are not allowed to protest immigration policy?
Recent mass migrations (of the last 30 years) are unprecedented.
In Europe, whole towns have been transformed, particularly culturally.
Imposing huge demographic changes on a people is a form of authoritarian social
engineering.
SeenItAlready
This is covered by a report in YaleGlobal (and a similar one in the Harvard Business
Review) from 2014 which adds a few stats showing how middle-class salaries in the 'Western
World' were the only ones to stagnate in the period 1998 to 2008 (and obviously drop post
2008, but that isn't covered):
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/tale-two-middle-classes
This is the last section of that report:
The populists warn disgruntled voters that economic trends observed during the past
three decades are just the first wave of cheap labor from Asia pitted in direct competition
with workers in the rich world, and more waves are on the way from poorer lands in Asia and
Africa. The stagnation of middle-class incomes in the West may last another five decades or
more.
This calls into question either the sustainability of democracy under such conditions or
the sustainability of globalization.
If globalization is derailed, the middle classes of the West may be relieved from the
immediate pressure of cheaper Asian competition. But the longer-term costs to themselves
and their countries, let alone to the poor in Asia and Africa, will be high. Thus, the
interests and the political power of the middle classes in the rich world put them in a
direct conflict with the interests of the worldwide poor.
These classes of "globalization losers," particularly in the United States, have had
little political voice or influence, and perhaps this is why the backlash against
globalization has been so muted. They have had little voice because the rich have come to
control the political process. The rich, as can be seen by looking at the income gains of
the global top 5 percent in Figure 1, have benefited immensely from globalization and they
have keen interest in its continuation. But while their use of political power has enabled
the continuation of globalization, it has also hollowed out national democracies and moved
many countries closer to becoming plutocracies. Thus, the choice would seem either
plutocracy and globalization – or populism and a halt to globalization.
Another solution, one that involves neither populism nor plutocracy, would require enormous
effort at the understanding of one's own longer-term self-interest. It would imply more
substantial redistribution policies in the rich world. Some of the gains of the top 5
percent could go toward alleviating the anger of the lower- and middle-class rich world's
"losers." These need not nor should be mere transfers of money from one group to
another.
Instead, money should come in the form of investments in public education, local
infrastructure, housing and preventive health care. But the history of the last quarter
century during which the top classes in the rich world have continually piled up larger and
larger gains, all the while socially and mentally separating themselves from fellow
citizens, does not bode well for that alternative
Personally I see the whole US election here... written a couple of years before it
happened:
Hillary as Globalisation
Trump as Populism
And Bernie (who as the report suggests wasn't even allowed by the Globalist forces to -
present himself) as Redistribution
moranet -> Rusty Woods
Just as in the 1920s early 30s, when centrist governments attempting mild redistributive
banking reforms -MacDonald, Herriot, Van Zeeland, Azaña- came up against a "Wall of Money"
when the financial markets reacted, and were overthrown in favour of orthodox liberal
governments (the 'technocratic insugency' described by Prof. Varoufakis). And when public
opinion inevitably lost its patience, propelling harder nosed reformers close to power...
that's when political and financial elites discovered rule by executive decree and the
adjournment of parliaments.
So we know very well what happens next in Europe, when liberal capitalism and
liberal-democracy find themselves on opposing teams.
anewdawn
There are two sorts of nationalism in my view. There is the nasty, evil, Nazi style that
promotes the insane social darwinism, and superiority, but a hypocritical imperialism towards
other states and countries.
There is another type of nationalism that good decent people who really care about
democracy would approve of however. It is the sort that seeks to protect the poor and the
middle classes by stopping global corporations from off shoring their jobs to sweatshops in
countries that have lower human rights records for the purpose of cheap labour and more
profit. There is the sort of nationalism that promotes local democracy as opposed to tying
countries up to TTIP and TPP which undermines the governments and laws of individual
countries. There is a type of nationalism that seeks to protect their neighbors by insisting
on fair trade and good treatment of workers in other countries.
If you listen to Trumps speech, he seems to be the second type when he promises to bring
back jobs to the rust belt, but only time will tell if he really is of the first type - it
will surface soon in his attitude to invasions of the middle east and control of the global
corporations.
ID0118186 -> anewdawn
But those same middle classes are part of the problem, they want their consumer goods,
their iPods and iPhones and iPads, but they don't want to pay the real cost of them if they
were made by well-paid and well-trained skilled workers in their own country.
You have to address the whole issue: you can't have cheap prices and protectionism, unless you
let wages fall to near the same level that they are in developing countries - also unpopular.
So if you want nationalism as you describe it, be willing to pay 50 to 100% more for many
goods and services; or buy a lot less, which kills your economy anyway.
epidavros -> anewdawn
And then there is also the phoney internationalism of the EU - which is really a turbo
charged nationalism of what will soon be 27 countries bent on protectionism, technocratic rule
and a firmly closed mindset with a firmly debunked ideology.
toadalone -> anewdawn
I like your description of the two nationalisms. I think Varoufakis' point is that that
kind of nationalism can't survive on its own, as an island in a globalised world: nationalists
of that kind have to work together with their neighbouring counterparts to make their
respective benign nationalisms function. It's a very difficult proposal to bring to fruition,
even though I think it's right.
As for Trump: I think that seasoning campaign speeches with a flavour of benign nationalism
is, sadly, little more than a well-established PR technique. I don't believe what Trump says
for an instant (partly because he constantly breaks the fourth wall by saying the complete
opposite a few days later).
Other leaders who deploy this flavour of nationalism are more complicated. Viktor Orbán, for
instance. It's very difficult to tell, with him, how much of his protectionist-nationalist
rhetoric is genuine (but impossible to implement, given Hungary's membership of the EU), and
how much of it is just more of the same
dangle-shiny-things-in-front-of-the-voters-while-doing-what-you-want. And as with Trump,
Orbán's "benign" nationalism comes as just one flavour in a dish also heavily flavoured with
demented backward-looking authoritarian nationalism, with Kulturkampf and all the other
trimmings.
The weird thing about Trump is how he turns these contradictions into a kind of conscious
performance art. It's possible to view Orbán as someone who's cracking up a bit under the
pressure of believing six impossible things before breakfast. Trump is more healthy (from the
Trump's own point of view, of course, not from ours). He's embraced the crazy completely, and
revels in it. While probably reserving some quiet time for himself, in which he can privately
drop the mask, or rather the 500 different masks.
QuayBoredWarrior -> ReubenK1
Perhaps you should read this bit again:
The answer can only be a Progressive Internationalism that works in practice on both
sides of the Atlantic. To bring it about we need more than fine principles unblemished by
power. We need to aim for power on the basis of a pragmatic narrative imparting hope
throughout Europe and America for jobs paying living wages to anyone who wants them, for
social housing, for health and education.
Only a third insurgency promoting a New Deal that works equally for Americans and Europeans
can restore to a billion people living in the West sovereignty over their lives and
communities.
If you need to know what the New Deal involved, I suggest you Google it or buy a book about
it. If there is a library still open near you, you might able to borrow a book for free.
I think what is suggested is a new New Deal, an interventionist strategy to replace the
laissez-faire, the-market-knows-best approaches of the 80s/90s/00s. The details of which will
need to be hammered out as we progress. BTW, the New Deal was a haphazard and piecemeal
programme that was often based on hope over accepted wisdom. The aim was stabilisation and an
end to the mass impoverishment of American workers. If we have this aim, I'm sure we can work
out what needs to be done. It won't only be professors who come up with suggestions but all
those who coalesce behind these aims.
The first thing necessary is to loosen the grip of those who bang on about deficit
reduction above all else. This counter-productive approach needs to be crushed. It works for
no one and it doesn't work for the future. The services being destroyed will have to be built
up again and the deficit-above-all-else proselytisers have no strategy for this at all. It's
as if their true aim is to see them destroyed forever.
SeenItAlready
Their purpose was to impose acquiescence to a clueless establishment that had lost
its ambition to maintain its legitimacy. When the UK government forced benefit claimants to
declare in writing that "my only limits are the ones I set myself", or when the troika
forced the Greek or Irish governments to write letters "requesting" predatory loans from
the European Central Bank that benefited Frankfurt-based bankers at the expense of their
people, the idea was to maintain power via calculated humiliation. Similarly, in America
the establishment habitually blamed the victims of predatory lending and the failed health
system.
Not only that...
They also came out with the wheeze of getting the poor to fight amongst themselves
I'm convinced that is what is behind the explosion in Identity Politics we have seen over the
last few years - where different groups are encouraged to dislike each other on gender,
gender-orientation and and racial lines. Of course social class is kept well out of any of
these discussions... in spite of it being the source of most of the real repression
SeenItAlready -> SeenItAlready
different groups are encouraged to dislike each other on gender, gender-orientation and and
racial lines. Of course social class is kept well out of any of these discussions... in spite
of it being the source of most of the real repression
Likewise immigration where the immigrants themselves are made an issue of and blamed or
defended... of course in reality salary dumping and job losses have nothing to do with them
The wealthy class who encouraged the immigration of cheap labour, who did not provide any
protection for workers impacted by it and who then effectively sacked local workers in favour
of cheaper labour have again pulled-off a very neat trick by shifting the terms of the debate
to the innocent immigrants who were simply following opportunity and invitations. Likewise the
immigrants feel that they are being persecuted by the locals...
And so the rich sit back and rub their hands with glee... poor immigrants and poor locals
fighting, poor men and poor women fighting, poor whites and poor non-whites fighting. No
chance of the pitchforks arriving for quite a while, if ever...
FreddySteadyGO -> SeenItAlready
And so the rich sit back and rub their hands with glee... poor immigrants and poor
locals fighting, poor men and poor women fighting, poor whites and poor non-whites
fighting. No chance of the pitchforks arriving for quite a while, if ever...
Absolutely, its all far too convenient.
Social Neoliberals (mass immigration, family breakdown, individualism etc) combine with
economic Neoliberals (profit maximisation, global capital movements etc) to get their way.
I'm fairly sure that in time it will be shown that thier is a cabal of think-tanks and
supranationalists who have perverted everything to thier own benefit. How and why does a
Labour Peer get free accomodation on Baron Rothschilds' estate? How and why does the royal
bank Coutts get bailed out by the taxpayer with no strings attached?
SeenItAlready -> FreddySteadyGO
My reply to you got totally deleted, it seems that saying to much about this subject is not
acceptable to these people, which I guess is no surprise considering...
I said in my removed message that I didn't think there was any 'conspiracy' and that it was
the normal divide-and-conquer behaviour which people in power have applied since time
immemorial to those they would wish to control
Now I've changed my mind...
mysterycalculator
Could it be that Francis Fukuyama got it wrong with his historicist vision of liberal
democracy as the final stage in a Hegelian dialectic? Should he have gone with Marx's
interpretation of Hegel's dialectic instead, arguing that political freedom without economic
freedom is not enough? If so, then the argument for a redistributive social justice has to be
the way forward. Though as Karl Popper was keen to point out, Hegal and historicist visions
are bunk. Though interestingly Popper had much more time for Marx. A redistributive social
justice within the checks and balances of a liberal democratic internationalist social order -
that might be a way forward!
Sven Ringling
As long as this problem is seen as a left vs right, we won't address it. Trump's ideas are
in many cases very left. He wants to subsidise jobs through tarifs/trade wars/ anything that
reduces imports and therefore benefits job creation in their large market with a large trade
deficit in the short run.
Corbyn wants to subsidise the poorer part of the population directly or through public
services taking the money directly from businesses and the rich - though he is not disinclined
to isolationism either.
Both recipies work in the short run, both are likely to backfire in the long run the way
they are currently pushed.
It was Labour's big mistake to think UKIP is on the right and therefore a risk for the
Tories only.
And this Greek clown considered left is not far from that American clown. Clowny-ness is
actually their mist defining feature.
ReasonableSoul
Maintaining funcional borders is not a "retreat to a barricaded nation-state and the
pitting of 'our' people against 'others' fenced off by tall walls and electrified fences."
Even liberal Sweden became so overwhelmed by the endless stream of migrants/refugees
arriving that it had to shut the border.
ID614534 1d ago
2
3
Why does every debate about the nation state have to be economic? Peoples of the world are
often tied to their places of birth by language religion and culture. Not every song has to be
sung in an American accent and we don't all want to replace Nan's pie recipe with a Big Mac
and fries.
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epidavros 1d ago
6
7
Fine words, but the problem is that there is no progressive internationalism and there are no
real progressives. The response to the EU referendum widely seen to have been a call to end
unmanaged migration and undue interference of those very supra national, unaccountable elite
bodies you mention has been to call for the UK to be punished, to pay the price, to be treated
entirely differently from trade partners like Canada and dealt with as a pariah. Not
progressive. Not international. And very much the problem, not the cure.
The huge irony here is that with all this talk of populism and barricading behind borders the
UK and USA are seeking to tear theirs down, while the EU is erecting ideological barricades to
protect its elite and their project.
One thing is for sure - the solution is not the status quo. Either in the USA or the EU.
From amazon review of his book
In the Jaws of the Dragon "Anyone who has read "The World is Flat" should also read "In The
Jaws Of The Dragon" to understand both sides of the issues involved in offshoring. Eamon Fingleton clearly
defines the differences between the economic systems in play in China and Japan and the United States
and how those differences have damaged the United States economy. The naive position taken by both the
Republicans and the Democrats that offshoring is good for America is shown to be wrong because of a
fundamental lack of knowledge about who we are dealing with. Every member of Congress and the executive
branch should read this book before ratifying any more trade agreements. The old saying of the marketplace
applies: Take advantage of me once, shame on you. Take advantage of me twice, shame on me."
Notable quotes:
"... Similar miscommunication probably helps explain the European media's unreflective scorn for Donald Trump. Most European commentators have little or no access to the story. They have allowed their views to be shaped largely by the American press. ..."
"... That's a big mistake. Contrary to their carefully burnished self-image of impartiality and reliability, American journalists are not averse to consciously peddling outright lies. This applies even in the case of the biggest issues of the day, as witness, for instance, the American press's almost unanimous validation of George Bush's transparently mendacious case for the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... Most of the more damning charges against Trump are either without foundation or at least are viciously unfair distortions. Take, for instance, suggestions in the run-up to the election that he is anti-Semitic. In some accounts it was even suggested he was a closet neo-Nazi. Yet for anyone remotely familiar with the Trump story, this always rang false. After all he had thrived for decades in New York's overwhelmingly Jewish real estate industry. Then there was the fact that his daughter Ivanka, to whom he is evidently devoted, had converted to Judaism. ..."
"... In appointing Jared Kushner his chief adviser, he has chosen an orthodox Jew (Kushner is Ivanka's husband). Then there is David Friedman, Trump's choice for ambassador to Israel. Friedman is an outspoken partisan of the Israeli right and he is among other things an apologist for the Netanyahu administration's highly controversial settlement of the West Bank. ..."
"... As is often the case with Trumpian controversies, the facts are a lot more complicated than the press makes out. ..."
"... So far, so normal for the 2016 election campaign. But it turned out that Kovaleski was no ordinary Trump-hating journalist. He suffers from arthrogryposis, a malady in which the joints are malformed. For Trump's critics, this was manna from heaven. Instead of merely accusing the New York real estate magnate of exaggerating a minor, if troubling, sideshow in U.S.-Arab relations, they could now arraign him on the vastly more damaging charge of mocking someone's disability. ..."
"... In any case in responding directly to the charge of mocking Kovaleski's disability, Trump offered a convincing denial. "I would never do that," he said. "Number one, I have a good heart; number two, I'm a smart person." ..."
"... other much discussed Trumpian controversies such as his disparaging remarks about Mexicans and Muslims. In the case of both Mexican and Muslims, an effort to cut back immigration is a central pillar of Trump's program and his remarks, though offensive, were clearly intended to garner votes from fed-up middle Americans. ..."
"... In reality, as the Catholics 4 Trump website has documented, the media have suppressed vital evidence in the Kovaleski affair. ..."
Battlefield communications in World War I sometimes left something to be desired. Hence a famous
British anecdote of a garbled word-of-mouth message. As transmitted, the message ran, "Send reinforcements,
we are going to advance." Superior officers at the other end, however, were puzzled to be told: "Send
three and four-pence [three shillings and four-pence], we are going to a dance!"
Similar miscommunication probably helps explain the European media's unreflective scorn for
Donald Trump. Most European commentators have little or no access to the story. They have allowed
their views to be shaped largely by the American press.
That's a big mistake. Contrary to their carefully burnished self-image of impartiality and
reliability, American journalists are not averse to consciously peddling outright lies. This applies
even in the case of the biggest issues of the day, as witness, for instance, the American press's
almost unanimous validation of George Bush's transparently mendacious case for the Iraq war in 2003.
Most of the more damning charges against Trump are either without foundation or at least are
viciously unfair distortions. Take, for instance, suggestions in the run-up to the election that
he is anti-Semitic. In some accounts it was even suggested he was a closet neo-Nazi. Yet for anyone
remotely familiar with the Trump story, this always rang false. After all he had thrived for decades
in New York's overwhelmingly Jewish real estate industry. Then there was the fact that his daughter
Ivanka, to whom he is evidently devoted, had converted to Judaism.
Now as Trump embarks on office, his true attitudes are becoming obvious – and they hardly lean
towards neo-Nazism.
In appointing Jared Kushner his chief adviser, he has chosen an orthodox Jew (Kushner is Ivanka's
husband). Then there is David Friedman, Trump's choice for ambassador to Israel. Friedman is an outspoken
partisan of the Israeli right and he is among other things an apologist for the Netanyahu administration's
highly controversial settlement of the West Bank. Trump even wants to move the American embassy
in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This position is a favourite of the most ardently pro-Israel
section of the American Jewish community but is otherwise disavowed as insensitive to Palestinians
by most American policy analysts.
Many other examples could be cited of how the press has distorted the truth. It is interesting
to revisit in particular the allegation that Trump mocked a disabled man's disability. It is an allegation
which has received particular prominence in the press in Europe. But is Trump really such a heartless
ogre? Hardly.
As is often the case with Trumpian controversies, the facts are a lot more complicated than
the press makes out. The disabled-man episode began when, in defending an erstwhile widely ridiculed
contention that Arabs in New Jersey had publicly celebrated the Twin Towers attacks, Trump unearthed
a 2001 newspaper account broadly backed him up. But the report's author, Serge Kovaleski, demurred.
Trump's talk of "thousands" of Arabs, he wrote, was an exaggeration.
Trump fired back. Flailing his arms wildly in an impersonation of an embarrassed, backtracking
reporter, he implied that Kovaleski had succumbed to political correctness.
So far, so normal for the 2016 election campaign. But it turned out that Kovaleski was no
ordinary Trump-hating journalist. He suffers from arthrogryposis, a malady in which the joints are
malformed. For Trump's critics, this was manna from heaven. Instead of merely accusing the New York
real estate magnate of exaggerating a minor, if troubling, sideshow in U.S.-Arab relations, they
could now arraign him on the vastly more damaging charge of mocking someone's disability.
Trump's plea that he hadn't known that Kovaleski was handicapped was undermined when it emerged
that in the 1980s the two had not only met but Kovaleski had even interviewed Trump in Trump Tower.
That is an experience I know something about. I, like Kovaleski, once interviewed Trump in Trump
Tower. The occasion was an article I wrote for Forbes magazine in 1982. If Trump saw my by-line today,
would he remember that occasion 35 years ago? Probably not. The truth is that Trump, who has been
a celebrity since his early twenties, has been interviewed by thousands of journalists over the years.
A journalist would have to be seriously conceited – or be driven by a hidden agenda – to assume that
a VIP as busy as Trump would remember an occasion half a lifetime ago.
In any case in responding directly to the charge of mocking Kovaleski's disability, Trump
offered a convincing denial. "I would never do that," he said. "Number one, I have a good heart;
number two, I'm a smart person." Setting aside point one (although to the press's chagrin, many
of Trump's acquaintances have testified that a streak of considerable private generosity underlies
his tough-guy exterior), it is hard to see how anyone can question point two. In effect Trump is
saying he had a strong self-interest in not offending the disabled lobby let alone their millions
of sympathisers.
After all it was not as if there were votes in dissing the disabled. This stands in marked contrast
to other much discussed Trumpian controversies such as his disparaging remarks about Mexicans
and Muslims. In the case of both Mexican and Muslims, an effort to cut back immigration is a central
pillar of Trump's program and his remarks, though offensive, were clearly intended to garner votes
from fed-up middle Americans.
In reality, as the Catholics 4 Trump website has documented, the media have suppressed vital
evidence in the Kovaleski affair.
For a start Trump's frenetic performance bore no resemblance to arthrogryposis. Far from frantically
flailing their arms, arthrogryposis victims are uncommonly motionlessness. This is because relevant
bones are fused together. As Catholics 4 Trump pointed out, the media should have been expected to
have been chomping at the bit to interview Kovaleski and thus clinch the point about how ruthlessly
Trump had ridiculed a disabled man's disability.
The website added: "If the media had a legitimate story, that is exactly what they would have
done and we all know it. But the media couldn't put Kovaleski in front of a camera or they'd have
no story."
Catholics 4 Trump added that, in the same speech in which Trump did his Kovaleski impression,
he offered an almost identical performance to illustrate the embarrassment of a U.S. general with
whom he had clashed. In particular Trump had the general wildly flailing his arms. It goes without
saying that this general does not suffer from arthogryposis or any other disability. The common thread
in each case was merely an embarrassed, backtracking person. To say the least, commentators in Europe
who have portrayed Trump as having mocked Kovaleski's disability stand accused of superficial, slanted
reporting.
All this is not to suggest that Trump does not come to the presidency unencumbered with baggage.
He is exceptionally crude – at least he is in his latter-day reality TV manifestation (the Trump
I remember from my interview in 1982 was a model of restraint by comparison and in particular never
used any expletives). Moreover the latter-day Trump habit of picking Twitter fights with those who
criticize him tends merely to confirm a widespread belief that he is petty and thin-skinned.
Many of his pronouncements moreover have been disturbing and his abrasive manner will clearly
prove on balance a liability in the White House. That said, the press has never worked harder or
more dishonestly to destroy a modern American leader.
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, therefore, as he sets out to make America great again.
The truth is that American decline has gone much further than almost anyone outside American industry
understands. Trump's task is a daunting one.
Eamonn
Fingleton is an expert on America's trade problems and is the author of In Praise of Hard Industries:
Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key to Future Prosperity (Houghton Mifflin,
Boston). A version of this article appeared in the Dublin Ireland Sunday Business Post.
America's fate looks dicey in the showdown with the Chinese juggernaut, warns this vigorous jeremiad.
Fingleton (In Praise of Hard Industries) argues that China's "East Asian" development model of aggressive
mercantilism and a state-directed economy "effortlessly outperforms" America's fecklessly individualistic
capitalism
"... Trump's success of failure will be measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost, series MANEMP at the St. Louis FRED website.* If he doesn't create at least about 100,000 a year, he's in trouble. ..."
"... Disruption of neoliberal status quo and sending Hillary and some other neocon warmongers packing is already an achievement, not matter how you slice it. ..."
"... And a hissy fit that some factions of CIA demonstrated just before inauguration (it should not be considered as a monolithic organization; more like feudal kingdom of competing and often hostile to each other and to Pentagon and FBI factions ) was a reaction to this setback to neoconservatives in Washington. ..."
"... If Trump does what he promised in foreign policy: to end the wars for the expansion of neoliberal empire and to end of Cold War II with Russia it will be a huge achievement, even if the US economics not recover from Obama's secular stagnation (oil prices probably will go higher this year, representing an important headwind) . ..."
"... While we are writing those posts nuclear forces of both the USA and Russia are on high alert, and if something happen (and proliferation of computers make this more rather then less likely), the leaders of both countries have less then 20 minutes to decide about launching a full scale nuclear war. Actually Russia now has less time because of forward movement of NATO forces. ..."
Trump's success of failure will be
measured by one thing: number of factory jobs added or lost, series MANEMP at the St. Louis FRED
website.* If he doesn't create at least about 100,000 a year, he's in trouble.
*assuming the data
continues to be reported if it goes south on him, or he doesn't insist that the method of measuring
change. Something that is a real fear.
Slightly OT, there is one well-known wonky government data site I am watching. I think there are
better than 50/50 odds it disappears within the next two weeks.
Disruption of neoliberal status
quo and sending Hillary and some other neocon warmongers packing is already an achievement,
not matter how you slice it.
And a hissy fit that some factions of CIA demonstrated just before inauguration (it should
not be considered as a monolithic organization; more like feudal kingdom of competing and often
hostile to each other and to Pentagon and FBI factions ) was a reaction to this setback to
neoconservatives in Washington.
If Trump does what he promised in foreign policy: to end the wars for the expansion of neoliberal
empire and to end of Cold War II with Russia it will be a huge achievement, even if the US
economics not recover from Obama's secular stagnation (oil prices probably will go higher this
year, representing an important headwind) .
No further escalation in geopolitical conflicts represents an important tailwind and might
help.
While we are writing those posts nuclear forces of both the USA and Russia are on high alert,
and if something happen (and proliferation of computers make this more rather then less likely),
the leaders of both countries have less then 20 minutes to decide about launching a full scale
nuclear war. Actually Russia now has less time because of forward movement of NATO forces.
Professor Stephen Cohen thinks that this is worse then Cuban Missile Crisis and he is an
expert in this area.
Am nteresting thought (replace imperialism with neoliberalism) : "I think that it is possible
that Trump has come to the conclusion that imperialism has stopped working for the USA, that far from
being the solution to the contradictions of capitalism, imperialism might well have become its most
self-defeating feature. "
Revival of far right in Europe also is connected with the crisis of neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... This might be something crucial: I cannot imagine Trump trying to simply do "more of the same" like his predecessors did or trying to blindly double-down like the Neocons always try to. ..."
"... I am willing to bet that Trump really and sincerely believes that the USA is in a deep crisis and that a new, different, sets of policies must be urgently implemented. ..."
"... I think that it is possible that Trump has come to the conclusion that imperialism has stopped working for the USA, that far from being the solution to the contradictions of capitalism, imperialism might well have become its most self-defeating feature. ..."
"... Is it possible for an ideological system to dump one of its core component after learning from past mistakes? I think it is, and a good example of that is 21 st Century Socialism , which has completely dumped the kind of militant atheism which was so central to the 20 th century Socialist movement. In fact, modern "21st Century Socialism" is very pro-Christian. Could 21 st century capitalism dump imperialism? Maybe. ..."
"... Furthermore, the Trump inaugural speech did, according to RT commentators, sound in many aspects like the kind of speech Bernie Sanders could have made. And I think that they are right. Trump did sound like a paleo-liberal ..."
"... Today, when Trump pronounced the followings words " We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first " he told the Russians exactly what they wanted to hear: Trump does not pretend to be a "friend" of Russia and Trump openly and unapologetically promises to care about his own people first, and that is exactly what Putin has been saying and doing since he came to power in Russia: caring for the Russian people first. After all, caring for your own first hardly implies being hostile or even indifferent to others. ..."
"... All it means is that your loyalty and your service is first and foremost to those who elected you to office. This refreshing patriotic honesty, combined with the prospect of friendship and goodwill will sound like music to the Russian ears. ..."
Just hours ago Donald Trump was finally sworn in as the President of the United States. Considering
all the threats hanging over this event, this is good news because at least for the time being, the
Neocons have lost their control over the Executive Branch and Trump is now finally in a position
to take action. The other good news is
Trump's inauguration speech which included this historical promise " We do not seek to impose
our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow ".
Could that really mean that the USA has given up its role of World Hegemon? The mere fact of asking
the question is already an immensely positive development as nobody would have asked it had Hillary
Clinton been elected.
The other interesting feature of Trump's speech is that it centered heavily on people power and
on social justice. Again, the contrast with the ideological garbage from Clinton could not be greater.
Still, this begs a much more puzzling question: how much can a multi-billionaire capitalist be trusted
when he speaks of people power and social justice – not exactly what capitalists are known for, at
least not amongst educated people. Furthermore, a Marxist reader would also remind us that "
imperialism
is the highest stage of capitalism " and that it makes no sense to expect a capitalist to
suddenly renounce imperialism.
But what was generally true in 1916 is not necessarily true in 2017.
For one thing, let's begin by stressing that the Trump Presidency was only made possible by the
immense financial, economic, political, military and social crisis facing the USA today. Eight years
of Clinton, followed by eight years of Bush Jr and eight years of Obama have seen a massive and full-spectrum
decline in the strength of the United States which were sacrificed for the sake of the AngloZionist
Empire. This crisis is as much internal as it is external and the election of Trump is a direct consequence
of this crisis. In fact, Trump is the first one to admit that it is the terrible situation in which
the USA find themselves today that brought him to power with a mandate of the regular American people
(Hillary's "deplorables") to "drain the DC swamp" and "make America", as opposed to the American
plutocracy, "great again". This might be something crucial: I cannot imagine Trump trying to
simply do "more of the same" like his predecessors did or trying to blindly double-down like the
Neocons always try to.
I am willing to bet that Trump really and sincerely believes that the USA is in a deep crisis
and that a new, different, sets of policies must be urgently implemented. If that assumption
of mine proves to be correct, then this is by definition very good news for the entire planet because
whatever Trump ends up doing (or not doing), he will at least not push his country into a nuclear
confrontation with Russia. And yes, I think that it is possible that Trump has come to the conclusion
that imperialism has stopped working for the USA, that far from being the solution to the contradictions
of capitalism, imperialism might well have become its most self-defeating feature.
Is it possible for an ideological system to dump one of its core component after learning
from past mistakes? I think it is, and a good example of that is
21 st
Century Socialism , which has completely dumped the kind of militant atheism which was
so central to the 20 th century Socialist movement. In fact, modern "21st Century Socialism"
is very pro-Christian. Could 21 st century capitalism dump imperialism? Maybe.
Furthermore, the Trump inaugural speech did, according to RT commentators, sound in many aspects
like the kind of speech Bernie Sanders could have made. And I think that they are right. Trump did
sound like a paleo-liberal, something which we did not hear from him during the campaign. You
could also say that Trump sounded very much like Putin. The question is will he now also act like
Putin too?
There will be a great deal of expectations in Russia about how Trump will go about fulfilling
his campaign promises to deal with other countries. Today, when Trump pronounced the followings
words " We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world – but we do so with the
understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first " he told the
Russians exactly what they wanted to hear: Trump does not pretend to be a "friend" of Russia and
Trump openly and unapologetically promises to care about his own people first, and that is exactly
what Putin has been saying and doing since he came to power in Russia: caring for the Russian people
first. After all, caring for your own first hardly implies being hostile or even indifferent to others.
All it means is that your loyalty and your service is first and foremost to those who elected
you to office. This refreshing patriotic honesty, combined with the prospect of friendship and goodwill
will sound like music to the Russian ears.
Then there are Trump's words about " forming new alliances " and uniting " the civilized
world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the
Earth ". They will also be received with a great deal of hope by the Russian people. If the USA
is finally serious about fighting terrorism and if they really wants to eradicate the likes of Daesh,
then Russia will offer her full support to this effort, including her military, intelligence, police
and diplomatic resources. After all, Russia has been advocating for " completely eradicating Radical
Islamic Terrorism from the face of the Earth " for decades.
There is no doubt in my mind at all that an alliance between Russia and the USA, even if limited
only to specific areas of converging or mutual interests, would be immensely beneficial for the entire
planet, and not for just these two countries: right now all the worst international crises are a
direct result from the "tepid war" the USA and Russia have been waging against each other. And just
like any other war, this war has been a fantastic waste of resources. Of course, this war was started
by the USA and it was maintained and fed by the Neocon's messianic ideology. Now that a realist like
Trump has come to power, we can finally hope for this dangerous and wasteful dynamic to be stopped.
The good news is that neither Trump nor Putin can afford to fail. Trump, because he has made an
alliance with Russia the cornerstone of his foreign policy during his campaign, and Putin because
he realizes that it is in the objective interests of Russia for Trump to succeed, lest the Neocon
crazies crawl back out from their basement. So both sides will enter into negotiations with a strong
desire to get things done and a willingness to make compromises as long as they do not affect crucial
national security objectives. I think that the number of issues on which the USA and Russia can agree
upon is much, much longer than the number of issues were irreconcilable differences remain.
So yes, today I am hopeful. More than anything else, I want to hope that Trump is "for real",
and that he will have the wisdom and courage to take strong action against his internal enemies.
Because from now on, this is one other thing which Putin and Trump will have in common: their internal
enemies are far more dangerous than any external foe. When I see rabid maniacs like
David Horowitz declaring
himself a supporter of Donald Trump ,
I get very, very concerned and I ask myself "what does Horowitz know which I am missing?". What is
certain is that in the near future one of us will soon become very disappointed. I just hope that
this shall not be me.
Could that really mean that the USA has given up its role of World Hegemon?
Well, another author here, David Chibo, seems to think that the intent is exactly the opposite:
for the US (the nation) to become World Hegemon. As opposed to what we have today, to
multinational capital being World Hegemon
When I see rabid maniacs like David Horowitz declaring himself a supporter of Donald Trump
Saying someone's a "rabid maniac" without giving any reason for one's statement is so mainstream
media like.
So far as I know, the mature-age Horowitz has written some interesting books: I can recommend
Hating Whitey , One party classrooms , Left illusion . His autobiography
( A point in time ot something like that) is a good book too.
He is also a very active anti-crazy left activist, and runs a site with a list of leftist anti-white
hate groups.
I hope I said enough for you to understand why I am surprised and not particularly pleased
by seeing him called a "rabid maniac".
The United States is in a deep crisis which nobody except Trump had the courage to discuss.
The United States Government has been overspending what is has been taking in by an average
of 875 billion dollars, per year, for last decade and a half.
Our national debt has ballooned to a hair under 20 trillion dollars in 16 years. from 5.7 trillion
in 2000.
Our Gross Domestic Product, on the other hand, is only 18.7 trillion having merely doubled
from 9.3 trillion in 2000.
A general crisis point for the solvency of a nation is when its national debt eclipses its
GDP, which happened to us two years ago .and the spread is growing, not tightening.
If this continues at its present course, the world will no longer wish to purchase our debt
and begin selling off our treasury bonds. The credit worthiness of the United States will be in
serious jeopardy and the US dollar may be sacrificed as the worlds currency.
I am not sure how President Trump wishes to tackle this but it will be his number one job to
save the United States from its ruinous policies of perpetual war and insolvency and chart a
new course , hopefully one of peace and prosperity.
There will be no more wars of choice because we simply cannot afford them.
So one can be optimistic, the era of reckless war and obscene war spending is over but its
really almost ten years to late for this.
Do not lose heart, however, there are many ways we can pay down our debt,quickly, without raising
income taxes.
And if we can GROW the economy at a healthy pace,without generating too much inflation, we
should be able to dodge the bullet.
I hope The Donald , and his cabinet, put their thinking caps on, and undertake policies which
are highly successful.
The United States is in a deep crisis which nobody except Trump had the courage to discuss.
The United States Government has been overspending what is has been taking in by an average
of 875 billion dollars, per year, for last decade and a half.
Our national debt has ballooned to a hair under 20 trillion dollars in 16 years. from 5.7 trillion
in 2000.
Our Gross Domestic Product, on the other hand, is only 18.7 trillion having merely doubled
from 9.3 trillion in 2000.
A general crisis point for the solvency of a nation is when its national debt eclipses its
GDP, which happened to us two years ago....and the spread is growing, not tightening.
If this continues at its present course, the world will no longer wish to purchase our debt
and begin selling off our treasury bonds. The credit worthiness of the United States will be in
serious jeopardy...and the US dollar may be sacrificed as the worlds currency.
I am not sure how President Trump wishes to tackle this but it will be his number one job to save
the United States from its ruinous policies of perpetual war and insolvency ...and chart a new
course , hopefully one of peace and prosperity.
There will be no more wars of choice because we simply cannot afford them.
So one can be optimistic, the era of reckless war and obscene war spending is over...but its
really almost ten years to late for this.
Do not lose heart, however, there are many ways we can pay down our debt,quickly, without raising
income taxes.
And if we can GROW the economy at a healthy pace,without generating too much inflation, we
should be able to dodge the bullet.
I hope The Donald , and his cabinet, put their thinking caps on, and undertake policies which
are highly successful.
It is so important to us all.
Guess you didn't watch the debate where Trump said there is a very large bubble over wall street,
and its bigger than the housing bubble (my words not Trumps) and our GDP the figures the government
puts out as David Stockman Reagan budget director said is very suspect to say the least, for I
have seen it stated anywhere from $16 trillion to $18 trillion and change much like the BLS report
I suspect.
Not much wiggle room for Trump a crashing bubble on wall street almost 100,000,000 un-employed
per the Lay-Off-List, no that fails to jibe with the figure the government puts out, much like
the GDP I suspect, and there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the debt will grow under
Trump as he re-builds the military, as more tax dollars are flushed down the drain to keep company
with the trillions already there.
Chalmers Johnson was right in his excellent books from Blowback to The Sorrows of Empire Militarism,Secrecy,and
the End of the Republic and our 900+ bases around the globe, can Trump change that close at least
half of those bases that cost us billions of dollars we don't have or will it be the status quo
I suspect it will be the later
When I see rabid maniacs like David Horowitz declaring himself a supporter of Donald Trump
Saying someone's a "rabid maniac" without giving any reason for one's statement is so... mainstream
media like.
So far as I know, the mature-age Horowitz has written some interesting books: I can recommend
Hating Whitey , One party classrooms , Left illusion . His autobiography
( A point in time ot something like that) is a good book too.
He is also a very active anti-crazy left activist, and runs a site with a list of leftist anti-white
hate groups.
I hope I said enough for you to understand why I am surprised and not particularly pleased by
seeing him called a "rabid maniac".
Anonymous:
I can back up Horowitz being termed "a rapid maniac". Some time ago I met him at one of his
book signings. At that time I would be regarded as one of his disciples, i.e. his camp followers.
That changed once I actually met him. His eyes were those of a crazed man. Enough said!
"After all, caring for your own first hardly implies being hostile or even indifferent to others.
All it means is that your loyalty and your service is first and foremost to those who elected
you to office. This refreshing patriotic honesty, combined with the prospect of friendship and
goodwill will sound like music to the Russian ears."
But it could mean NOT putting Zionist-Globalist interest first.
And that's what it's all about.
Gentiles don't mind each nation putting its interest first. But that means gentiles putting
their national interests above Jewish elitist interest.
Since nationalism favors gentile interests, Jews have pushed globalism and Zionism. That way,
all gentile nations are to favor globalism(that favors Jewish worldwide networking) over nationalism
and favor Zionism(Jewish nationalism) over any gentile nationalism.
The problem is that the issues between Russia and US are not that easy to resolve. For example,
will US keep the "anti-Iran" missile defense systems in East Europe? Will they continue to state
that Ukraine and Georgia will be in NATO? Will the recent NATO troops in Poland, Baltic states
and Romania stay? There are a few others, like the Ukraine problem – Crimea, Donbass, economic
collapse.
None of those issues are suitable for a deal. A deal requires things that either side can let
go. We don't have that here. Most likely the tensions will recede, some summits will be held,
a few common policies will be attempted (e.g. Middle East), but none of the really big issues
(missiles, NATO expansion, Crimea, Ukraine) will be addressed. US has gone too far down that road
to backtrack now – it is all logistics at this point. And logistics don't change short of something
like a war.
So we are stuck. But at least we are no longer heading towards a catastrophe.
The United States is in a deep crisis which nobody except Trump had the courage to discuss.
The United States Government has been overspending what is has been taking in by an average
of 875 billion dollars, per year, for last decade and a half.
Our national debt has ballooned to a hair under 20 trillion dollars in 16 years. from 5.7 trillion
in 2000.
Our Gross Domestic Product, on the other hand, is only 18.7 trillion having merely doubled
from 9.3 trillion in 2000.
A general crisis point for the solvency of a nation is when its national debt eclipses its
GDP, which happened to us two years ago....and the spread is growing, not tightening.
If this continues at its present course, the world will no longer wish to purchase our debt
and begin selling off our treasury bonds. The credit worthiness of the United States will be in
serious jeopardy...and the US dollar may be sacrificed as the worlds currency.
I am not sure how President Trump wishes to tackle this but it will be his number one job to save
the United States from its ruinous policies of perpetual war and insolvency ...and chart a new
course , hopefully one of peace and prosperity.
There will be no more wars of choice because we simply cannot afford them.
So one can be optimistic, the era of reckless war and obscene war spending is over...but its
really almost ten years to late for this.
Do not lose heart, however, there are many ways we can pay down our debt,quickly, without raising
income taxes.
And if we can GROW the economy at a healthy pace,without generating too much inflation, we
should be able to dodge the bullet.
I hope The Donald , and his cabinet, put their thinking caps on, and undertake policies which
are highly successful.
It is so important to us all.
I am not sure how President Trump wishes to tackle this but it will be his number one job
to save the United States from its ruinous policies of perpetual war and insolvency and chart
a new course , hopefully one of peace and prosperity.
There will be no more wars of choice because we simply cannot afford them.
That's an interesting point, the US does have creditors and it has reached its credit limit,
and hasn't exactly been making good investments with the money that was borrowed.
The real issues seem to be making spending efficient (for example US healthcare that costs
about 2x the Canadian rate per person for the same result), and rebasing production in the US
(more US taxpayers).
The Socialist UK government was in a similar position in the early 1970′s with a "welfare state"
that it couldn't afford, general industrial strife and a "class war". When the UK's creditors
saw that things weren't going to change they sold off government bonds and the country got the
"Sterling Crisis" with Sterling losing what was left of its Reserve Currency status.
At least Trump is indicating a political will for change, but he needs to act quickly.
When I see rabid maniacs like David Horowitz declaring himself a supporter of Donald Trump
Saying someone's a "rabid maniac" without giving any reason for one's statement is so... mainstream
media like.
So far as I know, the mature-age Horowitz has written some interesting books: I can recommend
Hating Whitey , One party classrooms , Left illusion . His autobiography
( A point in time ot something like that) is a good book too.
He is also a very active anti-crazy left activist, and runs a site with a list of leftist anti-white
hate groups.
I hope I said enough for you to understand why I am surprised and not particularly pleased by
seeing him called a "rabid maniac".
I listened to Trump's speech live on headphones while power walking on a country road. Something
about that scenario allowed me to give it a focus that I may not have had if I was watching it
on the idiot box or reading a transcript.
If I'm not mistaken, he literally called most of his esteemed guests ( ex-presidents especially)
corrupt criminals, frauds and traitors. An unbelievable moment where the mob was reminded that
politicians are not to be fawned over. They work for the people.
The rest of the speech of course was lyrics for a remake of the song 'Dream the Impossible
Dream'. But still, if the population wasn't attention deficit affected, that part of his speech
could have been right up there with Ike's MIC moment.
This is a very good article. I agree with it almost entirely.
Is it possible for an ideological system to dump one of its core component after learning
from past mistakes? Could 21st century capitalism dump imperialism? Maybe.
When would it be possible for the anti-imperialist ideological system to dump its core belief
that, Lenin's demented (and unoriginal) ramblings to the contrary, capitalism has intrinsically
zilch to do with imperialism?
Because from now on, this is one other thing which Putin and Trump will have in common:
their internal enemies are far more dangerous than any external foe. When I see rabid maniacs
like David Horowitz declaring himself a supporter of Donald Trump, I get very, very concerned
and I ask myself "what does Horowitz know which I am missing?".
David Horowitz merely demonstrated that, unlike "
renegade Jews " such as the Kristols and the Krauthammers, he is a patriot of his own country
(the USA) first and a Jewish nationalist second. I consider that perfectly fine and worthy of
respect.
@Chet Roman "drain the DC swamp" and "make America", as opposed to the American plutocracy,
"great again"
While I am hopeful and will give Trump the chance to prove himself. Unfortunately, he like Obama
before him, has appointed most the same plutocrats/neoliberal parasites in his administration
that are part of what the Saker calls the "AngloZionist Empire". Will they, like the patrician
FDR, promote policies against their own class interests? Time will tell but, after the same betrayal
by "Hope and Change" Obama I would not bet on it.
Not that I'm very sanguine about all the Goldman Sachs people in Trump's cabinet either, but
if you're looking for reasons for optimism: At least Trump–unlike Clinton, Bush and Obama–hasn't
appointed any retreads; i.e., people who've served in previous cabinets. That may indicate that
some change is in the offing. Let's hope it's a change for the best.
The key to US solvency and credit worthiness is the "ratio" of Debt to GDP ..Our GDP should
ALWAYS be in the plus column, and when its not . it's bad news.
Like today, it is bad news (Debt 19.9 T / GDP 18.7 T) it is such bad news our big media has
refused to discuss it ..The only person to bring it up , ever, was the Donald.
The big media does not want to say the wars they lied us into bankrupted our nation because
it makes them accountable.
The scaly truth is that they "are" accountable.
Ironically,Donald Trump (who knows this too) now has the power as President to generate over
two trillion dollars in revenues, literally overnight, and move our Debt to GDP ratio right back
in the plus column.
Do you want to know how ?
He goes on record that the Iraq War "lies" constituted a defrauding of the American people
, our country, and the brave men and women who fought and died there .and he has chosen to recognize
this "defrauding " as a supreme terrorist act against the wellbeing of our nation ,our citizenry
and the values that make us who we are ..
He goes on to say that ALL the perpetrators will be held accountable for this despicable act
of deception , so that it may never happen again.
Then he proceeds with operation "Clean Sweep" and takes down all the back room billionaire
oligarchs who jockeyed for the war and profited from it .
Lets say by the time he is done he has arrested 700 belligerent oligarchs and media moguls
and seizes all their assets .If they are each worth, on average, 4 billion dollars .
then 700 x 4 billion = 2.8 trillion dollars
If this 2.8 trillion goes to paying down the national debt .then "bingo" our Debt to GDP ratio
is right back in the" plus column" .
Our National debt is reduced by 2.8 T and the GDP stays the same ..the new ratio is 17.1 T
Debt/ 18.7 T GDP.
Our credit worthiness, as a nation, is now out of the" danger zone".
Whatever assets the criminal oligarchs had, are auctioned off and redistributed to all the
good people who would never "lie us into war".
This sends an enormously reassuring message throughout the world that we are able to take care
of business at home, and clean house when necessary.
This would also serve as a much needed tonic within the entire "establishment" community, as
they would be intensely fearful of ever defrauding the American people again.
Would you do it ? ..If you were President, Anna, would you demand accountability ?
300 Words
@Anon "After all, caring for your own first hardly implies being hostile or even indifferent
to others. All it means is that your loyalty and your service is first and foremost to those who
elected you to office. This refreshing patriotic honesty, combined with the prospect of friendship
and goodwill will sound like music to the Russian ears."
But it could mean NOT putting Zionist-Globalist interest first.
And that's what it's all about.
Gentiles don't mind each nation putting its interest first. But that means gentiles putting
their national interests above Jewish elitist interest.
Since nationalism favors gentile interests, Jews have pushed globalism and Zionism. That way,
all gentile nations are to favor globalism(that favors Jewish worldwide networking) over nationalism
and favor Zionism(Jewish nationalism) over any gentile nationalism.
"Gentiles don't mind each nation putting its interest first. But that means gentiles putting
their national interests above Jewish elitist interest.
Since nationalism favors gentile interests, Jews have pushed globalism and Zionism. That way,
all gentile nations are to favor globalism(that favors Jewish worldwide networking) over nationalism
and favor Zionism(Jewish nationalism) over any gentile nationalism."
That seems to be true.
I was shocked to read a letter in the current London Review of Books, actually a rebuttal to another
letter, by Adam Tooze. Tooze had written a review of a book by Wolfgang Streeck. In his rebuttal
Tooze attacked Streeck as an anti-Semite because Streeck had *dared* to write a book that presents
arguments for the primacy of the nation-state as opposed to globalist forces. Tooze's argument
basically came down to: nation-state = chauvinism = anti-Semitism, where globalization = "Semitism,"
I suppose, and Tooze actually more or less accused Streeck of anti-Semitism on this basis: that
you cannot defend the idea of the nation-state without being in effectively anti-Semitic. He didn't
show any other evidence but just this supposed syllogism, all of it theoretical. Interestingly
Tooze was the one making the equation of globalism and Jews-not Streeck! But still, Streeck was
the guilty one. Tooze spent a lot of breath on the word "Volk" for "people." Of coure, Streeck
in German, and that is the German word for "people." Any other overtones "Volk" has acquired in
English are the fault of the English, as English has its own second word, "folk," which German
does not, and so English speakers didn't have to take over the German word and demonize it. They
could have demonized their own word . . . Tooze's pedantry and intellectual sloppiness were quite
startling. I look forward to seeing a rebuttal and maybe counterattack from Streeck in the next
LRB . . .
Like today, it is bad news (Debt 19.9 T / GDP 18.7 T)
These are bad news, but the news which are even worse is the fact that of these 18.7 Trillion
of nominal GDP, probably third (most likely more) is a virtual GDP–the result of cooking of books
and of financial and real estate machinations. Trump knows this, I am almost 99% positive, even
99.9%, on that.
This is a very good article. I agree with it almost entirely.
Is it possible for an ideological system to dump one of its core component after learning from
past mistakes?... Could 21st century capitalism dump imperialism? Maybe.
When would it be possible for the anti-imperialist ideological system to dump its core belief
that, Lenin's demented (and unoriginal) ramblings to the contrary, capitalism has intrinsically
zilch to do with imperialism?
Because from now on, this is one other thing which Putin and Trump will have in common: their
internal enemies are far more dangerous than any external foe. When I see rabid maniacs like
David Horowitz declaring himself a supporter of Donald Trump, I get very, very concerned and
I ask myself "what does Horowitz know which I am missing?".
David Horowitz merely demonstrated that, unlike "
renegade Jews " such as the Kristols and the Krauthammers, he is a patriot of his own country
(the USA) first and a Jewish nationalist second. I consider that perfectly fine and worthy of
respect.
" one other thing which Putin and Trump will have in common: their internal enemies are far
more dangerous than any external foe. "
"Make America Great Again"- is just an empty political slogan like bait on a fishing hook that
only dumb fish would be attracted to.
I suggest readers look at an article by Andrew Levine, a very insightful Jewish American political
commentator and regular contributor to Counterpunch.
"the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from
the face of the Earth".
What has ISIS done to America or Trump that he should want to totally obliterate them? Before
you denounce or pronounce me as dumb heretical dissenter, read on.
Sunni Arabs in the Middle East have been exploited and controlled by racially arrogant European
interlopers and colonists since the fall of the Ottomans. They have been especially mistreated
and ravaged by vengeful Americans since 2001. They also facilitated a revival of Shia-Sunni sectarian
conflict in Syria and Iraq. Now the displaced and persecuted Sunni minority want to form their
own state, free from foreign interference to practice their chosen religion and way of life. I
grant you that they are also vengeful and violent to those who persecuted them by using terrorist
methods and that they practiced "ethnic cleansing" but that does not make them "uncivilized",
the civilized Americans and Europeans did the same when conquering their settler colonies. So
why not let them have their own land, just like the Jewish Europeans were given and make peace
with time provided they renounce their goal of spreading Wahhabi Muslim empire by force?
The Arab states which emerged after the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate were not meant
to be replaced by an Arab Caliphate. The fight of the Sunnis is not the fight of a 'persecuted'
minority, but of the former dominant minority for the re-establishment of their dominant position
in the frame of the Caliphate, with wet dreams of world domination. ISIS is but the tip of the
iceberg. Their eradication would cool down the overheated minds of the Caliphate dreamers.
The key to US solvency and credit worthiness is the "ratio" of Debt to GDP.....Our GDP should
ALWAYS be in the plus column, and when its not.... it's bad news.
Like today, it is bad news (Debt 19.9 T / GDP 18.7 T)...it is such bad news our big media has
refused to discuss it .....The only person to bring it up , ever, was the Donald.
The big media does not want to say the wars they lied us into bankrupted our nation because it
makes them accountable.
The scaly truth is that they "are" accountable.
Ironically,Donald Trump (who knows this too) now has the power as President to generate over two
trillion dollars in revenues, literally overnight, and move our Debt to GDP ratio right back in
the plus column.
Do you want to know how ?
He goes on record that the Iraq War "lies" constituted a defrauding of the American people , our
country, and the brave men and women who fought and died there....and he has chosen to recognize
this "defrauding " as a supreme terrorist act against the wellbeing of our nation ,our citizenry
and the values that make us who we are.....
He goes on to say that ALL the perpetrators will be held accountable for this despicable act of
deception , so that it may never happen again.
Then he proceeds with operation "Clean Sweep" and takes down all the back room billionaire oligarchs
who jockeyed for the war and profited from it .
Lets say by the time he is done he has arrested 700 belligerent oligarchs and media moguls and
seizes all their assets....If they are each worth, on average, 4 billion dollars .......
then 700 x 4 billion = 2.8 trillion dollars
If this 2.8 trillion goes to paying down the national debt....then "bingo" our Debt to GDP ratio
is right back in the" plus column" ....
Our National debt is reduced by 2.8 T and the GDP stays the same .....the new ratio is 17.1 T
Debt/ 18.7 T GDP.
Our credit worthiness, as a nation, is now out of the" danger zone".
Whatever assets the criminal oligarchs had, are auctioned off and redistributed to all the good
people who would never "lie us into war".
This sends an enormously reassuring message throughout the world that we are able to take care
of business at home, and clean house when necessary.
This would also serve as a much needed tonic within the entire "establishment" community, as they
would be intensely fearful of ever defrauding the American people again.
Would you do it ?.....If you were President, Anna, would you demand accountability ?
Would you do it ? ..If you were President, Anna, would you demand accountability
Not to speak for Anna, but maybe I would – if blessed with balls of titanium, or perhaps by
underestimating the capacity of the deep state to slice them off. Being human, one can only hope
that Trump will do what I cannot, or could not in his shoes.
One thing he cannot do is feign ignorance or pretend to be unaware of the critters festering
in the swamp – after all, he campaigned on the promise of draining it. Where hope falters is in
seeing the cabinet he is building with characters unlikely to do much in the swamp-draining department.
Without a strong cadre of testicular fortitude surrounding him in his cabinet, his most sincere
attempts at swamp-drainage will be quixotic at best.
So, where does one place hope lest one becomes a blathering cynic or a nattering nabob of negativity?
Ego -- That is where my chips are stacked. Nothing defines or motivates Trump more than
his self-perception. I believe that it is much more than showmanship that propels his self-promotion,
and nothing would be more devastating to the man than to be ridiculed or perceived as a failure.
I doubt that Netanyahu could do to him what he did to Obama and survive the retaliatory deluge
that would follow. I think Trump's hidden strength is his desire for vengeance against those that
wrong him (I expect there to be tribulations in HRC's future). If the deep state doesn't do him
in first, there is the strong possibility of damage on the deep state – one that they may never
recover from in this world of instant information that wilts night-flowers.
He may redefine victory on occasion for outcomes that are too difficult for him to accept,
but in the end, he will "Make Trump Great Again," and if fortune favors us, help the US benefit
in the process, if not the rest of the world.
That does not rule out that his naiveté may cause him to stumble and fall, perhaps more than
once, and he has not always succeeded in business, but it seems that he does build on his failures,
and is unlikely to make the same mistake twice.
Doesn't appear like a lot to cling to, but in this dystopic world, it is the best we have.
Is it enough?
Bernie Sanders just said on CBS that he is ready to work with Trump on
1) lowering drug prices by purchasing drugs from abroad and Medicare negotiate prices
2) infrastructure projects
3) better trade deals
Lets see if entrenched interests in the GOP and Democrat party let them work together. My guess
is NOT.
What that would accomplish is lay bare the corruption that is part of both parties.
Let's see if Trump actually wants to do any of those things Sanders wants. In other words will
he "reach across the aisle."
Let's see if Republicans in Congress cooperate.
I think it's unlikely although not impossible (as Krugman etc do)
Trump thinks of himself as a reality TV star. He likes the drama. But he seems to have no interest
in the details of policy. He found the border tax his advisers were floating as too complicated.
"... In Europe and the US it was right wing nationalist populism which opposes free trade, mass
immigration and military intervention abroad. ..."
"... Trump instinctively understood that he must keep pressing these three buttons, the importance
of which Hillary Clinton and most of the Republican Party leaders, taking their cue from their donors
rather than potential voters, never appreciated. ..."
"... The vehicle for protest and opposition to the status quo in the Middle East and North Africa
is, by way of contrast, almost entirely religious and is only seldom nationalist, the most important
example being the Kurds. ..."
"... Secular nationalism was in any case something of a middle class creed in the Arab world, limited
in its capacity to provide the glue to hold societies together in the face of crisis. ..."
"... It was always absurdly simple-minded to blame all the troubles of Iraq, Syria and Libya on
Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad and Muammar Gaddafi, authoritarian leaders whose regimes were more the
symptom than the cause of division. ..."
"... Political divisions in the US are probably greater now than at any time since the American
Civil War 150 years ago. Repeated calls for unity in both countries betray a deepening disunity and
alarm as people sense that they are moving in the dark and old norms and landmarks are no longer visible
and may no longer exist. ..."
"... Criticism of Trump in the media has lost all regard for truth and falsehood with the publication
of patently concocted reports of his antics in Russia ..."
"... But the rise of Isis, the mass influx of Syrian refugees heading for Central Europe and the
terror attacks in Paris and Brussels showed that the crises in the Middle East could not be contained.
They helped give a powerful impulse to the anti-immigrant authoritarian nationalist right and made them
real contenders for power. ..."
"... One of the first real tests for Trump will be how far he succeeds in closing down these wars,
something that is now at last becoming feasible. ..."
In the US, Europe and the Middle East there were many who saw themselves as the losers from globalisation,
but the ideological vehicle for protest differed markedly from region to region. In Europe and
the US it was right wing nationalist populism which opposes free trade, mass immigration and military
intervention abroad. The latter theme is much more resonant in the US than in Europe because
of Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump instinctively understood that he must keep pressing these three
buttons, the importance of which Hillary Clinton and most of the Republican Party leaders, taking
their cue from their donors rather than potential voters, never appreciated.
The vehicle for protest and opposition to the status quo in the Middle East and North Africa
is, by way of contrast, almost entirely religious and is only seldom nationalist, the most important
example being the Kurds. This is a big change from 50 years ago when revolutionaries in the
region were usually nationalists or socialists, but both beliefs were discredited by corrupt and
authoritarian nationalist dictators and by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Secular nationalism was in any case something of a middle class creed in the Arab world, limited
in its capacity to provide the glue to hold societies together in the face of crisis. When Isis
forces were advancing on Baghdad after taking Mosul in June 2014, it was a fatwa from the Iraqi Shia
religious leader Ali al-Sistani that rallied the resistance. No non-religious Iraqi leader could
have successfully appealed to hundreds of thousands of people to volunteer to fight to the death
against Isis. The Middle East differs also from Europe and the US because states are more fragile
than they look and once destroyed prove impossible to recreate. This was a lesson that the foreign
policy establishments in Washington, London and Paris failed to take on board after the invasion
of Iraq in 2003, though the disastrous outcome of successful or attempted regime change has been
bloodily demonstrated again and again. It was always absurdly simple-minded to blame all the
troubles of Iraq, Syria and Libya on Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad and Muammar Gaddafi, authoritarian
leaders whose regimes were more the symptom than the cause of division.
But it is not only in the Middle East that divisions are deepening. Whatever happens in Britain
because of the Brexit vote or in the US because of the election of Trump as president, both countries
will be more divided and therefore weaker than before. Political divisions in the US are probably
greater now than at any time since the American Civil War 150 years ago. Repeated calls for unity
in both countries betray a deepening disunity and alarm as people sense that they are moving in the
dark and old norms and landmarks are no longer visible and may no longer exist.
The mainline mass media is finding it difficult to make sense of a new world order which may or
may not be emerging. Journalists are generally more rooted in the established order of things than
they pretend and are shocked by radical change. Only two big newspapers – the Florida Times-Union
and the Las Vegas Review-Journal endorsed Trump before the election and few of the American
commentariat expected him to win, though this has not dented their confidence in their own judgement.
Criticism of Trump in the media has lost all regard for truth and falsehood with the publication
of patently concocted reports of his antics in Russia, but there is also genuine uncertainty
about whether he will be a real force for change, be it good or ill.
Crises in different parts of the world are beginning to cross-infect and exacerbate each other.
Prior to 2014 European leaders, whatever their humanitarian protestations, did not care much what
happened in Iraq and Syria. But the rise of Isis, the mass influx of Syrian refugees heading
for Central Europe and the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels showed that the crises in the Middle
East could not be contained. They helped give a powerful impulse to the anti-immigrant authoritarian
nationalist right and made them real contenders for power.
The Middle East is always a source of instability in the world and never more so than over the
last six years. But winners and losers are emerging in Syria where Assad is succeeding with Russian
and Iranian help, while in Iraq the Baghdad government backed by US airpower is slowly fighting its
way into Mosul. Isis probably has more fight in it than its many enemies want to believe, but is
surely on the road to ultimate defeat. One of the first real tests for Trump will be how far
he succeeds in closing down these wars, something that is now at last becoming feasible.
"... "But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." ..."
"... Moscow-Ankara-Washington axis........ How about a Beijing-Moscow-Berlin axis, what have the Turks got to offer? ..."
"... Clinton was to solve global warming with nuclear winter. Sheesh! read Obama's neocon anthem aka the speech he gave in Stockholm where he conned the Nobel committee. ..."
"... Putin's 'interventions' are minimalist and defensive, the Clinton neocons would push NATO up to Smolensk with feckless disregard for any entity in the way of US empire. ..."
"... Neoliberal is starting wars because the empire sees "unjust peace" as excuse to engage with shock and awe despite the dbody count. ..."
"... Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has questions the whole "Putin did it" narrative, demanding evidence: "we strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing operation is no better than the "intelligence" evidence in 2002-2003 – expressed then with comparable flat-fact "certitude" – of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." ..."
The rest of spring time for
jihadis are known bollux: Libya, Egypt*, Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan...... Lebanon outside spring time for jihadis it
is under Shiite wraps not so bollux.
*CIA and generals jailed the jihadis to keep Camp David
bribes coming.
I am terribly worried that a move of the US embassy to
Jerusalem is part if a set of provocations leading to US
military interventions to eliminate the threats as this group
defines them to be (radical islamists). This would
immediately make the US and Russian oil industries more
valuable as the middle east becomes enflamed.
A new axis
arises: Russia, the new ottoman and the US.
I just cant help thinking that this is the plan, you will
be measured on your patriotism and allegiances here.
Dismaying.
But it does go hand in hand with this "America First"
schtick.
"But after all it is the leaders of a country who
determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag
the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist
dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace
makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same in any country."
"I am terribly worried that a move of the US embassy to
Jerusalem is part if a set of provocations leading to US
military interventions to eliminate..."
You could be right,
but most of Trump's campaign talk was isolationist, if
contradictory. The Iraq adventurism was a disaster, etc.
He doesn't like diplomacy, like the Iran deal, so there
could be more brinkmanship which is dangerous. But a war
would be very unpopular. Again he may not care since war
could be used as a distraction.
Authoritarian allies like the Arab dictatorships are happy
in that a Trump administration won't criticize them about
human rights violations or freedom of the press. Russia and
China will be happy about that as well.
Trump is basically a real-estate developer/tax fraud etc.
I don't see war as a foregone conclusion.
He used the word 'to protect' in his inaugural. That is
definitely not isolationism especially after declaring that
he will eliminate radical Islam from the earth (close to a
direct quote, I'm pretty sure).
And isn't he the one who
said during the campaign that we ought to just sieze the
oilfields?
So just provoke a few things, a few will do, then announce
the alliance wuth russia to settle this in the region, once
and for all, so we are protected.
Who indeed will step up and say no, they will not do this
type of thing?
Clinton was to solve global warming with nuclear winter.
Sheesh! read Obama's neocon anthem aka the speech he gave in
Stockholm where he conned the Nobel committee.
Putin's 'interventions' are minimalist and defensive, the
Clinton neocons would push NATO up to Smolensk with feckless
disregard for any entity in the way of US empire.
Neoliberal is starting wars because the empire sees
"unjust peace" as excuse to engage with shock and awe despite
the dbody count.
Clinton would be mobilizing to crush Russia using the
exploded the image of a few suffering Balts to tilt with
nuclear winter.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has questions
the whole "Putin did it" narrative, demanding evidence: "we
strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs
have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing
operation is no better than the "intelligence" evidence in
2002-2003 – expressed then with comparable flat-fact
"certitude" – of the existence of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/another_demand_for_russian_hacking_20170119
But this JohnH-come-lately drinks whatever Kool-Aid the
establishment gives him...
"Does the Russian government hack, as many other governments
do? Of course. Did it hack the emails of the Democratic
National Committee? Almost certainly, though it was likely
not alone in doing so. In the Internet age, hacking is the
bread and butter of intelligence agencies. If Russian
intelligence did not do so, this would constitute gross
misfeasance, especially since the DNC was such easy pickings
and the possibility of gaining important insights into the
U.S. government was so high. But that is not the question.
It was WikiLeaks that published the very damaging
information, for example, on the DNC's dirty tricks that
marginalized Sen. Bernie Sanders and ensured that Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton would win the Democratic
nomination. What remains to be demonstrated is that it was
"the Russians" who gave those emails to WikiLeaks. And that
is what the U.S. intelligence community doesn't know."
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/20/obama-admits-gap-in-russian-hack-case/
Democrats want to blame Russia for their ineptitude and their
lousy candidate.
Democrats want to blame Russia for exposing the DNC's
rigging of the primaries...by blaming Russia for rigging the
general elections [abject hypocrisy.]
Neither Democrats nor the intelligence services know who
gave the documents to WikiLeaks or, if they do, they don't
want you to know who it was.
reject all war. We are all extremely fortunate that Hillary
Clinton will not be taking office this weekend. Had Hillary
been elected we would be facing a crisis over Syria. Hillary
wants to overthrow the
"
Her victims are our cousins. Each of us emanates from the
same living cell. Within Minkowski-time-space we remain
connected as one animal. No!
We cannot open up our American hospitality to suspected
terrorists. What we can do is open up our homeland to
foreigners who are moving over to make space for her victims.
Ceu
When South Africa takes in Syrians, we can take in an
equal number of South Africans or other foreigners who are
demonstrating their love for our cousins, our cousins now
victimized by our own Mama-War-Bucks. Tell me something!
Was the HRC-email-server moved to her private home so that
SWH, Slick Willie himself could control the World? Hey!
"... The strongest advocates for bringing offshore manufacturing back to the United States acknowledge automation's effect on the workforce but say it doesn't negate the need for more domestic factories. Harry Mosser, founder of the Reshoring Institute, which encourages companies to bring manufacturing operations back to the United States, said that even a highly automated factory is better for workers than no factory at all. ..."
"... These days it is more about planned/welcomed obsolescence - the product basically works, but some critical parts may be low grade, making it break after a while so you have to buy something new. This also affects "brands that used to be good". ..."
"... The internet also has played a role - online stores could underbid brick and mortar, then the latter had to cheapen and cut their offerings, driving more customers to the internet, etc. ..."
SOUTHBRIDGE - A mainstay of Massachusetts manufacturing since
the late 1800s, the Hyde Group tool company made a big leap
overseas in 2010, when it outsourced production of its mass
market putty knives and wallpaper blades to China.
"At
heart, we're manufacturers. It was the hardest thing for us
to do, us in a fourth-generation family," said Bob Clemence,
vice president of sales at Hyde Group, and great-grandson of
the man who bought the company in the 1890s. "In order for us
to stay in business and still employ people, we had to move
our low-end business off-shore. It really was like a stab in
the heart."
But the cost advantage of China has been steadily shrinking;
it's now 40 percent cheaper to make the tools there than in
Southbridge. And if that continues to fall, then Hyde might
be able to help President Donald Trump fulfill a central
campaign promise: bringing manufacturing back to the United
States.
"Forty percent [savings] is a huge number to overcome,"
Clemence said. "We've determined that if it's 20 percent or
less, we're going to do it domestically."
As Trump cajoles American companies into returning
production to US soil, experiences like Hyde's illustrate the
complex, multifaceted decisions manufacturers face as they
choose where to build their products.
The president has talked of using lower taxes, fewer
regulations, and higher tariffs to bring about a renaissance
of American manufacturing. But for factory owners, it's not
simply about cheaper labor. The costs of energy and raw
materials, the emergence of global competitors, and the
location and demands of suppliers and customers all weigh on
these decisions, a myriad of cross currents that will make it
difficult to fix the factory economy with just a few bold
prescriptions.
"It's going to be not an easy job," said Enrico Moretti,
professor of economics at the University of California,
Berkeley, who predicted that even if factories stay in the
United States, production will be increasingly automated.
"I'm not sure there is one explicit policy, a magic switch,
that executive power in Washington can switch to retain jobs
in the US."
In the eyes of factory owners, singling them out won't
necessarily solve the problem. Some say they were forced to
move production overseas by their customers. At Hyde, it was
the retail stores that carry its tools demanding lower
prices.
"It doesn't matter what they say about made in the USA,
it's all about price," Clemence said. "They've taken some
basic items and said there are commodity products and said,
'We only buy them by price.' "
In Norwood, the Manufacturing Resource Group opened a
second factory just across the US border in Mexico in 2011
because customers demanded cheaper versions of its cable
assemblies, wire harnesses, and other electric components.
"The decision to open in Mexico wasn't ours," MRG
president Joe Prior said. "We were told that, 'You need to
have a low-cost option, or we're not going to be able to do
business with you.' "
The Norwood and Mexico factories nearly mirror one
another, each employing about 70 people, with mostly the same
equipment and capabilities. The Norwood factory still
accounts for most of its business, as MRG's local customers
are willing to pay more for quicker shipping and customer
service. But other customers simply want a cheaper product -
wages at the Mexico factory are a quarter the cost of
Norwood, while health care costs about 90 percent lower.
Prior said if Trump does impose a high tariff on imported
products, as he has threatened, then that cost would probably
be shouldered by customers of the Mexican factory.
"If there is a tax, it just has to be passed on to our
customers and they'd have to make a decision about whether it
makes sense for them anymore," he said.
Since many US companies sell to customers around the
world, a high tariff might bring some production back home -
but at a cost. For Eastern Acoustic Works, that might mean
losing international customers for its sound equipment.
The Whitinsville company is closing its factory here,
laying off 27 workers and outsourcing most production of
speaker systems and subwoofers to a contract manufacturer in
China. There were just too many competitors around the world
making similar equipment for Eastern Acoustic to justify
charging higher prices for its US-made products, general
manager TJ Smith said. Eastern Acoustic will instead
concentrate on new sales, marketing, and R&D initiatives,
creating white-collar jobs that will help it grow.
"Running a factory takes a lot of focus and energy," Smith
said. "We have to ask ourselves, what are we good at? What do
we want to call our competencies?"
Smith said Eastern Acoustic might be forced to bring
production back to the United States if the Trump tariff goes
into effect. However, that move might also prompt the company
to drop its international clients - Asia accounts for 30
percent of Eastern Acoustic's sales - because the US-made
products wouldn't be competitive in overseas markets.
"It would split my business up too much, so I couldn't
support" an overseas factory, Smith said. "For our scale, I
would lean toward [choosing] the domestic market at this
point because that's what I know and I'm closer to it."
But the higher tariffs might help Eastern Acoustic in
another way - by raising prices on products its European
competitors are selling to US customers. "So that might
increase my near-term opportunity domestically," Smith said.
Raw materials, such as steel or energy, is another area
Trump would have to address. Foreign steel, especially, is so
much cheaper that it is very difficult for manufacturers not
to use. But Trump's promise to promote more domestic oil and
gas production could be a major boon to factories.
For example, US companies are benefiting from very cheap
domestic natural gas; that's especially important in
processing industries that use a lot of chemicals in their
production. ...
President Donald Trump has spoken often about trade's
effect on US manufacturing employment but has said
comparatively little about another economic force that has
caused factories to shed jobs: high-tech machines and
automation.
At the Hyde Group's Southbridge factory, the amount of
work that 100 employees do now would have required 180
workers more than a decade ago, said Bob Clemence, the
company's vice president of sales.
While the number of blue-collar assembly-line jobs at US
factories has been dropping in huge numbers for decades,
Enrico Moretti, a professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, said the number of engineers working in factories
has about doubled. Future manufacturing jobs will probably
require engineering skills and training, Moretti said.
At Hyde, the typical factory worker might operate two or
three computerized machines at a time, and the work generally
requires an associate's degree or some college education,
Clemence said. That's a far cry from 20 years ago, when the
factory used to host night classes to help employees earn
high school degrees.
"We could still do the GED," Clemence said. "But I need
someone coming in the door that already has that degree
information. I don't need somebody that is only running a
fork truck."
In his presidential farewell address Jan. 10, President Obama
highlighted the effects of technology on the workforce,
noting "the relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of
good middle-class jobs obsolete." He also called for ensuring
higher-level education, as well as stronger labor unions, to
blunt the effect.
Even if future manufacturing employees are trained to
handle robots and high-tech machines, the math is simple
enough: Machines and robots require fewer workers on factory
floors. When the appliance maker Carrier, a division of
United Technologies Corp., agreed to keep in Indiana about
800 jobs it had planned to send to Mexico, it marked an early
public relations win for Trump. Within days, however, United
Technologies' chief executive said new investments in the
Indiana factory would probably result in automation and
eventual job losses.
The strongest advocates for bringing offshore manufacturing
back to the United States acknowledge automation's effect on
the workforce but say it doesn't negate the need for more
domestic factories. Harry Mosser, founder of the Reshoring
Institute, which encourages companies to bring manufacturing
operations back to the United States, said that even a highly
automated factory is better for workers than no factory at
all.
"If you bring back any manufacturing, you bring back some
employment," he said.
"At Hyde, the typical factory
worker might operate two or three computerized machines at a
time, and the work generally requires an associate's degree
or some college education,"
What are "computerized machines," Fred? and why only two
or three?
In my personal experience (as an IT guy)
observing electronic techs in computer
manufacturing (some decades ago) monitoring
several 'computerized' testing machines at once. (Made for
interesting challenges trying to measure productivity.)
Why
only two or three? When an 'event' happens,
prompt operator response is usually called for.
No, a cnc cell will typically have 4 or 5 cnc
machines. You just need labor to feed, stack and turn one off
if there is an issue. One will do. Injection molding can be 2 to 4 presses. This is why Labor
should have been paid more as they are replacing 3 and 4
people.
We already have this environment and plants are not
crawling with engineers. They are needs for programming only
and even then an operator might be able to do it.
"We could still do the GED," Clemence said. "But I need
someone coming in the door that already has that degree
information. I don't need somebody that is only running a
fork truck."
Translation: "We will not pay for upgrading
the skills of fresh hires as long as we still have older
workers in their 50's+ with existing skills *who are not
leaving*."
And that aspect is hinted at right above - 20+ years ago,
when today's 50+ were 20/30-ish, they paid for their
education, and those people are still in the accessible labor
pool.
But they *will* age out, and then they hand wringing and
wailing about skill shortages will intensify (and you better
believe companies will *then* arrange the skill upgrades).
> In the eyes of factory owners, singling them out won't
necessarily solve the problem. Some say they were forced to
move production overseas by their customers. At Hyde, it was
the retail stores that carry its tools demanding lower
prices. "It doesn't matter what they say about made in the
USA, it's all about price," Clemence said. "They've taken
some basic items and said there are commodity products and
said, 'We only buy them by price.' "
Yup. Consumers matter.
So long as we care more about getting the lowest price than
whether the workers who made the widget were getting a fair
deal the problem will persist.
It was said elsewhere in the article that "customers"
actually meant retail chains.
With many products, including
food, the origin of the product or its ingredients is not
properly disclosed. "Made for", "distributed by", "packed
in", "packaging printed in", are not actionable.
Then with advances in manufacturing and material sciences,
it has become harder to judge the expected quality and
workmanship of a product by its external appearance - most
look well finished and spiffy, parts are fitting well, etc.
About 20+ years that wasn't the case, and it was much
easier to tell that something is cheap junk (when looking
good on the outside it may still be junk inside, but at least
there was a way of identifying the lowest category).
These days it is more about planned/welcomed obsolescence
- the product basically works, but some critical parts may be
low grade, making it break after a while so you have to buy
something new. This also affects "brands that used to be
good".
Then one can only go by price, as that's a difference that
can still be discerned. And obviously there is a feedback
dynamic - stores observe what sells, and slowly remove
variety and "mid range" products.
The internet also has played a role - online stores could
underbid brick and mortar, then the latter had to cheapen and
cut their offerings, driving more customers to the internet,
etc.
An interesting quote: "So, given that the US is under GLOB occupation, Americans should welcome
ANY foreign interference that loosens this grip and empowers the historical white majority. "
Notable quotes:
"... the antecedent for "it" seems to be the danger to us from terrorism and foreign dictators–JD ..."
"... Watch: 'You Have Made Me Proud' – President Obama's Farewell Speech Is a Powerful Road-Map for Upholding Democracy , ..."
"... Donald Trump's News Conference: Full Transcript and Video, ..."
"... On the suggestion that Vladimir Putin helped Trump get elected: ..."
"... On the allegations in the BuzzFeed file about stuff he had paid those honey-trap hookers to do in Moscow: ..."
"... On whether he thinks the American public is concerned about him not releasing his tax returns: ..."
"... On Lindsey Graham proposing a bill for tougher sanctions on Russia: ..."
"... That's the Trump we know and love. So was his reaction when a CNN reporter kept demanding to ask a question: "Don't be rude. No, I'm not going to give you a question You are fake news! " ..."
"... One of the reasons low-income Americans admire rich people is that they are do-ers who seem to live gilded lives, and not on the backs of the poor. It's the professional classes they don't like-the lawyers and doctors and teachers, who invade their lives with bills and lectures. The people who look and sound like Hillary Clinton. Trump was showing that he, too, was under the cosh of the miserable lawyers-he even had one come to the podium. ..."
"... Bad news, Trump haters: This bonkers show has made him even MORE popular, writes JUSTIN WEBB. He played to the gallery with something bordering on genius , ..."
"... Watch your back, Mr. President-Elect. Richard Nixon was way less rumbustious than you are; but they took down Nixon . ..."
"... BBC is still in nonstop 'take down Trump' mode, every other day the headline starts 'Donald Trump has provoked outrage' . ..."
"... From time to time I make a resolution never to vote for any person who has shed tears in public. ..."
"... Yes, but you and your wife are IMMIGRANTS. Unwanted. Undesired. Doesn't matter if you are white or non-white. ..."
"... All this talk of Russian hacking and Russian interference emanating from the Progs misses the point. I don't believe in most of it. But surely Russians did what they could to favor Trump. But what's wrong with that, at least from our perspective? ..."
"... The fact is the US is not ruled by Americans but by the GLOB, or Globalist Tyranny. Though the GLOB is a diverse bunch of globalist-elites, the top dogs are Zionists, homos, and Anglo-Cuck-Collaborators. And these people have ZERO feeling for the historical white majority of the Americans. Anglo-Collaborators are too cucked out to have any white sentiments. They are like Joe Biden who will sell his ma down the river for his cookies and creams. These cucks are willing to turn all historically white nations into EU and US into non-white majority nations AS LONG AS they and their children are assure of privilege and power in the New Order. They are globo-quislings. ..."
"... So, given that the US is under GLOB occupation, Americans should welcome ANY foreign interference that loosens this grip and empowers the historical white majority. ..."
"... Now, the Russian role in 2016 was nothing like French role in the War of Independence, but it may have tipped the balance. White Americans should rejoice and thank the Russians. ..."
"... American Media are not American. It is mostly GLOB. And it means that as long as US is under Glob power, it is under alien tyranny. Indeed, even with Trump as president, the most powerful force in the US is Jewish-Glob power. ..."
"... Trump's tweets are an act of genius. He has rocked the whole liberal establishment by stating his own opinions and speaking directly to those who have been ignored for years. ..."
"... This is revolutionary, Trump could never have survived a Presidential run in the past, he would have been unable to fight back, no one would be able to hear him. ..."
"... Who would have thought that a President could ignore and ridicule major media players in an age where careers are destroyed by the media because they disagree with gay marriage... ..."
"... The Zionists, CIA and FBI could finish with Trump in no time at all, but the problem is that it's not just Trump, he's only riding a wave. Eliminate Trump and they could get something much worse, so they probably calculate that it's better to try to corrupt Trump ( he's a dealmaker) despite his connection to the thing that they fear the most i.e. Radical Anglo Nationalism. ..."
"... Americans are generally aware of the founders of this country. However, immigrants like the Irish, Italians, and Slavs were considered to be "garbage" by nativists at various points in time. Millions of immigrants who came to the States had little money, but a strong work ethic and the willingness to embrace our customs and our political traditions. ..."
This is the Week of the Two Presidents-
Donald Trump succeeds Barack Obama at noon on Friday January 20. Both men recently addressed
major gatherings: Barack Obama made his official farewell to the nation, Donald Trump held his first
formal press conference since being elected. Each event was highly characteristic. My take: I for
one am glad we have heard the last of Obama. And Trump's rumbustiousness is thrilling .
Obama stepped out in front of a huge audience in
Chicago and delivered a long, gassy speech-51 minutes and 10 seconds. That's
10 minutes longer than the Farewell Addresses of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan
combined .
Bush 41 did not technically give a farewell address, although his speech to
West Point cadets, the last of his presidency, is sometimes cited as such. I don't know its duration,
but the transcript runs
to 3,300 words. The transcript of Obama's farewell address is just short of 5,000 words, so he left
Poppy Bush in the dust, too. This is a guy who really likes the
sound of his own voice.
The gold standard in
political speeches, so far as I'm concerned, was the one
Calvin Coolidge
delivered to the Massachusetts Senate 102 years ago, after being elected President of that body.
It
consisted of forty-four words, thus
:
Honorable Senators: My sincerest thanks I offer you. Conserve the firm foundations of our institutions.
Do your work with the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the Commonwealth
and to yourselves, and be brief; above all things, be brief.
That makes
the
Gettysburg Address , at 272 words, look positively flabby. It makes Obama's farewell address
look morbidly obese.
What did Obama's speech actually contain? Well, there was lots of
"hope"
and "change": five "hopes" and sixteen "changes" by my count. I couldn't actually pin down anything
declarative about "hope", but there was definitely a consistent theme on "change." Change is good!
Don't be afraid of change! -
Constant change has been America's hallmark; that it's not something to fear but something
to embrace It [ the antecedent for "it" seems to be the danger to us from terrorism and
foreign dictators–JD ] represents the fear of change; the fear of people who look or speak
or pray differently
If you fear change you are a bad person!
I'm sorry, Mr. President, but that is inane. Some change is good, some isn't. Saying, "Change
is good!" makes as much sense as saying, "
Weather is good!" or "Vegetation is good!" If an asteroid were to strike the earth and wipe out
the human race, that would be a major change, wouldn't it? Not many of us would consider it good,
though.
And just as change is not necessarily good, fear is not necessarily bad. We have the fear instinct
for a very good reason: to preserve ourselves against dangers. We may argue about whether some one
particular phenomenon is or is not dangerous, but fear itself is useful and valuable, not a failing
or a weakness .
Take for example that "fear of people who look or
speak
or
pray differently." If people who look different from me in some one particular way have
a homicide rate seven times that of people who look the same as me, and
a robbery rate thirteen times, isn't fear of those people rational? If violent acts of terrorism
against innocent civilians are almost exclusively committed by people who pray a certain way, is
not fear of people who pray that way justified?
And look at Obama's illogical assumptions:
If we're unwilling to invest in the children of immigrants, just because they don't look like
us, we will diminish the prospects of our own children-because those brown kids will represent
a larger and larger share of America's workforce.
Note the patronizing conflation of "immigrants" with "brown kids." I'm an immigrant; my wife is
an immigrant; neither of us is brown.
Note also the meteorological approach to immigration. It's like the weather! Can't do
anything about it! In fact immigration is just a policy, that we can change at will. We could, without
any offense to the Constitution, stop all immigration and require all noncitizens to leave
our territory.
How would that be for "change"! To fear it would, of course, be weak and un-American.
And then there are Obama's characteristic weaselly little half-truths:
I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans who are just as patriotic as we are.
I have no problem with the first half of that. I too reject discrimination against American citizens
who are Muslims.
Again, I don't know of any constitutional reason why we can't do that.
But the second half, Obama's assertion that Muslims are
just as patriotic as we are, is open to question. It's true in the sense that some Muslims, like
some non-Muslims, are patriotic, while others aren't. The proportions in each case bears
examining. The non-patriotism of Muslim non-patriots is of a seriously different kind from
the non-patriotism of Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Jewish, agnostic,
atheist, and Wiccan non-patriots.
From time to time I make a resolution never to vote for any person who has
shed tears in public. Then I recall that this is somewhat un-American of me, and feel a bit ashamed.
My fellow Americans mostly like that kind of thing, and I ought to yield to their taste.
I just can't, though. I'm from a
nation and a
time
that admired reserve, fortitude, and the stiff upper lip. "I have lost my leg, by God!" Lord
Uxbridge
told the Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo, as cannonballs whizzed by. "By God, and
have you!" replied the Duke.
Those are my people. They're dead now, or old, even in the Mother Country. But they had something
that's been lost, and the loss of which I regret very much.
The questions and answers, not counting the nested presentation by Trump's lawyer, were seventy-four
hundred words, of which by far the majority were Trump's. So chances are Trump spoke more
words than Obama. And they were pure Trumplish: unfiltered, demotic, boastful, pugnacious in
self-defense, hyperbolic in praise, brutal in scorn, sometimes contradictory, occasionally nonsensical.
When he didn't want to answer a question he just blustered. Would Obamacare guarantee coverage
for current beneficiaries? Trump:
You're gonna be very, very proud of what we put forth having to do with health care We're
going to be submitting, as soon as our secretary's approved, almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter,
a plan. It'll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially, simultaneously. It will be various
segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week, but probably,
the same day, could be the same hour. So we're gonna do repeal and replace, very complicated stuff.
And we're gonna get a health bill passed, we're gonna get health care taken care of in this country
The plan will be repeal and replace Obamacare. We're going to have a health care that is far
less expensive and far better.
The information content of that answer is, let's be frank, zero. You could in fact, in the spirit
of Coolidge, you could make an economical translation of that 430-word answer from Trumplish into
Coolidgean using just three words: "Wait and see."
That's OK, though. Donald Trump is by no means the first President to answer a reporter's question
with blustery evasion-by no means.
It was Trump's style and demeanor at the presser that had us Trumpians clapping along with him.
Those, and his one-liners. Four sample one-liners:
On the suggestion that Vladimir Putin helped Trump get elected: "If Putin likes Donald
Trump, guess what, folks? That's called an asset, not a liability." On the
allegations in the BuzzFeed file about stuff he had paid those honey-trap hookers to do in
Moscow: "I'm also very much of a germaphobe, by the way, believe me." On whether he thinks
the American public is concerned about him not releasing his tax returns: "No, I don't think
they care at all." On Lindsey Graham proposing a bill for tougher sanctions on Russia:
"I hadn't heard Lindsey Graham was going to do that. Lindsey Graham. I've been competing
with him for a long time. He is going to crack that one percent barrier one day."
That's the Trump we know and love. So was his reaction when a CNN reporter kept demanding to ask
a question: "Don't be rude. No, I'm not going to give you a question You are
fake news! " Similarly with BuzzFeed, which Trump said is, quote, "a failing pile of garbage."
Along the lines of the old
joke about
Harry Truman
and the word "manure," I guess America should be glad he used the word "garbage."
Of all the commentary on Trump's presser, I think the one that got to the heart of the matter
was Justin Webb's in the Daily Mail , January 12th, pertaining to the point in the presser
where Trump brought up his lawyer to explain about his business interests:
One of the reasons low-income Americans admire rich people is that they are do-ers who
seem to live gilded lives, and not on the backs of the poor. It's the professional classes they
don't like-the lawyers and doctors and teachers, who invade their lives with bills and lectures.
The people who look and sound like Hillary Clinton. Trump was showing that he, too, was under
the cosh of the miserable lawyers-he even had one come to the podium.
And he was demonstrating that, despite this, he had admirably emerged with his businesses intact.
I am no psychology professor, but this seemed to me to be playing to the gallery-i.e. those "ordinary"
Americans who are so fed up with the political class-with something bordering on genius.
Mail man Webb then goes on to warn that Trump might be too combative, too
much the Alpha Male, for the suits in D.C. to put up with for long, so that
they will find a way to force him out. Webb concludes:
If they succeed, it would be a bitter blow to the millions of working-class Americans who voted
for Trump, folk who felt he alone among politicians understood their aspirations, and who would
have been thrilled by his extraordinary, rumbustious performance this week. It would again confirm
their view that the political establishment looks after its own-while the "little people" are
brushed aside.
I don't think I count as working-class. My hands are rather
soft , and
I only wear boots
for hiking or shoveling
snow . I'll
admit that I was thrilled by Trump's performance, though, just as much as Justin Webb's
hypothetical working-class Americans.
And yes, like Webb, I worry that Trump's don't-give-a-damn rumbustiousness may be too much for
the seat-warmers and log-rollers of Washington, D.C.-among which category I would include our
intelligence agencies -to the degree
that they will find some way to unseat him. Watch your back, Mr. President-Elect.
Richard Nixon was way less rumbustious than you are; but
they took down
Nixon
.
And in case you're wondering, listeners, "rumbustious" is indeed a word-
I looked it up .
Another great article by El Derbo. BTW an alternate version of Wellington's reply to Uxbridge
goes, "By Jove, so you have!" Whatever his merits the Duke was not strong on empathy. But if he
was, w0uld he have been such a winning general?
Justin Webb was the BBCs US correspondent for years (
as was his father ) . He's also one of the presenters of the R4 Today programme.
( BBC is still in nonstop 'take down Trump' mode, every other day the headline starts
'Donald Trump has provoked outrage' . Today on R4 we had the Observer's literary editor
in conversation about Trump with Malcolm Gladwell – I wonder if that was positive or negative?)
I'm somewhat less worried about Fort Marcy. Important difference between Trump and Nixon or
Reagan: Trump has his own security forces, both physical and cyber. He doesn't have to rely on
the Deepstate-owned Secret Service.
He clearly understands how these things work, as demonstrated by his discussion of paper messages
vs email. He's been 'controversial' for decades and he's been watching his back effectively for
decades.
I reject discrimination against Muslim Americans who are just as patriotic as we are.
Perhaps he accepts discrimination against Muslim Americans whose patriotism differs, or is
less than, "us," whoever that is? It's a slimy, unctuous, political phrase.
Another good piece that ought to be gracing the pages of the Spectator and the Telegraph, if
those publications were still traditionalist conservative and weren't firmly in the grip of pc
censorship and neoconnery.
From time to time I make a resolution never to vote for any person who has shed tears
in public. Then I recall that this is somewhat un-American of me, and feel a bit ashamed.
My fellow Americans mostly like that kind of thing, and I ought to yield to their taste
I agree entirely, and I don't have the burden of having to try to assimilate to a foreign country's
culture, so I can say so without qualification. I don't like men who openly display sentimentality
and don't respect them as leaders.
Women are a different matter, but with a few unusual exceptions they don't make good leaders
anyway.
By the way, here's a matter that affects both your country of origin and your adopted one:
how remarkable is it that supposedly serious people ("Theresa May's advisers") are reported as
putting David Cameron forward as a candidate for Secretary General of NATO? The man who repeatedly
displayed his complete unsuitability for any role in strategic decision making by not only pushing
the disastrous destruction of Libya's government in 2011 but, only two years later and with the
costs of that earlier blunder in full view, actually wanted to do the same to Syria! Worse, not
only did he evidently want to do it, but he lacked the competence to manage a compliant Parliament
into giving him the required rubber stamp!
Of course, it's not all that remarkable if one ditches the naïve idea that those "advising
May" are not either incompetent themselves or acting out of ulterior motives that are incompatible
with any genuine British national interest.
An optimist might suggest that perhaps clever subversion rather than stupidity is the explanation
here. What better way to further undermine an institution that has long outlived its original
purpose and has become a vehicle for troublemaking and disorder, yet has such deep institutional
roots and serves such a useful role for nefarious US deep state purposes that it cannot be rooted
out, than to put at its helm an individual so patently unsuited to such a role?
But that is surely hopelessly optimistic. Most likely the obvious explanation is correct, that
it is just another instance of the trademarked mix of incompetence and evil that seems to have
been running US sphere foreign policy since the 1990s.
If we're unwilling to invest in the children of immigrants, just because they don't look
like us "
This is precisely the error made by progressives immersed in the scuzzy identity politics bathtub.
I don't want to "invest" in the children of Irish illegal immigrants either. And they look a lot
like me. Their parents are likely to be moronic leftists who arrived here with disdain and contempt
for rule of law, no different than the parents of MS-13 gangbangers in Brentwood. Very basically,
if you can't stand in line like everyone else, you're not worth investing in.
There will likely be gunplay at the Inaugural. At Maidan snipers shot people on both sides
of the conflict. Maidan is the model for the coup against Trump. Either there will be an Erdogan
style purge, or Trump will be impeached, imprisoned or martyred.
"Secession is just around the corner it's a comming."
That is a pipe dream. Now, Derby "This is a guy who really likes the sound of his own voice."
Pot, meet kettle.
"Note the patronizing conflation of "immigrants" with "brown kids." I'm an immigrant;
my wife is an immigrant; neither of us is brown."
Yes, but you and your wife are IMMIGRANTS. Unwanted. Undesired. Doesn't matter if you are
white or non-white.
"At the same time, and without any inconsistency I can see, I think we have all the Muslims
we need."
Why should an Englishman and a Chinese woman (race mixing, I thought that was a big no-no)
be allowed to enter the United States? We already have too many of your kind already!
"But the second half, Obama's assertion that Muslims are just as patriotic as we are,
is open to question. It's true in the sense that some Muslims, like some non-Muslims, are patriotic,
while others aren't. The proportions in each case bears examining.
Indeed, the proportions in each case bears examining. How many American Muslims committed acts
of terrorism on American soil prior to 911?
"The non-patriotism of Muslim non-patriots is of a seriously different kind from the
non-patriotism of Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Jewish, agnostic,
atheist, and Wiccan non-patriots."
This is gooblygook. Either a person is loyal or disloyal. Now, using Derbs logic, the non-patriotism
of Jew non-patriots is also noteworthy for being a "different kind". Because Jews cause all kinds
of havoc, right?
"Richard Nixon was way less rumbustious than you are; but they took down Nixon."
Nixon took himself down by enabling his posse to spy on Democrats and use campaign money to
buy the silence of those who were caught at Watergate. Certainly, Woodward and Bernstein and others
employed questionable means during their investigation, but the LARGER issue was to expose the
lies of an administration. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden merely copied the strategies of these
two reporters, yet somehow they are lionized for their uncovering despite their covert means to
obtain information?
Strangely enough, Trump has already done more to improve the lives of ordinary Americans by
saving some jobs in Indianapolis, before he even takes office, than the last three presidents
have accomplished in 24 years in office.
The disgrace (conundrum?), as it were, is that plenty of 30- and 40- and 50-something Americans
find Obama's shtick appealing, whether the self-referential I, me, my, or the weepiness–it's not
just dopey Millennials without the experience of time. They've all been inculcated with the idea
that it's the feelz that matters.
All this talk of Russian hacking and Russian interference emanating from the Progs misses
the point. I don't believe in most of it. But surely Russians did what they could to favor Trump.
But what's wrong with that, at least from our perspective?
After all, didn't the French welcome the American role in driving out German Occupation during
WWII? Didn't Philippines welcome the Americans in driving out the Japanese?
The fact is the US is not ruled by Americans but by the GLOB, or Globalist Tyranny. Though
the GLOB is a diverse bunch of globalist-elites, the top dogs are Zionists, homos, and Anglo-Cuck-Collaborators.
And these people have ZERO feeling for the historical white majority of the Americans. Anglo-Collaborators
are too cucked out to have any white sentiments. They are like Joe Biden who will sell his ma
down the river for his cookies and creams. These cucks are willing to turn all historically white
nations into EU and US into non-white majority nations AS LONG AS they and their children are
assure of privilege and power in the New Order. They are globo-quislings.
So, given that the US is under GLOB occupation, Americans should welcome ANY foreign interference
that loosens this grip and empowers the historical white majority.
Any people who are under alien tyranny should welcome other alien forces to counter-balance
the alien force currently in power.
It's like the American Revolution wouldn't have been possible without the crucial help of the
French. The British were too powerful, and most of the major battles won by the Americans were
actually fought by the French.
Now, the Russian role in 2016 was nothing like French role in the War of Independence,
but it may have tipped the balance. White Americans should rejoice and thank the Russians.
After all, there are parallels. In the 90s, the globalists took over Russia and totally looted
and plundered that country.
It was nationalism that restored Russian sovereignty somewhat(though it still has long way
to go).
So, white Americans need to look to Russia and Russian-Americans. Indeed, just as Jewish-Americans
feel closer to Russian-Jews and French Jews than to white gentile Americans(whom most Jews despise),
white gentile Americans should feel closer to white gentiles all over the world than with Jews
or other elements of the GLOB. White Americans and white Russians should regard one another as
brothers. After all, white Russians don't want to destroy White America. It is the Jewish globalists
who have that agenda.
Pan-Zionism and Pan-Jewish-ism govern Jewish mindset and power. Jewish Americans feel closer
to Israeli-Jews, Hungarian Jews, French Jews, and British Jews than with gentile Americans.
So, white gentiles need a pan-white-ism. If Jewish-Americans and Russian Jews work together
to plunder both Russian gentiles and American gentiles, then gentiles in both nations should work
together to defend themselves from avaricious globalist Jewish power. Why should only Jews have
the right to create tribal networks all over the world?
I say white gentiles also need to create pan-white or pan-European networks all over. They
need to bury the hatchet because they face similar threats in both US and EU.
If someone is holding you hostage, and another person saves you from your captor, should you
blame the other person for having saved you? No, of course not. You should thank him.
So, if Russia played a role in helping white Americans liberate themselves from the tyranny
of the Glob, white Americans should be grateful.
Jewish GLOB would like us to believe that their power & control is 'American as bagel and cream
cheese and lox', but their power is alien and anti-American. After all, globalism is a neo-imperialist
war directed at ALL nations. So, if alien Russian influence was crucial in 2016, it was in helping
knock out the alien Jewish influence. While there are good decent patriotic Jewish Americans,
most of Jewish Power in the US is not patriotic or nationalist but GLOBO-IMPERIALIST and committed
to destroying the national sovereignty of all white nations. Consider what Jews tried to do to
Hungary and Poland.
They tried to force those nations to surrender to non-stop Muslim and African invasions caused
by wars fomented by Neocons and their cuck-whores.
Besides, even now, Russian influence in the US is minuscule compared to the power of the GLOB.
Glob elites are just a tiny percentage of US population, but they control 90% of media, Wall Street,
Hollywood, academia, and much else. The fact that such a small minority controls so much of American
Power should be the real scandal.
American Media are not American. It is mostly GLOB. And it means that as long as US is
under Glob power, it is under alien tyranny. Indeed, even with Trump as president, the most powerful
force in the US is Jewish-Glob power.
So, gentile Americans should welcome ANY foreign/alien help to weaken the power of the alien
GLOB that controls most of the institutions in America. Look how the whores of Congress pledge
their main loyalty to Israel, Israel, and Israel.
" His cabinet appointees are almost exclusively wealthy ( actually extremely wealthy) white
men"
So it would have made you feel better if he had appointed a cabinet made up exclusively of
poor people of color, right.
I am thinking that you are German because your viewpoints are identical with the german leftist
" Gutmensch" SJW worldview, and you simply do not comprehend that average Americans are not jealous
or spiteful of "Wealthy" folks, on the contrary, they respect them and congratulate them for their
status.
You guys have no problem with wealthy "Old white men" as long as they are leftists, such as BC
or B Sanders or WB, or BG.
Myself I am an "Old white man" and I am not ashamed to be an "Old white man", so put that in your
"Gutmensch" pipe and smoke it.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
I do think the "the fear of change" is a healthy element to have in a world that looks like
"The Shockwave Rider" come true.
Master Soda , "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to statism. Statism leads to blank
checks for politicians. Blank checks for politicians leads to welfare/warfare and micromanagement
and control freakshows sold as progressivism."
Mr. Derbyshire writes that "Saying, "Change is good!" makes as much sense as saying, "Weather
is good!" or "Vegetation is good!"
I have made the same point, but about different, more contentious words, for decades.
Two of the words I said were silly to regard as good or bad were " intolerance" and "discrimination",
words that for at least 30 years have, in the minds of many politicians, educators, executives
and the brainwashed, morphed into synonyms for "bad!", which is a truly dumb and gutless surrender
of language, it's and meaning and power of independent thought.
A society, any society, anywhere on earth, falls by what it chooses wisely to discriminate
against and what it refuses to tolerate. Sometimes these choices are contentious and harder to
justify against the slogans and sound-bites that we have been relentlessly force-fed for a half
century.
Just mooting, that discrimination or intolerance are, of themselves, not necessarily bad, prompts
the Pavlovian reflex of sharp intakes of breath and dutiful frowns from many listeners. Dare moot
that "racism", sexism or homophobia (a ridiculous word etymologically) of any of the other proscribed
-isms and –obiahs are, in their milder degrees, sensible social phenomena, and vitriol flows from
the mouths of PC believers as reason departs as readily as it does from believers of the ROP when
their cult is challenged logically. One is labelled as irredeemably evil despite, and I repeat,
ANY society, anywhere on earth, falls by what it chooses to discriminate against and what it refuses
to tolerate just as much as it rises by what it encourages.
What we choose to encourage or discriminate against is far too important to be treated as dogma.
The rules that govern society should be open to rigorous debate and examination, not, as is
the case here in the UK and most of Europe, "defended" by a cowed and complicit Fourth Estate,
and enforces by imprisonment for so-called "hate speech."
Good luck America, I hope that Trump grows into the job and proves a much better President
than the tactically-weepy O'Bummer.
Never heard of "The Shockwave Rider" but it's true about how fear can be manipulated, although
it's not just Lefty pols who exploit it.
According to their creed, pols ramp up fears or damp down reasonable and prudent ones, according
to their agenda.
That is indeed a well-informed comment, unsurprisingly made under anonimity. If I published
the same comment under my own name here in the UK, it would be off to the gulag for me, as we
do not have the admirable First Amendment of The US contitution.
If you published this under your own name in America, it would "only" be punishable by a media
hounding, career death and the sort of public vilification seen during The Cultural Revolution.
"And it is important for the United States to stand up for the basic principal that big
countries don't go around and invade and bully smaller countries."
That was so bizarre I had to laugh, but noted the corporate press softball pitchers at this
"news" conference didn't even smile at that absurd statement. No need for a "fact check" news
story. Hell, the USA don't just bully and invade, it destroys and lays waste to entire nations
on a yearly basis. Obama had dozens of foreigners murdered via drones and snipers each week, but
perhaps that's not considered a bully tactic.
"fear of people who look or speak or pray differently."
Typical SJW gobbledygook. First of all, no one looks, speaks, or prays like I do, so that's
right out the window. It may look that way to you, but that's because you're ignorant,
racist, jealous, and un-American.
Second, and much more important: It's not fear that causes me to resist the trashing of my
country. It's love. I'm not remotely fearful of third-world refuse, but I'm definitely disgusted
with the way the country I love seems to be circling the drain, and I'll do just about
anything I can to prevent it.
That most definitely includes supporting a 'rumbustious' president who–despite offering genuine
causes for concern–has made all the right enemies. Even if I agreed with him about nothing, I'd
support him for that reason alone. What's that? They're threatening war? Nonsense. The war has
been going on for half a century. But we have only begun to fight.
On whether he thinks the American public is concerned about him not releasing his tax
returns: "No, I don't think they care at all."
My favorite part of the whole press conference came right before this:
Reporter: But every president since the '70s has [released his tax returns] - Trump (sarcastically):
Gee, I've never heard that. I've never heard that before.
Nonsense. Derb is an engaging and entertaining writer. You, on the other hand, are a tiresome
bore.
"Yes, but you and your wife are IMMIGRANTS. Unwanted. Undesired. Doesn't matter if you are
white or non-white."
Derb and his family are okay by me. You, however – I'd have no problem having you summarily
deported.
"Why should an Englishman and a Chinese woman (race mixing, I thought that was a big no-no)
be allowed to enter the United States? We already have too many of your kind already!"
No, we have too many of your kind, whatever your kind may be.
"Indeed, the proportions in each case bears examining. How many American Muslims committed
acts of terrorism on American soil prior to 911?"
Prior to 911? What's so special about that day? Gosh, what might have happened on that particular
date. How many countries did Hitler invade before Czechoslovakia?
"This is gooblygook. Either a person is loyal or disloyal."
No, they can simply be uninterested. I.e., America really isn't their country, it's just a
place they happen to be.
"Nixon took himself down by enabling his posse to spy on Democrats and use campaign money to
buy the silence of those who were caught at Watergate."
You are a fool – a contemptible and stupid fool. Nixon was no dirtier than either Johnson or
Kennedy. He was taken down because the Washington Press Corps, the Democratic party (which he
had humiliated), and elements of the Civil Service wanted him gone.
To be fair (why you might ask? But let me slide on) Obama did speak of not bullying small countries.
I am not aware of any drone strikes on people who were government officials or otherwise representative
of their small countries. Are you? Or of any other assassinations. Trade sanctions?
For the first time in history we will have a [sic] oligarch in the White House .
Despite my having voted for him and supported his campaign, I have my suspicions and reservations
about the man as well (I'm a cynic and a pessimist), but the statement above is complete horse-shit.
Trump's tweets are an act of genius. He has rocked the whole liberal establishment by
stating his own opinions and speaking directly to those who have been ignored for years.
This is revolutionary, Trump could never have survived a Presidential run in the past,
he would have been unable to fight back, no one would be able to hear him.
Who would have thought that a President could ignore and ridicule major media players in
an age where careers are destroyed by the media because they disagree with gay marriage...
"Statists are always gonna state and absolute power always corrupts absolutely. Trump is merely
the right's version of Obama. If you really thought the left-right paradigm was abandoned, that
the powers-that-be would let an actual outsider not only run for president but win well, I suggest
you spend more time researching the new world order and less time voting for some power-hungry
individual who claims to make everything great again." – Dan Dicks
Thanks for a lively piece Mr Derbyshire. As we gain experience in life we realize that there
are probably twenty 'good talkers' for every 'do-er' jockeying for acceptance in positions of
power – and we still get taken in by the talkers, even though they almost invariably have
an insignificant track-record for the desired position. They end up departing with little accomplished,
still talking: Obama being a perfect text book example.
You say:
And just as change is not necessarily good, fear is not necessarily bad. We have the fear
instinct for a very good reason: to preserve ourselves against dangers. We may argue about
whether some one particular phenomenon is or is not dangerous, but fear itself is useful and
valuable, not a failing or a weakness.
I remember, when running a company, there came one of those fashionable (and short-lived) management
crazes promoting the ideas of W. Edwards Deming, an American whose philosophy helped to bring
about a massive change in Japanese industry. Deming asserted that 'quality' had to be instilled
into everything in the workplace and he had fourteen points for management – mostly sound common
sense except, I could never get along with point number eight "abolish fear in the workplace".
Now, this sounds terrific and who could oppose it?
Except that without a little bit of fear/uncertainty/insecurity, no organization can run well
– people just get too comfortable and secure and discipline declines. But how the Hell can you
ever admit to that in public? Or in a book? Of course you can't!
Congrats USA. Nice article as always Mr. Derb,, but I think you are too optimistic. We will
have to wait and see. From what little I know of USA polititcs, Trump is great because so many
of his attackers are arseholes. Myths floating about the pallets of cash to Iran：simply a retum
of stolen money, Much more to say. Too tired.
The dirt poor white middle Americans whose factories have closed and communities decimated,
voted for him in droves and where are they now? . I expect the poor whites who voted for
him will soon realize that they have been mugged.
yea, we'd have been so much better off with Hillary, huh?
but you're forgetting one thing about Trump's victory regardless of all of that-
and that's how great it makes us deplorables all feel at watching Obama and Michelle and people
like you going through your butt-hurt, existential crisis. Your angst and dread exhilarates us
all and reminds us how wonderful the political process can be. How, in a word; satisfying
.. it can be.
so as your knickers are twisting over your equivocating gender bits, we're buoyed by your tears.
In fact, I'd like to see a veritable ocean of your collective tears, and maybe sail a huge, obnoxious
yacht from Texas to Kalingrad on it, flying a proud confederate, rebel battle flag. And I'll even
name the ship The Deplorables, and when I've had my fill of Budweiser beer, Sherriff Joe and Vlad
and I'll (I'd invite him too) relieve our white male piss into your ocean of tears, and watch
as the salt mingles with the diversity. I'd be fun, no?
Just watching Van Jones and Michelle and all those Hollywood snowflakes and SJW and castrating
Maddow dykes and sodomites and race hustlers and La Raza pendejos and Kristol war pigs and entrenched
ticks in DC- sucking the blood of the republic, and all the assorted butt-hurt losers and haters
that have languished in smug certitude at the destruction of my kind, just seeing them all desolate
and inconsolable, just that, makes the Donald Trump win a precious moment to savor and
cherish.
So please do keep posting, and telling us all how bad it's going to be. How indeed, calamitous
and catastrophic! this all is. Where else can I relish such delicious and tasty morsels of sweet
schadenfreude, than right here on the UR?
His cabinet appointees are almost exclusively wealthy (actually, extremely wealthy) white
men.
Obviously you are a dumbass racist or you would know that white people, especially white men
are extremely smart and capable. Don't want to believe me? Pull your head out of your ass for
a second and look around you – we created almost everything you see or use. Your modern world
doesn't exist at all without us because WE created it from the constitutional laws you live by
to the car you drive, cell phone you play Angry Birds on, to the computer and the software that
runs it and lets you post to this site. Oh yeah – we also created the Internet. Yeah, that's right
– White Men – the best thing that ever happened to this world and your shitty life. Get over yourself,
racist!
W. Edwards Deming, an American whose philosophy helped to bring about a massive change in
Japanese industry.
Deming went to Japan to sell his ideas because American manufacturing wouldn't listen to him.
His quality ideas are now instituted in the ISO requirements which every manufacturer adheres
to if they want to sell internationally.
Certainly – but at least you don't see fellow management saluting you in the corridor with
fourteen fingers anymore – it came and went in US as a fad lasting approximately two years but
required more than ten for full implementation.
One good thing about Trump presidency is the anti-war Left will be activated once again.
Hopefully, they will prevent future wars.
One would like to think that. However the entity that calls itself the Left has become remarkably
fond of war. They've discovered that war could be a useful tool for imposing transgender bathroom
rights on the entire planet.
If Trump (God forbid) looked like starting a war with Russia would there be any opposition
from an anti-war Left?
I have no idea what you mean by "saluting with 14 fingers", but ISO is not a fad. Drive around
any area with manufacturing and you will see companies touting their ISO 9000 certification because
of Deming. His ideas were good and he has had a lasting effect on manufacturing across the globe.
It's the country of those immigrants who are naturalized, either recently or in the past.
That fact is undeniable.
It's quite deniable. The founding stock of this country were not "immigrants" – they were colonists.
They never left the realms of the British monarch. They simply moved to his dominions beyond the
seas. Thus they never had to be naturalized, since they were already his subjects. When they declared
their independence, they made themselves citizens of their own country. Again, no act of naturalization
was necessary.
As Steve Sailer has often remarked, the story of these founders and patriots as colonists,
frontiersmen, and pioneers has been allowed to fade from the public consciousness in favor of
the narrative of the "wretched refuse of [the old world's] teeming shore " Yet immigrants past
and present enjoy American liberty and prosperity only because of the efforts of the original
settlers to win them, and their willingness to share those blessings with deserving newcomers.
Immigrant issue is the fig leaf under which certain brand of conservatives hide their frustration
at the fact that the elite,the military-industrial complex , the colonizers of new age globalist
and expansionist have not been to continue to provide them with the certainties and the beauties
of creature comfort at a reduced affordable way as was the case until may be 1990 .
Now they have to work like anyone else New age slavery has not exempted them from rigor of
life and work as have been before. This current scenario also appeared during great depression
They ,then did not have the fig leaf of blaming the immigrants to cover their naked butts that
personify their mental make up and intellectual understanding of their current situation. . They
went for Roosevelt's They supported New Deal. They still love free stuffs and goodies Just look
at the demands for Federal emergency relief program to get their butt out of the natural disasters
.
Honorable Senators: My sincerest thanks I offer you. Conserve the firm foundations of our
institutions. Do your work with the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to
the Commonwealth and to yourselves, and be brief; above all things, be brief.
It's nice to see a reference to Calvin Coolidge, IMHO Americas finest post 1900 President.
He was Progressive when it meant things like women's suffrage, opportunity for minorities and
universal health care, but at the same time was a Conservative in the truest sense of the word
with a great respect for the Constitution and the Founders of the US.
He also had this really useful idea that most proposals for legislation derived from Special
Interests (and needed to be excluded ), and that any legislation that did go forward had to have
its downsides thoroughly checked beforehand.
Barak Hussein Obama has not returned the Nobel Peace (Piss) Prize. This demonstrates he lacks
decency and self-respect. The warmongers Obama and Hitlery are THE fascists!!! Bush II, Obama
and Hitlery to Nuerenberg! Long live PRESIDENT TRUMP!
He clearly understands how these things work, as demonstrated by his discussion of paper
messages vs email. He's been 'controversial' for decades and he's been watching his back effectively
for decades.
The Zionists, CIA and FBI could finish with Trump in no time at all, but the problem is
that it's not just Trump, he's only riding a wave. Eliminate Trump and they could get something
much worse, so they probably calculate that it's better to try to corrupt Trump ( he's a dealmaker)
despite his connection to the thing that they fear the most i.e. Radical Anglo Nationalism.
The trouble is Pascal's wager implies contradictions because it is simultaneously valid for
any and every god or system that promises (infinite) rewards and most of those religions don't
allow for the others to be true. Anyway the concept of one's sentient self without a body has
surely been impossible to believe in for several generations at least.
Why hasn't Keynes's 1930 "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" worked out? With birth
control and technologucal advances since 1930 all Americans could be living in great material
comfort and with plenty of leisure time for most of their lives. Is it just the crude insatiability
of most human beings untamed by the more ascetic traditions? Is it status seeking by too many?
(That might include enjoying the greatest locations which can't be added to with more storeys).
Is it widespread criminality and its costs? Or .?
"It's quite deniable. The founding stock of this country were not "immigrants" – they
were colonists."
I wasn't debating nor disputing this point. Mr. Anon pointed out that there are immigrants
by which "America really isn't their country, it's just a place they happen to be." He is other
than accurate in his assessment. Those groups who emigrated here and are now citizens are part
of this country. It is their country as well if they went through the process legally.
"As Steve Sailer has often remarked, the story of these founders and patriots as colonists,
frontiersmen, and pioneers has been allowed to fade from the public consciousness in favor
of the narrative of the "wretched refuse of [the old world's] teeming shore "
Americans are generally aware of the founders of this country. However, immigrants like
the Irish, Italians, and Slavs were considered to be "garbage" by nativists at various points
in time. Millions of immigrants who came to the States had little money, but a strong work ethic
and the willingness to embrace our customs and our political traditions.
"Yet immigrants past and present enjoy American liberty and prosperity only because of
the efforts of the original settlers to win them, and their willingness to share those blessings
with deserving newcomers."
Those original settlers included the British, the Dutch, and the Spanish, among others, who
also forcibly removed tribal groups from their settled areas, as well as invaded the world and
invited the world by instituting slavery in the Thirteen Colonies.
"... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course. ..."
"... Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria. ..."
"... Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it. ..."
What I found most impressive this time was the reaffirmation of America's dedication to the peaceful
transfer of political power. This was the 45th time this miracle has happened. Saying this is perhaps
banal, but the handover of power never fails to make me proud to be an American and thankful we had
such brilliant founding fathers.
This peaceful transfer sets the United States apart from many of the world's nations, even Britain
and Canada, where leaders under the parliamentary system are chosen in a process resembling a knife
fight in a dark room. The US has somehow managed to retain its three branches of government in spite
of the best efforts of self-serving politicians to wreck it.
Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy
headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse
by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on
a collision course.
Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass
drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria.
This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan
and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion
military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents
insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.'
Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his
ears to the siren songs of the war party and deep state which just failed to stage a 'soft' coup
to block his inauguration. Waging little wars against weak nations is a multi-billion dollar national
industry in the US. America has become as addicted to war as it has to debt.
If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have
to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their
primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not
to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Trump appears to have been gulled into believing the canard that Mideast-origin violence is caused
by what he called in his inaugural speech, radical Islamic terrorism. This is a favorite device promoted
by the hard right and Israel to de-legitimize any resistance to Israel's expansion and ethnic cleansing.
The label of 'terrorism' serves the same purpose.
Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation
of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on
western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions
in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it.
Unfortunately, President Trump is unlikely to get this useful advice from the men who now surround
him, with the possibly exception of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Let's hope that Tillerson and
not Goldman Sachs bank ends up steering US foreign policy.
(Reprinted from
EricMargolis.com
by permission of author or representative)
"... For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. ..."
"... Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. ..."
The following is the complete text of President Donald J. Trump's
inaugural address delivered on January 20, 2017.
Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President
Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank
you.
We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort
to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.
Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for
years to come.
We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get
the job done.
Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly
and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama
and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this
transition. They have been magnificent.
Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because
today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to
another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power
from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the
rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington
flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians
prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The
establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have
not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's
Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across
our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this
moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all
across America.
This is your day. This is your celebration.
And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but
whether our government is controlled by the people.
January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the
rulers of this nation again.
The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no
longer.
Everyone is listening to you now.
You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement
the likes of which the world has never seen before.
At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation
exists to serve its citizens.
Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods
for their families, and good jobs for themselves.
These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.
But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers
and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories
scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an
education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and
beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and
drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much
unrealized potential.
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our
dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one
home, and one glorious destiny.
The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all
Americans.
For many decades, we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of
American industry;
Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very
sad depletion of our military;
We've defended other nation's borders while refusing to defend our
own;
And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure
has fallen into disrepair and decay.
We've made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and
confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.
One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even
a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left
behind.
The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and
then redistributed across the entire world.
But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.
We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every
city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.
From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.
From this moment on, it's going to be America First.
Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs,
will be made to benefit American workers and American families.
We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making
our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs.
Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.
I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never,
ever let you down.
America will start winning again, winning like never before.
We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will
bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams.
We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and
tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.
We will get our people off of welfare and back to work – rebuilding
our country with American hands and American labor.
We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and Hire American.
We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world –
but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations
to put their own interests first.
We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let
it shine as an example for everyone to follow.
We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones – and unite the
civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will
eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.
At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the
United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will
rediscover our loyalty to each other.
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for
prejudice.
The Bible tells us, "how good and pleasant it is when God's people
live together in unity."
We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but
always pursue solidarity.
When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.
There should be no fear – we are protected, and we will always be
protected.
We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and
law enforcement and, most importantly, we are protected by God.
Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger.
In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it
is striving.
We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action –
constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.
The time for empty talk is over.
Now arrives the hour of action.
Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match
the heart and fight and spirit of America.
We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.
We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the
mysteries of space, to free the Earth from the miseries of disease, and
to harness the energies, industries and technologies of tomorrow.
A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal
our divisions.
It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget:
that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red
blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all
salute the same great American Flag.
And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the
windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they
fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the
breath of life by the same almighty Creator.
So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from
mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words:
You will never be ignored again.
Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American
destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us
along the way.
Together, We Will Make America Strong Again.
We Will Make America Wealthy Again.
We Will Make America Proud Again.
We Will Make America Safe Again.
And, Yes, Together, We Will Make America Great Again. Thank you, God
Bless You, And God Bless America.
Buffett Supports Trump on Cabinet Picks 'Overwhelmingly'
by Amanda L Gordon and Noah Buhayar
January 19, 2017, 8:19 PM EST January 20, 2017, 10:12 AM EST
Warren Buffett said he "overwhelmingly" supports President-elect Donald Trump's choices for cabinet
positions as the incoming commander-in-chief's selections face confirmation hearings in the U.S.
Senate.
"I feel that way no matter who is president," the billionaire Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman
and chief executive officer said Thursday in New York at the premiere of a documentary about his
life. "The CEO -- which I am -- should have the ability to pick people that help you run a place."
"If they fail, then it's your fault and you got to get somebody new," Buffett said. "Maybe you
change cabinet members or something."
Buffett, 86, backed Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, stumping for her in Omaha, Nebraska,
and headlining fundraisers. The billionaire frequently clashed with Trump and scolded him for not
releasing income-tax returns, as major party presidential candidates have done for roughly four decades.
Trump's cabinet picks include Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. banker; former Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state; and retired
Marine Corps General James Mattis as Defense secretary.
Since the election, Buffett has struck a more conciliatory tone toward Trump and called for unity.
In an interview with CNN in November, he said that people could disagree with the president-elect,
but ultimately he "deserves everybody's respect."
Trump's Popularity
That message hasn't resonated. Trump's popularity is the worst for an incoming president in at
least four decades, with just 40 percent of Americans saying they have a favorable impression of
him, according to a Washington Post-ABC poll published Tuesday. Buffett said on Thursday that the
low approval ratings won't matter much.
"It's what you go out with that counts -- 20, 50 years later what people feel you've achieved,"
Buffett said.
The president-elect has continued his pugnacious style during the transition, picking fights on
Twitter with news outlets, automakers, defense contractors, intelligence agencies, Hollywood actress
Meryl Streep and civil rights hero-turned-U.S. Congressman John Lewis.
* It solved the problem of Democrats beginning to get a spine and going after the Felonious
Five (or at least the three with major conflict of interest).
* It bumped Bush's approval rating from 40% to 80%.
* It greatly lowered opposition to Bush's anti-civil-liberties policies, such as creating
"1st Amendment Zones".
* It made passage of the Patriot Act possible.
* People were able to smear opposition to the Bush team policies as treasonous.
* It rendered torture, aggressive war, and barbaric imprisonment without due process of
law respectable.
Bush Administration sabotaged investigation:
Remember Coleen Rowley who claimed that an FBI superior back in DC rewrote her request for
a warrant, to make it less likely that it would be approved? There was also the FBI agent in
Arizona who wanted to investigate certain pilot students, but was prohibited.
Remember the DeLenda Plan? Once
we knew the USS Cole was Al Qaeda, it should have been executed. As in the spring of 2001.
Alas, it was deferred to after 9/11. Most incompetent crew ever and the Twin Towers fell down
taking 3000 people with because of their utter incompetence.
The Senate confirmed the appointment of retired general James Mattis as secretary of defense on
Friday, making him the first member of Donald Trump's cabinet cleared to take office.
The Senate vote was passed by 98-1 after Trump signed a waiver making Mattis exempt from a law
that blocks senior officers from taking the defense secretary job within seven years of retirement.
Mattis has been out of uniform for three years.
The single vote against his confirmation was from Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a Democrat who
argued the bar should remain in place on the grounds that civilian control of the military was a
fundamental principle of US democracy.
David B
3
hours ago (edited)
Alright Trump, you're in office now, drain the
Swamp, you can start with the federal Reserve, and
CIA, oh and the justice department as well.
"... Here's an excerpt from the speech Trump delivered in Cincinnati on December 1, that presents
Trump's views on the topic: ..."
"... "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will
stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because
we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to
join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries,
we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good
will." ..."
"... This is why none of the major media published Trump's comments. The corporate bosses who own
the media have nothing to gain by promoting the views of a populist executive who wants to minimize
the carnage by working cooperatively with foreign leaders the media has already designated as 'enemies
of the state', like Vladimir Putin. How does that advance the media's agenda? ..."
"... But the Washington power-elite know what Trump said, and they have acted accordingly. They
have put together a plan that is designed to undermine Trump's credibility, back him into a corner and
remove him from office. That's the plan, regime change in the USA. ..."
"... This is why CIA Director John Brennan took the unprecedented step of appearing on FOX News
Sunday. Brennan and the other heads of the Intelligence Community have taken a leading role in the desperate
character assassination campaign that is intended to obliterate public confidence in Trump in order
to foil his attempts at resetting relations with Russia. ..."
"... lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of
Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition . He can be reached at [email protected]
. ..."
Donald Trump wants to fundamentally change U.S. foreign policy. The President-elect wants to abandon
the destabilizing wars and regime change operations that have characterized US policy in the past
and work collaboratively with countries like Russia that have a mutual interest in fighting terrorism
and establishing regional security. Here's an excerpt from the speech Trump delivered in Cincinnati
on December 1, that presents Trump's views on the topic:
"We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past
We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos,
because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that
is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings
with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of
peace, understanding, and good will."
Trump's approach to foreign policy may seem commendable given the disastrous results in Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria and Iraq, but it is also a dramatic departure from the last 70 years of activity during
which time the United States has either overthrown or attempted to overthrow 57 foreign governments.
(According to author William Blum) This is why the political class and their wealthy constituents
are so worried about Trump, it's because they don't want the new president mucking-around in a process
he doesn't understand, a process that has reshaped the world in a way that clearly benefits US mega-corporations
while reinforcing Washington's iron grip on global power. The bottom line is that "violence works"
and any deviation from the present policy represents a direct threat to the people whose continued
power and prosperity depend on that violence.
This is why none of the major media published Trump's comments. The corporate bosses who own
the media have nothing to gain by promoting the views of a populist executive who wants to minimize
the carnage by working cooperatively with foreign leaders the media has already designated as 'enemies
of the state', like Vladimir Putin. How does that advance the media's agenda?
It doesn't, which is why they'd rather the public remain in the dark about what Trump actually
said.
But the Washington power-elite know what Trump said, and they have acted accordingly. They
have put together a plan that is designed to undermine Trump's credibility, back him into a corner
and remove him from office. That's the plan, regime change in the USA.
This is why CIA Director John Brennan took the unprecedented step of appearing on FOX News
Sunday. Brennan and the other heads of the Intelligence Community have taken a leading role in the
desperate character assassination campaign that is intended to obliterate public confidence in Trump
in order to foil his attempts at resetting relations with Russia. The CIA's involvement in the
coups in Ukraine and Honduras, as well as the agency's funding, arming and training of Sunni militants
in Libya and Syria, attest to the fact that Brennan does not see peace and reconciliation as compatible
with US foreign policy objectives. Like his elitist paymasters, Brennan is committed to perpetual
war, regime change, and mass annihilation. Trump offers some relief from this 70 year-long nightmare
policy. Check out this quote from Vice President-elect, Mike Pence on FOX News Sunday:
"I think the president elect has made it very clear that we have a terrible relationship with
Russia right now. And that's not all our own doing, but really is a failure of American diplomacy
in successive administrations. And what the president elect has determined to do is to explore
the possibility of better relations. We have a common enemy in ISIS, and the ability to work with
Russia to confront, hunt down and destroy ISIS at its source represents an enormously important
priority of this incoming administration. But what the American people like about Donald Trump
is that he's someone who can sit down, roll his sleeves up and make a deal. And what you're hearing
in his reflections whether it be with Russia, or China or other countries in the world, is that
we're going to reengage. We're going to put America first, we're going to reengage in a way that
advances America's interests in the world and that advances peace."
Not on your life. US elites and their think tank lackeys would never allow it, not in a million
years. Even now, after six years of death and destruction in Syria, elites at the Council on Foreign
Relations are still resolved to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (Re: "Aleppo's Sobering
Lessons," Project Syndicate, by Richard Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations) The
same is true at the Brookings Institute where chief strategist Michael O' Hanlon leads the charge
for splitting up the battered country so Washington can control vital pipeline corridors, establish
military bases in the east, and eliminate a potential threat to Israeli expansion. Here's a clip
from a recent piece by O' Hanlon that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The author admits that
the US goal is to splinter to country into multiple parts transforming it into a failed state:
"To achieve peace, Syria will need self-governance within a number of autonomous zones. One
option is a confederal system by which the whole country is divided into such zones. A less desirable
but minimally acceptable alternative could be several autonomous zones within an otherwise still-centralized
state-similar to how Iraqi Kurdistan has functioned for a quarter-century .
Many Syrians will not like the idea of a confederal nation, or even of a central government
controlling half the country with the other half divided into three or four autonomous zones.
But the broad vision should be developed soon."
(Wall Street Journal)
"Autonomous zones" in a "confederal system" is a sobriquet for a broken, Balkanized failed state
run by tribal elders, disparate warlords and bloodthirsty jihadists. O' Hanlon's vision for Syria
is a savage dysfunctional dystopia run by homicidal fanatics who rule with an iron fist. Is it any
wonder why the Syrian people have fought tooth and nail to fend off the terrorist onslaught?
The United States is entirely responsible for the bloody decimation of Syria. It is absurd to
think that either the Saudis, the Qataris or the Turks would have launched a war on a strategically-critical
nation like Syria without a green light from Washington. The conflict is just the latest hotspot
in Washington's 15 year-long war of terror. The ultimate goal is to remove all secular Arab leaders
who may pose a threat to US imperial ambitions, open up the region to US-dominated extractive industries,
and foment enough extremism to legitimize a permanent military presence.
Russia's intervention into the Syrian conflict in September 2015, has cast doubt on Washington's
ability to prevail in the six year-long war. The election of Donald Trump has further complicated
matters by affecting a seismic shift in policy that could end the fighting and lead to improved relations
between the US and Russia. Naturally, that is not in the interests of the vicious neocons or their
liberal interventionist counterparts who see the proxy war in Syria as a pivotal part of their plan
to clip Russia's wings, discredit Putin in the eyes of the international community, and lay the groundwork
for regime change in Moscow. Washington's ultimate plan for Russia hews closely to that of Zbigniew
Brzezinski who– in an titled "A Geostrategy for Eurasia"– had this to say:
"Given (Russia's) size and diversity, a decentralized political system and free-market economics
would be most likely to unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russia's vast
natural resources. A loosely confederated Russia - composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic,
and a Far Eastern Republic - would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations
with its neighbors. Each of the confederated entitles would be able to tap its local creative
potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow's heavy bureaucratic hand. In turn, a decentralized
Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization." (Zbigniew Brzezinski, A Geostrategy
for Eurasia, Foreign Affairs, 76:5, September/October 1997)
Nice, eh? In other words, Washington's plan for Russia is no different than its plan for Syria.
Both countries will be chopped up into smaller bite-size chunks eliminating the possibility of a
strong nationalist government rising up and resisting Washington's relentless exploitation and repression.
It's divide and conquer writ large.
"A loosely confederated Russia" also fits perfectly with Washington's top priority to spread military
bases across Asia, control crucial energy supplies, open up financial markets, impose Washington's
neoliberal economic policies, and maintain a stranglehold on China's explosive growth. It's the Great
Game all over again, and Washington is "In it to win it."
Here's an excerpt from a speech Hillary Clinton gave in 2011 titled "America's Pacific Century".
The speech underscores the importance that elites attach to the "rebalancing" plan contained in the
term "pivot to Asia". The strategy relies on the opening up of new markets to US corporations and
Wall Street, controlling critical resources, and "forging a broad-based military presence" across
the continent. Washington intends to be the main player in the world's most prosperous region. Here's
Clinton:
"The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States
will be right at the center of the action . One of the most important tasks of American statecraft
over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment - diplomatic,
economic, strategic, and otherwise - in the Asia-Pacific region
Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests
and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented
opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology ..American firms (need)
to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than
half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's
goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in
Asia."
("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine,
2011)
Onward, to Asia, the next great US battlefield! The killing never ends.
As we noted earlier, the pivot to Asia is Washington's top priority. Clinton merely confirms what
geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski laid out in his 1997 magnum opus The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Here's a short excerpt from the book:
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest
continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the
world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. .About 75 per cent of the world's
people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its
enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about
three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)
For Washington to achieve its foreign policy objectives, it must eliminate or defeat all emerging
threats to its dominance. In practical terms, that means the Russo-Sino plan to transform Europe
and Asia into a giant free trade zone that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok– must be sabotaged
by any means possible. The State Department's coup in Kiev as well as aggressive efforts to restrict
the flow of Russian gas to the EU via Nord Stream and South Stream, have temporarily succeeded in
undermining Moscow's plan for accelerated economic integration. Had Hillary won the election, the
US would have stepped up its provocations, its sanctions, its military buildup on Russia's borders,
its gas war, its attacks on Russia's markets and currency, and its proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine.
But now that Trump has been thrown into the mix, anything is possible. Even a fundamental change
in the policy.
The question is whether the deep state powerbrokers –who have already launched a number of attacks
on Trump in the media - will throw in the towel and allow Trump to develop his own independent foreign
policy or take steps to have him removed from office.
Early indications suggest that a coup is already underway.
Trump to date has been "all talk and no action" and as we know "actions speak louder than words".
The voters who put their trust in Trump rather than Hillary now expect actions and Trump to deliver
on his election "plank".
Needless to say politicians tend to "talk the walk" but not "walk the walk". So unless he delivers
he is going to be another big disappointment for his supporters. I and many other cynics have
maintained he is not going to deliver.
But, what do I know? However the American Establishment probably knows a lot more than me and
if they are worried about Trump and want him out of power then they feel threatened by him and
his supporters may have really voted for a change that challenges the status quo.
A purge of the Neo -liberal Globalist Establishment is long over due and much to be desired BUT
we don't know who and what will replace them. Trump may be an "existential threat" to the malevolent
swamp creatures that dwell in Washington but he might also be a threat to the whole country. We
hope for a benevolent outcome; "Time will tell".
But none of it has worked. Brzezinski, or whoever, can write books, can dream big, can play
with maps after dinner at Georgetown parties – but it is has not worked. The 'divide and conquer'
ended up dividing the world more, and conquering almost nothing. It is a mess, and the coming
consequences were going to be dire.
Results matter. Trump is not just an emotional reaction to the crazy globalist neocon-liberal
idiocy, he is also a reaction to failure. If Clinton took over and doubled down on the same policies
(she was going to), there simply would be a lot more failure. And there is no way to dress up
failures as 'good for us'. Neo-cons/liberals have had everything on their side – power, academia,
media, all institutions – except results.
Trump might fail, or he might succeed, but by coming in at this time, he is in effect saving
the failing policies – they don't have to answer for the obvious and accelerating failures that
these interventions have caused. The authors will avoid consequences and will very quickly
shift into 'we were betrayed', or 'if we just had 10 more years', the usual escapist nonsense
that failed ideologues always use. (The communist ideologues still claim that the problem was
that 'they should had tried harder, had 'purer' communism', blabla .and same is true about other
failed ideologies).
And they will be back. Whether in 'a year or two' as Kerry just said at Davos, or in 2020,
2024, they will be back. This mental state is incurable. (But if we get a few years break, well,
let's be thankful for that.)
An interesting and well-reasoned post. Indeed, it's kind of shocking when you think about it
just how much our government is doing running around the world messing in the affairs of nations
that really shouldn't be our concern
About whether Trump means what he said during the campaign, well yes, there is always the danger
that he will 'pull an Obama' and stab his constituents in the back – talk is cheap. And yet, if
that were the case then, as with Obama, we would expect the elites to make nice with him. Instead
the elites are if anything ramping up their attacks.
Now the enemy of my enemy is not always a friend – Trump could yet be a disaster. But the war
that the deep state is waging on him is perhaps not a bad sign.
And for those who find his tweets repellent, well, that's the only mechanism he has to avoid
letting the corporate press completely shut him out and control the dialog. Trump's genius (or
luck) is that by being outrageous he has, unlike Nader or Perot or Dean etc., been unable to be
silenced by the corporate press. Although in the long run it can't be a sustainable system I would
say that breaking up the big corporate industrial/press cartels should be a prime aim. No more
news outlets owned by (for example) tech titans with a zillion dollars in CIA contracts and numerous
other non-press business interests, you get the idea.
For Washington to achieve its foreign policy objectives, it must eliminate or defeat all
emerging threats to its dominance. In practical terms, that means the Russo-Sino plan to transform
Europe and Asia into a giant free trade zone that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok– must
be sabotaged by any means possible.
Too late. In December the last remaining Sharia objections to trade in gold were resolved.
One billion plus Muslims can now bypass paper money at will and trade in gold. (Gaddafi attempted
to do that in Africa and it cost him his life) China has begun to purchase oil with gold all over
the mideast. Bye bye petro dollars. Hello breadlines in the former empire.
It is well worth considering the possibility that were our perpetual war making to finally
end, our "deep state neocon warmongers " might find themselves on the receiving end of a very
robust "reckoning" for the titanic criminal catastrophes they have inculcated.
Please tell me where is it written that they shouldn't be ?
The prodigious assault to disinherit President Trump may well reflect not only their contempt
at the thought he might be ending their "evil" wars, but the very real fear in their hearts, they
may be held to account, for starting them in the first place.
One cannot overstate the level of absolute impunity our Neocons have enjoyed over the last
decade, for committing some of the most horrific crimes the world has seen, since WWII.
Nor can one discount their imperial need of a win for Queen Hillary as being, first and foremost,
a lock on that very impunity.
Her loss at the ballot box had very little to do with the voters rejection of her projected
veneer of "progressive " values, but a frank realization by the electorate that Ms. Clinton was
nothing more than a belligerent neocon warmonger in a phony "liberal" pantsuit.
This "unraveling" has left them all twisting in the wind.
How could it not ?
After all, Donald Trump, is a billionaire oligarch who not only wants "peace", but has been
highly articulate and cuttingly accurate as to how (and why) our wars have been total disasters.
This presents quite an unsettling conundrum for all the back room billionaire oligarchs who
have always been able to buy their wars as well as the Presidents ( and the Press ) willing to
start them.
The fact they might, now, find themselves out of their hegemonic "drivers seat" .and in the
criminals "hot seat", as targets for "bone-crushing" war crimes tribunals, . could have them all
frantically climbing the walls.
Well, even if he does a little of what he promised – such as deport those illegals that have
a criminal record – that alone will be good. If he could also do something for the Millennials
to be able to move out of their parents' homes, that would be good too.
"... "the high military, the corporation executives, the political directorate have tended to come together to form the power elite of America." ..."
"... He describes how the power elite can be best described as a "triangle of power," linking the corporate, executive government, and military factions: "There is a political economy numerously linked with military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to any understanding of the higher circles in America today." ..."
"... During the election campaign the power elite's military faction under Trump confounded all political pundits by outflanking and decisively defeating the power elite's political faction. ..."
"... At the time this was the highest level internal US intelligence confirmation of the theory that western governments fundamentally see the Islamic State as their own tool for regime change in Syria. The military faction began a steady stream of "one-sided" leaks to Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh who published one article after another that undermined the political (Obama administration) and corporate (CIA and intelligence) factions of the power elite, while painting the military faction in a positive light. ..."
"... The first article entitled Whose Sarin? was published on 19 December, 2013 and concerned the East Ghouta sarin gas attack of August 21, 2013. Hersh documents a clear campaign within the power elite's military faction to "foot-drag" and hopefully block the planned US retaliation for crossing President Obama's "red line": "[S]ome members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were troubled by the prospect of a ground invasion of Syria as well as by Obama's professed desire to give rebel factions non-lethal support. In July, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, provided a gloomy assessment, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee in public testimony that 'thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces' would be needed to seize Syria's widely dispersed chemical warfare arsenal, along with 'hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines and other enablers'." ..."
"... A cornered Obama welcomed a draft UN resolution calling on the Assad government to get rid of its chemical arsenal. The political faction's step-down pleased many senior military officers, explains Hersh: "One high-level special operations adviser told me that the ill-conceived American missile attack on Syrian military airfields and missile emplacements, as initially envisaged by the White House, would have been 'like providing close air support for al-Nusra'." ..."
"... General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs had irritated many in the Obama administration by repeatedly warning Congress over the summer of the danger of American military involvement in Syria. The military faction also had the advantage of a British intelligence report of a sample of sarin, recovered by Russian military intelligence operatives, proving it was not from the Syrian army. Further suspicions were aroused within the military faction when more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with two kilograms of sarin. Hersh quotes his internal military source: "'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.'" ..."
"... Further revelations included how the Obama administration, through the CIA, had by early 2012 created a "rat line", a back channel highway into Syria, used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to jihadists, some of them affiliated with Al-Qaeda. ..."
"... Hersh's source explains how a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the assault by a local militia on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others in September 2012, revealed a secret agreement for the "rat line" reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations: "By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria." ..."
"... After Washington abruptly ended the CIA's role in the transfer of arms from Libya the "rat line" continued and became more ominous: "'The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks were relaying to the jihadists,' the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of Syrian rebels." ..."
In a recent UNZ article titled:
Political science's "theory of everything" a concise map of the US establishment, both the
visible and invisible government was mapped. Based on this map a theory emerged that showed how the
visible government has been subverted by an invisible unelected government that was described as
a corporate-deep-state. The levels of the US establishment were identified as a power elite conspiratorial
leadership overseeing a corporatocracy and directing a deep state that has gradually subverted the
visible US government and taken over the "levers of power."
The power elite
The invisible rulers of the US establishment were revealed by Professor C. Wright Mill in his
article titled, The Structure of
Power in American Society (The British Journal of Sociology, March 1958), in which he explains
how, "the high military, the corporation executives, the political directorate have tended to come
together to form the power elite of America."
He describes how the power elite can be best described as a "triangle of power," linking the corporate,
executive government, and military factions: "There is a political economy numerously linked with
military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to
any understanding of the higher circles in America today."
The 2016 US election, like all other US elections, featured a gallery of pre-selected candidates
that represented the three factions and their interests within the power elite. The 2016 US election,
however, was vastly different from previous elections. As the election dragged on the power elite
became bitterly divided, with the majority supporting Hilary Clinton, the candidate pre-selected
by the political and corporate factions, while the military faction rallied around their choice of
Donald Trump.
During the election campaign the power elite's military faction under Trump confounded all
political pundits by outflanking and decisively defeating the power elite's political faction.
In fact by capturing
the Republican nomination and overwhelmingly defeating the Democratic establishment, Trump and the
military faction not just shattered the power elites' political faction, within both the Democratic
and Republican parties, but simultaneously ended both the Clinton and Bush dynasties.
During the election campaign the power elite's corporate faction realised, far too late, that
Trump was a direct threat to their power base, and turned the full force of their corporate media
against Trump's military faction, while Trump using social media bypassed and eviscerated the corporate
media causing them to lose all remaining credibility.
As the election reached a crescendo this battle between the power elite's factions became visible
within the US establishment's entities. A schism developed between the Defense Department and the
highly politicized CIA This schism, which can be attributed to the corporate-deep-state's covert
foreign policy, traces back to the CIA orchestrated "color revolutions" that had swept the Middle
East and North Africa.
The covert invasion of Syria
A US Pentagon, DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was
circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State
Dept., and many others.
Astoundingly, the
declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN]
OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY
IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION
WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The document shows that as early as 2012, US intelligence predicted the rise of the Salafist Islamic
State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy,
the report envisions the terror group as a US strategic asset.
At the time this was the highest level internal US intelligence confirmation of the theory that
western governments fundamentally see the Islamic State as their own tool for regime change in Syria.
The military faction began a steady stream of "one-sided" leaks to Pulitzer Prize winning investigative
journalist, Seymour Hersh who published
one article after another
that undermined the political (Obama administration) and corporate (CIA and intelligence) factions
of the power elite, while painting the military faction in a positive light.
Whose sarin?
The first article entitled
Whose Sarin?
was published on 19 December, 2013 and concerned the East Ghouta sarin gas attack of August
21, 2013. Hersh documents a clear campaign within the power elite's military faction to "foot-drag"
and hopefully block the planned US retaliation for crossing President Obama's "red line": "[S]ome
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were troubled by the prospect of a ground invasion of Syria
as well as by Obama's professed desire to give rebel factions non-lethal support. In July, General
Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, provided a gloomy assessment, telling the Senate Armed
Services Committee in public testimony that 'thousands of special operations forces and other ground
forces' would be needed to seize Syria's widely dispersed chemical warfare arsenal, along with 'hundreds
of aircraft, ships, submarines and other enablers'."
A cornered Obama welcomed a draft UN resolution calling on the Assad government to get rid of
its chemical arsenal. The political faction's step-down pleased many senior military officers, explains
Hersh: "One high-level special operations adviser told me that the ill-conceived American missile
attack on Syrian military airfields and missile emplacements, as initially envisaged by the White
House, would have been 'like providing close air support for al-Nusra'."
The Red Line and the Rat Line
The second article titled
The Red Line and the Rat Line was published on 17 April, 2014 and explains why Obama delayed
and then relented on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya: "The answer lies in a clash
between those in the administration (political faction) who were committed to enforcing the red line,
and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous."
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs had irritated many in the Obama administration
by repeatedly warning Congress over the summer of the danger of American military involvement in
Syria. The military faction also had the advantage of a British intelligence report of a sample of
sarin, recovered by Russian military intelligence operatives, proving it was not from the Syrian
army. Further suspicions were aroused within the military faction when more than ten members of the
al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with two kilograms of sarin. Hersh quotes his internal
military source: "'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence
official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts
in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red
line threat.'"
Further revelations included how the Obama administration, through the CIA, had by early 2012
created a "rat line", a back channel highway into Syria, used to funnel weapons and ammunition from
Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to jihadists, some of them affiliated with
Al-Qaeda.
Hersh's source explains how a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the assault by a local militia
on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the
death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others in September 2012, revealed a secret
agreement for the "rat line" reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations:
"By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the
CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria."
After Washington abruptly ended the CIA's role in the transfer of arms from Libya the "rat line"
continued and became more ominous: "'The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks
were relaying to the jihadists,' the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as
forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of
Syrian rebels."
The Killing of Osama bin Laden
The third article titled
The Killing of Osama bin Laden was published on 17 April, 2014. The Obama administration
needed a public relations win on the eve of his second term election and according to Hersh's military
source: "'the killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama's military credentials.'"
Hersh's article goes on to systematically debunk the Obama administration's entire clumsy cover
story while implicating the Saudis and Pakistanis who financed and protected Osama bin Laden. He
goes on to reveal that once he had outlived his usefulness, to the Pakistanis, he was traded to the
Americans who murdered him in cold blood and tossed his mutilated body parts over the Hindu Kish
mountains.
The article further reveals how the Senate Intelligence Committee's long-delayed report on CIA
torture, released in December 2013 concluded that the CIA lied systematically about the effectiveness
of its torture programme in gaining intelligence that would stop future terrorist attacks in the
US.
Military to Military
Hersh's fourth article titled
Military
to Military was published on 7 January 2016, and details how an exasperated military faction
continued to repeat warnings that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to Libyan style chaos and,
potentially, to Syria's takeover by jihadi extremists. They were continuously ignored by both the
political faction and the intelligence services: "[A]lthough many in the American intelligence community
were aware that the Syrian opposition was dominated by extremists the CIA-sponsored weapons kept
coming General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their dissent out of
bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. 'Flynn incurred the
wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,' said Patrick Lang, a retired
army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer
for the DIA. 'He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out. He wouldn't shut up.'
Flynn told me his problems went beyond Syria. 'I was shaking things up at the DIA – and not just
moving deckchairs on the Titanic. It was radical reform. I felt that the civilian leadership did
not want to hear the truth. I suffered for it, but I'm OK with that.'"
Hersh's paper further highlights a rebellion under the leadership of Joint Chiefs of Staff that
was then led by General Martin Dempsey. He began to send a flow of US intelligence through allied
militaries to the Syrian Arab Army and he orchestrated a deliberate plan to downgrade the quality
of the arms being supplied to the rebels by the CIA The military's indirect pathway to Assad disappeared
with Dempsey's retirement in September 2015. The political faction then replaced Dempsey, as chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, with General Joseph Dunford who advocated a "hard line" on Russia.
The power elite's military faction realised that radical reform could not begin until the military
faction had full political support behind them.
Rise of the Generals
In the 2016 US election Trump with the full weight of the military faction behind him pulled off
a stunning victory against the entire political faction – defeating both the Democratic and Republican
Party machines – and the corporate media.
The cornerstone of the corporatocracy, the Wall Street lobby, due to the sheer amount of fiat
petrodollar based money it generates, and the influence it has over the US establishment was officially
dethroned. The locus of power within the power elite had suddenly and dramatically shifted from Wall
St to the Pentagon.
Although the situation is very fluid on the eve of the Trump presidency a map highlighting the
US establishment entities supporting either Trump or his defeated opponent Clinton can be arguably
mapped below.
Trump quickly named security hardliners including past and present generals and FBI officials,
to key security and intelligence positions while the corporate media accused Trump of having a starry-eyed
fascination with the brass of America's losing wars.
Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was forced from his position as director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency in 2014, will be President-elect Donald Trump's national security adviser. Army
retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg will be serving in a supporting capacity to Flynn as chief
of staff of the National Security Council (NSC).
Trump selected retired General James Mattis to lead the Department of Defense. Mattis, a
documented war criminal , had helped cover up the 2005 Haditha massacre of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians
by US soldiers. His soldiers also directly committed war crimes in the US sieges of Fallujah in 2004,
when his forces not only used white phosphorus but fired on and killed up to 5,000 innocent civilians.
General Mattis has called for a "new security architecture for the Mideast built on sound policy
Iran is a special case that must be dealt with as a threat to regional stability, nuclear and otherwise."
On a positive Mattis also got Trump to
reconsider his stance on torture stating, "'I've never found it to be useful."
General John Kelly, another long-serving Marine with a reputation for bluntness, has been picked
to head the Department of Homeland Security. He is the most senior US officer to have lost a child
in the "war on terror". His son Robert, a first lieutenant in the marines, was killed in combat in
Afghanistan in 2010. He therefore strongly opposed efforts by the Obama administration to close the
prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, claiming that the remaining detainees were "all bad boys," both
guilty and dangerous.
And in selecting career military men like Flynn, Mattis and Kelly as his senior civilian advisers
on military matters, Trump is in essence strengthening defense while creating rival intelligence
entities that will remain loyal to his military faction.
Meanwhile Big Oil's Rex Tillerson - the former CEO of world's largest oil company, ExxonMobil
- is to be Secretary of State. He has a two-decade relationship with Russian President Vladimir V.
Putin, who awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship in 2013.
Mindful of others who defied the US establishment, Trump's supporters delivered an ominous warning
to rival power elite factions that
should Trump be assassinated then a civil war would follow. In reality an assassination in today's
climate, without the support of the corporatocracy's now discredited media, would usher in martial
law and further ensconce the military faction within their seat of power.
Playing chess like Putin
Trump and his military faction appear to greatly admire Putin personally, and in September 2016
during the NBC Commander-in-Chief Forum Trump stated: "I will tell you that, in terms of leadership,
he's getting an 'A' and our president is not doing so well." Trump's military faction, unlike the
other two factions sees Russia as more of a partner than an adversary and he is deeply committed
to reorienting American foreign policy in a pro-Russian direction.
Trump knows Putin's history well and appears intent on following in his footsteps. Putin took
office by
striking a deal with Russia's political elite to protect former Russian President Yeltsin and
his family from prosecution in exchange for Putin becoming Prime Minister and later President.
Then on July 28, 2000, after they had funded his election campaign, Vladimir Putin gathered the
18 most powerful businessmen (corporatocracy) in Russia and denounced the corporate elite as creators
of a corrupt state. During the transition from Communism in the 1990s these oligarchs – the majority
Jewish – had taken control of every single lever of power in Russia including the central bank, the
mass media and even the Kremlin.
In a second meeting on January 24, 2001, Vladimir Putin met with 21 leading oligarchs and stressed
that the Russian state had no plans to re-nationalize the economy, but added that they should have
"a feeling of responsibility [to] the people and the country" and asked them to donate $2.6 million
to a fund he was setting up to help families of soldiers wounded or killed in action.
True to his word the oligarchs that complied were allowed to keep the money they had looted from
the Russian people. Those that didn't comply, like Berezovsky and Gusinsky, Russia's two most infamous
and hated oligarchs, were gradually pushed out, and in some cases even imprisoned.
After defeating the oligarchs and gaining control of their media Putin then began to methodically
cleanse the Russian government and the Kremlin of corporate influence.
Corporatocracy
Professor Jeffry Sachs calls the US corporate conspiracy The Rigged Game in which the political
system has come to be controlled by powerful corporate interest groups – the "corporatocracy" – who
dominate the policy agenda. Sachs explains how "[a] healthy economy is a mixed economy, in which
government and the marketplace both play their role. Yet the federal government has neglected its
role for three decades."
President Trump appears to have taken a page from Sach's book and, even before taking office,
is signalling that his government will not neglect its role.
During an interview with Fortune on April 19, 2016, Donald Trump explicitly explained how
he planned on taking back the economic "levers of power" from Wall Street's Federal Reserve by supporting:
"proposals that would take power away from the Fed, and allow Congress to audit the U.S. central
bank's decision making."
On December, 6, 2016 it was the
military industrial complex's Boeing that felt the brunt of his attack when President-elect Donald
Trump called for the scrapping of multi-billion dollar plans for Boeing to build a new Air Force
One, calling the costs "ridiculous and totally out of control." He then followed this up on December
12, 2016, when he took on the
Lockheed Martin by attacking the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on Twitter, saying the cost of the
next-generation stealth plane is "out of control," stating: "Billions of dollars can and will be
saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th."
In an early December
interview with TIME ahead of his selection as TIME's Person of the Year, Trump railed against
the Healthcare lobby when he stated that he doesn't "like what's happened with drug prices" and that
he will "bring down" the cost of prescription medication.
Even earlier, on January 2016, at Liberty University, Trump had startled Silicon Valley when he
promised to punish companies that offshore production by placing
tariffs on their imports coming back to the US: "We're going to get Apple to build their damn
computers and things in this country instead of in other countries."
The Big Oil lobby, initially ambivalent, now appears to have put its weight behind Trump. There
are signs that the Big Oil lobby may have fallen out with the corporatocracy over the economic sanctions
on Russia and access to its vast untapped oil fields, as well as Saudi Arabia's two years of flooding
the global market with cheap crude in order to drive oil prices down and economically damage the
Russian economy. This policy had made both US shale oil and US energy independence unsustainable.
While the corporatocracy will survive, the days of crony capitalism appear to be coming to an
end.
The death of neoliberalism
The Trump election, much like Brexit before it, signals an entirely new development not witnessed
since the shift towards neoliberalism under President Reagan over 40 years ago. Trump has promised
to end the neoliberal, hyper-globalisation ideology in which the interests of the working class have
been sacrificed in favour of the corporatocracy that has been encouraged to invest around the world
depriving Americans of their jobs.
The global financial crisis of 2008, the worst since the great depression of 1931, saw Wall Street
bailed out by the taxpayers while the responsible bankers were not prosecuted for their crimes. Under
the Obama administration this was further compounded by rejecting bailouts for homeowners, oversee
growing inequality, militarisation, covert operations and the facilitating of overseas war crimes.
Meanwhile, nine years on, the neoliberal practice of quantitative easing has failed to revive
the economic patient who remains on "life support." This after effect of the global financial crisis
has served to undermine the peoples' faith and trust in the competence of the power elite's political
faction and the corporate media. Trump's ascendency thus signals the beginning of the end of the
neoliberal era.
Trumps promise to, "Put America first," pulls the plug on neoliberalism's economic life support
and imposes a new era of economic nationalism. The military faction will abandon unfettered capitalism,
free trade agreements and globalisation in favour of de-globalisation, economic nationalism, rebuilding
of infrastructure, the middle class and manufacturing.
The table below is fluid but is based on current policy details, revealed by Trump, and details
how the current neoliberal policies may gradually shift to policies of economic nationalism.
Government departments
Masses' Policies
Neo-Liberal Policies
Economic nationalism Policies
Corporatocracy lobbies
Dept. of State
Establishment of friendly relations with other nations.
Maintenance of the petrodollar through the support of compliant authoritarian nations or
covert funding of unstable extremists to overthrow non-compliant nations
Maintenance of the petrodollar through the support of compliant authoritarian nations.
Multilateral approach of working with Russia while continuing to isolate China and Iran
Wall Street-Washington complex
Dept. of the Treasury
Lower and fairer tax system that incentivises workers and savers
Financialisation, corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and overseas tax havens.
nationalisation, cutting of corporate subsidies, closing of tax loopholes and overseas
tax havens.
Universal human rights, equal justice and fair trials
Non-prosecution of criminal bank leaders, with prosecution of deep state whistle blowers.
Prosecution of corporate crime, Non-prosecution of military and police crimes, continued
prosecution of deep state whistle blowers.
Dept. of Housing & Urban Development
Affordable and easily accessible housing.
Financialisation, housing speculation and homelessness.
Removal of "red tape", opening up of land for building
Dept. of Defense
Security and Defense of citizens against foreign enemies
Maintenance of the petrodollar, full spectrum dominance, exceptionalism, war on terrorism
and the militarization of foreign policy .
Maintenance of the petrodollar, full spectrum dominance, multi-polarity, war on terrorism
military-industrial complex
Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Support and subsidies for veterans
Cheap outsourced care facilities and abandoned veterans.
Renationalisation of care facilities and housing, medical and mental care
for war veterans.
Dept. of Transport
Electric vehicles, subsidised transport and easily accessible transportation
grid.
Subsidised car-centric policies and urban planning.
Subsidised car-centric policies and urban planning.
Big Oil-transport-military complex
Dept. of Energy
Environmental protection, reliable and nationalised mostly renewable energy
supply.
Subsidised fossil fuel energy dependence and debunking of climate change.
Subsidised fossil fuel energy dependence and debunking of climate change.
Dept. of the Interior
Management and conservation federal land and natural resources.
Waiving of environmental protection, access for sea lanes, pipelines, mining
and resource extraction.
Waiving of environmental protection, access for sea lanes, pipelines, mining
and resource extraction.
Dept. of Health & Human Services
Subsidised and universal Healthcare.
mandatory healthcare and privatisation.
privatised healthcare
Healthcare industry
Dept. of Homeland Security
Security and Privacy.
Mass Surveillance and copyright enforcement.
Mass Surveillance
Silicon Valley
Dept. of Agriculture
Healthy, nutritious and affordable food.
Food monopolisation and dependence through patented GMOs.
Breaking up of monopolies, increased competition.
Big Ag (Monsanto)
Dept. of Education
Subsidised and universal education.
Class-based privatisation and outsourcing.
Increased investment in education.
Organised Labor
Dept. of Labor
Jobs and decent wages.
Outsourcing, mass immigration to lower wages, commodification of Labor, deregulation,
deindustrialisation, under employment and unemployment.
Reshoring, border controls to boost wages, return of skilled labor, reregulation,
reindustrialisation, full employment, lower taxes
All lobbies
Monetary hegemony strategy
The power elite's monetary hegemony petrodollar strategy will remain unchanged under Trumps' military
faction. However, Trump's foreign policy signals the end of America's unipolar moment, the period
that was called the "new world order" by George Bush after the collapse of the former USSR and the
US's 1991 Gulf War victory.
It took the actions of former
rogue CIA operatives,
called Al Qaeda, to give the US an excuse to invade and conquer key economic chokepoints and
geopolitical pivot nations, in the heart of the world's oil reserves that would give the power elite
global economic and military dominance. These power elite plans were given to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, at the time, and documented in a memo that a puzzled senior staff officer showed to General
Wesley Clark:"[W]e're going to
take out seven countries in five years , starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
The Republican-led neoconservative "war on terror" phase, that took place from 2001 to 2011, symbolised
the overt US invasion, occupation and destruction of primarily Afghanistan and Iraq. When worldwide
condemnation combined with Iraqi military resistance proved too great, the power elite were forced
to switch to more covert means.
Under the new Obama administration, a Democratic-led, CIA-orchestrated "Arab Spring" took place
from 2011-2016 and symbolised the covert invasion of Libya and Syria using reconstituted terrorist
death squads. The power elite had not only used the 9/11 attack conducted by elements of their rogue
terrorist death squads to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, but they were now going to reconstitute a
compliant group of the same terrorists and use them to covertly invade Libya and Syria.
With the Syrian government's capture of Aleppo in late 2016, it became apparent to all observers
that both the overt and covert US invasions were soundly defeated primarily by heroic resistance
forces in Iraq and Syria, respectively.
With the barbaric US invasions blunted, the Trump administration now represents a rear-guard attempting
to hold onto key nations in the heart of the world's global energy reserves and maintain the US's
petrodollar monetary hegemony backing, while Trump transitions his economy from a financial to an
industrial economy. Trump will thus continue to secure the GCC nations, especially Saudi Arabia,
provided they reign in their terrorist death squads, plaguing the Middle East. Israel will also be
fully supported and used to maintain the current Middle Eastern stalemate against Iran.
It is however Trump's détente with Russia that is truly significant as it signals the end of the
unipolar "new world order." Russia will once again be allowed its own "sphere of influence." This
will most likely see Crimean reunification accepted the return of economically plundered Ukraine
to Russian influence and the Russian presence in Syria acknowledged.
In return the military faction wants to desperately break up the tripartite strategic Eurasian
team of Russia-China-Iran. The military faction wants Russia to help block China's rise in the South
China Sea and to contain Iran. The military faction appears to have been inspired by documented war
criminal, Henry Kissinger, who at
the Primakov lecture in February 2016 stated: "The long-term interests of both countries call
for a world that transforms the contemporary turbulence and flux into a new equilibrium which is
increasingly multipolar and globalized ..Russia should be perceived as an essential element of any
new global equilibrium, not primarily as a threat to the United States." Draining the swamp?
For the first time in memory the US establishment, consisting of the visible US Government and
the invisible corporate-deep-state that has subverted it, have had a dramatic schism. Contrary to
corporate media hand-wringing, the 2016 US election for the masses was never about a choice for Trump
over Clinton, it was in reality a choice of, the same united power elite maintaining the same US
establishment under President select Clinton, versus a divided power elite led by Trump's military
faction.
This seminal moment represents a change of both US strategy and tactics that have been used to
maintain the US's economic and military power.
Strategically, while the power elite have finally abandoned America's unipolar moment, they will
now maintain the US as a multipolar global hegemon receiving its petrodollar tribute. Their plans
are to finally grant Russia, but not China, its own "sphere of influence" and to cleave it away from
its Eurasian and Middle Eastern allies.
Economically and tactically neoliberalism, as an ideology, is now officially dead. The power elite's
corporatocracy (corporate faction) will be tamed and replaced by a protectionist, localised, rebuilding
of America's manufacturing base.
While not exactly "draining the swamp," the new Trump administration plans on "fencing off some
of the alligators" that have devoured so many innocents during 40 years of neoliberalism at home
and militarism abroad.
To listen to a podcast by the author explaining how the political science's "theory of everything"
may help to predict the new Trump administration select the following link:
Krauthammer said, "I wanted to make a point about the speech. A part that we overlooked but I
am sure is not being overlooked around the world. There are two audiences obviously for inaugural
address-domestic and foreign. I guarantee you that they are quaking in their boots in foreign
capitals, particularly of our allies and trading partners. The way that Trump spoke about the
outside world was the most aggressive, most sort of hyper nationalist and in some ways, most
hostile of any inaugural address I think since the second World War. What Trump pointed out, what
he drew was a picture of a zero-sum world where what we've done for the world, they have been
stealing from us. He says for decades we have enriched foreign industry at the expense of our
American industry, subsidized others' military at the expense of the weakening of our army."
"We've made others rich while becoming poor. Then this scattering sense that the wealth of our
middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed around the world. In other
words, the other guys, "the other," including friends. Kennedy spoke harshly about the communist
world. This is about our allies," he continued.
"They have been stealing from us, our corrupt ruling class has taken the money of the
middle-class and sent it around the world. That is the exaggerated anti-globalist view. I can
understand a lot of the sentiments, but imagine how this has been heard in East Asia, in Europe,
in other places, and then he ends up with a phrase that may not be as a resonant here, he says we
are going to have one principle, "America First." It is capitalized in the version that you get
printed out, and capitalized in the name of the isolationist party from the 1930s that fought to
keep us out of any entanglements abroad, i.e., out of the second World War, led by Charles
Lindbergh and others that dismantled a week after Pearl Harbor. For many people around the world,
the British in particular, that is quite a resonant phrase, and it says to them, to the free
world, since Harry Truman and Eisenhower, we constructed a world where we carried a lot of
you-economically, militarily, etc. That game is over, you are on your own. That is an amazing
message for an inaugural address. We heard it on the campaign, but that is policy now and it's
going to have a huge effect around the world."
Summers and Krugman. See their most recent columns. I think
more of the level-headed elites are thinking/hoping that
Trump will be 4 years and out and it will all blow over.
From comments: "Saying Davos without Trump is like Hamlet without the prince implies a dignity
about the event which is rather far fetched. More like the Dark Side without Darth Vader ... trouble
is, Davos ain't fiction." "The biggest cabal of sociopathic criminals the world has ever
known."
Notable quotes:
"... This is not new. Klaus Schwab, the man who founded the World Economic Forum in the early 1970s, warned as long ago as 1996 that globalisation had entered a critical phase. "A mounting backlash against its effects, especially in the industrial democracies, is threatening a very disruptive impact on economic activity and social stability in many countries," he said. ..."
"... Schwab's warning was not heeded. There was no real attempt to make globalisation work for everyone. Communities affected by the export of jobs to countries where labour was cheaper were left to rot. The rewards of growth went disproportionately to a privileged few. Resentment quietly festered until there was a backlash. For Schwab, Brexit and Trump are a bitter blow, a repudiation of what he likes to call the spirit of Davos. ..."
"... It would be wrong, however, to imagine that business is terrified at the prospect of a Trump presidency. Boardrooms rather like the idea of a big cut in US corporation tax. They favour deregulation. They purr at plans to spend more on infrastructure. Wall Street is happy because it thinks the new president will mean stronger growth and higher corporate earnings. ..."
"... 'Policy decisions-not God, nature, or the invisible hand-exposed American manufacturing workers to direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. Policymakers could have exposed more highly paid workers such as doctors and lawyers to this same competition, but a bipartisan congressional consensus, and presidents of both parties, instead chose to keep them largely protected.' ..."
"... Good article by the way. Recommend others to read. Thanks. ..."
"... Stop trying to shackle every conservative to the desperate and ugly views of the few. Deplorables and their alt-right kin, are so small in number. We ought keep an eye on the Deplorables but little else ... they're politically insignificant. I wish you'd stop trying to throw the average Republican voter into the basket of bigoted, racist rednecks. It's deplorable! ..."
"... Saying Davos without Trump is like Hamlet without the prince implies a dignity about the event which is rather far fetched. More like the Dark Side without Darth Vader ... trouble is, Davos ain't fiction. ..."
"... Why would Daniel go into the lion's den? Trump is committed to stopping the excesses of the "swamp rats" most of whom are at Davos. The world will be turned on its head in 2017; it is going to be interesting to watch the demise of those at the top of the pyramid. ..."
"... What exactly is the "Spirit of Davos" then? A bunch of fat, rich elderly men and their hangers-on troughing themselves to the point of bursting on fine wines and gourmet food, while paying lip-service to the poor? ..."
"... One question for Davos might be: how are you going to resolve differences between the vast majority of people who exist as national citizens, and the multinational elite? It's not a new question. ..."
"... Multinationals, corporate and individuals, can dodge the taxes which pay for services we all rely on but especially citizens. ..."
"... Davos is not restricting attendance to high office bearers. Trump could have gone, had he wanted to, or he could have sent one of his family/staff - that's how Davos works. ..."
"... Bilderberg is by invitation, as far as I know, Davos by application and paying a high membership, plus fee. But the fact he is not represented could be a good sign if it means that the focus is on solving domestic issues as opposed to spending so much time and resources on international ones. ..."
"... My own take on the annual Davos circus is as follows:. It is a totally useless conclave and has never achieved anything tangible since its inception. ..."
"... This gives an excellent opportunity for those who hold so-called "numbered" or other secret bank accounts in the proverbially secretive Swiss banks to have their annual tete-a-tete with their bankers and carry out whatever maintenance has to be done to their bank accounts. After all, in tiny Switzerland, it is only a hop from one town to another. No one will miss you if you are not visible for a day or two. If any nosy taxman back home asks: "What was the purpose of your visit to Switzerland?", one can say with a straight face: "Oh, I was invited to be a keynote speaker at Davos to talk about the increasing income disparity in the world and on what steps to take to mitigate it."! ..."
"... I think globalisation is inhumane. Someone calculated that if labour were to follow capital flows we would see one third of the globe move around on a constant basis. One son in Cape Town a daughter in New York and a brother in Tokyo. It's not how human societies operate we are group animals like herds of cows. We need to be firmly rooted in order to build functioning and humane societies. That is the migration aspect of globalization the other aspect is the complete destruction of diverse cultures. ..."
Trump's influence can also be felt in other ways. The manner in which he won the US election,
tapping in to deep-seated anger about the unfair distribution of the spoils of economic growth,
has been noted. There is talk in Davos of the need to ensure that globalisation works for everyone.
This is not new. Klaus Schwab, the man who founded the World Economic Forum in the early 1970s,
warned as long ago as 1996 that globalisation had entered a critical phase. "A mounting backlash
against its effects, especially in the industrial democracies, is threatening a very disruptive
impact on economic activity and social stability in many countries," he said.
Schwab's warning was not heeded. There was no real attempt to make globalisation work for everyone.
Communities affected by the export of jobs to countries where labour was cheaper were left to
rot. The rewards of growth went disproportionately to a privileged few. Resentment quietly festered
until there was a backlash. For Schwab, Brexit and Trump are a bitter blow, a repudiation of what
he likes to call the spirit of Davos.
It would be wrong, however, to imagine that business is terrified at the prospect of a Trump
presidency. Boardrooms rather like the idea of a big cut in US corporation tax. They favour deregulation.
They purr at plans to spend more on infrastructure. Wall Street is happy because it thinks the
new president will mean stronger growth and higher corporate earnings.
In Trump's absence, it has been left to two senior members of the outgoing Obama administration
– his vice-president, Joe Biden, and secretary of state John Kerry – to fly the US flag.
Just
as significantly, Xi Jinping is the first Chinese premier to attend Davos and has made it clear
that, unlike Trump, he has no plans to resile from international obligations. The sense of a changing
of the guard is palpable.
missuswatanabe
It's the way globalisation has been managed for the benefit of the richest in the developed
world that has been bad for the masses rather than globalisation itself.
I thought this was an interesting, if US-centric, perspective on things:
'Policy decisions-not God, nature, or the invisible hand-exposed American manufacturing
workers to direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. Policymakers could
have exposed more highly paid workers such as doctors and lawyers to this same competition,
but a bipartisan congressional consensus, and presidents of both parties, instead chose to
keep them largely protected.'
Good article by the way. Recommend others to read. Thanks.
Paul Paterson -> ConBrio
Decent, hardworking Americans facing social and economic insecurity, whether on the right
or left, ought to be the focus. We need to deal with the concerns of the average citizen, however
it is they vote. Fringe groups don't serve our attention given tbe very real problems the country
faces.
Stop trying to shackle every conservative to the desperate and ugly views of the few. Deplorables
and their alt-right kin, are so small in number. We ought keep an eye on the Deplorables but
little else ... they're politically insignificant. I wish you'd stop trying to throw the average
Republican voter into the basket of bigoted, racist rednecks. It's deplorable!
What we should concern ourselves with is the very real social and economic insecurity felt
by many in red states and blue states alike. Those decent and hardworking Americans, regardless
of party, are joined in much. Deplorables aren't the average Republican voter and didn't win
Trump an election - they are too few to win much of anything.
What you keep referring to as Deplorables are decent Americans seeking change and socioeconomic
justice. You are mixing up citizens who happen to vote for the GOP withbwhite nationalist scum.
How dare you tar all conservatives with the hate monger brush!
Spunky325 -> Paul Paterson
Actually, before taking office, Trump strong-armed Ford and GM into putting more money in
their American plants, instead of moving more production to Mexico. He's also questioned cost-overruns
on Air Force One and several military projects which is causing companies to back off. I can't
think of another American president who has felt it was important to keep jobs in America or
who has questioned military spending. Good for him!
Paul Paterson -> Spunky325
You've made it quite clear "you can't think" as you've bought into the ruse. The question
is why are you so boastful about it? Trump's policies are even seen by economists on the right
as creating staggering levels of debt, creating more economic inequality and unlikely to increase
jobs.
Among many flaws, they point out tax proposals that hurt the poor and middle class to such
a degree it almost seems targeted. This is the same economic plot that has failed working Americans
repeatedly. You folks are getting caught up in a time share pitch and embracing policy that
has little chance to help the average American - however it is they vote. It isn't supposed
to but y'all are asleep at the wheel.
DrBlamm0
Saying Davos without Trump is like Hamlet without the prince implies a dignity about
the event which is rather far fetched. More like the Dark Side without Darth Vader ... trouble
is, Davos ain't fiction.
johhnybgood
Why would Daniel go into the lion's den? Trump is committed to stopping the excesses
of the "swamp rats" most of whom are at Davos. The world will be turned on its head in 2017;
it is going to be interesting to watch the demise of those at the top of the pyramid.
bilyou
What exactly is the "Spirit of Davos" then? A bunch of fat, rich elderly men and their
hangers-on troughing themselves to the point of bursting on fine wines and gourmet food, while
paying lip-service to the poor?
Maybe Trump just decided to trough it at his tower and avoid hanging out with a grotesque
bunch of insufferable see you next Tuesdays.
Ricardo_K
One question for Davos might be: how are you going to resolve differences between the
vast majority of people who exist as national citizens, and the multinational elite? It's not
a new question.
Multinationals, corporate and individuals, can dodge the taxes which pay for services we
all rely on but especially citizens.
James Patterson
Xi's statements on a trade war are completely self serving. But his assertions that he is
against protectionism and unfair trading practices is laughably hypocritical. China refuses
to let any Silicon Valley Internet company one inch past the Great Firewall. Under his direction
the CCP has imposed draconian regulations, which change by the week, on American Companies
operating in China making fair competition with local Chinese companies impossible.
The business climate in China is reprehensible. The CCP has resorted to extortion, requiring
that U.S. tech companies share their most sensitive trade secrets and IP with Chinese state
enterprises or get barred from conducting business there. Sadly, U.S. companies entered China
with high expectations and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in factories, labs and
equipment. This threat has caused many CEO's to sacrifice their company's long term viability
by transferring their most closely guarded technological advances to China or face the loss
their entire investment in China. Even so, multinationals are beginning the Chinese exodus
led by those with less financial exposure soon to be followed by companies like Apple despite
significant economic ties.
True, most people believe a 'trade war' with China means America is the defacto loser because
of dishonest reporting. The truth is that America's economic exposure to China is extremely
limited. U.S. exports to China represent only 7% of America's total exports worldwide; which
in turn accounts for less than 1% of total U.S. GDP (Wells Fargo Economics Group 2015). Most
of America's exports to China are raw materials, which can be redirected to other markets with
some effort. So even if China blocked all U.S. exports tomorrow, America's economy could absorb
the blow with minimal damage. This presents the U.S. government with a wide range of options
to deal with China's many trade infractions and unfair practices as aggressively or punitively
as it wishes.
europeangrayling
Poor Davos attendees. You feel for them at their fancy alpine Bilderberg. It's like the
meeting of the mafia organizations, if the mafia became legal and respected now and ran the
world economy. And I don't think those economic royalists at Davos miss Trump, Trump was a
small fish compared to the Davos people. They make Trump look like a dishwasher.
They are just pissed Trump came out against the TPP and those globalist 'free trade' deals,
and doesn't want more regime change maybe. They like everything else about Trump's policies,
the big tax cuts, environmental and banking deregulations galore, it's like Reagan 2.0, without
the 'free trade'. But they really want that 'free trade' though, those guys are used to getting
everything. Imagine if Bernie won, they would really hate that guy, he is also against the
TPPs and trade, and for less war, and against everything else they are used to. And that's
good, if those honorable brilliant Davos gentleman don't like you, that's not a bad thing.
soundofthesuburbs -> soundofthesuburbs
With secular stagnation we should all be asking why is economics so bad?
Keynesian redistributive capitalism went out with Margaret Thatcher and inequality has been
rising ever since (there is a clue there for the economists amongst us).
How did these new ideas rise to prominence?
"There Is No Nobel Prize in Economics
It's awarded by Sweden's central bank, foisted among the five real prizewinners, often to economists
for the 1% -- and the surviving Nobel family is strongly against it."
"The award for economics came almost 70 years later-bootstrapped to the Nobel in 1968 as a
bit of a marketing ploy to celebrate the Bank of Sweden's 300th anniversary." Yes, you read
that right: "a marketing ploy."
Today's economics rose to prominence by awarding its economists Nobel Prizes that weren't Nobel
Prizes.
No wonder it's so bad.
Global elites can use all sorts of trickery to put their ideas in place, but economics is economics
and if doesn't reflect how the economy operates it won't work.
Secular stagnation – what more evidence do we need?
HauptmannGurski -> bcarey
Davos is not restricting attendance to high office bearers. Trump could have gone, had
he wanted to, or he could have sent one of his family/staff - that's how Davos works.
Bilderberg is by invitation, as far as I know, Davos by application and paying a high membership,
plus fee. But the fact he is not represented could be a good sign if it means that the focus
is on solving domestic issues as opposed to spending so much time and resources on international
ones.
Meanwhile, alibaba's Jack Ma said in Davos that the US had spent many trillions on wars in
the last 30 years and neglected their own infrastructure. Money is for people, or some such
like, he said. Just mentioning it here, because the MSM tend to dislike running this kind of
remark.
Rajanvn -> HauptmannGurski
My own take on the annual Davos circus is as follows:. It is a totally useless conclave
and has never achieved anything tangible since its inception.
Did it, in any way, with all the stars in the financial galaxy gathered in one place, warn
against the 2008 global financial meltdown? The real reason why so many moneybags congregate
at a place which would be shunned by all who have no affinity for snow sports may be, according
to my own reckoning, may not be that innocent and may even be quite sinister.
This gives an excellent opportunity for those who hold so-called "numbered" or other
secret bank accounts in the proverbially secretive Swiss banks to have their annual tete-a-tete
with their bankers and carry out whatever maintenance has to be done to their bank accounts.
After all, in tiny Switzerland, it is only a hop from one town to another. No one will miss
you if you are not visible for a day or two. If any nosy taxman back home asks: "What was the
purpose of your visit to Switzerland?", one can say with a straight face: "Oh, I was invited
to be a keynote speaker at Davos to talk about the increasing income disparity in the world
and on what steps to take to mitigate it."!
Roland33
I think globalisation is inhumane. Someone calculated that if labour were to follow capital
flows we would see one third of the globe move around on a constant basis. One son in Cape
Town a daughter in New York and a brother in Tokyo. It's not how human societies operate we
are group animals like herds of cows. We need to be firmly rooted in order to build functioning
and humane societies. That is the migration aspect of globalization the other aspect is the
complete destruction of diverse cultures.
If everyone drives Toyota and everyone drinks Starbucks
we lose the diversity of culture that people claim they find so valuable. And replaces it with
a mono-culture of Levi jeans and McDonalds. Wealth inequality is really something that can
be reduced if you look various countries score higher in this regard than others while still
being highly successful market economies but I think money is secondary to the displacement
and alienation that come with the first two aspects of globalisation. I find it strange that
it is now the right that advocates reversing these neoliberal trends and the left that seems
to champion it. I was conscious during the 90's and anti-globalisation was clearly a left wing
issue. For whatever reason the left just leaves room for the right to harvest the grapes of
wrath they warned about many years ago. Don't blame the "populist" right ask why the left left
them the space.
"... What is called "Secular Stagnation" should be properly named "Secular Stagnation of societies which accepted neoliberalism as a polito-economical model". Very similar to what happened with Marxism: broken promised, impoverishment of the majority of population, filthy enrichment, corruption and all forms of degradation at the top. ..."
"... In the USA the level of elite degradation became really visible despite attempt to mask it with jingoism as a smoke screen (look at the candidates of the last Presidential race - the choice was between horrible and terrible) ..."
"... Speaking about the level of demoralization I understand why somebody might hate Trump, but Hillary as alternative ? Give me a break. In this sense wining about Trump inauguration just signify the inability to connect the dots and understand that the last election was what in chess was called Zugzwang. ..."
"... The fact is that neoliberalism as a social system no longer is viewed favorably by the majority of the US population (like Bolshevism before them in the USSR ). In this sense I think that with Trump election "the train just left the station". ..."
So he organically can't state the main point: neoliberal ideology is bankrupt and neoliberalism
as a social system is close, or may be entered the decline stage.
That's why neoliberal MSM lost large part of their influence. Much like Soviet MSM during Brezhnev's
rule.
What is called "Secular Stagnation" should be properly named "Secular Stagnation of societies
which accepted neoliberalism as a polito-economical model". Very similar to what happened with
Marxism: broken promised, impoverishment of the majority of population, filthy enrichment, corruption
and all forms of degradation at the top.
Neoliberal elite ("masters of the universe") is split. The majority is still supporting "change
we can believe in" (the slogan courtesy of master of "bait and switch") which means "kick the
can down the road". While the other part is flirting with far right movements.
In the USA the level of elite degradation became really visible despite attempt to mask
it with jingoism as a smoke screen (look at the candidates of the last Presidential race - the
choice was between horrible and terrible)
Trump is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Look what happened when Marxist ideology
was discredited and everybody understood that Marxism can't deliver its social promises. And look
at the level of degradation of Soviet Politburo before the collapse which resulted is the election
of this naïve, "not so bright", deeply provincial, inexperienced politician (Gorbachov). who was
also determined "to make the USSR great again". The level of demoralization of the society was
pretty acute. Nobody believed the government, the MSM, the Party.
The system was unable to produce leaders of the caliber that can save it. That was one of the
reasons why it was doomed (bankruptcy of ideology means among other things that there is nobody
to defend it and nationalism works both ways). I think we see a very similar processes in
the USA now.
With CIA performing the role of KGB in their efforts to prevent or at least slow down the inevitable
changes is the system (although at the end of the day KGB brass was simply bought and stepped
aside allowing the Triumph of neoliberalism in the xUSSR space).
Speaking about the level of demoralization I understand why somebody might hate Trump,
but Hillary as alternative ? Give me a break. In this sense wining about Trump inauguration just
signify the inability to connect the dots and understand that the last election was what in chess
was called Zugzwang.
The fact is that neoliberalism as a social system no longer is viewed favorably by the
majority of the US population (like Bolshevism before them in the USSR ). In this sense I think
that with Trump election "the train just left the station".
And what happens
if Trump and co decide to purge intelligence agencies of individuals they consider undesirable?
I have no idea but I'm guessing they won't go flip burgers at McDonalds. (See also disbanding
the Iraqi army ca. 2003.) Will they exhibit an entrepreneurial spirit? If so then what form
will it take?
"It Can't Happen Here" - Color Revolution By Force
The "Donald Trump likes Russia" and "Russia bad" strategy was propagated by the Clinton election
campaign. It build on constant U.S. incitement against Russia after the U.S. coup in Ukraine partially
failed and after the Russian intervention on the side of the government in Syria. Hillary Clinton
as Secretary of State was the main force behind the original anti-Russian campaign. When Clinton
lost the election to Trump the theme connecting Trump and Russia was continued and
fanned by parts of the U.S. intelligence community.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI published a propaganda report claiming nefarious
Russian cyber activities during the election without providing any evidence. The report came together
with the
expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats by the Obama administration. The DHS then
planted a
false story of Russian cyber-intrusion into a Vermont utility with the Washington Post.
The Director of National Intelligence Clapper followed up with a "report" of alleged Russian interference
with the election. Even the Putinphobe Masha Gessen
found that to be a shoddy piece of implausible propaganda. The DNI then
helped to publish an
MI6 "report" of fakes asserting Russian influence on Trump. In an unprecedented threat escalation
the Pentagon
sends a whole brigade and other assets to the Russian border.
Now the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, warns the President elect to "
watch his tongue ". Is there any precedence of some "intelligence" flunky threatening a soon
to be President?
This has been, all together, a well though out propaganda campaign to reinforce the scheme Clinton
and her overlords have been pushing for quite some time: Russia is bad and a danger. Trump is aligned
with Russia. Something needs to be done against Trump but most importantly against Russia.
Propaganda works. The campaign is having
some effects
:
Americans are more concerned than they were before the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign began about
the potential threat Russia poses to the country, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released
on Friday. The Jan. 9-12 survey found that 82 percent of American adults, including 84 percent
of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans, described Russia as a general "threat" to the United
States. That's up from 76 percent in March 2015 when the same questions were asked.
Such extensive and expensive campaigns are not run by chance. They have a larger purpose.
Originally the campaign was only directed against Russia with the apparent aim of reigniting a
(quite profitable) cold war. Seen from some distance the campaign now looks more like the preparation
for a typical CIA induced
color-revolution :
In most but not all cases, massive street protests followed disputed elections, or requests for
fair elections, and led to the resignation or overthrow of leaders considered by their opponents
to be authoritarian.
What is missing yet in the U.S. are the demonstrations and the large civilian strife.
Unlike the earlier CIA launched color revolutions in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and elsewhere,
all recent U.S. instigated "color-revolutions", i.e. putsch attempts, have been accompanied by the
use of force from the side of the "peaceful protesters". Such
color-revolutions by force were instigate in Libya, Syria and Ukraine.
A common denominator of these was the primary use of violence occurred from the "good side" against
the "bad side" while the propagandists claimed that it was the "bad side" that started the shooting
and strife. The "good site" is inevitably "demonstrating peacefully" even when many policemen or
soldiers on the "bad side" die. Thus was the case in Libya where the U.S. and its Gulf proxies used
al-Qeada aligned Jihadis from Benghazi as "peaceful demonstrators" against the government, in Syria
where the NATO and Gulf supported Muslim Brotherhood killed policemen and soldiers during "peaceful
demonstrations" in Deraa and in Ukraine where fascist sharpshooters killed demonstrators and policemen
from a hotel roof in the hand of the opposition. All three happened while Hillary Clinton was Secretary
of State.
There have been claims of an upcoming color-revolution in the U.S. from different extremist sides
of the political spectrum. Before the election Neocon Jackson Diehl
claimed that "Putin" was preparing a color-revolution against a President-elect Clinton to enthrone
Donald Trump. But as Trump won fair and square and Clinton lost that plot did not make it to the
stage. After the election the conspiracy peddler Wayne Madsen immediately "
discovered " that Clinton and George Soros were launching a color-revolution against Trump.
Remnants of the Clinton campaign have called for a large anti-Trump demonstration during the inauguration
on January 20 in Washington DC.
Mass shootings in the United States by this or that type of lunatics
happen every other month. There are no wild conspiracy theories or nefarious plots necessary
to consider some what-if questions around such an event.
So what happens after some "Trump supporter" on January 20 starts to shoot into the demonstrating
masses (and also into the police cordons)?
What if the CIA, DHS and DNI then detect and certify that the ensuing "massacre" was a "Russian
plot"?
Posted by b on January 15, 2017 at 12:28 PM |
Permalink
I am amazed and scared how easily propaganda works in democracies, while no one, NO ONE ever deal
or mentions it! Western populations are truly naive and swallow anything. No wonder Hitler could
amass millions of germans.
I am amazed and scared how easily propaganda works in democracies, while no one, NO ONE ever deal
or mentions it! Western populations are truly naive and swallow anything. No wonder Hitler could
amass millions of germans.
The signs are not good. The veteran journalist Claire Hollingworth has just died at 105. Finian
Cunningham comments on her death and the current amnesia over the significance of
the 1000's of NATO tanks massing in east Europe :
"A measure of this apparent collective amnesia can be gleaned from the passing of veteran English
newspaper journalist Clare Hollingworth, who died this week at the age of 105. Hollingworth published
the "scoop of the century" in 1939 when she first reported Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland,
which then sparked the Second World War. The headline of her original report in Britain's Daily
Telegraph on August 29, 1939, read: "1,000 tanks massed on Polish frontier."
Amid media tributes to the deceased journalist, reference to contemporary events was absent.
In the same week that Clare Hollingworth passed away, tanks were again rolling into Poland from
Germany, this time driven by American troops. But Western media outlets made no such connection."
One thing to understand is that, since 1963, the President is no longer fully a President in the
US. The CIA has constructed a system of control within Congress, the military, and the intelligence
services to direct US policy. When Jimmy Carter's CIA Director Stansfield Turner tried to eliminate
a lot of the ops side of intelligence (the agents and the plots that always seem to be nearby
other course corrections (like Dallas, Watergate) the ops side created an oil crisis and a hostage
crisis in Iran. Reagan had been a spokesman for the Congress For Freedom, a CIA operation that
imported fascists, to include a large group of Ukrainian OUN-B residua. Those people and their
children became the backbone of the US reinsertion of fascism in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Since Reagan, all Presidents seem to have deep intelligence backgrounds. Of course, George
Bush was former CIA Director (and undoubtedly an agent prior to his political career), and his
son was his son. Some of Dubya's pre-Presidential failed business dealings appear to have been
money laundering, likely for the CIA Since they burst upon the national scene there are hints
that the Clintons probably were recruited for intelligence work in the late sixties, prior to
even meeting each other.
Obama, with SOS Clinton looking over his shoulder, was mostly a Deep State ally.
Clinton was supposed to win. In fact, there are indications that Clinton and her Deep State
allies worked to make Trump her opponent. She succeeded that far, but not enough to win the electoral
college. Trump is certainly anathema to most working class Americans. His problem with the Deep
State is that he wants friendly relations with Russia.
What the world is witnessing is how the Deep State negotiates hardball with Trump.
"Advice for the USA to simplify things: Cut out the middle man and inaugurate Putin on the 20th"
Or, rephrased to correctly reflect the true nature of the who's really in charge in this country:
Advise for the cosmetic US government and the corporate infotainment: cut out the middle man and
inaugurate the head of the Deep State on the 20th.
It's astounding that Fecesbrook and other social media control outlets support calls for assassination
of the President-elect, by not removing them. This is gonna be an explosive January, Spring and
year.
I think there is a factional civil war going on in the deep state.
Clinton who would have kept the party going was supported by the CIA, with many of their guys
endorsing her.
Trump seems to be the candidate of a less reckless faction. Remember, he was endorsed by a
few hundred senior officers. It seems the army is tired of cleaning up the CIA messes.
Recall the CIA and Army were fighting each other by proxy in Syria.
Remember, Trump has Flynn on his side. And the army. And the FBI, and every patriot in the
IC.
Anon 1
"I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation
of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will
be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it."
Robert E Lee to Lord Acton, 1866
According to the Israeli website alyaexpress-news.com, a unit of 35 armed and masked men and
women on Maidan square is commanded by four former Israeli Army officers, who wear a kippah
under their helmets.
The site claims that these former officers, who live today in Ukraine, joined the movement
since the beginning of the events alongside the Freedom Party (Svoboda), although the latter
has a reputation for being virulently anti-Semitic.
With the help of the Israeli Embassy, this intervention force reportedly also handled the
transfer of 17 seriously injured persons to Israel for treatment.
The presence of Israeli units had been reported in a similar scenario in Georgia, both in
during the "Rose Revolution" (2003) that in the war against South Ossetia (2008).
I think b describes well why a color revolution is plausible. But some traditional 'color revolution'
tactics, like the use of snipers, may not be necessary because:
(1) Pence appears to be much more friendly to the Clinton/CIA establishment; and
(2) there are other means of removing Trump: impeachment or 25th Amendment
Anti-Trump organizations have stated their intention to disrupt the inauguration. The likelihood
of street violence seems high. This "resistance" and Russian tensions will weigh on the minds
of Congressman and frighten the public.
The de-legimization campaign seems likely to culminate with Trump's impeachment for violations
of the Logan act (see below) and/or VP Pence invoking the 25th Amendment. As President, Pence
would choose a VP. One possible choice is Hillary - winner of the popular vote - thereby creating
a 'unity' government. Democrats have already labeled such unity as = PURPLE =. Republican
Party RED combined with Democratic Party BLUE.
This trajectory helps to explain the consternation with FBI Dir. Comey. Democrats believe that
Comey helped Trump in the last days of the campaign. The FBI is said to be investigating the Clintons.
And Comey refused to discuss with Congress (in closed hearing) details of any possible
investigation into Russian interference into US elections. Comey is now himself under investigation
by DOJ's Inspector General (an Obama appointee) .
It's not unusual for incoming administrations to have discussions with foreign governments
before taking office. But repeated contacts just as Obama imposed sanctions raised questions
about whether Trump's team discussed -- or even helped shape -- Russia's response .
Reuters reports that Flynn and Kislyak talked several times on Dec. 29.
Putin unexpectedly did not retaliate against the U.S. for the move, a decision Trump quickly
praised.
More broadly, Flynn's contact with the Russian ambassador suggests the incoming administration
has already begun to lay the groundwork for its promised closer relationship with Moscow.
That effort appears to be moving ahead, even as many in Washington, including Republicans,
have expressed outrage over intelligence officials' assessment that Putin launched a hacking
operation aimed at meddling in the 2016 presidential election to benefit Trump.
. . .
Trump has been willing to insert himself into major foreign policy issues during the transition,
at times contradicting the current administration and diplomatic protocol.
He accepted a call from Taiwan's president, ignoring the longstanding "One China" policy
that does not recognize the island's sovereignty. Asked about that Friday by the Journal,
he responded, "Everything is under negotiation."
He also publicly urged the U.S. to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning Israeli settlements , then slammed the Obama administration for abstaining and
allowing the measure to pass.
We are in a time as dangerous as the early 1960's.
Then they wanted war in Vietnam and got rid of JFK to get it.
Now they want a bigger war with Russia as the target.
Anything can happen in the next few weeks.
Its interesting too that the debate should be about why Democrats lost why Hillary didnt generate
enough votes, no, instead they start a hysteria about Trump and Russia.
Well, if a color revolution does transpire to dethrone Trump, one thing is FOR certain: Circe
and Chipnik will say, "see, I told you that Trump was at the center of the plot to give the government
fully to our fascist-ponzi-overlords," without even a twinge of irony.
#5
Nailed it and now they come out from behind behind the curtain to do the work under the propaganda
arm the so-called liberal press own by the elite who really don't like change except when they
win.
#2, Amerika hasn't been a D in a long time if ever.
Polling tends to reflect a wag-the-dog effect, i.e. the media runs a saturation campaign based
on a particular premise, then polls are taken which generally support the premise. What is mildly
surprising is that the alleged Russian threat perception has only increased six percentage points
after all the crazy headlines of the past few weeks.
The American public may be too polarized for a successful colour revolution. The Russia/Trump
freak-out is localized in the Beltway establishment, Democratic Party, and the mainstream media
- which, when united, represents a formidable force in concentrating and saturating a message
across consensus reality, but the degree to which the message has actually been internalized by
the public-at-large may be far less than it may appear. But the stakes are obviously very very
high for the deep state faction which desires the confrontation with Russia, and therefore a dramatic
false flag event is unfortunately extremely possible if it is determined that the impeachment
gambit might not work. (the impeachment concept might not work, at least not immediately, because,
like the electoral college, it would be too obviously a reversal of the election and a large portion
of the public would reject it)
The Timeline is spot on. Right after the election, Soros held a meet-up in Washington said
to be a planning session and to re-assess. Short weeks thereafter both Hill and Bill appeared
sporting purple dress-up. Notice also in the ensuing weeks other Hill/Bill supporters sporting
purple ties.
Soros' underwriting revolutions is coming home to USA. He should be brought before the ICJ.
Conspiracy theory becomes a fact.
January 20 may ignite the spark. Bikers for Trump assembled; J20 gang; 5000 national guards
and security people providing 360 barricade. What could go wrong?
Some 4 years ago I read at the GEAB.eu LEAP's website, that they anticipated the USA would
become ungovernable in year 2016.. Cue it up.
(GEAB, France, a French Think-Tank most articles by subscription)
~ ~ ~ ~
Death Threats:
To a blind person?
1. "Death Threats Force Opera Star Bocelli To Pull Out Of Inauguration Performance"
"Andrea is very sad to be missing the chance to sing at such a huge global event but he has
been advised it is simply not worth the risk..." according to a source close to blind opera
singer Bocelli who had been determined to 'press ahead' and sing at Donald Trump's inauguration.
On Thursday, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a rare statement,
saying that he met with Trump to express his "profound dismay" over the dossier.
"This document is not a US intelligence community (IC) product and I do not believe the leaks
came from within the IC," Clapper said.
~ ~ ~ ~
You would think Clapper's statement would be covered by MSM, No?:
'Mass shootings' is a bit of a specious reach. Americans are psychologically and emotionally 'bleached'.
The 'mass shootings' are largely juveniles on Aderal and Prozac, mentally bleached by the State.
The vast majority of 'mass' shootings are collectively in the gun states, as here:
https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50060317/police_shootings.0.0.png, and
that's just the State shootings of citizens.
You won't see the victorius Trumpeteers shooting into crowds, you'll see massive civil and
union actions against each new Jesuit-Jew SCOTUS decision, but the Trump State will remain so
opaque, and the poodled Fourth Estate so pandered and Java-Script clik-bait revenue-driven, only
blogs like MoA will post the truth...if they can absent themselves fron the Two-Party Conspiracy-State
Koolaid drinking.
There is only the One Party of Mil.Gov.Fed, which survives and undermines every Administration,
and metastasizes on every new law and every specious blog-post about post-inauguration 'mass-shootings'.
SOW, my PC is now in the shop, after visiting a Breitbart Jerusalem article, and watching a
proxy-script malware drop down, that froze out internet access, even after I bleached my cookies
and did a Foxfire uninstall and re-install. We are far more likely to 'go dark' under Trump and
his Breitbart Zook propaganda machine, than see any Red-on-Blue.
Just a couple of loose (meaning bordering on idiotic) thoughts:
1. Mina says we need to drop this whole Trump thing. And she's right. Just b/c the world is
going to end on Friday doesn't mean we should be preoccupied. Besides SNL has it covered, as usual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V8TO6y0IR4
2. The "MI6 Report?" A bit of a misnomer isn't it? I haven't seen any allegations that MI6
itself was involved, making the term "MI6 Report" itself inferential propaganda fluff. Better
name: "Steele Report"
The 2004 "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine and the 2000 overthrow of Milosevic didn't rely on the
use of violence.
The slick youth oriented campaigns from Otpor! and the Ukrainian follow up, along with heavy
support from outside actors such as the US, were enough.
I doubt there is a need for violence to get rid of Trump if this was the strategy they intended
to use. Catchy slogans amd symbols along with the support of the media could be enough to instigate
some kind of proceedings leading to his removal from office.
No need for a color revolution, the coup have already been made right in front of us, = Trump's
image have been smeared and his policy on Russia wont work.
That is one good b.'s assumption and it is not far fetched at all.
Some sort of an American Spring is looming, if things fall in place next week.
Would it be a sort of Maidan's effect, unrest etc. remains to be seen, but I doubt it.
What is lacking there is a critical mass. And that is people.
Their psyche is right now not for Trump and against Clinton. It is a bit of schizophrenic situation
atm. and ideals worth fighting and dying for are not too high. Or their conviction.
What and how this is envisaged by IC might be as well a long and a painful processes of "legal"
threading through various investigative hearings, commissions and panels followed by legislative
votings on different issues that might come up, as impeachments, scandals and all the arsenal
of "soft" torture where expected result is that Americans are kept enchanted, asleep and hypnotised,
thus neutralised.
Like the rest of us are supposed to be.
Quickest way to jump into prevention of Trump's presidency would be to quickly build up a false
flag set of events and start a big conflict with Russia or with one of their interest zones. That
would set the spotlight away from Washington while fractions IC would have enough time to clear
its ranks and prepare the actual coup.
What they do not understand is that nobody ever goes to war with Russia. Ever.
So, maybe better outcome for everybody would be wishful thinking scenario of a
Designated Survivor
Kiefer Sutherland's
TV-series .
There is actually much more abundant evidence of British interference in the US election, than
there is for Russian interference. The MI6 smear memo is a glaring example, but on top of that
is the state-owned BBC constant stream of anti-Trump propaganda, the petition against allowing
Trump to visit Britain, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson called Trump "clearly out of his mind",
accused him of "quite stupefying ignorance" that makes him "unfit for office" and said he would
not visit New York because of the "real risk of meeting Donald Trump". Where is the outrage, where
is the congressional committee investigating this blatant foreign interference in our democratic
process? By our ex-colonial masters to boot. Are they still nursing grudges from the Revolutionary
War and the War of 1812?
Purple is a reminder of the One Party of Mil.Gov.Fed, the Purple State Apparatchik that holds
the reins of power, a 99.4% unappointed, unelected, civil and military unionized Purple Gog-Magog
that just raised USArya's debt limit by $10 TRILLION, and uses Red-Blue Tinfoil the way the Jesuits
and Jews always have since they first rose to power in 1917. That 100 Centeniary is Trump, the
Orange Jesuit with the Jesuit-Jew SCOTUS at his Right Hand, Global Business Mafias at his Left
Hand, and poodled Congress at his feet.
Well, thing is, in the US, the bulk of people with guns, knowing how to use them, and ready to
use them, is on Trump's side, when it was more split on Ukraine, Syria or Libya. So this leaves
the US Army to do most of the fighting on Clinton's (or the Borg's) behalf. Not sure the troopers
would do it gladly. I mean, the Civil War traumatized the US way more than even WWII.
At this point, one has to wonder if for such a coup to succeed, a cause uniting the people wouldn't
be required, like, say, a significant foreign war that would need the support of US people coming
together, which would both unite it to the point of reducing the will of NRA people to resist
the takeover, and which would focus the attention somewhere else. Having some hot war on Russian
border could maybe do the trick.
Though in such a case, the Borg better make it work inside the US, because the military would
be quite busy in Europe, so if Trump supporters still took arms to protest the coup, it just couldn't
deal with all threats.
Very speculative, of course. I still think they don't plan that well and will do a half-assed
job that will backfire, and will try to undermine Trump in the long run rather than trying to
take him down right now.
2. The "MI6 Report?" A bit of a misnomer isn't it? I haven't seen any allegations that MI6
itself was involved, making the term "MI6 Report" itself inferential propaganda fluff. Better
name: "Steele Report"
Steele requested permission of high ranking officials to go through with this report and he
got the green light. Also he has very influential friends in MI6 and was involved in MAJOR propaganda
campaigns before, like Litvinenko's.
Therefore it wasnt a "solo" campaign, and UK will have to do serious mea culpas to fix the
relationship with Trump.
"So what happens after some 'Trump supporter' on January 20 starts to shoot into the demonstrating
masses (and also into the police cordons)?"
Trump has already made his own funeral arrangements: Pence is the gravedigger, not the media
or color conspiracies. A massacre of protesters against Trump would just make Trumpists horny.
If Trump really pisses of enough of his peers in the owner class, their minions will impeach him.
Hell, picking Pence was like Trump handing in an undated resignation letter, just to set their
minds at ease.
"What if the CIA, DHS and DNI then detect and certify that the ensuing 'massacre' was a 'Russian
plot'?"
If the police massacre protesters, then no conservative will believe it was a Russian plot.
If a nobody massacres protesters, and the CIA etc. say it was a Russian plot, then Trump will
get shirty with Putin. But then the whole point of this campaign is to force his hand on Russia
policy, not this BS about a color revolution. If the CIA accuse the dead protesters of being part
of a Russian plot, then and only then is when you'll know they're getting serious (about either
an immediate war with Russia or forcing Trump to step down.)
Gross misstatements in the OP? 1) Clinton was not the main driver of foreign policy for the
conclusive reason no Secretary of State has been the main driver in foreign policy since John
Foster Dulles. And that was only because Eisenhower was a general who treated his cabinet like
a military staff. 2) Trump did not win the vote at all, he won the Electoral College, which isn't
"fair and square," as everybody knew since the controversies over the actual Electoral College
votes during the lifetimes of the Founding Fathers themselves. The Electoral College is unfair
and slanted, on purpose, and everybody who cares to know, knows it. There is a point when there's
being stupid, and there's being a liar. Neither is a good place to be.
When Trump tries to take Putin to the cleaners, which is what he means when talks about making
a deal with Russia, either Putin crawls (my guess, but I'm not a mind reader, but Putin's got
no principles, no plan and very little power,) or he signs on to the cold (or surface of the sun
hot) war with China. At this point, these people are just bad cop to Trump's good cop. His tinpot
Orthodox God had better help Putin if he thinks these anybody in this government is anything but
an enemy.
PS 1) Forgot to mention the belief that an official from the previous administration isn't allowed
to criticize Trump really betrays something uncomfortably close to servility. Trump's a twitter-pated
nitwit. He knew Godwin's Law means you lose if you mention Nazis. Turning Brennan's perfectly
normal use of Trump's internet gaffe into a threat on Trump's life and/or the nation itself? Why
not rant about the threat to motherhood and apple pie, too?
2) Curtis@11 tells us Trumpery looks up to Robert E. Lee, a traitor and a slaver (literally,
seizing blacks on the Gettysburg campaign as slaves,) and a wretched buffoon like Acton. So much
the worse for Trumpists!
...
So what happens after some "Trump supporter" on January 20 starts to shoot into the demonstrating
masses (and also into the police cordons)?
What if the CIA, DHS and DNI then detect and certify that the ensuing "massacre" was a "Russian
plot"?
b.
Trump came into this election with his eyes wide open.
During the campaign he once said "I know things most people don't know."
If one of the things Trump knows is that CIA color revolutions are started by enhancing Gene
Sharp's Non-violent Protest playbook with guns, then he'll have that possibility covered most
likely by the 200 military officers whom he claims have offered their support for a Trump Presidency.
I find it bizarre that the name Chuck Hagel (the man who never lies) hasn't been mentioned
at all since campaigning began.
The only mass movement is the one that elected Donald Trump stop the depredation of mid-America.
The intelligence community coup attempt is strictly inside the Beltway. The death knell of the
Democratic Party is their support of a war with Russia to hide their incompetence and corruption.
We are watching one gang of oligarchs fight another for control of the pirate plunder; globalists
verses nationalists. Government by and for the people was flushed down the toilet in 2000. The
USA is not a sovereign state, it is an Empire in decline. If Mike Pence takes the reins, the purple
Clinton/Obama/Bush corporate globalists won.
The main difference between Hitler and today's America is Hitler built a police state at home
to take war abroad while the US took war abroad to build a police state at home. The results will
be the same; a fearful, murderous Nazism of "enemies" abroad and "undesirables" and at home.
1) Clinton was not the main driver of foreign policy for the conclusive reason no Secretary
of State has been the main driver in foreign policy since John Foster Dulles. And that was
only because Eisenhower was a general who treated his cabinet like a military staff. 2) Trump
did not win the vote at all, he won the Electoral College, which isn't "fair and square," as
everybody knew since the controversies over the actual Electoral College votes during the lifetimes
of the Founding Fathers themselves. The Electoral College is unfair and slanted, on purpose,
and everybody who cares to know, knows it. There is a point when there's being stupid, and
there's being a liar. Neither is a good place to be.
1. Reminder since you may have missed the leaked emails and important events during Hillary
Clinton's tenure as SoS: the force behind the push in Lybia
(a) Lybia - Get the gold
(b) "we came, we saw, he died." Cackles.
(c) Ditto the lies surrounding Stevens – the arms smuggling to AQ in Syria
2. Suggest some read up on the Constitution and structure of the Republic of The United States
of America. The Electoral College is designed to balance small states vs large states; the same
rationale for the Senate.
3. On Election day, November 8, the voters selected the Electors to the Electoral College who
then vote for the President and VP. Smart presidential candidates craft their campaign with the
Electoral College's target, 270 votes. MSM polls showing Clinton having a 95% chance of winning,
(Newsweek Madame President) so she disappeared during the last three weeks in October.
4. Newsflash: Clinton's so-called national popular vote win by "millions" is a fraud. Millions
of illegals voted in California, placing the so-called popular vote in her column. Never mind
California. How about Wayne County, Detroit, Michigan's recount that was aborted? One example;
a sealed ballot box had Clinton with 306 votes and when opened, the count was only 50. Other ballot
boxes had similar anomalies.
5. Trump won by a landslide; where it counts ---in the Counties --- 302 votes in the Electoral
College for the final count.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Electoral College is unfair! Then so is the make-up of the Senate: regardless of population
the 50 states x 2 senators each = 100. Get over it.
Trump may be a skillful deal-maker but he won't be taking Putin to the Cleaners. Ask Rex Tillerson.
". . . the degree to which the message has actually been internalized by the public-at-large
may be far less than it may appear. . ."
This sensible comment goes to the 'polls' taken - haven't we recently seen the worth of polls?
These are the same polls that gave us Hillary as a sure bet.
You have to have a trusting public somewhat unaware of the forces in play to work a color revolution,
and even the one in Ukraine has not worked. People will know, enough people will know, what is
happening. If it's tried there will most assuredly be support for anything Trump and his followers
may do in response. There's no slam dunk here, CIA We don't love you; we don't even trust you.
Try something at your own peril.
If Americans want anything at this point, they do want an orderly change of government. They
may not have high hopes for the incoming crowd but they don't want chaos. They do not want to
be the next Syria. And even if they don't know precisely who's doing what in the days before the
inauguration, they'll be suspicious of anyone who tries to start something.
When 9/11 events were underway, remember the passengers on the plane in Pennsylvania? There'll
be good citizens ready to put out any fire even at the cost of their own lives; I'm betting on
them.
Hmmm.... The intrigue is fascinating!! BUT! We must recall the primary goal/motivation for the
Deep State's Outlaw US Empire since 1990 has been to acquire Full Spectrum Domination of the planet
and its people, to which it's had fairly solid success--except with Russia, China and their few
allies, the numbers of which are growing slowly. It's said by Putin and Xi that there's no ideological
battle akin to the Cold War, but I don't think that's true: Both Putin, Xi, and their nation's
economic plans for Eurasian integration are based on Win/Win aims for all involved, whereas the
stated ideological goal of the Outlaw US Empire is stated above--enslaving the Hydra (Hydra being
the global masses). The current "strategy" was to attack both Russia and China simultaneously,
with an emphasis on Russia; Trump and his crew, however, are proposing a different approach based
on the tried and true Divide and Conquer concept that's worked so well to now, but is no longer
effective thanks to Neoliberalcon behavior allowing an understanding--and thus countermoves--to
be gained of their modus. Clearly, Neoliberalcons are miffed that the ball is being taken from
them regarding Imperial policy--note there's very little (elite) bickering about what the Republican
controlled congress is doing to domestic policy, where most Mass Resistance to Trump/Congress
is occurring. From a domestic POV, it seems like Trump's most likely to alienate those who thought
he'd improve their standing because of his unwillingness to confront the Republican Congress's
destruction of critical social and ecological programs.
Trump's election outcome seems to mimic what was predicted to occur if a Third Party won and
had to confront an antithetical congress having its own plans/policies to implement, adding the
assumption that the Deep State would oppose such a Party as a matter-of-course, doing everything
it could to delegitimize the incoming administration. If a Color Revolution's planned, then I'd
expect to see a big rise in Tea Party activity, as most Soros-sponsored US-ngos are already at
odds with Congress, not Trump's as yet unknown Imperial policy direction.
We are seeing some deep divisions not just within the State but in the public. We are now seeing
the healthy growth of "alternative" Narratives which are far more compelling and based more on
objective truth than the mainstream Narratives which means, over the long haul, they should win
out unless those Narratives are rigorously suppressed. The only chance the authorities have to
suppress these competing points of view and a lurch towards reality is to create an external enemy.
Now we see the Democrats and "moderate" Republicans joining forces with the National Security
State and the mainstream media to create the utterly fictional Russian "threat" in the same way
they've created all the phony threats of the past. Will it work? I don't know--what I do know
is that the majority of the population "wants" to believe in scapegoats and an enemy because it
radically simplifies life and allows people to join together in virtual "two minutes of hate."
This kind of thing usually works when you have "progressvies" and "leftists" joining in along
with the usual warmongers in howling for blood. What I call the "Stasi left" is now showing itself
for the CIA minions (people don't really know how "liberal" most of the CIA actually is) they
are and perhaps have been or at least wannabe.
I had for some time wanted to dissociate myself from the left but am now ready to do so not
because I'm no longer on the left but because "the left" seem no longer to be on the left. I know
it's time to move away from those divisions which are mainly just part of the mind-control regime
we've been under since 1917. We have to choose. Continue to research what is the truth as best
we can or join in the tribal wars that may well end in mutual destruction and certainly a possible
civil war.
I know Trump is attempting to placate those who might murder him--we'll see how it works. From
where I sit it seems unlikely that Trump will put a dent in the ongoing Imperial project and the
criminals it harbors.
You forgot to include the green revolution in Iran instigated by CIA and Mossad operatives with
the help of Jundallah and MEK. Since it could be attempted again during Trump's Presidency; let's
not sweep it under the rug and out of the pages of infamous recent history. Although, I believe
Trump and his cabal will take more hostile and aggressive measures against Iran than instigating
a color revolution.
That being said; permit me to change the title to: Planting the Bad Seed. I'm not sure
if you did this intentionally or not, but the pen is a mighty sword that you use skilfully therefore
I should assume it was deliberate.
I don't think I've yet read such artful, crafty and not to overuse, Machiavellian false equivalency
as I just did now with this piece first introducing it with an outline of nefarious machinations
against Trump, followed by a synopsis of fake revolutions to get to the grain. So in other words
you're saying that the CIA or present state enemies of Trump would use the unsuspecting, and I'm
not being facetious-innocent- leftist masses for their end. This is not to say that Neolibs are
not lurking in there to sabotage this Presidency exploiting legitimate and justified dissent and
dissenters as tools to use against Trump.
Moreover, the only one doing the sabotaging here ; no, I won't go that far. Maybe you'll
re-evaluate how this piece comes off, so let me give you the benefit of doubt while I still condemn
it and its author who has yet to reconsider and join the good fight instead. If there are
nefarious machinations in the works to sabotage Trump, then you are similarly busy working
the Trump side with equally nefarious propaganda by raising a conspiracy spectre intended as an
influence manoeuvre to crush all LEGITIMATE DISSENT against Trump that includes, more importantly,
dissent against the cabal that brought him to power, by smearing such dissenters with the same
brush you're using against those who would use them. Therefore in my opinion you are just
as exploitive as Trump, his enemies and the deep state cabal that surrounds him and that he fully,
absolutely represents.
So let's say Chipnik is right, that at some point in time, which may not be during the inauguration,
the Trump fascist squad aggressively lean on protesters or as Chip writes, start shooting into
the crowd. Your angle is to first plant the seed, that it won't necessarily be the Trump squad
that is or would be responsible for such a heinous act, but other forces meant to make Trump look
like the fascist; never mind, that this is who he REALly is.
So you're trying to delegitimize the revolution before it even starts. This is pretty devious;
if not ugly; I'm being kind. As a matter of fact, it feels kind of sinister to suppress with twisted
assumption, before it even gets started, the inevitable uprising you know Trump will ignite with
his repressive regime. Is this not resorting to goebbel hasbara for an end you imagine is justified;
a highly questionable, even wicked means to what YOU imagine will be a beneficial end like perhaps
détente with Russia? What an intangible, sorry excuse that would be to extinguish real and enduring
change BY THE PEOPLE that might end up benefitting your cause as well.
What the hell are you trying to pull with this piece? Are you trying to crush growing and overwhelming
legitimate dissent by planting a conspiracy theory that whatever revolution Trump accelerates
with his wrongful actions will be illegitimate and fraudulent because it isn't inspired by justified
dissent against him or better yet against the system that spawned Trump , but instigated
by nefarious forces conspiring to overthrow him?
Let me tell you something; the Revolution has been a long time simmering BEFORE Trump appeared
on the political scene. If Trump is the accelerant that will finally make it explode then that's
too bad for your own 'justified' goal and Trump for continuing the deep state subornation and
subversion of democracy! Your goal (if honourable) should regrettably be the necessary, hopefully,
temporary casualty of the rebellion against Trump's dangerous deception to quote an Engdahl
phrase that best describes him.
Trump is an asterisk in the reasons for the Revolution that should have happened after 9/11;
and that you would try to delegitimize it this way planting a seed that might spread like poison
to kill it, is reprehensible. The Revolution, my friend, won't and shouldn't be strictly limited
to Trump. The Revolution will be about the entire two-faced monopoly and the evil forces sustained
by this monopoly that brought Trump to power and repeatedly suborn leadership and subvert the
people's power. People deserve to have this long-awaited Revolution, and if you, with your
grain of conspiracy, propagate a theory that delegitimizes this Revolution making it only about
a coup against Trump, then you are no better than the cabal you pretend to expose.
Propaganda works. Then stop using it to kill the Revolution.
True, but sarcastically, symbolically or not, you, yourself, did reference there would be 'shootings
on crowds after Trump assumes office' in several previous posts.
Trump can fire Brennan just as JFK fired Allan Dulles. How'd that work out?
Posted by: fast freddy | Jan 15, 2017 3:23:11 PM | 36
Ever heard of Mike Pompeo?
Posted by: From The Hague | Jan 15, 2017 5:00:25 PM | 46
Yeah. Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
Circe, because there can only be one revolution at a time, Soros is Calvinistically the most righteous
and therefore has priority? Get over this liberal conceit of righteous pitched battle. In the meantime,
talk to my filter.
Posted by: Jonathan | Jan 15, 2017 6:25:55 PM |
55
Circe, because there can only be one revolution at a time, Soros is Calvinistically the most righteous
and therefore has priority? Get over this liberal conceit of righteous pitched battle. In the
meantime, talk to my filter.
Posted by: Jonathan | Jan 15, 2017 6:25:55 PM |
55
Trump should order further investigation on Hillary and send her to jail where she belongs.
No one plays with Donald Trump without bearing consequences
Trump should order further investigation on Hillary and send her to jail where she belongs.
No one plays with Donald Trump without bearing consequences
Looks like there is going to be a big turnout . I think that these people had mentioned that they
would put themselves in between any protesters of Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1qlkIXja6U
"... CIA Director Brennan Warns Trump To "Watch What He Says"
"There is no basis for Mr Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for 'leaking'
information... "
So the head of the Ministry for Dis-Information complains that there is 'no basis' (aka 'no
facts') for this allegation. When did lack of evidence ever bother the CIA?
And Brennan does not like comparison by his new boss (who's not like the old boss):
"What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany," Brennan said.
"I do take great umbrage at that."
This is the gangster-in-chief running the Afghan opium trade and any number of odious regime
change programs that have killed and mained tens of millions now demanding 'evidence' when the
finger is pointed his way.
"Hypocrite" is the word for this type of odious person. And Trump had better watch his back.
These types are worse than nazi Germans.
If you watch Podesta speech on the n7ght of the election wgen he called the few remaining ppl
in the room to go to sleep and wait for more in the morning it seems pretty clear they were already
planning. Let s hope for some significant leaks.
Trump made some interesting comments in an interview with the Times today. They seem to be aimed
at disaffected Europeans and there are lots of those these days.
"Merkel made a catastrophic mistake (letting a million refugees in)"
"Countries want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity,"
@10 unnamed, 'In 5 days he will hold the reins of power'
that's my expectation. despite the cinamatography @14 john
@15 yet another unnamed, 'These people are nuts'
i certainly hope you're right! that brennan and the rest are immediately shown the door and
the deconstruction of the vile, 'unamerican' cia begins on saturday, in the pale afternoon.
@19 ya unnamed, '... Hillary didnt generate enough votes ...'
hillary won the popular vote ... if the elctronic tally system is to be believed. not
@22 jayc, 'The Russia/Trump freak-out is localized in the Beltway establishment, Democratic
Party, and the mainstream media ...'
that's my feeling too. i think this is a media tempest in a media teapot. the good news is
they are alienating ordinary americans, just as their choice of hillary for empress did. i hope
the tnc msm go down along with republicrat/demoblican party ... and the vile cia.
@23 likklemore, 'You would think Clapper's statement would be covered by MSM, No?'
no. it's a perfunctory cover-the-ass-of-the-nsa/cia-combine statement. clapper put the more
than 'dodgy dossier' in the obama/trump briefing in order for it to be leaked. now he's decrying
others' - fully intended - use of his more than dodgy inclusion. the tnc msm know what he's done
and what he's doing and are acting accordingly. his statement is a footnote for the history books.
@35 lp, 'This is really funny stuff. A government that festooned with Goldman-Sachs bankers
has to worry about being toppled in a coup?'
even a blind pig can smell the acorns ... or g-sax truffles?
@36 ff, 'Trump can fire Brennan just as JFK fired Allan Dulles'
and he'd better. and he'd better finish the job: kill the cia. or the cia will certainly kill
him. one way or another.
@37, @39 s
with the exception of your assessment of russia and china and their leadership - and your nasty,
supercilious tone - i agree, think most of what you say is about right. why should anyone care
what i think?
@42 hw, 'State Department color revolutions. State Dept runs US Ambassadors and, thereby, color
revolutions'
yeah, but now State is a condominium of the cia/pentagon. mostly the cia.
@45 mm, 'the difference between Hitler and today's America is Hitler built a police state at
home to take war abroad while the US took war abroad to build a police state at home'
well put.
@47 likkelmore, 'The Electoral College is designed to balance small states vs large states;
the same rationale for the Senate.'
The Electoral College was designed to balance slave states vs non-slave states; the same rationale
for the Senate.
'so is [was] the make-up of the Senate'
check.
@48 juliana, 'If Americans want anything at this point, they do want an orderly change of government'
The're sinister when used to cement the reality that the propaganda is meant to create. In which
case, most Americans believe .... could well be reworded as: most of your fellow citizens
have accepted our disinformation - you should too!
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
karlof1 @49:
Divide and Conquer
No doubt Russia and China are aware of this possible strategy. It leads to the question of whether
it is better for our globally-linked human society that Russia integrate with the West or join
with China as counterweight.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Banger @50:
... deep divisions not just within the State but in the public.
Sadly, public divisions don't seem to mean much except when exploited by a powerful elite faction.
Thus public divisions become a resource for elite maneuvering.
Kudos: You were early in anticipating a leader like Trump who would exploit the discontent.
Narratives which are far more compelling and based more on objective truth ...
I think narratives that spin truth around accepted myths are most compelling (and what we see
all-too-often).
"moderate" Republicans
I wouldn't call McCain, Graham, Rubio, and Company "moderates". William Banzai depicts them as
American Jihadis!
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Circe @52
WTF! b has previously spoken of the desireability of a real resistance to Trump, saying:
Trump should and must be fought but that fight should be about important economic and social
issues for which people care and of which there are plenty.... Every attempt to accuse Trump
of this or that "Russia" outrage that has nothing to do with the average voter's life simply
fails. These pseudo scandals waged within the "elite" media against him just makes him stronger.
Oh, and while I'll admit my conviction may come off as conceit; you, OTOH, are at the height
of arrogant cynicism masking who knows what ideological Z-aberration known for its hubris.
Though we must not forget the same tactic used against Chavez in Venezuela, in ' The coup
that failed, stillborn ? , or much more recently another unsuccessful rehash against Maduro.
These are merely the newest, latest refined & distilled, incarnation of methods & technique,
we have used against foreign governments since the 1800's!(two centuries of refinement). The latest
methods are designed to maximize Plausible-Deniablility and maximize supposed credibility
of the proxies, and create a foundation for continuing attempts should it not be successful (not
- all or nothing), whilst always presenting Faux arguments/justifications in the
latest 'methods', re Democracy, Rule of Law, Rights, Oppression, Dis=Enfranchised ... whilst launching
a foreign State sponsored, instigated, financed, managed, resourced, Coup!
From 1887 Samoa, 1893 Hawaii thru to 1953 Mossadegh (Iran), 1954 Guatemala, 1958 Lebanon, thru
to 1973 Allende (Chile), 1991 Haiti and then thru to today.
All our chickens have come home to roost. :(
@ Posted by: Bob In Portland | Jan 15, 2017 1:08:57 PM | 5
The CIA is not the 'entire' Deep State, nor is the CIA or the Deep State (think all aspects
and scale and scope of GLADIO) the actual drivers/deciders. The CIA and other such entities 150
years before the CIA was legally born, are mercenaries acting upon the directions/instructions
they receive , in actions such as these. YMMV
dh, not only did he say that Merkel had made a big mistake, Trump also told Bild that the EU was
built to give the Germans primacy in Europe and for the EU to give the US a trading rival. He
applauded Brexit, saying that everyone wanted to keep their identity and wanted a quick trading
deal with the UK. Interesting times we live in.
The 9/11, WMD, MH17 crew are still out and about so it will be interesting to see what happens
in the near future.
I wouldn't like to be part of the cannon fodder brigade the US has moved to Russia's borders.
They are starting to look like sacraficial goats for the good cause of geo-politics at this stage.
Color Revolutions are diplomacy by other means? If so, looking back a decade in Iran is just a
start. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG06Ak03.html
Perhaps review of centuries is needed.
England 1689 France 1789 1989 USSR...
You jest assuredly ... who controls the ' Sole Remaining Superpower ', which spends
more on its Military, let alone Intelligence/Proxy/NGO entities/forces, than the next largest
13 nations COMBINED, in a domestic US counter-election Coup is, ... not of significance ... everything
re our rapacious actions on the people of Terra may be affected by these events, let alone domestically,
for good of bad, or not.
2. The "MI6 Report?" A bit of a misnomer isn't it? I haven't seen any allegations that MI6
itself was involved, making the term "MI6 Report" itself inferential propaganda fluff. Better
name: "Steele Report"
again, given the well documented & corroborated, FACTS, throughout these threads, you jest, yes
?
Russia is still dominated by the Oligarchs- and who are they? Dual nationals of the same Little
Horn as the dual nationals that run USA. And Iran. And China and Trump.
The only REAL, committed, passionate, mass united group of citizens is the 'Bag-of-Depplorables',
most of the assets being burnt up in this Psyop campaign are 'False' or long ago 'Bought & Paid
for'.
Will those of the US citizenry who identify with or are misled/deceived by 'Identity Politics'
and 'Fake Left' 'R2P', etc narratives be prepared to step up and put it all, 'On the Line'? Somewhat
doubt it.
Given what they openly say in comments and the twitts, etc, one doubts they, the 'Deplorables'
who won the election for the Trumpster, will stand by passively should this continue to escalate
beyond the 20th. No doubt at all.
Geez, I have to break my rule with you; this one time, 'coz you probably didn't read my comment
(56) in response to the post you quote 'b' from where I compared him to Lt. Col. Nicholson in
Bridge on the River Kwai, (decent guy; but thoroughly misdirecting his genius to assisting the
enemy). Here is the excerpt where I address that part of his post you quoted.:
At times reading this; I thought I had entered the twilight zone of Breitbart, and only
when I got to this disclaimer, was relieved to see that there is still a glimmer of hope that
you will return to the side fighting the good fight.
But the war against Trump is not over. In my view Trump should and must be fought [no kidding!]
but that fight should be about important economic and social issues for which people care and
of which there are plenty. Trump has his own cabal, libertarian billionaires like the Koch
brothers, several generals in his cabinet and arch Zionists like Adelson. But that cabal's
henchmen are not yet installed throughout the government. It is important to hinder such infestation.
Yes, I do recognize a glimmer of hope, understated, but promising. You might yet blow up
that bridge you've magnificently engineered, but I'd like to make these adjustments: the fight
will and should not be restricted to economic and social issues. Do you really believe that the
intended repression and exploitation will be limited to the U.S. alone???
And allow me to correct this sentence by adding my two cents in square parenthesis:
But that cabal's henchmen are not yet [ALL] installed throughout the government.
Have you looked at his cabinet and entourage lately?
Therefore, it is YOU, jr, that failed to keep up. Don't try to bait me; I'm so bored with your
spin.
Interesting also is how the false narratives/dissembling is strong and responsive, in this
thread, from particular posters, so quickly and in great quantity ...
The simple question is: If Trump is not perceived as the greatest threat in at least ~71 years
to the Military-Industrial-Corporate-Complex, and, more importantly their ultimate owners, the
puppet-masters behind the curtain, the 0.01% owners thereof. Hence, why are we seeing these very
events unfurl before our very eyes ?
This is no charade or deceptive play to distract, amuse or entertain. That is bullshit.
Add UK and maybe France, Canada and Australia to the list and leave Iran and China out. They haven't
been Z-infested yet; except maybe with spies and operatives.
In every country under so called color revolution the underlying theme was imminent economic collapse
that elites not only were unable to prevent but even actively pursuited and used the phony revolution
to cover up their own theft and introduction global banking thieves into local economy under exigency
of crisis, by selling land and state monopolies.
If b is right preplaned economic crisis in the US is about to happen and a scape goat is about
to be sworn in.
That is the position of many independent economists recognizing that FED is covering up already
ongoing depression that needs to be blamed on somebody but the establishment.
Lt. Col. Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai, (decent guy; but thoroughly misdirecting his
genius to assisting the enemy)
An entirely false, fantasy, fiction, perpetrated in a movie FICTION!
Veterans were and still are incensed. Let alone those who survived the industrialized torments/tortures,
forced labor, starvation, neglect/disease and Death Marches, as well as their families who struggle
with those survivors, to this very day .
And it is used as a reference, for support ?! WTF! Have you ever personally met any of the
survivors, and talked with them ?! A few still endure, many were only 17-20 at the time ...
Have you no decency left, to try that one on, none at all ?
There was the real Revolution in Iran deposing the Shah and then there was an attempt at a
fake one orchestrated by CIA and Mossad; the green revolution.
Just want to emphasis that I was referring to the later fake one in my own post @52 above.
Sociopaths & psychopaths, sometimes both, in dedicated service to their Patrons, the ultimate
Psychopathic Sociopaths, the soulless, inhuman, rapacious, 'Old Grey Men', of the 0.01%.
The 0.01% who steered and enabled, incrementally, their tools, such as the NSA (created by
Presidential Executive Order, Not thru an Act of Legislation), to ' Collect it all/Process
it all '.
Which is merely a reflection of the 0.01%s desires ... re Terra and all that is on it and populate
it.
Well, I stand corrected! Your vitriol wasn't a lapse, it was vomiting on our host.
You have yet to suggest anything constructive.
Supporting Obama-Hillary's Democratic Party against Trump is a NON-STARTER. The Democratic
Party has proven to be thoroughly corrupt, and is more 'Zionist' than you care to admit (because
that is adverse to your mission) .
I think most independent thinkers have decided that a better starting point for change is Trump's
in-your-face MAGA tyranny because the MSM-fueled globalist stab-you-in-the-back tyranny is more
dangerous. The sheep are too willing to sleepwalk into the latter.
So we CHEER when Trump puts down MSM because they are a tool that is used against the people,
but you GROAN because he's gaining ground.
Its clear that you are not here to be constructive. Your mission is to De-legitimize Trump.
And where are the charges from the DoJ from all this illegal voting? Republicans have been
screaming out this "problem" for sixteen years and yet can never offer up such evidence. How many
cases were brought up during the Bush years? This is one of those far-right fake news stories
like the Vince Foster murder or Pizzagate. There's as much evidence of this electoral fraud as
there is of Russian hacking of the election.
You get "insiders" speaking about things like same-day no-ID registrations allowing people
to vote. They're being very, very deceptive. These people get provisional ballots, which basically
are not ever counted in just about every state that has them. Same with absentee ballots. The
problem with absentee ballots is that they so easily disqualified over trivialities (i.e., stray
pencil marks) and voters are left with this idea that their vote was counted. Why is there an
explosion in absentee ballots? Because minority communities, the same communities that have their
names purged from voting roles by GOP state governments, not to mention reduce machines for voting
day and limit open hours, but absentee ballot voters think that it's better to send in absentee
votes than wait in crazy lines on voting day.
Democrats lost because they couldn't muster the vote from the plurality and conservatives ALWAYS
come out to vote; they are the only reliable voting group out there. That's why the win Congress
and at the state level. They win because their opposition are a bunch of out-of-touch elitist
morons more concerned about get the "firsts". The first woman president, the first black president,
the first hispanic senator, and so on and that is purely a reflection on the Democratic Party
establishment's cosmopolitan champagne socialism obsession. They *are* out of touch which is why
50% of the population no longer votes. There's no point voting Democrat anymore.
For crying out loud! I wasn't making any statement on whether or not the film fictionalized
the actual events. I was using that character's role in the film to make an analogy here. Now
go lecture and scream at someone else for a change.
likklemore@47 Illegals voting by the millions, like the hint about blacks somehow rigging the
voting in urban areas, really is nothing but race baiting. OF course you talk about the Republic,
that's practically a certificate of mad dog reaction. No, one man one vote is equal, the Electoral
College is not. Even worse for you, if you really want to go the inequality route, you're the
one who is inferior, being someone who upholds the equality of states rather than the equality
of people, and mindlessly repeat lame slanders about the dark hordes somehow cheating at the polls
and deranged irrelevancies instead of arguments. I suggest you more than most benefit from the
proposition that all should have equal rights, because if they had to earn them, you lose.
And lest I forget, your lame unthinking babble. You think the Senate is fair and square? No,
you don't. When it's called the UN General Assembly, you know to the marrow of your bones it's
not. Before you start ranting about what you think, you really need to have actual thoughts first.
Trumpists are not the defenders of the people, Trumpists are the leaders in the attack on the
people.
Circe: Even Islamic Revolution of 1979 was US backed. They wanted the Shah out. He had become
"undependable" starting back around the time he threw his multi million $ celebration of 2500
Years of Persian Empire stuff- crowning himself Shah han Shah etc
French were well aware he had cancer- they were treating him.
Like the West has installed the MBros jihadis across the region to take down secular regimes of
Gadaffi, Mubarak, Saddam, Assad. West had no hesitation installing an Islamic one to take out
secular Shah. In Hegelian fashion, it began the Pike Program of "West vs Islam" phase of the Three
World Wars. Or "Clash of Civilizations" or "War on Terror". The list above re: SNIPERS is interesting,
as this motif also occurred in Tehran during the protests in Ferdowsi Sq w/ mysterious gunmen
shooting into demos to incite the crowd.
As for China not being dominated by the Zios? Afraid so. David Rockefeller had a vise grip via
Chase Manhattan Bank very early on, and never forget that Trotsky "Lev Bronstein" was trained,
equipped and prepped while living in in high style the Bronx on his way to Bolshevik Rev.
Just to be clear; I'll repeat this for the literacy challenged and bald-faced liar who wrote I
support Democrats.:
The Revolution will be about the entire two-faced monopoly and the evil forces sustained
by this monopoly that brought Trump to power and repeatedly suborn leadership and subvert
the people's power.
Where does this indicate affiliation with one party or another??? Trump and Hillary belong
to the two-faced monopoly. I am an equal opportunity dissenter; I don't give a rat's ass about
either party or their chosen change messiah-con, Trump being the latest, that the deep-state
cabal use to lure the servitude into believing they live in a democracy with equal opportunity
for all and things are gonna change.
Do you support the Constitution as it stands, the Laws of the United States, Federal & State
or not ?
Or only when it conveniently suits your argument/narrative/position ... regardless of facts
?
This is why Intelligence Analysts (ultimately realists doing a job) for example, in the main,
and most of the Military and a surprising number of citizens, are staying out of it, neutral,
and incrementally ever so slowly pushing back against the screed and leaning towards the new POTUS/Administration.
Why ?
But, hey, he won the election, she lost! What is going on here ?
Generations of belief in unreal myths re Democracy, etc, are, in effect, working against the
Coup plotters Psyop campaign narrative.
Steele requested permission of high ranking officials to go through with this report and he
got the green light. Also he has very influential friends in MI6 and was involved in MAJOR
propaganda campaigns before, like Litvinenko's.
Sorry, Harry, but I can't decipher the above. Having a link to your source[s] might help.
For instance, what do you mean by Steele got "permission" from "high ranking officials"?? Even
if the assertion is factual, "high ranking officials" does not necessarily mean MI6. Officials
where? US, UK, Ru ??? And having friends in MI6 has nothing to do with your assertion that Steele
"requested permission" to do a dirty like this one.
Let's presume you have a source that says Steele got "permission" from MI6. Do you see the
implications of that? The report was initially commissioned by an as yet unidentified Republican
candidate. But that person dropped out before the investigation really got started. So Steele
shopped the project to Hillary's bunch of bums. And so what you are saying is that Steele went
to some "high ranking official" I presume you mean in the UK, and further, within the context
of the comment, you mean MI6 – and from that high ranking MI6 person came a green-light for Steele
to do a hit-piece on a US presidential candidate. IOW, you are accusing the UK in precisely the
same way the MSM and Obama are accusing Russia/Putin.
Accepted wisdom has it that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and yet I see
no proof here of any sort. Please pass me a link to a reliable source that says Steele asked for
and rec'd permission from MI6. That would be very hot.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Outraged | Jan 15, 2017 8:12:56 PM | 72
You jest assuredly ... who controls the 'Sole Remaining Superpower', which spends more on its
Military, let alone Intelligence/Proxy/NGO entities/forces, than the next largest 13 nations
COMBINED, in a domestic US counter-election Coup is, ... not of significance ... everything
re our rapacious actions on the people of Terra may be affected by these events, let alone
domestically, for good of bad, or not.
I have absolutely no earthly idea what you are talking about. Is that "paragraph" supposed
to be a response to my comment #25? Are we on the same page? Planet? What does the "Sole Remaining
Superpower" have to do with any of this?
To review: The topic is whether MI6 is eye-balls deep in the Steele Report. If it is, then
calling it the "MI6 Report" makes sense. If not, then "MI6 Report" is a misleading misnomer and
propaganda in its own right.
again, given the well documented & corroborated, FACTS, throughout these threads, you jest,
yes ?
OK, that's better. I can understand that one. I noticed you capitalized "FACTS." Now we're
talkin' the same language, dude.
See my response to Harry, above. Same goes for you: Can you give me a link to a reliable source
saying MI6 signed off on this attack on a US presidential candidate? Throw some FACTS my way.
. .
As long as the money flows, Democratic Party and sympathetic establishment operatives will try
to derail Trump.
At some point, a real resistance with some integrity will spring up once the Democratic Party
and its lackeys have failed so miserably that they are a laughing stock.
Circe,
Got it. Agree 100%. Until we take out the ventriloquists, we will be forever trapped in the fake
left-right paradigm arguing over the Elite's puppet du jour- but never taking on the Deep State
puppeteers. Seems we'd rather be manipulated by them, and persist in bickering w/ each other.
93 "Generations of belief in unreal myths re Democracy, etc, are, in effect, working against the
Coup plotters Psyop campaign narrative."
Spot on. The powers that be have to, over a very short period, try to turn this narrative around.
It seems than now they will be impaled on their own democratic sword.
Apologies for CIA typo. It should read State Department color revolutions. State Dept runs
US Ambassadors and, thereby, color revolutions.
Respectfully, the CIA through the 'Local Station'(CIA), local Company technical/support sections
& assets & agents, sources & proxies (NGOs/Associations/Union/Business elements), AND
The State Department, through Diplomats/Officers and CIA under Official Cover(OC)(Diplomatic),
also interacting with and managing the previous, though mostly focused on High level political,
corporate entities/assets,
... simultaneously ... concurrently ... run the Coups and 'faux' revolutions/uprisings/'Arab
Springs' ...
To a varying lesser or greater degree there of, limited and/or competing co-operation/conflict.
The Agency(CIA) and the State Department are not a monolithic entity ... there are common and
partially overlapping interests and objectives, sometimes more, others less so ... yet they have
never acted as one, as a 'Borg'.
Phil Agee's published diary, to corroborate my brief explanation above in excruciating detail,
is an accessible, open, unclassified insight re how this all actually works, for ant interested
reader at MOA.
There are no blanks in Philip Agee's Inside the Company: CIA Diary. This densely detailed
expose names every CIA officer, every agent, every operation that ...
...
Philip Agee discusses his experiences inside the CIA
Philip Agee was a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who served in Latin America.
After resigning from the CIA he lectured and wrote on the Agency's clandestine operations.
His activities were not unnoticed. Ex-CIA Director and later President Bush the first called
Agee "a traitor to our country." He is the author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary and On the
Run. He died in Cuba in January 2008.
"Trump's (and Putin's) Plan to Dissolve the EU and NATO."
By Josh Marshall...January 15, 2017...8:12 PM EDT
"Most people in this country, certainly most members of
the political class and especially its expression in
Washington, don't realize what Donald Trump is trying to do
in Europe and Russia. Back in December I explained that Trump
has a plan to break up the European Union. Trump and his key
advisor Steve Bannon (former Breitbart chief) believe they
can promise an advantageous trade agreement with the United
Kingdom, thus strengthening the UK's position in its
negotiations over exiting the EU. With such a deal in place
with the UK, they believe they can slice apart the EU by
offering the same model deal to individual EU states. Steve
Bannon discussed all of this at length with Business Week's
Josh Green and Josh and I discussed it in great detail in
this episode of my podcast from mid-December.
Now we have a rush of new evidence that Trump is moving
ahead with these plans.
One point that was clear in Green's discussions with
Bannon and Nigel Farage is that Trump wants to empower Farage
as its interlocutor with the United Kingdom. Given Farage's
fringe status in the UK, on its face that seems crazy. But
that is the plan. And it is a sign of how potent Farage's
guidance and advice has become for Trump's view of Europe,
the EU and Russia.
Two days ago, the United States out-going Ambassador to
the EU gave a press conference in which he opened up about
Farage's apparently guiding role in the Trump world and what
he's hearing from EU Member states.
From the The Financial Times (sub.req.) ...
... Donald Trump's transition team have called EU leaders
to ask "what country is to leave next" with a tone suggesting
the union "is falling apart" this year, according to the
outgoing US ambassador to the bloc.
... In a pugnacious parting press conference, Anthony
Gardner warned of "fringe" voices such as Nigel Farage, the
former UK Independence party leader, holding influence in
Washington over Mr Trump's team.
... Speaking days before leaving office, Mr Gardner said
it would be "lunacy" and "the height of folly" for the US to
ditch half a century of foreign policy in order to support
further EU fragmentation or become a "Brexit cheerleader" in
Brussels.
... "I was struck in various calls that were going on
between the incoming administration and the EU that the first
question is: what country is about to leave next after the
UK?" he said.
... "The perceived sense is that 2017 is the year in which
the EU is going to fall apart. And I hope that Nigel Farage
is not the only voice being listened to because that is a
fringe voice."
Today in a new interview with the Germany's Bild and the
Times of London Trump expanded on these goals dramatically.
Trump leveled a series of attacks on German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, suggesting he'd like to see her defeated for
reelection and saying she'd hurt Germany by letting "all
these illegals" into the country. Trump also called NATO
"obsolete", predicted other countries would soon leave the
EU, and characterized the EU itself as "basically a vehicle
for Germany."
Trump and Bannon are extremely hostile to Merkel and eager
to see her lose. But what is increasingly clear is that Trump
will make the break up of the EU a central administration
policy and appears to want the same for NATO.
My own view is that Trump and Bannon greatly overestimate
America's relative economic power in the world. Their view
appears to be that no European country will feel it is able
to be locked out of trade with a US-UK trade pact. An America
eager to break up the EU seems more likely to inject new life
into the union. However that may be, Trump and Bannon clearly
want to create a nativist world order based on the US, Russia
and states that want to align with them. The EU and NATO are
only obstacles to that goal."
In two separate, and quite striking, interviews with Germany's Bild (
paywall
)
and London's Sunday Times (
paywall
),
Donald Trump did what he failed to do in his first US press conference, and covered an
extensive amount of policy and strategy, much of which however will likely please
neither the pundits, nor the markets.
Among the numerous topics covered in the Bild interview, he called NATO obsolete,
predicted that other European Union members would join the U.K. in leaving the bloc and
threatened BMW with import duties over a planned plant in Mexico, according to a Sunday
interview granted to Germany's Bild newspaper that will raise concerns in Berlin over
trans-Atlantic relations. Furthermore, in his first "exclusive" interview in the UK
granted to the Sunday Times, Trump said he will offer Britain a quick and "fair" trade
deal with America within weeks of taking office to help make Brexit a "great thing".
Trump revealed that he was inviting Theresa May to visit him "right after" he gets into
the White House and wants a trade agreement between the two countries secured "very
quickly".
Trump told the Times that other countries would follow Britain's lead in leaving the
European Union, claiming it had been deeply damaged by the migration crisis. "I think
it's very tough," he said. "People, countries want their own identity and the UK wanted
its own identity."
Elsewhere, quoted in German from a conversation held in English, Trump predicted
Britain's exit from the EU will be a success and portrayed the EU as an instrument of
German domination with the purpose of beating the U.S. in international trade. For that
reason, Trump said, he's fairly indifferent whether the EU breaks up or stays together,
according to Bild.
According to Bloomberg
, Trump's comments "leave little doubt that he will stick to
campaign positions and may in some cases upend decades of U.S. foreign policy, putting
him fundamentally at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on issues from free trade
and refugees to security and the EU's role in the world."
Trump then attacked another carmarker, previosuly unnoticed by the president-elect,
when he warned
the United States will impose a border tax of 35 percent on cars
that German carmaker BMW plans to build at a new plant in Mexico and export to the U.S.
market
. A BMW spokeswoman said a BMW Group plant in San Luis Potosi would
build the BMW 3 Series starting from 2019, with the output intended for the world
market. The plant in Mexico would be an addition to existing 3 Series production
facilities in Germany and China. Trump said BMW should build its new car factory in the
United States because this would be "much better" for the company.
He went on to say Germany was a great car producer, borne out by Mercedes Benz cars
being a frequent sight in New York, but there was no reciprocity. Germans were not
buying Chevrolets at the same rate, he said, making the business relationship an unfair
one-way street. He said he was an advocate of free trade, but not at any cost. The BMW
spokeswoman said the company was "very much at home in the U.S.," employing directly and
indirectly nearly 70,000 people in the country.
Going back to foreign policy, Trump discussed his stance on Russia and suggested he
might use economic sanctions imposed for Vladimir Putin's encroachment on Ukraine as
leverage in nuclear-arms reduction talks, while NATO, he said, "has problems."
"[
NATO] is obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago
,"
Bild quoted Trump as saying about the trans-Atlantic military alliance.
"Secondly, countries aren't paying what they should" and NATO "didn't deal with
terrorism."
While those comments expanded on doubts Trump raised about the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization during his campaign, he reserved some of his most dismissive remarks for
the EU and Merkel, whose open-border refugee policy he called a "catastrophic mistake."
He further elaborated on this stance in the Times interview, where he said he was
willing to lift Russian sanctions in return for a reduction in nuclear weapons.
When asked about the prospect of a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia, Trump
told the newspaper in an interview: "For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be
way down and reduced very substantially, that's part of it."
Additionally, Trump said Brexit will turn out to be a "great thing." Trump said he
would work very hard to get a trade deal with the United Kingdom "done quickly and done
properly".
Trump praised Britons for voting last year to leave the EU. People and countries want
their own identity and don't want outsiders to come in and "destroy it." The U.K. is
smart to leave the bloc because the EU "is basically a means to an end for Germany,"
Bild cited Trump as saying. "
If you ask me, more countries will leave
,"
he was quoted as saying.
While Trump blamed Brexit on an influx of refugees he said that Britain was forced to
accept, the U.K.'s number of asylum applications in 2015 was a fraction of the 890,000
refugees who arrived in Germany that year at the peak of Europe's migrant crisis.
With Merkel facing an unprecedented challenge from the anti-immigration Alternative
for Germany as she seeks a fourth term this fall, Trump was asked whether he'd like to
see her re-elected. He said he couldn't say, adding that while he respects Merkel, who's
been in office for 11 years, he doesn't know her and she has hurt Germany by letting
"all these illegals" into the country.
Among Trump's other comments to Bild::
the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq may have been the worst
in U.S. history;
that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, is a natural talent who will
bring about an accord with Israel
Trump plans to keep using social media including Twitter once he's in the
White House to sidestep the press and communicate directly with his followers
People entering the U.S. will face "extreme" security checks, possibly
including some European nationals
But perhaps the most troubling, if only to legacy US diplomatic relations, was that,
as the Times noted, "despite all of Mr Trump's expressions of admiration for Mr Putin
and Mrs Merkel, he revealed that he was prepared to cut ties with both: "Well, I start
off trusting both - but let's see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all."
It is unclear if this litany of strategic and tactical announcements, many of which
quite shocking in their audacity and scope, is merely meant to serve as a launching pad
for further negotiations, something Trump has proven quite adept at doing by stunning
his counterparties into a state of abrupt silence, or if these are actually meant to
serve as a basis for future US policy; if it is the latter, when US markets reopen they
may have a distinct case of indigestion because while the market had desperately hoped
for more clarity out of Trump on his policies, what emerged in these two interview is
hardly it.
Taking the UK out of the EU single
market would be "the greatest job-killing act in Welsh
economic history", Plaid Cymru has said.
Several of Sunday's newspapers claim Prime Minister
Theresa May will signal the move in a speech on Tuesday.
Plaid's treasury spokesman Jonathan Edwards told the BBC's
Sunday Politics Wales programme the impact on Wales would be
"devastating".
Downing Street has described the reports as "speculation".
The Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP said pulling out of the
single market and customs union would have a "huge impact on
jobs and wages in Wales".
"The reality of what we're going to hear from [Theresa
May] on Tuesday, it's going to be the greatest job-killing
act in Welsh economic history, probably in British economic
history," he added. ...
It's a shorthand reference to one possible outcome of
negotiations between the U.K. and the EU -- the U.K. giving
up its membership in Europe's single market for goods and
services in return for gaining full control over its own
budget, its own law-making, and most importantly, its own
immigration. If that happens, British leaders will be under
pressure to quickly land a new trade pact or individual
industry-by-industry deals with the EU. Otherwise, companies
will be subjected to standard World Trade Organization rules,
which would impose tariffs on them. Banks would lose the easy
access they now enjoy to the bloc.
2. How would that differ from a softer Brexit?
A softer form would see the U.K. maintain some tariff-free
access to the single market of some 450 million consumers.
The U.K. would likely still have to contribute to the EU
budget, allow some freedom of labor movement and follow some
EU rules. That's what Norway does, as a member of the
European Economic Area but not of the EU. ...
Plaid Cymru: the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as
Plaid) is a social-democratic political party in Wales
advocating for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom
within the European Union. ... (Wikipedia)
'How can the United Kingdom possibly gain economically from
completely leaving the
European Union?'
Voters decided that the UK was paying
more to be 'in the EU' than they were
receiving (in subsidies, etc.) for
*being* members. That and they were
expected by Way Too European, welcome
foreign workers, obey crazy regulations
imposed by foreigners, yada yada yada.
(Wales, BTW, gets/got lots of aid from the EU.)
Or, is the key word 'completely'?
It was said months ago by the other major
EU members that they want Britain *out*, so
that alone should be a reason for PM May
to demand a very Soft Brexit.
After these months since the vote to leave the European
Union, where the United Kingdom had special privileges to
begin with, I still find no coherent rationale to the
decision. There is no reason to think the cost of being an EU
member was anywhere near the benefits to the UK, and evidence
to the contrary that was repeatedly promised has never been
produced.
Simon Wren-Lewis has written often on Brexit and
seems as puzzled as I am by the seeming toughness as well as
the determination of Teresa May on the leaving.
It would seem UK voters were bamboozled about
the finances. They do pay a lot *in* to be
EU members, as do other large/wealthy
members, but they also got a lot back.
They were told it was costing too much.
'they were
expected (to be) Way Too European, welcome
foreign workers, obey crazy regulations
imposed by foreigners, etc.'
Britain has always had mixed feelings
about being 'European' it seems, since
the end of their empire.
No worries. There will
still be The Five Eyes,
the 'Special Relationship'.
An exclusive club: The 5 countries that don't spy on each
other
http://to.pbs.org/2iv8mNk
via @PBS NewsHour - October 25, 2013
It was born out of American and British intelligence
collaboration in World War II, a long-private club nicknamed
the "Five Eyes." The members are five English-speaking
countries who share virtually all intelligence - and pledge
not to practice their craft on one another. A former top U.S.
counter-terrorism official called it "the inner circle of our
very closest allies, who don't need to spy on each other."
This is the club that German chancellor Angela Merkel and
French President Francois Hollande say they want to join - or
at least, win a similar "no-spying" pact with the U.S.
themselves.
It all began with a secret 7-page agreement struck in 1946
between the U.S. and the U.K., the "British-US Communication
Agreement," later renamed UKUSA. At first their focus was the
Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites. But after
Canada joined in 1948, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956,
the "Five Eyes" was born, and it had global reach. They
pledged to share intelligence - especially the results of
electronic surveillance of communications - and not to
conduct such surveillance on each other. Whiffs of the club's
existence appeared occasionally in the press, but it wasn't
officially acknowledged and declassified until 2010, when
Britain's General Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ,
released some of the founding documents. The benefits of
membership are immense, say intelligence experts. While the
U.S. has worldwide satellite surveillance abilities, the club
benefits from each member's regional specialty, like
Australia and New Zealand's in the Far East. "We practice
intelligence burden sharing," said one former U.S. official.
"We can say, 'that's hard for us cover, so can you?'" The
ease and rapidity of information-sharing among the five
"makes it quicker to connect the dots," said another
intelligence veteran. "You can't underestimate the importance
of the common language, legal system and culture," said
another. "Above all, there is total trust." ...
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for the United States
had by 2014 recovered from the international recession to the
level of 2007. Recovery for the United Kingdom came in 2015.
The recession and recovery obviously were socially difficult
and took an extended time.
Then too, there had been a time
of war from the US and UK extending from 2001.
An extended period of social turmoil that is difficult to
grasp or shut out.
PM May is in way over her head and does not know what she is
doing. Nor does she know what she says has meaning and
effects. She's not long for office, imo of course.
Brexit: The Story on Tariffs and Currency Fluctuations
The New York Times decided to tout the risks * that higher
tariffs could cause serious damage to industry in the UK
following Brexit:
For Mr. Magal [the CEO of an engineering company that
makes parts for the car industry], the threat of trade
tariffs is forcing him to rethink the structure of his
business. The company assembles thermostatic control units
for car manufacturers, including Jaguar Land Rover in Britain
and Daimler in Germany.
"Tariffs could add anything up to 10 percent to the price
of some of his products, an increase he can neither afford to
absorb nor pass on. 'We don't make 10 percent profit - that's
for sure,' he said, adding, 'We won't be able to increase the
price, because the customer will say, "We will buy from the
competition."' "
The problem with this story, as conveyed by Mr. Magal, is
that the British pound has already fallen by close to 10
percent against the euro since Brexit. This means that even
if the European Union places a 10 percent tariff on goods
from the UK (the highest allowable under the World Trade
Organization), his company will be in roughly the same
position as it was before Brexit. It is also worth noting
that the pound rose by roughly 10 percent against the euro
over the course of 2015. This should have seriously hurt Mr.
Magal's business in the UK if it is as sensitive to relative
prices as he claims.
[Graph]
It is likely that Brexit will be harmful to the UK economy
if it does occur, but many of the claims made before the vote
were wrong, most notably there was not an immediate
recession. It seems many of the claims being made now are
also false.
He's got a lot of options for catastrophic failure - potential conflict with China coming to the
forefront over the past week or so.* If he decides to have a go with them that will have an adverse
effect on people's ability to buy cheap shit at WalMart. It could well adversely affect their
ability to feed themselves. If that happens then I predict it will adversely affect his popularity.
Trump is a narcissist. Popularity is of foremost importance to him. That noted, I'm skeptical
that he's self-aware enough to recognize what actions he might take that people - as in essentially
all of us, not just the ones who didn't vote for him - would hate him for. If given enough rope
will he hang himself? Perhaps more significantly, how many of us will hang first?
*Next week it'll be something new. Iran's probably due for a turn in the headlines before the
winter is out. Perhaps a dust up with Putin in the spring?
If we assume that Trump is a narcissist, your analysis is all wrong.
In this case he might go not after China, but after security parasites who tried to play J.
Edgar Hoover on him. And try to destroy this scum.
libezkova -> Dan Kervick... , -1
Dan,
"Whether Trump is seen by most of the public in the end as a "legitimate" president will be
determined primarily by perceptions of his job performance."
I am not so sure. People fought to block Hillary not to elect Trump. Hillary was the chosen
candidate of the deep-state and international finance capital. They actually don't care if politician
belong to 'D' or 'R' branch of the establishment party. They are only concerned how well they
will serve the US led global neoliberal empire.
That means that Trump deserves the "Benefit of the Doubt" in evaluation of his performance
-- most people understand that he will be fighting on two fronts, with the deep state being one.
See, I'm not surprised that
BuzzFeed
would do something as shady and unethical as
exposing this Trump dossier that alleges he paid Russian sex workers for a golden shower show.
Nope, literally nothing this loathsome, pathetic excuse for a "news" site does could ever
surprise me. I can't understand why anyone would take a site seriously that posts things they
admit cannot be verified.
He's got a lot of options for
catastrophic failure - potential conflict with China coming to the forefront over the past
week or so.* If he decides to have a go with them that will have an adverse effect on people's
ability to buy cheap shit at WalMart.
It could well adversely affect their ability to feed
themselves. If that happens then I predict it will adversely affect his popularity.
Trump is a narcissist. Popularity is of foremost importance to him. That noted, I'm skeptical
that he's self-aware enough to recognize what actions he might take that people - as in essentially
all of us, not just the ones who didn't vote for him - would hate him for. If given enough
rope will he hang himself? Perhaps more significantly, how many of us will hang first?
*Next week it'll be something new. Iran's probably due for a turn in the headlines before the
winter is out. Perhaps a dust up with Putin in the spring?
libezkova ->
Dan Kervick...
, -1
Dan,
"Whether Trump is seen by most of the public in the end as a "legitimate" president
will be determined primarily by perceptions of his job performance."
I am not so sure. People fought to block Hillary not to elect Trump. Hillary was the chosen
candidate of the deep-state and international finance capital. They actually don't care if
politician belong to 'D' or 'R' branch of the establishment party. They are only concerned
how well they will serve the US led global neoliberal empire.
That means that Trump deserves the "Benefit of the Doubt" in evaluation of his performance
-- most people understand that he will be fighting on two fronts, with the deep state being
one.
I agree that it is strange that we have "Trump rally" and that
this rally somewhat contradicts my hypothesis (although not much
if we analyze S&P 500 by sector, for example oil industry definitely
should rally, no question about it).
You forgot a very important nuance that S&P500 as a whole
did much better that financial industry ETFs.
People made a lot of money based on this recently.
Trumps ties to de Rothschild is where you don't get it. Oh, what
did Donald do in 2008 that got him in bad trouble..............GS
left the Morgans in 2009 and finally that truth is coming out
of the closet. My guess when Democrats come back into the WH,
GS gets hurt bad bad bad.
Trump will likely do something bold militarily, very early in
his administration, most likely directed against ISIS and related
jihadi groups. He will partner with Russia in doing this.
If
it goes reasonably well, Putin will be our new best buddy in
the war on terror. The media herd, responding with the usual
America at War televised info-frenzy, will ramble en masse away
from it's current obsession with Russian spying and hacking,
and will instead be covering the war theater with embedded journalists
in flak jackets and helmets. They will be interviewing, among
others, Russian pilots and generals, newly discovered to be likable
and sturdy vodka-slugging war heroes, and our allies against
terrorists, not diabolical villains. They will regale the public
with background stories about heroic Russian deeds of the past,
including how they stopped Hitler in the snows of western Russia.
Nobody will care any more about the details of the 2016 election,
and the sad dead-enders who can't let it go.
On the other hand, if it goes poorly, this will give the public
even more opportunity to indulge conspiracy theories about false
flags, Russian and American "deep state" subversion, crony-capitalist
bribery, election meddling and the illegitimacy of the 2016 outcome,
Russian state television propaganda, left-wing fifth columnists
and traitors, etc.
So that's what I mean when I say that Trump's perceived legitimacy
will depend on how things go.
"... "Democrats can only turn this decade-long collapse around by not being who they appeared to be in the last three election cycles."
He yet again is a Democratic-Party sucker by his bald assumption that it wasn't "who they appeared to be," it's instead what they were
and still are, which is disgusting and which was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats supporting Obama -- they even voted for his war
against Russia, and backed almost 100% his bloody coup which overthrew the democratically elected President of Ukraine -- right next
door to Russia. ..."
"... What would we Americans think if Russia had perpetrated a coup in Mexico? ..."
This article caused me to lose respect for 'Gaius Publius', because of his statements so prejudicial and presumption-laden,
so trusting in what liars (including especially Trump) have said, as, "As horrible and as monstrous as this incoming administration
is - and it will prove to be the worst in American history" -- which presumes that Trump will certainly turn out to have been
even worse than George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which means that 'Gaius Publius' doesn't understand what the competition for
that title, "the worst in American history," really is and how vile and evil and harmful they were, such as Obama's having tried
to push Russia to the very brink of war (and Hillary Clinton would have pushed it beyond the brink, by her insisting upon establishing
a "no-fly zone" in Syria, shooting down Russian planes and forcing Russia to shoot down American planes there). 'Gaius Publius'
is a Democratic Party sucker there, blind to Obama's (and especially Clinton's) evil. Then he says:
"Democrats can only turn this decade-long collapse around by not being who they appeared to be in the last three election
cycles." He yet again is a Democratic-Party sucker by his bald assumption that it wasn't "who they appeared to be," it's instead
what they were and still are, which is disgusting and which was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats supporting Obama -- they
even voted for his war against Russia, and backed almost 100% his bloody coup which overthrew the democratically elected President
of Ukraine -- right next door to Russia.
What would we Americans think if Russia had perpetrated a coup in Mexico? Would we feel safe from their missiles?
How blind can Democrats be? It's why I quit the Party.
'Gaius Publius' is just a fool, someone who can't get rid of his assumptions once they've become false. How is he any smarter
than Republicans, who are long-infamous for being precisely such fools?
This article has some true parts, but the person who wrote it is a fool. Lots of fools mix falsehoods in with truths, instead
of believe only falsehoods. Those fools are harder to detect, but that also makes even more important the reader's being on guard
against believing what such 'over-educated' fools say or write. 'Gaius Publius' hasn't absorbed the reality of the Clinton-Obama-led
Democratic Party. It's disgusting.
"... Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding? ..."
"... In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint. ..."
"... The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread. ..."
Just as an aside - not really economics, but I am really
worrying about what the war between the future white house
team and the CIA that seems to be brewing. I don't see good
solutions to this. It is sort of unprecedented in a major
western country. Can you think of a similar case (where the
intelligence services - and perhaps the military as well
regarded there own government head as an enemy agent)?
Define unprecedented.
What are your standards for a "major
western nation"? Any moral standard?
Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized
spooks with unlimited secret funding?
Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now.The voters
wanted someone to "shake things up"
Trump will be applying creative destruction to government
Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump
may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more
corrupt.
As with Obamacare, the idea is to destroy it and
replace it with something better.
Most revolutions find it easy to destroy and very much harder
to build
Most sane leaders recognize this difficulty and modify the
existing rather than destroy and never getting around to
replacement or find the replacement to be worse than the
existing.
Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting
chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump
will give the voters the radical change they think they want.
But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for
personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted
government that will need to be rebuilt before it will
function again
I don't believe in "creative destruction", I believe in
"destructive creation" which is something quite different.
But that is not the point. This is not about the government
as such, it is about the security apparatus in itself. It
could get very nasty if that ends up either totally alienated
or politicized.
If I were President, provoking an organization whose
specialty is covert operations and which has track record of
bringing about the demise of insufficiently agreeable leaders
would not be high on my to-do list.
The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton
loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon
Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime
change excuse the yellow press could spread.
Trump is an isolationist who repeatedly said the Iraq war was
a disaster, which it was.
If the CIA is going after Trump
they're doing a bad job. The worst they could come up with is
some unverified accounts that Trump likes pee-pee parties.
Because they are already reportedly telling some of their
contacts not to trust the government with information in case
it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word
"war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but
in general I mean a state of mutual distrust.
"... "Democrats can only turn this decade-long collapse around by not being who they appeared to be in the last three election cycles."
He yet again is a Democratic-Party sucker by his bald assumption that it wasn't "who they appeared to be," it's instead what they were
and still are, which is disgusting and which was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats supporting Obama -- they even voted for his war
against Russia, and backed almost 100% his bloody coup which overthrew the democratically elected President of Ukraine -- right next
door to Russia. ..."
"... What would we Americans think if Russia had perpetrated a coup in Mexico? ..."
This article caused me to lose respect for 'Gaius Publius', because of his statements so prejudicial and presumption-laden,
so trusting in what liars (including especially Trump) have said, as, "As horrible and as monstrous as this incoming administration
is - and it will prove to be the worst in American history" -- which presumes that Trump will certainly turn out to have been
even worse than George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which means that 'Gaius Publius' doesn't understand what the competition for
that title, "the worst in American history," really is and how vile and evil and harmful they were, such as Obama's having tried
to push Russia to the very brink of war (and Hillary Clinton would have pushed it beyond the brink, by her insisting upon establishing
a "no-fly zone" in Syria, shooting down Russian planes and forcing Russia to shoot down American planes there). 'Gaius Publius'
is a Democratic Party sucker there, blind to Obama's (and especially Clinton's) evil. Then he says:
"Democrats can only turn this decade-long collapse around by not being who they appeared to be in the last three election
cycles." He yet again is a Democratic-Party sucker by his bald assumption that it wasn't "who they appeared to be," it's instead
what they were and still are, which is disgusting and which was overwhelmingly supported by Democrats supporting Obama -- they
even voted for his war against Russia, and backed almost 100% his bloody coup which overthrew the democratically elected President
of Ukraine -- right next door to Russia.
What would we Americans think if Russia had perpetrated a coup in Mexico? Would we feel safe from their missiles?
How blind can Democrats be? It's why I quit the Party.
'Gaius Publius' is just a fool, someone who can't get rid of his assumptions once they've become false. How is he any smarter
than Republicans, who are long-infamous for being precisely such fools?
This article has some true parts, but the person who wrote it is a fool. Lots of fools mix falsehoods in with truths, instead
of believe only falsehoods. Those fools are harder to detect, but that also makes even more important the reader's being on guard
against believing what such 'over-educated' fools say or write. 'Gaius Publius' hasn't absorbed the reality of the Clinton-Obama-led
Democratic Party. It's disgusting.
"... The CIA and NSA (the largest part of the "national security state") were intruding politically in the other direction , by endorsing Clinton and demonizing Trump ..."
"... For months , the CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton's candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. ..."
"... It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA's proxy war in Syria and was eager to expand that war , while Trump denounced it . ..."
"... This is not a game, even at the electoral level. It has nation-changing, anti-democratic consequences. Democratic voters fear a coup, or a kind of coup, led by the Trump administration, and for good reason. But there's another coup in the making as well, and Democrats are cheering it. ..."
"... Yet the following actually did happen (Greenwald again, my emphasis): "Just last week, Chuck Schumer issued a warning to Trump, telling Rachel Maddow that Trump was being 'really dumb' by challenging the unelected intelligence community because of all the ways they possess to destroy those who dare to stand up to them ." And yet there was no shock or fear, at least from Maddow or her viewers. ..."
"... And Schumer really did use the phrase "they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." The video is embedded here . Is that how Democrats plan to defeat Trump? Is it better, more comforting, if a Democrat makes that threat and appears to side with the security agencies' (the deep state's) strong-arm tactics? ..."
"... A coup in the making - not the one we fear, which may also occur - but a coup nonetheless. This really is not a game, and both sides are playing for keeps. ..."
The CIA and NSA (the largest part of the "national security state") were intruding politically
in the other direction , by
endorsing Clinton and demonizing Trump (my emphasis):
For months , the CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary
Clinton's candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump.
In August, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell
announced his endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed that "Mr. Putin had
recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." The CIA and NSA director
under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton, and
went to the Washington Post to warn , in the week before the election, that "Donald Trump
really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin," adding that Trump is "the useful fool, some naif,
manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted
and exploited."
It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical
of Obama for restraining the CIA's proxy war in Syria and was
eager to expand that war , while Trump denounced it .
Now Trump is president and the pro-war national security forces are at it again, leaning again
on Trump in yet another intrusion into the political process .
So who again tried to tilt the field for or against Clinton or Trump? Including Russia, the administration,
Comey, agents of the FBI and NY police, the CIA and national security forces, I count five groups.
This is a lot of political intrusion, regardless of which candidate you favored - all within the
last year - and we're still not done. I'm sure we're only halfway through this extended drama.
The Selective Blindness of the Democratic Party
Third, with all this political interference, where are the Democrats? Do they condemn it all,
praise it all, or pick and choose?
Bottom line: They see what they want to see, not what's in front of us all and in plain sight.
Which is not only unprincipled, it's dangerous for them as well as us.
Again, they did not see Obama's original declarations of Clinton's innocence as political
intrusion. But they did see Comey's eventual "won't indict, but will condemn" speech, and
his and other investigators' pre-election actions, as political intrusion. They did not see
the "pro-war" security apparatus' endorsement of Clinton and trashing of Trump as intrusions. But
they do see Russian interference as intrusion. And they absolutely don't see the security
services' present blackmail threats against a duly elected president as political interference.
They see what they want to see, what they think helps them politically and electorally, and they're
blind to the rest. This is highly unprincipled. And again, it's dangerous as well.
After all, one reason the institutional Democratic Party nearly lost to Sanders, a highly principled
man - and did lose to Trump, a man who pretended to be principled - is that plenty of voters in key
states were just tired of being taken for a ride by "say one thing, do another" Democrats. Tired,
in other words, of unprincipled Democrats - tired of job-promising. job-killing trade deals pushed
hard by both Democratic presidents, tired of the bank bailout that made every banker whole but
rescued almost no mortgagees , tired of their
reduced lives , their
mountain of personal debt , tired of the overly complex, profit-infected, still-unsolved medical
care system - tired of what 16 years of Democrats had done to them, not for them.
If Democrats want to start winning again, not just the White House, but Congress and state houses,
they can't continue to be these Democrats - unprincipled and self-serving. They must be
those Democrats, Sanders Democrats, principled Democrats instead.
Does the above litany of complaint about political interference when it suits them, and non-complaint
when it doesn't, look like principled behavior to you?
Which brings me to the end of this part of the discussion. If some people see this party behavior
as self-serving hypocrisy, you can bet others do as well. Democrats can only turn this decade-long
collapse around by not being who they appeared to be in the last three election cycles. They have
to attract the Sanders voters who stood aside in the general election and see them very negatively.
Yes, Democrats will continue to get votes - some people will always vote Democratic. But in the post-Sanders,
post-Trump era, will they get enough votes to turn the current tide, which runs heavily against them?
I'm not alone in thinking, not a chance.
But this is the long form of what I wanted to say. For the elevator speech version, just read
the three tweets at the top. I think they capture the main points very nicely.
Glenn Greenwald: "The Deep State Goes to War with the President-Elect, and Democrats Cheer"
Greenwald's take is very similar to mine, and there's much more research in his
excellent piece . Writing at The Intercept , he says (emphasis in original):
The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer
In January, 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered
his farewell
address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans
of this specific threat to democracy: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." That warning
was issued prior to the decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War
mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction's power even
further.
This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and
already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic Cold War dirty
tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as "Fake News."
Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves,
believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their
unexpected and traumatic election loss as well as a
systemic collapse of their party , seemingly divorced further and further from reason with
each passing day, are willing - eager - to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with
any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging those behaviors might be.
You can see where this is going. The "deep state," the CIA, NSA and the rest of the unelected
national security apparatus of the U.S., is going to war with an elected president even before
he takes office, and Democrats are so eager for a win that they're siding with them.
Did Russia attempt to interfere in the U.S. election? Of course, and Democrats condemned it. Did
the agents of the FBI et al attempt to interfere in the U.S. election? Of course, and Democrats
condemned it. Is the national security state today interfering in the outcome of a U.S. election,
by trying to destabilize and force its will on the incoming administration? Of course, and Democrats
are cheering it.
As horrible and as monstrous as this incoming administration is - and it will prove to be the
worst in American history - who would aid the national security apparatus in undermining it?
Apparently, the Democratic Party. Greenwald continues:
The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There are a wide
array of legitimate and effective tactics for combatting those threats: from bipartisan congressional
coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive
civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times
of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.
But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election
and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive.
Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit
over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous
assertions be instantly venerated as Truth - despite emanating from the very precincts designed
to propagandize and lie - is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality.
And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign
operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.
And Greenwald agrees that this tactic is not just craven; it's also dangerous:
Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking
him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When
it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people
and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how
factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from
basic means of ensuring accuracy?
All of this, don't forget, rests on the
one document mentioned above , the material summarized in an appendix to the classified version
of the security services' report on Russia (emphasis mine):
the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility
in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document,
compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents
of Trump , accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts and salacious private conduct.
The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so,
too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts
to undermine it.
I'll send you to the
Greenwald piece for much more of this detail. As I said above, this story has seemed muddy until
now, but it just came clear.
A Coup in the Making
This is not a game, even at the electoral level. It has nation-changing, anti-democratic consequences.
Democratic voters fear a coup, or a kind of coup, led by the Trump administration, and for good reason.
But there's another coup in the making as well, and Democrats are cheering it.
If a Republican elected official had publicly warned Obama not oppose a policy the Republicans
and the CIA/NSA favored because "they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you," what would
- what should - our response to that be? Mine would be horror and shock that a Republican
had dared make that threat, followed by fear that he, and the agencies behind him, will make good
on it. At which point, it's farewell democracy, likely for a long long time.
Yet the following actually did happen (Greenwald again, my emphasis): "Just last week, Chuck
Schumer issued a warning to Trump, telling Rachel Maddow that Trump was being 'really dumb' by challenging
the unelected intelligence community because of all the ways they possess to destroy those who dare
to stand up to them ." And yet there was no shock or fear, at least from Maddow or her viewers.
And Schumer really did use the phrase "they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you."
The video is
embedded here . Is that how Democrats plan to defeat Trump? Is it better, more comforting, if
a Democrat makes that threat and appears to side with the security agencies' (the deep state's) strong-arm
tactics?
A coup in the making - not the one we fear, which may also occur - but a coup nonetheless.
This really is not a game, and both sides are playing for keeps.
By
Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent
contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter
@Gaius_Publius,
Tumblr
and
Facebook.
GP article archive
here.
Originally published at
DownWithTyranny
"... I like the use of "careerist" ; it should be used more often, as it describes the motivation of a rather large number of decision-makers I've met. ..."
"... I would hate to see it used more often. I have heard of its being applied to a grad student who–wait for it!–actually hoped to have an academic career and recognized the forms that had to be gone through to achieve that. There are places where it is an appropriate description, but it is one of those vogue words (like narcissistic) which become void of meaning through overuse. ..."
Team Trump is working on a plan "to restructure the Central
Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia
headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the
world,"
And the main reason Clinton Democrats are jumping on this bandwagon is
that they want to blame their gross electoral failure on "external forces",
not their own terrible record of sabotaging the middle class in favor of
elite Wall Street interests. Their current fear is progressive Sanders
Democrats kicking them out of the DNC and other party organization
leadership positions (which just happened in California); hence their
willingness to get behind bogus claims on DNC hacking and Russians running
Trump.
As far as the FBI's Comey, notably he acted to protect Clinton when the
great fear was that she'd be defeated by Sanders; notably the FBI didn't
access DNC servers to look for evidence of a hack (it was probably an
internal leak), and Comey's refusal to recommend criminal charges for
Clinton during the primary was a service to the Clinton Democrats.
And the DNC was just so sleazy, no wonder they alienated all the Sanders
supporters for the general election:
It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to
ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has
a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make
several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would
draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.- DNC CFO Brad
Marshall
I would hate to see it used more often. I have heard of its being applied
to a grad student who–wait for it!–actually hoped to have an academic career
and recognized the forms that had to be gone through to achieve that. There
are places where it is an appropriate description, but it is one of those
vogue words (like narcissistic) which become void of meaning through
overuse.
"... I very much doubt that will happen, even should Trump survive and demand it. Just as the 9/11 Commission was a farce, just as the craven non-investigations of global financial disaster-spawning Wall Street crimes or grotesque Bush war crimes utterly hollowed-out the rule of law, the gigantic stake through the heart of US democracy that was this disastrous political fiasco just happens to advance and further empower the very worst interests operating in the US. ..."
"... And as Snowden reports, Obama, on top of everything else gifted Trump (or Pence) in terms of Executive power has also given the entire US Intel Community access to NSA information. That's it. At that point the Deep State can set-up or take down anyone. They've presented the American people and world with the perfect lose-lose: instead of Trump and no showdown with Russia, it's Trump with a showdown with Russia, or Pence with a showdown with Russia. And not matter what, the consolidated IC now has legal authority to run riot. ..."
"... Excellent post. Many of us are appropriately disinterested in the specific allegations made in that dossier. Yet this rather bizarre behavior by the Deep State is frightening. Given these circumstances, it is not too surprising the man has selected Gen. Mad Dog Mattis to run his defense. He would be well-advised to clean house among the upper echelon of the nation's intelligence apparatus as quickly as possible. I don't much care for Mr. Trump, but carry much more animosity toward the Deep State. ..."
"... The intelligence apparatus now has immense power and has developed it own objectives outside of political control. It needs to be broken up and reined in, ensuring it is tightly controlled. Particularly, the intelligence community cannot have the tools, such as mass internal NSA surveillance, allowing it to interfere in our internal political processes. I imagine Trump now has the incentive to take on the intelligence community. Whether he will be successful or not, only time will tell. ..."
"... The gloves come off and the plutocracy shows its true self for all those whose eyes are open. ..."
"... Like falsifying evidence to wage war in Iraq and before that Vietnam, this is a mark against the US intelligence agencies. This is also a mark on the Democrats, who are trying to use these as a distraction for facing up to the reality of losing to Trump. ..."
Here's an account by Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector on the Iraq WMD
investigation. It certainly appears to me from this and a number of sources that
what we have is a scandal of mammoth proportions that would suck in the senior
leadership of both Parties, the Intelligence Community, the State Department, the
White House and of course all of the various surrogates throughout media, were
this all subject to an independent, credible investigation.
I very much doubt that will happen, even should Trump survive and demand it. Just as the 9/11 Commission
was a farce, just as the craven non-investigations of global financial disaster-spawning Wall Street
crimes or grotesque Bush war crimes utterly hollowed-out the rule of law, the gigantic stake through
the heart of US democracy that was this disastrous political fiasco just happens to advance and further
empower the very worst interests operating in the US.
And as Snowden reports, Obama, on top of everything else gifted Trump (or Pence) in terms of Executive
power has also given the entire US Intel Community access to NSA information. That's it. At that point
the Deep State can set-up or take down anyone. They've presented the American people and world with
the perfect lose-lose: instead of Trump and no showdown with Russia, it's Trump with a showdown with
Russia, or Pence with a showdown with Russia. And not matter what, the consolidated IC now has legal
authority to run riot.
Excellent post. Many of us are appropriately disinterested in the specific
allegations made in that dossier. Yet this rather bizarre behavior by the Deep
State is frightening. Given these circumstances, it is not too surprising the
man has selected Gen. Mad Dog Mattis to run his defense. He would be well-advised
to clean house among the upper echelon of the nation's intelligence apparatus
as quickly as possible. I don't much care for Mr. Trump, but carry much more
animosity toward the Deep State.
He would be well-advised to clean house among the upper echelon of
the nation's intelligence apparatus as quickly as possible
The intelligence apparatus now has immense power and has developed it
own objectives outside of political control. It needs to be broken up and
reined in, ensuring it is tightly controlled. Particularly, the
intelligence community cannot have the tools, such as mass internal NSA
surveillance, allowing it to interfere in our internal political
processes. I imagine Trump now has the incentive to take on the
intelligence community. Whether he will be successful or not, only time
will tell.
The gloves come off and the plutocracy shows its true self for all those
whose eyes are open.
We've got multiple wrongs here. The Democratic Establishment, the
Intelligence agencies, and the Pravda-like media form the Deep State, which is
really controlled by the very rich. They are trying to cling to power here and
extract rent from society for the very rich. In return, its political servants
are themselves rewarded with wealth.
Then there's Trump. While I think he's a very unsavory person and he will do
some very damaging things to society, making up accusations of Russian hacks is
not the way to go. So far not a shred of evidence has been provided that Russia
was hacking. I doubt we will get any. That does not, as the article notes mean
that Russia is guiltless, but so fa the Democrats are pulling lies out of a hat
and hoping desperately it sticks.
Like falsifying evidence to wage war in Iraq and before that Vietnam, this
is a mark against the US intelligence agencies. This is also a mark on the
Democrats, who are trying to use these as a distraction for facing up to the
reality of losing to Trump.
The sad part is that America is going to continue its decline unless this
whole mess stops. It is likely that anyone truly principled would have to clean
house in both parties and in many senior leadership positions across the US
government. Then there is the matter of corporate America and its agenda of
rent seeking.
"... "With Goldman Sachs and neocon advisors filling up his administration, Trump may be simply nudged in the right direction. But the intelligence community is not willing to take many chances – and there are clearly contingencies in place." ..."
If Trump is worried about the existence of some "deep state" his first act in office should
be to demand a complete list of every intelligence sector employee, and the budgets, and dig in
and inform himself. They all work for him now.
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the
man puts America first, really says it all.
The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to
act? There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is
so bad and has been for so long, that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify
arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes Against The American People.
Arrest Hillary & Bill Clinton. Freeze their assets. RICO The Clinton Foundation & bring down
the Satanic Global Crime Syndicate.
This will de facto Drain the Swamp. Then, immediately End the Fed.
These Scum Fuck Occultist have been "Illuminated" and forced out into the light. This opportunity
to peacefully "Drain the Swamp" cannot be squandered.
"With Goldman Sachs and neocon advisors filling up his administration, Trump may be
simply nudged in the right direction. But the intelligence community is not willing to take
many chances – and there are clearly contingencies in place."
Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is both a Goldmanite and, like his convict father, a neocon.
It is Jared Kushner who chose all the Goldmanites and Neocons in Trump's Cabinet, just as it was
Kushner who got rid of Gov. Chris Christie, the former NJ Prosecutor who put Jared's dad, Charles
Kushner, in Federal prison.
Consequently, there will be no Trump assassination, because Kushner and his Goldmanites will
not allow it. VP-Elect Mike Pence may be a lot of things, but a Goldmanite is not one of them.
The Goldmanites, historically, were not his campaign contributors, and they do not want him in
the Presidency. Trump will be protected BY Deep State and won't need to be protected FROM Deep
State.
More Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man: "This Time, They're Coming For Your Democracy"
"...Perkins has just reissued his book with major updates. The basic premise of the book remains
the same, but the update shows how the economic hit man approach has evolved in the last 12 years.
Among other things, U.S. cities are now on the target list. The combination of debt, enforced
austerity, underinvestment, privatization, and the undermining of democratically elected governments
is now happening here" ... "Things have just gotten so much worse in the last 12 years since the
first Confessions was written.
Economic hit men and jackals have expanded tremendously, including the United States and Europe.
Back in my day we were pretty much limited to what we called the third world, or economically
developing countries, but now it's everywhere. And in fact, the cancer of the corporate empire
has metastasized into what I would call a failed global death economy. This is an economy that's
based on destroying the very resources upon which it depends, and upon the military. It's become
totally global, and it's a failure."
Plan on a "treasure hunt" that will result in the likes of POTUS "transvestitus" John "winter
soldier" Kerry and John "demonic" Leprechaun Brennan being FOUND, SKINNED and put on display in
front of their respective places of work!...
What's frightening is that as the elites had NO IDEA hillary would lose so bad, they might
have equally NO IDEA of the massive blowback should they go through with anything like this.
A lot of US spooks are on the gravy train. Do you know how many Orlando McMansions and DC Colonials
have been bought with black bag money? There are Billions flowing in a river through the Middle
East.
Also, these fuckers don't know how to do anything but destroy value and kill people. They know
this is the only job they can get. They are incompetent in the private market. Look at the MI6
idiot who writes worse than a high school kid.
CIA isn't going to give that up without a fight. They are cornered rats. When Putin is in Iceland
I hope he can relate this survival story to President Trump:
Following World War II, in which his father served with the Russian secret police, his parents
move into a communal apartment in St. Petersburg where they eventually give birth to Putin (1952).
Because Russia is facing major poverty and is still recovering from the war, the apartment is,
in the words of Putin's school teacher, "horrid without any conveniences" (10). Although he goes
on to explain his experiences with the other families in the commune, none of whom had any children,
he briefly tells a story of the first time he learned "the meaning of the word cornered."
There, on that stair landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the
word cornered. There were hordes of rats in the front entryway. My friends and I used to chase
them around with sticks. Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove
it into a corner. It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me.
I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me. It jumped across the landing and
down the stairs. Luckily, I was a little faster and managed to slam the door shut in its nose.
(10)
I call bullshit, Slavo. I feel certain Mr. T. fully understands the deep state and watched
Ike's last address. There is an equally powerful 'state' in this nation and it is not born out
of the government. Even the negroes will rally to his side if they feel he's a better populist
alternative to the deep state.
I'm sure that I would giggle to read who is getting interviewed for T's personal security.
He's not going to go driving in chicago with the top down. Kennedy pissed off all sides of power.
I do not see T having a really bad day while traveling or flying. Kennedy was arrogant in a
much different way. This time 'round, it's more like Adolf choosing sides with Earnst Rhom and
brown shirts over the Gestapo.
And if 'they' are listening, as they usually are... safe drivers are rewarded with auto insurance.
Getting yearly full on check ups should drop bucks on your insurance. No penalties for being unhealthy,
but rewards for being healthy. It's called health care, not sick care. Get a camera shoved up
your ass every ten years after 50? discount! oh... and that shouldn't cost 15k
If the central idiots assassinate Trump, there should be massive wildcat strikes and refusal
to buy anything, and the military should refuse to follow all military commands! Don't fight the
terrorists aka CIA war!
The fact that it is so plainly stated that the intelligence apparatus run the country and none
dare stand against them is evidence that it is high time for a president and the people to take
them down.
Saul Alinsky's Rule #1 is to appear more powerful than you are in order to cultivate fear in
your enemies. The American intelligence community and military-industrial complex are rotten and
termite-eaten by corruption.
Every successful revolution is merely the kicking in of a door that is already rotten. . I'm
not sure Trump is the guy for it, but I'd sure like to see him try.
There's too many Eyes, and everybody will know who planned it and who did it, so he won't be
Assassinated by physical means, just Politically Assassinated.
"... In a truly remarkable bit of honesty and candor regarding the U.S. national-security establishment, new Senate minority leader Charles Schumer has accused President-elect Trump of "being really dumb." for taking on the CIA and questioning its conclusions regarding Russia. ..."
"... "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you . He's being really dumb to do this." ..."
"... No president since John F. Kennedy has dared to take on the CIA or the rest of the national security establishment ..."
"... Kennedy After the Bay of Pigs, he vowed to tear the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds. He also fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, who, in a rather unusual twist of fate, would later be appointed to the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy's murder. ..."
It isn't just that Donald Trump routinely thumbs his nose at the establishment, insults media
figures he sees as unfair and bucks conventional wisdom.
It is that President-elect Trump is defying the will of the deep state, military industrial complex
base of ultimate power in the United States. That is why he is treading dangerous waters, and risks
the fate of JFK.
While it may be a silly falsehood, it may also be serving as a final warning that they get to
script reality, not him.
Perhaps they want Trump to feel blackmailed and controlled by alluding to fake dirt, while reminding
him of the real dirt they hold on his activities (whatever it may be).
Insulting the credibility of the intelligence community in a public way – as the man elected to
the highest office in the land – is liable to ruffle a few feathers, and it could provoke a serious
response.
Trump knows the power of the people he is taunting, but he may not be aware of where the line
is between play in political rhetoric and actually irritating and setting off those who control policy.
There is plenty of Trump misbehavior that can be simply written off, or trivialized, but cutting
into the war and statecraft narrative of the shadow government steering this deep state is a deviation
too far.
It is one thing to play captain, but another to imagine that you steer the ship. They are happy
for Trump to take all the prestige and privileges of the office; but not for him to cut into the
big business of foreign conflict, the undercurrent of all American affairs, the dealings in death,
drugs, oil and weapons, and the control of people through a manipulation of these affairs.
If President Trump takes his rogue populism too far, he will suffer the wrath of the same people
who took out Kennedy there are some things that are not tolerated by those who are really in charge.
And now leaders in the Senate are warning President-elect Trump about the stupidity of going against
the national-security establishment.
In a truly remarkable bit of honesty and candor regarding the U.S. national-security establishment,
new Senate minority leader Charles Schumer has accused President-elect Trump of "being really
dumb." for taking on the CIA and questioning its conclusions regarding Russia.
"Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at
getting back at you . He's being really dumb to do this."
[ ]
No president since John F. Kennedy has dared to take on the CIA or the rest of the national
security establishment [ ] They knew that if they opposed the national-security establishment
at a fundamental level, they would be subjected to retaliatory measures.
Kennedy After the Bay of Pigs, he vowed to tear the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter
them to the winds. He also fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, who, in a rather unusual twist of
fate, would later be appointed to the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy's murder.
Kennedy's antipathy toward the CIA gradually extended to what President Eisenhower had termed
the military-industrial complex, especially when it proposed Operation Northwoods, which called
for fraudulent terrorist attacks to serve as a pretext for invading Cuba, and when it suggested
that Kennedy initiate a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
[ ]
Worst of all, from the standpoint of the national-security establishment, [Kennedy] initiated
secret personal negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro
, both of whom, by this time, were on the same page as Kennedy.
[ ]
Kennedy was fully aware of the danger he faced by taking on such a formidable enemy.
And to the extent that President Kennedy consciously stood up to the system, he paid the price
for his attempt at independent wielding of power from the Oval Office.
It is a shuddering thought. A sharp lesson in history that must not be misinterpreted.
The implications for Trump are quite clear. If his refusal to take intelligence briefings, or
follow CIA advice is serious, then serious consequences will follow. If Trump is serious about peace
with Putin when they insist on war, there will be a problem.
There are several powers behind the throne that have wanted to ensure that presidents don't let
the power go to their head, or try to change course from the carefully arranged crisis-reaction-solution
paradigm.
True peace is not good for military industrial complex business; true peace, without the persistence
of grave threats, and plenty of sparks of chaos to back it up, cannot be tolerated.
As things have progressed today, making friendly with Putin, and calling off the war with Russia
may simply be impermissible. If Trump is attempting to negotiate his own peace – and sing along with
Frank Sinatra's "My Way" at the inauguration, then he is in for a very rude awakening.
If, on the other hand, he is the Trump card being played by this very same establishment, then
things may develop according to the same ultimate objectives, albeit through a 'wild card' path styled
after the ego of President Trump.
With Goldman Sachs and neocon advisors filling up his administration, Trump may be simply nudged
in the right direction. But the intelligence community is not willing to take many chances – and
there are clearly contingencies in place.
Former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul warned of the
shadow government taking control of President Trump's administration before it was even formed:
All this brings to mind the report that Trump is considering a realignment of the intel agencies
including staff reductions and reassignments as it compares with JFK's experience when he fired
CIA Director Allen Dulles. Kennedy replaced Dulles for lying to him about the Bay of Pigs debacle
with an inept outsider named John McCone who was easily snookered by CIA staff. Kennedy did not
fully realize the depth of Dulles' betrayal as he continued to meet with senior CIA staff at his
home on a regular basis where they discussed, debated and decided CIA policy.
What Trump needs to understand is that certain cats, especially the neo-con variety, have more
than nine lives and will hang on to their power base with every fiber of their being - and we
know how that worked out for JFK.
Enrique Ferro's insight: Observing the President since the November 8th election, his reactions reveal
an aggressiveness rarely, if ever seen in an outgoing President's closing days, and has become a
fascinating study in human dynamics.
Obama is clearly experiencing more than a normal reluctance to hand over his @POTUS twitter account
as perhaps the reality has only just hit home that it is far too late to create a new, improved legacy.
One explanation may be that the President's carefully constructed veneer of personality, never
convincing for those who have long sought the 'real' Barak Obama, has cracked under the pressure
of the 2016 losses.
It did not take long before we knew there was no hope of change from President Obama. But at least
he went into his inauguration with an unprecedented number of Americans on the Mall showing their
support for the President of Change. Hope was abundant.
But with Trump, we are already losing faith, if not yet with him, at least with his choice
of those who comprise his government even before Trump is inaugurated.
Trump's choice for Secretary of State not only sounds like the neoconservatives in declaring
Russia to be a threat to the United States and all of Europe, but also sounds like Hillary Clinton
in declaring the South China Sea to be an area of US dominance. One would think that the chairman
of Exxon was not an idiot, but I am no longer sure. In his confirmation hearing, Rex Tillerson
said that China's access to its own South China Sea is "not going to be allowed."
Here is Tillerson's statement: "We're going to have to send China a clear signal that first,
the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also not going to be allowed."
I mean, really, what is Tillerson going to do about it except get the world blown up. China's
response was as pointed as a response can be:
Tillerson "should not be misled into thinking that Beijing will be fearful of threats. If Trump's
diplomatic team shapes future Sino-US ties as it is doing now, the two sides had better prepare
for a military clash. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to
force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories."
So Trump is not even inaugurated and his idiot nominee for Secretary of State has already created
an animosity relationship with two nuclear powers capable of completely destroying all of the
West for eternity. And this makes the US Senate comfortable with Tillerson. The imbeciles should
be scared out of their wits, assuming they have any.
One of the reasons that Russia rescued Syria from Washington's overthrow is that Russia understood
that Washington's next target would be Iran and from a destroyed Iran terrorism would be exported
into the Russian Federation. There is an axis of countries threatened by US supported terrorism-Syria,
Iran, Russia, China.
Trump says he wants to normalize relations with Russia and to open up business opportunities
in the place of conflict. But to normalize relations with Russia requires also normalizing relations
with Iran and China.
Judging from their public statements, Trump's announced government has targeted Iran for destabilization.
Trump's appointees as National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, and Director of the CIA
all regard Iran incorrectly as a terrorist state that must be overthrown.
But Russia cannot allow Washington to overthrow the stable government in Iran and will not
allow it. China's investments in Iranian oil imply that China also will not permit Washington's
overthrow of Iran. China has already suffered from its lost investments in Libyan oil as the result
of the Obama regimes overthrow of the Libyan government.
Realistically speaking, it looks like the Trump Presidency is already defeated by his own appointees
independently of the ridiculous and completely unbelievable propaganda put out by the CIA and
broadcast by the presstitute media in the US, UK, and Europe. The New York Times, Washington Post,
CNN, and BBC have lowered themselves below the National Enquirer.
If the Chairman of Exxon and a Lt. General are not capable of standing up to the imbecilic
Congress, they are unfit for office. That they did not stand up is an indication that they lack
the strength that Trump needs if he is to bring change from the top.
If Trump is unable to change US foreign policy, thermonuclear war and the destruction of Earth
are inevitable.
Great Ironies of History #23,453: Supporters of China's
Entry to WTO Now Argue for TPP as Bulwark Against China
As the protectionist supporters of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) desperately try to regroup, it's
entertaining to see how they think that China-bashing is
their best hope for success. (Yes, supporters of the TPP are
protectionist. A major thrust of the deal is to impose longer
and stronger patent and copyright and related protections on
the member countries. These are by definition forms of
protectionism, even if economists and reporters tend to like
them.)
Anyhow, we got an example of the China bashing of a TPP
supporter in a Washington Post column * by Fareed Zakaria, in
which he warned readers that China would be the main
beneficiary from a decision by Donald Trump not to pursue the
TPP as president. The economists at the Peterson Institute
for International Economics are also among those making the
argument for the TPP as an obstacle to China's growing
political strength in the region. Many of these same people
argued vociferously for allowing China to enter the World
Trade Organization in 2000 without imposing conditions like
respect for human rights or labor rights, which may have
fundamentally altered China's path of political development.
It is striking that they now think the U.S. public should now
be concerned about the growing power of a country with little
respect for these rights.
"As the protectionist supporters of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) desperately try to regroup, it's
entertaining to see how they think that China-bashing is
their best hope for success"
A New York Times
article * on Robert
Lighthizer, Donald
Trump's pick to be
trade representative,
left out some
important background
information. It notes
that Lighthizer wants
to reduce the size of
the U.S. trade deficit
with China. It then
told readers that this
could lead to major
conflicts with China:
"Exports are
important for China.
It consistently sells
$4 worth of goods to
the United States for
each $1 of imports.
That mismatch has
produced a bilateral
trade surplus for
China equal to about 3
percent of the
country's entire
economy, creating tens
of millions of jobs.
"The benefits to
China from that
surplus have been
increasing rapidly in
the past few years."
It is worth noting
that China has
actually sharply
reduced its trade
surplus in prior
years. According to
the International
Monetary Fund ** it
peaked at 9.9 percent
of GDP in 2007. It
then declined sharply
to just 1.8 percent of
GDP in 2011. It has
since edged slightly
higher, but it is
still less than 3.0
percent of GDP.
Ordinarily, we
would expect that a
fast growing
developing country
like China would be
running a trade
deficit, as capital
flows into the country
to take advantage of
higher returns. This
has not happened in
China's case as the
government has offset
inflows of private
capital by buying up
trillions of dollars
of foreign assets. It
now holds more than $3
trillion in reserves
in addition to another
$1.5 trillion in
foreign assets in the
form of sovereign
wealth funds.
Reportedly China
has recently been
trying to raise the
value of its currency.
This would suggest an
obvious path of
agreement between the
U.S. and China under
which the two
countries could act
jointly to raise the
value of China's
currency against the
dollar, thereby
putting downward
pressure on the trade
deficit.
The piece also
notes Lighthizer's
advocacy of the
efforts of the Reagan
administration to
pressure Japanese
manufacturers to
"voluntarily" limit
their exports to the
United States. It
would have been worth
mentioning that these
restrictions on
exports led the
Japanese manufacturers
to begin to set up
factories in the
United States. Today,
most of the cars that
Japanese auto
companies sell in the
United States are
assembled here,
although they still do
include a substantial
amount of foreign
content.
This piece
seriously
misrepresents a
proposal for corporate
tax reform advocated
by Republicans in
Congress as a route to
tax imports. In fact,
the tax has been
developed by
economists who are
very much conventional
free traders. The
purpose is to simplify
the tax code and
eliminate the enormous
waste associated with
the gaming of current
system. The treatment
of imports and exports
is intended to make
the tax symmetric with
the treatment of
value-added taxes in
many U.S. trading
partners. It is not
intended as a
protectionist measure
to reduce the trade
deficit.
"... In the case of the US, a Republican donor-class candidate should have been a Democrat donor-class candidate. Owing to the particular corruption of the Democratic party over the last 8 years, effectively run by the Clinton crime family, the field was unofficially limited to just one. The collapse of the Republican establishment from below still makes my heart sing. Would that the same might occur among Democrats. ..."
"... `I do not understand the pushback [against transnational causes for these events]. Do they really believe that Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, the rise of many right-wing populist parties in Europe etc. have nothing to do with economics? That suddenly all these weird nationalists and nativists got together thanks to the social media and decided to overthrow the established order? People who believe this remind me of Saul Bellow's statement that "a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is strong."' ..."
"... These are not idiomatic one-off events due to contingent political situations peculiar to each individual country. ..."
"... Something bigger is going on. If Marine LePen wins in France (and I predict she will), that will provide even more evidence. This looks like a global rebellion against globalization + neoliberal economics because the bottom 96% are realizing they're getting screwed and all the benefits are going to the top 6% of professional class + licensed professionals + top 1% in the financial robber barony. ..."
"... Because the 'soft' left, in collaboration with the soft right (and the hard right) have worked assiduously since roughly about 1979 to destroy the 'hard left'. ..."
"... If you help crush the communists then don't be surprised if, in 20 years time, you get the Nazis, because people who hate the system will vote to destroy it, and they will use whatever weapons are to hand to do so . If 'left wing' options aren't available, they will choose 'right wing' ones. ..."
"... I think that the Democratic Party is unlikely to hand over power to the average man and woman in America, but I'm sure that the Republican Party is even less likely to do so; anybody who voted Republican in 2016 because it seemed the best chance of getting power for the average man and woman was played for a sucker. ..."
"... The original Nazis emerged and rose to power in a context where the Communists were trying to destroy the system, and also seeking to crush the Social-democrats; close to the opposite of the pattern you're describing. ..."
"... And Trump, as we all know, is highly suspicious of the EU. Moreover, there is likely to be a battle between the 'liberal (in the highly specific American sense) leaning' intelligence services (the CIA etc.) and the Trump administration. ..."
"... And, thanks to Obama, the CIA, NSA etc. have far more leeway and freedom to act than they did even 20 years ago. It is also possible/likely that MI5/MI6 might be 'let off the leash' by a British (or English) nationalist orientated Conservative Government. ..."
"... you must know why you yourself aren't doing it, and the reasons that apply to you could easily apply to other people as well. ..."
"... There are people making statements daily about how what the Tories are doing is not in the interest of the vast majority of people; but with what effect? ..."
by Henry on January 5, 2017 A piece I wrote on Brexit and the
UK party system has
just come out
in Democracy. More than anything else, I wrote the article to get people to read Peter
Mair. I didn't know Mair at all well – he was another Irish political scientist, but was based in
various European universities and in a different set of academic networks than my own. I met him
once and liked him, and chatted briefly a couple of times after that about email. I wish I'd known
him better – his posthumously edited and published book,
Ruling the Void is the single most compelling
account I've read of what has gone wrong in European politics, and in particular what's gone wrong
for the left. It's still enormously relevant years after his death. The ever ramifying disaster that
is the British Labour party is in large part the working out of the story that Mair laid out – how
party elites became disconnected from their base, how the EU became a way to kick issues out of politics
into technocracy, and how it all went horribly wrong.
The modern Labour Party is caught in an especially unpleasant version of Mair's dilemma. Labour's
leaders tried over decades to improve the party's electoral prospects in a country where its traditional
class base was disappearing. They sought very deliberately and with some success to weaken its
party organization in order to achieve this aim. However, their success created a new governing
class within Labour, one largely disconnected from the party grassroots that it is supposed to
represent. Ed Miliband recognized this problem as party leader and tried to rebuild the party's
connection to its grassroots. However, as Mair might have predicted, there weren't any traditional
grassroots out there to cultivate. Mair argued that the leadership and the base were becoming
disengaged from each other, so that traditional parties were withering away. Labour has actually
taken this one stage further, creating a party in which the leadership and membership are at daggers
drawn, each able to stymie the other, but neither able to prevail or willing to surrender.
This has all changed. Class and ethnic and religious identities no longer provide secure
foundations for European parties, which have more and more tried to become "catchalls," appealing
to wide and diffuse groups of voters. People are not attached to parties for life anymore,
often waiting until just before Election Day to decide whom to vote for. Party membership figures
across Western Europe have shrunk by more than half in a generation.
Do you evaluate this change (on balance) positively or negatively? and why?
Also, since I'm commenting anyway, one minor query:
(Some European countries had different parties for Catholics and Protestants.)
Which countries did you have in mind? There are few European countries that have (or had) both
enough Catholics for a significant Catholic party and enough Protestants for a significant Protestant
party.
I know about the Netherlands, which had separate Catholic and Protestant parties until
the 1970s, when the Catholic party merged with the main Protestant parties (although there's
still a small Protestant party on the margins), but that's just one country.
Germany had a distinct Catholic party (but no specifically Protestant party) under the
Wilhelmine Reich and the Weimar Republic, but not the Federal Republic;
Switzerland has a Catholic-based party but no specifically Protestant-based party; where
else? (There's Northern Ireland, of course, but that's a bit different.) What am I missing?
The Labour Party is so weak that the Conservatives do not need to worry about Labour defeating
them in the next election, or perhaps in the election after that.
I don't think this is obvious, precisely because of the volatility of the situation. I remember
people saying this about the Cameron government in 2015 and I objected at the time that no-one
knew how the Brexit referendum will turn out. Now Cameron is gone and just about forgotten. It's
true that the Conservatives are still in, but it's a very different crew.
More importantly, we haven't yet seen what Brexit means, in any sense. May has been coasting
on the referendum result, and Labour has been wedged, unable to oppose the referendum outcome
and also unable to criticise May's Brexit policy because she either doesn't have one or isn't
telling. This can't continue forever (presumably not beyond March), and when the situation changes,
anything can happen.
Some scenarios where the Conservatives could come badly unstuck
(a) they put up a "have cake and eat it" proposal that is rejected so humilatingly that they
look like fools, then cave in and accept minor concessions on migration in return for a face-saving
soft Brexit
(b) hard Brexit becomes inevitable and the financial sector flees en masse
(c) train-crash Brexit with no agreement and a massive depression
The only scenarios I can see that would cement the current position are
(a) a capitulation by the EU on migration etc, with continued single market access
(b) an economically successful hard Brexit/non-fatal train crash
It seems to me that (a) is politically infeasible and (b) is economically unlikely
That's not to gloss over Labour's problems or your diagnosis, with which I generally agree.
" how party elites became disconnected from their base, how the EU became a way to kick issues
out of politics into technocracy, and how it all went horribly wrong."
This sounds exactly like what has happened to the Democratic party in America. Which suggests
that there's something transnational going on, much larger than the specific political situation
in any given country
The essay is excellent as we might expect, Henry. I'm not convinced that Labour had any other
choice but to elect Corbyn. Single data points are always suspect, but the decision by the Labor
bigwig (have succeeded in forgetting which) to mock 'white-van man' clearly suggests she was playing
to a constituency within Labour primed to share in a flash-sneer at the prols. I'd have
expected as much from any Tory. I have other quibbles, the decision by Labour to take a position
on the referendum and on Remain always seemed critical to forcing Labour to adopt anti-immigrant
Tory-light postures in order to have it both ways with working-class voters hostile to London
and Brussels.
More problematic is this paragraph: "Research by Tim Bale, Monica Poletti, and Paul Webb shows
that these new members tend to be well-educated and heavily left-wing. They wanted to join the
Labour Party to remake it into an unapologetically left-leaning party. However, the research suggests
that they aren't prepared to put in the hard grind. While most of them have posted about Labour
on social media or signed a petition, more than half have never attended a constituency meeting,
and only a small minority have gone door to door or delivered leaflets. They are at best a shaky
foundation for remaking the Labour Party." Your questionable decision to deploy 'they' and 'them'
muddies the reality a bit, as does your decision to rely on metrics from the past to predict future
behavior.
I take your point that failing to attend a political rally, or go door-to-door, means something
in a time when populist parties are in the 'ascent.' But as you point out this rise can only occur
because the 'old parties' have failed so badly to connect activists and members. Again, that said,
I'm still not convinced all is doom and gloom. Labour activists opposed to EU membership were
effectively gagged/shamed by the elite right up to the present. It is only now this week, that
Labour has elected to make English compulsory for new immigrants:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chuka-umunna-immigrants-should-be-made-to-learn-english-on-arrival-in-uk-classes-esol-social-a7509666.html
Labour wasn't anything but Tory-lite until Jeremy and the new influx of members. I'm not personally
in favor of the new policy. It does seem to me more Tory-lite. But the battles are now more out
in the open. My guess is that Labour will survive and will rule again, but only if the party can
persuade Scotland and Wales to remain part of the UK. Adopting Tory-lite policies is precisely
what alienated Scots Labour voters and drove them into the arms of the SNP, so that's that the
PLP gives you.
Britain is entering a period of flux: jobs, housing, respect for all – including all those
dead, white people who made such a mess of the world, and respect for all forms of work, and greater
social and economic movement within Britain will likely go over quite well with large sections
of the electorate. Strong borders and a sensible immigration policy is part of that.
@10 "This sounds exactly like what has happened to the Democratic party in America. Which suggests
that there's something transnational going on, much larger than the specific political situation
in any given country"
"This sounds " Yes, in general terms. Yet, the donor-class candidates could have and should
have won in Brexit and in the US.
In the case of the Brexit, I argued before and after that simply allowing Labour candidates
and members to express their own views publicly, rather than adhere to a (sufficiently unpopular)
particular policy set by Henry's elite would have negated the need to adopt anti-immigrant Tory
lite stances – a straddle that fooled nobody and drove Labour voters to UKIP in not insignificant
numbers.
In the case of the US, a Republican donor-class candidate should have been a Democrat donor-class
candidate. Owing to the particular corruption of the Democratic party over the last 8 years, effectively
run by the Clinton crime family, the field was unofficially limited to just one. The collapse
of the Republican establishment from below still makes my heart sing. Would that the same might
occur among Democrats.
Had, however, the Clinton campaign actually placed the candidate in Wisconsin, in Michigan,
and in Pennsylvania rather than bank on turning off voters, we'd be looking at a veneer of stability
covering up the rot now on display.
The point being: there's always something transnational going on. I explained Brexit to my
own students as a regional rebellion against London, as much as Brussels. Henry's essay is good
on Brexit and UKIP. Both the US and UK outcomes could have been avoided.
Britain is entering a period of flux: jobs, housing, respect for all – including all those
dead, white people who made such a mess of the world, and respect for all forms of work, and
greater social and economic movement within Britain will likely go over quite well with large
sections of the electorate.
If Britain were to enter a period of jobs, housing, and respect for all, with greater social
and economic mobility, it would be reasonable to expect most people to be pleased; but there's
no evidence that anything of the kind is happening, or is going to happen.
"The PLP didn't opt to get along, they opted to fight, and got mauled."
They lost the battle but are winning the war.
Corbyn has been keeping a very low profile since his re-election, proposals for reform such
as mandatory reselection seem to have been dropped, and the left of the party is squabbling over
whether it remains a Corbyn fan club or an active agent for the democratisation of the party.
Party policy remains inchoate and receives little media publicity.
Michels hasn't been disproved just yet, and I suspect the party remains immune to lasting reform,
short of a major split.
I suspect the party remains immune to lasting reform, short of a major split.
There are plenty of examples from the UK and other countries, including the Labour Party itself,
of parties undergoing major splits, and the evidence doesn't suggest that the experience is conducive
to lasting reform.
Yes, after the second election, the PLP have opted for the long game, with the expectation
that a disastrous General Election (one of the reasons why the talk up the possibility of an early
one at every opportunity) will see a return to "normality". In the meantime, the strategy is to
make Corbyn an irrelevance, hence the lack of coverage in the MSM, except for a drip of mocking
articles of which today's by Gaby Hinsliff in the Graun is typical.
Corbyn and his organisation don't help themselves but, faced with such irredentism, they have
little leverage on the situation.
You don't make a single mention of Scotland, which is a massive omission to make. (And frankly,
it's a particularly odd mistake for an Irishman: it's supposed to be the English who blithely
assume that where they live is coterminous with the whole United Kingdom).
I like a lot of the essay, but it's gravely weakened by the fact that you're prepared to discuss
things like political elites and class allegiance- and, in a European context, religious allegiance-
but you don't mention national or regional political identities. You really can't leave those
things out and give an accurate picture of current British politics.
I agree that a Labour revival isn't coming along soon. The problem is that a lot of people in
Labour think and hope that it might, and that makes them very unwilling to start thinking about
electoral alliances, because they are committed to standing candidates everywhere.
Labour, imo, needs some further and serious bad shocks to get them into the frame of mind that
could make an anti-Tory alliance possible. Once it is, FPTP could turn from the secret of Tory
success into the mechanism for their destruction. But 2020 might be too soon.
Forming coalitions and alliances requires negotiation and making trade-offs and active listening:
unfortunately there are probably too many people in the Labour Party who would find that very
difficult. They appear not to be willing to negotiate even with their own members.
I really can't see the obsession with an 'anti-Tory alliance'. Given that it involves allying
with a party who recently were effectively part of a pro-Tory alliance, it only works in any sense
if you think that the Tories have morphed into the far-right, or if you have a well-worked out
programme of constitutional reform you want to implement.
The bit that concerns involving the SNP particularly baffles me. Given that they have been
at daggers drawn with the Labour Party in Scotland, and that they are highly unlikely to step
aside from any of their 90-odd % of Scottish seats to give their alliance partner a few more MPs,
it seems a non-starter. This impression is magnified when you consider that the spectre of a Labour-SNP
minority government was thought to have scared off potential Labour voters at the last election.
Corbyn is just awful. A toxic mix of naivity, ego, and blundering stupidity.
His concept of role is almost non-existant. He walks onto a train without having pre-booked,
finds it difficult getting two seats together, and decides on the spot that all trains must be
nationalised. He spots a man sleeping rough and decides ending rough sleeping is his top priority.
He blunders around like he's just landed from another planet, sees an injustice and thinks he,
Jeremy, is the first person ever to see such a terrible thing, and decides on the spot to make
it his top priority to eliminate this evil by the simple policy expedient of saying he will eliminate
it.
He doesn't do policy in any recognisable sense. He does positioning statements which he assembles
with mates and puts on his personal web site. Take his "Manifesto for Digital Democracy". It claims
to be a policy, but in reality its just a list of Things That Jeremy Thinks Are Good. It doesn't
appear to have gone through a discussion process or approval process. It is not clear if this
is a party policy or just a personal document.
His position on Brexit is a disaster. On the issue which is coming to define politics in the
UK he is neither clearly for it nor clearly against it. He gives the impression he finds it a
dull subject. He is at best second choice for everyone, first choice for no-one; at worst, he
is an irrelevance.
Worse, he appears completely oblivious to the power games being played out in his name. Neighbouring
constituencies are to be carved up so Jeremy's seat can be preserved. His son Seb is given a job
in John McDonnell's office. He is effectively held captive by a North London clique who look after
him, tell him he's great, and then use his "policies" as a checklist against which to assess conformance
of MPs to The One True Corbyn Way and pursue vendettas.
His personality is completely unsuited to the job of Leader, let alone Prime Minister. Even
if you believe in Jeremy's policies you need to find someone else to implement them because he
lacks any of the requisite capabilities.
Nothing is going to magically get better.
No matter how bad things get, under Jeremy they can always get worse.
'Unofficially limited' dies give one the wiggle room to assert just about anything. It's a way
of lying which can't be rebutted. If you say 'but there were 3 candidates', he'll respond that
he did say 'unofficially' limited. If you say 'but two of them did quite well', he'll respond
that he did, after all, say 'unofficially' limited. So he can take a case where there was actually
a competitive race, and make it seem like there was never a competitive race. Of course, his post
is, officially, approved by the moderators
While most of them have posted about Labour on social media or signed a petition, more than
half have never attended a constituency meeting, and only a small minority have gone door to door
or delivered leaflets.
There's a strong feel of "young folks aren't doing politics the way my generation used to do
politics" about this, especially given the activities you're complaining they're not doing. Is
posting on social media achieving more or less than posting leaflets to fill up people's recycling
bins?
kidneystones @14 claims: "I explained Brexit to my own students as a regional rebellion against
London, as much as Brussels."
If that's correct, why did we get: [1] Trump/Sanders in the U.S., [2] Brexit in the UK, [3]
repudiation of Matteo Renzi along with the referendum in Italy, [4] a probable win for Marine
LePen in France (wait for it, you'll be oh-so-shocked when it happens)?
`I do not understand the pushback [against transnational causes for these events]. Do they
really believe that Trump, Brexit, Le Pen, the rise of many right-wing populist parties in Europe
etc. have nothing to do with economics? That suddenly all these weird nationalists and nativists
got together thanks to the social media and decided to overthrow the established order? People
who believe this remind me of Saul Bellow's statement that "a great deal of intelligence can be
invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is strong."'
I would suggest kidneystones is simply wrong. These are not idiomatic one-off events due
to contingent political situations peculiar to each individual country.
Something bigger is going on. If Marine LePen wins in France (and I predict she will),
that will provide even more evidence. This looks like a global rebellion against globalization
+ neoliberal economics because the bottom 96% are realizing they're getting screwed and all the
benefits are going to the top 6% of professional class + licensed professionals + top 1% in the
financial robber barony.
@43 Actually, I make no claim against trans-national developments. Quite the opposite.
Elsewhere, I've written that we are dealing with a world-wide tension between advocates of
globalization and their opponents. Where you differ is in determinations and outcomes, which I
argue are based on the actors, actions and dynamics of each state and which are, as such, unique.
There is nothing at all inevitable about any of this and JQ very sensibly reminds us of the volatility
of the present moment.
What is clear to me at least is that ideas and actions matter. Labour need not have decided
in 2014, or so, to ban members from advocating either a referendum, or leaving the EU. I dug all
this up at the time and the timeline is easy enough to recreate.
Austria stepped back from the brink, as did Greece when it repudiated Golden Dawn. The French
right and left worked together to keep the presidency out of the hands of the FN, although it's
less clear how that successful these efforts will be in the future.
The next few years will be telling. I see no reliable evidence to indicate good fortune, or
end times. The safest bet is more of the same, repackaged, with all the predictable shrieks and
yells about 'never before' etc. that usually accompanies the screwing of the lower orders. The
donor class is utterly dedicated to retaining power. I think JQ is spot on regarding alliances.
We didn't come this far just to have the wheels fall off.
The populism of the right (which I support in large measure) points the way. I'd have preferred
to see a populism of the left win, but too many are/were unwilling to burn down establishment
with the same willingness and enthusiasm of those on the right. Indeed, this thread has several
vocal defenders of an utterly corrupt Democratic party apparatus busted cold for colluding to
steal the nomination. There's a reason donors forked over 1.2 billion to the Clinton crime family
and it wasn't to help Hillary turn over power to the average woman and man in America.
Because the 'soft' left, in collaboration with the soft right (and the hard right) have
worked assiduously since roughly about 1979 to destroy the 'hard left'.
'High points' in this 'epic battle' include Neil Kinnock's purging of Militant, the failure
of the trade union establishment to (in any meaningful sense) support the miners' strike (1984),
the failure of the Democratic party establishment to get behind McGovern (1972), Carter's rejections
of Keynesianism (and de facto espousal of monetarism) in roughly 1977, Blair's war on 'Bennism',
the tolerance of/espousal of Reaganite anti-Communism by most sectors of the British left by the
late 1980s/early 1990s, and so on.
So what we are left with nowadays is angry working class people who would, in previous generations
(i.e. the 1950s, and 1960s) have voted Communist or chosen some other 'radical' left wing option
(and who did vote in such a way in the 1950s/1960s) no longer have that option.
What the 'soft left' hoped is that, with 'radical' left wing options off the table, the proles
would STFU and stop voting, or at least continue to vote for a 'nice' 'respectable' soft left
party.
What they failed to predict is that (as they were designed to do) neo-liberal policies immiserated
the working class, leaving that class angrier than ever before.
And so, the working class wanted to lash out, to register their anger, their fury. But, as
noted before, the 'traditional' way to do that was off the table. Ergo: Trump, Brexit etc.
If you help crush the communists then don't be surprised if, in 20 years time, you get
the Nazis, because people who hate the system will vote to destroy it, and they will use whatever
weapons are to hand to do so . If 'left wing' options aren't available, they will choose 'right
wing' ones.
We have all read this story book before: the 'social democrats' connived with the German state
to crush the 1918/1919 working class uprising, and then were led, blubbering, to Dachau 20 years
later. One wonders how many of them reflected that they themselves might be partially responsible
for their fate.
In the same way: the 'soft left' connived and collaborated with the Right to crush the 'radical
left' in the US and the UK (and worldwide) and then were SHOCKED!! and AMAZED!! that the Right
don't really like them very much and were only using them as a tool to defeat the organised
forces of the working class, and that with the 'radicals' out of the way, the parties of the 'soft
left' (with no natural allies left) can now be picked off one by one, at the Right's leisure.
I think that the Democratic Party is unlikely to hand over power to the average man and
woman in America, but I'm sure that the Republican Party is even less likely to do so; anybody
who voted Republican in 2016 because it seemed the best chance of getting power for the average
man and woman was played for a sucker.
(Incidentally, if 'the donor class' means the same thing as 'rich people', wouldn't it be clearer
to refer to them as 'rich people'? and if 'the donor class' means something different from 'rich
people', what constitutes the difference?)
Any tirade against Corbyn is entirely pointless, because you're not addressing the reasons
why he was elected, or what he represents. I think most of those that support him have a varying
degree of criticism, and many would prefer a more able leader. The problem for Labour is that
there is not a more able leader available that understands the need to ditch Third Way nonsense.
If any of the PLP "big beasts" had done this in any meaningful way, instead of plotting against
him, they would be leader by now.
So what we are left with nowadays is angry working class people who would, in previous generations
(i.e. the 1950s, and 1960s) have voted Communist or chosen some other 'radical' left wing option
(and who did vote in such a way in the 1950s/1960s) no longer have that option.
In the US, only tiny numbers of voters supported Communist candidates in the 1950s and 1960s.
It's true that the option of voting Communist no longer exists, because the Communist Party has
stopped running candidates, but that seems to be a realistic response by the party to its derisory
level of voter support. If there are people who still want to follow the Communist line, what
they would have done in 2016 is turn out to vote against Trump (that's what the party was urging
on its website; the information is still accessible).
In Italy, on the other hand, it's true that large numbers of voters supported Communist candidates
in the 1950s and 1960s; and in Italy, voters still have the option of supporting Communist candidates,
but the numbers of those who choose to do so have become much smaller.
People who voted for Trump weren't doing so because they were denied the option of voting Communist;
and people who voted 'No' in the Italian referendum weren't doing so because they were denied
the option of voting Communist.
If you help crush the communists then don't be surprised if, in 20 years time, you get the
Nazis, because people who hate the system will vote to destroy it, and they will use whatever
weapons are to hand to do so.
The original Nazis emerged and rose to power in a context where the Communists were trying
to destroy the system, and also seeking to crush the Social-democrats; close to the opposite of
the pattern you're describing.
Yes, and another situation where 'mostpeople' have failed to follow the logic of a situation
through. Many intellectuals can see that it is not in the EU's interests for the UK to prosper
out of the EU lest it 'encourager les autres'. Fewer have pointed out that this works the other
way, too. It is no longer in the UK's interests for the EU to prosper (or, indeed, to continue),
and a new nationalist orientated Conservative government might make moves in this direction.
As Jeremy Corbyn alone has had the perspicacity to point out, insofar as there is a political
movement in the UK that is most closely aligned with Donald Trump's Republicanism, it is the Conservatives
under May (the UK's latest intervention vis a vis the UN and Israel was a blatant attempt to curry
favour with the new American administration).
And Trump, as we all know, is highly suspicious of the EU. Moreover, there is likely to
be a battle between the 'liberal (in the highly specific American sense) leaning' intelligence
services (the CIA etc.) and the Trump administration. Assuming Trump wins (not a certainty)
it is possible/likely that Trump will use the newly 'energised' intelligence services to pursue
a more 'American nationalism' orientated policy, and it is likely that this new approach will
see the EU being viewed as much more of an economic competitor to the US, rather than a tool for
the containment of Russia, as it is primarily seen at the moment.
And, thanks to Obama, the CIA, NSA etc. have far more leeway and freedom to act than they
did even 20 years ago. It is also possible/likely that MI5/MI6 might be 'let off the leash' by
a British (or English) nationalist orientated Conservative Government.
It is not implausible, therefore, that the US and the UK will use what 'soft' power they have
to weaken the EU and sow division wherever they can. And of course the EU has enough problems
of its own, such that these tactics might work. Certainly it is highly possible that the EU will
simply not exist by 2050, or at least, not in the form that we have it at present.
"One of the consequences of the phenomenon you're discussing is that volatility is incredibly
high. I'd never before seen a politically party as totally, irredeemably fecked as Fianna Fail
in 2010, but look at them now."
I think this is just one of the features of postmodern politics. For potential governmental
parties they only have to retain enough support to be a realistic alternative, and even with 20%
of the vote Fianna Fail had enough of a profile that an opportunistic campaign of opposition could
lead to them recovering their fortunes to some extent at the next election. I suspect that even
PASOK and New Democracy will receive a similar bounce at the next Greek election.
These kind of stances usually involve avoiding too close a link to certain social groups and
maintaining a distance from potentially principled and activist party memberships. This explains
the hostility of Labour MPs towards Corbyn and the left of the party. They feel that ideological
commitments and an orientation towards the poor and disadvantaged will reduce the party's freedom
of maneuver, damaging their chances of capitalizing electorally on Tory failure.
Of course, they have not provided any reason why anyone of a left-wing persuasion should support
such a cynical and opportunistic worldview, apart from the fact that the Tories are evil. And
they then wonder why many people are alienated from politics.
"Fewer have pointed out that this works the other way, too. It is no longer in the UK's interests
for the EU to prosper (or, indeed, to continue) "
Interesting, I'd not seen that elsewhere. I'd be pretty certain that this is the objective
of people like Hannan.
".. and it is likely that this new approach will see the EU being viewed as much more of an
economic competitor to the US, rather than a tool for the containment of Russia, as it is primarily
seen at the moment."
Maybe less to do with competition than regulation? The Trump view is presumably that anything
that restricts continued plundering of the economy, especially transnational institutions.
@Igor
"I think this is just one of the features of postmodern politics. For potential governmental
parties they only have to retain enough support to be a realistic alternative "
"This explains the hostility of Labour MPs towards Corbyn and the left of the party. They feel
that ideological commitments and an orientation towards the poor and disadvantaged will reduce
the party's freedom of manoeuvre, damaging their chances of capitalising electorally on Tory failure."
"Perhaps these parties are in fact in sync with global political trends because they are
all nationalist parties and nationalism is clearly on the rise at the moment. "
Yes, they are clearly part of the nationalist turn. Or at least I assume that is true of Plaid
Cymru and the SNP, but it definitely is of Sinn Fein, who are policy wise a leftist party, but
ideologically first and foremost a nationalist one. You can see this in polling on their support
base, which tends to be more reactionary* and culturally conservative than even the irish centre
right parties, yet Sinn Fein as a political party often takes position (such as their strong support
for gay marriage) in opposition to the preferences of a large chunk of their base.
This Is particularly the case with immigration, where for going on a decade local politicians
have noted that this is one of the concerns they often hear in constituency work that they don't
make a priority in national politics. It's difficult to (as Sinn Fein does) see yourself (rightly
or wrongly) as the nationalism of a historically oppressed minority, and to support the rights
of that minority in the north (I'm making no normative claims on the correctness of their interpretation)
and then attack other minorities. This is why they're institutionally , and seemingly ideologically,
commited to diversity and multiculturalism in the south of ireland, while also being fundamentally
a nationalist party. (Question is (1) does this posture survive the current leadership , and (2)
is it enough to stave off explicitly nativist parties**) Afaict this is also true of the snp,
I don't know about PC.
But there's still a lot of poison in it. "Anti englishness" , which a lot of this, (at least
implicitly") can encourage , might be more acceptable than anti immigrant sentiment, but it's
still qualitatively the same mind set.
*this is 're a big chunk if their base, but by no means the full story.
**basically what happens to the independent vote, which is (afaict)possibly the real populist
turn in ireland.
At the risk of sounding like I'm simply saying 'but Ireland is special!' I think the (partial)
resurgence of Fianna Fail is a bit of a sui generis phenomenon. Irish politics have historically
been tribal in a way that makes UK voters look like an exemplar of rational choice theory. It
is only the very slightest exaggeration to say that my father's vote in every general election
he has participated in was determined in 1922, several decades before his birth – I'm sure other
Irish Timberteers have experienced similar. Even then, FF is still far away from the kind of hegemonic
dominance it enjoyed prior to the crash – when a poll result of 38% would have been regarded as
disastrous – and the FF/FG combined vote total is still struggling to hit 60%. While I'd agree
that this looks like pretty strong evidence for the 'resurgence of the right' thesis of European
politics at first glance, the failure of the left in Ireland is more due to a) Sinn Fein and Labour
being deeply imperfect vessels for the transmission of left-wing politics (albeit for very different
reasons) b) the low-cost of entry into the Irish political system due to PR-STV leading to a splintering
of the political left.
Additionally, the attempt by former Fine Gael deputy Lucinda Creighton to tap into the supposed
right-wing resurgence via the Renua party ended in an electoral curb-stomping as comprehensive
as it was satisfying to witness. So I don't think a surge in popularity for 'the right' is what's
going on here.
It should also be noted that Michael Martin is an infinitely more talented politician than
Enda Kenny (even though that is a bit of a 'world's tallest dwarf' comparison), and has explicitly
positioned FF to the left of FG, but also as a fundamentally 'centrist' and 'moderating' force.
In other words, he's pursuing a political strategy similar to that of Tony Blair, and is reaping
political dividends for doing so. Shocking, I know! (And FWIW – I have a deep, fundamental dislike
of FF and all it stands for and would never consider voting for them, lest anyone think I'm here
to carry water for Martin).
Unfortunately, for those arguing the 'Jeremy Corbyn is only getting clobbered in the polls
because of the perfidy of the PLP/the biased right-wing media/dark forces within MI5' the Irish
experience doesn't offer much comfort. After 2010 the various hard-left groupuscules in Ireland
put aside their factional differences and were able to mount a relatively united front in two
successive elections, and under leaders like Richard Boyd Barrett, Joe Higgins and Clare Daly.
All of these individuals are relatively charismatic, as well as possessing strong skills as political
communicators (attributes even Corbyn's most ardent defenders would admit he is lacking in).
They also had an issue, in the form of water charges, that allowed them to develop an extremely
clear, very popular political position which resonated with large swathes of the electorate in
every region of the country (again, something UK Labour is severely missing).
The results? Just over 5% of the vote in the last election for a total of 10 TDs, and basically
zero influence over the actual governance of the country.
This is not because of some vast array of structural forces and barriers are arrayed against
them (as discussed above, PR-STV makes the barrier to entry into Irish politics very low). It
is because, as with Corbyn, the electorate neither trusts them to competently administer the
state, nor supports their vision for its future socio-economic development. You can argue
that the electorate are ignorant, or mistaken in this regard, but given that Corbyn has at various
points in his career argued that East Germany, Cuba and Venezuela represent optimal socio-economic
systems, I would argue that they're probably right on this particular question.
In the US, only tiny numbers of voters supported Communist candidates in the 1950s and 1960s.
The effect is not direct. It comes down to the fact that for the average working person, there
two main ways they could be significantly better or worse off; wages could be higher, or tax could
be lower.
One of those is a thing that is promised by political parties, one isn't.
The actual rate of tax, or the feasibility or secondary effects of changing, don't really matter.
Leaving the EU, whatever else it means, means not paying tax to it. A belief that the tax paid
to the EU ends up as a net benefit to the payee requires a level of trust in the system that is
easy to argue against.
The US has lower taxes than any other developed democracy, and so presumably wouldn't carry
on functioning as one if you cut further. Which means to deliver further tax cuts, you need a
politician who doesn't understand, doesn't care, or just possibly is in hock to those who wish
the US harm.
Traditional Communists similarly considered the collapse of the system to be more of a goal
than a worry. Without them, arguments against higher wages always prevail.
Kidneystones: "Owing to the particular corruption of the Democratic party over the last 8 years,
effectively run by the Clinton crime family, the field was unofficially limited to just one."
Seconding Belle here – 'effectively run' means 'defeated by another, and forced to work your
way back up'.
The Labour Party as a functioning opposition seems to have vanished – seriously: what did the
general public hear from them over the last year or so apart from party infighting and accusations
of anti-semitism?
I still support many of Corbyn's policies and ironically
so does much of the general public . But he lost my trust with his ridiculous wavering over
Brexit and ineffectiveness as a politician in general.
I actually don't think it would be too hard to organize an effective opposition considering
the fact that the Tories have no idea at all what they are doing and their policies are not in
the interest of the vast majority of people. But you have to hit them over the head with this
on a daily basis and I have no idea why nobody does it.
Well I wouldn't say it was entirely pointless. It is important to establish a baseline, and
in this case the baseline is that Corbyn's leadership is most unlikely to deliver electoral success
for Labour.
But your main point is a fair one, so time to try a different tack.
Policy is a misleading guide to whether a party is left or right. The current conservative
party is running a significant deficit, is committed to maintaining the NHS free at the point
of use, has implemented a living wage, has introduced same-sex marriage, and at the last election
touted state spending as the way to improve economic performance. all these policies were traditionally
associated with left-wing parties.
Policy is free, and it isn't particularly sticky. Given those features, policy is not a particularly
reliable feature. No private company would make policy its chief USP as it can easily be replicated
and customers show little loyalty based on policy. So if policy is not a route to political identity,
what is?
What voters want from a political party is that the party holds them and their interests paramount
as it goes about its business. When it implements a policy, it makes sure that policy is implemented
in a way that benefits them and their group. They want to be sure that in the difficult and complex
world of politics, the people they have voted for will look after their interests. The modern
Conservative party understand this. So Teresa May puts her target market – Just managing families
– dead centre in her Downing Street speech. And so far she has very high levels of public support.
By contrast, Labour doesn't seem to know who it represents, who it is batting for, and what
it wants for them. It doesn't give clear signals about where British workers stand in its hierarchies
of priorities. Until someone stands up and clearly articulates a vision of ambition for the mass
of the people then Labour will get out-fought in all significant political debates.
Certainly it is highly possible that the EU will simply not exist by 2050, or at least,
not in the form that we have it at present.
What a weak and trivial assertion.
It is possible that the US will not exist by 2050 in the form that we have it at present. It
is possible that the UK will not exist by 2050 in the form that we have it at present. It is possible
that the Conservative Party [the Democratic Party] [the Labour Party] [the Republican Party] will
not exist by 2050 in the form that we have it at present. It is possible that MI5 [MI6] [the CIA]
[the NSA] will not exist by 2050 in the form that we have it at present. [Lather, rinse, repeat.]
'The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being
contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.' (Winston Churchill,
A History Of The English-Speaking Peoples )
@52
Yeah maybe I should clarify that. Obviously much of the UK's trade is done with the EU so in that
sense the UK does have an economic interest in the EU prospering, but only in terms of
individual states. The UK (arguably) does not have an interest, any more in the EU as a unified
political/economic entity and if, as seems plausible, the UK now moves in a more Trumpian
direction, this tendency might well continue.
@55 Your evidence argues against your own argument. You have persistently argued, across many
CT threads, that the only and sole reason that Labour is doing badly right now is because of Corbyn.
And then the evidence you provide is that the left is doing badly in Ireland too. Do you see the
problem?
The fact is that if there was any serious alternative to Corbyn, the PLP would have put him
or her forward in the recent leadership election, and s/he would probably have won. But there
is no such candidate because the problems the Labour party face are much more deeply rooted than
the current crisis caused by the Corbyn leadership and these problems are faced by almost every
centre-left political party in the West . (The 'radical' left, as I pointed out above, having
essentially vanished in almost all of the developed world).
Let's not forget that as recently as the late 1990s, almost every country in Europe was governed
by the centre left. Now, almost none* of them are. That's the scale of the collapse. Indeed the
usual phrase for this phenomenon is 'Pasokification'. Not Corbynification (at least not yet).
Corbyn certainly doesn't have a solution to this problem but then nobody else does either,
so there you go.
All elections for the last few decades:
Many people in the UK: "Can we have our share of the benefits of globalisation?"
Tacit cartel: "After the City has taken the lion's share and we've had our cut, there might be
something left that you can have."
Referendum:
Tacit cartel: "Vote Remain or everybody will lose the benefits of globalisation!"
It's obviously in the interests of (hard) Brexiteers that the EU should fail, but it's not clear
what they can do to promote this end, except in the sense that hard Brexit itself will be mutually
damaging. Supporting ideological soulmates like Le Pen might help but could be a two edged sword
(do Le Pen voters welcome British support?)
By contrast, there's a great deal that the EU can do to harm the UK at modest cost, for example,
by objecting whenever they try to carry over existing WTO arrangements made under EU auspices.
Of course, they have not provided any reason why anyone of a left-wing persuasion should
support such a cynical and opportunistic worldview, apart from the fact that the Tories are
evil.
Preventing people from doing evil seems like a powerful motivation to me.
Traditional Communists similarly considered the collapse of the system to be more of a goal
than a worry. Without them, arguments against higher wages always prevail.
It's commonplace for minimum wages to be increased without Communists playing any role.
Yes, there's a definite thread of wanting to make the EU fail from the Brexiters (at the same
time as believing that it's going to fail anyway, which is why we should get out). As you say,
it's not clear what the UK could do to make this happen, especially from the outside pissing in.
Vice versa, whatever "the EU" thinks about wanting the UK to fail, "the EU" can't do much about
it, and the interests of the member states' governments may or may not be the same. On the other
hand, if there's one way to get them to respond with one voice, the UK attempting to damage Germany's
relationship with France might be it.
What voters want from a political party is that the party holds them and their interests
paramount as it goes about its business. When it implements a policy, it makes sure that policy
is implemented in a way that benefits them and their group. They want to be sure that in the
difficult and complex world of politics, the people they have voted for will look after their
interests. The modern Conservative party understand this. So Teresa May puts her target market
– Just managing families – dead centre in her Downing Street speech.
Anybody who thinks that the Conservatives are going to hold paramount the interests of 'just
about managing' families has been played for a sucker.
Corbyn, like Trump, is the consequence – not the cause of the some twenty years of failed policies.
Vastly more popular than Corbyn isn't saying much. Some 20 percent of those who pulled the lever
in November for Trump don't believe he's qualified for his new position.
Henry's essay does a good job, I think, of identifying the general problem Labour faces. As
for the leadership, it's going go be extremely difficult to find a senior Labour PLP big beast
who did not vote for the Iraq war/Blairites, or who did not oppose even the referendum on Brexit,
not to mention Leave. Both of these issues are deal-breakers, it seems, for some of the more active
members still remaining in Labour. Left-leaning Labour voters, especially those in Scotland, are
unhappy with Tory-lite and with the pro-war positions of the Blairites. Labour voters hostile
to London generally (many in Wales), and to the focus on Europe, rather than depressed regions
of Britain, are unlikely to rally around PLP figures who spent much of the run-up to the vote
calling Leave supporters closet racists.
Actions and decisions have consequences and the discussions that seem to distress a few here
and there (not to mention Labour's low-standing in the polls) are both long overdue and essential
if Labour plans on offering a coherent platform on anything. Running on the NHS and education
and even housing was fine for a while, and might still be so. Intervening in Syria, Libya, and
Iraq complicates matters considerably, as does forcing Labour supporters to adhere to either side
of the Remain/Leave case.
A little civility and good will here and there would do a world of good, but I'm aware that
discussion is better suited to Henry's earlier post on science fiction.
"It's obviously in the interests of (hard) Brexiteers that the EU should fail, but it's not clear
what they can do to promote this end, except in the sense that hard Brexit itself will be mutually
damaging."
I don't think this is right. Australia has neighbours that we aren't in a trade and currency
and migration zone with, but I don't think Australia wants these countries to fail economically
or any other way. I don't see why Britain would want the EU to fail - the UK is better off being
neighbours with stable prosperous countries in the EU than a lot of failed states pulling out
of the EU I would think .??
"While most of them have posted about Labour on social media or signed a petition, more than
half have never attended a constituency meeting, and only a small minority have gone door to door
or delivered leaflets."
My observations is that people do more voluntary work of this hands on kind with non-profit
advocacy groups than political parties.
Maybe as the major political parties became more similar, and weren't polarised in the sense
they were in the post-war era to the 80s, people prefer to volunteer for specific causes they
believe in, rather than for major political parties.
It's not 'Britain' that wants the EU to fail; it's the people who were strong supporters of
UK withdrawal from the EU who want that, because to them failure of the EU would provide vindication,
or at least a plausible appearance of it.
you must know why you yourself aren't doing it, and the reasons that apply to you could easily
apply to other people as well.
I wasn't aware that I was supposed to organize the opposition.
There are people making statements daily about how what the Tories are doing is not in
the interest of the vast majority of people; but with what effect?
Seriously, I don't see that. Now there might be a big media conspiracy to drown out these voices,
but I think it's more plausible that the current Labour leadership is just not very good at this
game.
'I don't see why Britain would want the EU to fail - the UK is better off being neighbours with
stable prosperous countries in the EU than a lot of failed states pulling out of the EU I would
think .??'
Yeah just to be absolutely precise (again) I don't think the UK would ever want the EU to fail,
exactly. But if the perception gains ground that the EU is trying to shaft the UK (and remember
it's in the EU's interests to do just that) 'tit for tat' moves can spiral out of control and
might be politically popular.
The joker in the pack is the new Trump Presidency. Almost all American Presidents since the
war have been (either de facto or de jure) pro-EU for reasons of realpolitik. Trump might go either
way but we know he holds grudges. In recent months Angela Merkel chose to give Trump veiled lessons
on human rights, whereas the May administration has done its utmost to ditch all its previous
'opinions' and fawn all over him.Who is Trump likely to like most?
If the UK goes to Trump and begs for help in its economic war with the EU, Trump might listen.
More generally (and a propos of nothing, more or less), it might be 'number magic' but at least
since the late 19th century 'Western' history tends to divide into 30 year blocks (more or less).
You had the 40 year bloc between the Franco-Prussian war and 1914. Then of course the 30 years
of chaos between 1914 and 1945. Then the Trente Glorieuses between 1945 and 1975. Finally we had
the era of the 'two neos': neoliberalism at home, and neoconservatism abroad (AKA the 'let them
eat war' period) between 1976 and 2006.
We now seem to be moving into a new era of Neo-Nationalism, with a concommitant suspicion of
trans-national entities (e.g. the EU), a rise in interest in economic protectionism, and increasing
suspicion of immigration. Needless to say, this is not a Weltanschauung that makes things easy
either for the Left or for Liberals. One might expect both the soft and hard right to thrive,
on the other hand.
"Preventing people from doing evil seems like a powerful motivation to me."
The problem is that merely asserting that the Tories are bad does not necessarily mean that
people will (or even should) automatically assume that you are a viable or less evil alternative.
Indeed, the response of the Labour Party's leading lights after the 2015 election was to minimise
the distance between themselves and the Tories, and their actions during the 'interregnum' between
Miliband and Corbyn demonstrated that they were quite willing to connive with evil in the shape
of Tory welfare policy as they assumed it would appease 'aspirational voters'.
This is the crux of the divide within the Labour Party. Corbyn's political career has concentrated
on defending those at home or abroad who cannot or find it difficult to defend themselves. The
majority of Labour's career politicians argue that these people are politically marginal and defending
their interests will not win elections or achieve political power. To some extent they have a
point, but they fail to acknowledge that their own brand of cynical opportunism has alienated
not just many Labour members but also many potential voters.
The accusations of anti-Semitism and sympathy for dictators made by Corbyn's enemies were so
virulent not just in an attempt to smear his reputation, but also to try and salve their own consciences,
having thrown so many of their moral scruples aside in an increasing futile quest to secure the
support of the mythical median voter.
"Policy is a misleading guide to whether a party is left or right."
You what?
I would have thought that policy, by which I mean actually implemented policies and actions,
with real effects, rather than rhetoric, sound-bites or general bullshit, is precisely how we
determine if a party is left or right.
As for the remainder of that paragraph:
"The current conservative party is running a significant deficit "
As any decent economist, and even George Osborne, will tell you, the deficit is an outcome
of the economy, not under the direct control of the chancellor so, despite the rhetoric, it's
not really meaningful to use as a policy target. Further, IIRC, in the history of modern advanced
economies, I believe they have run deficits in something like 98% of years, so the presence of
a deficit is hardly unusual if you're in government.
" is committed to maintaining the NHS free at the point of use "
This is just a bullshit phrase and, in the context of actual policy, entirely meaningless.
The Tory party has a long term project to privatise large sections of the NHS, and is currently
driving it into the ground as a means to this end. New Labour laid the foundations for this to
happen, so is equally to blame. No self-respecting left party would go anywhere near those policies.
" at the last election touted state spending as the way to improve economic performance."
More sound-bites. Nothing is delivered. Believe it or not, the state spends money with this
aim all of the time. The scope of what new spending is to be delivered is likely to be small.
The other items sound like you think that we are still in the centrist liberal nirvana of Blair/Clegg/Cameron
where we were governed by managerialist technocrats, concerned with "what works", delivering much
the same policy no matter who was elected, only competing with each other on the basis of media
platitudes. But that has caused massive resentment, failed, and is the reason for Brexit and Corbyn.
Precisely because none of those parties were delivering policies that benefited most people.
Indeed, I think that you will find that 600,000 Labour Party members believe that there is,
or rather should be, a big dividing line in policy between themselves and the Tory Party.
"The modern Conservative party understand this. So Teresa May puts her target market – Just
managing families – dead centre in her Downing Street speech."
This reads like it has come directly from Central Office. Do you really believe that the Tories
give two hoots about "just managing families"? Did Hammond reduce Osborne's austerity plan in
any way in the last Budget?
Labour, as a whole, certainly doesn't seem to know who it represents ATM. There are multiple
reasons for that: an irredentist PLP, a media sympathetic to the PLP and determined to trivialise
or ignore Corbyn, and the disorganisation and incoherence of Corbyn and his organisation amongst
them. But deposing Corbyn and returning to neoliberal bullshit won't solve the reasons why he
exists.
Brexit has not happened yet, so it can be whatever you want it to be: that freedom to project
counterfactuals tends to accentuate the centrifugal not the consensual as far as diversity of
opinion is concerned. I actually think Corbyn is unusually wise for a Labour leader to mumble
and fumble a lot at this stage. If it is a personal failing, it is appropriate to circumstances.
The Tories have given themselves a demolition job to do. If your opponent is handling dynamite,
best not to get close and certainly a bad idea to try to snatch it from them.
From the standpoint of Labour constituencies like Corbyn's own in North London, taking The
City down a peg or three would possibly be a means of relief, but if any Brexit negotiating "event"
triggered an exodus of financial sector players the immediate political fallout would be akin
to the sky falling and certainly would cause consternation among Tory donor groups not that supportive
of May's brand. And, failing to invoke Article 50 is likely to be corrosive to the Tories in ways
that benefit Labour as much as the Liberal Democrats only if Labour refrains from expressions
of hostility to Leave voters - a point too subtle for some Blairites, apparently.
There are a lot of different ways for Brexit to sink the Tory ship. May could be forced to
procrastinate on invoking Article 50. Invoking Article 50 by Royal Prerogative could bring on
a constitutional crisis, or at least a dispute over whether Article 50 has been invoked at all
in a way that satisfies the Treaty. Having invoked, the EU may well step in their own dog poop,
with overtly hostile or simply opportunistic gambits, underestimating the costs imo but otherwise
as JQ suggests.
The whole negotiating scheme will almost certainly run aground on sheer complexity and the
unworkable system of decision-making in the European Council. That could result in procrastination
in an endless series of extensions that keep Britain effectively in for years and years. Or, one
side or both could just let the clock run out, with or without formally leaving negotiations.
Meanwhile, at home, in addition to The City, Scotland and Ireland are going to be nervous, possibly
hysterical.
I suppose if you think the EU is fine just as it is, it is easy to overlook the glaring defects
in its design, particularly the imperviousness to reformist, adaptive politics. The EU looks to
go down with the neoliberal ship - hell, it is the neoliberal ship! I suppose the sensible Labour
position on the EU would be a set of reform proposals that would paper over different viewpoints
within the Labour Party, but that is not possible, because EU reform is not possible, which is
why Brexit is the agenda. Corbyn's instincts seem right to me; Labour should not prematurely oppose
Brexit alienating Leave voters nor should it start a love-fest for an EU that might very shortly
make itself very ugly toward Britain.
The Euro certainly and the EU itself may well break before the next General Election in Britain
opening up policy possibilities for Tories or Labour that can scarcely be imagined now. It is
not inconceivable to me that Scandanavia, Netherlands and Switzerland might be persuaded to form
a downsized EU2 sans Euro with Britain and a reluctant Ireland.
In my view, Corbyn as a political personality is something of a stopped clock, but as others
have pointed out, Labour like other center-left neoliberal parties have been squandering all their
credibility in post-modern opportunism. A stopped clock is right more often than one perpetually
fast or slow.
Labour has a chance to remake itself as a membership party while the Tories play with Brexit
c4 (PE-4). Membership support is what distinguishes Labour from the Liberals and transforming
Labour into a new Liberal party is apparently what Blair had in mind. Let Brexit mature as an
issue and let Labour try out the alternative model of an active membership base.
I wasn't aware that I was supposed to organize the opposition.
You're not, of course. But when you wrote 'I have no idea why nobody does it', it wasn't immediately
clear to me that what you meant was 'I have no idea why the Labour leadership doesn't do it' (where
'it' referred back to 'hit them over the head with this', and 'them' referred back to 'the vast
majority of people' and 'this' referred back to 'the fact that the Tories have no idea at all
what they are doing and their policies are not in the interest of the vast majority of people').
There are people making statements daily about how what the Tories are doing is not in the
interest of the vast majority of people; but with what effect?
Seriously, I don't see that.
Perhaps that's a result of where you've chosen to look. Seriously, where have you looked? have
you, for example, looked at the Labour Party's website?
Igor Belanov
If you think Labour is just as evil as the Conservatives, then obviously you have no motivation
to support Labour against the Conservatives.
Is that what you think, that Labour is just as evil as the Conservatives?
Sidenote to J-D @ 8 on parties with religious identification
The disappearance of religious affiliation or identity as an organizing principle in Europe
is interesting. You might recall that the British Tory Party was an Anglican Party, committed
to establishment and the political disability of Catholics and Dissenters, as defining elements
of their credo. Despite the extreme decline in religious observance in Britain, I imagine there
remain strong traces of religious identity in British party identification patterns.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Greek Orthodox Church plays a political role in Greece and Cyprus,
though the current SYRIZA government is somewhat anti-clerical. Anti-clerical doctrines have been
revived in France by tensions with Muslims.
"... The allegation that " The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN'S orders " is beyond laughable. Clearly the author of this fake has no idea how the Russian intelligence and security services work (hint: the Presidential spokesman has no involvement in that whatsoever) On page 2 there is this other hilarious sentence " exploit TRUMP's personal obsession and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable 'kompromat' (compromising material) on him ." ..."
"... this is an attempt at removing Donald Trump from the White House. This is a political coup d'etat. ..."
"... Third, within one short week we went from allegations of "Russian hacking" to "having a traitor sitting in the White House". We can only expect a further Tsunami of such allegations to continue and get worse and worse every day. It is interesting that Buzzfeed has already preempted the accusation of this being a smear and demonization campaign against Trump by writing that " Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government. " as if most Americans had the expertise to immediately detect that this document is a crude forgery! ..."
"... Fourth, unless all the officials who briefed Trump come out and deny that this fake was part of their briefing with Trump, it will appear that this document has the official imprimatur of the senior US intelligence officials and that would give them a legal, probatory, authority. This de-facto means that the "experts" have evaluated that document and have certified it as "credible" even before any legal proceedings in court or, worse, in Congress. I sure hope that Trump had the foresight to audio and video record his meeting with the intelligence chiefs and that he is now able to threaten them with legal action if they now act in a way contradicting their behavior before him. ..."
"... Fifth, the fact that CNN got involved in all this is a critical factor. Some of us, including yours truly, were shocked and disgusted when the WaPo posted a list of 200 websites denounced as "fake news" and "Russian propaganda", but what CNN did by posting this article is infinitely worse: it is a direct smear and political attack on the President Elect on a worldwide level (the BBC and others are already posting the same crap). This again confirms to be that the gloves are off and that the Ziomedia is in full state of war against Donald Trump. ..."
"... In spite of the image which Hollywood likes to give of them, most Americans are peaceful and non-violent people, but if they are pushed too far they will not hesitate and grab their guns to defend themselves, especially if they lose all hopes in their democracy. ..."
"... just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they are not after you ..."
"... I watched the press-conference just now, and I get the impression that this latest episode is the best thing (for Trump) recently. ..."
"... Apparently it was so inane that it was immediately refuted, and it's now accepted in all quarters that it was a fake accusation. Which gives Trump an opportunity to 1. claim victimhood, 2. attack the media and US 'intelligence' services, and 3. talk about it every time he's asked any question about his mythical 'Russian connections'. It's a huge win for him. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised me if this whole thing was his own design (well, of his operatives). ..."
"... There needs to be a mass housecleaning at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and, in a serious country, ..."
"... His enemies are like a pack, in both parties, in both chambers, in the economic and financial establishment, the media, Hollywood. He'll have to trad carefully. And yet, he is courageous and outspoken, as he has shown right away, by strongly denouncing the media and "intelligence community" for their forgeries. ..."
"... I'm afraid the conspiracy will get nastier and nastier, and sooner or later, they will remove him, even violently, very violently. I fear the Inauguration ceremony will be historic, and not for the best. Cross your fingers. The humanity's fate is at the stake. ..."
"... To finish the power of the oligarchs, Trump must separate the politics from the business and start a serious reform of CIA. If he will be able to do it, we all may enjoy much safer World. ..."
"... The document reads like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight." It's a joke. And such hyper-overreaction as this post represents suggests an instability of mind. That anyone took the document seriously per se speaks of utter unseriousness. ..."
"... despite the fact that Trump has lately wrapped himself in a prodigious portion of Establishment Mantle, the Powers That Be are terrified, and the brick bats have just begun. ..."
"... Additionally: the accuracy, legitimacy, and/or professionalism of their attacks may prove irrelevant. Facts aren't really what it's about when you control the Narrative...When you control the Production of Truth. It's no accident that the stranglehold on the MSM is guarded so viciously. Control of the Media is Control of Everything. ..."
"... The point is not that these allegations can be used as direct grounds for impeachment, but that they create a climate in which Congressmen and Senators, especially Republicans, can block Trump's personnel and policies, especially on Russia, and if and when the opportunity arises, justify voting against party lines on an impeachment motion. ..."
"... There are plenty of establishment Republican who would vote to impeach in a heartbeat, regardless of the merits of the case, if they thought their careers would survive it, This kind of furore is designed to create political circumstances in which they might hope for their careers to survive such a betrayal. ..."
"... It's useful to understand who the Neocons are. They're mostly the Zionist section of US Jewry, but even this isn't so clear since US Jews have a problem defining themselves racially. They are ethnically more European than Semitic, and their cultural affinity is wholly European rather than Semitic Middle Eastern. Also, they are not so religious, with the decline in practicing Judaism mirroring the decline in Christian Church attendance among Europeans and Americans in general. ..."
"... So it could be more informative to see US Jewry as something more like a private corporation. ..."
"... Like any other large corporation, it's transnational, sets up lobbying organizations to help client Congressmen get elected, guides their research, helps with their expenses and gets favourable legislation in return. This reality seems to build naturally out of the Jewish European background in international commerce (rather than national government administration) so a Neoliberal economic environment is much more congenial with very little input from a nominal national identity. The key is the corporate identity. ..."
"... "Trumps problem (if it is a problem for him) is that he is dealing with a ...corporate "deep state" that sees the US mostly in economic terms, as a market to be exploited for maximum profit" ..."
"... I tell you – you are right. The stakes are very high indeed. If the establishment will lose political power, many of them may finish their lives in prison. ..."
"... It was a hoax. It also allowed Trump to find out where leaks are coming from. Anyone who understands the type of man Trump is would have placed such a report in the hoax category straightaway. That the "intelligence community" did not, says a lot about them. Under Obama, they have simply become a partisan tool. ..."
"... The McCains and Wilsons and the responsible editors at Buzzfeed and CNN all wanted to believe it to be true so they posted it as true. Collaborator McCain is a despicable creature. ..."
"... McCain of "Tokyo rose" fame. The older McCain of the USSLiberty scandalous coverup and insult to the USSLiberty victims and veterans fame. Seems that there something that runs in the McCain family. ..."
"... I am amazed by the brazen nature of the attacks. The most interesting part is that at least the most lurid claims seem to have been spoonfed to the earlier idiot in the US as part of the flow by 4chan trolls, and this continued through the former MI6 loon, both the UK and US mnrons shopped the lies around for months. ..."
"... The CNN man at the press-conference was really arrogant and aggressive. I think, if Trump will exclude CNN from his future press-conferences, people would accept it with understanding. Anyway we will have interesting times. ..."
Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives
claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of
the briefings tell CNN. The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference
in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past
work US intelligence officials consider credible ( ) The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing
exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according
to two national security officials.
When I first read the document my intention was to debunk it sentence by sentence. However, I don't have the time for that and, frankly,
there is no need for it. I will just provide you here with enough simple straightforward evidence that this is a fake. Here are just
a few elements of proof: The document has no letterhead, no identification, no date, no nothing. For many good technical and even
legal reasons, sensitive intelligence documents are created with plenty of tracking and identification information. For example,
such a document would typically have a reference to the unit which produced it or an number-letter combination indicating the reliability
of the source and of the information it contains. The classification CONFIDENTIAL/SENSITIVE SOURCE is a joke. If this was a true
document its level of classification would be much, much higher than "confidential" and since most intelligence documents come from
sensitive sources there is no need to specify that.
The allegation that " The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV,
directly on PUTIN'S orders " is beyond laughable. Clearly the author of this fake has no idea how the Russian intelligence and security
services work (hint: the Presidential spokesman has no involvement in that whatsoever) On page 2 there is this other hilarious sentence
" exploit TRUMP's personal obsession and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable 'kompromat' (compromising material) on him
."
Nobody in a real intelligence document would bother to clarify what the word "kompromat" means since both in Russian and in English
it is obviously the combination of the words "compromising" and "materials". Any western intelligence officer, even a very junior
one, would know that word, if only because of the many Cold War era espionage books written about the KGB entrapment techniques.
The document speaks of "source A", "source B" and further down the alphabet. Now ask yourself a simple question: what happens after
"source Z" is used? Can any intelligence agency work with a potential pool of sources limited to 26? Obviously, this is not how intelligence
agencies classify their sources.
I will stop here and submit that there is ample evidence that this is a crude fake produced by amateurs who have no idea of what
they are talking about.
This does not make this document any less dangerous, however.
First, and this is the really crucial part, there is more than enough here to impeach Trump on numerous grounds both political
and legal . Let me repeat again – this is an attempt at removing Donald Trump from the White House. This is a political coup
d'etat.
Second, this documents smears everybody involved: Trump himself, of course, but also the evil Russians and their ugly Machiavellian
techniques. Trump is thereby "confirmed" as a sexual pervert who likes to hire prostitutes to urinate on him. As for the Russians,
they are basically accused of trying to recruit the President of the United States as an agent of their security services. That would
make Trump a traitor, by the way.
Third, within one short week we went from allegations of "Russian hacking" to "having a traitor sitting in the White House".
We can only expect a further Tsunami of such allegations to continue and get worse and worse every day. It is interesting that Buzzfeed
has already preempted the accusation of this being a smear and demonization campaign against Trump by writing that " Now BuzzFeed
News is publishing the
full document so
that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels
of the US government. " as if most Americans had the expertise to immediately detect that this document is a crude forgery!
Fourth, unless all the officials who briefed Trump come out and deny that this fake was part of their briefing with Trump,
it will appear that this document has the official imprimatur of the senior US intelligence officials and that would give them a
legal, probatory, authority. This de-facto means that the "experts" have evaluated that document and have certified it as "credible"
even before any legal proceedings in court or, worse, in Congress. I sure hope that Trump had the foresight to audio and video record
his meeting with the intelligence chiefs and that he is now able to threaten them with legal action if they now act in a way contradicting
their behavior before him.
Fifth, the fact that CNN got involved in all this is a critical factor. Some of us, including yours truly, were shocked and
disgusted when the WaPo posted a list of 200 websites denounced as "fake news" and "Russian propaganda", but what CNN did by posting
this article is infinitely worse: it is a direct smear and political attack on the President Elect on a worldwide level (the BBC
and others are already posting the same crap). This again confirms to be that the gloves are off and that the Ziomedia is in full
state of war against Donald Trump.
All of the above further confirms to me what I have been saying over the past weeks: if Trump ever makes it into the White House
(I write 'if' because I think that the Neocons are perfectly capable of assassinating him), his first priority should be to ruthlessly
crack down as hard as he legally can against those in the US "deep state" (which very much includes the media) who have now declared
war on him. I am sorry to say that, but it will be either him or them – one of the parties here will be crushed.
[Sidebar: to those who wonder what I mean by "crackdown" I will summarize here what I wrote elsewhere: the best way to do
that is to nominate a hyper-loyal and determined FBI director and instruct him to go after all the enemies of Trump by investigating
them on charge of corruption, abuse of power, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and all the other types of behavior which
have gone on forever in Congress, the intelligence community, the banking world and the media. Deal with the Neocons like Putin
did with the Russian oligarchs or how the USA dealt with Al Capone – get them on tax evasion. There is no need to open Gulags
or shoot people when you can get them all on what is their normal daily behavior :-)]
I sincerely hope that I am wrong, and I admit that I might be, but I don't have the gut feeling that Trump has what it takes to
hit hard enough at those who are using any and every ugly method imaginable to prevent him from ever making it into the White House
or to have him impeached if he tries to deliver on his campaign promises. I cannot blame him for that either: the enemy has infiltrated
all the level of power in the US polity and there are strong sign that they are even represented in Trump's immediate entourage.
Putin could do what he did because he was an iron-willed and highly trained intelligence officer. Trump is just a businessman whose
best "training" to deal with such people would probably be his exposure to the mob in New York. Will that be enough to allow him
to prevail against the Neocons? I doubt it, but I sure hope so.
As
I predicted it before the election , the USA are about to enter the worst crisis in their history. We are entering extraordinarily
dangerous times. If the danger of a thermonuclear war between Russia and the USA had dramatically receded with the election of Trump,
the Neocon total war on Trump put the United States at very grave risk, including civil war (should the Neocon controlled Congress
impeach Trump I believe that uprisings will spontaneously happen, especially in the South, and especially in Florida and Texas).
At the risk of sounding over the top, I will say that what is happening now is putting the very existence of the United States in
danger almost regardless of what Trump will personally do. Whatever we may think of Trump as a person and about his potential as
a President, what is certain is that millions of American patriots have voted for him to "clear the swamp", give the boot to the
Washington-based plutocracy and restore what they see as fundamental American values. If the Neocons now manage to stage a coup d'etat
against Trump, I predict that these millions of American will turn to violence to protect what they see as their way of life, their
values and their country.
In spite of the image which Hollywood likes to give of them, most Americans are peaceful and non-violent people, but if they
are pushed too far they will not hesitate and grab their guns to defend themselves, especially if they lose all hopes in their democracy.
And I am not talking only about gun-toting hillbillies here, I am talking about the local, state and county authorities, who often
care much more about what their local constituents think and say than what the are up to in DC. If a coup is staged against Trump
and some wannabe President à la Hillary or McCain gives the order to the National Guard or even the US Army to put down a local insurrection,
we could see what we saw in Russia in 1991: a categorical refusal of the security services to shoot at their own people. That is
the biggest and ultimate danger for the Neocons: the risk that if they give the order to crack down on the population the police,
security and military services might simply refuse to take action. If that could happen in the "KGB-controlled country" (to use a
Cold War cliché) this can also happen in the USA.
I sure hope that I am wrong and that this latest attack against Trump is the Neocon's last "hurray" before they finally give up
and leave. I hope that all of the above is my paranoia speaking. But, as they say, " just because you're paranoid doesn't mean
that they are not after you ".
I watched the press-conference just now, and I get the impression that this latest episode is the best thing (for Trump)
recently.
Apparently it was so inane that it was immediately refuted, and it's now accepted in all quarters that it was a fake accusation.
Which gives Trump an opportunity to 1. claim victimhood, 2. attack the media and US 'intelligence' services, and 3. talk about
it every time he's asked any question about his mythical 'Russian connections'. It's a huge win for him. In fact, it wouldn't
have surprised me if this whole thing was his own design (well, of his operatives).
"this whole thing was his own design" - you mean it is possible that Trump somehow has control over CNN, BBC etc. In such case
- why he would attack them? And other question - why they worked so hard against him in time of the election campaign?
Indeed. There needs to be a mass housecleaning at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and, in a serious country,
a number of people at the CIA would be shot for treason.
Saker, Putin's crack down the oligarchs took him some years, the time to gather forces and get them in disarray. He was very
clever and cautious, he didn't go after them overnight. And Putin had decisive connections. Besides it was never so dramatic,
and his succession was smooth The problem with Trump, as you say, is that he is quite new in town, and a forlorn fighter.
His enemies are like a pack, in both parties, in both chambers, in the economic and financial establishment, the media,
Hollywood. He'll have to trad carefully. And yet, he is courageous and outspoken, as he has shown right away, by strongly denouncing
the media and "intelligence community" for their forgeries.
I'm afraid the conspiracy will get nastier and nastier, and sooner or later, they will remove him, even violently, very
violently. I fear the Inauguration ceremony will be historic, and not for the best. Cross your fingers. The humanity's fate is
at the stake.
Russian oligarchs had about 5% support of Russian people. They needed Putin themselves. Alternative was the communists and
the nationalisation of everything.
Putin gave them choice: carry on with your business, but not interfere in the politics or leave the country. Khodorkovsky
tried to resist and failed miserably. The regime change from the oligarchs to Putin took about four years.
After election 2004, it was clear who control the country. In US, the establishment, in their struggle against Trump, has
support of almost half of US people, including all minorities (Jews too). To finish the power of the oligarchs, Trump must
separate the politics from the business and start a serious reform of CIA. If he will be able to do it, we all may enjoy much
safer World.
This is excerpted from a futurist short story that was never published and hopefully would never be acted upon. Today's madness
make it almost a possibility.
Rescuing the Republic From Itself /or How 50 Men, Women and Children Could Save our Bacon.
One thing still trumps all others in America. It isn't wealth, nor power, it's not the myth of our uniqueness under Heaven
no. It's a lot more basic and powerful than those. It even trumps celebrity which is a close second. No, fundamental as those
are in the national psyche they pale in comparison to Number One racism. Added to this ancient plague is a relative newcomer.
Only about a century old; it is a formidable competitor and looks like it's here to stay. (If the money holds out.) Big drum roll
..ForeverWar!
Racism is in group preference based upon common descent. It's how you create a stable polity as De Tocqueville elaborated -
one people and one culture settled the United States. Ethnic solidarity allows us to cooperate to produce public goods in the
common interest.
The document reads like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight." It's a joke. And such hyper-overreaction as this post
represents suggests an instability of mind. That anyone took the document seriously per se speaks of utter unseriousness.
What's been referred to as the mainstream media has effectively lost all credibility, as they play the role of the partisan
opposition. There's no reason to believe their reporting beyond yesterday's high and low temperature.
It's tempting to treat this analysis as paranoid and even a tad hysterical, but I fear it's nothing more than the unvarnished
truth. Trump is a wrench in the works of the Establishment, and a bit of a loose cannon besides.
However, despite the fact that Trump has lately wrapped himself in a prodigious portion of Establishment Mantle, the
Powers That Be are terrified, and the brick bats have just begun. While it's a pleasure to see them on the run for once,
it'd be a fatal error to underestimate them.
Additionally: the accuracy, legitimacy, and/or professionalism of their attacks may prove irrelevant. Facts aren't really
what it's about when you control the Narrative...When you control the Production of Truth. It's no accident that the stranglehold
on the MSM is guarded so viciously. Control of the Media is Control of Everything.
Didn't J. Edgar Hoover have all sorts of tapes of MLK acting like Fartin Poother Bling? Drunkeness, orgies, blasphemy, hitting
women around, and acting like some rapper thug?
Well, it didn't do any good, and MLK is now revered as some kind of god.
And Monica's dress failed to topple Billy Boy Clinton.
BBC reports that it was some British Intelligence that got this news. But I don't know if we should trust that stuff. Didn't
British intelligence spread false rumors to drag the US into both WWI and WWII?
Well, if Russia does have the incriminating tape and had planned to blackmail Trump, that possibility is gone since the beans
have been spilled.
PS. Was there any truth to the rumor that Obama had 'gay' affairs with rich powerful men? Now, that would explain a lot.
Was there any truth to the rumor that Obama had 'gay' affairs with rich powerful men?
Senator Frist was mentioned as a Barry worshiper. Barry loves humiliating and lying to white men, probably still acting out
early childhood trauma over having been ditched by 3 parents (father - whoever he was, mother, and stepfather), perhaps a lot
of other unpleasantness that tends to befall unprotected boys. ,
Well, it didn't do any good, and MLK is now revered as some kind of god.
Yeah, because a Federal judge sealed his FBI records from being FOILed for fifty years, so that TPTB could create a Magic Negro
myth about him and make him more important than George Washington.
The document reads like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight." It's a joke. And such hyper-overreaction as this post represents
suggests an instability of mind. That anyone took the document seriously per se speaks of utter unseriousness.
What's been referred to as the mainstream media has effectively lost all credibility, as they play the role of the partisan
opposition. There's no reason to believe their reporting beyond yesterday's high and low temperature.
It's tempting to treat this analysis as paranoid and even a tad hysterical, but I fear it's nothing more than the unvarnished
truth. Trump is a wrench in the works of the Establishment, and a bit of a loose cannon besides.
However, despite the fact that Trump has lately wrapped himself in a prodigious portion of Establishment Mantle, the Powers
That Be are terrified, and the brick bats have just begun. While it's a pleasure to see them on the run for once, it'd be a fatal
error to underestimate them.
Additionally: the accuracy, legitimacy, and/or professionalism of their attacks may prove irrelevant. Facts aren't really what
it's about when you control the Narrative When you control the Production of Truth. It's no accident that the stranglehold on
the MSM is guarded so viciously. Control of the Media is Control of Everything.
Nov 12 2016 -- 4 days after the election of Donald Trump
Wanted to share an experience from earlier today. This afternoon, I had a plumber over to my apartment to fix a clogged
drain. He was a perfectly nice guy and a consummate professional. But he was also a middle aged white man with a southern
accent who seemed unperturbed by this week's news. And while I had him in the apartment, I couldn't stop thinking about
whether he had voted for Trump, whether he knew my last name is Jewish, and how that knowledge might change the interaction
we were having inside my own home. I have no real reason to believe he was a Trump support or an anti-Semite, but in my
uncertainty I couldn't shake the sense of potential danger. I was rattled for some time after he left.
I'm very privileged insofar as this sense of range is unfamiliar to me. And I know I feel it much less acutely than a
lot of other people right now. I'm still a straight, white guy who can phenotypically pass for gentile. Plus my first name
is pretty WASP-y.
But today was a reminder that ambiguous social interactions now feel unsafe and unpredictable in a way that they never
did before. And even if Trump is gone in four years, I don't expect to ever reclaim that feeling of security. That's just
one more thing you voted for, if you voted for him."
I am of the opinion that the dossier, even if true, is at most embarrassing but not an impeachable offense. Impeachment is
for offenses committed while in office, not for alleged misdeeds before the office starts when the person was a private citizen.
The process of election, is a judgement on fitness to hold office. He can be impeached only for things he will do after Jan. 20.
All voters who voted for him knew he is not strong on personal or business morality or ethics. He was elected in spite of that.
That should take away all the sting out of the dossier allegations.
The point is not that these allegations can be used as direct grounds for impeachment, but that they create a climate in
which Congressmen and Senators, especially Republicans, can block Trump's personnel and policies, especially on Russia, and
if and when the opportunity arises, justify voting against party lines on an impeachment motion.
There are plenty of establishment Republican who would vote to impeach in a heartbeat, regardless of the merits of the
case, if they thought their careers would survive it, This kind of furore is designed to create political circumstances in
which they might hope for their careers to survive such a betrayal.
It's useful to understand who the Neocons are. They're mostly the Zionist section of US Jewry, but even this isn't so clear
since US Jews have a problem defining themselves racially. They are ethnically more European than Semitic, and their cultural
affinity is wholly European rather than Semitic Middle Eastern. Also, they are not so religious, with the decline in practicing
Judaism mirroring the decline in Christian Church attendance among Europeans and Americans in general.
So it could be more informative to see US Jewry as something more like a private corporation.
You either belong to the corporation or you don't, and it's not essential to have a Jewish connection either (e.g. top executives
Hillary Clinton and John McCain) with the general idea being to run the enterprise for the mutual benefit of its members.
Like any other large corporation, it's transnational, sets up lobbying organizations to help client Congressmen get elected,
guides their research, helps with their expenses and gets favourable legislation in return. This reality seems to build naturally
out of the Jewish European background in international commerce (rather than national government administration) so a Neoliberal
economic environment is much more congenial with very little input from a nominal national identity. The key is the corporate
identity.
Corporations are not too concerned if their competitors go bankrupt, it's just part of the business, and in fact it's positive,
since it shows that your corporation can capture a market and exploit it more profitably. If your competitors are Gentile businesses
then there are various ways to remove them, the most popular being to gain leadership positions in Gentile Corporation "G" while
still holding loyalty to Jewish Corporation "J". Corporation "G" can them be incorporated in Corporation " J" and the top executives
replaced.
Trump's problem (if it is a problem for him) is that he is dealing with a Corporate "J" run "deep state", that sees the US
in mostly economic terms, as a market to be exploited for maximum profit. Putin faced a similar problem when he came to power
in Russia (also Corporation "J" ), and slowly resolved it by blocking their attempts to gain political power (arrest on tax charges
of Khodorkovsky) and emphasizing national interests and identity over corporate interests.
Trump could follow a similar line by blocking all special interest access to Congress, or more aggressively suspend all CIA
and FBI non-disclosure agreements, giving past and present agents immunity to prosecution and inviting them to present documentation
in confidence to a Presidential Commission regarding any activities that in their opinion were conducted against the interests
of the United States.
Alternatively he could accept the presidency of Corporation "J", take the tremendous benefits, and be hailed by the MSM as
America's Greatest Leader, but as the article says, face a backlash from his base who will see that he has sold them out.
"Trumps problem (if it is a problem for him) is that he is dealing with a ...corporate "deep state" that sees the US mostly
in economic terms, as a market to be exploited for maximum profit"
"Exploited" Miro23 ?
This has got to be the "understatement" of the decade.... Lets just take a look at the numbers, shall we?..
Let us say for a moment that I placed you (or myself ) on a street corner in New York City with the specific intention of
handing out a $1,000,000 cashiers check to each and every person who walks by ........ Do you know how many people you would
have to hand the check to...in order to EQUAL the amount of tax dollars this "deep state" VACUUM has "sucked" from the taxpayers
pockets, in a mere decade and a half ?......
14,300,000 people.!
That's right !... the entire Population of Manhattan.. TIMES TWO.
This is not the total in "spending" , mind you..No, No....this is the total in... "overspending".
Our national debt has BALLOONED from 5.7 trillion in 2000 to a whopping 20 trillion in just sixteen years...
A "bone crunching" $14.3 million, million dollars --
This level of "assault" on our nations balance sheet is wholly unprecedented in history.
Its absolutely "mind -numbing"
Its obscene.
And what can nearly all of this humongous debt, foisted on the backs of 320 million Americans, be attributed to ....
BANKING FRAUD as in....triple A rating worthless subprime junk
TERROR FRAUD as in ....it was "Saddam's Anthrax" in Senators Leahy's office
WAR FRAUD as in.....imminent threat of "mushroom clouds" ,WMD's, and "Yellow Cake from Niger".
This kind of behavior is simply unacceptable.
Yet for some reason, there has been ZERO accountability......ZERO.
This cannot continue.
The people voted in the Donald to "Drain the Swamp"....because if he doesn't do something..we are all SUNK.
And if the "swamp doesn't want to be drained"...well.... too bad......Because the American people have put their foot down
on this....and they ain't gonna budge --
Throw the whole lot in Guantanamo Bay, Mr. President, if need be.....Just get it done --
I tell you – you are right. The stakes are very high indeed. If the establishment will lose political power, many of them
may finish their lives in prison.
Agree. The establishment's hysterics and histrionics betray the fear of loosing money and power. But what a pitiful imagination,
what a consistent incompetence the "deciders" have been showing: Nothing but banality and half-wit... clear signs of degradation.
I watched the press-conference just now, and I get the impression that this latest episode is the best thing (for Trump) recently.
Apparently it was so inane that it was immediately refuted, and it's now accepted in all quarters that it was a fake accusation.
Which gives Trump an opportunity to 1. claim victimhood, 2. attack the media and US 'intelligence' services, and 3. talk about
it every time he's asked any question about his mythical 'Russian connections'. It's a huge win for him. In fact, it wouldn't
have surprised me if this whole thing was his own design (well, of his operatives).
"this whole thing was his own design" – you mean it is possible that Trump somehow has control over CNN, BBC etc. In such
case – why he would attack them? And other question – why they worked so hard against him in time of the election campaign?
No. What I meant is that, seeing how insane the MSM are these days, perhaps it would makes sense for the Trump team to secretly
manufacture some juicy red-meat fake scandal for them -- in hope that they mindlessly grab it and run with it -- and then get
burned when it's proven a ludicrous fake. But maybe it's just my devious mind... ,
"And I am not talking only about gun-toting hillbillies here, I am talking about the local, state and county authorities,
who often care much more about what their local constituents think and say than what the are up to in DC"
One of the oft heard cliches of the gun control crowd is that the armed among the unwashed are silly to think they could stand
against the might of the government. But as the writer here implies, this notion relies on the authorities staying with the program.
But these folks are still family people for which their service is just a job. The notion that they're all part of a unified goon
squad may be in error.
I sure hope it won't be Trump. However, his promise to drain the swamp has NOT happened, and the State Department is still
completely controlled by the ZioCons and the foreign policy is controlled from Tel Aviv. The recent attempt to further subvert
British politics by the Israeli embassy in London was exposed but what will the consequence be.? Not very much I guess.
The Civil War will be in fact an all-out-race-war. They didn't take this into account when the 1965 Immigration Reform Act
was passed. We are already in a low-level .maybe not so low-level race war. Barack Obama will spend his time in retirement with
very aggressive racial grievance agitation.
The basement of the US has been filled to the brim with gasoline ..we are one match away .one match
It was a hoax. It also allowed Trump to find out where leaks are coming from. Anyone who understands the type of man Trump
is would have placed such a report in the hoax category straightaway. That the "intelligence community" did not, says a lot about
them. Under Obama, they have simply become a partisan tool.
Yep, the more lurid parts are definitely a hoax, with some other parts cobbled together from open sources to lend volume and
credibility to this threadbare effort.
The weird fascination with the person of Obama is a dead giveaway. Only an Obama worshiper would feel that the highest/lowest
form of sexual perversion is to commit sacrilege against a BED that the Holy One and his consort had slept in.
Whatever Trump's personal predilections, they are most unlikely to revolve around the person of Barry Obama.
On the other hand, anyone with eyes to see will have encountered the type of fervid, manic, glassy-eyed Barry worshiper
(mostly gay or female) with the characteristic combination of sexual arousal and religious fervor, leavened with vicious bitchiness
during depressive phases.
The term "hillbillies" is a slur against the People of Appalachia. It is a slur that is used in comedy skits on SNL written
by the East Coast Rootless Cosmopolitan SNL Comedy Writers. For the record Tina Fey is not Jewish niether is Samantha Bee -- but
they are Rootless Cosmopolitan Filth.
The McCains and Wilsons and the responsible editors at Buzzfeed and CNN all wanted to believe it to be true so they posted
it as true.
Collaborator McCain is a despicable creature.
Rick Wilson is a moral degenerate as is his son whose web site is a storehouse of perversity.
Imagine what kind of mental aberration you have to hold to believe that hiring prostitutes and having them urinate on new linen
somehow invalidated or harms someone who might have slept in that room months previously.
That is the level of aberration that runs from Pizzagate to the highest levels of American Journalism and the American Democratic
party ( but I repeat myself). Sympathetic magic maybe?
McCain of "Tokyo rose" fame. The older McCain of the USSLiberty scandalous coverup and insult to the USSLiberty victims
and veterans fame. Seems that there something that runs in the McCain family.
I am amazed by the brazen nature of the attacks. The most interesting part is that at least the most lurid claims seem
to have been spoonfed to the earlier idiot in the US as part of the flow by 4chan trolls, and this continued through the former
MI6 loon, both the UK and US mnrons shopped the lies around for months.
Hanoi Hilton collaborator and Lord Haw Haw of the US in Vietnam, John McCain decided to dash it out again. Having never logged
on to 4chan, but been an admin on a site they invaded, I know and at times enjoy their troll style. That supposedly serious 'intelligence'
agencies push that entertaining crap, as disinfo without a second thought is mystifying
It also raises my estimation of the Donald, never heard his speaking voice before, but it is quite good,
.
Trump needs to clean their Augean stables.
They are cleary sn.
If the disinfo against hm iis so bad, he must be doing many things right.
. . .
I'm amazed at how incompetent the CIA is in its war against Trump but, then, I look at its historical track record since its
founding and note this has always been the case. Like petulant children, the CIA tends to be present oriented in extremis
. It discounts the future and is therefore constitutively unprepared for exposure, consequences, and blowback. The CIA knows
how to make a mess of things but not much else.
I would not trust any intelligence coming from the CIA It doesn't appear to be staffed with very intelligent
people. The KGB (now the SFB/SVR) is running circles around them.
"...incompetent CIA.."
Decades of selection in favor of opportunists and sycophants, while, at the same time, weeding out the principled and competent
professionals.
Is not the result grand? - CIA as a senescent, gossiping madame. ,
"I'm amazed at how incompetent the CIA is in its war against Trump but, then, I look at its historical track record since its
founding and note this has always been the case."
Exactly right. The CIA has never done anything to better the US for the common man. From it's inception it was the muscle
for the power elite. It's purpose was to manipulate foreign governments to provide wealth and power to the power elite/deep
state, which ever you prefer. And occasionally to eliminate threats to it'self.
The zionists have lost and they know it. BUT, they still have their"trump-card" (sorry!) left to play: a nuclear false flag
attack on America, to be blamed on Russia.
No-one could stop war at that point, regardless of belief of culpability. Although Saker is right, such a stunt would involve
some SERIOUS repercussions for the Israelites.
Are they crazy enough to risk self-annihilation to prove their superiority, once and for all?
Trump certainly doesn't have the guts to say, "Hey folks, the zionists did it .." Hell, he won't even publicly admit they did
9/11, although there's plenty of evidence he knows they did. But Obama on the other hand would help them plant the nukes and take
a train outa town.
If I were a zionist contemplating such a stunt, I'd get it over with before next Friday.
War between Russia and NATO would be the ultimate civil conflict among the European people, leading to the elimination of the
white race as a significant component of the future world population and the end of Christendom.
That, apparently, is what the NeoCons, President Obama, and their Treason Party allies, the likes of Senator McCain at home,
and Canada's witless Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau abroad, want.
They are the cancer that needs to be radiated and removed in both wings of the War party!
Mar 2, 2014 Jeremy Scahill: The One Party State, The War Party
Is the United States of America an Oligarchy? During the 2014 ISFLC, Jeremy Scahill speaks on the fact that in today's world
behemoth corporations are able to buy off politicians and pull the strings to impact legislature. Washington, D.C. is a town that
operates by campaign contributions and legal bribery in the form of campaign finance. What can the American people do to get their
political representatives to represent them as opposed to the mega corporations. When will the people's voice be heard?
"this whole thing was his own design" - you mean it is possible that Trump somehow has control over CNN, BBC etc. In such case
- why he would attack them? And other question - why they worked so hard against him in time of the election campaign?
No. What I meant is that, seeing how insane the MSM are these days, perhaps it would makes sense for the Trump team to secretly
manufacture some juicy red-meat fake scandal for them - in hope that they mindlessly grab it and run with it - and then get
burned when it's proven a ludicrous fake. But maybe it's just my devious mind
The CNN man at the press-conference was really arrogant and aggressive. I think, if Trump will exclude CNN from his future
press-conferences, people would accept it with understanding. Anyway we will have interesting times.
I look at the CNN webpage once in a while, and I get the distinct impression that the people staffing the place are simply
not very bright.
There may be too many diversity hires? It seems like a group of actors and SJWs pretending to be journalists. They aren't
serious people, and you'd like to not have to take them seriously but since they control the information flow of the nation
you kind of have to.
The zionists have lost and they know it. BUT, they still have their"trump-card" (sorry!) left to play: a nuclear false flag
attack on America, to be blamed on Russia.
No-one could stop war at that point, regardless of belief of culpability. Although Saker is right, such a stunt would involve
some SERIOUS repercussions for the Israelites.
Are they crazy enough to risk self-annihilation to prove their superiority, once and for all?
Trump certainly doesn't have the guts to say, "Hey folks, the zionists did it....." Hell, he won't even publicly admit they
did 9/11, although there's plenty of evidence he knows they did. But Obama on the other hand would help them plant the nukes
and take a train outa town.
If I were a zionist contemplating such a stunt, I'd get it over with before next Friday.
War between Russia and NATO would be the ultimate civil conflict among the European people, leading to the elimination of
the white race as a significant component of the future world population and the end of Christendom.
That, apparently, is what the NeoCons, President Obama, and their Treason Party allies, the likes of Senator McCain at home,
and Canada's witless Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau abroad, want.
I can assure you that, if Trump is prevented from taking office, or is removed from office after being sworn in, millions of
us WILL treat it as a coup d'etat and will respond appropriately, and this does not necessarily involve violence.
I can also tell you our feelings are not limited to the South and Texas. Many of us in the Western U.S. feel the same way.
I tell you - you are right. The stakes are very high indeed. If the establishment will lose political power, many of them may
finish their lives in prison.
Agree. The establishment's hysterics and histrionics betray the fear of loosing money and power. But what a pitiful imagination,
what a consistent incompetence the "deciders" have been showing: Nothing but banality and half-wit clear signs of degradation.
The difference between the corporate interests of the financial-political elite and the interests of the nation became too
obvious. So they are failing to persuade American Nation that they are acting in the national interest.
You cannot make this up! As a NEWS purveyor today you say anything you like,
from any credible or not credible person or organization on the planet, and
then claim it is up to your readers to decide if it is true or not. Yikes. The
American Fourth Estate is beginning to look like a one flight up gentleman's
parlor on old Times Square.
a lot of homosexual practitioners like ben smith produce this kind of garbage.
the aggressive promotion of homosexualized America, and Europe as well, has
been very bad news indeed. That is a political agenda that needs to meet some
serious resistance.
Chuck Todd is doing exactly was he is being paid to do. Just like you, me,
and every one else. Not that he is especially good at what he is supposed
to be doing though. Tucker is much better.
"... The decision by the Obama administration to push ahead with the TPP may well have cost Hillary Clinton the presidency ..."
"... No doubt. But the Wall St. Dems are going to keep blaming Bernie Bros and the Russians. And they'll keep helping themselves to that sweet corporate payola. ..."
"... Talk about pushing ahead with TPP, this piece is jaw dropping. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/tpp-how-obama-traded-away_b_13872926.html?section=us_politics ..."
"... I see it as karma. TPP may have been the worst thing ever tried by a US President, to date. I didn't realize that so many people understood it though, at least I didn't get that impression in central California. ..."
"... And not just Hillary Clinton. The whole Democratic party. Obama has been a disaster for Democrats. There is a piece in the WAPO by Matt Stoller today discussing just this issue. ..."
"... Excellent point. Basically will corporations pass along increased costs to consumers? ..."
"... Take a look at what happened when the price of oil spiked. Corporations that had healthy profit margins in general didn't pass on to consumers their increased costs when oil was part of their COGS (cost of good sold). Though in contrast, airlines did. At the time Airlines had low profit margins. But I suspect their pricing power is less elastic regardless – their 10Ks show their entire business model is metric'd on the price of fuel. ..."
"... Offshoring isn't about lower consumer goods prices. The cost of labor in a mass-produced product is small, often trivial. That's what mass production is designed to do. ..."
"... The addiction to foreign trade is for the money in it. The importer doubles his money, the wholesaler doubles his money, the distributor doubles his money and the retailer gets what he can. The Chinese manufacturer is satisfied but most of the street cost goes to the intermediaries. ..."
"... In this case, "sovereignty" means the power to regulate commerce. Insofar as the signatories are democracy, it also means democracy – the ability to carry out the decisions of representative bodies. ..."
"... Countries without an internationally traded currency will not willingly sign up for specious 'trade in money' sections. Galbraith the Younger wrote a famous paper on the subject that clearly established there is no such thing as a trade in money. Every way I look at it, its a rip-off, facilitated by a useful idiot in the country's central bank. ..."
"... ISDS is nothing more than a scheme to enable direct foreign attacks on the legislative process itself – even more direct and invasive than influencing elections by hacking, propaganda or whatever ..."
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram, former UN Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development. Originally
published at Inter Press Service and cross
posted from
Triple Crisis
President-elect Donald Trump has promised that he will take the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement (TPPA) on the first day of his presidency. The TPP may now be dead, thanks to Trump and
opposition by all major US presidential candidates. With its imminent demise almost certain, it is
important to draw on some lessons before it is buried.
Fraudulent Free Trade Agreement
The TPP is fraudulent as a free trade agreement, offering very little in terms of additional growth
due to trade liberalization, contrary to media hype. To be sure, the TPP had little to do with trade.
The US already has free trade agreements, of the bilateral or regional variety, with six of the 11
other countries in the pact. All twelve members also belong to the World Trade Organization (WTO)
which concluded the single largest trade agreement ever, more than two decades ago in Marrakech –
contrary to the TPPA's claim to that status. Trade barriers with the remaining five countries were
already very low in most cases, so there is little room left for further trade liberalization in
the TPPA, except in the case of Vietnam, owing to the war until 1975 and its legacy of punitive legislation.
The most convenient computable general equilibrium (CGE) trade model used for trade projections
makes unrealistic assumptions, including those about the consequences of trade liberalization. For
instance, such trade modelling exercises typically presume full employment as well as unchanging
trade and fiscal balances. Our colleagues' more realistic macroeconomic modelling suggested that
almost 800,000 jobs would be lost over a decade after implementation, with almost half a million
from the US alone. There would also be downward pressure on wages, in turn exacerbating inequalities
at the national level.
Already, many US manufacturing jobs have been lost to US corporations' automation and relocation
abroad. Thus, while most politically influential US corporations would do well from the TPP due to
strengthened intellectual property rights (IPRs) and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms,
US workers would generally not. It is now generally believed these outcomes contributed to the backlash
against such globalization in the votes for Brexit and Trump.
Non-Trade Measures
According to the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE), the US think-tank known
for cheerleading economic liberalization and globalization, the purported TPPA gains would mainly
come from additional investments, especially foreign direct investments, due to enhanced investor
rights. However, these claims have been disputed by most other analysts, including two US government
agencies, i.e., the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (ERS) and the US International
Trade Commission (ITC).
Much of the additional value of trade would come from 'non-trade issues'. Strengthening intellectual
property (IP) monopolies, typically held by powerful transnational corporations, would raise the
value of trade through higher trading prices, not more goods and services. Thus, strengthened IPRs
leading to higher prices for medicines are of particular concern.
The TPP would reinforce and extend patents, copyrights and related intellectual property protections.
Such protectionism raises the price of protected items, such as pharmaceutical drugs. In a 2015 case,
Martin Shkreli raised the price of a drug he had bought the rights to by 6000% from USD12.50 to USD750!
As there is no US law against such 'price-gouging', the US Attorney General could only prosecute
him for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme.
"Medecins Sans Frontieres" warned that the agreement would go down in history as the worst "cause
of needless suffering and death" in developing countries. In fact, contrary to the claim that stronger
IPRs would enhance research and development, there has been no evidence of increased research or
new medicines in recent decades for this reason.
Corporate-Friendly
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is also supposed to go up thanks to the TPPA's ISDS provisions.
For instance, foreign companies would be able to sue TPP governments for ostensible loss of profits,
including potential future profits, due to changes in national regulation or policies even if in
the national or public interest.
ISDS would be enforced through ostensibly independent tribunals. This extrajudicial system would
supercede national laws and judiciaries, with secret rulings not bound by precedent or subject to
appeal.
Thus, rather than trade promotion, the main purpose of the TPPA has been to internationally promote
more corporate-friendly rules under US leadership. The 6350 page deal was negotiated by various working
groups where representatives of major, mainly US corporations were able to drive the agenda and advance
their interests. The final push to seek congressional support for the TPPA despite strong opposition
from the major presidential candidates made clear that the main US rationale and motive were geo-political,
to minimize China's growing influence.
The decision by the Obama administration to push ahead with the TPP may well have cost Hillary
Clinton the presidency as she came across as insincere in belatedly opposing the agreement which
she had previously praised and advocated. Trade was a major issue in swing states like Ohio, Michigan
and Pennsylvania, where concerned voters overwhelmingly opted for Trump.
The problem now is that while the Obama administration undermined trade multilateralism by its
unwillingness to honour the compromise which initiated the Doha Development Round, Trump's preference
for bilateral agreements benefiting the US is unlikely to provide the boost to multilateralism so
badly needed now. Unless the US and the EU embrace the spirit of compromise which started this round
of trade negotiations, the WTO and multilateralism more generally may never recover from the setbacks
of the last decade and a half.
The decision by the Obama administration to push ahead with the TPP may well have cost
Hillary Clinton the presidency
No doubt. But the Wall St. Dems are going to keep blaming Bernie Bros and the Russians. And
they'll keep helping themselves to that sweet corporate payola.
I see it as karma. TPP may have been the worst thing ever tried by a US President, to date.
I didn't realize that so many people understood it though, at least I didn't get that impression
in central California.
And not just Hillary Clinton. The whole Democratic party. Obama has been a disaster for
Democrats. There is a piece in the
WAPO by Matt Stoller today discussing just this issue.
Not knowing what he does not know may be beneficial. To be freed from the straitjacket of political
sophistry that has led to previous disasters for American workers is, perhaps, a positive.
I'd be willing to pay twice as much for Chinese junk as I do now.
Corporations, Hollywood, Big Pharma and Silicon Valley will be hurt? Tough luck, they are there
to make profits and are no friend of American workers. Might as well say it, because of their
behavior, they are the enemy of progress for workers.
Short version:
Trump has done more for American workers and has obtained more net benefit out of the car companies,
before he's even sworn in than the Clintons did in ten collective years of 'public service'.
>I'd be willing to pay twice as much for Chinese junk as I do now.
And I don't think you would even have to every time you can manage to look at what it costs*
to make something in China instead of the USA, and compare it to the retail price, you get a real
"whoa".** The price is just enough less to drive the US manufacturer themselves out of business,
most of the money *does* stay in the US but it goes to the top 0.1%.
This is more about control of the proles than economics, sometimes I think.
*like anybody can totally figure it out given the Chinese state's involvement in everything,
but we can make decent guesses
**I know that American mfg cost is generally 1/2 of retail price and sometimes as low as 1/3.
I'm talking about 1/10 to 1/20th for Chinese goods.
Excellent point. Basically will corporations pass along increased costs to consumers?
Take a look at what happened when the price of oil spiked. Corporations that had healthy
profit margins in general didn't pass on to consumers their increased costs when oil was part
of their COGS (cost of good sold). Though in contrast, airlines did. At the time Airlines had
low profit margins. But I suspect their pricing power is less elastic regardless – their 10Ks
show their entire business model is metric'd on the price of fuel.
Offshoring isn't about lower consumer goods prices. The cost of labor in a mass-produced
product is small, often trivial. That's what mass production is designed to do.
It's more about dropping more of the top line to the bottom line. Along with the fake aristo
disdain for wage earners that seems to be a requirement for corporate managers.
That 35% tariff sure equals a lot of profits lost on cars made in Mexico. Therefore, they will
be made in America. Due to the competitive nature of auto sales, the lack of interest in teenagers
in buying cars, I think Detroit will not raise prices to match the labor cost difference. Also,
there will be even less demand for U.S. made cars as most of the Mexican factories will possibly
remain open for the Latin American market, which means even fewer exports of American made cars.
A scarcity of markets means lower prices.
The addiction to foreign trade is for the money in it. The importer doubles his money,
the wholesaler doubles his money, the distributor doubles his money and the retailer gets what
he can. The Chinese manufacturer is satisfied but most of the street cost goes to the intermediaries.
The Chinese governments interest for many years was simply receiving the foreign money payments
and paying out the exchange in RMB.
Trump hasn't done a thing for American workers. Indiana taxpayers (American workers) are on
the hook for Carrier taking on roughly 700 jobs of the 2000 that Trump said he would "save". We
don't even know the deep details of that "deal". If anyone thinks that Carrier signed off on that
deal without the permission of Carrier's parent, United Technologies (a pure defense firm), I
have a bridge to sell them. What future "deal" did the American taxpayer (worker) get subjected
to when this "deal" was made behind closed doors to a defense contractor whose *only* means of
revenue is from the American taxpayer (worker)?
What about the citizens (workers) of Indiana who are going to carry the financial and social
burden of the 1300 Carrier workers that Trump promised (early on in his campaign) whose jobs he
would save. The carrier deal, in fact, was virtually the same deal that Pence had put on the table
a year ago.
United Technologies has *three* air conditioning brands; their Mexican lines are still open,
and the 700 jobs that Trump said he "saved" are not committed to any kind of permanent status
in the USA. Again, the Mexican manufacturing lines remain open, operating, and ready to accept
those jobs when Carrier thinks it's appropriate.
As for the auto companies? Please. Trump did NOTHING that wasn't already planned, or that wasn't
already inspired by market forces and in the works.
FORD on the cancelled Mexican plant:
http://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2017/01/04/we-didnt-cut-a-deal-with-trump-ford-on-canceled-mexican-plant
"'To be clear, Ford is still moving its production of small vehicles to Mexico. The Ford Focus
will still be produced in Mexico, just at an existing Mexican plant instead of the canceled plant.
"[T]he reason we are canceling our plant in Mexico, the main reason, is because we are seeing
a decline in demand for small vehicles here in North America.."
Trump is a fraud and an overt liar; he's a pure clinical narcissist who doesn't work for anyone
but his frail ego – ever seeking out his next source of narcissistic supply – a supply he has
been able to control from his early days from the happy accident of inherited wealth – going on
from there to use his inheritance to enrich himself at the expense of others.
Yes, American workers have been screwed over, but they have been screwed over mostly by Plutocrats
who have owned both parties for decades. Ironically (in the face of all the anti-immigration talk),
the vast majority of those Plutocrats have been *white, male* CEOs.
Anyone looking at Trump's early appointments and Cabinet nominees – not to mentioned his unhinged
comments and tweets – who is not scared stiff by the presence of this goon in the White House
– is suffering from a serious case of confirmation bias.
Why would you be willing to pay twice as much for Chinese junk? Especially if it were still
junk? If I were going to pay twice as much for something, I would rather that something be American
not-junk rather than Chinese junk.
Given the reality that the most modern manufacturing capacity in the world is Chinese when
it comes to consumer durables, it is racist to assume that "American" products are automatically
better. The disinvestment in American manufacturing would take decades to replace.
last night listening to some folks opine re starbucks as a ubiquitous bad, the defense was
they generally treat their employees ok, better than mcdonalds certainly, homeless people are
given a little space before they get cleared out after a few hours if they are civil, which seemed
to make the "striving to be good consumers, attempting to be socially responsible" lean towards
well maybe they guessed it might be ok to go there. They all have i phones, however, and I didn't
say it as I like my job, but was thinking "how many suicide nets does starbucks have in their
global domain?" To call that racist makes me wonder about your comment, maybe if you had said
is it racist, but no further, and in direct relation to that, china got manufacturing
because suicide nets are a solution for apple that would not go over well around here. Maybe that's
why they produce there, and not because the chinese are better at manufacturing?
You can only play the race card but so many times before you wear it out. And it is pretty
thin.
I assume that American-made Science Diet dog food won't have poison in it the way I have to
assume Chinese dog food may have. I assume that American-made sheet rock won't offgas sulfur dioxide
gas which turns into sulfuric acid in moist air ( as in Florida), and destroys household appliances
in a year or less. The way some Chinese high-sulfur sheetrock did at least once in Florida. I
assume an American-made Oakland-Bay-Bridge at twice the price would not now be already having
the decay and bad-build problems which the Cheap China Crap Construction bridge is already having.
Shall I go on?
You sound like a Free Trade Treason hasbarist for China. In fact, I think you are.
You still want to call me racist? Well . . . kiss me, I'm deplorable.
>Trump's plan to enter into bi-lateral trade deals (after supposedly tearing up extant pacts)
Well we never know what the frell he is actually going to do, sure can't judge by what he says.
If he did start with and modifies "extant pacts", that would actually make a lot of sense
and maybe even go decently well at a more-than-glacial speed.
Of course – I hate when people speculate, and especially when they speculate that somebody
is going to do literally the opposite of what they said they were going to do, yet here I am doing
exactly that. My only excuse is that his personality is not to get that deep into anything, so
it just seems more likely that he would simply focus on whatever specific aspect of a given treatry
is problematical, wack a bit at that (for better or worse), and move on.
Bi-lateral trade deals can focus on relatively narrow trade areas and in this case those needn't
so much time to get negotiated and passed. I don't know if that is Trump's strategy.
This is a great summary of the recent fate of the TPP and the reasons for it. It may not be
dead yet – even though it has been unceremoniously tossed on the cart of the dead (monty python).
But the thinking behind it is terminal. Why no one ever discussed the military aspect of the TPP
can be attributed to its strict secrecy. It was obvious to lots of people that the TPP was NATO
for the Pacific and China was the target, and equally obvious that it was bad policy from any
perspective. Bilateral trade will survive this debacle and world trade will continue – but trade
will not be such a military tool, hopefully. It will be a good thing.
It was not obvious to me. It is still not obvious to me. "China" was the excuse advanced for
TPP late in the day when the Tradesters discovered that popular sentiment was turning against
the Corporate Globalonial Plantationist purpose of the TPP, and hence against the TPP itself.
First, she is much closer to correct than you re the purpose of TPP. Secondly, why would you
argue that the 'Tradesters' had to resort to 'China' in order to attempt to sell their putrid
deal if 'China' was not viewed by said 'Tradesters' as a word loaded with a host of negative associations,
most of which are based on typical US foreign policy jingoistic nonsense rooted in what is certainly
a classic case of US/Western supremacist nonsense, if not the more obvious, overt racism now making
a rather spectacular comeback?
Lesson learned is to avoid electing corrupt candidates that call it a gold standard right
away you know who is receiving, and who is paying, the gold.
And then there are sitting elected officials pushing the crap with all their might, anticipating
their gold shares maturing as soon as they leave office
Trade was a major issue in swing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where concerned
voters overwhelmingly opted for Trump.
Bravo! "Concerned voters" is a much better descriptor than "deplorables", "working class whites"
or even, in this case, "working class voters" as there were also sovereignty issues.
The wording of your comment is rather ambiguous – are you stating that "statistics show" that
"sexism played a big role" in the swing states? Where do you situate yourself relative to Lambert's
discussion of the subject?
The sexism card is wearing about as thin as the racism card is wearing. Clinton lost support
in the Midwest when she revealed herself to be a Free Trade Traitor against America by stating
that she would put her husband, NAFTA Bill, in charge of the economic recovery when she got elected.
That expression of support for anti-American Trade Treason guaranteed her loss right there.
Statistics show . . . that figures lie when liars figure.
" trade agreements take a long time to negotiate, typically because they also include services,
and those take way longer to sort out than the physical goods side."
My first reaction: good. Services shouldn't be in trade pacts. And if they take a long time to
get done, all the better. The fetish for "trade pacts" is mostly destructive.
Fundamentally: they're superfluous. People have always traded, mostly without "pacts." When
it comes to "absolute advantage," literally trading apples for oranges, everybody really does
benefit and barriers melt away. Under modern conditions. "comparative advantage" is a falsehood,
as a close look at the conditions Ricardo set for it will show. It requires that labor and capital
don't move at all freely between countries – true in his day, but certainly not in ours. Bizarrely,
his theory is being used, dishonestly, to promote the destructive free movement of capital, and
that's what "services" mostly means.
The point that trade agreements take a long time is probably true, as well as not an objection;
but it isn't an argument for multilateral agreements like the TPP; it's an argument for the WTO,
if it had been done right. The plan was to set up an overarching, worldwide structure for trade.
But it should have been done under the UN, and it shouldn't include attacks on sovereignty like
the tribunals. The real reason for other agreements is that the requirement for consensus in the
WTO put up a dead end sign: thus far, and no farther. So the "Washington Consensus" tried for
work arounds. But the consensus model makes sense, and the rules should be universal.
The real gist of Ricardo is that trade is NOT an unmitigated good. It easily becomes more or
less subtle forms of imperialism. Furthermore, low trade barriers make sense. Diversity depends
on barriers. They encourage a modicum of self-reliance and provide firewalls so that a financial
collapse in one country doesn't automatically go world-wide. We probably had it right in the 50s
and 60s, when the economy was far healthier. Granted, there were still a lot of actual colonies
then, so it's hard to tell how that translates to modern conditions.
I don't think I'm saying anything that isn't very familiar here. We should beware of capitalist
ideologies.
The fetish for Multilaterialism is also destructive. Multilateralism is just "french" for Corporate
Globalonial Plantationist trade pacts designed to exterminate sovereignty for dozens of countries
at a time.
" Our colleagues' more realistic macroeconomic modelling suggested that almost 800,000 jobs
would be lost over a decade after implementation, with almost half a million from the US alone.
There would also be downward pressure on wages, in turn exacerbating inequalities at the national
level."
Yes, that's what these "trade agreements" are FOR. You don't think the PTB take bullshit economics
seriously, do you?
As an aside, I never particularly liked the sovereignty argument against TPP (which I note
is omitted from this article) because I felt it painted with an overly broad brush. More specifically,
I would argue that it can sometimes be a good thing if nation-states collectively agree to be
bound by rules that supersede national legislation. The Geneva Convention is one example.
TPP would have been bad not because it compromised national sovereignty, but because of the
reasons for which it did so. Overriding national legislation to protect human rights is one thing.
Overriding it to grant multinational corporations more power over workers, consumers and governments
is quite another.
"I would argue that it can sometimes be a good thing if nation-states collectively agree to
be bound by rules that supersede national legislation. The Geneva Convention is one example."
In this case, "sovereignty" means the power to regulate commerce. Insofar as the signatories
are democracy, it also means democracy – the ability to carry out the decisions of representative
bodies.
The Pacific Rim countries might approve "needless suffering and death" if it keeps them in
the west's good books.
Countries without an internationally traded currency will not willingly sign up for specious
'trade in money' sections. Galbraith the Younger wrote a famous paper on the subject that clearly
established there is no such thing as a trade in money. Every way I look at it, its a rip-off,
facilitated by a useful idiot in the country's central bank.
These agreements, whether global or bilateral, are an invitation to central bankers to become
traitors to their own country; an attempt to take over a nation without firing a shot, a blast
from a future that permits only trade blocks and no countries.
I am convinced what the world really wants is a debate on the shape of world government. I
do not agree that the chap with the most printed money calls the shots. We are better than that.
ISDS is nothing more than a scheme to enable direct foreign attacks on the legislative
process itself – even more direct and invasive than influencing elections by hacking, propaganda
or whatever . Imagine if Vladimir Putin were to accomplish a legislative objective in the
U.S. simply by launching an ISDS extortion suit via a Russian state owned enterprise and a willing
ISDS tribunal outside the U.S. court system and not at all accountable to U.S. interests. What
would the pro TPP corporate Dems have to say then?
The document reads like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight." It's a joke.
Notable quotes:
"... People who already dislike Trump will believe the allegations while people who like Trump will hate the press and intelligence agencies (?) even more for attacking him unfairly in their minds. ..."
"... People are making jokes about it, the puns are just too easy, but nobody seems to actually believe it. ..."
"... People don't talk about it like "did you hear trump did X" "oh yea" "yea there was a story". Its like "there was a very dubious story that trump did x" "". The way people talk about a Saturday Night Live sketch about Trump. ..."
"... "This is a huge embarrassment to Democrats, the mainstream media and those intelligence officials who have all been piling on Trump. It hurts their credibility, which can ill afford to take yet another hit." ..."
"... It's just partisan warfare. ..."
"... "Today Clapper denounced media leaks..." Is that the same Clapper who lied to Congress about how the NSA was spying on law-abiding citizens en mass? Yeah he's trustworthy. ..."
"... CNN was the first to report what Buzzfeed revealed. Trump was mad at them. Who else? ..."
"... Glenn Greenwald explains the whole vendetta against Trump based on sham data. https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-state-goes-to-war-with-president-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer/ ..."
"... With release of the buzz feed data, they overplayed their hand, destroyed their narrative, embarrassed themselves, and ultimately strengthened Trump. ..."
"... "they damn well better have the goods...and the goods need to PO the deplorables." nothing will change their minds. They just see it as cynical attacks on their man. ..."
"... The long knives will come out during the next recession ..."
"... This reminds me of how the Bush campaign got Dan Rather to release some bogus information about Bush43 as a draft dodger. ..."
"... In that case, I think the narrative of Bush as a draft dodger was correct, but its usefulness for Democrats got destroyed the moment Rather's source was revealed as bogus. ..."
"... In this case, Hillary's assertions of Trump as a Putin stooge have been highly suspect, though she made a big deal of them in her campaign. Now that narrative has been crippled by the buzz feed overreach. ..."
"... Exactly! "Democrats don't want to do a post-mortem about why they lost. It may prove that Bernie Sanders was right. They'd rather change the subject," which is where the 'everything is Putin's fault' narrative comes in. ..."
"... Reminds me of the 'everything is Republicans fault' narrative that Democrats used to justify Obama's failure to jail bankers, his austerity, and his proposals to cut Social Security. ..."
"... Democrats are masters of denial and victimization...just like Republicans. It's all very sick. ..."
"... There is, and always was, a better Putin narrative. Trump is an FSB mole is both too far and too specific. ..."
"... the election should never been about Putin. It should have been about swing state voters' economic anxieties, something that Hillary could never wrap here head around. ..."
"... Now it looks like the Trump-Putin narrative is blowing up in their faces---purveyors of fake news should not accuse others of purveying fake news. ..."
The thing about Trump is that people can imagine he's the kind of guy who would enjoy being urinated
on by Russian prostitutes, even if the allegations are untrue. He is so into gold and into women.
People who already dislike Trump will believe the allegations while people who like Trump
will hate the press and intelligence agencies (?) even more for attacking him unfairly in their
minds.
I know a lot of people who dislike Trump, and none of them seem to believe the buzzfeed story.
People are making jokes about it, the puns are just too easy, but nobody seems to actually believe
it.
People don't talk about it like "did you hear trump did X" "oh yea" "yea there was a story".
Its like "there was a very dubious story that trump did x" "". The way people talk about a Saturday
Night Live sketch about Trump.
"This is a huge embarrassment to Democrats, the mainstream media and those intelligence officials
who have all been piling on Trump. It hurts their credibility, which can ill afford to take yet
another hit."
Kind of like Comey was a huge embarrassment to Republicans? I don't think so. It's just
partisan warfare.
"Today Clapper denounced media leaks..." Is that the same Clapper who lied to Congress about
how the NSA was spying on law-abiding citizens en mass? Yeah he's trustworthy.
"This is a huge embarrassment to Democrats, the mainstream media and those intelligence officials
who have all been piling on Trump. It hurts their credibility, which can ill afford to take yet
another hit."
CNN was the first to report what Buzzfeed revealed. Trump was mad at them. Who else?
Like Trump doesn't use "sham data" and innuendo. Who cares? Poetic justice. Trump is just going
to waste his time pursuing vendettas against those who sullied his good name.
Maybe that drama will "crowd out" some of his plans to enact Paul Ryan's agenda. Maybe it will
cause a backlash among those Americans interested in a free press and democratic norms.
Like I said some of your ideas are good, but they are tarnished by some of the really stupid
things you say by association.
We already know that Trump has a Teflon shield. If the establishment is going to get him, they
damn well better have the goods...and the goods need to PO the deplorables. Trumped up charges
won't cut it.
Should-Read: Josh Marshall: What You Didn't See: "What may be the most significant news of
the day barely made a ripple...
...Donald Trump, ten days from becoming President, has an approval rating of 37%. Most presidents
seldom get so low. Some never do. For ten days away from inauguration it's totally unprecedented....
Each of the last three presidents had approval ratings of at least 65% during their presidential
transitions.... Curiously absent from press coverage [has been that] Trump, his agenda and his
party are deeply unpopular... [and have] gotten steadily more unpopular over the last four weeks..."
"they damn well better have the goods...and the goods need to PO the deplorables." nothing
will change their minds. They just see it as cynical attacks on their man.
The long knives will come out during the next recession, when Trump will have proven
his incompetence. Pretense for impeachment is unknowable, but it better be good!
This reminds me of how the Bush campaign got Dan Rather to release some bogus information
about Bush43 as a draft dodger.
In that case, I think the narrative of Bush as a draft dodger was correct, but its usefulness
for Democrats got destroyed the moment Rather's source was revealed as bogus.
In this case, Hillary's assertions of Trump as a Putin stooge have been highly suspect,
though she made a big deal of them in her campaign. Now that narrative has been crippled by the
buzz feed overreach.
Democrats should have focused on voters' economic concerns, not the Trump-Putin narrative.
There was an interesting movie about the Rather case staring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchette.
Trump is engaging in the same thuggish behavior as Republicans used against Rather and his producer
in that case. Or course CBS folded because they had regulatory changes about affiliate ownership
before the Bush administration.
We can expect the same cowardice from our corporate media regarding the Trump administration.
It would be interesting to know if Trump had something to do with release of the buzz feed report.
It would make Trump smarter than I think he really is. My understanding is that John McCain, who
hates Trump, was behind circulation of the report before buzz feed released it.
"My understanding is that John McCain, who hates Trump, was behind circulation of the report before
buzz feed released it." A lot of people knew about it. The eight leading congress people on the
intelligence committees knew about it. David Corn reported about it in October in Mother Jones.
"Democrats should have focused on voters' economic concerns, not the Trump-Putin narrative."
I'll agree with you on this. Obama went more positive in 2008 and 2012 than Hillary did in
2016 and was successful at the polls. Negative campaigning works but seems like too much of it
depresses turnout.
Part of it is that establishment Democrats don't want to do a post-mortem about why they lost.
It may prove that Bernie Sanders was right. They'd rather change the subject.
Exactly! "Democrats don't want to do a post-mortem about why they lost. It may prove that
Bernie Sanders was right. They'd rather change the subject," which is where the 'everything is
Putin's fault' narrative comes in.
Reminds me of the 'everything is Republicans fault' narrative that Democrats used to justify
Obama's failure to jail bankers, his austerity, and his proposals to cut Social Security.
Democrats are masters of denial and victimization...just like Republicans. It's all very
sick.
There is, and always was, a better Putin narrative. Trump is an FSB mole is both too far and
too specific.
The Republican's policy ideas are awful. Trump will be a terrible president. Putin wants us
weak, and the Republican party will deliver just as it did during the Bush presidency.
We will make little progress on our important problems, and make massive blunders that cost
us for decades.
Global warming will continue to improve the Russian Climate. Progress on renewable energy will
be slowed, improving the market for Russian oil and gas. The US will worsen its healthcare problems.
The US will exacerbate its inequality. The toxic republican attitude toward the institutions of
democracy will come from all three branches of the federal government, and most state governments.
Putin doesn't like Hillary. At the time, she said Putin's election was rigged. And they were pushing
Russia on all fronts. Trump is an isolationist who doesn't care about human rights or freedom
of the press.
Agreed. There were probably better Putin narratives, and the election should never been about
Putin. It should have been about swing state voters' economic anxieties, something that Hillary
could never wrap here head around.
Now it looks like the Trump-Putin narrative is blowing up in their faces---purveyors of
fake news should not accuse others of purveying fake news.
This Paul Wood. is very funny "I understand the CIA believes it is credible..." The document reads like "the gang that couldn't shoot straight." It's a joke. But
despite this Paul wood provided a
good (albeit very dirty) hatchet job. Looks like neocons declared the open war on Trump. And as
they are just a flavor of Trotskyites they are are capable of everything as they preach " the end justifies
the means"... with their global neoliberal revolution under threat they can do as low as gangsters.
Fake evidence is OK form in the best the "end justified the means" way.
Notable quotes:
"... Claims about a Russian blackmail tape were made in one of a series of reports written by a former British intelligence agent, understood to be Christopher Steele ..."
"... As a member of MI6, he had been posted to the UK's embassy in Moscow and now runs a consultancy giving advice on doing business in Russia. He spoke to a number of his old contacts in the FSB, the successor to the KGB, paying some of them for information. ..."
"... Mr Trump's supporters say this is a politically motivated attack. The president-elect himself, outraged, tweeted this morning: "Are we living in Nazi Germany?" ..."
"... He said the memo was written by "sick people [who] put that crap together". ..."
"... The opposition research firm that commissioned the report had worked first for an anti-Trump superpac - political action committee - during the Republican primaries. ..."
"... Then during the general election, it was funded by an anonymous Democratic Party supporter. ..."
"... At his news conference, Mr Trump said he warned his staff when they travelled: "Be very careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go you're going to probably have cameras." ..."
"Trump 'compromising' claims: How and why did we get here?"
By Paul Wood...BBC News...Washington...1-12-2017...47 minutes ago
"Donald Trump has described as "fake news" allegations published in some media that his election
team colluded with Russia - and that Russia held compromising material about his private life.
The BBC's Paul Wood saw the allegations before the election, and reports on the fallout now they
have come to light.
The significance of these allegations is that, if true, the president-elect of the United States
would be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.
I understand the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat - or compromising
material - on the next US commander in chief. At the same time a joint taskforce, which includes
the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money
to Mr Trump's organisation or his election campaign.
Claims about a Russian blackmail tape were made in one of a series of reports written by
a former British intelligence agent, understood to be Christopher Steele.
As a member of MI6, he had been posted to the UK's embassy in Moscow and now runs a consultancy
giving advice on doing business in Russia. He spoke to a number of his old contacts in the FSB,
the successor to the KGB, paying some of them for information.
They told him that Mr Trump had been filmed with a group of prostitutes in the presidential
suite of Moscow's Ritz-Carlton hotel. I know this because the Washington political research company
that commissioned his report showed it to me during the final week of the election campaign.
The BBC decided not to use it then, for the very good reason that without seeing the tape -
if it exists - we could not know if the claims were true. The detail of the allegations were certainly
lurid. The entire series of reports has now been posted by BuzzFeed.
[Image of Trump's Tweet]
Mr Trump's supporters say this is a politically motivated attack. The president-elect himself,
outraged, tweeted this morning: "Are we living in Nazi Germany?" Later, at his much-awaited
news conference, he was unrestrained. "A thing like that should have never been written," he said,
"and certainly should never have been released."
He said the memo was written by "sick people [who] put that crap together".
The opposition research firm that commissioned the report had worked first for an anti-Trump
superpac - political action committee - during the Republican primaries.
Then during the general election, it was funded by an anonymous Democratic Party supporter.
But these are not political hacks - their usual line of work is country analysis and commercial
risk assessment, similar to the former MI6 agent's consultancy. He, apparently, gave his dossier
to the FBI against the firm's advice.
[Photo of Trump in Moscow, 2013 w/beauty contestants]
And the former MI6 agent is not the only source for the claim about Russian kompromat on the
president-elect. Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by
"the head of an East European intelligence agency".
Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with
the case file - they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was "more
than one tape", "audio and video", on "more than one date", in "more than one place" - in the
Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was "of a sexual nature".
'Be very careful'
The claims of Russian kompromat on Mr Trump were "credible", the CIA believed. That is why
- according to the New York Times and Washington Post - these claims ended up on President Barack
Obama's desk last week, a briefing document also given to Congressional leaders and to Mr Trump
himself.
Mr Trump did visit Moscow in November 2013, the date the main tape is supposed to have been
made. There is TV footage of him at the Miss Universe contest. Any visitor to a grand hotel in
Moscow would be wise to assume that their room comes equipped with hidden cameras and microphones
as well as a mini-bar.
At his news conference, Mr Trump said he warned his staff when they travelled: "Be very
careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go you're going to probably have
cameras." So the Russian security services have made obtaining kompromat an art form.
One Russian specialist told me that Vladimir Putin himself sometimes says there is kompromat
on him - though perhaps he is joking. The specialist went on to tell me that FSB officers are
prone to boasting about having tapes on public figures, and to be careful of any statements they
might make.
A former CIA officer told me he had spoken by phone to a serving FSB officer who talked about
the tapes. He concluded: "It's hokey as hell."
Mr Trump and his supporters are right to point out that these are unsubstantiated allegations.
But it is not just sex, it is money too. The former MI6 agent's report detailed alleged attempts
by the Kremlin to offer Mr Trump lucrative "sweetheart deals" in Russia that would buy his loyalty.
Mr Trump turned these down, and indeed has done little real business in Russia. But a joint
intelligence and law enforcement taskforce has been looking at allegations that the Kremlin paid
money to his campaign through his associates.
Legal applications
On 15 October, the US secret intelligence court issued a warrant to investigate two Russian
banks. This news was given to me by several sources and corroborated by someone I will identify
only as a senior member of the US intelligence community. He would never volunteer anything -
giving up classified information would be illegal - but he would confirm or deny what I had heard
from other sources.
"I'm going to write a story that says " I would say. "I don't have a problem with that," he
would reply, if my information was accurate. He confirmed the sequence of events below.
Last April, the CIA director was shown intelligence that worried him. It was - allegedly -
a tape recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential
campaign.
It was passed to the US by an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States. The CIA cannot
act domestically against American citizens so a joint counter-intelligence taskforce was created.
The taskforce included six agencies or departments of government. Dealing with the domestic,
US, side of the inquiry, were the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Justice.
For the foreign and intelligence aspects of the investigation, there were another three agencies:
the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency,
responsible for electronic spying.
Lawyers from the National Security Division in the Department of Justice then drew up an application.
They took it to the secret US court that deals with intelligence, the Fisa court, named after
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They wanted permission to intercept the electronic
records from two Russian banks.
Their first application, in June, was rejected outright by the judge. They returned with a
more narrowly drawn order in July and were rejected again. Finally, before a new judge, the order
was granted, on 15 October, three weeks before election day.
Neither Mr Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order, which would only cover foreign
citizens or foreign entities - in this case the Russian banks. But ultimately, the investigation
is looking for transfers of money from Russia to the United States, each one, if proved, a felony
offence.
A lawyer- outside the Department of Justice but familiar with the case - told me that three
of Mr Trump's associates were the subject of the inquiry. "But it's clear this is about Trump,"
he said.
I spoke to all three of those identified by this source. All of them emphatically denied any
wrongdoing. "Hogwash," said one. "Bullshit," said another. Of the two Russian banks, one denied
any wrongdoing, while the other did not respond to a request for comment.
The investigation was active going into the election. During that period, the leader of the
Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid, wrote to the director of the FBI, accusing him of holding
back "explosive information" about Mr Trump.
Mr Reid sent his letter after getting an intelligence briefing, along with other senior figures
in Congress. Only eight people were present: the chairs and ranking minority members of the House
and Senate intelligence committees, and the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in
Congress, the "gang of eight" as they are sometimes called. Normally, senior staff attend "gang
of eight" intelligence briefings, but not this time. The Congressional leaders were not even allowed
to take notes.
'Puppet'
In the letter to the FBI director, James Comey, Mr Reid said: "In my communications with you
and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess
explosive information about close ties and co-ordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers,
and the Russian government - a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Mr
Trump praises at every opportunity.
"The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this
information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing
it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information."
The CIA, FBI, Justice and Treasury all refused to comment when I approached them after hearing
about the Fisa warrant.
It is not clear what will happen to the inter-agency investigation under President Trump -
or even if the taskforce is continuing its work now. The Russians have denied any attempt to influence
the president-elect - with either money or a blackmail tape.
If a tape exists, the Russians would hardly give it up, though some hope to encourage a disloyal
FSB officer who might want to make some serious money. Before the election, Larry Flynt, publisher
of the pornographic magazine Hustler, put up a million dollars for incriminating tape of Mr Trump.
Penthouse has now followed with its own offer of a million dollars for the Ritz-Carlton tape (if
it exists).
It is an extraordinary situation, 10 days before Mr Trump is sworn into office, but it was
foreshadowed during the campaign.
During the final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a "puppet" of Russia's
leader, Vladimir Putin. "No puppet. No puppet," Mr Trump interjected, talking over Mrs Clinton.
"You're the puppet. No, you're the puppet."
In a New York Times op-ed in August, the former director of the CIA, Michael Morell, wrote:
"In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr Putin had recruited Mr Trump as an unwitting
agent of the Russian Federation."
Agent; puppet - both terms imply some measure of influence or control by Moscow.
Michael Hayden, former head of both the CIA and the NSA, simply called Mr Trump a "polezni
durak" - a useful fool.
The background to those statements was information held - at the time - within the intelligence
community. Now all Americans have heard the claims. Little more than a week before his inauguration,
they will have to decide if their president-elect really was being blackmailed by Moscow."
"... Dugin is positively millenarian: "We must create strategic alliances to overthrow the present order of things, of which the core could be described as human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness – everything that is the face of the Beast, the anti-Christ." ..."
Russian hacking, White House warnings, angry denials by Vladimir Putin's officials: we are edging towards a digital Cuban crisis.
So it is as well to ask what is truly at stake in this e-conflict, and what underpins it.
To which end, meet the most important intellectual you have (probably) never heard of. Alexander Dugin, the Russian political
scientist and polemicist, may resemble Santa's evil younger brother and talk like a villain from an Austin Powers movie. But it
is no accident that he has earned the nickname Putin's Rasputin. ...
The purpose of operations like the hacking of the US election has been to destabilize the Atlantic order generally, and America
specifically. And on this great struggle, Dugin is positively millenarian: "We must create strategic alliances to overthrow
the present order of things, of which the core could be described as human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness –
everything that is the face of the Beast, the anti-Christ."
In the Q&A he discusses Russia and Putin; his comments include this: "I'm not justifying Vladimir Putin and the kleptocracy
that he represents, because he eventually is the state capitalist of kleptocracy. "
Bannon is a zionist shill and always will be. He has tried to blur that point away. But that kind of crap is pure zionism. Putin's
ties with Ashkenazi jews is well well known. He has had much support from the extreme wings of the Lukud for years, yet the idiots
don't pay attention. Putin sold himself and they bought it up. The myth he purged the Oligarchs from Russia cracks me up. He made
sure the winners power was firmly planted.
From a "conservative revolutionary" (Renee Guenon aka real traditionalism) pov, this is pure bunk. Nationalism is semitic by
its very nature and collectivist. What they want is a global plutocracy with the bible as its whip. Now, not everybody agrees
with that version of "plutocracy". Thus comes the adversaries, the Jesuits.
Are we Remainers making a simple
mistake about Brexit?
What I mean is that we think of
Brexit in consequentialist terms – its effects upon
trade
, productivity
and
growth
. But many Brexiters instead regard Brexit as an
intrinsic good, something desirable in itself in which
consequences are of secondary importance.
Thinking of Brexit in this way
explains a lot of otherwise strange behaviour:
- Why the Tories have a big poll
lead even though voters
think
they're doing a lousy job of managing the Brexit
process. If you think Brexit is worth having for its own sake,
then you'll be pleased the Tories are getting on with it,
because a second-best Brexit is better than none.
- Why most Brexiters had no plan
for the process. They just weren't thinking in consequentialist
terms.
- Why Theresa May says "Brexit
means Brexit". To consequentialists, this is pure gibberish.
From the perspective of those who want Brexit as a matter of
principle, it's not: it's an assurance they'll get what they
want.
- Why
preparations
for
Brexit
are so
chaotic
. If you regard Brexit as an intrinsic good, then
it's not so important how we achieve it. Of course, there are
good and less good types of Brexit. But if you prefer to
satisfice than optimize, this isn't necessarily decisive.
= Why the government is
offering ad hoc support to businesses likely to be hit by
Brexit, be it handouts to
Nissan
or assurances to farmers that they'll still be able
to hire cheap foreign
labour
. There isn't a systematic plan here or conception of
what Brexit should look like, just one-by-one attempts to buy
off specific discontents.
- Why technocrats and Brexiters
have a mutual incomprehension and loathing. Technocrats haven't
grasped that because Brexit is a good in itself, the process of
achieving it is a secondary detail. And Brexiters have had
enough of experts because they are irrelevant as consequences
(up to a point) don't much matter.
Of course, Brexiters might well
be under-estimating those consequences. But if so, they are not
the first people whose wishful thinking causes them to
under-estimate the force of Isaiah Berlin's
point (pdf)
that "some among the great goods cannot live
together".
All this poses the question: what
is the nature of this intrinsic good? I suspect it's to do with
self-image. Brexiters want to think of themselves as independent
people free of the yoke of Brussels, an image that trumps
technocratic consequentialist considerations – or at least is
incommensurable with them. The fact that many cannot
say
what exactly they'll be free to do after Brexit isn't
important: freedom can be desired for its own sake.
In this sense, Brexit is another
form of identity politics. Remainers who complain about its
adverse effects might be making a point that satisfies
themselves, but not one that has much influence upon many of
their opponents. As with so much identity politics, we're left
with a rather futile dialogue of the deaf.
Blissex |
January 08, 2017 at 01:32 PM
Looking at it as to the long run, "Leave" is a reverberation of
the impact of England's (and France's) defeat in WW2. Losing
that war became undeniable (for some) and at the same time
insufferable (for others) with the strategic defeat at Suez.
My
usual humorous take on the "self-image" aspect is that if the EU
were merely renamed "The English Empire of Great Britain and the
Continent" and Her Majesty were appointed as its figurehead and
opened each year the proceedings of the Imperial Parliament in
Strasbourg or Brussels, with no substantial changes, a lot of
"Leavers" would stop objecting...
:-)
One would have also to rename the European Commission as
the "HM Imperial Civil Service" and the Council of EU ministers
as "HM Imperial Council" :-).
The Daily Mail would then have fawning articles like
"Imperial Lead Minister Angela Merkel attends HM's speech at the
Imperial Parliament's opening in Brussels" and "Boris Johnson,
Imperial Commissioner for Entertainment, reports to the English
Parliament the success of the Imperial Council's policy of
banana standardization that he has promoted". :-)
"May says "Brexit means Brexit". To consequentialists, this is
pure gibberish."
Well, maybe, but for my "Remain" and
mostly-consequentialist ears it clearly means "Article 50", that
is no second referendum, no fudging with a treaty revision. Then
once Article 50 is invoked, everything else is up for grabs, but
Article 50 is the point-of-no-return that "Leavers" want to be
reassured about.
The Leavers from all voting analysis were less educated, more
rural , less prosperous and definitely older voters. They
swallowed the Brexit Tabloid media which distorted all things EU
, immigrant and economic. Now as we exit 500 million other
consumers and undo 45 years we shall know the full consequences.
Is it that the English and Welsh are just politically,
economically and socially less educated than other Northern and
Western Europeans. I think so- our tabloid media and supplicant
'Daily Express on legs' BBC is likely the worst in EU.
Spot on. Sums up this leaver's position very well. EU membership
is a historic error for the island nation, and it is well worth
paying a price to correct that error.
it
is so interesting to note that Brexiteers and Remainers seem to
be living in parallel universes with regards to the Brexit
narrative. Here in the article again: Brexiteers DO NOT see the
brexit process as being chaotic at all. This is entirely a
remainer view, not shared by brexiteers (i.e. the majority of
voters).
Yes. This would also perhaps partly explain the dishonesty with
respect to campaigning by the Leavers. The truth (or at least,
rational good faith argument) to them is less important than the
act of leaving in itself.
They see it as a fight, they want to
have a sense of the UK gaining autonomy and control, and to hell
with the consequences. I suspect this 'us vs them' identity
politics has grown out of the financial crisis and austerity.
"
- Why most Brexiters had no plan for the process. They just
weren't thinking in consequentialist terms."
They were
absolutely thinking in consequential terms:
They believed £350M a week would go to NHS etc. They believed
the EU/Euro was about to collapse and UK was better to leave
asap. They believed 400-600K immigrants would arrive each year,
for ever, and housing, medical treatment etc. would be
impossible to achieve. Those in non-immigrant areas believed
they would be next in the migrant wave queue. They believed they
had the power to eject non-performing MPs at elections. They
believed that UK would thrive once free of the EU. The Tories
are delivering all that for them.
What they do not want to believe, so will not easily change
their minds, is that the Government only wants to control
migration - not reduce it. That no one will lose their jobs, and
jobs will become even more soul destroying. That housing will be
even scarcer and more costly. That proper training and career
progression is a thing of the past. That primacy will not be
revived and they will not be first in the queue for everything.
That neither the Conservative nor Labour parties will do a thing
for the left behind and JAMs.
Once they do realise they have been taken for a ride yet
again, the anger may flow over into extremes.
Many Brexiteers, when arguing for Brexit, flip backwards and
forwards between consequentialist arguments and arguments for
Brexit as an intrinsic good. As Dominic Cummings admits, "Leave"
would not have won if they hadn't lied about the money that
could be spent in the NHS and the status of Turkey - and,
apparently, the facts that these were lies doesn't bother him.
It's bizarre, though, how a newspaper like the Daily Mail
spent 10 years pre-1973 campaigning for entry to the Common
Market and now finds everything European to be suspect. Does it
really think that neighbouring countries in Europe, that share
many of our traditions and culture, are really less congenial
trading partners than other global trading states?
"Many Brexiteers, when arguing for Brexit, flip backwards and
forwards between consequentialist arguments and arguments for
Brexit as an intrinsic good."
They are addressing both of
their main constituencies...
"neighbouring countries in Europe, that share many of our
traditions and culture, are really less congenial trading
partners than other global trading states?"
For "self-image" based "Leavers", giving up a global empire
to be just one of many "neighbouring countries" in a mere
regional alliance is simply foolish or a betrayal; the economic
or trade aspect is not that important.
For consequentialist "Leavers" trade/immigration matters but
negatively, and they weren't given an opportunity to vote
against global trade/immigration making them poorer, only
against east european trade/immigration making them poorer. They
surely would have voted against too much trade/immigration with
the other "global trading states" though.
"They believed 400-600K immigrants would arrive each year, for
ever,"
That was the big hope of the rentier/neoliberal voters
and politicians in both New Labour and Conservatives: to replace
ever more the native "uppity, lazy, exploitative" low-income
classes with ever larger numbers of docile cheap non voting
servants.
"and housing, medical treatment etc. would be impossible to
achieve."
The rentier/neoliberal voters and politicians never had such
concerns: they would be very happy to pack immigrants 4-8 to a
room everywhere paying top rents and give them minimal access to
a cut-down NHS.
"Those in non-immigrant areas believed they would be next in
the migrant wave queue."
* Those in rich non-immigration areas are simply outraged
that foreigners can move and work to *their* England without
begging for a visa. They have the attitude of landlords who want
to make sure their tenants understand that they can throw them
out anytime.
* Those in poor non-immigration areas often do look for jobs
in rich immigration areas know very well how much of a
competition even poorer eastern europeans are for jobs in rich
immigration areas. Even many polish immigrants complain about
the romanians after all.
During his recent visit to Turkey our
darling Boris Johnson stated that the UK government supported
visa-free travel for turks and EU membership for Turkey.
Probably this was said a bit mischievously, but the prospect
of a mass immigration of millions of docile cheap turkish
servants and workers make the UK (and EU) property and business
owners very excited.
They know how much money the german property and business
owners made in the 1950-1970s from cheap docile turkish "guest
workers", and are envious of the potential massive profits
today's german property and business owners are going to make
from the "syrian" refugees.
Blissex: "That was the big hope of the rentier/neoliberal voters
and politicians in both New Labour and Conservatives: to replace
ever more the native "uppity, lazy, exploitative" low-income
classes with ever larger numbers of docile cheap non voting
servants."
Agreed, when we consider British anti-poor
political rhetoric, the above does really seem to follow quite
naturally.
And I'd agree it's vital in this analysis to explicitly
identify the political class as the rentier/neoliberal class.
And I'm not even remotely a Marxist btw. It's just fact.
"explicitly identify the political class as the
rentier/neoliberal class. And I'm not even remotely a Marxist
btw."
The irony is that instead many in that
"rentier/neoliberal class" are pretty much marxists, in the
sense that they have come to much the same analysis as Karl
himself, the difference being their point of view as
beneficiaries.
FORD CITY, Pa. - He is old and gray now, he struggles
sometimes to hear, but if he closes his eyes the burly man
can easily conjure that young boy again, a lad at work in a
bustling factory that for a century formed the strong,
straight economic backbone of this proud industrial borough.
"We were poor, but we didn't realize it because all our
neighbors were, too,'' Paul Hromadik said as he gazed across
a rainy town common here at what used to be the Pittsburgh
Plate Glass works.
In 1953, Hromadik was among thousands who flooded through
a pedestrian tunnel at the corner of Third Avenue and Ninth
Street and into the glassworks. He made rear windows for cars
and trucks before he left for a stint in the Army and then a
life as a power company supervisor, father, and grandfather.
"This town is dying now,'' the 81-year-old Hromadik said
softly. "All the young people are moving out.''
That Pittsburgh Plate Glass plant is long gone, an early
harbinger of an economic collapse that has decimated the
region's manufacturing base and fueled a resentment,
particularly acute among white working-class voters, that has
become an emblem of Donald Trump's America.
And that's why I am here along the banks of the Allegheny
River, talking to Hromadik and others like him. I have
cowered under the covers long enough. Denial does no one any
good. Donald Trump is going to put his left hand on the Bible
in a couple weeks and repeat the oath of office administered
by Chief Justice John Roberts.
I do not live in Donald Trump's America, but I aim to
learn from those who do. I've rented a sturdy car. I've
enlisted a wingman with serious driving chops. And I've
pointed myself west to the land Trump found so fertile and
tilled with such skill and in a rough-shod style all his own.
West beyond Hartford. West over the Hudson River. West
through snow-dusted farmlands and tree-studded mountains and
along the vast interstate highway system named for another
Republican and political newcomer, Dwight Eisenhower.
Trump lost the popular vote, but he won the land, 3
million square miles and 80 percent of the nation's counties.
This is one of them. Forty miles northeast of Pittsburgh,
Ford City's population of 3,000 is about half the number who
lived here a century ago, when John B. Ford built what was
said to be one of the planet's biggest plate-glass factories.
There is a statue of Ford in the central park where he
stands forever staring at the factory that once was a roaring
economic engine but is now a hulking and empty reminder that
this is a city whose glory days are in the rear-view mirror.
It's not difficult to understand the appeal here of Trump,
who shakes his fist at foreign economic interlopers and
pledges at every turn to make America great again.
Make Ford City great again? That's what has Sheri Humenik
animated these days.
I encountered her at the local library last week, where
she was replenishing the racks of magazines and periodicals
and evangelizing about the beauty and the allure of
small-town life.
"I believe in this community,'' said Humenik, a
40-something full-time mom and part-time pharmacist. "This
town is the best-kept secret. Where Pittsburgh Plate Glass
was would be the perfect place for some new high-tech
business. It would bring our town back to life.''
All of Armstrong County could certainly use a lift.
Downsizing bulletins from local employers are routine. The
economic decline has been paralleled by the fading fortunes
of the local Democratic Party, whose members outnumbered
Republicans until 12 years ago. Republicans now dominate,
20,600 to 15,880. "For every Armstrong County Republican that
became a Democrat since January, three Democrats have gone in
the opposite direction,'' the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
reported last spring.
That trend does not surprise people like Humenik, who grew
up here and intends to stay put. Trump's message, she said,
was a warm and welcome salve.
"I felt like that he wants to revitalize places just like
this,'' she told me. "He wants to invest in people. He brings
a fire that has reignited hope in people. We need investments
in the small towns, not just the big cities. The small towns
are suffering. We need to recognize the hidden gems and bring
them back. I'm upbeat. I'm encouraged. I'm looking forward.''
I nearly looked over my shoulder to see if someone from
the Trump communications office was getting all of this on
film. It was so perfectly rendered. And it all felt so
genuine, which is going to take some getting used to. Because
back where I live, there you don't run into many who would
say out loud what she just did, even if they think it. And
there are plenty of disbelievers who can't bear the thought
of a President Trump.
And, truth be told, you don't have to look very far to
find them here either. The Trump-is-a-snake-oil-salesman
caucus is alive and well on the steps of the county
courthouse, where attorney Chuck Pascal has sneaked outside
for a late-morning smoke as a soft rain falls over
Kittanning, the Armstrong County seat.
"These are dangerous times,'' said Pascal, a former
Leechburg mayor and a member of the Democratic State
Committee. "I don't think Trump knows anything and I don't
think he knows that he doesn't know anything.''
But Pascal understands the allure of Trump. Comfortable
blue-collar jobs are gone. There's been an exodus of the
professional class. People wanted change. They were willing
to roll the dice on Trump.
Pascal, a Bernie Sanders supporter and delegate, knows it
is now wasted breath to dissect and analyze what went so
wrong. Hillary Clinton "was such a horrible candidate, and
now we're all going to suffer for it,'' he said. "I've never
been scared before, but this is so scary to me.''
It's scary to me, too. But that's not why I'm here. I want
reassurance that everything is going to work out fine. I want
to understand why so many of my fellow Americans have
embraced a man whose every Cabinet appointment seems like a
middle finger fiercely extended to the non-adherents he calls
enemies.
It's time to jump back into the SUV. It's a big red
country out there.
"What do you think? Ohio? Michigan?" I ask my monosyllabic
wingman.
"... Trump has ideas that he is not disclosing. He is new and the bureaucracy will run him instead of the other way around. Much will be half implemented because neither Trump nor GOP policies are popular. ..."
"... MinWage increases is one of the most popular policies but one the GOP is least likely to pass ..."
"... Domestic policy? Trump might act pseudo-magnanimous and come out for single payer, or something like that. The politically smartest next move would be to buy-off some progressive Berniecrats, while sticking it to Wall Street (in a phony, visual way). ..."
"... But more likely it will be Reaganoid business as usual. Why? Because: ..."
"... The system is complicated, and every thread you pull on, unravels something else. That's systems theory, folks! ..."
"... The power of the Presidency is limited, and overrated by partisans on both sides. ..."
"... A President's information is restricted to what comes in through his advisors, and this bunch are looking like, kwite a kwazy krew. ..."
"... Trump's low cognition and narcissism will result in short-sighted moves and more foreign policy quagmires for the US: "Look at the black eye the US gave itself, with the Bush-Cheney War! -- Let's make America stupid again!" ..."
"... On trade? Trump is setting up the conditions where the richest people can plunder what's remains of the U.S., before getting out of the country: ..."
"... The new global slogan will be, "Trade with China -- We're the Crooks You Can TRUST!" ..."
"... Meanwhile Trump will give big tax cuts to the richest Americans, because his knuckleheaded voters believe all the "makers vs. takers" baloney; they haven't been schtupped up the keister enough... ..."
"... Then the rich will slowly start taking that money out of the U.S. to some other country that gets a higher global ROI under the new Chinese trade rules, because U.S. exporters under protectionism won't be nearly as profitable. ..."
"... The bureaucracy is too massive for any one person to control. Change requires action from the top or its business as usual. Trump does not have enough trusted aids and insiders to manage the government ..."
"... Right now it's hard to know if Trump's administration really wants to deliver change. Its cabinet-level staffing is hard to read. It is full of establishment types who could deliver change if that is really their mission. They are not beholden to anyone for their positions and they are not in need of lucrative employment after cabinet service that might otherwise make them tend to curry favor with interests they affect in office. ..."
"... Tillerson became CEO of Exxon and has been successful there, nontrivial achievements both. He is not a professional foreign service officer, neither was HRC. For many oil-producing countries, their most important foreign patron is Exxon. Tillerson is very familiar with the inside game in the Middle East where all kinds of shit has been hitting the fan for the past 25 years without the US having much success there. HRC and Kerry have been particularly ineffective and had far less accomplishments in life before assuming SoS office than Tillerson. ..."
"... Mnuchin got rich in Hollywood because he knew what people wanted from Hollywood. he was also chief of the NY bond desk for GS and was CIO for GS for five years. That is CIO of the most technologically sophisticated investment bank in the world. ..."
"... Mnuchin knows the technology and how it can be used to execute or hide chicanery better than anyone else in the industry. If he aims to reform the TBTF banks, he is better equipped than anyone who has been Treasury secretary over the 25 years during which computer technology assumed a key role in skulduggery in the industry. ..."
"... Marine nicknames are often ironic. "Mad Dog" Mattis probably reflects recognition of his intellect and coolness by his Marine colleagues. ..."
"... Mattis has been well known to be a smart, tough, effective achiever. If pentagon reform is really the goal, he would be hard to beat. ..."
"... These men have all been very successful at running large organizations. Let's see what direction they try to take the government and how they do at it. Should be interesting. ..."
"... History without context is meaningless. ..."
"... Wars play too great a role in history as taught. Neither of the Bushes, with their limited thinking, like the generals above, should have ever been allowed near hammers ..."
"... Colonialism took a bit too long to die, but Archduke Ferdinand was indeed about the dying throws of monarchies. ..."
We have very little indication of what policies Donald
Trump will try to follow or even what kind of president he will be. The U.S. press corps did an
extraordinarily execrable job in covering the rise of Trump--even worse than it usually does.
Even the most sophisticated of audiences--those interested in asset prices and how they are affected
by government policies--have very little insight into Trump's views or those of his key associates.
Will Donald Trump turn out to be the equivalent of Ronald Reagan -- someone who comes into office
from the world of celebrity with a great many unfixed policy intuitions, but no consistent plan?
Will he turn out to be the equivalent of Silvio Berlusconi, who regards the presidency as an opportunity
to wreak his kleptocratic will on the country?
Or will he turn out to be someone worse than Berlusconi?
I would say that Trump could be any of four figures...
Trump has ideas that he is not disclosing. He is new and the bureaucracy will run him instead
of the other way around. Much will be half implemented because neither Trump nor GOP policies
are popular.
MinWage increases is one of the most popular policies but one the GOP is least likely to
pass
Congress has power but they must shift from opposition mode to governing mode. I expect much
overreach and 'creative' destruction
Domestic policy? Trump might act pseudo-magnanimous and come out for single payer, or something
like that. The politically smartest next move would be to buy-off some progressive Berniecrats,
while sticking it to Wall Street (in a phony, visual way).
But more likely it will be Reaganoid business as usual. Why? Because:
1. The system is complicated, and every thread you pull on, unravels something else. That's
systems theory, folks!
2. The power of the Presidency is limited, and overrated by partisans on both sides.
3. A President's information is restricted to what comes in through his advisors, and this
bunch are looking like, kwite a kwazy krew.
4. There is a mid-term election less than 2 years from now.
Foreign policy? Putin wanted Trump to win, but NOT to make the U.S. stronger. He wants a weaker
US. Why? Because the Russians hate the US for screwing them economically after the Iron Curtain
fell, with trying to impose a bunch of free-market fundamentalist ignorance...
Were that not bad enough, the US slapped on oil sanctions recently, after Putin tried shoring-up
his borders against NATO expansion and against Islamic terrorists.
... ... ...
Whether you yourself think it's good or bad to oppose Russia -- and whatever you think of Putin's
tactics in response -- is not the point here. Fact is, Putin hates the US. Therefore, Putin is
not going to help anyone whom he thinks will make the US stronger or more respected in the world.
Russian psych profiling may suggest that Trump's low cognition and narcissism will result in short-sighted
moves and more foreign policy quagmires for the US: "Look at the black eye the US gave itself,
with the Bush-Cheney War! -- Let's make America stupid again!"
On trade? Trump is setting up the conditions where the richest people can plunder what's remains
of the U.S., before getting out of the country: Trump wants to tear up the big trade deals and
make every country go into bilateral negotiations with his trade team... BUT those countries are
all going to say, "Forget it! We just spent 6 years negotiating, and we know we can't trust the
US anymore!"...
Then, they are going to turn around and join China's new global trade organization, which was
suddenly announced the DAY AFTER Trump's election (funny, that, after years of planning, building
forward military bases in the Pacific, etc.) The new global slogan will be, "Trade with China
-- We're the Crooks You Can TRUST!"
Meanwhile Trump will give big tax cuts to the richest Americans, because his knuckleheaded
voters believe all the "makers vs. takers" baloney; they haven't been schtupped up the keister
enough... Then the rich will slowly start taking that money out of the U.S. to some other country that
gets a higher global ROI under the new Chinese trade rules, because U.S. exporters under protectionism
won't be nearly as profitable.
"...And golly, honey, there's plenty of pretty places over there to build new mansions, for
both you, AND the mistress..." Meanwhile, back in the U.S., voters will continue walking around
with their thumbs up their butts, & trying to prevent other Americans from getting healthcare,
trying to prevent them from voting, etc... To get cash, the U.S. can join into a big flea market
with the Brexiters, and we can all swap old Beatles vinyl...
The bureaucracy will run things? This is not going to happen, governance will stall or cease.
Let me see, a party that says our form of govt is the problem. A party who has obstructed matters
to cause dysfunction in govt on purpose, and who is entertaining nominees to head these agencies
who do not care that they exist, bills introduced already to allow pay even to the individual
to be cut , and to smooth firing processes, with an incoming group who surfaces transition-team
surveys for the purposes of chilling efforts with the agencies even before they take control,
on climate change for instance, well, the bureaucracy is demoralized, and threatened. The dysfunction
of the American 'experiment' in self government will be harmed, perhaps accomplished finally.
And when they get their legs about them with new judiciary appointments they then should thread
cases via these courts so holdings they get won't be appealed, giving them full control, with
still the purpose being dysfunction for what has been the generally applicable law before. Ok
with them, it would seem.
jonny bakho -> JF... , -1
The bureaucracy is too massive for any one person to control. Change requires action from
the top or its business as usual. Trump does not have enough trusted aids and insiders to manage
the government
"Reagan did not campaign for and enter the presidency thinking that he was going to push the value
of the dollar up by 70%..."
-- Brad DeLong
[ The real trade-weighted price of the dollar increased by about 45% between 1980 and March
1985 and then declined and finished the Reagan presidency about 5% below the level of 1980. ]
[I set the Way-back machine to Links for 12-31-16 and copied what mrrunangun said to me then.
From my experience mrrunangun is a more reliable source than the MSM, but then so is my wife and
over half of the random strangers that I meet in Walmart.]
Right now it's hard to know if Trump's administration really wants to deliver change. Its
cabinet-level staffing is hard to read. It is full of establishment types who could deliver change
if that is really their mission. They are not beholden to anyone for their positions and they
are not in need of lucrative employment after cabinet service that might otherwise make them tend
to curry favor with interests they affect in office.
Tillerson became CEO of Exxon and has been successful there, nontrivial achievements both.
He is not a professional foreign service officer, neither was HRC. For many oil-producing countries,
their most important foreign patron is Exxon. Tillerson is very familiar with the inside game
in the Middle East where all kinds of shit has been hitting the fan for the past 25 years without
the US having much success there. HRC and Kerry have been particularly ineffective and had far
less accomplishments in life before assuming SoS office than Tillerson.
Mnuchin got rich in Hollywood because he knew what people wanted from Hollywood. he was
also chief of the NY bond desk for GS and was CIO for GS for five years. That is CIO of the most
technologically sophisticated investment bank in the world.
Many of the big errors in banking
over the past 20 years have been due to inadequate supervision of trading units. Traders learn
to hide losses using the computer systems of the banks and clearing houses. The Barclay's Singapore
disaster, the London whale, the UBS fiasco, the DB bond desk fiasco all got out of hand because
traders' losing positions went undetected by the traders' supervisors who lacked the technical
sophistication necessary to provide adequate supervision. Mnuchin knows the technology and
how it can be used to execute or hide chicanery better than anyone else in the industry. If he
aims to reform the TBTF banks, he is better equipped than anyone who has been Treasury secretary
over the 25 years during which computer technology assumed a key role in skulduggery in the industry.
Marine nicknames are often ironic. "Mad Dog" Mattis probably reflects recognition of his
intellect and coolness by his Marine colleagues. In the movie Full Metal Jacket, a dark-skinned
black man was named "snowball" and, after getting slapped around for smiling at the DI's jokes,
the main character was named "Joker". Victor Krulak, a Marine general during the VietNam war,
got the name Brute because of his diminutive size. He became probably the only five foot four-inch
Marine general of the twentieth century. Mattis has been well known to be a smart, tough,
effective achiever. If pentagon reform is really the goal, he would be hard to beat.
These men have all been very successful at running large organizations. Let's see what
direction they try to take the government and how they do at it. Should be interesting.
Suri never really makes his case against belligerent deterrence because his historical references
are inconsistent with his thesis. As much as I agree with TR's "Walk soft and carry a big stick"
even that is a superficial take on Teddy Roosevelt's approach to diplomatic engagement, which
was a superior way to conduct foreign policy even compared to Taft's dollar diplomacy.
Taft's way was more readily assessable to the mediocre men that would normally lead our country
though, which is why Kissinger as Secretary of State held to it dearly. Buying peace is much cheaper
than waging war.
Understood. Woodrow Wilson was a pacifist and the US during his administration was isolationist.
That hardly sounds like a case of belligerent deterrence going wrong, but more like the opposite.
Suri's point was that circumstances can dictate significant reversals from original intentions
though. WW-II did not seem like our choice and certainly was reluctant more like WW-I rather than
a case of belligerent deterrence going wrong.
The US entered the Korean War because its presidents, first Truman and then Eisenhower were
more afraid of Joe McCarthy than China, also not a case of belligerent deterrence, just domino
theory.
Kennedy and Johnson just feared the anti-communist Republican hawks that remained after McCarthy
died more than they feared China, just more domino theory there too.
When we finally got a POTUS that did the full court press on belligerent deterrence, Reagan,
then peace broke out.
By this time Suri's case is getting real weak. The first Bush war, the daddy Bush war, was
just a reaction function and limited at that. The next two Bush wars, the baby Bush wars, were
finally belligerent deterrence on steroids, but also a reaction function or an over-reaction function
to 9/11.
Suri stands empty handed on his history, but that does not mean that he is wrong on his prognostications,
just unconvincing in his larger historical based argument aside from the notion of unintended
consequences. That alone may however be Donald Trumps undoing, but just as easily so from domestic
policy as foreign policy. Only time will tell. I prefer not to guess this one out too far myself,
unintended consequences being what they are and all.
Quite a lot; where to start? The world as it is vs. our wishful perceptions? I think remembering
that most problems requiring governmental action are really quite complicated and often have more
than one possible answer is essential. It's the simple arsed responses, so loved by the many,
that get us into some of the worst messes. The urge to tear it down and start anew, another source
of grief, again linked to the simple arsed, our most current response.
See Reagan and Ike as being dependent to a fault on their advisers (in the case of Reagan,
we really lucked out with Baker, Schultz, Deaver); Bush II as being dumb enough to think he was
smart when, in fact, he was too dumb for the job; and Drumpf, I suspect/fear, being of the same
ilk as Bush II.
For WWI context, I see: the swell of the industrial age, the vying for raw materials and markets,
all in a period when one saw the dying throes of colonialism and monarchies whilst no one seem
to grasp the reality of what was going on (bout where we find ourselves). Wars play too great a role in history as taught. Neither of the Bushes, with their limited
thinking, like the generals above, should have ever been allowed near hammers
Colonialism took a bit too long to die, but Archduke Ferdinand was indeed about the dying
throws of monarchies.
Relative to Suri's argument there was nothing about US foreign policy activism that got
us into WWI unless you want to consider the negative. Had the US been more involved in European
diplomacy in a cogent and persuasive manner then it may have averted the Prussian brinksmanship
that ignite WW-I. Theodore Roosevelt may have been capable of that, but not Taft nor Wilson.
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
The Trump Administration http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly
no experts on his life or times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a
problematic president. But the Harding administration was in some ways an impressive one, which
served the country reasonably well.
It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly
well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays,
some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with
considerable distinction.
Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts
spurred years of economic growth. Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget,
reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic policies, brought the budget
into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult
world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next
decade, one wishes in retrospect for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those
years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the national mood.
In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft
and George Sutherland -- were distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things:
He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that era, in favor of racial equality; he
commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways, he
contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.
The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration
and that of his vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing
national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially in the economic sphere; those
years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.
President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that
of President Warren G. Harding. But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and
also on its failures, particularly the scandals that exploded into public view after Harding's
sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions, where
they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.
Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately
depends on performance. If a Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump
brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but because it provides a worthwhile
experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows.
If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know
something about golf. The failed Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have
in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough to carry mediocre or worse
enterprises across the finish line.
To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the
presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters.
It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of
governance that restored greater responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with
the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency also featured a return of authority
to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory
led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and
forms. It would be ironic if the election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional
normalcy.
If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena
of either Warren G. Harding or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.
But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed
by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce
an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican
normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great
again.
(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft
& Wilson administrations, as the GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due
to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)
Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole
world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another
war like that.
"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise
of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With
this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark"
comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support
her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment,
and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to
keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look
more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and
between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."
Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the
issues in a polite and congenial manner?
Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any
ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line.
I am actually surprised by the amount of Trump hating comments to this article.... What is so
criminal in trying to reorganize two of 12 Us intelligence agencies. Which might become too bloated
and deviate from their original purposes. Is not how restructuring is used in business world
?
And the number of commenters blaclmpousing Putin and Russia create great alarm.
Looks like the US MSM managed to brainwash the US population like in 50th during "Red Scare". Some
comments looks like
hate sessions from 1984.
Notable quotes:
"... Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors. ..."
"... This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. ..."
"... The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public. ..."
"... They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of their own country. And you don't see this. ..."
"... This is why Wikileaks exists. What the MSM can no longer deliver (the TRUTH and credible news), Wikileaks can deliver to the American people. ..."
"... Are you claiming the US hasn't done all it can to destabilize and destroy Russia? ..."
"... This blame Russia frenzy is a loser strategy. The sole purpose is to deligitimize Trump's victory. Can't wait for Trump to start firing a**es. ..."
"The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized,"
an individual close to Trump's transition operation said. "They all need to be slimmed down. The
focus will be on restructuring agencies and how they interact." Trump is targeting the CIA and the ODNI as he publicly wars with the U.S. intelligence community
over its conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump wants to shrink the ODNI, as he believes the agency established in 2004 as a response
to the 9/11 terror attacks has become bloated and politicized.
Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 - Amends the United States Information and Educational
Exchange Act of 1948 to authorize the Secretary of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors
to provide for the preparation and dissemination of information intended for foreign audiences
abroad about the United States, including about its people, its history, and the federal government's
policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information
media, including social media, and through information centers and instructors.
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 passed Congress as part of the NDAA 2013 on December
28, 2012.
This use of propaganda on the American public effectively nullified the Smith-Mundt Act
of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing
U.S. public opinion.
The NDAA in its current form allows the State Department and Pentagon to go beyond manipulating
mainstream media outlets to directly disseminate campaigns of misinformation to the U.S. public.
But the US public learned quickly and they are not buying the misinformation anymore.
1) Renewables:
"I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth." - April 2016
2) Social media
"I understand social media. I understand the power
of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost
anybody, based on my results, right?" - November 2015
3) Debt
"Nobody knows more about debt. I'm like the king. I love debt." - May 2016
4) Taxes, again
"I think nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe
in the history of the world. Nobody knows more about taxes." - May 2016
I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has
ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016
They refused to brief Congress. They were never allowed to release their findings publicly, because
they still haven't. They leaked their conclusions. All to attempt to undermine the stability of
their own country. And you don't see this.
No, we haven't, and we didn't. In fact, his former boss -- Yeltsin -- hired Republican political consultants
to help his campaign.
Putin would like the world to believe that Russians fed up with bribery, extortion, the fall
of the ruble, and the fact that their votes don't count rising up and protesting was about outside
meddling, but it was internal.
And he responded by making protests illegal, getting rid of the election of governors (he appoints
them now), closing down critical reporting outlets, and some journalists were murdered.
You moron, I served the US for 20 years in the military, but facts are facts and we need to butt
the he!! out of other countries business, and until we do, they will continue to come after us.
How long were you in?
"I don't think people ought to say they know for sure there's only one. I
don't think they're likely to be proven correct. It shouldn't be portrayed as one
guilty party,"
"It's much more complicated than that. This is not an organized operation that is
hacking into a target.
It's more like a bunch of jackals at the carcass of an
antelope
."
Woolsey suggested China and Iran could be behind cyber breaches in the U.S.
"Is it Russian? Probably some," he said. "Is it Chinese and Iranian?
Maybe. We may find out more from Mr. Trump coming up today."
This follows Trump's comments on Sunday hinting he would reveal new
information about alleged Russian hacking
during a New Year's Eve celebration
at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
"[I know] things that other people don't know," he said. "I just want them to be
sure because it's a pretty serious charge. I think it's unfair if they don't know."
To which Woolsey contentiously also commented:
"There's a possibility that he is [playing us] a little bit."
But as is clear,
Woolsey's belief that the Russians "were in there" still
goes further than what Trump has said about the hacks
... which may be why
Woolsey has announced in a formal statement
"Effective immediately, Ambassador Woolsey is no longer a Senior
Adviser to President-elect Trump or the transition,"
Woolsey's
spokesman, Jonathan Franks, wrote in a statement that was first reported by CNN's
Jeremy Diamond.
"He wishes the President-elect and his Administration great success in
their time in office."
Furthermore, The Washington Post's
Philip
Rucker reports,
Woolsey resigned after being cut out of intelligence
talks with Trump and his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Here we go, this is from Buzzfeed
so according to the NYT's and Washington Post this source
would qualify as "fake news"...lol...but!...
"The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the
FBI's Cyber Division and its Washington (DC) Field Office,
the Department of Justice's National Security Division, and
U.S. Attorney's Offices, and it responded to a variety of
requests for cooperation,
but
the FBI never
requested access to the DNC's computer servers,"
Eric
Walker, the DNC's deputy communications director, told
BuzzFeed News in an email."
...but!...just looky here...we've got an actual
non-anonymous, real life, people-type person who is not
speaking from the shadows in an underground parking garage
its,
Eric Walker, the DNC's deputy communications
director.
I still think it is independent patriots assited by
patriotic insiders who exposed the DNC's criminal
activity.
Anyway, when do we get the criminal
investigation into the contents of the leaks? That's
where the meat is. Not that someone exposed the crimes;
they deserve a medal.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey,
was a vocal advocate of the 2003
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq who promoted
allegations that Saddam Hussein harbored
illegal weapons of mass destruction.
"... It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays, some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with considerable distinction. ..."
"... But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great again. ..."
"... Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another war like that. ..."
"... "Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark" comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism." ..."
"... Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line. ..."
The Trump Administration http://tws.io/2iFd3rC
via @WeeklyStandard
Nov 28, 2016 - William Kristol
Who now gives much thought to the presidency of Warren G. Harding? Who ever did? Not us.
But let us briefly turn our thoughts to our 29th president (while stipulating that we're certainly
no experts on his life or times). Here's our summary notion: Warren G. Harding may have been a
problematic president. But the Harding administration was in some ways an impressive one, which
served the country reasonably well.
It was possible to say, before Warren G. Harding was elected, that he wasn't particularly
well-qualified to be president. And he did turn out as president to have, as we say nowadays,
some issues. But his administration was stocked with (mostly) well-qualified men who served with
considerable distinction.
Andrew Mellon was a successful Treasury secretary whose tax reforms and deregulatory efforts
spurred years of economic growth. Charles Dawes, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget,
reduced government expenditures and, helped by Mellon's economic policies, brought the budget
into balance. Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state dealt responsibly with a very difficult
world situation his administration had inherited-though in light of what followed in the next
decade, one wishes in retrospect for bolder assertions of American leadership, though in those
years just after World War I, they would have been contrary to the national mood.
In addition, President Harding's first two Supreme Court appointments -- William Howard Taft
and George Sutherland -- were distinguished ones. And Harding personally did some admirable things:
He made pronouncements, impressive in the context of that era, in favor of racial equality; he
commuted the wartime prison sentence of the Socialist leader, Eugene V. Debs. In these ways, he
contributed to an atmosphere of national healing and civility.
The brief Harding administration-and for that matter the eight years constituting his administration
and that of his vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge-may not have been times of surpassing
national greatness. But there were real achievements, especially in the economic sphere; those
years were not disastrous; they were not dark times.
President-elect Donald J. Trump probably doesn't intend to model his administration on that
of President Warren G. Harding. But he could do worse than reflect on that administration's successes-and
also on its failures, particularly the scandals that exploded into public view after Harding's
sudden death. These were produced by cronies appointed by Harding to important positions, where
they betrayed his trust and tarnished his historical reputation.
Donald Trump manifestly cares about his reputation. He surely knows that reputation ultimately
depends on performance. If a Trump hotel and casino is successful, it's not because of the Trump
brand-that may get people through the door the first time-but because it provides a worthwhile
experience thanks to a good management team, fine restaurants, deft croupiers, and fun shows.
If a Trump golf course succeeds, it's because it has been built and is run by people who know
something about golf. The failed Trump efforts-from the university to the steaks-seem to have
in common the assumption that the Trump name by itself would be enough to carry mediocre or worse
enterprises across the finish line.
To succeed in business, the brand only gets you so far. Quality matters. To succeed in the
presidency, getting elected only gets you so far. Governing matters.
It would be ironic if Trump's very personal electoral achievement were followed by a mode of
governance that restored greater responsibility to the cabinet agencies formally entrusted with
the duties of governance. It would be ironic if a Trump presidency also featured a return of authority
to Congress, the states, and to other civic institutions. It would be ironic if Trump's victory
led not to a kind of American Caesarism but to a strengthening of republican institutions and
forms. It would be ironic if the election of Donald J. Trump heralded a return to a kind of constitutional
normalcy.
If we are not mistaken, it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (though sadly unaware of the phenomena
of either Warren G. Harding or Donald J. Trump) who made much of the Irony of History.
But how Hegelian it would be if the thesis of the Bush and Clinton dynasties, followed
by the antithesis of a Trump victory over first a Bush and then a Clinton in 2016, were to produce
an unanticipated synthesis: a Trump administration marked by the reconstruction of republican
normalcy in America. In its own way, that would be a genuine contribution to making America great
again.
(Harding-Coolidge-Hoover were a disastrous triumvirate that ascended to power after the Taft
& Wilson administrations, as the GOP - then the embodiment of progressivism - split apart due
to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt.)
Peter K. -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
Kristol is mad Trump lambasted the Iraq war. Was Putin against the Iraq war? I think the whole
world was except for the "Coalition of the Willing." You'll never see the UK back another
war like that.
"Socialist feminist Liza Featherstone and others have denounced Clinton's uncritical praise
of the "opportunity" and "freedom" of American capitalism vis-à-vis other developed nations. "With
this bit of frankness," Featherstone explains, referring to the former Secretary of State's "Denmark"
comments, "Clinton helpfully explained why no socialist-indeed, no non-millionaire-should support
her. She is smart enough to know that women in the United States endure far more poverty, unemployment,
and food insecurity than women in Denmark-yet she shamelessly made clear that she was happy to
keep it that way." Indeed, Clinton's denunciation of the idea that the United States should look
more like Denmark betrayed one of the glaring the fault lines within the Democratic Party, and
between Clintonian liberalism and Sandersite leftism."
Is it better to ignore this fault line and try to paper it over or is it better to debate the
issues in a polite and congenial manner?
Of course the progressive neoliberals in this forum regularly resort to ad hominem to any
ideas or facts that don't line up with the agreed-upon party line.
I have long held that America's Deep State
--the unelected National
Security State often referred to as the Shadow Government--
is not a unified
monolith but a deeply divided ecosystem
in which the dominant Neocon-Neoliberal
Oligarchy is being challenged by elements which
view the Neocon-Neoliberal
agenda as a threat to national security and the interests of the United States.
I call these anti-Neocon-Neoliberal elements
the progressive Deep State.
If you want a working definition of the Neocon-Neoliberal Deep State, Hillary
Clinton's quip--
we came, we saw, he died
--is a good summary:
a
bullying, arrogance-soaked state-within-a-state pursuing an agenda of ceaseless
intervention while operating a global Murder, Inc., supremely confident that no one in
the elected government can touch them.
Until Trump unexpectedly wrenched the presidency from the Neocon's candidate.
The Neocon Deep State's response was to manufacture a mass-media hysteria that Russia
had wrongfully deprived the Neocon's candidate (Hillary Clinton) of what was rightfully
hers: the presidency. (The Neocons operate their own version of
the divine right of
Political Nobility
.)
The Neocon-Neoliberals' strategy was to delegitimize Trump's victory by
ascribing it to "Russian Hacking," a claim that remains entirely unsubstantiated.
Now that this grasping-at-straws Hail Mary
coup attempt by a politicized CIA and
its corporate media mouthpiece
has failed,
the Neocon Deep State is about
to find out the Progressive Deep State finally has a president who is willing and able
to cut the Neocon-Neoliberals off at the knees.
If you want documented evidence of this split in the Deep State--sorry, it
doesn't work that way.
Nobody in the higher echelons of the Deep State is going
to leak anything about the low-intensity war being waged because the one thing everyone
agrees on is the Deep State's dirty laundry must be kept private.
As a result, the split is visible only by carefully reading between the lines, by
examining who is being placed in positions of control in the Trump Administration, and
reading the tea leaves of who is "retiring" (i.e. being fired) or quitting, which
agencies are suddenly being reorganized, and the appearance of dissenting views in
journals that serve as public conduits for Deep State narratives.
I have also long held that Wall Street's political dominance is part and
parcel of the Neocon-Neoliberal ideology
, and the progressive elements in the
Deep State also want to (finally) limit the power of the big banks and the rest of the
Wall Street crowd.
The split in the Deep State is a reflection of the
profound political
disunity
that is occurring in the U.S.
In other words, it isn't just
disunity in the masses or the political elites--it's a division in all levels of our
society.
The cause is not difficult to discern:
the concentration of wealth
and political power in the hands of the few is generating levels of inequality that
threaten democracy, the social order and the vitality of the economy:
As someone who has studied the Deep State for 40 years, I find it ironic that
so many self-identified "progressives" do not understand that the U.S. military is now
the Progressive element
and it's the civilian leadership--the
Neocon-Neoliberals-- who are responsible for leading the nation into quagmires and
handing the keys to the chicken coop to the wolves of Wall Street.
When military leaders such as Eric Shinseki questioned the Neocon's insane "strategy"
in Iraq--essentially a civilian fantasy of magical-thinking--the Neocons quickly
cashiered him (Shinseki was a wounded combat veteran of Vietnam who rose through the
ranks--the exact opposite of the coddled never-get-my-hands-dirty Elites in the civilian
Neocon-Neoliberal leadership.)
To the degree that the U.S. has become a
Third World Oligarchy
owned
and controlled by a financial-political Elite,
then the U.S. military is one of
the few national institutions that hasn't been corrupted by top-down politicization and
worship of Wall Street.
Shinseki et al. did not amass a fortune from Wall Street like Bill and Hillary
Clinton. The simple dictum--
follow the money
--maps the lay of the land rather
neatly.
The Neocon-Neoliberals have run the nation into the ground. They must be
fired and put out to pasture before they do any more harm.
That includes the
Fake-"Progressives" and the fake-"Conservatives" alike who have enriched themselves
within the Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy.
If you are surprised that the Democratic Party, the CIA and Wall Street are all
hugging each other in the same cozy Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchic embrace, you shouldn't
be. Open your eyes.
The problem is that the deep state owns most if not all the wet workers.
They will do whatever the DS says since their paychecks depend upon it.
Best thing would be to ID the wet workers and give them X amount of time
to come in from the cold, then give them the choice of taking a payoff and
staying out of trouble or getting their wings clipped for violating parole,
or turning state's evidence in exchange for a job or getting their spawn
into good schools/jobs.
If they miss the deadline they default into "problems" and get dealt with
accordingly.
If Trump can cut the neo-fascist deep-state off at the knees, America can be
great again!
The Spanish-American Inquisition :
Mexican propaganda was the reason that people voted for Hillary Clinton. NYT
largest shareholder is Carlos Slim who has lost 40% of his net worth in the
last 2 years as a result of the peso. Trump would diminish his own personal
empire by further devaluation of the peso and by reducing Mexican
manufacturing.
The Mexican propaganda was not merely limited to the NYT. Telemundo also
played a large part in this. The infiltration of Mexican spies and
propagandists through telemundo owned by Comcast, the country's largest media
organization has completely compromised Comcast! All of their companies
endorsed Hillary in order to benefit the Mexican economy!
Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post in order to spread Cuban propaganda.
His adopted father was from Cuba. Since Jeff Bezos purchased WaPo, Obama has
restored relations with Cuba. Coincidence?! We think not!!!
CNN is Chilean propaganda -- What lengths will they go to in order to mislead
the public as the Chilean president owns Chilevisian which is a Time Warner
subsidiary and Time Warner owns CNN?! Trump's plan of rewriting NAFTA would be
less favorable to Chile than it is in its current form! CNN is trying to get
people to put the needs of the Chilean people above the needs of American
people!
Congress has the right to declare war, but the president is the commander in
chief. Let congress declare war on Russia and go and fight the Russians
themselves. They can declare war, but there will be nobody to fight it, unless
they do it themselves!
The Fed and the TBTF banks run Deep State, and according to the latest article
in the WSJ, Trump is beyond indebted to the TBTF banks. If true, this is scary
and gives Trump a pretty serious reason for putting so many Goldmanites in
positions of power in his Administration.
(Wall Street Journal)
"More than 150 financial institutions hold debt from President-elect Donald
Trump's businesses or businesses in which he is at least a 30 percent
stakeholder, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
That amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential conflicts of
interest as Trump prepares to begin his presidency.
When Trump submitted a required financial disclosure form with the Federal
Election Commission in May 2015, he listed 16 loans, collectively worth $315
million in debt, that his businesses had received from 10 companies, according
to the newspaper.
The Journal's analysis goes beyond those loans and includes debt held by
companies in which Trump is at least a 30 percent stakeholder, including, for
example, the companies which control 1290 Avenue of the Americas.
That building, owned by a partnership of companies that is 30 percent owned
by Trump, received $950 million in loans in 2012 from UBS Group AG, Bank of
China, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank, according to the report.
Deutsche Bank, a German institution, is currently under investigation by the
U.S. Justice Department for its equity trading with wealthy Russian clients.
In the case of Goldman Sachs, the bank now counts several its former
employees among the highest levels of the incoming Trump administration,
including former bank president Gary Cohn, who was appointed director of
Trump's National Economic Council."
"The Neocon-Neoliberals have run the nation into the ground. They must
be fired and put out to pasture before they do any more harm.
That
includes the Fake-"Progressives" and the fake-"Conservatives" alike who have
enriched themselves within the Neocon-Neoliberal Oligarchy."
My ass!!!!! Mr
Trump is the right man at the right time to send these war criminals to hell
where they belong! HW, W, Bozo,Their globalists war cabinets,Their corrupt
underlings, #MAGA #Drain the Swamp
Trump needs to distract them quickly. So I have given this a few quick moments
of thought and came up with what should be Trump's first executive order.
Congress and all Federal employees are now required to use Obamacare as their
health plan.
Standard Disclaimer: Aside from watching Congressional critter's
heads explode, the disaster known as Obamacare would be either repealed or
fixed in a NY minute.
"At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better
among white voters without a college degree than Mitt
Romney did in 2012 - by a wide margin. Mrs. Clinton was
also not matching Mr. Obama's support among black voters."
"Mrs. Clinton's gains were concentrated among the most
affluent and best-educated white voters, much as Mr.
Trump's gains were concentrated among the lowest-income
and least-educated white voters."
Trump won the Republican primary and general election.
""Trump dominated - in the primary and general elections -
those districts represented by Congress's most conservative
members," Tim Alberta wrote in National Review (he is now at
Politico):
They once believed they were elected to advance a narrowly
ideological agenda, but Trump's success has given them reason
to question that belief.
Among these archconservatives, who in the past had been
fanatical in their pursuit of ideological purity, the
realization that they can no longer depend on unfailing
support from their constituents has provoked deep anxiety."
These archconservatives who say that Trump's flimsy
mandate is just based on just 80,000 votes in the rustbelt
are in for a rude awakening. He won the primary. In Northern
States. In Southern States. Everywhere.
It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like
DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing
about Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the
independent ethics committee.
There is a propaganda technique where you describe
straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in
fact the whole longwinded campaign depends on readers and
listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the
mischaracterizations in the straw.
This whole thing is an
apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it.
We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money and
effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take
care in using and reusing these type things.
"Trump has converted the G.O.P. into a populist, America
First party" is an overstatement. He definitely made some
efforts in this direction, but it is premature to declare
this "fait accompli".
If we consider two possibilities: "GOP establishment chew
up Trump" and "Trump chew up GOP establishment" it is clear
that possibility is more probable.
Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I
think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this
chance. "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought,
will stay bought." ;-)
In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I
think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal
ideology and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far
right") will continue unabated.
This is the same process that we see in full force in EU.
Donald Trump sure
seems like he's serious about starting some trade wars
Wall Street should take Trump more literally.
Updated by Matthew Yglesias
Jan 4, 2017, 8:30am EST
Many people are in the habit of not taking Donald Trump literally, and that appears to include
investors on Wall Street who have responded to Trump's election with the sort of stock price boom
you would have expected from the election of a completely orthodox free marketer like Jeb Bush or
Marco Rubio.
Trump has said, many times, that he favors a drastic revision of American trade policy aimed at
making it much more difficult for companies to manufacture products in foreign markets (especially
China) and then sell them to American consumers. This would, if he pulled it off, be a huge deal
for the American economy - dramatically boosting the fortunes of some companies, but potentially
crippling others, raising prices of many goods and inviting retaliatory measures that would harm
American exports.
As much as Wall Street appears to believe this is just talk, Trump is putting his words quietly
into action. Appointments to a range of lower-profile executive branch positions strongly suggest
that he is likely to pursue a fairly aggressive policy of trade protectionism.
He even appears to be thinking seriously about how to structure the policymaking process. In the
context of a Republican Party that remains mostly invested in a pro-business approach to trade policy,
this is exactly what Trump would need to do to unleash a protectionist agenda. Trade wars, in short,
are almost certainly coming soon - though the actual consequences are difficult to project.
"... The problem for US workers has not been that our trade negotiators are not smart; the problem is that they have a different agenda. ..."
"... This raises the question of the agenda that Donald Trump wants to pursue in trade deals. If his goal is first and foremost to regain manufacturing jobs by reducing the size of the trade deficit, then the top priority should be lowering the value of the dollar against the currencies of China and other trading partners. ..."
"... While it is not possible to get back the 5 million manufacturing jobs we have lost in the last two decades, plausible reductions in the trade deficit could bring back 1-2 million manufacturing jobs. This would have a noticeable impact on the labor market for workers without college degrees. ..."
"... While he railed about currency "manipulation" in the election campaign, he also complained that other countries didn't grant our companies adequate market access or respect the patents and copyrights of US companies. ..."
"... These are conflicting agendas, and it remains to be seen whether Trump pursues a trade agenda that will increase manufacturing jobs, or one that will further enrich corporate America. With the top two economic posts in the Trump administration going to Goldman Sachs alums, the money is betting on the corporate agenda.... ..."
What Does Donald Trump Actually Intend to Do About Trade?
By Dean Baker
Shortly after Donald Trump enters the White House, we should
get an answer to a key question from his campaign: What does
he actually intend to do about trade? Trade was one of his main
issues when he campaigned in the key industrial states that he
won in November.
Trump argued that past presidents of both parties had failed
the country's workers by signing bad trade deals. He said that
the negotiators were "stupid" and that he would instead appoint
"smart" negotiators who wouldn't let Mexico, China and other
trading partners beat us at the negotiating table.
Trump is correct in identifying trade as a force that has
caused enormous economic damage to millions of people in these
states, but he is wrong that the problem was "stupid" negotiators.
The vast majority of people who have been given the responsibility
for negotiating trade deals are smart, ambitious and hard-working.
The large trade deficits we have been running in the last
two decades are not due to negotiators. We run large trade deficits
because securing manufacturing jobs in the United States has
not been a priority for our negotiators.
When our trade negotiators sit down with Mexico, China and
other trading partners, they have a long list of items on their
agenda. For example, they want longer and stronger patent protection
for our drugs and copyright protection for Microsoft's software.
They also want better market access for our financial, telecommunications
and retail industries. Our trade negotiators have been quite
successful in these areas.
Furthermore, the trade deficit is not a bad thing for everyone
in the United States. Many of the items that we import from Mexico,
China and other developing countries were actually produced by
US companies. They wanted to take advantage of low cost labor
to get an edge on their domestic competition. Similarly, Walmart
and other major retailers are happy to have low-cost suppliers
in the developing world.
The US manufacturers that took their operations overseas and
the retailers that benefit from low-cost supply chains did not
lose from recent trade deals, they got rich.
The problem
for US workers has not been that our trade negotiators are not
smart; the problem is that they have a different agenda.
This raises the question of the agenda that Donald Trump
wants to pursue in trade deals. If his goal is first and foremost
to regain manufacturing jobs by reducing the size of the trade
deficit, then the top priority should be lowering the value of
the dollar against the currencies of China and other trading
partners.
A lower valued dollar will make US exports cheaper for people
living in other countries leading them to buy more of our exports.
It will also make imports more expensive for people in the United
States. That will cause US consumers to substitute domestically
produced items for imports. The net effect would be a smaller
trade deficit and more jobs in manufacturing.
While it is not possible to get back the 5 million manufacturing
jobs we have lost in the last two decades, plausible reductions
in the trade deficit could bring back 1-2 million manufacturing
jobs. This would have a noticeable impact on the labor market
for workers without college degrees.
However, it is not clear that Trump plans to pursue a trade
policy focused on getting back manufacturing jobs.
While
he railed about currency "manipulation" in the election campaign,
he also complained that other countries didn't grant our companies
adequate market access or respect the patents and copyrights
of US companies.
These are conflicting agendas, and it remains to be seen
whether Trump pursues a trade agenda that will increase manufacturing
jobs, or one that will further enrich corporate America. With
the top two economic posts in the Trump administration going
to Goldman Sachs alums, the money is betting on the corporate
agenda....
Last week we were
surprised to learn that demand for hotel rooms at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in
Davos, where the world's billionaires, CEOs, politicians, celebrities and oligarchs mingle every
year (while regaled by their public relations teams known as the "media", for whom getting an invite
to the DJ event du jour is more important than rocking the boat by asking unpleasant questions) was
so great, not only are hotel rooms running out, but local employees may be put up in
shipping containers in car parks to free up much needed accommodations.
This scramble to attend what has traditionally been perceived as the hangout for those who have
benefited the most from "peak globalization" was in some ways surprising: coming after a year in
which "populism" emerged as a dominant global force, while sending establishment politics, legacy
policies and even globalization reeling, the message - in terms of lessons learned from 2016 - sent
to the masses from the world's 0.1% was hardly enlightened.
However, while most Davos participants remain tone deaf, one person has gotten the message loud
and clear.
According to
Reuters
, German Chancellor Angela Merkel - who faces a crucial election this year as she runs for her
4th term as German chancellor amid sagging approval ratings - is steering clear of the World Economic
Forum in Davos, a meeting expected to be dominated by debate over the looming presidency of Donald
Trump "and rising public anger with elites and globalization", which is ironic because just two years
prior, the topic was rising wealth inequality which the world's billionaires blasted, lamented and,
well, got even richer as nothing at all changed. What is surprising about Merkel's absence in 2017
is that the Chancellor has been a regular at the annual gathering of political leaders, CEOs and
celebrities, traveling to the snowy resort in the Swiss Alps seven times since becoming chancellor
in 2005. But her spokesman told Reuters she had decided not to attend for a second straight year.
This year's conference runs from Jan. 17-20 under the banner "Responsive and Responsible Leadership".
Trump's inauguration coincides with the last day of the conference.
"It's true that a Davos trip was being considered, but we never confirmed it, so this is not a
cancellation," the spokesman said.
Reuters adds that this is the first time Merkel has missed Davos two years in a row since taking
office over 11 years ago and her absence may come as a disappointment to the organizers because her
reputation as a steady, principled leader fits well with the theme of this year's conference.
There was little additional information behind her continued absencea the government spokesman
declined to say what scheduling conflict was preventing her from attending, nor would it say whether
the decision might be linked to the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people
in mid-December.
The reason for her absence, however, may be far more prosaic: as Reuters echoes what we said previously,
"after the Brexit vote in Britain and the election of Trump were attributed to rising public anger
with the political establishment and globalization, leaders may be more reluctant than usual to travel
to a conference at a plush ski resort that has become synonymous with the global elite. "
Another potential complication is that this year's Davod event concludes just hours before Trump's
inauguration. As a result, one European official suggested to Reuters that "the prospect of having
to address questions about Trump days before he enters the White House might also have dissuaded
Merkel, whose politics is at odds with the president-elect on a broad range of issues, from immigration
and trade, to Russia and climate change."
During the U.S. election campaign, Trump described Merkel's refugee policies as "insane". Like
Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, who announced in early December that he would not seek
a second term next year, will not be in Davos.
Most other European political leaders are expected to be present, despite the furious changes
in Europe's political landscape in the past year: the Forum had hoped to lure Matteo Renzi, but he
resigned as Italian prime minister last month. European leaders that are expected include Mark Rutte
of the Netherlands and Enda Kenny of Ireland. British Prime Minister Theresa May could also be there.
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who was elected to the WEF board of trustees last
year, is expected to attend, as are senior ministers from a range of other European countries, as
well as top figures from the European Commission.
Members of Donald Trump's team, including Davos regulars like former Goldman Sachs president Gary
Cohn and fund manager Anthony Scaramucci, are also expected. Reuters reminds us that WEF Chairman
Klaus Schwab was invited to Trump Tower last month, although the purpose of the visit was unclear.
Although the WEF does not comment on which leaders it is expecting until roughly a week before
the meeting, the star attraction is expected to be Xi Jinping, the first Chinese president to attend.
Meanwhile, it is was highly unlikely that the one person everyone would like to seek answers from
at Davos, Russian president Vladimir Putin, will be present.
This is an interesting development. Despite the use of epithets like "cunt" and "bitch" in the
oh, so valuable discussion contributions above, the German head of state is quite astute and living
in the real world. She has decided that association with the most elite of global meetings is
a negative. Don't you consider that significant?
Hardly. There are "leaks" of German Govt cables to NDR revealing how far Juncker obstructed crackdown
on corporate tax evasion when PM of Luxembourg. Clear indication Germany wants Juncker gone before
BreXit negotiations start and Wilders gains votes in NL in March.
1st Quarter in Europe is dynamite.
Davos is fluff and irrelevant.
Once UK SC delivers opinion in Jan 2017 there is a 1-line Bill to go through both Houses of
Parliament. If the Lords blocks the Bill it will lead to a 1910 Constitutional Crisis and either
Election, or abolition of House of Lords. UK is especially volatile in 2017 especially if Queen
dies.
Merkel sees nothing but danger ahead. Ukraine will probably implode and set of a refugee wave
into Germany. Turkey could well crash and burn. UK is going to be a very difficult situation.
33% French farmers reportedly earning <350 Euros/month as exports to Russia collapsed. French
election could be volatile. Italy is heading for meltdown.
Merkel is going to burn - she has failed to head off any problem
Davos doesn't care about politicians. Politicians are merely banker's puppets. Look
no further than Trump. He gets to be POTUS and what is his first act of business?
To put Goldman Sachs in charge of his Treasury and put JP Morgan in charge of White House policy.
If anyone thinks a politician will change anything, you are wrong. The banks make the
orders and plans, everything else is theatre.
It's been said that the captain of the Titanic was drunk before the ship struck the iceberg.
Given the above, maybe the Davosians are also equally intoxicated as they helm an economic ship
that's about to go under. Whether it's by psychotropics or just plain hubris, they certainly
don't seem to understand the depth of the danger they are in.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from
taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup'
is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.
The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to
the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to
the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.
The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional
and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives,
mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.
The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that
the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential
political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and
legitimacy.
The Coup as 'Process'
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in
Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife'
for these 'regime changes'.
Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted
through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies
in Congress and the Judiciary.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part
of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American
coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking
office in January.
While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within
a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure – accusing President-Elect Trump
of
being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his
Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party
prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.
The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green
Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass
media.
In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green
Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George
Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money
financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media.
The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American
Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.
Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia,
the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like
Jill Stein.
The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question
Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention:
The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties,
and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they
all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative
warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and
social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation
of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival
'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia
and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry'
Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.
ORDER IT NOW
The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called
on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election
– essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused
to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.
President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy
and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and
place of our choosing".
Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the
jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian
Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo –
and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.
Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance
Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress.
He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three
retired generals to key Defense and Security positions – indicating a power struggle between the
highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been
key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them
with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.
Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported
the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his
cabinet who had their own allied business associations.
One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL,
George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This
was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as
Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced
with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect
named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security
and intelligence positions.
The Coup: Can it succeed?
In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation'
on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the
very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already
oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort
will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well
and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with
Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque
policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election
and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with
his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among
the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires
his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic
agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed
to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger
of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.
If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack
support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies,
but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').
He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among
the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to
the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire',
not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.
A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power.
But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the
whole system?
If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists
eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a
failure.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the
top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance
of the Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids?
Replies:
@Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). ,
@animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred
of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces
in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and
it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being
questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?
Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic
than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country
Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises
by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and
the Trump campaign was a failure.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the
term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since
before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans
are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the
books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with
this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to
assent by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was
the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?]
of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still–that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this I think we are all in very great danger today–now– AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That
could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is
real and substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]–a felony under existing laws.
–Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future–or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–FOR TRUMP–
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of
"man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could
be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and
substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws.
--Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!
It needs to be published as a feature story.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
• Replies:
@El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all
the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some
balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump–not Obama–that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump–out of fear and necessity–run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?–Or
will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say.
Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?–Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and
qualifications, though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to
confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set
about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive
amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that
Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not
until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game. , @map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.
How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors. ,
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office.
Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile... The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights'
at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS
directly.
The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although
Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now
be tied by all the traitors that run the US.
You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped
the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying
slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.
(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing
the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.
You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country
or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality:
are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?
This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter
is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want
to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest
policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo
loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
• Replies:
@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to
file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are
not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups
The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic.
In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for
a coup.
If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will
just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be
from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white
interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up
to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.
Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)
It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media.
While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law
which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press
For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth"
in George Orwell's book 1984.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president. An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred
of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity -- If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8
million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and
NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American
voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term;
this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before
Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed
up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books,
but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is
that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent
by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it
was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications,
though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") – Caligula
@Karl
the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before
Dr Stein's recount circuses.
They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.
Nothing else they try will fly.
Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer"
to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s)
are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
@Max Havelaar
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to
revenge Aleppo loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites"
in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the
US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does
not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is
the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell – who has never been in combat and
never demonstrated any intellectual vigor – is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated
opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do? ,
@Max Havelaar
A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.
I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as
to when the Coup D'etat is going to – or has already taken place .
The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2
million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert
Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.
Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.
Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There
are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass
Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for
the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.
I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below,
for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy
destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically
elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments
have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the
Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy,
left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.
In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class,
by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence
wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long
decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well
as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without
a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the
nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has
been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings
cannot stay even with the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures,
and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700
military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the
nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military
and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the
Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous
administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens
of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act
and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions
of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population;
the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is
bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government,
with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for
imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts
owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts,
will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.
As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct
to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their
own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of
the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead
and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government
which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means
a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people.
We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians
of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic! Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
@annamaria
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do?
• Replies:
@Bill Jones
The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.
My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and
pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two
palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious
explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?
The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation
certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess
who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?
As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.
Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:
My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year
contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered
that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years
I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.
At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.
If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably
split the same way.
The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined
these agencies in the first place to serve their country – not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects,
and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.
Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress
to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can
set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require
massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced
that Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action.
Not until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game.
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel
has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words
in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and
Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.
Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to
undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds
of hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt"
you seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff ..like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
@Tomster
What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have
sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous
brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@Art
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to
Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power
two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia
– hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Peace --- Art
"If we get past the inauguration ."
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) – doing his best to screw things up
before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at
war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act – providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on
Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It
is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if
Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis
to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
• Replies:
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb ,
@RobinG
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash."
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the
Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably
did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but
Joe Webb
• Replies:
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
@Realist
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented
any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers.
Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the
zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last
month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their
supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on." Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies – the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes: "... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
Hi RobinG,
This is much ado about nothing – in a NYT's article today – they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 – they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart – not the DNC – it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really – how pissed off can they be?
Peace - Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced
the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek
inside the Democrat machine.
Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This
shall not stand!
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
Hi Art,
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see
https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .
@annamaria
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and
war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ...
the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted
last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut
their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their
land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not
change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a
comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on
board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose
a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
• Replies:
@Tomster
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them.
,
@joe webb
good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim
Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs.
Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything
for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there
were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty
will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like
Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as
Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their
jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other
race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the
Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:
Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker
https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ ,
@alexander
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow
today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the
American people over the last sixteen years...
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to
shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge
his bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back.....four times...
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?
"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist
policies. "
The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has
for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."
A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist.
A black mark on both countries' report cards.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by?
The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash."
Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians,
while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup
in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG - Agree 100% – some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at
the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of
hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you
seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff.....like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes
to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains
are?). Who knows? – but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined
with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people
over the last sixteen years
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut
Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his
bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back ..four times
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of
affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns
anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere
that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under
discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way
humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like
Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just
as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for
their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any
other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain. Joe Webb
Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking
heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian
hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.
January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.
Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically
important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.
I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions
to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.
While the presidential campaign was still in progress it was possible to think
that there might be some positive change in America's broken foreign policy.
Hillary Clinton was clearly the candidate of Washington Establishment
hawkishness, while Donald Trump was declaring his disinclination for democracy
and nation building overseas as well as promoting détente with Russia. Those of
us who considered the foreign policy debacle to be the most dangerous issue
confronting the country, particularly as it was also fueling domestic tyranny,
tended to vote on the basis of that one issue in favor of Trump.
On December
1
st
in Cincinnati, president-elect Donald Trump made
some interesting comments
about his post-electoral foreign policy plans.
There were a lot of good things in it, including his citing of $6 trillion
"wasted" in Mideast fights when "our goal is stability not chaos." And as for
dealing with real enemies, he promised to "partner with any nation that is
willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism "
He called it a "new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the
past" adding that "We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow
governments, folks."
Regarding the apparent inability of governments to thoroughly check out new
immigrants prior to letting them inside the country, demonstrated most recently
in Nice, Ohio and Berlin, Trump
described how
"People are pouring in from regions of the Middle East - we
have no idea who they are, where they come from what they are thinking and we
are going to stop that dead cold. These are stupid refugee programs created
by stupid politicians." Exaggerated? For sure, but he has a point, and it all
is part and parcel of a foreign policy that serves no actual interest for
people who already live in the United States.
But, as so often with Trump, there was also the flip side. On the looney
fringe of the foreign and national security policy agenda, the president-elect
oddly believes that
"The United States must greatly strengthen and expand
its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses
regarding nukes." So to reduce the number of nukes we have to create more of
them and put them in more places. Pouring gasoline on a raging fire would be an
appropriate analogy and it certainly leads to questions regarding who is
advising The Donald with this kind of nonsense.
Trump has promised to "put America first," but there is inevitably a spanner
in the works. Now, with the New Year only six days away and the presidential
inauguration coming less than three weeks after that, it is possible to discern
that the new foreign policy will, more than under Barack Obama and George W.
Bush, be driven in significant part by Israeli interests.
At least Obama had the good sense to despise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, but that will not be true of the White House after January 20
th
.
Trump's very first telephone conversation with a foreign head of government
after being elected was with Netanyahu and during the campaign, he promised to
invite Bibi to the White House immediately after the inauguration. The new
president's first naming of an Ambassador-designate to a foreign nation was of
his good friend and bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman to Israel. Friedman
had headed
Trump's Israel Advisory Committee and is a notable hard liner
who supports the Israeli settler movement, an extreme right-wing political
entity that is nominally opposed by existing U.S. government policy as both
illegal and damaging to Washington's interests. Beyond that, Friedman rejects
creation of a Palestinian state and supports Israel's actual annexation of the
West Bank.
U.S. Ambassadors are supposed to support American interests but Friedman
would actually be representing and endorsing a particularly noxious version of
Israeli fascism as the new normal in the relationship with Washington. Friedman
describes
Jerusalem as "the holy capital of the Jewish people and only the
Jewish people." Trump is already taking steps to move the U.S. Embassy there,
making the American government unique in having its chief diplomatic mission in
the legally disputed city. The move will also serve as a recruiting poster for
groups like ISIS and will inflame opinion against the U.S. among friendly Arab
states in the region. There is no possible gain and much to lose for the United
States and for American citizens in making the move, but it satisfies Israeli
hardliners and zealots like Friedman.
The Trump team's animosity towards Iran is also part of the broader Israeli
agenda. Iran does not threaten the United States and is a military midget
compared either to nuclear armed Israel or the U.S. Yet is has been singled out
as the enemy
du jour
in the Middle East even though it has invaded no
one since the seventeenth century. Israel would like to have the United States
do the heavy lifting to destroy Iran as a regional power. If Washington were to
attempt to do so it would be a catastrophe for all parties involved but that
has not stopped hardliners from demanding unrelenting military pressure on
Tehran.
Donald Trump is not even president yet but he advised Barack Obama to
exercise the U.S. veto for the resolution condemning Israeli settlements that
was voted on at the United Nations Security Council on Friday,
explaining that
"As the United States has long maintained, peace between
the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations
between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United
Nations. This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely
unfair to all Israelis."
This is a straight Israeli line that might even have been written by
Netanyahu himself. Or by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC),
which fumed "AIPAC is deeply disturbed by the failure of the Obama
Administration to exercise its veto to prevent a destructive, one-sided,
anti-Israel resolution from being enacted by the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC). In the past, this administration and past administrations have
rejected this type of biased resolution since it undermines prospects for
peace. It is particularly regrettable, in his last month in office, that the
president has taken an action at odds with the bipartisan consensus in Congress
and America's long history of standing with Israel at the United Nations."
Ah yes, the fabled negotiations for a two state solution, regularly employed
to enable Israelis to do nothing while expanding their theft of Arab land and
one wonders how Trump would define what is "fair to the Palestinians?" So we
are already well into Trump's adoption of the "always the victim argument" that
the Israelis have so cleverly exploited with U.S. politicians and the media.
Not content with advising Obama, Trump also reportedly took the Palestinian
issue one step further by directly pressuring the sponsoring Egyptians to
postpone any submission of the resolution. Expecting to have a friendly
president in the White House after January 20
th
, Egypt's president
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
complied on Thursday
but the motion was reintroduced by New Zealand,
Venezuela, Senegal and Malaysia on the following day. The resolution passed
with 14 yes votes and a courageous U.S. abstention after Obama finally, after
eight long years, developed a backbone. But unfortunately, Trump's
interventions suggest that nothing critical of Israel will be allowed to emerge
from the U.N. during his term of office. Referring to the U.N. vote, he said
that "things will be different after January 20
th
."
The problem with Israel and its friends is that they are never satisfied and
never leave the rest of us Americans alone, pushing constantly at what is
essentially an open door. They have treated the United States like a doormat,
spying on us more than any ostensibly friendly nation while pocketing our $38
billion donation to their expanding state without so much as a thank you. They
are shameless. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer has been all over
American television sputtering his rage over the United Nations settlements
vote. On CNN
he revealed
that Israel has "clear evidence" that President Obama was
"behind" the resolution and he announced his intention to share the information
with Donald Trump. Every American should be outraged by Israel's contempt for
us and our institutions. One has to wonder if the mainstream media will take a
rest from their pillorying of Russia to cover the story.
For many years now, Israel has sought to make the American people complicit
in its own crimes while also encouraging our country's feckless and corrupt
leadership to provide their government with political cover and even go to war
on its behalf. This has got to stop and, for a moment, it looked like Trump
might be the man to end it when he promised to be even-handed in negotiating
between the Arabs and Israelis. That was before he promised to be the best
friend Israel would ever have.
Israel's quarrels don't stay in Israel and they are not limited to the
foreign policy realm. I have
already discussed
the pending Anti-Semitism Awareness Act,
a bipartisan effort by Congress
to penalize and even potentially
criminalize any criticism of Israel by equating it to anti-Semitism. Whether
Israel itself wants to consider itself a democracy is up to Netanyahu and
Israeli voters but the denial of basic free speech rights to Americans in
deference to Israeli perceptions should be considered to be completely
outrageous.
And there's more. Israel's government funded lawfare organization Shurat
HaDin has long been using American courts to punish Palestinians and Iranians,
obtaining punitive damages linked to allegations regarding terrorist incidents
that have taken place in Israel. Now Shurat HaDin is using our courts to go
after American companies that do business with countries like Iran.
Last year's nuclear agreement with Iran included an end to restraints on the
Islamic Republic's ability to engage in normal banking and commercial activity.
As a high priority, Iran has sought to replace some of its aging
infrastructure, to include its passenger aircraft fleet. Seattle based Boeing
has sought to sell to Iran Air 80 airplanes at a cost of more than $16 billion
and has worked with the U.S. government to meet all licensing and technology
transfer requirements. The civilian-use planes are not in any way configurable
for military purposes, but Shurat HaDin on December 16
th
sought to block
the sale at a federal court in Illinois, demanding a lien
against Boeing for the monies alleged to be due to the claimed victims of
Iranian sponsored terrorism. Boeing, meanwhile, has stated that the Iran Air
order "support(s) tens of thousands of U.S. jobs."
So an agency of the Israeli government is taking steps to stop an American
company from doing something that is perfectly legal under U.S. law even though
it will cost thousands of jobs here at home. It is a prime example of how much
Israel truly cares about the United States and its people. And even more
pathetic, the Israel Lobby owned U.S. Congress has predictably bowed down and
kissed Netanyahu's ring on the issue,
passing a bill in November
that seeks to block Treasury Department licenses
to permit the financing of the airplane deal.
The New Year and the arrival of an administration with fresh ideas would
provide a great opportunity for the United States to finally distance itself
from a toxic Israel, but, unfortunately, it seems that everything is actually
moving in the opposite direction. Don't be too surprised if we see a shooting
war with Iran before the year is out as well as a shiny new U.S. Embassy in
Jerusalem (to be built
on land stolen from Palestinians
, incidentally). Trump might think he is
ushering in a new era of American policy based on American interests but it is
beginning to look a lot like same-old same-old but even worse, and Benjamin
Netanyahu will be very much in the driver's seat.
I wonder what facts you have to label Trump's team "globalist shills".
Robert W. Merry in his National Interest article disagrees with you
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/trump-vs-hillary-nationalism-vs-globalism-2016-16041
=== start of the quote ===
Globalists captured much of American society long ago by capturing the bulk of the nation's elite
institutions -- the media, academia, big corporations, big finance, Hollywood, think tanks, NGOs,
charitable foundations. So powerful are these institutions -- in themselves and, even more so,
collectively -- that the elites running them thought that their political victories were complete
and final. That's why we have witnessed in recent years a quantum expansion of social and political
arrogance on the part of these high-flyers.
Then along comes Donald Trump and upends the whole thing. Just about every major issue that this
super-rich political neophyte has thrown at the elites turns out to be anti-globalist and pro-nationalist.
And that is the single most significant factor in his unprecedented and totally unanticipated
rise. Consider some examples:
Immigration: Nationalists believe that any true nation must have clearly delineated and protected
borders, otherwise it isn't really a nation. They also believe that their nation's cultural heritage
is sacred and needs to be protected, whereas mass immigration from far-flung lands could undermine
the national commitment to that heritage.
Globalists don't care about borders. They believe the nation-state is obsolete, a relic of
the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which codified the recognition of co-existing nation states.
Globalists reject Westphalia in favor of an integrated world with information, money, goods
and people traversing the globe at accelerating speeds without much regard to traditional concepts
of nationhood or borders.
=== end of the quote ===
I wonder how "globalist shills" mantra correlates with the following Trump's statements:
=== start of quote ===
"Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy ... but
it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache," Trump told supporters
during a prepared speech targeting free trade in a nearly-shuttered former steel town in Pennsylvania.
In a speech devoted to what he called "How To Make America Wealthy Again," Trump offered a
series of familiar plans designed to deal with what he called [Obama] "failed trade policies"
- including rejection of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with Pacific Rim nations
and re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico,
withdrawing from it if necessary.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also said he would pursue bilateral trade agreements
rather than multi-national deals like TPP and NAFTA.
In addition to appointing better trade negotiators and stepping up punishment of countries
that violate trade rules, Trump's plans would also target one specific economic competitor: China.
He vowed to label China a currency manipulator, bring it before the World Trade Organization and
consider slapping tariffs on Chinese imports coming into the U.S.
"... We have a dollar democracy that protects the economic interest of the elite class while more than willing to let working class families lose their homes and jobs on the back end of wide scale mortgage fraud. Then the fraud was perpetuated in the mortgage default process just to add insult to injury. ..."
"... One thing that Trump certainly got wrong that no one ever points out is that there is a lot more murder than rape crossing the Mexican-American border in the drug cartel operations ..."
"... The technocrats lied about how globalization would be great for everyone. People's actual experience in their lives has been different. ..."
"... Centrist Democrat partisans with their increasinly ineffectual defenses of the establishment say it's only about racism and xenophobia, but it's more than that. ..."
Assaults on democracy are working because our current political elites have no idea how to
defend it.
[There are certainly good points to this article, but the basic assumption that our electorally
representative form of republican government is the ideal incarnation of the democratic value
set is obviously incorrect. We have a dollar democracy that protects the economic interest of
the elite class while more than willing to let working class families lose their homes and jobs
on the back end of wide scale mortgage fraud. Then the fraud was perpetuated in the mortgage default
process just to add insult to injury.
One thing that Trump certainly got wrong that no one ever points out is that there is a lot
more murder than rape crossing the Mexican-American border in the drug cartel operations:<) ]
The author fails to mention the Sanders campaign. An elderly socialist Jew from Brooklyn was able
to win 23 primaries and caucuses and approximately 43% of pledged delegates to Clinton's 55%.
This despite a nasty, hostile campaign against him and his supporters by the Clinton campaign
and corporate media.
There's also Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Podemos, Syriza, etc.
Italy's 5 Star movement demonstrates a hostility to technocrats as well.
The author doesn't really focus on how the technocrats have failed.
The technocrats lied about how globalization would be great for everyone. People's actual experience
in their lives has been different.
Trump scapegoated immigrants and trade, as did Brexit, but what he really did was channel hostility
and hatred at the elites and technocrats running the country.
Centrist Democrat partisans with their increasinly ineffectual defenses of the establishment
say it's only about racism and xenophobia, but it's more than that.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Peter K.... , -1
"Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy ... but
it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache," Trump told supporters
during a prepared speech targeting free trade in a nearly-shuttered former steel town in Pennsylvania.
In a speech devoted to what he called "How To Make America Wealthy Again," Trump offered a series
of familiar plans designed to deal with what he called "failed trade policies" - including rejection
of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with Pacific Rim nations and re-negotiation of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, withdrawing from it if necessary.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also said he would pursue bilateral trade agreements
rather than multi-national deals like TPP and NAFTA.
In addition to appointing better trade negotiators and stepping up punishment of countries that violate
trade rules, Trump's plans would also target one specific economic competitor: China. He vowed to
label China a currency manipulator, bring it before the World Trade Organization and consider slapping
tariffs on Chinese imports coming into the U.S.
Fred C. Dobbs -> Peter K....
December 26, 2016 at 07:15 AM neopopulism: A cultural and political movement, mainly in Latin
American countries, distinct from twentieth-century populism in radically combining classically opposed
left-wing and right-wing attitudes and using electronic media as a means of dissemination. (Wiktionary)
With the election of Donald Trump to
the presidency, the American public opted for change. A
new poll
from the Charles Koch Institute and Center for the National
Interest on America and foreign affairs indicates that the desire for a fresh
start may be particularly pronounced in the foreign policy sphere. In many
areas the responses align with what Donald Trump was saying during the
presidential campaign-and in other areas, there are a number of Americans who
don't have strong views. There may be a real opportunity for Trump to redefine
the foreign policy debate. He may have a ready-made base of support and find
that other Americans are persuadable.
Two key questions centering on whether U.S. foreign policy has made
Americans more or less safe and whether U.S. foreign policy has made the rest
of the world more or less safe show that a majority of the public is convinced
that-in both cases-the answer is that it has not. 51.9 percent say that
American foreign policy has not enhanced our security; 51.1 percent say that it
has also had a deleterious effect abroad. The responses indicate that the
successive wars in the Middle East, ranging from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya,
have not promoted but, rather, undermined a sense of security among Americans.
The poll results indicate that this sentiment has translated into nearly 35
percent of respondents wanted a decreased military footprint in the Middle
East, with about 30 percent simply wanting to keep things where they stand.
When it comes to America's key relationship with Saudi Arabia, 23.2 percent
indicate that they would favor weaker military ties, while 24 percent say they
are simply unsure. Over half of Americans do not want to deploy ground troops
to Syria. Overall, 45.4 percent say that they believe that it would enhance
American security to reduce our military presence abroad, while 30.9 percent
say that it should be increased.
That Americans are adopting a more equivocal approach overall towards other
countries seems clear. When provided with a list of adjectives to describe
relationship, very few Americans were prepared to choose the extremes of friend
or foe. The most popular term was the fairly neutral term "competitor." The
mood appears to be similarly ambivalent about NATO. When asked whether the U.S.
should automatically defend Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia in a military
conflict with Russia, 26.1 percent say that they neither agree nor disagree. 22
percent say that they disagree and a mere 16.8 percent say that they agree.
Similarly, when queried about whether the inclusion of Montenegro makes America
safer, no less than 63.6 percent say that they don't know or are not sure.
About Russia itself, 37.8 percent indicate they see it as both an adversary and
a potential partner. That they still see it as a potential partner is
remarkable given the tenor of the current media climate.
The poll results underscore that Americans are uneasy with the status quo.
U.S. foreign policy in particular is perceived as a failure and Americans want
to see a change, endorsing views and stands that might previously have been
seen as existing on the fringe of debate about America's proper role abroad.
Instead of militarism and adventurism, Americans are more keen on a cooperative
world, in which trade and diplomacy are the principal means of engaging other
nations. 49 percent of the respondents indicate that they would prioritize
diplomacy over military power, while 26.3 percent argue for the reverse. 54
percent argue that the U.S. should work more through the United Nations to
improve its security. Moreover, a clear majority of those polled stated that
they believed that increasing trade would help to make the United States safer.
In a year that has been anything but normal, perhaps Trump is onto something
with his talk of burden sharing and a more critical look at the regnant
establishment foreign policy that has prevailed until now.
(cnbc.com)
416
Posted by msmash
on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @10:20AM
from the
aftermath
dept.
China is trying to capitalize on President-elect Donald Trump's hardline
immigration stance and vow to clamp down on a foreign worker visa program that
has been used to recruit thousands from overseas to Silicon Valley. From a
report on CNBC:
Leading tech entrepreneurs, including Robin Li, the
billionaire CEO of Baidu, China's largest search engine, see Trump's plans as
a huge potential opportunity to lure tech talent away from the United States
.
The country already offers incentives of up to $1 million as signing bonuses
for those deemed "outstanding" and generous subsidies for start-ups. Meanwhile,
the Washington Post last month reported on comments made by Steve Bannon, who
is now the president-elect's chief strategist, during a radio conversation with
Trump in Nov. 2015. Bannon, the former Breitbart.com publisher, indicated that
he didn't necessarily agree with the idea that foreign talent that goes to
school in America should stay in America. "When two-thirds or three-quarters of
the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think ...,"
Bannon said, trailing off. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic
society."
(moneycontrol.com)
184 Posted by msmash on Monday November 28, 2016 @02:20PM from the meanwhile-in-India dept.
From a report on Reuters: Anticipating a more protectionist US technology visa programme under
a Donald Trump administration, India's $150 billion IT services sector will
speed up acquisitions in the United States and recruit more heavily from college campuses there
. Indian companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro have long used H1-B
skilled worker visas to fly computer engineers to the US, their largest overseas market, temporarily
to service clients. Staff from those three companies accounted for around 86,000 new H1-B workers
in 2005-14. The US currently issues close to that number of H1-B visas each year. President-elect
Trump's campaign rhetoric, and his pick for Attorney General of Senator Jeff Sessions, a long-time
critic of the visa programme, have many expecting a tighter regime.
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday November 27, 2016 @11:34AM
from the
making-campaign-promises-great-again
dept.
Monday president-elect Donald Trump sent "the strongest signal yet that the
H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office," according
to CIO.
During his presidential campaign, Trump was critical of the H-1B visa program
that has been widely criticized for displacing U.S. high-technology workers.
"Companies are importing low-wage workers on H-1B visas to take jobs from young
college-trained Americans," said Trump at an Ohio rally.
"... I think if you want to improve the economic inequality between countries, there are better ways than open borders. If the aim is to decrease economic inequality, you could make policies to reach this outcome that are more targeted than open borders, for example you could implement financial transfers between countries, or you could implement international minimum wages that could be phased in over 10-20-30 years, etc. ..."
"... If the other problem you want to address is mobility for people who want to immigrate for personal reasons, you can just improve the access to immigration within the normal migration system, and increase migration quotas in line with some sort of expectation of what a optimum maximum population would be within a set period. ..."
"... Another thing is infrastructure, it would be difficult to forecast infrastructure needs if migration is unregulated. It would take several decades to settle into a sort of equilibrium and until then you couldn't do very good projections of future infrastructure needs. In Victoria we already have had population growth that has outpaced infrastructure, and there are big problems particularly with transport but also with other infrastructure needs. ..."
"... The surcharge is supposed to be a payment towards the existing infrastructure, from which the new entrants benefit. But native-born citizens, who benefit from the infrastructure built up by previous generations get the same benefit as a free gift! That already presupposes some quite strong claims about who is entitled to what, and who is entitled to exclude whom from access. ..."
"... In a world with a rapidly increasing population and a resource base coming under increasing stress it acting merely to spread misery faster and to stop experiments in sustainability. ..."
"... It undermining social and democratic structures. ..."
"... Another issue with the tax is that it would make migration more difficult for lower income people who could't afford the tax. Countries like the UK are already targeting their migration intake to higher income earners where possible, and a tax would encourage that policy. ..."
"... What if there were a minimum tax per immigrant per year, equal to the average taxes paid by citizens? ..."
"... It is worth considering the world's economy as an engineering system that responds to forces placed upon it. One of the features of making migration difficult, through either bureaucratic or financial resistance, is that it dampens the response of the system to external forces. Open borders removes that damping and allows much faster response. Like most things in life, that has both good and bad consequences, but one of the consequences is the system becomes less stable. ..."
"... As for the productivity argument – as usual, political theorists underestimate the value of extended family and long term inter-family arrangements in creating 'social capital' for productivity and stability. ..."
"... Mobility has its place, and in a time when most Americans never went more than 25 miles from their birthplace during their entire lives an increase in mobility increased overall productivity. However, there are many reasons to believe that individual mobility is costing communities dearly in these present times; and that bad government and market oriented policies which are exacerbating the problem. ..."
"... So in addition to the problems of infrastructure and gentrification on the recieving end of these net flows, we have issues in the regions that are being left-behind. Our current reactionary politics seems to be one of the consequences of this difficult issue. ..."
"... I worry that "free movement of people" tends to have massive social costs that get swept under the rug when the issues are discussed in a purely economic framework. ..."
"... For most of human history, the vast majority of people lived in extended family groups in villages, towns, or temporary encampments where they knew their neighbors, had relatively small social worlds, and didn't travel more than a few days from home. Cities, as we know them, (and their accompanying social maladies) are really only two or three centuries old and post-industrial cities are an even newer phenomenon. ..."
"... What's worse, the rootless urban professionals have money, which means they can buy or rent homes anywhere, displacing the old residents. This has a double whammy effect, not only do the neighborhoods get new people who don't quite fit in, but the old "villagers" get forced out (and in many cases become rootless transplants in some other town), so communities enter a state of perpetual social flux where there aren't enough old timers left to assimilate the new arrivals and the social fabric disintegrates as natural communities are replaced by a massive web of voluntary ones that often don't (especially if there's a class or language barrier) and leave some people with no community at all. ..."
"... Think of the million Poles in the UK, for example, they will predictably have "close relationships" with people in Poland, and will British retirees in Spain with people in the UK, and Irish people in the UK with people living in Ireland . ..."
"... At this point I really, really have to emphasize the plug for John Smith's Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century because he addresses this kind of neoclassical boosterism more or less directly, from a leftist point of view. ..."
"... In Smith's telling the suppression of international labor mobility is actually central to explaining not just global wage differentials perceived to result from differences in productivity, but also the data by which labor productivity between countries is measured in the first place. The neoclassicals' trick here is to take the international division of labor that emerges from what Smith calls "global labor arbitrage" (e.g. outsourcing) and remove it from their conceptual category of production altogether, instead regarding it through the lens of international trade as if workers on a factory floor were constantly "trading" their partially-assembled products to others further down the assembly line. ..."
"... It's not exactly freedom of movement I'm arguing against so much as the notion that population centers have an essentially unlimited ability to absorb newcomers. From 18th Century Manchester to the American West to exploding Chinese industrial cities today, boom towns are notorious for their environmental devastation and social dysfunction. ..."
"... Many municipalities already do this through the use of building permits, but their efforts are compromised by an imperative to expand their tax base and competition between municipalities that gravely limits their effective bargaining power. In a free trade, open borders world, I can see the same thing happening at the national scale, forcing whole countries to compete with one another for jobs and labor and hastening the rate of neo-colonial resource plundering. ..."
"... Factor endowments equals they have poor people for cheap labor and we have rich people who create, consume and finance and the origins of the difference is like shrouded in mystery? ..."
"... John Smith of WLGR is Marxian. Apples profits are generated by the workers at Foxconn in China, not the designers in San Jose. The surplus accruing to intellectual property is mostly a product of past and present Imperialism. ..."
"... By the way, at least according to Wikipedia, there are 830,000 Poles in the UK_ so well south of a million still. It's a lot, but, lots less than, say, the 2.9 million Russian-born people in the US, a population I'm very familiar with, so I don't really need the lecture here. ..."
"... I'm not arguing against change, but rather change that comes so quickly it creates a schism between the past and the present. The Gold Rush changed California from predominantly Spanish-speaking to majority Anglo in just a few years (and also killed tens of thousands of Indians in the process), so even if a place still has the same name following migration, it might not be pronounced the same way. ..."
This is definitely approaching it from the right angle–large immigration flows act like globalization.
They improve overall average GDP but definitely hurt certain sectors of workers in ways that thus
far in the experiment suggests that they never recover.
I wonder about the effect of big city housing costs. They act as a barrier to moving to a better
job. Is this something that we should be worried about as part of the immigration issue?
ZM 12.21.16 at 6:15 am
I think if you want to improve the economic inequality between countries, there are better ways
than open borders. If the aim is to decrease economic inequality, you could make policies to reach
this outcome that are more targeted than open borders, for example you could implement financial
transfers between countries, or you could implement international minimum wages that could be
phased in over 10-20-30 years, etc.
If the other problem you want to address is mobility for people who want to immigrate for personal
reasons, you can just improve the access to immigration within the normal migration system, and
increase migration quotas in line with some sort of expectation of what a optimum maximum population
would be within a set period.
Also there is already a problem with gentrification in many cities, and associated issues of
people having to move further away from family and friends, and not enough affordable housing,
and homelessness - open borders would increase all these problems I would think as it would take
out all the regulations. And we already have problems with people from poor countries or poor
areas being under pressure to migrate for work and financial reasons, and open borders would exacerbate
that problem as well.
I think refugees need to be able to migrate the most urgently, but it would still be better
for them that there were specific policies for refugee migration that would allow the high numbers
of refugees to migrate to safety either temporarily or permanently, rather than open borders.
Most of the bloggers here are not in favour of laissez faire free trade, so I don't see why
open borders are favoured when "open trade" isn't?
Another thing is infrastructure, it would be difficult to forecast infrastructure needs if migration
is unregulated. It would take several decades to settle into a sort of equilibrium and until then
you couldn't do very good projections of future infrastructure needs. In Victoria we already have
had population growth that has outpaced infrastructure, and there are big problems particularly
with transport but also with other infrastructure needs.
I'm a bit suspicious that this sort of analysis suffers from large measurement biases.
As an environmentalist,
I'm concerned that we may be increasing a statistic (GDP) that is just a measure of an extent
of how much higher a proportion of consumer is now being captured in the market, and not a measure
of actual welfare. I remember very well as young economist wondering when I heard a more senior
economists complaining that Australians didn't want to work but just wanted to lie about on the
beach. And then I thought about how northern Europeans pay large amounts of money in order to
be able to lie about on the beach.
Maybe the beach occupying Australians were being rational and
the economist was not being rational. Having more crowded beaches does not show as a minus on
GDP as far as I know.
reason 12.21.16 at 9:20 am P.S.
GDP may also measure how rapidly our natural capital is being converted to perishable goods, but
not measure how rapidly it is being eroded.
On the immigration surcharge thing, I can see its attractions as a policy, but let me just comment
on it from the point of view of principle, not to advocate any particular solution but to notice
some things:
The surcharge is supposed to be a payment towards the existing infrastructure, from which the
new entrants benefit. But native-born citizens, who benefit from the infrastructure built up by
previous generations get the same benefit as a free gift! That already presupposes some quite
strong claims about who is entitled to what, and who is entitled to exclude whom from access.
(Adding in some plausible history, we might further note that the existing domestic infrastructure
hasn't, in many cases, been built up simply from the unaided efforts of the ancestors of the natives
but often reflects the efforts of the colonised or dominated ancestors of the would-be immigrants.)
Then notice also another asymmetry, that the proposal is to charge the incomers for the benefits
they derive from the infrastructure, whilst allowing the natives to benefit for free from human
capital that has been created elsewhere through educational and training programmes. That issue,
the so-called brain drain problem (I'm not a fan of the term or many of the associated claims
btw) forms the basis for a quite different set of proposals for taxing immigrants, the so-called
Bhagwati tax. So the poor migrants get hit by taxation proposals from both sides, as it were!
reason 12.21.16 at 9:35 am
P.P.S. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not totally against open borders in all circumstances (in
fact in a fairly equal world with a stable population I would be all for it), but I see a distinct
danger of very rapid immigration:
In a world with a rapidly increasing population and a resource base coming under increasing
stress it acting merely to spread misery faster and to stop experiments in sustainability.
"Chang, who opposes open borders" "Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development
at the University of Cambridge"
Open borders for me but not for thee?
ZM 12.21.16 at 9:45 am Chris Bertram,
"So the poor migrants get hit by taxation proposals from both sides, as it were!"
Another issue with the tax is that it would make migration more difficult for lower income
people who could't afford the tax. Countries like the UK are already targeting their migration
intake to higher income earners where possible, and a tax would encourage that policy.
I would rather make improve inequality between countries, and then experiment with freer migration
after that. Since I think there would be less incentive to migrate if countries were more equal,
and then freer migration would be more likely to run smoother.
And (didn't see comment 7) - while yes, a surcharge isn't strictly fair, it is a far lesser evil
than not letting immigrants in at all.
I think it's plausible that remittances would more than make up for the investments home countries
had made in 'their' immigrants.
SamChevre 12.21.16 at 11:14 am
On a surcharge–I proposed one years ago in the context of the proposed "amnesty," that I think
avoids some of the problems Chris Bertram notes above.
What if there were a minimum tax per immigrant per year, equal to the average taxes paid by
citizens? This would be a "pay your share of current costs" tax, not an additional tax.
For the
US, it would be roughly $10,000 a year for the federal government (20% of per capita GDP)–and
any taxes paid to the federal government (FICA and income tax) would be credits against it.
It is worth considering the world's economy as an engineering system that responds to forces placed
upon it. One of the features of making migration difficult, through either bureaucratic or financial
resistance, is that it dampens the response of the system to external forces. Open borders removes
that damping and allows much faster response. Like most things in life, that has both good and
bad consequences, but one of the consequences is the system becomes less stable.
As an example, it is possible to get as many workers as you want into the UK within a few days.
If you have a warehouse that needs staff they can be here from anywhere in the EU, all well educated,
speaking English, with accommodation and ready to work. I'm not saying its a good or a bad thing.
But its a thing that has consequences.
One organisation that has resisted Open Borders is the Corbyn clique in the Labour Party. Entry
into the employment opportunities within that sector of the economy appears to be only open to
relatives, children of political allies, school mates and children of celebrity chums.
BenK 12.21.16 at 1:50 pm '
Not allowed to vote' is political smokescreen. If those people have for some reason not established
voting in the country they currently live in, then yes, they haven't paid the price for liberty
there. If they can, then they are voting – just not where they would apparently prefer to be voting.
As for the productivity argument – as usual, political theorists underestimate the value of
extended family and long term inter-family arrangements in creating 'social capital' for productivity
and stability.
Mobility has its place, and in a time when most Americans never went more than
25 miles from their birthplace during their entire lives an increase in mobility increased
overall productivity. However, there are many reasons to believe that individual mobility is costing
communities dearly in these present times; and that bad government and market oriented policies
which are exacerbating the problem.
A surcharge might be a useful approach. I will say, echoing Reason, that massive waves of immigration
into a region change a lot of things, and not necessarily in ways that the natives would view
as positive.
I've lived in L.A. for the past 35 years, and during that time millions of immigrants
have come into this metropolitan area. Traffic problems, noticeable in L.A. when I arrived in
1981 but something that could be reasonably dealt with, got much, worse.
The public school system
went from fair to actively problematic. In both cases, the problem was made much worse by lagging
public investment, particularly in transportation systems.
Maybe L.A. was uniquely dysfuntional
politically, but I would suspect that most regions would see degradations in public goods in times
of massive in-migration. The significant investment required for massive population growth will,
in all likelihood, not be made, especially in a timely way, and the sort of planning that would
actually be necessary for a pleasant transition to a more populous future seems likely to be beyond
the capabilities of most cities, at least the ones I've lived in.
The inevitable resulting problems
will not endear the newcomers to the natives, even if those problems are solely the fault of the
immigrants.
William Meyer 12.21.16 at 2:48 pm
Sorry, my mistake, the last sentence should read "even if those problems are NOT solely the fault
of the immigrants.
#7
Reminds one of the old story of the Capitalist who berates the local for quitting fishing after
catching enough for today's dinner so he can lay about playing guitar and drinking beer on the
beach.
"You should fish from dawn to dusk 7 days a week. Sell your surplus. Buy another fishing boat. Do
this for 30 years."
"What for?",asks the local.
"So you can retire and lay about, play guitar and drink beer on the beach!"
Omega Centauri 12.21.16 at 5:10 pm
I think its a very difficult sale politically. But, you already know that.
There also is the issue of potentially large scale population flows from less "productive"
areas to
more "productive" areas.
We have this same issue within countries, such as rust belt to coastal
cities in the US, and we've seen political consequences -Trump_vs_deep_state become ascendant.
So in addition
to the problems of infrastructure and gentrification on the recieving end of these net flows,
we have issues in the regions that are being left-behind. Our current reactionary politics seems
to be one of the consequences of this difficult issue.
@divelly it is from Adam Smith, Theory of the Moral Sentiments, part 3, ch. 3 :
"What the favourite of the king of Epirus said to his master, may be applied to men in all
the ordinary situations of human life. When the King had recounted to him, in their proper order,
all the conquests which he proposed to make, and had come to the last of them; And what does your
Majesty propose to do then? said the Favourite.-I propose then, said the King, to enjoy myself
with my friends, and endeavour to be good company over a bottle.-And what hinders your Majesty
from doing so now? replied the Favourite."
Stephen 12.21.16 at 8:10 pm
Moral sentiments of less desirable people: I propose to enjoy myself by being revenged on and
utterly destroying my enemies, and to be good company over the finest available bottle with those
who dare not contradict me.
I think we should be extra skeptical of any paper that claims that the "economics of open borders"
hasn't received "much" attention. Maybe not as much as many other things, and there may be some
hedging about what, exactly, fits, but the economics of migration has received _lots_ of attention.
In The US, the National Academy of Science did a huge study on it in the mid 80's, and updated
it again just recently.
Jagdish Bhagwati has written quite a bit on it, both popular and formal.
George Borjas has written a lot on it (most of it not good, in my opinion, but a lot on it.) Lots
and lots of people, including some very famous economist, have responded to Borjas. Paul Krugman
has written on it. One of my mentors, Howard Chang, a lawyer-economist at Penn Law, has written
a lot on it. Etc. So, already we know that there is something a bit fishy here.
Next, this sort of thing typically assumes, for its strong conclusions, that everyone will
move to where he or she will get the "highest" return for his or her skills. We know this is false,
because it doesn't even happen within any particular country, where there are no restrictions,
no "surcharge" to pay, and fewer cultural barriers. So, the gain will certainly be much smaller
than is projected.
I'd also suggest that this bit from John, Moreover, in a world where more than a billion
people travel internationally each year, it's inevitable that vast numbers of people are going
to have close relationships of all kinds with citizens of other countries. Restrictions on movements
across borders impose costs on all those people ranging from minor to calamitous.
Would need to be _much_ more rigorous to do any work. I travel quite a bit, yet unless "close
relationships" means "people I know somewhat", this isn't true for me. Is it true for "vast" numbers
of people? I'm not sure. It's too flabby to do work now. And, do we have in mind visits, temporary
residence, permanent residence (with or without access to full membership?) Etc. There are really
a huge number of details here, and the absolutely must be worked through, carefully, before you
can say anything useful. I'm in favor of reducing most barriers to movement. But, the arguments,
if they are to be any good, really do need some care.
I'm puzzled by your last paragraph Matt, given what I know about your work. I don't know how large
a number has to be to be "vast", but the spouses separated from one another and the children separated
from one parent by the UK's spousal visa income requirements already number in the 10s of 1000s.
Add to that elderly dependent relatives who are separated from children, lone refugee children
separated from family members in other countries. And then multiply all this separation by the
number of countries that make things difficult for people. I think that probably adds up to a
vast number of people in close relationships with others who are separated by border regimes and
who are currently incurring costs that are often calamitous. Don't you?
Hi Chris – yes, the cases you mention are interesting and important ones. It goes a little way
towards making John's too flabby to work statement a bit better. But even in these cases, it's
important to work through what's wrong with the different examples. (This is what I try to do
in my work, and it's why I'm annoyed by what seems to me to be handwaving that blurs and distorts
more than it helps.) I would insist that "making this difficult" for people, or causing them to
"incur costs" isn't a good way to think about these issues at all. (I will go see my parents for
the first time in over a year next week. It will be difficult and I will incur may costs to do
so. Nothing interesting follows from that at all, I think.) And, John's categories include may
more than those you mention. What follows for them? Why are borders, and not other types of boundaries
relevant here? (Suppose my best friend is admitted to Harvard and I am not. But I'd like to study
with him! Is it unfair that I'm not allowed to? Why not?) There are answers here, but we'll not
get at them from the approach in the post, I think, and especially not if we follow the approach
in this paragraph. The issues need to be dug in to, even though that take time.
(I might note that I've just finished a semi-popular short piece on thinking about immigration
post-Trump and post-Brexit. I started it by thinking about some of your discussion of Joe Carens'
book from a few years ago, and tried to think about reasonable strategies for working towards
fairer immigration policies in our dark times. One thing I suggested was fighting against needlessly
mean (in both senses of the word) restrictions like the too-high social support requirements for
family members in the UK. So, I see that as a real problem. But, I don't think that helps rehabilitate
the claims made, or suggested, in this paragraph. If and when the piece comes out, I'll send it
to you.)
John Quiggin 12.22.16 at 3:22 am
Matt @24 It was an aside of course, but one that I didn't think needed a detailed exposition.
The calamitous cases Chris mentions are well known, as is the fact that lots of people suffer
no, or only trivial, problems of this kind. Rather than multipy such trivial examples as you do
in @26, why not explain why you think the calamitous cases are rare, or need to be explained in
detail?
Matts response is to glib. My own family was driven into poverty by separation in the 1980s and
the long term pressures on all of us of that experience were huge. Yes nothing follows from that
if you're a wealthy academic, but quite a lot follows from it if you're not.
Dave 12.22.16 at 10:05 am
I worry that "free movement of people" tends to have massive social costs that get swept under
the rug when the issues are discussed in a purely economic framework.
For most of human history,
the vast majority of people lived in extended family groups in villages, towns, or temporary encampments
where they knew their neighbors, had relatively small social worlds, and didn't travel more than
a few days from home. Cities, as we know them, (and their accompanying social maladies) are really
only two or three centuries old and post-industrial cities are an even newer phenomenon.
What people in the urban professional class tend to forget, however, is that the old model
of village life never went away . In truly rural or otherwise undeveloped areas, it's mostly
stayed the same, and other cases it was remapped onto urban neighborhoods or desperately clung
to in "small towns" that are, in fact, larger than most Medieval cities.
Now, these people have a problem, which is that they'd very much like to maintain a traditional
village lifestyle (well, some of them just want to escape or move to the city and get rich, but
I'll get to that), but neither industrial nor post-industrial capitalism has had any patience
for people who want to stay put. Industries and opportunities have concentrated in large urban
agglomerations, but exactly which industries and which cities shifts every generation or two.
Plants close down or move to other countries, higher education pulls millions of people far from
home, entire fields of employment vanish or emerge from whole cloth and it's impossible to keep
up. So, we as individuals can, at any time, be forced into a terrible dilemma. Either move away
from the life you know and the people who keep you happy, healthy, safe, and sane, or forfeit
your "optimal" career and some share of prosperity and human capital.
Depending on what class you are, the values you hold, and what the costs and benefits of moving
away really are, there may be no choice at all. Really, there are two kinds of migrants. There
are the desperate, who migrate for negative reasons, and the ambitious, who do it for positive
ones (with plenty of overlap) and only the latter is really making a choice as such. The outcomes
are different too. Refugees and economic migrants occasionally become rich and successful, but
usually they're just looking for security. Whereas people who move around a lot to get the best
education and the best jobs, are often massively rewarded, but too many such people creates a
culture of anomy and alienation where no one knows their neighbors and everyone seems to be from
somewhere else.
What's worse, the rootless urban professionals have money, which means they can buy or rent
homes anywhere, displacing the old residents. This has a double whammy effect, not only do the
neighborhoods get new people who don't quite fit in, but the old "villagers" get forced out (and
in many cases become rootless transplants in some other town), so communities enter a state of
perpetual social flux where there aren't enough old timers left to assimilate the new arrivals
and the social fabric disintegrates as natural communities are replaced by a massive web of voluntary
ones that often don't (especially if there's a class or language barrier) and leave some people
with no community at all.
I grew up in the Southern California suburbs in wake of the Sunbelt migrations and massive
immigration from Latin America and had the utterly peculiar experience of being one of only a
tiny fraction of the population whose grandparents (well, two of them) also grew up there. Growing
up, it seemed like most of my teachers (and really a huge chunk of the professional class in general)
were from either the East Coast or the Midwest and many of them had strange notions about what
it meant to be Californian, having moved here for the sunshine or the surfing or the jobs or the
"vibe" and more able to see the place as an ideal than a reality.
People don't realize the extent to which generations of migration can isolate people from the
land, but I saw it. People that luxuriantly watered their lawns despite the climate and planted
gardens full of plants from all over the world while treating the native plants like weeds. The
tragedy of people in brushfire country not even realizing that having wooden shingles is a bad
idea. People mocking the native California accents, affecting them badly to fit in, or refusing
to acknowledge that we had one at all (we have several). Or, take the baffling experience millions
of California kids get this time of year where adults around them act like our Christmas is somehow
"wrong" because there's no snow and we don't have a "real" winter.
There was and is wanton disregard for tradition or the environment. The old growth oaks that
once covered much of SoCal were cut down for wood and cattle land and now most people have no
idea they were ever there, huge tracts of "empty" desert were flooded with saltwater when the
Salton Sea was created, the LA river was turned into a storm drain, massive population increases
and utterly unrestricted suburban sprawl has destroyed most of our wetlands and turned the Coastal
Sage Scrub into one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. All that and CalTrans still plants
invasive, flammable Eucalyptus by every freeway. These were largely the work of generations of
short sighted, greedy migrants who didn't understand or value the land, but will be borne by generations
to come. Our land is being paved, poisoned, and pumped dry and most people don't even see it because
there aren't enough people around who still remember when it was any different.
If open borders means that places all over the world start getting flooded with migrants and
disrespected and debased the way Southern California has been, then I have no choice but to oppose
it.
A small point: – instead of adding additional taxes, one way to get the same net effect is to
have a basic income with a long residency requirement for non-citizens.
John – there is a lot of space between "not rare" and "vast", isn't there? That space needs to
be looked at carefully, and not used as a hand-wave. That's my point.
Faustunotes – I'm sorry to hear that. In published work, I've argued for strong rights for
family migration schemes. Without knowing more about your situation (not that I'm asking for details
now) I can't say more about, but, for example, the sorts of public support systems I've argued
for (and that exist in many countries) can be easily met by lots of people – the US requires 125%
of the poverty level for a family of the appropriate size, for example. That is arguably a top
acceptable level.
That meant that I was able to sponsor my wife when I was a grad student making
$15,000 a year (in 2003), not at all a "wealthy academic". So, again, it's important to get the
details right, to criticize particular cases, and not draw strong conclusions from hand-waving
generalizations. Failing to do this won't lead to any good work.
Matt, I think your quibbling with John on "vast numbers" is pretty silly here. You are an American,
and the US is a continental power with a large population. Perhaps it is rare for Americans to
have close relationships (let's set the bar at good friendships) with people outside the borders
of their country. But many of us live in smaller countries and on continents with lots of borders.
I think you'll find that when you tot up all the Europeans and Latin Americans with cross border
relationships (to name but two continents) and add in all the people who belong to ethnicities
that stretch across many borders, you'll get to a pretty high number.
Think of the million Poles
in the UK, for example, they will predictably have "close relationships" with people in Poland,
and will British retirees in Spain with people in the UK, and Irish people in the UK with people
living in Ireland .
Alesis 12.22.16 at 8:55 pm
The ever present struggle with taking the empirical body of knowledge on gains from migration
and making it into policy is that the only salient objections to migration are decidedly non economic.
Sure they pretend at an economic basis with admirable dedication to the act but the bottom line
is even if you prove that net wages for every single individual would go up from migration it
would till have exactly the same opponents you started with.
At this point I really, really have to emphasize the plug for John Smith's Imperialism
in the Twenty-First Century because he addresses this kind of neoclassical boosterism more
or less directly, from a leftist point of view.
If he was reacting to this post Smith would zero
in on the key premise underlying Kennan's model: the idea that global wage differentials inherently
reflect global differences in the productivity of labor between nation-states, known as the Balassa-Samuelson
hypothesis. Kennan seems to handwave away the idea of actually defending it by deferring to "large
bodies of evidence", evidence whose interpretation within a more-or-less standard neoclassical
framework he takes as a given - although notice how he hedges his initial claims more carefully
("cross-country differences in income levels are associated with differences in productivity",
and "large differences [in productivity] remain after adjusting for differences in physical
and human capital endowments ", emphasis mine) before moving on to construct a model where
"relative wages are used below to measure cross-country differences in labor efficiency", plain
and simple. Nice trick!
In any case, here's Smith:
The North-South purchasing power anomaly is sometimes called the Penn effect, after the
Penn World Table, which has gathered comparative price data from most countries in the world
since 1950. This effect is inversely correlated with per-capita GDP; as Figure 5.2 (page 143)
clearly shows, the poorer the nation, the bigger the gap. Mainstream neoclassical economics
advances two chief explanations for this anomaly, the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis, which hinges
on differences in labor productivity between rich and poor countries; and an alternative model,
proposed by Jagdish Bhagwati, Irving Kravis, Richard Lipsey, and others, which claims to circumvent
differences in labor productivity and accounts for the anomaly as the consequence of differences
in "factor endowments," that is, the relative abundance of capital and labor in the two countries.
Since their arguments are tautological, they arrive at the same conclusion. In the former approach,
the relative productivity of labor and capital determines the demand for these two factors
and, in conjunction with their supply, determines their equilibrium (market-clearing) prices.
In the second approach, different factor endowments affect the supply and demand in markets
for labor and capital, determining marginal productivities, so arriving at the other's starting
point.
According to both approaches, the purchasing power anomaly arises because of the low wages
of workers providing services (for example, a bus journey or a haircut), resulting in the prices
of these services being typically much lower in, say, Bangladesh than in Belgium. But equilibrium
exchange rates do equalize the prices of internationally tradable goods-in other words, they
assume that strong PPP holds in the tradable goods sector. Service sector wages are low in
Bangladesh because wage levels in the service sector are determined by wage levels in the tradable
goods sector. This occurs because labor is intersectorally mobile but not internationally mobile;
in other words, workers can freely move between the tradable and non-tradable sectors within
nations, equalizing wages between them, but cannot freely move across the borders between nations,
especially those between hard-currency and soft-currency nations. it therefore turns out that
the suppression of the free international movement of labor, the great exception to the principle
of globalization and whose cardinal importance is stressed in this book, is also at the heart
of the purchasing power anomaly.
In sum, the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis says that the purchasing power anomaly results
from the lack of correspondence between the similar levels of productivity of service workers
in Belgium and Bangladesh and the vast differences in their wages. The contrary argument advanced
here is that it is the oversupply of labor, not its productivity, that is the prime determinant
of Southern wage levels. wages of service providers and incomes of petty entrepreneurs are
kept low not by the paltry productivity of workers in the tradable goods sector, as mainstream
theory has it, but by the destitution of a large part of the working population. This is why
a haircut or a bus journey in Dhaka is so much cheaper than in Amsterdam, even though a pair
of scissors or a bus may cost the same in both countries, and may even have come off the same
production line. Furthermore, local capitalists are not the prime beneficiaries of the super-profits
generated by this expanded employment of low-wage labor. Instead, intense competition among
Southern exporters leaves them with only a minor share of the proceeds, the rest passed on
to their Northern customers through ever-lower export prices. The purchasing power anomaly
results not only or mainly from conditions in goods and Forex markets but is fundamentally
the product of conditions in labor markets and in the sphere of production where this labor
is put to work. The enormous growth in the relative surplus population combines with suppression
of international labor mobility to exert a tremendous downward pressure on all wages and on
the incomes of small producers, maintaining or widening still further the distance between
real wages in the imperialist nations and in the Global South.
In Smith's telling the suppression of international labor mobility is actually central
to explaining not just global wage differentials perceived to result from differences in productivity,
but also the data by which labor productivity between countries is measured in the first place.
The neoclassicals' trick here is to take the international division of labor that emerges from
what Smith calls "global labor arbitrage" (e.g. outsourcing) and remove it from their conceptual
category of production altogether, instead regarding it through the lens of international
trade as if workers on a factory floor were constantly "trading" their partially-assembled
products to others further down the assembly line. Here's Smith again:
Statistics on labor productivity, obtained by dividing the value added of a firm, industrial
sector, or nation by its total workforce, are highly deceptive. Much of the alleged increase
in labor productivity in the imperialist nations is an artifact resulting from the outsourcing
of low value-added, labor-intensive production processes to low-wage countries. As Susan Houseman
has argued, "when manufacturers outsource or offshore work, labor productivity increases directly
because the outsourced or offshored labor used to produce the product is no longer employed
in the manufacturing sector and hence is not counted in the denominator of the labor productivity
equation." This is extremely important, because "the rate of productivity growth in U.S. manufacturing
increased in the mid-1990s, greatly outpacing that in the services sector and accounting for
most of the overall productivity growth in the U.S. economy." Thus she argues, "To the extent
that offshoring is an important source of measured productivity growth in the economy, productivity
statistics will, in part, be capturing cost savings or gains to trade but not improvements
in the output of American labor." Houseman believes this solves "one of the great puzzles of
the American economy in recent years the fact that large productivity gains have not broadly
benefited workers in the form of higher wages. Productivity improvements that result from
offshoring may largely measure cost savings, not improvements to output per hour worked by
American labor."
Thus, when a firm outsources labor-intensive production processes, the productivity of the
workers who remain in its employment rises, even though nothing about their specific labor
has changed. Outsourcing therefore has what might be called a "ventriloquist effect" on measures
of productivity. But this only scratches the surface of the productivity paradox. Labor-intensive
production processes are practically synonymous with low value-added production processes,
yet the more labor-intensive it is, that is, the larger living labor is relative to dead labor,
the greater is its contribution to value and surplus value-but much of this is captured by
capital-intensive capitals, showing up as a much higher value added per worker.
John Quiggin 12.22.16 at 11:17 pm
@Dave You are arguing against internal freedom of movement. Do you support systems of internal
passports, as in the Soviet Union or the hukou system in China?
John Quiggin 12.23.16 at 3:14 am
WLGR: I'll look for this book. But on an initial reading of your first quotation, it seems to
me that Smith is just restating the factor endowment model. What does "surplus labor" mean, if
not a high ratio of labor to capital? Does he spell out the distinction somewhere else?
ZM 12.23.16 at 3:26 am
John Quiggin,
China has a very large population, hukou is problematic and has some undesirable impacts, but
China needs to get all the provinces and cities more equal before they can change the hukou system.
At the moment the inequality between provinces and cities in China is very very great compared
to inequality between States and cities in Australia.
Although inequality has decreased as more people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 10-20
years.
Dave 12.23.16 at 6:06 am
@ John Quiggin 34
That's a very good question and it does show why one should always consider the full ramifications
of ones' arguments. I would say that policies against internal migration are not limited to Communist
dictatorships - that's what serfdom was, after all. I'm enough of a liberal to find that sort
of thing oppressive, but I do think it had a certain social utility (of course, letting people
move and travel has advantages too).
It's not exactly freedom of movement I'm arguing against so much as the notion that population
centers have an essentially unlimited ability to absorb newcomers. From 18th Century Manchester
to the American West to exploding Chinese industrial cities today, boom towns are notorious for
their environmental devastation and social dysfunction.
Even in a modern era where resource extraction and heavy industry are less dominant economic
drivers than they once were, the combination of free movement of capital and free movement of
labor is a consistent recipe for explosive, unplanned, and unsustainable growth in whatever areas
are deemed economically valuable. The boom bust cycle of capitalism maps onto the landscape itself
and the effects for both the natives and the newcomers can be devastating.
What I would argue though is that free movement of people is a problem only insofar as there
is free movement of capital. You won't have millions of people flood a region if that region hasn't
already been flooded with millions of jobs. This would require a new international regulatory
framework to put the brakes on massive industrial and commercial development and a rejection of
the current extreme growth bias in economic thought. In effect, I think that it should be businesses
that have to apply for those permits or internal passports, rather than individuals.
Many municipalities already do this through the use of building permits, but their efforts
are compromised by an imperative to expand their tax base and competition between municipalities
that gravely limits their effective bargaining power. In a free trade, open borders world, I can
see the same thing happening at the national scale, forcing whole countries to compete with one
another for jobs and labor and hastening the rate of neo-colonial resource plundering.
My worst case scenario is something like this. Lets say a fairly small - but not necessarily
tiny - country like Uruguay adopts global open borders. A little while later, they make the shocking
discovery that they're sitting on some of the largest reserves of, oh let's say, rare earth metals
in the world.
Now, these metals are incredibly valuable so getting the capital to open mines and ore processing
centers isn't a problem, the bigger issue is that Uruguay only has 3.4 million people, most of
whom already have jobs, so the tens of thousands of employees needed to build the new mining industry
will mostly be coming from elsewhere (or the mining companies will start by hiring Uruguayanos,
but then they'll need migrants to fill the jobs the natives vacated). It doesn't stop there though,
because the great new mining industry will produce secondary industries such as cell phone manufacturing,
service jobs for the growing population, construction jobs to expand the national infrastructure,
and on and on and on. These jobs bring in new migrants, who help grow the economy, and attract
new migrants in a feedback loop that only ends when the bubble bursts or wages collapse.
How big
does Uruguay get before the boom goes bust? Does it double in size? Triple? Does Montevideo become
one of the biggest cities in South America, with sprawling, polluted, slums to match? What happens
to the reasonably stable, reasonably prosperous, reasonably progressive little country that was
there before? Would Uruguay still be Uruguay at that point?
Poor former farmers that move to big cities typically wont drive cars, wont handle big industrial
manichery and will only heat /cool tiny living spaces. So they are probably not a significant
factor for the environmental issues in say big Chinese cities.
"Cities as we know them (and their accompanying social maladies) are really only two
or three centuries old".
No. Ancient Rome had a population of 750,000-1,000,000, based almost
entirely on migrants, and more than large enough to create any number of social maladies; at least
five other cities in Mediterranean with populations in the hundreds of thousands; series of cities
in China with populations similar to Rome.
Evidence suggests significant levels of mobility, not
just for elite. I don't think this necessarily has any bearing on the modern situation (capitalism,
technology, yadda yadda), but certainly the historical evidence doesn't support your implied "large-scale
migration is unnatural" thesis.
What a daft question. When did the 'model' Uruguay exist, the one that we are supposed to preserve
for all eternity? Now? Before the Uruguayan nation-state was formed? Before Columbus?
The irony is that the effort needed to prevent change would in all likelihood just lead to
other changes of a more dysfunctional nature.
engels 12.23.16 at 12:21 pm
OT and possibly an ignorant question but does anyone know of any meaningful national or cultural
difference between Uruguay and Argentina?
Factor endowments equals they have poor people for cheap labor and we have rich people who create,
consume and finance and the origins of the difference is like shrouded in mystery?
John Smith of WLGR is Marxian. Apples profits are generated by the workers at Foxconn in China,
not the designers in San Jose. The surplus accruing to intellectual property is mostly a product
of past and present Imperialism.
Chris – maybe it's silly, but, if my work on immigration has tried to show anything at all, it's
that to make a contribution on the subject, it's important to get the facts right, not make assumptions
about movement we know are not true (people will move to where they get the best return on their
skills, etc.), not assume away other difficulties, and not blur cases together through hand-waiving
("vast numbers", "relationships", etc.) All of that's done here, and even more so in the paper
under discussion. I find it really annoying. Maybe I shouldn't let it bother me, but it seems
to me to be typical "assume a can-opener" level of discussion, at the very best, and not helpful.
By the way, at least according to Wikipedia, there are 830,000 Poles in the UK_ so well south
of a million still. It's a lot, but, lots less than, say, the 2.9 million Russian-born people
in the US, a population I'm very familiar with, so I don't really need the lecture here.
You're right, of course. I recognize now that my argument was a bit fuzzy and verges into begging
the question ("Modern cities, as I've chosen to define them, only existed under capitalism,
therefore
urban dysfunction is all capitalism's fault, QED, etc."). "Bigger than Cleveland" is not a universal
definition of what a city is and I shouldn't have treated it as one.
I'm not trying to say massive migration was unnatural though. I'm of the opinion that anything
humans do is natural, if that helps. Nor do I think migration, even of the large-scale variety
is wrong , but rather that it can be immensely harmful if there are no systems in place
to mitigate its social and environmental effects. So discussing policy that would tear down all
political barriers to migration as if it were mainly an issue of wages and productivity struck
me as reductive. Even on purely economic terms, the way migration contributes to urban sprawl
outpacing infrastructure is a huge issue that I frequently see overlooked.
@Igor 41:
I'm not arguing against change, but rather change that comes so quickly it creates a schism between
the past and the present. The Gold Rush changed California from predominantly Spanish-speaking
to majority Anglo in just a few years (and also killed tens of thousands of Indians in the process),
so even if a place still has the same name following migration, it might not be pronounced the
same way.
engels 12.23.16 at 3:32 pm
Also would be interesting to see numbers on marriages to foreign nationals by country-a quick
google didn't turn it up.
@engels – pretty sure that this is because the stats don't exist for many countries. The British
government simply has no idea how many of its nationals are married to EU nationals (at least
for England and Wales, there may be some record-keeping in Scotland).
@47. The UK has no idea how many EU citizens are here full stop. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia.
The 2001 UK Census recorded 36,555 Portuguese-born people resident in the UK. More recent
estimates by the Office for National Statistics put the figure at 107,000 in 2013. The 2011 Census
recorded 88,161 Portuguese-born residents in England and Wales. The censuses of Scotland and Northern
Ireland recorded 1,908 and 1,996 Portuguese-born residents respectively. Other sources estimate
the Portuguese community to be larger, with the editor of a Portuguese-language newspaper putting
the number of Portuguese passport holders in London alone at 350,000. According to academics José
Carlos Pina Almeida and David Corkill, writing in 2010, estimates of the Portuguese population
of the UK range from 80,000 to 700,000.
I mention it because informal information from someone at the embassy puts the number closer
to 1 million. Many of them well have been born here. But nevertheless the point is that the estimates
are all over the place.
Again, its not necessarily a good or a bad thing, but as a scientist with a bit of a measurement
fixation I find the fact that no-one has any idea to be quite disturbing.
engels 12.23.16 at 8:31 pm
E.g. on US vs Europe:
"4.6% of Americans were married to a foreigner in 2010, up from 2.4% in 1970"
"in France the proportion of international marriage rose from about 10% in 1996 to 16% in 2009.
In Germany, the rise is a little lower, from 11.3% in 1990 to 13.7% in 2010.
Some smaller countries
have much higher levels. Nearly half the marriages in Switzerland are international ones, up from
a third in 1990.
Around one in five marriages in Sweden, Belgium and Austria involves a foreign
partner"
"... Democratic party under Bill Clinton became yet another neoliberal party (soft neoliberals) and betrayed both organized labour and middle class in favour of financial oligarchy. ..."
"... The cynical calculation was that "they have nowhere to go" and will vote for Democrats anyway. And that was true up to and including election of "change we can believe in" guy. After this attempt of yet another Clinton-style "bait and switch" trick failed. ..."
"... Now it is clear that far right picked up large part of those votes. So in a way Bill Clinton is the godfather of the US far right renaissances. The same is true for Hillary: her "kick the can down the road" stance made victory of Trump possible (although it surprised me; I expected that neoliberals were still strong enough to push their candidate down the US people throat) ..."
"... Under "democrat" Obama the USA pursued imperial policy of creating global neoliberal empire. The foreign policy remained essentially unchanged. Neocons were partially replaced with "liberal interventionists" which is the same staff in a different bottle. This policy costs the US tremendous amount of money and it is probable that the US is going the way British empire went -- overextending itself. ..."
"... Regional currency blocks are now a reality and arrangements bypass the usage of US dollar if international trade are common. They are now in place between several large countries such as Russia and China and absolutely nothing can reverse this trend. So dollar became virtualized -- a kind of "conversion gauge" but without profits for real conversion national currency to dollars for major TBTF banks. ..."
This Washington Post article on Poland - where a right-wing, anti-intellectual, nativist party
now rules, and has garnered a lot of public support - is chilling for those of us who worry that
Trump_vs_deep_state may really be the end of the road for US democracy. The supporters of Law and Justice
clearly looked a lot like Trump's white working class enthusiasts; so are we headed down the same
path?
(In Poland, a window on what happens when
populists come to power http://wpo.st/aHJO2
Washington Post - Anthony Faiola - December 18)
Well, there's an important difference - a bit of American exceptionalism, if you like. Europe's
populist parties are actually populist; they pursue policies that really do help workers, as long
as those workers are the right color and ethnicity. As someone put it, they're selling a herrenvolk
welfare state. Law and Justice has raised minimum wages and reduced the retirement age; France's
National Front advocates the same things.
Trump, however, is different. He said lots of things on the campaign trail, but his personnel
choices indicate that in practice he's going to be a standard hard-line economic-right Republican.
His Congressional allies are revving up to dismantle Obamacare, privatize Medicare, and raise
the retirement age. His pick for Labor Secretary is a fast-food tycoon
who loathes minimum wage hikes. And his pick for top economic advisor is the king of trickle-down.
So in what sense is Trump a populist? Basically, he plays one on TV - he claims to stand for
the common man, disparages elites, trashes political correctness; but it's all for show. When
it comes to substance, he's pro-elite all the way.
It's infuriating and dismaying that he managed to get away with this in the election. But that
was all big talk. What happens when reality begins to hit? Repealing Obamacare will inflict huge
harm on precisely the people who were most enthusiastic Trump supporters - people who somehow
believed that their benefits would be left intact. What happens when they realize their mistake?
I wish I were confident in a coming moment of truth. I'm not. Given history, what we can count
on is a massive effort to spin the coming working-class devastation as somehow being the fault
of liberals, and for all I know it might work. (Think of how Britain's Tories managed to shift
blame for austerity onto Labour's mythical fiscal irresponsibility.) But there is certainly an
opportunity for Democrats coming.
And the indicated political strategy is clear: make Trump and company own all the hardship
they're about to inflict. No cooperation in devising an Obamacare replacement; no votes for Medicare
privatization and increasing the retirement age. No bipartisan cover for the end of the TV illusion
and the coming of plain old, ugly reality.
Democratic party under Bill Clinton became yet another neoliberal party (soft neoliberals)
and betrayed both organized labour and middle class in favour of financial oligarchy.
The cynical calculation was that "they have nowhere to go" and will vote for Democrats
anyway. And that was true up to and including election of "change we can believe in" guy. After
this attempt of yet another Clinton-style "bait and switch" trick failed.
Now it is clear that far right picked up large part of those votes. So in a way Bill Clinton
is the godfather of the US far right renaissances. The same is true for Hillary: her "kick the
can down the road" stance made victory of Trump possible (although it surprised me; I expected
that neoliberals were still strong enough to push their candidate down the US people throat)
Point 2:
Under "democrat" Obama the USA pursued imperial policy of creating global neoliberal empire.
The foreign policy remained essentially unchanged. Neocons were partially replaced with "liberal
interventionists" which is the same staff in a different bottle. This policy costs the US tremendous
amount of money and it is probable that the US is going the way British empire went -- overextending
itself.
Regional currency blocks are now a reality and arrangements bypass the usage of US dollar
if international trade are common. They are now in place between several large countries such
as Russia and China and absolutely nothing can reverse this trend. So dollar became virtualized
-- a kind of "conversion gauge" but without profits for real conversion national currency to dollars
for major TBTF banks.
So if we think about Iraq war as the way to prevent to use euro as alternative to dollar in
oil sales that goal was not achieved and all blood and treasure were wasted.
In this sense it would be difficult to Trump to continue with "bastard neoliberalism" both
in foreign policy and domestically and betray his election promises because they reflected real
problems facing the USA and are the cornerstone of his political support.
Also in this case neocons establishment will simply get rid of him one way or the other. I
hope that he understand this danger and will avoid trimming Social Security.
Returning to Democratic Party betrayal of interests of labour, Krugman hissy fit signifies
that he does not understand the current political situation. Neoliberal wing of Democratic Party
is now bankrupt both morally and politically. Trump election was the last nail into Bill Clinton
political legacy coffin.
Now we returned to essentially the same political process that took place after the Great Depression,
with much weaker political leaders, this time. So this is the time for stronger, more interventionist
in internal policy state and the suppression of financial oligarchy. If Trump does not understand
this he is probably doomed and will not last long.
That's why I think Trump inspired far right renaissance will continue and the political role
of military might dramatically increase. And politically Trump is the hostage of this renaissance.
Flint appointment in this sense is just the first swallow of increased role of military leaders
in government.
"... the newly elected US president, Donald Trump, is a big question mark, especially concerning the US foreign policy. First of all, we must not forget that Trump is part of the US plutocracy, therefore, he will seek to defend the interests of his class, no matter how much the Right-Wing fanatics want to present him as an 'anti-establishment' figure. ..."
"... The only hope we have, is that Trump will reject the neocon policy and try to build a different relation with the oncoming rival economic alliance of BRICS, based on mutual benefits for both the developing countries and the West. ..."
"... We have to assume, of course, a very ideal situation in which Trump will be capable to surpass the pressure of the warmongering neocons and the deep state who run the US empire for decades, in contrast with Hillary Clinton, who would be more than willing to apply their agenda. ..."
"... The US is using the dollar superiority to retain its vast military expenses, conduct wars and secure oil reserves. It feels that it must confront the Chinese economic expansionism, otherwise dollar monopoly will break and a vicious circle will start in which the US declining empire will be finding more and more difficult to be the number one global power. ..."
"... Well, it seems that Donald is following such an approach! He appears to be conciliatory concerning Putin, but continuously provokes the Chinese! ..."
As
John Pilger describes in his new
documentary
The
Coming War on China
,
the "threat of China" is becoming big
news. The media is beating the drums
of war, as the world is being primed
to regard China as the new enemy.
What is not news, is that China
itself is under threat. A quick look
at the map of the American military
bases in Asia-Pacific, is adequate
for someone to understand that they
form a giant noose, encircling China
with missiles, bombers, warships.
It is
quite clear that the Western
plutocracy is changing the agenda
because it sees that the Sino-Russian
alliance is trying to build an
independent block which could become
a serious threat against the dollar
domination, and therefore, the
neoliberal model, through which the
elites are hoping to establish their
global supremacy.
Many support that
the newly elected US president,
Donald Trump, is a big question mark,
especially concerning the US foreign
policy. First of all, we must not
forget that Trump is part of the US
plutocracy, therefore, he will seek
to defend the interests of his class,
no matter how much the Right-Wing
fanatics want to present him as an
'anti-establishment' figure.
You
don't need to go too far on this.
Just take a look at
those who has appointed in key
positions to run the economy
and you will understand that Trump
will not only do 'business as usual',
but indeed, he will seek to secure
the domination of the plutocracy, by
expanding the destructive neoliberal
agenda against the interests of the
US working class.
The only hope we have, is that Trump
will reject the neocon policy and try
to build a different relation with
the oncoming rival economic alliance
of BRICS, based on mutual benefits
for both the developing countries and
the West.
We have to assume, of course, a
very ideal situation in which Trump
will be capable to surpass the
pressure of the warmongering neocons
and the deep state who run the US
empire for decades, in contrast with
Hillary Clinton, who would be more
than willing to apply their agenda.
While
it seems that, he does want a smooth
re-approach with Russia, the signals
he sends concerning China, long
before he get elected, are not to be
taken as a conciliatory approach,
without doubt.
The US is using the dollar
superiority to retain its vast
military expenses, conduct wars and
secure oil reserves. It feels that it
must confront the Chinese economic
expansionism, otherwise dollar
monopoly will break and a vicious
circle will start in which the US
declining empire will be finding more
and more difficult to be the number
one global power.
What
would be the 'right approach' for the
neocons who are running out of time
in this brutal race? It would be,
probably, to focus primarily on
China, which is indeed the biggest
economic threat, but doesn't have the
military power (like Russia) to
confront the US. A scenario would be
that the US starts a war that ends
quickly, changes the regime in China,
put its puppet, and probably, break
China (as they want to do with
Russia), using disputed provinces as
a pretext (e.g. Tibet, Xinjiang).
Having also encircled Russia from
Europe, the US will bet on the fact
that the Russians will not react, as
they will be occupied to maintain
forces on their Western borders.
Well, it seems that Donald is
following such an approach! He
appears to be conciliatory concerning
Putin, but continuously provokes the
Chinese!
Everything shows that
Trump is determined to continue the
Obama 'Pivot to Asia' anti-China
legacy, but this would be also his
biggest mistake.
Forget for a moment that the Chinese
continuously upgrade their military
forces, as well as, their nuclear
arsenal, partly because of the stupid
neocon policy, adopted by Obama, that
makes them feel directly threatened
and quite nervous. Forget that in the
area there is a North Korea that no
one knows what it can do and how far
it will go with its nukes, if only
would "smell" a coalition of US-led
forces that are about to operate
close to its territory.
If
Trump thinks that Putin will sit back
and watch this happening, he is
completely mistaken. Apart from the
fact that Russia and China are
committed by the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), which is
expanding on security and defence
issues
, Putin
knows that, if China falls, Russia
will be next. Therefore, it would be
a major mistake for Trump to obey to
the lunatic neocon plans because the
gates of hell towards WWIII will be
opened for good.
A leaked communication between the Trump transition team's Undersecretary of Defense for
policy Brian McKeon, and the Pentagon, has revealed the four biggest defense priorities for
the president-elect. Among the top four items listed in the memo from are: 1) developing a
strategy to defeat/destroy ISIS; 2) build a strong defense by eliminating budget caps/the
sequester, 3) develop a comprehensive cyber strategy, and 4) eliminate wasteful spending by
finding greater efficiencies.
The list was communicated to McKeon by Mira Ricardel, one
of the leaders of Trump's Pentagon transition team, according to the memo obtained by
Foreign Policy
magazine and published Tuesday.
One can only hope, based on the crumpled appearance of the leaked memo,
that it was smuggled out by this year's Fawn Hall stuffed in her
unmentionables.
"... Only John F. Kennedy directly challenged it, firing CIA Director Allen Dulles after the Bay of Pigs disaster. He was assassinated, and whether or not CIA involvement is ever conclusively proven, the allegations have been useful to the agency, keeping politicians in line. The Deep State also co-opted the media, keeping it in line with a combination of fear and favor. ..."
"... Why has the US been involved in long, costly, bloody, and inconclusive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? ..."
"... Why should the US get involved in similar conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and other Middle Eastern and Northern African hotspots? ..."
"... Isn't such involvement responsible for blowback terrorism and refugee flows in both Europe and the US? ..."
"... Have "free trade" agreements and porous borders been a net benefit or detriment to the US? Why is the banking industry set up for periodic crises that inevitably require government bail-outs? ..."
"... How has encouraging debt and speculation at the expense of savings and investment helped the US economy? ..."
"... The shenanigans in the US after Trump's election-violent protests, hysterical outbursts, the vote recount effort, the proof-free Russian hacking allegations, "fake news," and the attempt to sway electoral college electors-are the desperate screams of those trapped inside. ..."
"... Regrettably, the building analogy is imperfect, because it implies that those inside are helpless and that the collapse will only harm them. In its desperation, incompetence, and corrupt nihilism, the Deep State can wreak all sorts of havoc, up to and including the destruction of humanity. Trump represents an opportunity to strike a blow against the Deep State, but the chances it will be lethal are minimal and the dangers obvious. ..."
The pathetic attempts to undo Donald Trump's victory are signs of desperation, not strength, in
the Deep State.
The post World War II consensus held that the USSR's long-term goal was world domination. That
assessment solidified after the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb in 1949. A nuclear arms race, a
space race, maintenance of a globe-spanning military, political, and economic confederation, and
a huge expansion of the size and power of the military and intelligence complex were justified by
the Soviet, and later, the Red Chinese threats. Countering those threats led the US to use many of
the same amoral tactics that it deplored when used by its enemies: espionage, subversion, bribery,
repression, assassination, regime change, and direct and proxy warfare.
Scorning principles of limited government, non-intervention in other nations' affairs, and individual
rights, the Deep State embraced the anti-freedom mindset of its purported enemies, not just towards
those enemies, but toward allies and the American people. The Deep State gradually assumed control
of the government and elected officials were expected to adhere to its policies and promote its propaganda.
Only John F. Kennedy directly challenged it, firing CIA Director Allen Dulles after the Bay of
Pigs disaster. He was assassinated, and whether or not CIA involvement is ever conclusively proven,
the allegations have been useful to the agency, keeping politicians in line. The Deep State also
co-opted the media, keeping it in line with a combination of fear and favor.
Since its ascension in the 1950s, the biggest threat to the Deep State has not been its many and
manifest failures, but rather what the naive would regard as its biggest success: the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1991. Much of the military-industrial complex was suddenly deprived of its reason
for existence-the threat was gone. However, a more subtle point was lost.
The Soviet Union has been the largest of statism's many failures to date. Because of the Deep
State's philosophical blinders, that outcome was generally unforeseen. The command and control philosophy
at the heart of Soviet communism was merely a variant on the same philosophy espoused and practiced
by the Deep State. Like the commissars, its members believe that "ordinary" people are unable to
handle freedom, and that their generalized superiority entitles them to wield the coercive power
of government.
With "irresponsible" elements talking of peace dividends and scaling back the military and the
intelligence agencies, the complex was sorely in need of a new enemy . Islam suffers the same critical
flaw as communism-command and control-and has numerous other deficiencies, including intolerance,
repression, and the legal subjugation of half its adherents. The Deep State had to focus on the world
conquest ideology of some Muslims to even conjure Islam as a plausible foe. However, unlike the USSR,
they couldn't claim that sect and faction-ridden Islam posed a monolithic threat, that the Islamic
nations were an empire or a federation united towards a common goal, or that their armaments (there
are under thirty nuclear weapons in the one Islamic nation, Pakistan, that has them) could destroy
the US or the entire planet.
There was too much money and power at stake for the complex to shrink. While on paper Islam appeared
far weaker than communism, the complex had one factor in their favor: terrorism is terrifying. In
the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans surrendered liberties and gave the Deep State carte blanche
to fight a war on terrorism that would span the globe, target all those whom the government identified
as terrorists, and never be conclusively won or lost. Funding for the complex ballooned, the military
was deployed on multiple fronts, and the surveillance state blossomed. Most of those who might have
objected were bought off with expanded welfare state funding and programs (e.g. George W. Bush's
prescription drug benefit, Obamacare).
What would prove to be the biggest challenge to the centralization and the power of the Deep State
came, unheralded, with the invention of the microchip in the late 1950s. The Deep State could not
have exercised the power it has without a powerful grip on information flow and popular perception.
The microchip led to widespread distribution of cheap computing power and dissemination of information
over the decentralized Internet. This dynamic, organically adaptive decentralization has been the
antithesis of the command-and-control Deep State, which now realizes the gravity of the threat. Fortunately,
countering these technologies has been like trying to eradicate hordes of locusts.
The gravest threat, however, to the Deep State is self-imposed: it's own incompetence. Even the
technologically illiterate can ask questions for which it has no answers.
Why has the US been involved in long, costly, bloody, and inconclusive wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq?
Why should the US get involved in similar conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iran,
and other Middle Eastern and Northern African hotspots?
Isn't such involvement responsible for blowback terrorism and refugee flows in both
Europe and the US?
Have "free trade" agreements and porous borders been a net benefit or detriment to the
US? Why is the banking industry set up for periodic crises that inevitably require government
bail-outs? (SLL claims no special insight into the nexus between the banking-financial sector
and the Deep State, other than to note that there is one.) Why does every debt crisis result in
more debt?
How has encouraging debt and speculation at the expense of savings and investment helped
the US economy?
The Deep State can't answer or even acknowledge these questions because they all touch on its
failures.
Brexit, Donald Trump, other populist, nationalist movements catching fire, and the rise of the
alternative media are wrecking balls aimed at an already structurally unsound and teetering building
that would eventually collapse on its own. The shenanigans in the US after Trump's election-violent
protests, hysterical outbursts, the vote recount effort, the proof-free Russian hacking allegations,
"fake news," and the attempt to sway electoral college electors-are the desperate screams of those
trapped inside.
Regrettably, the building analogy is imperfect, because it implies that those inside are helpless
and that the collapse will only harm them. In its desperation, incompetence, and corrupt nihilism,
the Deep State can wreak all sorts of havoc, up to and including the destruction of humanity. Trump
represents an opportunity to strike a blow against the Deep State, but the chances it will be lethal
are minimal and the dangers obvious.
The euphoria over his victory cannot obscure a potential consequence: it may hasten and amplify
the destruction and resultant chaos when the Deep State finally topples . Anyone who thinks Trump's
victory sounds an all clear is allowing hope to triumph over experience and what should have been
hard-won wisdom.
"War on Terror" + "Refugee Humanitarian Crisis" =European Clusterfuck
Or
"War on Drugs" + "Afghan Opium/Nicaraguan Cocaine" =Police State America
Both hands (Left/Right) to crush Liberty
Mano-A-Mano -> Cheka_Mate •Dec 22, 2016 8:54 PM
The DEEP STATE pretends they hate Trump, gets him in office, hoodwinks the sheeple into
believing they voted for him, while they still retain control.
Voila!
TeamDepends -> unrulian •Dec 22, 2016 8:55 PM
Remember the Maine! Remember the Lusitania! Remember the USS Liberty! Remember the Gulf of
Tonkin! Never forget.
Withdrawn Sanction •Dec 22, 2016 8:52 PM
"In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans surrendered liberties and gave the Deep State
carte blanche..."
What a load of crap. The Deep State CAUSED 9/11 and then STOLE Americans' liberties.
StraightLineLogic: Linear thinker, indeed.
WTFUD •Dec 22, 2016 8:56 PM
Shakespeare would have had a field-day with this Material; Comic Tragedy!
BadDog •Dec 22, 2016 9:00 PM
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
red1chief •Dec 22, 2016 9:09 PM
Funny how a guy loading up his administration with Vampire Squids is thought to be disliked
by the Deep State. Deep State psy ops never ceases to amaze.
"... Democracy is inevitably going to clash with the demands of Globalization as they are opposite. Globalization requires entrepreneurs to search cheaper means of production worldwide. ..."
"... In practice, this means moving capital out of the USA. ..."
"... To put it in Marxist terms the interests of American society to survive and prosper came into contradiction with the interests of capitalism as a system of production and with the capitalists as a class who has no homeland, and for whom homeland is where it is easier to make money. ..."
"... American capitalism from its very beginning was based on the assumption that what was good for business was good for America. Until 1929 it more or less worked. The robber barons were robbing other entrepreneurs and workers but at least they reinvested their ill gained profits in America. The crash of 1929 showed that the interests of Big Banks clashed with the interest of American society with devastating results. ..."
"... The decades after WWII have seen a slow and steady erosion of American superiority in technology and productivity and slow and steady flight of capital from the USA. Globalization has been undermining America. From the point of view of Global prosperity if it is cheaper to produce in China, production should relocate to China. From the point of view of American worker, this is treason, a policy destroying the United States as an industrial power, as a nation, and as a community of citizens. Donald Trump is the first top ranking politician who has realized this simple fact. The vote for Donald Trump has been a protest against Globalization, immigration, open borders, capital flight, multiculturalism, liberalism and all the values American Liberal establishment has been preaching for 60 years that are killing the USA. ..."
"... Donald Trump wants to arrest the assault of Globalization on America. He promised to reduce taxes, and to attract business back to the USA. However, reduced taxes are only one ingredient in incentives. For businesses to stay or come back to the US, companies must have educated labor force, steady supply of talented, well-educated young people, excellent schools, and safe neighborhoods, among other things. As of now most of these preconditions are missing. ..."
"... Dr. Brovkin is a historian, formerly a Harvard Professor of History. He has published several books and numerous articles on Russian History and Politics. Currently, Dr. Brovkin works and lives in Marrakech, Morocco. ..."
"... This is an interesting question: is it possible to contain neoliberal globalization by building walls, rejecting 'trade' agreement, and so on. I get the feeling that a direct attack may not work. Water will find a way, as they say. With a direct attack against globalization, what you're likely to face is major capital flight. ..."
In his election campaign Donald Trump has identified several key themes that defined American malaise.
He pointed to capital flight, bad trade deals, illegal immigration, and corruption of the government
and of the press. What is missing in Trump's diagnosis though is an explanation of this crisis. What
are the causes of American decline or as Ross Pero used to say: Let's look under the hood.
Most of the challenges America faces today have to do with two processes we call Globalization
and Sovietization. By Globalization we mean a process of externalizing American business thanks to
the doctrine of Free trade which has been up to now the Gospel of the establishment. By Sovietization
we mean a process of slow expansion of the role of the government in economy, education, business,
military, press, virtually any and every aspect of politics and society.
Let us start with Globalization.
Dani Rodrick (
The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy) has argued that
it is impossible to have democracy and globalization at the same time. Democracy is inevitably
going to clash with the demands of Globalization as they are opposite. Globalization requires entrepreneurs
to search cheaper means of production worldwide.
In practice, this means moving capital out of the USA. For fifty years economists have
been preaching Free trade, meaning that free unimpeded, no tariffs trade is good for America. And
it was in the 1950s, 60s and 1970s that American products were cheaper or better than those overseas.
Beginning with the 1970s, the process reversed. Globalization enriched the capitalists and impoverished
the rest of Americans. To put it in Marxist terms the interests of American society to survive
and prosper came into contradiction with the interests of capitalism as a system of production and
with the capitalists as a class who has no homeland, and for whom homeland is where it is easier
to make money.
American capitalism from its very beginning was based on the assumption that what was good
for business was good for America. Until 1929 it more or less worked. The robber barons were robbing
other entrepreneurs and workers but at least they reinvested their ill gained profits in America.
The crash of 1929 showed that the interests of Big Banks clashed with the interest of American society
with devastating results.
The decades after WWII have seen a slow and steady erosion of American superiority in technology
and productivity and slow and steady flight of capital from the USA. Globalization has been undermining
America. From the point of view of Global prosperity if it is cheaper to produce in China, production
should relocate to China. From the point of view of American worker, this is treason, a policy destroying
the United States as an industrial power, as a nation, and as a community of citizens. Donald Trump
is the first top ranking politician who has realized this simple fact. The vote for Donald Trump
has been a protest against Globalization, immigration, open borders, capital flight, multiculturalism,
liberalism and all the values American Liberal establishment has been preaching for 60 years that
are killing the USA.
Donald Trump wants to arrest the assault of Globalization on America. He promised to reduce
taxes, and to attract business back to the USA. However, reduced taxes are only one ingredient in
incentives. For businesses to stay or come back to the US, companies must have educated labor force,
steady supply of talented, well-educated young people, excellent schools, and safe neighborhoods,
among other things. As of now most of these preconditions are missing.
To fight Globalization Donald Trump announced in his agenda to drop or renegotiate NAFTA and TPP.
That is a step in the right direction. However, this will not be easy. There are powerful vested
interests in making money overseas that will put up great resistance to America first policy. They
have powerful lobbies and votes in the Congress and it is by far not certain if Trump will succeed
in overcoming their opposition.
Another step along these lines of fighting Globalization is the proposed building of the Wall
on Mexican border. That too may or may not work. Powerful agricultural interests in California have
a vested interest in easy and cheap labor force made up of illegal migrants. If their supply is cut
off they are going to hike up the prices on agricultural goods that may lead to inflation or higher
consumer prices for the American workers.
... ... ...
The Military: Americans are told they have a best military in the world. In fact, it is not the
best but the most expensive one in the world. According to the National priorities Project, in fiscal
2015 the military spending amounted to 54% of the discretionary spending in the
amount of 598.5 billion dollars . Of those almost 200 billion dollars goes for operations and
maintenance, 135 billion for military personnel and 90 billion for procurement (see
Here is How the US Military Spends its Billions )
American military industrial complex spends more that the next seven runners up combined. It is
a Sovietized, bureaucratic structure that exists and thrives on internal deals behind closed doors,
procurement process closed to public scrutiny, wasted funds on consultants, kickbacks, and outrageous
prices for military hardware. Specific investigations of fraud do not surface too often. Yet for
example, DoD Inspector General reported:
Why is it that an F35 fighter jet should cost 135 million apiece and the Russian SU 35 that can
do similar things is sold for 35 million dollars and produced for 15 million? The answer is that
the Congress operates on a principle that any price the military asks is good enough. The entire
system of military procurement has to be scrapped. It is a source of billions of stolen and wasted
dollars. The Pentagon budget of half a trillion a year is a drain on the economy that is unsustainable,
and what you get is not worth the money. The military industrial complex in America does not deliver
the best equipment or security it is supposed to.(on this see:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/cutting-waste-isnt-enough-curb-pentagon-spending-18640
)
Donald Trump was the first to his credit who raised the issue: Do we need all these bases overseas?
Do they really enhance American security? Or are they a waste of money for the benefit of other countries
who take America for a free ride. Why indeed should the US pay for the defense of Japan? Is Japan
a poor country that cannot afford to defend itself? Defense commitments like those expose America
to unnecessary confrontations and risk of war over issues that have nothing to do with America's
interests. Is it worth it to fight China over some uninhabitable islands that Japan claims? (See
discussion:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/should-the-us-continue-guarantee-the-security-wealthy-states-17720
)
Similarly, Trump is the first one to raise the question: What is the purpose of NATO? ( see discussion
of NATO utility:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/will-president-trump-renegotiate-the-nato-treaty-18647
) Yes the Liberal pro-Clinton media answer is: to defend Europe from Russian aggression. But
really what aggression? If the Russians wanted to they could have taken Kiev in a day two years ago.
Instead, they put up with the most virulently hostile regime in Kiev. Let us ask ourselves would
we have put up with a virulently anti-American regime in Mexico, a regime that would have announced
its intention to conclude a military alliance with China or Russia? Were we not ready to go to nuclear
war over Soviet missiles in Cuba? If we would not have accepted such a regime in Mexico, why do we
complain that the Russians took action against the new regime in Ukraine. Oh yes, they took Crimea.
But the population there is Russian, and until 1954 it was Russian territory and after Ukrainian
independence the Russians did not raise the issue of Crimea as Ukrainian territory and paid rent
for their naval base there The Russians took it over only when a hostile regime clamoring for NATO
membership settled in Kiev. Does that constitute Russian aggression or actually Russian limited response
to a hostile act? (see on this Steven Cohen:
http://eastwestaccord.com/podcast-stephen-f-cohen-talks-russia-israel-middle-east-diplomacy-steele-unger/
) As I have argued elsewhere Putin has been under tremendous pressure to act more decisively
against the neo-Nazis in Kiev. (see Vlad Brovkin: On Russian Assertiveness in Foreign Policy. (
http://eastwestaccord.com/?s=brovkin&submit=Search
)
With a little bit of patience and good will a compromise is possible on Ukraine through Minsk
accords. Moreover, Ukraine is not in NATO and as long as it is not admitted to NATO, a deal with
the Russians on Ukraine is feasible. Just like so many other pro-American governments, Ukraine wants
to milk Uncle Sam for what it is worth. They expect to be paid for being anti/Russian. (See discussion
on need of enemy:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/does-america-need-enemy-18106
) Would it not be a better policy to let Ukraine know that they are on their own: no more subsidies,
no more payments? Mend your relations with Russia yourselves. Then peace would immediately prevail.
If we admit that there is no Russian aggression and that this myth was propagated by the Neo/Cons
with the specific purpose to return to the paradigm of the cold war, i.e. more money for the military
industrial complex, if we start thinking boldly as Trump has begun, we should say to the Europeans:
go ahead, build your own European army to allay your fears of the Russians. Europe is strong enough,
rich enough and united enough to take care of its defense without American assistance. (See discussion
of Trumps agenda:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/course-correction-18062
)
So, if Trump restructures procurement mess, reduces the number of military bases overseas, and
invests in high tech research and development for the military on the basis of real competition,
hundreds of billions of dollars could be saved and the defense capability of the country would increase.
... ... ...
Dr. Brovkin is a historian, formerly a Harvard Professor of History. He has published several
books and numerous articles on Russian History and Politics. Currently, Dr. Brovkin works and lives
in Marrakech, Morocco.
This is a bit too much, Volodya. Maybe you should've taken one subject – globalization, for
example – and stop there.
This is an interesting question: is it possible to contain neoliberal globalization by
building walls, rejecting 'trade' agreement, and so on. I get the feeling that a direct attack
may not work. Water will find a way, as they say. With a direct attack against globalization,
what you're likely to face is major capital flight.
You might be able to make neoliberal globalization work for you (for your population, that
is), like Germany and the Scandinavians do, but that's a struggle, constant struggle. And it's
a competition; it will have to be done at the expense of other nations (see Greece, Portugal,
Central (eastern) Europe). And having an anti-neoliberal president is not enough; this would require
a major change, almost a U turn, in the whole governing philosophy. Forget the sanctity of 'free
market', start worshiping the new god: national interest
What an INTERESTING article -- So much that is right, so much that is wrong. An article you
can get your teeth into.
On globalisation: pretty spot-on (although I believe he exaggerates the US weakness in what he
calls "preconditions": there are still many well educated Americans, still good neighborhoods
(yes, sure it could be a lot better). He's against NAFTA & other neoliberal Trade self indulgences.
But then we come to his concept of "Sovietization" of the US. Perhaps it's mere semantics, but
I find the concept incoherent & suspiciously adapted to deliberately agitate US conservatives.
Example: "huge sectors of American economy are not private at all, that in fact they have been
slowly taken over by an ever growing state ownership and control"
This is nonsense on its face: the government spews out trillions to private actors to provide
goods & services. It does so, in part, because it has systematically privatized every government
function capable of returning a profit. The author can't see the actor behind the mask: how much
legislation is now written by & for the benefit of private interests ? (Obama care, Bush pharmaceutical
laws ?)
Of course, the author is correct on the US military-industrial complex: it is a sump of crime
& corruption. Yet he seems not to grasp that the problem is regulative capture. How is the Fiasco
of the F35 & MacDonald Douglas merely an issue for the Legislature alone & how does this circus
resemble the Soviet Union, beyond the fact that BOTH systems (like most systems) are capable of
gross negligence & corruption ?
I like what the author says about NATO, Japan, bases etc. Although he's a little naive if he
thinks NATO for instance is about "protecting" Europe. Yes, that's a part of it: but primarily
NATO etc exist as a tool/mask behind which the US can exert it's imperial ambitions against friend
& for alike.
The author does go off against welfare well that's to be expected: sadly I don't think he quite
gets the connection between globalisation & welfare .He also legitimately goes after tertiary
education, but seems to be (again) confused as to cause & effect.
The author is completely spot on with his sovietization analogy when he comes to the US security
state. Only difference between the Soviets & the US on security totalitarianism ? The US is much
better at it (of course the US has technological advantages unimaginable to the Soviets)
• Replies:
@Randal I agree with you that it's a fascinating piece, and I also agree with many of the points
you agree with.
But then we come to his concept of "Sovietization" of the US. Perhaps it's mere semantics, but
I find the concept incoherent & suspiciously adapted to deliberately agitate US conservatives.
Example: "huge sectors of American economy are not private at all, that in fact they
have been slowly taken over by an ever growing state ownership and control"
This is nonsense on its face: the government spews out trillions to private actors to provide
goods & services. It does so, in part, because it has systematically privatized every government
function capable of returning a profit. The author can't see the actor behind the mask: how much
legislation is now written by & for the benefit of private interests ? (Obama care, Bush pharmaceutical
laws ?)
I think part of the problem here might be a mistaken focus on "the government" as an independent
actor, when in reality it is just a mechanism whereby the rulers (whether they are a dictator,
a political party or an oligarchy or whatever), and those with sufficient clout to influence them,
get things done the way they want to see them done.
As such there is really not much difference between the government directly employing the people
who do things (state socialism), and the government paying money to companies to get the same
things done. Either way, those who use the government to get things done, get to say what gets
done and how. There are differences of nuance, in terms of organizational strengths and weaknesses,
degrees of corruption and of efficiency, but fundamentally it's all big government.
A more interesting question might be - how really different are these big government variants
from the small government systems, in which the rulers pay people directly to get things done
the way they want them to be done?
An excellent article. The points that resonated the most were:
For businesses to stay or come back to the US, companies must have educated labor force,
steady supply of talented, well-educated young people, excellent schools, and safe neighborhoods,
among other things. As of now most of these preconditions are missing.
This is an enormously difficult problem that will take years to resolve, and it will need a
rethink of education from the ground up + the political will to fight the heart of Cultural Bolshevism
and the inevitable 24/7 Media assault.
Drain the swamp in Washington: ban the lobbyists, make it a crime to lobby for private interest
in a public place, restructure procurement, introduce real competition, restore capitalism,
phase out any government subsidies to Universities, force them to compete for students, force
hospitals to compete for patients. Cut cut cut expenditure everywhere possible, including welfare.
Banning lobbyists should be possible but draining the rest of the swamp looks really complicated.
Each area would need to be examined from the ground up from a value for money – efficiency viewpoint.
It doesn't matter which philosophy each one is run on – good value healthcare is desirable whichever
system produces it.
Could we have ever imagined in our worst dreams that a system of mass surveillance would
be created and perfected in the USA. (see discussion on this in: Surveillance State, in
http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/surveillance-state
This one should be easy. The Constitution guarantees a right to privacy so just shut down the
NSA. Also shut down the vast CIA mafia (it didn't exist prior to 1947) and the expensive and useless
FED (controlling the money supply isn't the business of a group of private banks – an office in
the Treasury could easily match the money supply to economic activity).
This one should be easy. The Constitution guarantees a right to privacy so just shut down the
NSA. Also shut down the vast CIA mafia (it didn't exist prior to 1947) and the expensive and useless
FED (controlling the money supply isn't the business of a group of private banks – an office in
the Treasury could easily match the money supply to economic activity).
From Unz, I have learned that the US actually has a four-part government: the "Deep State"
part which has no clear oversight from any of the other three branches.
To put it in Marxist terms the interests of American society to survive and prosper came
into contradiction with the interests of capitalism as a system of production and with the
capitalists as a class who has no homeland, and for whom homeland is where it is easier to
make money.
Another add-on contradiction, comrade, is that the selfsame capitalist class expect their host
nation to defend their interests whenever threatened abroad. This entails using the resources
derived from the masses to enforce this protection including using the little people as cannon
fodder when deemed useful.
Donald Trump is the first top ranking politician who has realized this simple fact.
Come now, do you really believe that all these politicians who have gone to these world-class
schools don't know this? They simply don't care. They're working on behalf of the .1% who are
their benefactors and who will make them rich. They did not go into politics to take vows of poverty.
They just realize the need to placate the masses with speeches written by professional speechwriters,
that's all.
Insofar as Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid goes, those are the most democratic institutions
of all. It's money spent on ourselves, internally, with money being cycled in and out at the grassroots
level. Doctors, nurses, home-care providers, etc etc, all local people get a piece of the action
unlike military spending which siphons money upwards to the upper classes.
I'd rather be employed in a government job than unemployed in the private sector. That's not
the kind of "freedom" I'm searching for comrade.
@animalogic What an INTERESTING article -- So much that is right, so much that is wrong. An
article you can get your teeth into.
On globalisation: pretty spot-on (although I believe he exaggerates the US weakness in what
he calls "preconditions": there are still many well educated Americans, still good neighborhoods
(yes, sure it could be a lot better). He's against NAFTA & other neoliberal Trade self indulgences.
But then we come to his concept of "Sovietization" of the US. Perhaps it's mere semantics, but
I find the concept... incoherent...& suspiciously adapted to deliberately agitate US conservatives.
Example: "huge sectors of American economy are not private at all, that in fact they
have been slowly taken over by an ever growing state ownership and control"
This is nonsense on its face: the government spews out trillions to private actors to provide
goods & services. It does so, in part, because it has systematically privatized every government
function capable of returning a profit. The author can't see the actor behind the mask: how much
legislation is now written by & for the benefit of private interests ? (Obama care, Bush pharmaceutical
laws ?)
Of course, the author is correct on the US military-industrial complex: it is a sump of crime
& corruption. Yet he seems not to grasp that the problem is regulative capture. How is the Fiasco
of the F35 & MacDonald Douglas merely an issue for the Legislature alone...& how does this circus
resemble the Soviet Union, beyond the fact that BOTH systems (like most systems) are capable of
gross negligence & corruption ?
I like what the author says about NATO, Japan, bases etc. Although he's a little naive if he
thinks NATO for instance is about "protecting" Europe. Yes, that's a part of it: but primarily
NATO etc exist as a tool/mask behind which the US can exert it's imperial ambitions ...against
friend & for alike.
The author does go off against welfare...well that's to be expected: sadly I don't think he quite
gets the connection between globalisation & welfare....He also legitimately goes after tertiary
education, but seems to be (again) confused as to cause & effect.
The author is completely spot on with his sovietization analogy when he comes to the US security
state. Only difference between the Soviets & the US on security totalitarianism ? The US is much
better at it (of course the US has technological advantages unimaginable to the Soviets)
I agree with you that it's a fascinating piece, and I also agree with many of the points you
agree with.
But then we come to his concept of "Sovietization" of the US. Perhaps it's mere semantics,
but I find the concept incoherent & suspiciously adapted to deliberately agitate US conservatives.
Example: "huge sectors of American economy are not private at all, that in fact they have been
slowly taken over by an ever growing state ownership and control"
This is nonsense on its face: the government spews out trillions to private actors to provide
goods & services. It does so, in part, because it has systematically privatized every government
function capable of returning a profit. The author can't see the actor behind the mask: how
much legislation is now written by & for the benefit of private interests ? (Obama care, Bush
pharmaceutical laws ?)
I think part of the problem here might be a mistaken focus on "the government" as an independent
actor, when in reality it is just a mechanism whereby the rulers (whether they are a dictator,
a political party or an oligarchy or whatever), and those with sufficient clout to influence them,
get things done the way they want to see them done.
As such there is really not much difference between the government directly employing the people
who do things (state socialism), and the government paying money to companies to get the same
things done. Either way, those who use the government to get things done, get to say what gets
done and how. There are differences of nuance, in terms of organisational strengths and weaknesses,
degrees of corruption and of efficiency, but fundamentally it's all big government.
A more interesting question might be – how really different are these big government variants
from the small government systems, in which the rulers pay people directly to get things done
the way they want them to be done?
"... Allegations aren't evidence but the media is treating them as such. And even if they Russia did hack Hillary's e-mails I haven't heard anyone claim the e-mails released by Wikileaks are untrue or fabrications. ..."
"... At minimum (((Carl Gershman))) should be questioned along with rogue CIA agents in their role in the anti-Putin demonstrations of 2011. ..."
"... Obama has ordered an investigation. The result will be the Russians did it. Then the lie will be official truth. You can't argue with official truth. It's official. ..."
"... I suspect John McBloodstain and Lindsey and Chucky are in denial, and haven't quite come to terms with the idea that Trump is going to be the man in power. With his hands on the levers and the bully pulpit at his fingertips. I hope they learn to regret their treasonous hubris, in presuming to undermine Trump as he takes the reins and then fastens the bit tightly on McCain's angry face. And then jerks them for effect. ..."
"... The era of neocon Eternal Wars is over. America is no longer going to be Israel's obedient, dutiful golem. ..."
"... Some say that objectively reality doesn't even exist, that is all just a matter of perception. Well Americans must be really lucky people, because they have government + MSM who are so vastly intellectually superior to any mere mortal, that they are able to interpret the reality to the ordinary Americans so it won't confuse them any longer. ..."
"... Actually, according to Karl Rove, the neocon intelligentsia (I know, a contradiction in terms) of whom he is a proud member, claims to possess even higher powers – they are able to create reality now, because why bother with only interpreting reality, when thanks to your superior intellect you can create it. Hillary is also one of those neocons possessing (or possessed by) higher power and proud owner of those magical abilities. ..."
"... One of those neocon moments when they were able to create reality out of thin air, occurred when they "discovered" the Russian hacking of the election process in USA. Some people will call that "creation" of reality for what it actually is – creation of propaganda, but those are just mean unpatriotic Americans or other nationals who don't have America's best interests at heart. ..."
"... Some who are even more critical of America's reality "creation" abilities, would call those realities nightmares – like the realities created in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine even, but as they say, maybe those are only interpretations of reality and according to US – wrong interpretations of reality. ..."
I think Trump is likely to follow this advice, which is excellent, and I don't think he'll
give way easily to the power structure. He knows he'll be neutered if he follows their dictates
and the demands of the lamestream media.
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The Obama Presidency began with predetermined success. After all, they gave him the Nobel Peace
Prize.
And we know how long that lasted.
Trump is the Republican's 'come to Jesus' moment. They have to get beyond their fetish for
'losing on principle' to winning.
The Russian Hacking was big news because it was the last gasp for a rationale to gum up the
Electoral College vote today. Russian hacking is a purely partisan, Democratic ploy. So lets have
big Congressional hearings on insecure computer servers and hacked emails of who was that? Hillary
Clinton. This will disappear in a New York minute as soon as anyone starts digging into the Democrat's
junk. Sample questions: Were Podesta's emails altered or faked? Or were they his actual emails?
Are we sure? How sure? He couldn't have actually said that, no? He REALLY said that? And on and
on.
The mere use of 'Hillary Clinton' and 'Email' in the same sentence will create a pavlovian
response and the next word is what? Even Nancy Pelosi will hear the word JAIL in some crevice
of her demented mind.
This isn't going anywhere.
Meanwhile, there is a taxcut to fight over. There won't be time to even consider it given the
rush to the trough for the various interests.
And anyway - Trump isn't going to cut military budgets. But he will gladly - along with congressional
whores of all parties - put more money into anti-terror cyber stuff. It's way more profitable
than building an airplane. Profit margins higher. And its impossible to determine if it works
or it doesn't work. An airplane has to fly, no? Cyber intelligence? I dunno - it can never be
proven one way or the other unless there is a massive failure, and then it can never be proven
who actually screwed up.
Trump isn't the sort to 'take one for the team' and will instinctively blame Obama and Bush
and Hillary and search for something that looks less like guaranteed failure. There is nothing
left in the Middle East to do that doesn't have failure written all over it.
And the last thing he will tolerate is Paul Ryan and Company trying to cram a big Russian sanctions
package down his throat. Plus - get real - anyone with any sense knows the smart play is the US
plus Russia vs China.
Plus - get real - anyone with any sense knows the smart play is the US plus Russia vs China.
Yes! This is exactly the smart play. It is essential.
Let's have a little triangular diplomacy in the other direction this time. We've paid a big price
for Nixon/Kissenger's three-way ploy. It's time to rotate their triangle. China is our enemy.
It is the enemy they birthed and our capital created. ,
@boogerbently " Plus - get real - anyone with any sense knows the smart play is the US plus
Russia vs China."
Russia didn't "hack" the election and anyone who believes they did is a low information American
searching for reasons to oppose Trump and rationalize Hillary's electoral loss.
After all Hildabeast won the popular vote (thanks to mass third world immigration) but was
rejected in key battleground states owing to Obamanomics and her treasonous call for admitting
hundreds of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees as well as her support for amnesty. This was too
much for flyover country to stomach.
Allegations aren't evidence but the media is treating them as such. And even if they Russia
did hack Hillary's e-mails I haven't heard anyone claim the e-mails released by Wikileaks are
untrue or fabrications.
At minimum (((Carl Gershman))) should be questioned along with rogue CIA agents in their
role in the anti-Putin demonstrations of 2011. I think waterboarding would be a fitting form
of interrogation in this case.
@anon The Obama Presidency began with predetermined success. After all, they gave him the
Nobel Peace Prize.
And we know how long that lasted.
Trump is the Republican's 'come to Jesus' moment. They have to get beyond their fetish for 'losing
on principle' to winning.
The Russian Hacking was big news because it was the last gasp for a rationale to gum up the Electoral
College vote today. Russian hacking is a purely partisan, Democratic ploy. So lets have big Congressional
hearings on insecure computer servers and hacked emails of ... who was that? Hillary Clinton.
This will disappear in a New York minute as soon as anyone starts digging into the Democrat's
junk. Sample questions: Were Podesta's emails altered or faked? Or were they his actual emails?
Are we sure? How sure? He couldn't have actually said that, no? He REALLY said that? And on and
on.
The mere use of 'Hillary Clinton' and 'Email' in the same sentence will create a pavlovian response
and the next word is what? Even Nancy Pelosi will hear the word JAIL in some crevice of her demented
mind.
This isn't going anywhere.
Meanwhile, there is a taxcut to fight over. There won't be time to even consider it given the
rush to the trough for the various interests.
And anyway -- Trump isn't going to cut military budgets. But he will gladly -- along with congressional
whores of all parties -- put more money into anti-terror cyber stuff. It's way more profitable
than building an airplane. Profit margins higher. And its impossible to determine if it works
or it doesn't work. An airplane has to fly, no? Cyber intelligence? I dunno -- it can never be
proven one way or the other unless there is a massive failure, and then it can never be proven
who actually screwed up.
Trump isn't the sort to 'take one for the team' and will instinctively blame Obama and Bush and
Hillary and search for something that looks less like guaranteed failure. There is nothing left
in the Middle East to do that doesn't have failure written all over it.
And the last thing he will tolerate is Paul Ryan and Company trying to cram a big Russian sanctions
package down his throat. Plus -- get real -- anyone with any sense knows the smart play is the
US plus Russia vs China.
Plus - get real - anyone with any sense knows the smart play is the US plus Russia vs China.
Yes! This is exactly the smart play. It is essential.
Let's have a little triangular diplomacy in the other direction this time. We've paid a big
price for Nixon/Kissenger's three-way ploy. It's time to rotate their triangle. China is our enemy.
It is the enemy they birthed and our capital created.
Obama has ordered an investigation. The result will be the Russians did it. Then the lie
will be official truth. You can't argue with official truth. It's official.
He should also investigate which legislators leaked CIA "report" to press and have them held
accountable. Investigate why other agencies didn't push against the CIA's attempted coup. Ideally
the CIA would be abolished, but it will probably be hard to find enough support for that.
• Replies:
@Avery {Ideally the CIA would be abolished, but it will probably be hard to find enough
support for that.}
Abolishing CIA not a good idea, because some level of intelligence gathering (humint) on _foreign_
enemies/adversaries of US is needed. But Trump definitely can abolish entire departments that
are not purely humint intelligence related. And those who meddled in the presidential election
should be brought up on charges, if they can be identified.
Also, if Trump tries to completely abolish CIA, a massive terrorist attack might be organized
and Trump will be blamed for taking away US ability to detect it by abolishing CIA Frightened
American public will acquiesce to even more enslavement, just like after 9/11. US spooks who meddle
in American politics are evil and are experts at that sort of thing. And will do anything to survive.
Trump has to be very careful. Maybe have the Pentagon neuter them in a roundabout way.
But if there is to be an investigation of clandestine interference in the politics and
elections of foreign nations, let's get it all out onto the table.
yes, let's please do! as Hillary and the neocons and msm have all been demanding that "Assad
must go".. out of the other side of their lizard faces they're howling that 'Russia is trying
to meddle in our politics!!' How dare they?!'
$5 billion in the Ukraine for a putsch to undermine that democratically elected government,
and then get caught deciding on the phone who's going to be the next president in Kiev -- all
while screeching about the impropriety of Russia leaking the phone call. The hypocrisy is mind-numbing.
The only thing exceptional is the unilateral arrogance on steroids.
President-elect Trump should call in his new director of the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo, and
tell him to run down and remove, for criminal misconduct, any CIA agents or operatives leaking
secrets to discredit his election.
I suspect John McBloodstain and Lindsey and Chucky are in denial, and haven't quite come
to terms with the idea that Trump is going to be the man in power. With his hands on the
levers and the bully pulpit at his fingertips. I hope they learn to regret their treasonous hubris,
in presuming to undermine Trump as he takes the reins and then fastens the bit tightly on McCain's
angry face. And then jerks them for effect.
The era of neocon Eternal Wars is over. America is no longer going to be Israel's obedient,
dutiful golem. Spilling its blood and treasure to assuage the insatiable lust for death and
misery of the Zio-scum.
'America first!' is now the mantra, and little Chucky and the Stain and Lindsey are all just
traitorous little war pigs from the old order. Soon to join Mitt Romney in publically humiliated
repudiation.
• Replies:
@FLgeezer Keep them coming Rurik. Your posts are priceless.
Avery
says:
December 20, 2016 at 4:34 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Marcus He should also investigate which legislators leaked CIA "report" to press and have them
held accountable. Investigate why other agencies didn't push against the CIA's attempted coup. Ideally
the CIA would be abolished, but it will probably be hard to find enough support for that.
{Ideally the CIA would be abolished, but it will probably be hard to find enough support for
that.}
Abolishing CIA not a good idea, because some level of intelligence gathering (humint) on _foreign_
enemies/adversaries of US is needed. But Trump definitely can abolish entire departments that are
not purely humint intelligence related. And those who meddled in the presidential election should
be brought up on charges, if they can be identified.
Also, if Trump tries to completely abolish CIA, a massive terrorist attack might be organized
and Trump will be blamed for taking away US ability to detect it by abolishing CIA Frightened American
public will acquiesce to even more enslavement, just like after 9/11. US spooks who meddle in American
politics are evil and are experts at that sort of thing. And will do anything to survive. Trump has
to be very careful. Maybe have the Pentagon neuter them in a roundabout way.
But you are right: Trump can't let what CIA did slide.
Abolishing CIA not a good idea, because some level of intelligence gathering (humint) on _foreign_
enemies/adversaries of US is needed. But Trump definitely can abolish entire departments that
are not purely humint intelligence related. And those who meddled in the presidential election
should be brought up on charges, if they can be identified.
Also, if Trump tries to completely abolish CIA, a massive terrorist attack might be organized
and Trump will be blamed for taking away US ability to detect it by abolishing CIA Frightened
American public will acquiesce to even more enslavement, just like after 9/11. US spooks who meddle
in American politics are evil and are experts at that sort of thing. And will do anything to survive.
Trump has to be very careful. Maybe have the Pentagon neuter them in a roundabout way.
But you are right: Trump can't let what CIA did slide.
It can be replaced by something better, anyway it has been largely obsolete since a) collapse
of USSR and b) internet revolution.
Another perspective: in a secular era of declining industry, the next new technology is expected
to be cybersecurity. Companies like Palantir are clearing that path; others will follow. (Palantir
got its major boost thru CIA contracts; the company, created in Silicon Valley, established a
presence next door to the US anti-terrorism center in N Virginia - closer to the teat.) Money
men want US gov and other governments as well to put government funding behind these ventures.
Creating a scare to herd the flock this way or that is as old as Torah. Similarly, creating
a scapegoat - an unblemished ram caught in the thicket - is an age-old tactic.
Alex Karp, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and a few other innovator/entrepreneurs are not the folks
who are behind the Russkie scare, but the investors or would-be investors in the emerging industries
those folks created, and the politicians they depend on to ensure government support for their
investment/enterprise, are in it up to their third wive's plastic surgery bills, not to mention
the pool boy.
Some say that objectively reality doesn't even exist, that is all just a matter of perception.
Well Americans must be really lucky people, because they have government + MSM who are so vastly
intellectually superior to any mere mortal, that they are able to interpret the reality to the
ordinary Americans so it won't confuse them any longer.
Actually, according to Karl Rove, the neocon intelligentsia (I know, a contradiction in
terms) of whom he is a proud member, claims to possess even higher powers – they are able to create
reality now, because why bother with only interpreting reality, when thanks to your superior intellect
you can create it. Hillary is also one of those neocons possessing (or possessed by) higher power
and proud owner of those magical abilities.
One of those neocon moments when they were able to create reality out of thin air, occurred
when they "discovered" the Russian hacking of the election process in USA. Some people will call
that "creation" of reality for what it actually is – creation of propaganda, but those are just
mean unpatriotic Americans or other nationals who don't have America's best interests at heart.
Some who are even more critical of America's reality "creation" abilities, would call those
realities nightmares – like the realities created in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine even, but as
they say, maybe those are only interpretations of reality and according to US – wrong interpretations
of reality.
The propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the North Vietnamese by Tokyo Rose McCain are readily
available on the internet. It is well known in Wash DC that Dame Lindsey Graham is a closet case
overcompensating with campy militarism. The rest of the neocons .we all know who and what they
are, by now.
Plus - get real - anyone with any sense knows the smart play is the US plus Russia vs China.
Yes! This is exactly the smart play. It is essential.
Let's have a little triangular diplomacy in the other direction this time. We've paid a big price
for Nixon/Kissenger's three-way ploy. It's time to rotate their triangle. China is our enemy.
It is the enemy they birthed and our capital created.
"China is our enemy. "
Bollocks.
China is not my enemy.
My enemies are located in Washington DC and Sodom on Hudson.
The never-Trumpers are never going to surrender the myth that Russian President Vladimir Putin
ordered the hacking of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and the Democratic National
Committee to defeat Clinton and elect Donald Trump.
Their investment in the myth is just too huge.
For Clinton and her campaign, it is the only way to explain how they booted away a presidential
election even Trump thought he had lost in November. To the mainstream media, this is the smoking
gun in their Acela Corridor conspiracy to delegitimize Trump's presidency.
Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sees Russian hacking as a way to put a cloud over
the administration before it begins. But it is the uber-hawks hereabouts who are after the really
big game.
They seek to demonize Putin as the saboteur of democracy - someone who corrupted an American presidential
election to bring about victory for a "useful idiot" whom Clinton called Putin's "puppet."
If the War Party can convert this "fake story" into the real story of 2016, then they can scuttle
any Trump effort to attain the rapprochement with Russia that Trump promised to try to achieve.
If they can stigmatize Trump as "Putin's president" and Putin as America's implacable enemy, then
the Russophobes are back in business.
Nor is the War Party disguising its goal.
Over the weekend, Sen. John McCain called for a congressional select committee to investigate
Russian hacking into the Clinton campaign. The purpose of the investigations, said Sen. Lindsey Graham,
"is to put on President Trump's desk crippling sanctions against Russia."
"They need to pay a price," Graham chortled on Twitter.
"Crippling sanctions" would abort any modus vivendi, any deal with Russia, before Trump could
negotiate one. Trump would have to refuse to impose them - and face the firestorm to follow. The
War Party is out to dynamite any detente with Russia before it begins.
Among the reasons Trump won is that he promised to end U.S. involvement in the costly, bloody
and interminable wars in the Middle East the Bushites and President Barack Obama brought us - and
the neocons relish - and to reach a new understanding with Russia and Putin.
But to some in Washington, beating up on Russia is a conditioned reflex dating to the Cold War.
For others in the media and the front groups called think tanks, Russophobia is in their DNA.
Though Julian Assange says WikiLeaks did not get the emails from Russia, this has to be investigated.
Did Russia hack the DNC's email system and John Podesta's email account? Did Putin direct that the
emails be provided to WikiLeaks to disrupt democracy or defeat Clinton?
Clinton says Putin has had it in for her because he believes she was behind the anti-Putin demonstrations
in Moscow in 2011.
But if there is to be an investigation of clandestine interference in the politics and elections
of foreign nations, let's get it all out onto the table.
The CIA director and his deputies should be made to testify under oath, not only as to what they
know about Russia's role in the WikiLeaks email dumps but also about who inside the agency is behind
the leaks to The Washington Post designed to put a cloud over the Trump presidency before it begins.
Agents and operatives of the CIA should be subjected to lie detector tests to learn who is leaking
to the anti-Trump press.
Before any congressional investigation, President-elect Trump should call in his new director
of the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo, and tell him to run down and remove, for criminal misconduct, any CIA
agents or operatives leaking secrets to discredit his election.
Putin, after all, is not an American. The CIA saboteurs of the Trump presidency are. Will the
media investigate the leakers? Not likely, for they are the beneficiaries of the leaks and co-conspirators
of the leakers.
The top officials of the CIA and Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy,
should be called to testify under oath. Were they behind anti-Putin demonstrations during the Russian
elections of 2011?
Did the CIA or NED have a role in the "color-coded" revolutions to dump over pro-Russian governments
in Moscow's "near abroad"?
If Russia did intrude in our election, was it payback for our intrusions to bring about regime
change in its neighborhood?
What role did the CIA, the NED and John McCain play in the overthrow of the democratically elected
government of Ukraine in 2014? McCain was seen cheering on the crowds in Independence Square in Kiev.
Trump has promised a more hopeful foreign policy than that of the Republicans he denounced and
is succeeding. No more wars where vital interests are not imperiled. No more U.S. troops arriving
as first responders for freeloading allies.
The real saboteurs of his new foreign policy may not be inside the Ring Road in Moscow; rather,
they may be inside the Beltway around D.C.
The real danger may be that a new Trump foreign policy could be hijacked or scuttled by anti-Trump
Republicans, not only on Capitol Hill but inside the executive branch itself.
"... Republican leaders in Congress are already sending Trump a subtle but clear warning: accept our business-as-usual Chamber of Commerce agenda or we will join Democrats to impeach you. ..."
"... Impeachment has been the goal of Democrats since the day after Trump won the election, and the Republican establishment will use the veiled threat as leverage to win concession after concession from the Trump White House. ..."
"... There are at least four Trump campaign promises which, if not dropped or severely compromised, could generate Republican support for impeachment: Trump's Supreme Court appointments, abandoning the Trans Pacific Partnership, radical rollback of Obama regulatory projects, and real enforcement of our nation's immigration laws. ..."
"... On regulatory rollback, Congress can legitimately insist on negotiating the details with Trump. But on the other three, immigration, the TPP, and Supreme Court nominees, Trump's campaign promises were so specific - and so popular - that he need not accept congressional foot-dragging. ..."
"... Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced this week he will oppose Trump's tax reforms. Senator Lindsey Graham is joining Democrats in sponsoring new legislation to protect the "Dreamers" from deportation after their unlawfully granted legal status and work permits expire. Senator Susan Collins will oppose any restrictions on Muslim refugees, no matter how weak and inadequate the vetting to weed out jihadists. Senator Lamar Alexander aims to protect major parts of Obamacare, despite five years of voluminous Republican promises to "repeal and replace" it if they ever had the power to do so. ..."
"... on the House side, we have the naysayer-in-chief, Speaker Paul Ryan, who refused to campaign with Donald Trump in Wisconsin, and who has vowed to obstruct Trump's most important and most popular campaign promise - an end to open borders and vigorous immigration law enforcement. ..."
"... Donald Trump won a electoral mandate to change direction and put American interests first, beginning with border security. If the congressional Republican establishment chooses to block the implementation of that electoral mandate, it would destroy not only Trump's agenda, it would destroy the Republican Party. ..."
Several months ago I was asked what advice I would give to the Trump campaign.
I said, only half joking, that he had better pick a vice presidential candidate the establishment
hates more than it hates him. That would be his only insurance against impeachment. Those drums have
already begun to beat, be it ever so subtly.
Is anyone surprised how quickly the establishment that Donald Trump campaigned against has announced
opposition to much of his policy agenda? No. But few understand that the passionate opposition includes
a willingness to impeach and remove President Trump if he does not come to heel on his America First
goals.
Ferocious opposition to Trump from the left was expected and thus surprises nobody. From the comical
demands for vote recounts to street protests by roving bands of leftist hate-mongers and condescending
satire on late-night television, hysterical leftist opposition to Trump is now part of the cultural
landscape.
But those are amusing sideshows to the main event, the Republican establishment's intransigent
opposition to key pillars of the Republican president's agenda.
Republican leaders in Congress are already sending Trump a subtle but clear warning: accept our
business-as-usual Chamber of Commerce agenda or we will join Democrats to impeach you.
If you think talk of impeachment is insane when the man has not even been sworn into office yet,
you have not been paying attention. Impeachment has been the goal of Democrats since the day after
Trump won the election, and the Republican establishment will use the veiled threat as leverage to
win concession after concession from the Trump White House.
What are the key policy differences that motivate congressional opposition to the Trump agenda?
There are at least four Trump campaign promises which, if not dropped or severely compromised, could
generate Republican support for impeachment: Trump's Supreme Court appointments, abandoning the Trans
Pacific Partnership, radical rollback of Obama regulatory projects, and real enforcement of our nation's
immigration laws.
On regulatory rollback, Congress can legitimately insist on negotiating the details with Trump.
But on the other three, immigration, the TPP, and Supreme Court nominees, Trump's campaign promises
were so specific - and so popular - that he need not accept congressional foot-dragging.
Yet, while the President-elect 's transition teams at the EPA, State Department and Education
Department are busy mapping ambitious changes in direction, Congress's Republican leadership is busy
doubling down on dissonance and disloyalty.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced this week he will oppose Trump's tax reforms.
Senator Lindsey Graham is joining Democrats in sponsoring new legislation to protect the "Dreamers"
from deportation after their unlawfully granted legal status and work permits expire. Senator Susan
Collins will oppose any restrictions on Muslim refugees, no matter how weak and inadequate the vetting
to weed out jihadists. Senator Lamar Alexander aims to protect major parts of Obamacare, despite
five years of voluminous Republican promises to "repeal and replace" it if they ever had the power
to do so.
And then, on the House side, we have the naysayer-in-chief, Speaker Paul Ryan, who refused to
campaign with Donald Trump in Wisconsin, and who has vowed to obstruct Trump's most important and
most popular campaign promise - an end to open borders and vigorous immigration law enforcement.
It is no exaggeration to say that Trump's success or failure in overcoming the opposition to immigration
enforcement will determine the success or failure of his presidency. If he cannot deliver on his
most prominent and most popular campaign promise, nothing else will matter very much.
So, the bad news for President Trump is this: If he keeps faith with his campaign promises on
immigration, for example to limit Muslim immigration from terrorism afflicted regions, which is within
his legitimate constitutional powers as President, he will risk impeachment. However, his congressional
critics will face one enormous hurdle in bringing impeachment charges related to immigration enforcement:
about 90 percent of what Trump plans to do is within current law and would require no new legislation
in Congress. Obama disregarded immigration laws he did not like, so all Trump has to do is enforce
those laws.
Now, if you think talk of impeachment is ridiculous because Republicans control Congress, you
are underestimating the depth of Establishment Republican support for open borders.
The first effort in the 21st century at a general amnesty for all 20 million illegal aliens came
in January 2005 from newly re-elected President George Bush. The "Gang of Eight" amnesty bill passed
by the US Senate in 2013 did not have the support of the majority of Republican senators, and now
they are faced with a Republican president pledged to the exact opposite agenda, immigration enforcement.
And yet, do not doubt the establishment will sacrifice a Republican president to protect the globalist,
open borders status quo.
The leader and spokesman for that establishment open borders agenda is not some obscure backbencher,
it is the Republican Speaker of the House. Because the Speaker controls the rules and the legislative
calendar, if he chooses to play hardball against Trump on immigration he can block any of Trump's
other policy initiatives until Trump abandons his immigration enforcement goals.
What all this points to is a bloody civil war within the Republican Party fought on the battlefield
of congressional committee votes.
Donald Trump won a electoral mandate to change direction and put American interests first, beginning
with border security. If the congressional Republican establishment chooses to block the implementation
of that electoral mandate, it would destroy not only Trump's agenda, it would destroy the Republican
Party.
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party offices. That Watergate burglary and
related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love
for a Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue journalism.
Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering. Russian agents apparently broke into the
Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed
by Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."
In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know for sure. There were other factors,
but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.
The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post,
the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion.
Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly,
defending Russia from the charges that it tried to subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's
intelligence community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the dictator.
Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still profoundly damaging to our system. It's not
that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president
who would be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally
into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials
to a local union leader in Indiana.
Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts
to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly
close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship."
Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference in our election by putting American
foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?
Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia links. The incoming national security adviser,
Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments
by a pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump family itself has business connections
with Russia.
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with
the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an effort to help Donald Trump win the White House,
US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced
that Russia was behind cyberattacks that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan
to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper,
and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in
our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing
the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led
by the DNI," it continued.
Donald Trump won the electoral college at least in part by promising to bring coal jobs
back to Appalachia and manufacturing jobs back to the Rust Belt. Neither promise can be honored
– for the most part we're talking about jobs lost, not to unfair foreign competition, but to
technological change. But a funny thing happens when people like me try to point that out:
we get enraged responses from economists who feel an affinity for the working people of the
afflicted regions – responses that assume that trying to do the numbers must reflect contempt
for regional cultures, or something.
Is this the right narrative? I am no longer comfortable with this line:
for the most part we're talking about jobs lost, not to unfair foreign competition, but
to technological change.
Try to place that line in context with this from
Noah Smith:
Then, in the 1990s and 2000s, the U.S opened its markets to Chinese goods, first with Most
Favored Nation trading status, and then by supporting China's accession to the WTO. The resulting
competition from cheap Chinese goods contributed to vast inequality in the United States, reversing
many of the employment gains of the 1990s and holding down U.S. wages. But this sacrifice on
the part of 90% of the American populace enabled China to lift its enormous population out
of abject poverty and become a middle-income country.
Was this "fair" trade? I think not. Let me suggest this narrative: Sometime during the
Clinton Administration, it was decided that an economically strong China was good for both the
globe and the U.S. Fair enough. To enable that outcome, U.S. policy deliberately sacrificed manufacturing
workers on the theory that a.) the marginal global benefit from the job gain to a Chinese worker
exceeded the marginal global cost from a lost US manufacturing job, b.) the U.S. was shifting
toward a service sector economy anyway and needed to reposition its workforce accordingly and
c.) the transition costs of shifting workers across sectors in the U.S. were minimal.
As a consequence – and through a succession of administrations – the US tolerated implicit
subsidies of Chinese industries, including national industrial policy designed to strip production
from the US.
And then there was the currency manipulation. I am always shocked when international economists
claim "fair trade," pretending that the financial side of the international accounts is irrelevant.
As if that wasn't a big, fat thumb on the scale. Sure, "currency manipulation" is running the
other way these days. After, of course, a portion of manufacturing was absorbed overseas. After
the damage is done.
Yes, technological change is happening. But the impact, and the costs, were certainly accelerated
by U.S. policy.
It was a great plan. On paper, at least. And I would argue that in fact points a and b above
were correct.
But point c. Point c was a bad call. Point c was a disastrous call. Point c helped deliver
Donald Trump to the Oval Office. To be sure, the FBI played its role, as did the Russians. But
even allowing for the poor choice of Hilary Clinton as the Democratic nominee (the lack of contact
with rural and semi-rural voters blinded the Democrats to the deep animosity toward their candidate),
it should never have come to this.
As the opioid epidemic sweeps through rural America, an ever-greater number of drug-dependent
newborns are straining hospital neonatal units and draining precious medical resources.
The problem has grown more quickly than realized and shows no signs of abating, researchers
reported on Monday. Their study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, concludes for the first time
that the increase in drug-dependent newborns has been disproportionately larger in rural areas.
The latest causalities in the opioid epidemic are newborns.
The transition costs were not minimal.
My take is that "fair trade" as practiced since the late 1990s created another disenfranchised
class of citizens. As if we hadn't done enough of that already. Then we weaponized those newly
disenfranchised citizens with the rhetoric of identity politics. That's coming back to bite us.
We didn't really need a white nationalist movement, did we?
Now comes the big challenge: What can we do to make amends? Can we change the narrative? And
here is where I agree with Paul Krugman:
Now, if we want to have a discussion of regional policies – an argument to the effect that
my pessimism is unwarranted – fine. As someone who is generally a supporter of government activism,
I'd actually like to be convinced that a judicious program of subsidies, relocating government
departments, whatever, really can sustain communities whose traditional industry has eroded.
The damage done is largely irreversible. In medium-size regions, lower relative housing
costs may help attract overflow from the east and west coast urban areas. And maybe a program
of guaranteed jobs for small- to medium-size regions combined with relocation subsidies for very
small-size regions could help. But it won't happen overnight, if ever. And even if you could reverse
the patterns of trade – which wouldn't be easy given the intertwining of global supply chains
– the winners wouldn't be the same current losers. Tough nut to crack.
Bottom Line: I don't know how to fix this either. But I don't absolve the policy community
from their role in this disaster. I think you can easily tell a story that this was one big policy
experiment gone terribly wrong.
Vladimir Putin's Valdai Speech at the XIII Meeting (Final Plenary Session) of the Valdai International
Discussion Club (Sochi, 27 October 2016)
As is his usual custom, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the final session
of the annual Valdai International Discussion Club's 13th meeting, held this year in Sochi, before
an audience that included the President of Finland Tarja Halonen and former President of South Africa
Thabo Mbeki. The theme for the 2016 meeting and its discussion forums was "The Future in Progress:
Shaping the World of Tomorrow" which as Putin noted was very topical and relevant to current developments
and trends in global politics, economic and social affairs.
Putin noted that the previous year's Valdai Club discussions centred on global problems and crises,
in particular the ongoing wars in the Middle East; this fact gave him the opportunity to summarise
global political developments over the past half-century, beginning with the United States' presumption
of having won the Cold War and subsequently reshaping the international political, economic and social
order to conform to its expectations based on neoliberal capitalist assumptions. To that end, the
US and its allies across western Europe, North America and the western Pacific have co-operated in
pressing economic and political restructuring including regime change in many parts of the world:
in eastern Europe and the Balkans, in western Asia (particularly Afghanistan and Iraq) and in northern
Africa (Libya). In achieving these goals, the West has either ignored at best or at worst exploited
international political, military and economic structures, agencies and alliances to the detriment
of these institutions' reputations and credibility around the world. The West also has not hesitated
to dredge and drum up imaginary threats to the security of the world, most notably the threat of
Russian aggression and desire to recreate the Soviet Union on former Soviet territories and beyond,
the supposed Russian meddling in the US Presidential elections, and apparent Russian hacking and
leaking of emails related to failed US Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's conduct as
US Secretary of State from 2008 to 2012.
After his observation of current world trends as they have developed since 1991, Putin queries
what kind of future we face if political elites in Washington and elsewhere focus on non-existent
problems and threats, or on problems of their own making, and ignore the very real issues and problems
affecting ordinary people everywhere: issues of stability, security and sustainable economic development.
The US alone has problems of police violence against minority groups, high levels of public and private
debt measured in trillions of dollars, failing transport infrastructure across most states, massive
unemployment that either goes undocumented or is deliberately under-reported, high prison incarceration
rates and other problems and issues indicative of a highly dysfunctional society. In societies that
are ostensibly liberal democracies where the public enjoys political freedoms, there is an ever-growing
and vast gap between what people perceive as major problems needing solutions and the political establishment's
perceptions of what the problems are, and all too often the public view and the elite view are at
polar opposites. The result is that when referenda and elections are held, predictions and assurances
of victory one way or another are smashed by actual results showing public preference for the other
way, and polling organisations, corporate media with their self-styled "pundits" and "analysts" and
governments are caught scrambling to make sense of what just happened.
Putin points out that the only way forward is for all countries to acknowledge and work together
on the problems that challenge all humans today, the resolution of which should make the world more
stable, more secure and more sustaining of human existence. Globalisation should not just benefit
a small plutocratic elite but should be demonstrated in concrete ways to benefit all. Only by adhering
to international law and legal arrangements, through the charter of the United Nations and its agencies,
can all countries hope to achieve security and stability and achieve a better future for their peoples.
To this end, the sovereignty of Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen should be
respected and the wars in those countries should be brought to an end, replaced by long-term plans
and programs of economic and social reconstruction and development. Global economic development and
progress that will reduce disparities between First World and Third World countries, eliminate notions
of "winning" and "losing", and end grinding poverty and the problems that go with it should be a
major priority. Economic co-operation should be mutually beneficial for all parties that engage in
it.
Putin also briefly mentioned in passing the development of human potential and creativity, environmental
protection and climate change, and global healthcare as important goals that all countries should
strive for.
While there's not much in Putin's speech that he hasn't said before, what he says is typical of
his worldview, the breadth and depth of his understanding of current world events (which very, very
few Western politicians can match), and his preferred approach of nations working together on common
problems and coming to solutions that benefit all and which don't advantage one party's interests
to the detriment of others and their needs. Putin's approach is a typically pragmatic and cautious
one, neutral with regards to political or economic ideology, but one focused on goals and results,
and the best way and methods to achieve those goals.
One interesting aspect of Putin's speech comes near the end where he says that only a world with
opportunities for everyone, with access to knowledge to all and many ways to realise creative potential,
can be considered truly free. Putin's understanding of freedom would appear to be very different
from what the West (and Americans in particular) understand to be "freedom", that is, being free
of restraints on one's behaviour. Putin's understanding of freedom would be closer to what 20th-century
Russian-born British philosopher Isaiah Berlin would consider to be "positive freedom", the freedom
that comes with self-mastery, being able to think and behave freely and being able to choose the
government of the society in which one lives.
The most outstanding point in Putin's speech, which unfortunately he does not elaborate on further,
given the context of the venue, is the disconnect between the political establishment and the public
in most developed countries, the role of the mass media industry in reducing or widening it, and
the dangers that this disconnect poses to societies if it continues. If elites continue to pursue
their own fantasies and lies, and neglect the needs of the public on whom they rely for support (yet
abuse by diminishing their security through offshoring jobs, weakening and eliminating worker protection,
privatising education, health and energy, and encouraging housing and other debt bubbles), the invisible
bonds of society – what might collectively be called "the social contract" between the ruler and
the ruled – will disintegrate and people may turn to violence or other extreme activities to get
what they want.
An English-language transcript of the speech can be found at
this link .
@35 Trump is a big unknown. I think Paul Craig Roberts said it best - give Trump 6 months
and then form an opinion. I'm not too optimistic however; Trump's policies could flop and
the hawks could weasel their warmongering in (IRAN + CHINA + ????)
For the moment, I think Tillerson is a far far better pick than Guilliani, Romney or Bolton.
I hope that he will acquire the position. He seems to be smart, but also seems to have good
character (considering.)
Of course, the inauguration is a few weeks off, so the concern about a soft coup are real ones,
especially when the CIA is throwing out the Russia claims.
OT (sorry, but I really don't care about so-called 'leaks' and 'hacks'):
Trump chooses Exxon CEO Tillerson as Secretary of State.
Kind of makes me wonder...what if we see the emergence of a new confrontation, between a 'fossil
fuel' block comprising the US, Russia and OPEC, and a 'renewables' block of China, the EU and
pretty much everyone else? Yep, I admit that's a very long shot.
John Bolton, dutifully reading from the CIA's Yellow Cake playbook
"I'm obviously aware that people are quite focused on the economy rather than foreign
policy issues, but that is something that should and can be altered as people see the
nature of the grave threats around the world that we face. We estimate that once Iraq acquires
fissile material -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year."
MIC IS NOW IN CONTROL OF DEFENSE, NSA, CIA AND STATE, AND GOLDMAN IS IN CONTROL OF TREASURY,
COMMERCE, OMB, NEC AND FED. THIS IS THE NEO-CON END-GAME: THE 1998-2001 SOFT COUP-HARD COUP, THAT
TOOK AMERICA DOWN.
All we need is Ari Fleischer in the role of Bolton's spox to the media, lol. "Mr. Fleischer,
please come to the red phone service desk, you have a call waiting."
It's all monkey-brain now!
There's something very fishy about the choices of Rex Tillerson and John Bolton for SoS and Deputy
SoS respectively.
Tillerson has major potential conflicts of interest that the Senate will scrutinize including
the award he received from Putin. I'm seriously questioning how Tillerson will get Senate approval.
On the other hand, John Bolton, is very popular with most Republicans and hawkish Democrats and
will have no problem whatsoever.
I believe this strange combination is a red flag that perfectly illustrates Trump's strategy,
which is one of the following:
1. Either Trump deliberately chose someone with close ties to Russia and Putin because he knows
he won't be approved by the Senate, and his first choice from the start, John Bolton, will pass
with flying colors;
2. Or William Engdahl is right that the Neocon strategy is pivoting and adapting to present
circumstances:
His job will be to reposition the United States for them to reverse the trend to disintegration
of American global hegemony, to, as the Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz Project for the New American
Century put it in their September, 2000 report, "rebuild America's defenses."
To do that preparation, a deception strategy that will fatally weaken the developing deep
bonds between Russia and China will be priority. It's already begun. We have a friendly phone
call from The Donald to Vladimir the Fearsome in Moscow. Russian media is euphoric about a
new era in US-Russia relations after Obama. Then suddenly we hear the war-mongering NATO head,
Stoltenberg, suddenly purr soothing words to Russia. Float the idea that California Congressman
and Putin acquaintance, Dana Rohrabacher, is leaked as a possible Secretary of State. It's
classic Kissinger Balance of Power geopolitics–seem to ally with the weaker of two mortal enemies,
Russia, to isolate the stronger, China. Presumably Vladimir Putin is not so naïve or stupid
as to fall for it, but that is the plot of Trump's handlers. Such a strategy of preventing
the growing Russia-China cooperation was urged by Zbigniew Brzezinski in a statement this past
summer.
Let's not forget that the first time Trump was asked during the campaign who he gets foreign
policy advice from; the first name that popped up was JOHN BOLTON, and he praised him as being
tough. John Bolton was strongly allied with Dick Cheney. Steve Yates, another Neocon, was Cheney's
China advisor and is Trump's as well. After reading Engdahl's article, I wrote my own opinion
of the Neocon strategy based on Engdahl's and you can read it on the Saker's site here:
http://thesaker.is/his-own-man-or-someones-puppet/
But if you find it difficult to read without paragraphs: scroll down through the comments on
the Saker's own opinion of Engdahl's piece as that's where my original comment appeared with paragraphs.
Something stinks about this Tillerson/Bolton combination. You can read my theory on why Neocons
are pivoting to a new strategy of divide and conquer as Engdahl believes, and it has to do with
the growing economic bond between China and Iran as well and killing two birds with one stone;
invading Iran to contain China and sabotage OBOR.
Note as well, that in courting Russia to isolate China and weaken the growing cooperation between
China and Russia, as Engdahl puts it, Russia will ultimately lose its own influence, unless of
course Netanyahu has made Putin an offer he can't refuse, since Netanyahu has been courting Putin
for quite some time already; and this is very bizarre, since Putin frustrated Netanyahu's plan
for Syria.
So Bolton will be Tillerson's vice-SoS. How much more Neocon can you get? And you seriously believe
Trump will 'clean the Augean Stables', 'drain the swamp' and 'open a new book' in foreign policy,
esp. relations with Russia? Dream on.
First of all; that Boeing deal was a condition of the Iran deal! Trump wants to tear up the
deal; it was one of his promises. Second, Republicans wanted more than that funding for Israel.
I never denied Obama was not a Zionist enabler -- can't you read??? Third, if Obama's an enabler;
Trump is in bed with Netanyahu and Zionists since he promised to tear up the Iran deal and move
the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem... whooooo does that??? Who promises sht like that? Only someone
who's even crazier than Nut job yahu!
"But he has also complained that American companies are shut out of post-deal economic opportunities
in Iran, and suggested that Washington will need to cooperate with Iran as well as Russia in
dealing with the Syrian civil war."
Here's what I predict short-term for the Middle East: The situation will settle down into something
like the Pakistan-India situation, with Iran and Syria on one side, and Saudi Arabia and Israel
on the other. That's just short-term, however. Israel and Saudi Arabia are not very viable long-term.
Eventually, I'm guessing the Gulf Arab monarchies will be replaced by parliamentary democracies,
as happened with the Shah of Iran, and Israel will have to accept a one-state solution in which
all Palestinians and Arabs get the same rights as Jewish citizens of Israel - which means, yes,
separation of church and state, something any American vassal/client state should be willing to
accept. IAEA inspections of the nuclear arsenal are also inevitable. But this will not "wipe Israel
off the map" any more than it resulted in genocide for white South Afrikaaners.
I have spent the better
part of the last 10 years working diligently to investigate and relate information on
economics and geopolitical discourse for the liberty movement. However, long before I
delved into these subjects my primary interests of study were the human mind and the
human "soul" (yes, I'm using a spiritual term).
My fascination with economics and sociopolitical events has always been rooted in the
human element.
That is to say, while economics is often treated as a
mathematical and statistical field, it is also driven by psychology.
To know
the behavior of man is to know the future of all his endeavors, good or evil.
Evil is what we are specifically here to discuss.
I have touched on
the issue in various articles in the past including
Are Globalists Evil Or Just Misunderstood
, but with extreme tensions taking shape
this year in light of the U.S. election as well as the exploding online community
investigation of "Pizzagate," I am compelled to examine it once again.
I will not be grappling with this issue from a particularly religious perspective.
Evil applies to everyone regardless of their belief system, or even their lack of
belief. Evil is secular in its influence.
The first and most important thing to understand is this - evil is NOT simply
a social or religious construct, it is an inherent element of the human psyche.
Carl Gustav Jung was one of the few psychologists in history to dare write extensively
on the issue of evil from a scientific perspective as well as a metaphysical
perspective. I highly recommend a book of his collected works on this subject titled
'Jung On Evil', edited by Murray Stein, for those who are interested in a deeper view.
To summarize, Jung found that much of the foundations of human behavior are rooted in
inborn psychological contents or "archetypes." Contrary to the position of Sigmund
Freud, Jung argued that while our environment may affect our behavior to a certain
extent, it does not make us who we are. Rather, we are born with our own individual
personality and grow into our inherent characteristics over time. Jung also found that
there are universally present elements of human psychology. That is to say, almost every
human being on the planet shares certain truths and certain natural predilections.
The concepts of good and evil, moral and immoral, are present in us from birth and
are mostly the same regardless of where we are born, what time in history we are born
and to what culture we are born. Good and evil are shared subjective experiences. It is
this observable psychological fact (among others) that leads me to believe in the idea
of a creative design - a god. Again, though, elaborating on god is beyond the scope of
this article.
To me, this should be rather comforting to people, even atheists. For if there is
observable evidence of creative design, then it would follow that there may every well
be a reason for all the trials and horrors that we experience as a species. Our lives,
our failures and our accomplishments are not random and meaningless. We are striving
toward something, whether we recognize it or not. It may be beyond our comprehension at
this time, but it is there.
Evil does not exist in a vacuum; with evil there is always good, if one looks
for it in the right places.
Most people are readily equipped to recognize evil when they see it
directly. What they are not equipped for and must learn from environment is how to
recognize evil disguised as righteousness.
The most heinous acts in
history are almost always presented as a moral obligation - a path towards some "greater
good." Inherent conscience, though, IS the greater good, and any ideology that steps
away from the boundaries of conscience will inevitably lead to disaster.
The concept of globalism is one of these ideologies that crosses the line of
conscience and pontificates to us about a "superior method" of living.
It
relies on taboo, rather than moral compass, and there is a big difference between the
two.
When we pursue a "greater good" as individuals or as a society, the means are just as
vital as the ends. The ends NEVER
justify the means. Never. For if we
abandon our core principles and commit atrocities in the name of "peace," safety or
survival, then we have forsaken the very things which make us worthy of peace and safety
and survival. A monster that devours in the name of peace is still a monster.
Globalism tells us that the collective is more important than the individual,
that the individual owes society a debt and that fealty to society in every respect is
the payment for that debt.
But inherent archetypes and conscience tell us
differently. They tell us that society is only ever as healthy as the individuals
within it, that society is only as free and vibrant as the participants. As the
individual is demeaned and enslaved, the collective crumbles into mediocrity.
Globalism also tells us that humanity's greatest potential cannot be reached without
collectivism and centralization. The assertion is that the more single-minded a society
is in its pursuits the more likely it is to effectively achieve its goals. To this end,
globalism seeks to erase all sovereignty. For now its proponents claim they only wish to
remove nations and borders from the social equation, but such collectivism never stops
there. Eventually, they will tell us that individualism represents another nefarious
"border" that prevents the group from becoming fully realized.
At the heart of collectivism is the idea that human beings are "blank
slates;" that we are born empty and are completely dependent on our environment in order
to learn what is right and wrong and how to be good people or good citizens. The
environment becomes the arbiter of decency, rather than conscience, and whoever controls
the environment, by extension, becomes god.
If the masses are convinced of this narrative then moral relativity is only a short
step away. It is the abandonment of inborn conscience that ultimately results in evil.
In my view, this is exactly why the so called "elites" are pressing for globalism in the
first place. Their end game is not just centralization of all power into a one world
edifice, but the suppression and eradication of conscience, and thus, all that is good.
To see where this leads we must look at the behaviors of the elites
themselves, which brings us to "Pizzagate."
The exposure by Wikileaks during the election cycle of what appear to be coded emails
sent between John Podesta and friends has created a burning undercurrent in the
alternative media. The emails consistently use odd and out of context "pizza"
references, and independent investigations have discovered a wide array connections
between political elites like Hillary Clinton and John Podesta to James Alefantis, the
owner of a pizza parlor in Washington D.C. called Comet Ping Pong. Alefantis, for
reasons that make little sense to me, is listed as number 49 on GQ's
Most Powerful People In Washington list
.
The assertion according to circumstantial evidence including the disturbing child and
cannibalism artwork collections of the Podestas has been that Comet Ping Pong is somehow
at the center of a child pedophilia network serving the politically connected. Both
Comet Ping Pong and a pizza establishment two doors down called Besta Pizza use symbols
in their logos and menus that are listed on the
FBI's
unclassified documentation on pedophilia symbolism
, which does not help matters.
Some of the best documentation of the Pizzagate scandal that I have seen so far has
been done by David Seaman, a former mainstream journalist gone rogue.
Here is his
YouTube page
.
I do recommend everyone at least look at the evidence he and others present. I went
into the issue rather skeptical, but was surprised by the sheer amount of weirdness and
evidence regarding Comet Pizza. There is a problem with Pizzagate that is difficult to
overcome, however; namely the fact that to my knowledge no victims have come forward.
This is not to say there has been no crime, but anyone hoping to convince the general
public of wrong-doing in this kind of scenario is going to have a very hard time without
a victim to reference.
The problem is doubly difficult now that an armed man was arrested on the premises of
Comet Ping Pong while "researching" the claims of child trafficking. Undoubtedly, the
mainstream media will declare the very investigation "dangerous conspiracy theory."
Whether this will persuade the public to ignore it, or compel them to look into it,
remains to be seen.
I fully realize the amount of confusion surrounding Pizzagate and the assertions by
some that it is a "pysop" designed to undermine the alternative media. This is a
foolish notion, in my view. The mainstream media is dying, this is unavoidable. The
alternative media is a network of sources based on the power of choice and cemented in
the concept of investigative research. The reader participates in the alternative media
by learning all available information and positions and deciding for himself what is the
most valid conclusion, if there is any conclusion to be had. The mainstream media
simply tells its readers what to think and feel based on cherry picked data.
The elites will never be able to deconstruct that kind of movement with something
like a faked "pizzagate"; rather, they would be more inclined to try to co-opt and
direct the alternative media as they do most institutions. And, if elitists are using
Pizzagate as fodder to trick the alternative media into looking ridiculous, then why
allow elitist run social media outlets like Facebook and Reddit to shut down discussion
on the issue?
The reason I am more convinced than skeptical at this stage is because this has
happened before; and in past scandals of pedophilia in Washington and other political
hotbeds, some victims DID come forward.
I would first reference the events of the Franklin Scandal between 1988 and 1991. The
Discovery Channel even produced a documentary on it complete with interviews of alleged
child victims peddled to Washington elites for the purpose of favors and blackmail.
Meant to air in 1994, the documentary was quashed before it was ever shown to the
public. The only reason it can now be found is because an original copy was released
without permission by parties unknown.
I would also reference the highly evidenced
Westminster Pedophile Ring in the U.K.
, in which the U.K. government lost or
destroyed at least 114 related files related to the investigation.
Finally, it is disconcerting to me that the criminal enterprises of former Bear
Sterns financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his "Lolita Express" are
mainstream knowledge, yet the public remains largely oblivious. Bill Clinton is
shown on flight logs
to have flown on Epstein's private jet at least a 26 times; the
same jet that he used to procure child victims as young as 12 to entertain celebrities
and billionaires on his 72 acre island called "Little Saint James". The fact that
Donald Trump was also close friends with Epstein should raise some eyebrows - funny how
the mainstream media attacked Trump on every cosmetic issue under the sun but for some
reason backed away from pursuing the Epstein angle.
Where is the vast federal investigation into the people who frequented Epstein's
wretched parties? There is none, and Epstein, though convicted of molesting a 14 year
old girl and selling her into prostitution, was only slapped on the wrist with a 13
month sentence.
Accusations of pedophilia seem to follow the globalists and elitist politicians
wherever they go. This does not surprise me. They often exhibit characteristics of
narcissism and psychopathy, but their ideology of moral relativity is what would lead to
such horrible crimes.
Evil often stems from people who are empty.
When one abandons
conscience, one also in many respects abandons empathy and love. Without these elements
of our psyche there is no happiness. Without them, there is nothing left but desire and
gluttony.
Narcissists in particular are prone to use other people as forms of
entertainment and fulfillment without concern for their humanity. They can be vicious
in nature, and when taken to the level of psychopathy, they are prone to target and
abuse the most helpless of victims in order to generate a feeling of personal power.
Add in sexual addiction and aggression and narcissists become predatory in the
extreme. Nothing ever truly satisfies them. When they grow tired of the normal, they
quickly turn to the abnormal and eventually the criminal. I would say that pedophilia
is a natural progression of the elitist mindset; for children are the easiest and most
innocent victim source, not to mention the most aberrant and forbidden, and thus the
most desirable for a psychopathic deviant embracing evil impulses.
Beyond this is the even more disturbing prospect of cultism.
It is
not that the globalists are simply evil as individuals; if that were the case then they
would present far less of a threat. The greater terror is that they are also organized.
When one confronts the problem of evil head on, one quickly realizes that evil is within
us all. There will always be an internal battle in every individual. Organized evil,
though, is in fact the ultimate danger, and it is organized evil that must be
eradicated.
For organized evil to be defeated, there must be organized good.
I believe the liberty movement in particular is that good; existing in early stages,
not yet complete, but good none the less. Our championing of the non-aggression
principle and individual liberty is conducive to respect for privacy, property and
life. Conscience is a core tenet of the liberty ideal, and the exact counter to
organized elitism based on moral relativity.
Recognize and take solace that though we live in dark times, and evil men
roam free, we are also here. We are the proper response to evil, and we have been placed
here at this time for a reason. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it coincidence, call
it god, call it whatever you want, but the answer to evil is us.
"Out of the temporary evil we are now compelled to commit will emerge the
good of an unshakable rule, which will restore the regular course of the
machinery of the national life, brought to naught by liberalism. The result
justifies the means. Let us, however, in our plans, direct our attention not
so much to what is good and moral as to what is necessary and useful."
I should also point out those alledgedly behind The Protocols
are not the people the article is referring ie: those people are
typically found in any liberal establishment.
A good article, but it fails to deliver on these key aspects of
the matter:
Everyone knows from the Godfather and its genre
that there is a connection between loyalty, criminality and
power: Once you witness someone engaging in a criminal act, you
have leverage over them and that ensures their loyalty. But what
follows from that - which healthy sane minds have trouble
contemplating - is that the greater the criminality the greater
the leverage, and that because murderous paedophilia places a
person utterly beyond any prospect of redemption in decent
society, there in NO GREATER LOYALTY than those desperate to
avoid being outed. These must be the three corners of the
triangle - Power:Loyalty:Depravity through which the evil eys
views the world.
I always beleived in an Illuminati of sorts, however they
care to self identify. Until Pizzagate, I never understood that
murderous paedophilia, luciferian in style to accentuate their
own depravity, is THE KEY TO RULING THE EARTH
And another thing. If pizzagate is 'fake news' then it it
inconceivably elaborate - they'd have had to fake Epstein 2008,
Silsby 2010, Breitbart 2011, the 2013 portugese release of
podestaesque mccann suspects, as well as the current run of
wikileaks and Alefantis' instagram account - which had an avatar
photo of the 13 yr old lover of a roman emperor.
Is that much fake news a possibility? Or has this smoke been
blowing for years and we've all been too distracted to stop and
look for fire?
What floors me about the whole pizzagate thing is the evil staring us
right in the face. And then to realize that the libtards don't even
believe in evil at all, only "mental illness"!
Lesson #1: Do not waste your time figuring some things out. Things like evil
people are probably beyond a decent persons ability to understand and let's be
honest I don't want to feel any sympathy for them anyway.
Read a book years ago by Dr. Karl Menninger, a psychiatrist, titled
'Whatever happened to Sin?'
In it he talks of murder and that it is not a natural thing for man to
do,. However, when the burden of guilt is spread over many shoulders and
government condones the action, it becomes easier to bear.
When observing the results, such as soldiers returning from war, unstable
mentally, it is evident that evil has occured. It has been decades since I
read the book, so the words I wrote may not be verbatim.
Lurked ZH for years, just started reading the comments. This is worse than
Reddit's echo chamber. Bible quotes? 3 guys 1 hammer on liveleak has more
productive comments. Why not mention methods you've used to help people reach
their own conclusion about Pizzagate?
I had two slices of pizza for dinner. I had to try not to think of the poor
children walking innocently about the store who may at any moment fall victim
to a pedo. My gf said pizza places all over now need to keep a keen eye out for
the Posdesta Brothers and their Gang after all the stuff that has come out from
WikiLeaks and other sources about them.
The bible says God created evil and loosed it on us. The correct reading of
Genesis 4;1 is from the dead sea scrolls stating :
"And Adam knew his
wife Eve,
who was pregnant by Sammael [Satan]
, and she conceived and
bare Cain,
and he was like the heavenly beings, and not like earthly
beings,
and
she
said, I have gotten a man from
the angel of
the Lord."
So in Isaiah 45:7 we have this:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the
LORD do all these
things
.
So my research shows evil was "grafted" into humans through
the unholy alliance and 2 seedline of people resulted.
Good article but an exception: evil doesn't reside in all of us, sin does.
Evil is the expression of wanton and intentional deception, injury,
degradation, and destruction and rarely self-recognizes or admits to God as
supreme. It may be DNA encoded. Sociopathy certainly is.
But you're so
right about the organized nature of it all, and for thousands of years. The
newly formed EU didn't advertise itself as the New Babylonia for nothing on
publicty posters, heralding the coming age of one tongue out of many and
fashioning its parliament building after the Tower of Bablyon:
Secret societies are cannibalizing us, and themselves, but members won't
know till it's too late that they'll also be eaten fairly early on. Of all
"people", they should know those in the pyramid capstone won't have enough
elbow room if they let in every Tom, Dick and Harry Mason.
I am sympatico with Brandon. I have always had similar interests, about the
soul, about ethics, about human behavior.
The reality is that evil is extant
in other human beings. The thought that your property manager is going to piss
in your OJ or fuck their BFF in your bed is abhorrent to most people, but not
all. There was an article this week about a married couple that had concerns
about their rental unit manager. And what did they find? He was fucking his BFF
(yes, of course it was another dude) in their bed. The good news is they got it
on video and moved. The bad news? This kind of attitude is rampant. People
don't give a shit about other people. They think the rules don't apply to them.
That they are special. The result is renting from some asshat that fucks in
your bed or pisses in your OJ. Or parents that wonder why little Johnny or
little Janie never move out of the house and are stoned and play video games
all day.
Evil exists, in varying forms. Sadly too many people continue to make
excuses for not only bad behavior but evil behavior. I don't think that way and
I don't live my life that way but I am fully aware of all the morons stumbling
through the world that do.
I think people are misunderstanding the setup theory. Nobody believes, at
least I hope not, that all of this art and bizarre behavior on the part of
these freaks was staged for the purposes of taking down the last of our free
media, but rather, they just took advantage of a situation where they knew
people were making accusations that couldn't be sufficiently backed up or even
prosecuted, and yet caused proven or contrived damages to people. If this is
the case, their intention,
with the help of intelligence agencies
, is
to frame alt-media for starting vigilante violence and the destruction of
innocent people's lives through promoting defamation against others.
I have
no doubt that our entire system is riddled with pedophilia and likely much
worse. They have also been getting away with this forever, so when we go for
the takedown we better have our ducks in a row. To do otherwise will just give
these sickos complete immunity and more decades will pass with them continuing
to prey on our children. Not only is this at stake but the fate of all the
children of this nation is at stake if we lose our media. We are in very
dangerous and treacherous times. When you go toe to toe with the professional
trade crafters you have to play smart or they will have you every time.
Once people have had enough exposure to NPDs or psychopaths you will vibe
them after a while. I imagine this is likely the case for anyone who has
worked as a trader, finance, politics, big commodity booms are bad, etc. We
have all encountered them somewhere. People should pay attention to how they
feel (yeah I know, people hate that word) when they are around people. I have
to pretend that I don't notice them because it is so apparent to me and
immediately.
The last time I picked one out at work, a few months later the creepy
bastard walked past me at night during a -20 blizzard, with next to no
visibility, knowing that I had an hour drive, and told me in super spooky
whisper.. "Don't hit a deer on your way home now." I found out later that a
bunch of horses had mysteriously died in his care and a bunch of other things
that confirmed my suspicions. I had a long battle with him so I eventually got
to understand him pretty well. I didn't have to hear the guy state a single
sentence or watch any body language, I just knew immediately because I could
feel his malevolence and threat in my stomach where we have a large nerve
cluster. Pay attention and you will know. Also their eye contact is all wrong
and too intense.
Globalism, is designed to make you poorer slowly over decades by allowing wages
and conditions to be for ever slowly reduced under the guise of free market
competition to funnel wealth ever upwards to the 1%.
"... One of the sites PropOrNot cited as Russian-influenced was the Drudge Report. ..."
"... The piece's description of some sharers of bogus news as "useful idiots" could " theoretically include anyone on any social-media platform who shares news based on a click-bait headline ," Mathew Ingram wrote for Fortune. ..."
"... But the biggest issue was PropOrNot itself. As Adrian Chen wrote for the New Yorker , its methods were themselves suspect, hinting at counter-Russian propaganda - ostensibly with Ukrainian origins - and verification of its work was nearly impossible. Chen wrote "the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labeled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier." ..."
"... Now, at least, the "national newspaper" has taken some responsibility, however the key question remains: by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the elections? ..."
In the latest example why the "mainstream media" is facing a historic crisis of confidence among
its readership, facing unprecedented blowback following Craig Timberg November 24 Washington Post
story "
Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say ", on Wednesday
a lengthy editor's note appeared on top of the original article in which the editor not only distances
the WaPo from the "experts" quoted in the original article whose "work" served as the basis for the
entire article (and which became the most read WaPo story the day it was published) but also admits
the Post could not " vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's finding regarding any individual media
outlet", in effect admitting the entire story may have been, drumroll "fake news" and conceding the
Bezos-owned publication may have engaged in defamation by smearing numerous websites - Zero Hedge
included - with patently false and unsubstantiated allegations.
It was the closest the Washington Post would come to formally retracting the story, which has
now been thoroughly discredited not only by outside commentators, but by its own editor.
Editor's Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four
sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine
American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity,
which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly
published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included
on PropOrNot's list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged
the group's methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not
itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor
did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post's story, PropOrNot has removed
some sites from its list.
As The
Washingtonian notes , the implicit concession follows intense and rising criticism of the article
over the past two weeks. It was "
rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, " Intercept reporters Glenn Greenwald
and Ben Norton wrote, noting that PropOrNot, one of the groups whose research was cited in Timberg's
piece, "anonymous cowards." One of the sites PropOrNot cited as Russian-influenced was the Drudge
Report.
But the biggest issue was PropOrNot itself. As Adrian Chen
wrote for the New Yorker , its methods were themselves suspect, hinting at counter-Russian propaganda
- ostensibly with Ukrainian origins - and verification of its work was nearly impossible. Chen wrote
"the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labeled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious
groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier."
Now, at least, the "national newspaper" has taken some responsibility, however the key question
remains: by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared
hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake
news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the
elections?
A friend on Facebook made the mistake of posting two declamatory articles on the
India financial apocalypse under Modi with the snark line 'this is what passes for
democracy (sic) in the world now' and was notified just a day later by FB that their
Profile was 'Determined to be an unauthorized Business Space', and would then be shut
down, without any recourse, if they didn't provide a confirmed birth name and confirmed
cell phone number. Nyet spasiba, ...so their profile went immediately 404.
This FB purge masks the truth for what Modi really is, the Menem of India, for
privatization of Indian gold wealth, for taxation of outsourced high-tech workers, and
covering up the 100,000s of Hindu HIBs flying into the USA by the 747-load, taking away,
by some estimates 98% of new high-tech jobs, and 56% of existing high-tech jobs, where
American workers are being forced to train their Hindu replacements, then given a pink
slip and six months of COBRA and booted out.
[ASIDE: I was walking off frustration with Trump's financial picks today, and by
sheer fate met an older guy who had just been terminated before he reached his
employee-share pension age, by a company moving their assembly operations to China. He's
hoping to move to Idaho or Montana, where there are so many unemployed meth heads,
anyone who is clean and straight can find some kind of job that the Monkey Boys can't
get their hooks into.]
Hindus flooded the MSM back-office journalist pool, cratering American journalism
careers. Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Street, ...all use Hindus to write their news,
bloat their comment section, and with more 'legal' Hindu H1Bs in editorial positions
within the USA, which is why in the Big Feu-faw since 9/11 fussing over Mexicans,
Muslims, Deadbeat Students and UnInsurable Elders, ...even with 95,000,000 Americans
unemployed, you will NEVER, EVER hear a single word about Hindus.
Nadella, Ellison, McDermott, Gelsinger, Besos, Zuckerberg, and Trump and his Cabinet
are all 100% behind UNLIMITED H1B 'legal' immigration for USA. (Amazon even had to put
cones around a dead PT minimum-wage worker, so their robots wouldn't crush his body,
then the other day, an 'addlebrained' employee jumped off the roof). With all the jobs
going to H1Bs, Trump will have to make America Great Again with his YUUGE infrastructure
program :
The Few, The Proud, The
Brave!
"... By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Originally published at The Frontline ..."
"... President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power. "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position of global strength. We've got to harness it on our terms. If we don't write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China will!", he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the "lame duck" session of Congress just before the November Presidential election in the US. ..."
"... The official US version, expressed on the website of the US Trade Representative, is that the TPP "writes the rules for global trade-rules that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen the American middle class." This is mainly supposed to occur because of the tariff cuts over 18,000 items that have been written into the agreement, which in turn are supposed to lead to significant expansion of trade volumes and values. ..."
"... But this is accepted by fewer and fewer people in the US. Across the country, workers view such trade deals with great suspicion as causing shifts in employment to lower paid workers, mostly in the Global South. ..."
"... But in fact the TPP and the TTIP are not really about trade liberalisation so much as other regulatory changes, so in any case it is hardly surprising that the positive effects on trade are likely to be so limited. What is more surprising is how the entire discussion around these agreements is still framed around the issues relating to trade liberalisation, when these are in fact the less important parts of these agreements, and it is the other elements that are likely to have more negative and even devastating effects on people living in the countries that sign up to them. ..."
"... Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying: the intellectual property provisions, the restrictions on regulatory practices and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions ..."
"... All of these would result in significant strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations vis-à-vis workers and citizens, would reduce the power of governments to bring in policies and regulations that affect the profits or curb the power of such corporations ..."
"... So if such features of US-led globalisation are indeed under threat, that is probably a good thing for the people of the US and for people in their trading partners who had signed up for such deals. ..."
"... The question arises: is Trump evil? Or merely awful? If Trump is merely awful, then we are not faced with voting for the Lesser Evil or otherwise voting Third Party in protest. If we are faced with a choice between Evil and Awful, perhaps a vote for Awful is a vote against Evil just by itself. ..."
"... Trump has backpedaled and frontpedaled on virtually everything, but on trade, he's got Sanders-level consistency. He's been preaching the same sanity since the 90s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg ..."
"... While I do not disagree with your comments, they must be placed in proper context: there is no substantive difference between Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, and the people who staff the campaigns of Trump and Clinton are essentially the same. (Fundamentally a replay of the 2000 election: Cheney/Bush vs. Lieberman/Gore.) ..."
"... Great Comment. Important to knock down the meme that "this is the most significant or important election of our time" - this is a carbon copy of what we have seen half a dozen times since WW2 alone and that's exactly how our elite handlers want it. Limit the choices, stoke fear, win by dividing the plebes. ..."
"... Let's face it, trade without the iron fist of capitalism will benefit us schlobs greatly and not the 1%. I'm all for being against it (TPP etc) and will vote that way. ..."
"... We'd also have put in enough puppet dictators in resource rich countries that we'd be able to get raw materials cheaply. The low labor/raw material cost will provide a significant advantage for exports but alas, our 99% won't be able to afford our own products. ..."
"... the TPP will completely outlaw any possibility of a "Buy America" clause in the future! ..."
"... The cynic in me wonders if under say NAFTA it would be possible for a multinational to sue for lost profits via isds if TPP fails to pass. That the failure to enact trade "liberalizing" legislation could be construed as an active step against trade. the way these things are so ambiguously worded, I wonder. ..."
"... Here's Obama's actual speech at the Nike headquarters (not factory). http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamatradenike.htm ..."
"... It should be noted that the Oregon Democrats who were free traitors and supported fast track authority were called out that day: Bonamici, Blumenauer, Schrader and Wyden. The only Oregon Ds that opposed: Sen. Merkley and Congressman DeFazio. ..."
"... The Market Realist is far more realistic about Oregon's free traitors' votes. http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-affects-footwear-firms/ "US tariffs on footwear imported from Vietnam can range from 5% to 40%, according to OTEXA (Office of Textiles and Apparel). Ratification of the TPP will likely result in lower tariffs and higher profitability for Nike." ..."
"... So what's the incentive for Oregon's free traitors to support the TPP now? ..."
"... Perhaps they still need to show loyalty to their corporate owners and to the principle of "free trade". ..."
"... Obama: "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy." ..."
"... Thank you, Mr. President, for resolving any doubts that the American project is an imperialist project! ..."
"... Yes, and I would add a jingoistic one as well. Manifest destiny, the Monroe doctrine, etc. are not just history lessons but are alive and well in the neoliberal mindset. The empire must keep expanding into every nook and cranny of the world, turning them into good consumerist slaves. ..."
"... Funny how little things change over the centuries. ..."
"... The West Is The Best, Subhuman Are All The Rest. The perpetual mantra of the Uebermensch since Columbus first made landfall. Hitler merely sought to apply the same to some Europeans. ..."
"... "How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism", 2015, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu. ..."
"... The Dem candidate's husband made it appallingly clear what the purpose of the TPP is: "It's to make sure the future of the Asia-Pacific region is not dominated by China". ..."
"... Bill Clinton doesn't even care about "the rise of China". That's just a red herring he sets up to accuse opponents of TPP of soft-on-China treasonism. It's just fabricating a stick to beat the TPP-opponents with. Clinton's support for MFN for China shows what he really thinks about the "rise of China". ..."
"... Clinton's real motivation is the same as the TPP's real reason, to reduce America to colonial possession status of the anti-national corporations and the Global OverClass natural persons who shelter behind and within them. ..."
"... Obama. Liar or stupid? When Elizabeth Warren spoke out about the secrecy of the TPP, Obama, uncharacteristically, ran to the cameras to state that the TPP was not secret and that the charge being leveled by Warren was false. Obama's statement was that Warren had access to a copy so how dare she say it was secret. ..."
"... Obama (and Holder) effectively immunized every financial criminal involved in the great fraud and recession without bothering to run for a camera, and to this day has refused and avoided any elaboration on the subject, but he wasted no time trying to bury Warren publicly. The TPP is a continuation of Obama's give-away to corporations, or more specifically, the very important men who run them who Obama works for. And he is going to pull out all stops to deliver to the men he respects. ..."
"... It's a virtual "black market" of "money laundering" (sterilization). In foreign trade, IMPORTS decrease (-) the money stock of the importing country (and are a subtraction to domestic gDp figures), while EXPORTS increase (+) the money stock and domestic gDp (earnings repatriated to the U.S), and the potential money supply, of the exporting country. ..."
"... I don't WANT the US writing the rules of trade any longer. We know what US-written rules do: plunge worker wages into slave labor territory, guts all advanced country's manufacturing capability, sends all high tech manufacturing to 3rd world nations ..."
"... Time to toss the rules and re-write them for the greatest benefit of the greatest number of NON-wealthy and for the benefit of the planet/ecosystems, NOT for benefit of Wall St. ..."
By Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics and Chairperson at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. Originally published at
The Frontline
There is much angst in the Northern financial media about how the era of globalisation led actively by the United States may well
be coming to an end. This is said to be exemplified in the changed political attitudes to mega regional trade deals like the Trans
Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that was signed (but has not yet been ratified) by the US and 11 other countries in Latin America,
Asia and Oceania; and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) still being negotiated by the US and the
European Union.
President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power.
"We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position
of global strength. We've got to harness it on our terms. If we don't write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China
will!", he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case
for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the "lame duck" session of Congress just before
the November Presidential election in the US.
However, the changing political currents in the US are making that ever more unlikely. Hardly anyone who is a candidate in the
coming elections, whether for the Presidency, the Senate or the House of Representatives, is willing to stick their necks out to
back the deal.
Both Presidential candidates in the US (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) have openly come out against the TPP. In Clinton's case
this is a complete reversal of her earlier position when she had referred to the TPP as "the gold standard of trade deals" – and
it has clearly been forced upon her by the insurgent movement in the Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders. She is already being
pushed by her rival candidate for not coming out more clearly in terms of a complete rejection of this deal. Given the significant
trust deficit that she still has to deal with across a large swathe of US voters, it will be hard if not impossible for her to backtrack
on this once again (as her husband did earlier with NAFTA) even if she does achieve the Presidency.
The official US version, expressed on the website of the US Trade Representative, is that the TPP "writes the rules for global
trade-rules that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen
the American middle class." This is mainly supposed to occur because of the tariff cuts over 18,000 items that have been written
into the agreement, which in turn are supposed to lead to significant expansion of trade volumes and values.
But this is accepted by fewer and fewer people in the US. Across the country, workers view such trade deals with great suspicion
as causing shifts in employment to lower paid workers, mostly in the Global South. Even the only US government study of the
TPP's likely impacts, by the International Trade Commission, could project at best only 1 per cent increase in exports due to the
agreement up to 2032. A study by Jeronim Capaldo and Alex Izurieta with Jomo Kwame Sundaram ("Trading down: Unemployment, inequality
and other risks of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement", Working Paper 16-01, Global Development and Environment Institute, January
2016) was even less optimistic, even for the US. It found that the benefits to exports and economic growth were likely to be relatively
small for all member countries, and would be negative in the US and Japan because of losses to employment and increases in inequality.
Wage shares of national income would decline in all the member countries.
But in fact the TPP and the TTIP are not really about trade liberalisation so much as other regulatory changes, so in any
case it is hardly surprising that the positive effects on trade are likely to be so limited. What is more surprising is how the entire
discussion around these agreements is still framed around the issues relating to trade liberalisation, when these are in fact the
less important parts of these agreements, and it is the other elements that are likely to have more negative and even devastating
effects on people living in the countries that sign up to them.
Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying:
the intellectual property provisions,
the restrictions on regulatory practices
the investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
Three aspects of these agreements are particularly worrying: the intellectual property provisions, the restrictions
on regulatory practices and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions.
All of these would result in significant strengthening of the bargaining power of corporations vis-à-vis workers and citizens,
would reduce the power of governments to bring in policies and regulations that affect the profits or curb the power of such corporations
For example, the TPP (and the TTIP) require more stringent enforcement requirements of intellectual property rights: reducing
exemptions (e.g. allowing compulsory licensing only for emergencies); preventing parallel imports; extending IPRs to areas like life
forms, counterfeiting and piracy; extending exclusive rights to test data (e.g. in pharmaceuticals); making IPR provisions more detailed
and prescriptive. The scope of drug patents is extended to include minor changes to existing medications (a practice commonly employed
by drug companies, known as "evergreening"). Patent linkages would make it more difficult for many generic drugs to enter markets.
This would strengthen, lengthen and broaden pharmaceutical monopolies on cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS drugs, and in general
make even life-saving drugs more expensive and inaccessible in all the member countries. It would require further transformation
of countries' laws on patents and medical test data. It would reduce the scope of exemption in use of medical formulations through
public procurement for public purposes. All this is likely to lead to reductions in access to drugs and medical procedures because
of rising prices, and also impede innovation rather than encouraging it, across member countries.
There are also very restrictive copyright protection rules, that would also affect internet usage as Internet Service Providers
are to be forced to adhere to them. There are further restrictions on branding that would reinforce the market power of established
players.
The TPP and TTIP also contain restrictions on regulatory practices that greatly increase the power of corporations relative to
states and can even prevent states from engaging in countercyclical measures designed to boost domestic demand. It has been pointed
out by consumer groups in the USA that the powers of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate products that affect health of
citizens could be constrained and curtailed by this agreement. Similarly, macroeconomic stimulus packages that focus on boosting
domestic demand for local production would be explicitly prohibited by such agreements.
All these are matters for concern because these agreements enable corporations to litigate against governments that are perceived
to be flouting these provisions because of their own policy goals or to protect the rights of their citizens. The Investor-State
Dispute Settlement mechanism enabled by these agreements is seen to be one of their most deadly features. Such litigation is then
subject to supranational tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards
and which do not see the rights of citizen as in any way superior to the "rights" of corporations to their profits. These courts
can conduct closed and secret hearings with secret evidence. They do not just interpret the rules but contribute to them through
case law because of the relatively vague wording of the text, which can then be subject to different interpretations, and therefore
are settled by case law. The experience thus far with such tribunals has been problematic. Since they are legally based on "equal"
treatment of legal persons with no primacy for human rights, they have become known for their pro-investor bias, partly due to the
incentive structure for arbitrators, and partly because the system is designed to provide supplementary guarantees to investors,
rather than making them respect host countries laws and regulations.
If all these features of the TPP and the TTIP were more widely known, it is likely that there would be even greater public resistance
to them in the US and in other countries. Even as it is, there is growing antagonism to the trade liberalisation that is seen to
bring benefits to corporations rather than to workers, at a period in history when secure employment is seen to be the biggest prize
of all.
So if such features of US-led globalisation are indeed under threat, that is probably a good thing for the people of the US
and for people in their trading partners who had signed up for such deals.
I was watching a speech Premier Li gave at the Economic Club of NY last night, and it was interesting to see how all his (vetted,
pre-selected) questions revolved around anxieties having to do with resistance to global trade deals. Li made a few pandering
comments about how much the Chinese love American beef (stop it! you're killing me! har har) meant to diffuse those anxieties,
but it became clear that the fear among TPTB of people's dissatisfaction with the current economic is palpable. Let's keep it
up!
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out a $147 million civil price fixing judgment against Chinese manufacturers of
vitamin C, ruling the companies weren't liable in U.S. courts because they were acting under the direction of Chinese authorities.
The case raised thorny questions of how courts should treat foreign companies accused of violating U.S. antitrust law when
they are following mandates of a foreign government.
"I was only following orders" might not have worked in Nuremberg, but it's a-ok in international trade.
The question arises: is Trump evil? Or merely awful? If Trump is merely awful, then we are not faced with voting for the
Lesser Evil or otherwise voting Third Party in protest. If we are faced with a choice between Evil and Awful, perhaps a vote for
Awful is a vote against Evil just by itself.
Trump has already back peddaled on his TPP stance. He now says he wants to renegotiate the TTP and other trade deals. Whatever
that means. Besides, Trump is a distraction, its Mike Pence you should be keeping your eye on. He's American Taliban pure and
simple.
This is simply false. Trump has backpedaled and frontpedaled on virtually everything, but on trade, he's got Sanders-level
consistency. He's been preaching the same sanity since the 90s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZpMJeynBeg
Hillary wants to start a war with Russia and pass the trade trifecta of TPP/TTIP/TiSA.
While I do not disagree with your comments, they must be placed in proper context: there is no substantive difference between
Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, and the people who staff the campaigns of Trump and Clinton are essentially the same. (Fundamentally
a replay of the 2000 election: Cheney/Bush vs. Lieberman/Gore.)
Trump was run to make Hillary look good, but that has turned out to be Mission Real Impossible!
We are seeing the absolute specious political theater at its worst, attempting to differentiate between Hillary Rodham Clinton
and the Trumpster – – – the only major difference is that Clinton has far more real blood on her and Bill's hands.
Nope, there is no lesser of evils this time around . . .
Great Comment. Important to knock down the meme that "this is the most significant or important election of our time" -
this is a carbon copy of what we have seen half a dozen times since WW2 alone and that's exactly how our elite handlers want it.
Limit the choices, stoke fear, win by dividing the plebes.
Let's face it, trade without the iron fist of capitalism will benefit us schlobs greatly and not the 1%. I'm all for being
against it (TPP etc) and will vote that way.
>only 1 per cent increase in exports due to the agreement up to 2032.
At that point American's wages will have dropped near enough to Chinese levels that we can compete in selling to First World
countries . assuming there are any left.
We'd also have put in enough puppet dictators in resource rich countries that we'd be able to get raw materials cheaply.
The low labor/raw material cost will provide a significant advantage for exports but alas, our 99% won't be able to afford our
own products.
Naaah, never been about competition, since nobody is actually vetted when they offshore those jobs or replace American workers
with foreign visa workers.
But to sum it up as succinctly as possible: the TPP is about the destruction of workers' rights; the destruction of local and
small businesses; and the loss of sovereignty. Few Americans are cognizant of just how many businesses are foreign owned today
in America; their local energy utility or state energy utility, their traffic enforcement company which was privatized, their
insurance company (GEICO, etc.).
I remember when a political action group back in the '00s thought they had stumbled on a big deal when someone had hacked into
the system of the Bretton Woods Committee (the lobbyist group for the international super-rich which ONLY communicates with the
Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader, and who shares the same lobbyist and D.C. office space as the Group of Thirty,
the lobbyist group for the central bankers [Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Mario Draghi, Ernesto Zedillo, Bill Dudley, etc.,
etc.]) and placed online their demand of the senate and the congress to kill the "Buy America" clause in the federal stimulus
program of a few years back (it was watered down greatly, and many exemptions were signed by then Commerce Secretary Gary Locke),
but such information went completely unnoticed or ignored, and of course, the TPP will completely outlaw any possibility of
a "Buy America" clause in the future!
The cynic in me wonders if under say NAFTA it would be possible for a multinational to sue for lost profits via isds if
TPP fails to pass. That the failure to enact trade "liberalizing" legislation could be construed as an active step against trade.
the way these things are so ambiguously worded, I wonder.
In June 2016, "[TransCanada] filed an arbitration claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) over President
Obama's rejection of the pipeline, making good on its January threat to take legal action against the US decision.
According to the official request for arbitration, the $15 billion tab is supposed to help the company recover costs and damages
that it suffered "as a result of the US administration's breach of its NAFTA obligations." NAFTA is a comprehensive trade agreement
between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that went into effect in January 1, 1994. Under the agreement, businesses can challenge
governments over investment disputes.
In addition, the company filed a suit in US Federal Court in Houston, Texas in January asserting that the Obama Administration
exceeded the power granted by the US Constitution in denying the project."
It should be noted that the Oregon Democrats who were free traitors and supported fast track authority were called out
that day: Bonamici, Blumenauer, Schrader and Wyden. The only Oregon Ds that opposed: Sen. Merkley and Congressman DeFazio.
Obama's rhetoric May 5, 2015 at the Nike campus was all about how small businesses would prosper. Congresswoman Bonamici clings
to this rationale in her refusal to tell angry constituents at town halls whether she supports the TPP.
The Market Realist is far more realistic about Oregon's free traitors' votes.
http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/trans-pacific-partnership-affects-footwear-firms/
"US tariffs on footwear imported from Vietnam can range from 5% to 40%, according to OTEXA (Office of Textiles and Apparel). Ratification
of the TPP will likely result in lower tariffs and higher profitability for Nike."
That appeals to the other big athletic corporations that cluster in the Portland metro: Columbia Sportswear and Under Armour.
Yes, and I would add a jingoistic one as well. Manifest destiny, the Monroe doctrine, etc. are not just history lessons
but are alive and well in the neoliberal mindset. The empire must keep expanding into every nook and cranny of the world, turning
them into good consumerist slaves.
Funny how little things change over the centuries.
The West Is The Best, Subhuman Are All The Rest. The perpetual mantra of the Uebermensch since Columbus first made landfall.
Hitler merely sought to apply the same to some Europeans.
"How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism", 2015, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancioglu.
The Dem candidate's husband made it appallingly clear what the purpose of the TPP is: "It's to make sure the future of
the Asia-Pacific region is not dominated by China".
Would be nice if they had even a passing thought for those people in a certain North American region located in between Canada
and Mexico.
Bill Clinton doesn't even care about "the rise of China". That's just a red herring he sets up to accuse opponents of TPP
of soft-on-China treasonism. It's just fabricating a stick to beat the TPP-opponents with. Clinton's support for MFN for China
shows what he really thinks about the "rise of China".
Clinton's real motivation is the same as the TPP's real reason, to reduce America to colonial possession status of the
anti-national corporations and the Global OverClass natural persons who shelter behind and within them.
If calling the International Free Trade Conspiracy "American" is enough to get it killed and destroyed, then I don't mind having
a bunch of foreigners calling the Free Trade Conspiracy "American". Just as long as they are really against it, and can really
get Free Trade killed and destroyed.
Excellent post. Thank you. Should these so called "trade agreements" be approved, perhaps Investor-State Dispute Settlement
(ISDS arbitration) futures can be created by Wall Street and made the next speculative "Play-of-the-day" so that everyone has
a chance to participate in the looting. Btw, can you loot your own house?
Obama. Liar or stupid? When Elizabeth Warren spoke out about the secrecy of the TPP, Obama, uncharacteristically, ran to
the cameras to state that the TPP was not secret and that the charge being leveled by Warren was false. Obama's statement was
that Warren had access to a copy so how dare she say it was secret.
At the time he made that statement Warren could go to an offsite location to read the TPP in the presence of a member of the
Trade Commission, could not have staff with her, could not take notes, and could not discuss anything she read with anyone else
after she left. Or face criminal charges.
Yeah. Nothing secret about that.
Obama (and Holder) effectively immunized every financial criminal involved in the great fraud and recession without bothering
to run for a camera, and to this day has refused and avoided any elaboration on the subject, but he wasted no time trying to bury
Warren publicly. The TPP is a continuation of Obama's give-away to corporations, or more specifically, the very important men
who run them who Obama works for. And he is going to pull out all stops to deliver to the men he respects.
And add to that everything from David Dayen's book (" Chain of Title ") on Covington & Burling and Eric Holder and President
Obama, and Thomas Frank's book ("Listen, Liberals") and people will have the full picture!
It's a virtual "black market" of "money laundering" (sterilization). In foreign trade, IMPORTS decrease (-) the money stock
of the importing country (and are a subtraction to domestic gDp figures), while EXPORTS increase (+) the money stock and domestic
gDp (earnings repatriated to the U.S), and the potential money supply, of the exporting country.
So, there's a financial incentive (to maximize profits), not to repatriate foreign income (pushes up our exchange rate, currency
conversion costs, if domestic re-investment alternatives are considered more circumscribed, plus taxes, etc.).
In spite of the surfeit of $s, and E-$ credits, and unlike the days in which world-trade required a Marshall Plan jump start,
trade surpluses increasingly depend on the Asian Tiger's convertibility issues.
I don't WANT the US writing the rules of trade any longer. We know what US-written rules do: plunge worker wages into slave
labor territory, guts all advanced country's manufacturing capability, sends all high tech manufacturing to 3rd world nations
or even (potential) unfriendlies like China (who can easily put trojan spyware hard code or other vulnerabilities into critical
microchips the way WE were told the US could/would when it was leading on this tech when I was serving in the 90s). We already
know that US-written rules is simply a way for mega corporations to extend patents into the ever-more-distant future, a set of
rules that hands more control of arts over to the MPAA, rules that gut environmental laws, etc. Who needs the US-written agreements
when this is the result?
Time to toss the rules and re-write them for the greatest benefit of the greatest number of NON-wealthy and for the benefit
of the planet/ecosystems, NOT for benefit of Wall St.
Blast from the past. Bill Clinton position on illegal immegtation.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again. ..."
"... President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone, the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country. Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported. ..."
"... However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination . And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools - it is wrong, and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime. ..."
Democrats remember that we are a nation of immigrants. We recognize the extraordinary contribution
of immigrants to America throughout our history. We welcome legal immigrants to America. We support
a legal immigration policy that is pro-family, pro-work, pro-responsibility, and pro-citizenship
, and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems.
We know that citizenship is the cornerstone of full participation in American life. We are
proud that the President launched Citizenship USA to help eligible immigrants become United States
citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is streamlining procedures, cutting red tape,
and using new technology to make it easier for legal immigrants to accept the responsibilities
of citizenship and truly call America their home.
Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate
illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington
talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border
was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal
immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned
the very next day to commit crimes again.
President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and
illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in
El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone,
the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country.
Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them
on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported.
However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the
temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need
to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination . And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans
like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort
of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools - it is wrong,
and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime.
Democrats want to protect American jobs by increasing criminal and civil sanctions against
employers who hire illegal workers , but Republicans continue to favor inflammatory rhetoric over
real action. We will continue to enforce labor standards to protect workers in vulnerable industries.
We continue to firmly oppose welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. We believe family members
who sponsor immigrants into this country should take financial responsibility for them, and be
held legally responsible for supporting them.
"... It has been an absolute failure. Brexit has torpedoed TTIP and TPP has limited value - the largest economy in the partnership, Japan, has been largely integrated in to the US for the past 70 years. ..."
"... IMO the biggest failure of the US has been hating Russia too much. The Russians have just as much reason to be afraid of China ..."
"... It's old Cold War thinking that has seen America lose its hegemony -- similar to how the British were so focused on stopping German ascendancy they didn't see the Americans coming with the knife. ..."
The US grand strategy post-Bush was to reposition itself at the heart of a liberal economic system
excluding China through TTIP with the EU and TPP with Asia-Pac ex. China and Russia. The idea
was that this would enable the US to sustain its hegemony.
It has been an absolute failure. Brexit has torpedoed TTIP and TPP has limited value -
the largest economy in the partnership, Japan, has been largely integrated in to the US for the
past 70 years.
IMO the biggest failure of the US has been hating Russia too much. The Russians have just
as much reason to be afraid of China as the US do and have a pretty capable army.
If the US patched things up with the Russians, firstly it could redeploy forces and military
effort away from the Middle East towards Asia Pac and secondly it would give the US effective
leverage over China -- with the majority of the oil producing nations aligned with the US, China
would have difficulty in conducted a sustained conflict.
It's old Cold War thinking that has seen America lose its hegemony -- similar to how the
British were so focused on stopping German ascendancy they didn't see the Americans coming with
the knife.
"... The real problem is the Chinese do not believe in economic profits, just market rates of return on invested capital which to be honest is only about 2-5% depending on risk. ..."
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
What we find the most interesting is that the AIIB founders didn't ask
member countries to approve an expansion of either the World Bank or the
ADB. Instead, they opted for a new organization altogether.
Why? The problem is institutional legitimacy arising from issues of power
and governance :
-- Cecchetti & Schoenholtz
[ Why? Because when all is said and done the United States wants to be
able to control the Asian Development Bank, the IMF and World Bank and use
them to in turn "control" countries that it wishes to be subject to the
US but especially to control China as the New York Times editorial board
made clear today in supporting Japanese militarism. *
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
-- Cecchetti & Schoenholtz
[ Unless the word "official" suffices as an excuse, of course United
States and British policy makers in particular dispute the need for more
government supported infrastructure funding. Amartya Sen and Vijay Prashad
have made this entirely clear for India. *
The real problem is the Chinese do not believe in economic profits, just
market rates of return on invested capital which to be honest is only about
2-5% depending on risk.
Americans demand monopoly profits and ROIC so high that the price of
capital assets rapidly inflates.
Thus China's high speed rail plans are evil because China is advocating
high volumes of HSR construction that costs decline by economies of scale
leading to the replacement cost of any existing rail line being lower than
original cost so the result is capital depreciation lower the price of assets,
tangible and intangible, and the frantic pace of creating jobs and building
more capital - more rail - eliminates any monopoly power of any rail system,
thereby forcing revenues down to costs with the recovery of investment cost
stretched to decades, and ROIC forced toward zero.
And it's that policy of investing to eliminate profits that drives conservatives
insane. They scream, "it is bankrupt because those hundred year lifetime
assets are not paying for themselves and generating stock market gains in
seven years!"
Its like banking was from circa 1930 to 1980! It is like utility regulation
was from 1930 to 1980! How can wealth be created when monopoly power is
thwarted?!?
Just imagine how devastating if China uses the AIIB to build a rail network
speeding goods between China and the tip of Africa and every place in between!
Highly destructive of wealth.
Though I want to smooth the writing and terminology, I completely agree.
Again, a terrific thoroughly enlightening comment. ]
anne :
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate as a
founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon as it
can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century standards
:.
-- Cecchetti & Schoenholtz
[ Surely the IMF and the like are responsible for the "explosive" 38 year
growth in real per capita Gross Domestic Product and 35 year growth in total
factor productivity from Mexico, neighbor to the United States, to the Philippines,
to Kenya : ]
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for China, India, Brazil
and South Africa, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne -> anne :
Even supposing analysts short of an Amartya Sen wish to be judicious in actually
looking to the data of the last 38 years, as even Sen has found there is a price
for arguing about the obvious importance of soft (social welfare spending) and
hard institutional infrastructure spending in China:
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China and Kenya, 1976-2014
(Indexed to 1976)
anne :
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate
as a founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon
as it can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century
standards :.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for China,
United States and United Kingdom, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding :
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate as a
founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon as it
can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century standards
:.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for United States, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany and China,
1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding :
What we find the most interesting is that the AIIB founders didn't ask member
countries to approve an expansion of either the World Bank or the ADB. Instead,
they opted for a new organization altogether.
Why? The problem is institutional legitimacy arising from issues of power
and governance :
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for China, Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate
as a founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon
as it can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century
standards :.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for Sweden,
Denmark, Norway, Finland and China, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate
as a founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon
as it can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century
standards :.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for Ireland,
Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and China, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate
as a founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon
as it can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century
standards :.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for China, Japan
and Korea, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
kthomas :
yawn
anne :
Yawn
[ When did the United States experience 38 years of 8.6% real per capita
GDP growth yearly? How about the United Kingdom? How about any other country?
I have just begun, go ahead choose another country to go with China. I am
waiting. Go ahead. I will include the astonishing total factor productivity
growth as well. ]
anne :
While most of the G20 nations, including the big European states, Australia,
and South Korea, are among the founding members, the United States, Japan,
and Canada are noticeably not :
-- Cecchetti & Schoenholtz
[ I found it startling and discouraging that Greece virtually alone in
Europe did not apply to be a founding member of the AIIB. ]
anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate
as a founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon
as it can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century
standards :.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for China,
United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne -> anne :
Yawn
[ I am still waiting, choose a country to go with China. ]
anne -> anne :
No one disputes the need for more official infrastructure funding
:
And :after failing to stop the AIIB, and refusing to participate
as a founding member, the United States should join the institution as soon
as it can, participating actively in holding it to the highest 21st century
standards :.
Total Factor Productivity at Constant National Prices for Indonesia,
Philippines, Thailand and China, 1976-2011
(Indexed to 1976)
anne -> anne :
Yawn
[ Still waiting, choose a country to go with China. ]
Bruce Webb :
As to why the AIIB decided to go alone (at least without the US) it may
have something to do with a fact that I stumbled on in relation to the Greece
crisis. I am sure that most people here knew the basic fact and perhaps
appreciate the irony but I didn't know whether to weep or laugh outright.
The U.S. only controls 17% of voting powers of the IMF. Why barely a
sixth! Yet any positive decision requires an 85% vote. Meaning that in operational
terms the U.S. might as well hold 51%.
You see similar things with NATO. It's a partnership that has high officers
rotating in from here or there. But which requires that the overall NATO
Commander be an American.
Nothing undemocratic or hegemonic here! Nope! Moving right along!
anne -> Bruce Webb :
The U.S. only controls 17% of voting powers of the IMF. Why barely a
sixth! Yet any positive decision requires an 85% vote. Meaning that in operational
terms the U.S. might as well hold 51%.
You see similar things with NATO. It's a partnership that has high officers
rotating in from here or there. But which requires that the overall NATO
Commander be an American.
Nothing undemocratic or hegemonic here! Nope! Moving right along!
[ Perfect and important. ]
anne -> Bruce Webb :
I am sure that most people here knew the basic fact and perhaps appreciate
the irony but I didn't know whether to weep or laugh outright :.
[ No, in continually whining about the need for Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank to be transparent and democratic the United States was making
sure never ever to explain the historic lack of transparency and anti-democratic
nature of the IMF and World Bank and Asian Development Bank. ]
"... Bill Clinton: "The geopolitical reasons for [TPP], from America's point of view, are pretty clear. It's designed to make sure that the future of the Asia-Pacific region, economically, is not totally dominated by China" ..."
"... " The full 40-page paper (PDF) [from the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University] goes into the details [of projected economic gains from trade deals]. Along the way, it provides a highly critical analysis of the underlying econometric model used for almost all of the official studies of CETA, TPP and TTIP - the so-called "computable general equilibrium" (CGE) approach. In particular, the authors find that using the CGE model to analyze a potential trade deal effectively guarantees that there will be a positive outcome ("net welfare gains") because of its unrealistic assumptions" [ TechDirt ]. ..."
Bill Clinton: "The geopolitical reasons for [TPP], from America's point of view, are pretty
clear. It's designed to make sure that the future of the Asia-Pacific region, economically, is not
totally dominated by China" [
CNBC ].
"However, he stopped short [by about an inch, right?] of supporting the TPP. He added that his
wife [who is running for President' has said provisions on currency manipulation must be enforced
and measures put in place in the United States to address any labor market dislocations that result
from trade deals." Oh. "Provisions enforced" sounds like executive authority, to me. And "measures
put in place" sounds like a side deal. In other words, Bill Clinton just floated Hillary's trial
balloon for passing TPP, if Obama can't get it done in the lame duck. Of course, if you parsed her
words, you knew she wasn't lying , exactly .
" The full 40-page
paper (PDF) [from the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University] goes
into the details [of projected economic gains from trade deals]. Along the way, it provides a highly
critical analysis of the underlying econometric model used for almost all of the official studies
of CETA, TPP and TTIP - the so-called "computable general equilibrium" (CGE) approach. In particular,
the authors find that using the CGE model to analyze a potential trade deal effectively guarantees
that there will be a positive outcome ("net welfare gains") because of its unrealistic assumptions"
[
TechDirt ].
"Conservative lawmakers looking for a way to buck Donald Trump's populist message on trade may
have gotten a little more cover with more than 30 conservative and libertarian groups sending a letter
today to Congress expressing strong support for free trade" [
Politico ]. National
Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks
"France is set to arrive at the meeting with a proposal to suspend TTIP negotiations, our Pro
Trade colleagues in Brussels report. But for the deal's supporters, there's hop'e: 'France will not
win the day,' Alberto Mucci, Christian Oliver and Hans von der Burchard write. 'Britain [???], Italy,
Spain, Poland, the Nordic countries and the Baltics will thwart any attempt to end the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership in Bratislava'" [
Politico ].
"... Expressing his overall objections to the TPP, Stiglitz said "corporate interests... were at the table" when it was being crafted. He also condemned "the provisions on intellectual property that will drive up drug prices" and "the 'investment provisions' which will make it more difficult to regulate and actually harm trade." ..."
"... The Democratic candidate, for her part, supported the deal before coming out against it , but for TPP foes, uncertainty about her position remains, especially since she recently named former Colorado Senator and Interior Secretary-and " vehement advocate for the TPP "-Ken Salazar to be chair of her presidential transition team. ..."
"... Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said , "We have to make sure that bill never sees the light of day after this election," while Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said at the American Postal Workers Union convention in Walt Disney World, "If this goes through, it's curtains for the middle class in this country." ..."
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has reiterated his opposition
to the Trans Pacific
Partnership (TPP), saying on Tuesday that President Barack Obama's push
to get the trade deal passed during the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress
is "outrageous" and "absolutely wrong."
Stiglitz, an economics professor at
Columbia University and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute,
made the comments on CNN's "Quest Means Business."
His criticism comes as Obama aggressively
campaigns to get lawmakers to pass the TPP in the Nov. 9 to Jan. 3 window-even
as
resistance mounts against the 12-nation deal.
Echoing an
argument made by Center for Economic
and Policy Research co-director Mark Weisbrot, Stiglitz said, "At the lame-duck
session you have congressmen voting who know that they're not accountable anymore."
Lawmakers "who are not politically accountable because they're leaving may,
in response to promises of jobs or just subtle understandings, do things that
are not in the national interest," he said.
Expressing his overall objections to the TPP, Stiglitz said "corporate
interests... were at the table" when it was being crafted. He also condemned
"the provisions on intellectual property that will drive up drug prices" and
"the 'investment provisions' which will make it more difficult to regulate and
actually harm trade."
"The advocates of trade said it was going to benefit everyone,"
he added. "The evidence is it's benefited a few and left a lot behind."
Stiglitz has also been advising the
Hillary
Clinton presidential campaign. The Democratic candidate, for her part,
supported the deal before coming out
against it, but for TPP foes, uncertainty about her position remains, especially
since she recently
named former Colorado Senator and Interior Secretary-and "vehement
advocate for the TPP"-Ken Salazar to be chair of her presidential transition
team.
Opposition to the TPP also appeared Tuesday in Michigan and Florida, where
union members and lawmakers criticized what they foresee as the deal's impacts
on working families.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.)
said, "We have to make sure that bill never sees the light of day after
this election," while Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)
said at the American Postal Workers Union convention in Walt Disney World,
"If this goes through, it's curtains for the middle class in this country."
We cannot allow this agreement to forsake the American middle class, while foreign governments
are allowed to devalue their currency and artificially prop-up their industries.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal is a bad deal for the American people. This historically
massive trade deal -- accounting for 40 percent of global trade -- would reduce restrictions on foreign
corporations operating within the U.S., limit our ability to protect our environment, and create
more incentives for U.S. businesses to outsource investments and jobs overseas to countries with
lower labor costs and standards.
Over and over we hear from TPP proponents how the TPP will boost our economy, help American workers,
and set the standards for global trade. The International Trade Commission report released last May
(https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4607.pdf)
confirms that the opposite is true. In exchange for just 0.15 percent boost in GDP by 2032, the TPP
would decimate American manufacturing capacity, increase our trade deficit, ship American jobs overseas,
and result in losses to 16 of the 25 U.S. economic sectors. These estimates don't even account for
the damaging effects of currency manipulation, environmental impacts, and the agreement's deeply
flawed Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process.
There's no reason to believe the provisions of this deal relating to labor standards, preserving
American jobs, or protecting our environment, will be enforceable. Every trade agreement negotiated
in the past claimed to have strong enforceable provisions to protect American jobs -- yet no such
enforcement has occurred, and agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have
resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Former Secretary of Labor Robert
Reich has called TPP "NAFTA on steroids." The loss of U.S. jobs under the TPP would likely be unprecedented.
"... Existing "trade" agreements like NAFTA allow corporations to sue governments for passing laws and regulations that limit their profits. They set up special " corporate courts " in which corporate attorneys decide the cases. These corporate "super courts" sit above governments and their own court systems, and countries and their citizens cannot even appeal the rulings. ..."
"... Now, corporations are pushing two new "trade" agreements - one covering Pacific-are countries and one covering Atlantic-area countries - that expand these corporate rights and move governments out of their way. The Pacific agreement is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Atlantic one is called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). ..."
"... International corporations that want to intimidate countries have access to a private legal system designed just for them. And to unlock its power, sometimes all it takes is a threat. ..."
"... ISDS is so tilted and unpredictable, and the fines the arbitrators can impose are so catastrophically large, that bowing to a company's demands, however extreme they may be, can look like the prudent choice. ..."
BuzzFeed is running a very important investigative series called
"Secrets
of a Global Super Court." It describes what they call "a parallel legal
universe, open only to corporations and largely invisible to everyone else."
Existing "trade" agreements like NAFTA allow corporations to sue governments
for passing laws and regulations that limit their profits. They set up special
"corporate
courts" in which corporate attorneys decide the cases. These corporate "super
courts" sit above governments and their own court systems, and countries
and their citizens cannot even appeal the rulings.
Picture a poor "banana republic" country ruled by a dictator and his
cronies. A company might want to invest in a factory or railroad - things
that would help the people of that country as well as deliver a return to
the company. But the company worries that the dictator might decide to just
seize the factory and give it to his brother-in-law. Agreements to protect
investors, and allowing a tribunal not based in such countries (courts where
the judges are cronies of the dictator), make sense in such situations.
Here's the thing: Corporate investors see themselves as legitimate "makers"
and see citizens and voters and their governments - always demanding taxes and
fair pay and public safety - to be illegitimate "takers." Corporations are all
about "one-dollar-one-vote" top-down systems of governance. They consider "one-person-one-vote"
democracy to be an illegitimate, non-functional system that meddles with their
more-important profit interests. They consider any governmental legal or regulatory
system to be "burdensome." They consider taxes as "theft" of the money they
have "earned."
To them, any government anywhere is just another "banana republic"
from which they need special protection.
"Trade" Deals Bypass Borders
Investors and their corporations have set up a way to get around the borders
of these meddling governments, called "trade" deals. The trade deals elevate
global corporate interests above any national interest. When a country signs
a "trade" deal, that country is agreeing not to do things that protect the country's
own national interest - like impose tariffs to protect key industries or national
strategies, or pass laws and regulations - when those things interfere with
the larger, more important global corporate "trade" interests.
Now, corporations are pushing two new "trade" agreements - one covering
Pacific-are countries and one covering Atlantic-area countries - that expand
these corporate rights and move governments out of their way. The Pacific agreement
is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Atlantic one is called
the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
Secrets of a Global Super Court
BuzzFeed's series on these corporate courts,
"Secrets
of a Global Super Court," explains the investor-state dispute settlement
(ISDS) provisions in the "trade" deals that have come to dominate the world
economy. These provisions set up "corporate
courts" that place corporate profits above the interests of governments
and set up a court system that sits above the court systems of the countries
in the "trade" deals.
In a little-noticed 2014 dissent, US Chief Justice John Roberts warned
that ISDS arbitration panels hold the alarming power to review a nation's
laws and "effectively annul the authoritative acts of its legislature, executive,
and judiciary." ISDS arbitrators, he continued, "can meet literally anywhere
in the world" and "sit in judgment" on a nation's "sovereign acts."
[. . .]
Reviewing publicly available information for about 300 claims filed during
the past five years, BuzzFeed News found more than 35 cases in which the
company or executive seeking protection in ISDS was accused of criminal
activity, including money laundering, embezzlement, stock manipulation,
bribery, war profiteering, and fraud.
Among them: a bank in Cyprus that the US government accused of
financing terrorism and organized crime, an oil company executive accused
of embezzling millions from the impoverished African nation of Burundi,
and the Russian oligarch known as "the
Kremlin's banker."
One lawyer who regularly represents governments said he's seen evidence
of corporate criminality that he "couldn't believe." Speaking on the condition
that he not be named because he's currently handling ISDS cases, he said,
"You have a lot of scuzzy sort-of thieves for whom this is a way to hit
the jackpot."
Part Two,
"The Billion-Dollar Ultimatum," looks at how "International corporations
that want to intimidate countries have access to a private legal system designed
just for them. And to unlock its power, sometimes all it takes is a threat."
Of all the ways in which ISDS is used, the most deeply hidden are the
threats, uttered in private meetings or ominous letters, that invoke those
courts. The threats are so powerful they often eliminate the need to actually
bring a lawsuit. Just the knowledge that it could happen is enough.
[. . .] ISDS is so tilted and unpredictable, and the fines the arbitrators
can impose are so catastrophically large, that bowing to a company's demands,
however extreme they may be, can look like the prudent choice. Especially
for nations struggling to emerge from corrupt dictatorships or to lift their
people from decades of poverty, the mere threat of an ISDS claim triggers
alarm. A single decision by a panel of three unaccountable, private lawyers,
meeting in a conference room on some other continent, could gut national
budgets and shake economies to the core.
Indeed, financiers and ISDS lawyers have created a whole new business:
prowling for ways to sue nations in ISDS and make their taxpayers fork over
huge sums, sometimes in retribution for enforcing basic laws or regulations.
The financial industry is pushing novel ISDS claims that countries
never could have anticipated - claims that, in some instances,
would be barred in US courts and those of other developed nations, or
that strike at emergency decisions nations make to cope with crises.
ISDS gives particular leverage to traders and speculators who chase
outsize profits in the developing world. They can buy into local disputes
that they have no connection to, then turn the disputes into costly international
showdowns. Standard Chartered, for example, bought the debt of a Tanzanian
company that was in dire financial straits and racked by scandal; now, the
bank has filed an ISDS claim demanding that the nation's taxpayers hand
over the full amount that the private company owed - more than $100 million.
Asked to comment, Standard Chartered said its claim is "valid."
But instead of helping companies resolve legitimate disputes over seized
assets, ISDS has increasingly become a way for rich investors to make money
by speculating on lawsuits, winning huge awards and forcing taxpayers to
foot the bill.
Here's how it works: Wealthy financiers with idle cash have purchased
companies that are well placed to bring an ISDS claim, seemingly for the
sole purpose of using that claim to make a buck. Sometimes, they set up
shell corporations to create the plaintiffs to bring ISDS cases.
And some hedge funds and private equity firms bankroll ISDS cases as third
parties - just like billionaire Peter Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan in his
lawsuit against Gawker Media.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) released this statement
on the ISDS provisions in TPP:
"Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wall Street would be allowed to
sue the government in extrajudicial, corporate-run tribunals over any regulation
and American taxpayers would be on the hook for damages. This is an outrage.
We need more accountability and fairness in our economy – not less. And
we need to preserve our ability to make our own rules.
"It's time for Obama to take notice of the widespread, bipartisan opposition
to the TPP and take this agreement off the table before he causes lasting
political harm to Democrats with voters."
"... "No TPP - a certainty in case Donald Trump is elected in November - means the end of US economic hegemony over Asia. Hillary Clinton knows it; and it's no accident President Obama is desperate to have TPP approved during a short window of opportunity, the lame-duck session of Congress from November 9 to January 3." ..."
"... To me, the key to our economic hegemony lies in our reserve currency hegemony. They will have to continue to supply us to get the currency. Unless we have injected too much already (no scholars have come forth to say how much trade deficits are necessary for the reserve currency to function as the reserve currency, and so, we have just kept buying – and I am wondering if we have bought too much and there is a need to starting running trade surpluses to soak up the excess money – just asking, I don't know the answer). ..."
A response to Hillary Clinton's America Exceptionalist Speech:
1. America Exceptionalist vs. the World..
2. Brezinski is extremely dejected.
3. Russia-China on the march.
4. "There will be blood. Hillary Clinton smells it already ."
"No TPP - a certainty in case Donald Trump is elected in November
- means the end of US economic hegemony over Asia. Hillary Clinton knows
it; and it's no accident President Obama is desperate to have TPP approved
during a short window of opportunity, the lame-duck session of Congress
from November 9 to January 3."
To me, the key to our economic hegemony lies in our reserve currency
hegemony. They will have to continue to supply us to get the currency. Unless
we have injected too much already (no scholars have come forth to say how
much trade deficits are necessary for the reserve currency to function as
the reserve currency, and so, we have just kept buying – and I am wondering
if we have bought too much and there is a need to starting running trade
surpluses to soak up the excess money – just asking, I don't know the answer).
Regarding the push to pass the TPP and TISA I've been needing to get
this off my chest and this seems to be as good a time as any:
In the face of public opposition to the TPP and TISA proponents have
trotted out a new argument: "we have come too far", "our national credibility
would be damaged if we stop now." The premise of which is that negotiations
have been going on so long, and have involved such effort that if the
U.S. were to back away now we would look bad and would lose significant
political capital.
On one level this argument is true. The negotiations have been long,
and many promises were made by the negotiators to secure to to this
point. Stepping back now would expose those promises as false and would
make that decade of effort a loss. It would also expose the politicians
who pushed for it in the face of public oppoosition to further loss
of status and to further opposition.
However, all of that is voided by one simple fact. The negotiations
were secret. All of that effort, all of the horse trading and the promise
making was done by a self-selected body of elites, for that same body,
and was hidden behind a wall of secrecy stronger than that afforded
to new weapons. The deals were hidden not just from the general public,
not from trade unions or environmental groups, but from the U.S. Congress
itself.
Therefore it has no public legitimacy. The promises made are not
"our" promises but Michael Froman's promises. They are not backed by
the full faith and credit of the U.S. government but only by the words
of a small body of appointees and the multinational corporations that
they serve. The corporations were invited to the table, Congress was
not.
What "elites" really mean when they say "America's credibility is
on the line" is that their credibility is on the line. If these deals
fail what will be lost is not America's stature but the premise that
a handful of appointees can cut deals in private and that the rest of
us will make good.
When that minor loss is laid against the far greater fact that the
terms of these deals are bad, that prior deals of this type have harmed
our real economies, and that the rules will further erode our national
sovreignity, there is no contest.
Michael Froman's reputation has no value. Our sovreignity, our economy,
our nation, does.
"What "elites" really mean when they say "America's credibility is on
the line" is that their credibility is on the line. If these deals fail
what will be lost is not America's stature but the premise that a handful
of appointees can cut deals in private and that the rest of us will make
good."
Yes! And the victory will taste so sweet when we bury this filthy, rotten,
piece of garbage. Obama's years of effort down the drain, his legacy tarnished
and unfinished.
I want TPP's defeat to send a clear message that the elites can't count
on their politicians to deliver for them. Let's make this thing their Stalingrad!
Leave deep scars so that they give up on TISA and stop trying to concoct
these absurd schemes like ISDS.
sorry but i don't see it that way at all. 'they' got a propaganda machine
to beat all 'they' make n break reps all the time. i do see a desperation
on a monetary/profit scale. widening the 'playing field' offers more profits
with less risk. for instance, our Pharams won't have to slash their prices
at the risk of sunshine laws, wish-washy politicians, competition, nor a
pissed off public. jmo tho')
LOL "America's credibility" LOL, these people need to get out more. In
the 60's you could hike high up into the Andes and the sheep herder had
two pics on the wall of his hut: Jesus and JFK. America retains its cachet
as a place to make money and be entertained, but as some kind of beacon
of morality and fair play in the world? Dead, buried, and long gone, the
hype-fest of slogans and taglines can only cover up so many massive, atrocious
and hypocritical actions and serial offenses.
Clinton Inc was mostly Bill helping Epstein get laid until after Kerry
lost. If this was the reelection of John Edwards, Kerry's running mate,
and a referendum on 12 years of Kerronomics, Bill and Hill would be opening
night speakers at the DNC and answers to trivia questions.
My guess is Obama is dropped swiftly and unceremoniously especially since
he doesn't have much of a presence in Washington.
"It looks as if we'll be firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria in
the coming days, and critics are raising legitimate concerns:"
"Yet there is value in bolstering international norms against egregious
behavior like genocide or the use of chemical weapons. Since President Obama
established a "red line" about chemical weapons use, his credibility has
been at stake: he can't just whimper and back down."
Obama did back down.
NIcholas Kristof, vigilant protector of American credibility through
bombing Syria.
Ah yes the credibility of our élites. With their sterling record on Nafta's
benefits, Iraq's liberation, Greece's rebound, the IMF's rehabilitation
of countries
We must pass TPP or Tom Friedman will lose credibility, what?
"... pro-TPPers "consciously seek to weaken the national defense," that's exactly what's going on. Neoliberalism, through offshoring, weakens the national defense, because it puts our weaponry at the mercy of fragile and corruptible supply chains. ..."
"... Now, when we think about how corrupt the political class has become, it's not hard to see why Obama is confident that he will win. ..."
"... I think raising the ante rhetorically by framing a pro-TPP vote as treason could help sway a close vote; and if readers try that frame out, I'd like to hear the results ..."
There are two reasons: First, they consciously seek to weaken the national
defense. And second, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system is
a
surrender of national sovereignty .
National Defense
This might be labeled the "Ghost Fleet" argument, since we're informed that
Paul Singer and Augustus Cole's techno-thriller has really caught the attention
of the national security class below the political appointee level, and that
this is a death blow for neoliberalism. Why? "The multi-billion dollar, next
generation F-35 aircraft, for instance, is rendered powerless after it is revealed
that Chinese microprocessor manufacturers had implanted malicious code into
products intended for the jet" (
Foreign Policy ). Clearly, we need, well, industrial policy, and we need
to bring a lot of manufacturing home.
From Brigadier General (Retired) John Adams :
In 2013, the Pentagon's Defense Science Board put forward a remarkable
report describing one of the most significant but little-recognized threats
to US security: deindustrialization. The report argued that the loss of
domestic U.S. manufacturing facilities has not only reduced U.S. living
standards but also compromised U.S. technology leadership "by enabling new
players to learn a technology and then gain the capability to improve on
it." The report explained that the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing presents
a particularly dangerous threat to U.S. military readiness through the "compromise
of the supply chain for key weapons systems components."
Our military is now shockingly vulnerable to major disruptions in the
supply chain, including from substandard manufacturing practices, natural
disasters, and price gouging by foreign nations. Poor manufacturing practices
in offshore factories lead to problem-plagued products, and foreign producers-acting
on the basis of their own military or economic interests-can sharply raise
prices or reduce or stop sales to the United States.
The link between TPP and this kind of offshoring has been well-established.
And, one might say, the link between neo-liberal economic policy "and this
kind of offshoring has been well-established" as well.
So, when I framed the issue as one where pro-TPPers "consciously seek
to weaken the national defense," that's exactly what's going on. Neoliberalism,
through offshoring, weakens the national defense, because it puts our weaponry
at the mercy of fragile and corruptible supply chains. Note that re-industrializing
America has positive appeal, too: For the right, on national security grounds;
and for the left, on labor's behalf (and maybe helping out the Rust Belt that
neoliberal policies of the last forty years did so much to destroy. Of course,
this framing would make Clinton a traitor, but you can't make an omelette without
breaking eggs. (Probably best to to let the right, in its refreshingly direct
fashion, use the actual "traitor" word, and the left, shocked, call for the
restoration of civility, using verbiage like "No, I wouldn't say she's a traitor.
She's certainly 'extremely careless' with our nation's security.")
ISDS
The Investor-State Dispute Settlement system is a hot mess (unless you represent
a corporation, or are one of tiny fraternity of international corporate lawyers
who can plead and/or judge ISDS cases).
Yves wrote :
What may have torched the latest Administration salvo is a well-timed
joint publication by Wikileaks and the New York Times of a recent version
of the so-called investment chapter. That section sets forth one of the
worst features of the agreement, the investor-state dispute settlement process
(ISDS). As we've described at length in earlier posts, the ISDS mechanism
strengthens the existing ISDS process. It allows for secret arbitration
panels to effectively overrule national regulations by allowing foreign
investors to sue governments over lost potential future profits in secret
arbitration panels. Those panels have been proved to be conflict-ridden
and arbitrary. And the grounds for appeal are limited and technical.
Here again we have a frame that appeals to both right and left. The very
thought of surrendering national sovereignty to an international organization
makes any good conservative's back teeth itch. And the left sees the "lost profits"
doctrine as a club to prevent future government programs they would like to
put in place (single payer, for example). And in both cases, the neoliberal
doctrine of putting markets before anything else makes pro-TPP-ers traitors.
To the right, because nationalism trumps internationalism; to the left, because
TPP prevents the State from looiking after the welfare of its people.
The Political State of Play
All I know is what I read in the papers, so what follows can only be speculation.
That said, there are two ways TPP could be passed: In the lame duck session,
by Obama, or after a new President is inaugurated, by Clinton (or possibly by
Trump[1]).
[OBAMA:] And hopefully, after the election is over and the dust settles,
there will be more attention to the actual facts behind the deal and it
won't just be a political symbol or a political football. And I will actually
sit down with people on both sides, on the right and on the left. I'll sit
down publicly with them and we'll go through the whole provisions. I would
enjoy that, because there's a lot of misinformation.
I'm really confident I can make the case this is good for American workers
and the American people. And people said we weren't going to be able to
get the trade authority to even present this before Congress, and somehow
we muddled through and got it done. And I intend to do the same with respect
to the actual agreement.
So it is looking like a very close vote. (For procedural and political
reasons, Obama will not bring it to a vote unless he is sure he has the
necessary votes). Now let's look at one special group of Representatives
who can swing this vote: the actual lame-ducks, i.e., those who will be
in office only until Jan. 3. It depends partly on how many lose their election
on Nov. 8, but the average number of representatives who left after the
last three elections was about 80.
Most of these people will be looking for a job, preferably one that can
pay them more than $1 million a year. From the data provided by OpenSecrets.org,
we can estimate that about a quarter of these people will become lobbyists.
(An additional number will work for firms that are clients of lobbyists).
So there you have it: It is all about corruption, and this is about as
unadulterated as corruption gets in our hallowed democracy, other than literal
cash under a literal table. These are the people whom Obama needs to pass
this agreement, and the window between Nov. 9 and Jan. 3 is the only time
that they are available to sell their votes to future employers without
any personal political consequences whatsoever. The only time that the electorate
can be rendered so completely irrelevant, if Obama can pull this off.
(The article doesn't talk about the Senate, but Fast Track passed the Senate
with a filibuster-proof super-majority, so the battle is in the House anyhow.
And although the text of TPP cannot be amended - that's what fast track means!
- there are still ways to affect the interpretation and enforcement of the text,
so Obama and his corporate allies have bargaining chips beyond Beltway sinecures.[2])
Now, when we think about how corrupt the political class has become,
it's not hard to see why Obama is confident that he will win. (
Remember , "[T]he preferences of economic elites have far more independent
impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do.") However,
if the anti-TPP-ers raise the rhetorical stakes from policy disagreement to
treason, maybe a few of those 80 representatives will do the right thing (or,
if you prefer, decide that the reputational damage to their future career makes
a pro-TPP vote not worth it. Who wants to play golf with a traitor?)
Passing TPP after the Inaugural
After the coronation inaugural, Clinton will have to use more
complicated tactics than dangling goodies before the snouts of representatives
leaving for K Street. (We've seen that Clinton's putative opposition to TPP
is based on lawyerly parsing; and her base supports it. So I assume a Clinton
administration would go full speed ahead with it.) My own thought has been that
she'd set up a "conversation" on trade, and then buy off the national unions
with "jobs for the boys," so that they sell their locals down the river. Conservative
Jennifer Rubin has a better proposal , which meets Clinton's supposed criterion
of not hurting workers even better:
Depending on the election results and how many pro-free-trade Republicans
lose, it still might not be sufficient. Here's a further suggestion: Couple
it with a substantial infrastructure project that Clinton wants, but with
substantial safeguards to make sure that the money is wisely spent. Clinton
gets a big jobs bill - popular with both sides - and a revised TPP gets
through.
What Clinton needs is a significant revision to TPP that she can tout
as a real reform to trade agreements, one that satisfies some of the TPP's
critics on the left. A minor tweak is unlikely to assuage anyone; this change
needs to be a major one. Fortunately, there is a TPP provision that fits
the bill perfectly: investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), the procedure
that allows foreign investors to sue governments in an international tribunal.
Removing ISDS could triangulate the TPP debate, allowing for enough support
to get it through Congress.
Obama can't have a conversation on trade, or propose a jobs program, let
alone jettison ISDS; all he's got going for him is corruption.[3] So, interestingly,
although Clinton can't take the simple road of bribing the 80 represenatives,
she does have more to bargain with on policy. Rubin's jobs bill could at least
be framed as a riposte to the "Ghost Fleet" argument, since both are about "jawbs,"
even if infrastructure programs and reindustrialization aren't identical in
intent. And while I don't think Clinton would allow ISDS to be removed (
her corporate donors love it ), at least somebody's thinking about how to
pander to the left. Nevertheless, what does a jobs program matter if the new
jobs leave the country anyhow? And suppose ISDS is removed, but the removal
of the precautionary principle remains? We'd still get corporate-friendly decisions,
bilaterally. And people would end up balancing the inevitable Clinton complexity
and mush against the simplicity of the message that a vote for TPP is a vote
against the United States.
Conclusion
I hope I've persuaded you that TPP is still very much alive, and that both
Obama in the lame duck, and Clinton (or even Trump) when inaugurated have reasonable
hopes of passing it. However, I think raising the ante rhetorically by framing
a pro-TPP vote as treason could help sway a close vote; and if readers try that
frame out, I'd like to hear the results (especially when the result comes
from a letter to your Congress critter). Interestingly, Buzzfeed just published
tonight the first in a four-part series, devoted to the idea that ISDS is what
we have said it is all along: A surrender of national sovereignty.
Here's
a great slab of it :
Imagine a private, global super court that empowers corporations to bend
countries to their will.
Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution.
Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue the whole
country for daring to interfere with its profits, demanding hundreds of
millions or even billions of dollars as retribution.
Imagine that this court is so powerful that nations often must heed its
rulings as if they came from their own supreme courts, with no meaningful
way to appeal. That it operates unconstrained by precedent or any significant
public oversight, often keeping its proceedings and sometimes even its decisions
secret. That the people who decide its cases are largely elite Western corporate
attorneys who have a vested interest in expanding the court's authority
because they profit from it directly, arguing cases one day and then sitting
in judgment another. That some of them half-jokingly refer to themselves
as "The Club" or "The Mafia."
And imagine that the penalties this court has imposed have been so crushing
- and its decisions so unpredictable - that some nations dare not risk a
trial, responding to the mere threat of a lawsuit by offering vast concessions,
such as rolling back their own laws or even wiping away the punishments
of convicted criminals.
This system is already in place, operating behind closed doors in office
buildings and conference rooms in cities around the world. Known as investor-state
dispute settlement, or ISDS, it is written into a vast network of treaties
that govern international trade and investment, including NAFTA and the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Congress must soon decide whether to ratify.
That's the stuff to give the troops!
NOTE
[1] Trump:
"I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers." Lotta
wiggle room there, and the lawyerly parsing is just like Clinton's. I don't
think it's useful to discuss what Trump might do on TPP, because until there
are other parties to the deal, there's no deal to be had. Right now, we're just
looking at
Trump doing A-B testing - not that there's anything wrong with that - which
the press confuses with policy proposals. So I'm not considering Trump because
I don't think we have any data to go on.
To pacify [those to whom he will corrupt appeal], Obama will
have to convince them that what they want will anyway be achieved, even
if these are not legally part of the TPP because the TPP text cannot be
amended.
He can try to achieve this through bilateral side agreements on specific
issues. Or he can insist that some countries take on extra obligations beyond
what is required by the TPP as a condition for obtaining a U.S. certification
that they have fulfilled their TPP obligations.
This certification is required for the U.S. to provide the TPP's benefits
to its partners, and the U.S. has previously made use of this process to
get countries to take on additional obligations, which can then be shown
to Congress members that their objectives have been met.
In other words, side deals.
[3] This should not be taken to imply that Clinton does not have corruption
going for her, too. She can also make all the side deals Obama can.
"... One of the main concerns with TTIP is that it could allow multinational corporations to effectively "sue" governments for taking actions that might damage their businesses. Critics claim American companies might be able to avoid having to meet various EU health, safety and environment regulations by challenging them in a quasi-court set up to resolve disputes between investors and states. ..."
"... These developments take place against the background of another major free trade agreement - the Trans Pacific Partnership ( TPP ) - hitting snags on the way to being pushed through Congress. ..."
"... "US Faces Major Setback" Well, actually, US corporations face a major setback. Average US citizens face a reprieve. ..."
TTIP negotiations have been ongoing since 2013 in an effort to establish a massive
free trade zone that would eliminate many tariffs. After 14 rounds of talks
that have lasted three years not a single common item out of
the 27 chapters being discussed has been agreed on. The United States has
refused to agree on an equal playing field between European and American companies
in the sphere of public procurement sticking to the principle of "buy American".
The opponents of the deal believe that in its current guise the TTIP is too
friendly to US businesses. One of the main concerns with TTIP is that it
could allow multinational corporations to effectively "sue" governments for
taking actions that might damage their businesses. Critics claim American companies
might be able to avoid having to meet various EU health, safety and environment
regulations by challenging them in a quasi-court set up to resolve disputes
between investors and states.
In Europe thousands of people supported by society groups, trade unions and
activists take to the streets expressing protest against the deal. Three million
people have signed a petition calling for it to be scrapped. For instance, various
trade unions and other groups have called for protests against the TTIP across
Germany to take place on September 17. A trade agreement with Canada has also
come under attack.
These developments take place against the background of another major
free trade agreement - the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
- hitting snags on the way to being pushed through Congress. The chances
are really slim.
silverer •Sep 5, 2016 9:51 AM
"US Faces Major Setback" Well, actually, US corporations face a major
setback. Average US citizens face a reprieve.
"... Speaking to a local radio station before the joint rally, Farage urged Americans to "go out and fight" against Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... "I am going to say to people in this country that the circumstances, the similarities, the parallels between the people who voted Brexit and the people who could beat Clinton in a few weeks time here in America are uncanny," Farage told Super Talk Mississippi. "If they want things to change they have get up out of their chairs and go out and fight for it. It can happen. We've just proved it." ..."
"... It's not for me as a foreign politician to say who you should vote for ... All I will say is that if you vote for Hillary Clinton, then nothing will change. She represents the very politics that we've just broken through the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. ..."
...the British politician, who was invited by Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, will draw parallels
between what he sees as the inspirational story of Brexit and Trump's campaign. Farage will describe
the Republican's campaign as a similar crusade by grassroots activists against "big banks and global
political insiders" and how those who feel disaffected and disenfranchised can become involved in
populist, rightwing politics. With Trump lagging in the polls, just as Brexit did prior to the vote
on the referendum, Farage will also hearten supporters by insisting that they can prove pundits and
oddsmakers wrong as well.
This message resonates with the Trump campaign's efforts to reach out to blue collar voters who
have become disillusioned with American politics, while also adding a unique flair to Trump's never
staid campaign rallies.
The event will mark the first meeting between Farage and Trump.
Arron Banks, the businessman who backed Leave.EU, the Brexit campaign group associated with the
UK Independence party (Ukip), tweeted that he would be meeting Trump over dinner and was looking
forward to Farage's speech.
The appointment last week of Stephen Bannon, former chairman of the Breitbart website, as
"CEO" of Trump's campaign has seen the example of the Brexit vote, which Breitbart enthusiastically
advocated, rise to the fore in Trump's campaign narrative.
Speaking to a local radio station before the joint rally, Farage urged Americans to "go out
and fight" against Hillary Clinton.
"I am going to say to people in this country that the circumstances, the similarities, the
parallels between the people who voted Brexit and the people who could beat Clinton in a few weeks
time here in America are uncanny," Farage told Super Talk Mississippi. "If they want things to change
they have get up out of their chairs and go out and fight for it. It can happen. We've just proved
it."
"I am being careful," he added when asked if he supported the controversial Republican nominee.
"It's not for me as a foreign politician to say who you should vote for ... All I will say is
that if you vote for Hillary Clinton, then nothing will change. She represents the very politics
that we've just broken through the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom."
"... As Mr. Buffet so keenly said it, There is a war going on, and we are winning. ..."
"... Just type `TPP editorial' into news.google.com and watch a toxic sludge of straw men, misdirection, and historical revisionism flow across your screen. And the `objective' straight news reporting is no better. ..."
"... "Why is it afraid of us?" Because we the people are perceived to be the enemy of America the Corporation. Whistleblowers have already stated that the NSA info is used to blackmail politicians and military leaders, provide corporate espionage to the highest payers and more devious machinations than the mind can grasp from behind a single computer. 9/11 was a coup – I say that because looking around the results tell me that. ..."
"... The fourth estate (the media) has been purchased outright by the second estate (the nobility). I guess you could call this an 'estate sale'. All power to the markets! ..."
Free Trade," the banner of Globalization, has not only wrecked the world's economy, it has left Western
Democracy in shambles. Europe edges ever closer to deflation. The Fed dare not increase interest
rates, now poised at barely above zero. As China's stock market threatened collapse, China poured
billions to prop it up. It's export machine is collapsing. Not once, but twice, it recently manipulated
its currency to makes its goods cheaper on the world market. What is happening?
The following two
graphs tell most of the story. First, an overview of Free Trade.
Capital fled from developed countries to undeveloped countries with slave-cheap labor, countries
with no environmental standards, countries with no support for collective bargaining. Corporations,
like Apple, set up shop in China and other undeveloped countries. Some, like China, manipulated its
currency to make exported goods to the West even cheaper. Some, like China, gave preferential tax
treatment to Western firm over indigenous firms. Economists cheered as corporate efficiency unsurprisingly
rose. U.S. citizens became mere consumers.
Thanks to Bill Clinton and the Financial Modernization Act, banks, now unconstrained, could peddle
rigged financial services, offer insurance on its own investment products–in short, banks were free
to play with everyone's money–and simply too big to fail. Credit was easy and breezy. If nasty Arabs
bombed the Trade Center, why the solution was simple: Go to the shopping mall–and buy. That remarkable
piece of advice is just what freedom has been all about.
Next: China's export machine sputters.
China's problem is that there are not enough orders to keep the export machine going. There comes
a time when industrialized nations simply run out of cash–I mean the little people run out of cash.
CEOs and those just below them–along with slick Wall Street gauchos–made bundles on Free Trade, corporate
capital that could set up shop in any impoverished nation in the world.. No worries about labor–dirt
cheap–or environmental regulations–just bring your gas masks. At some point the Western consumer
well was bound to run dry. Credit was exhausted; the little guy could not buy anymore. Free trade
was on its last legs.
So what did China do then? As its markets crashed, it tried to revive its export model, a model
based on foreign firms exporting cheap goods to the West. China lowered its exchange rates, not once
but twice. Then China tried to rescue the markets with cash infusion of billions. Still its market
continued to crash. Manufacturing plants had closed–thousands of them. Free Trade and Globalization
had run its course.
And what has the Fed been doing? Why quantitative easy–increase the money supply and lower short
term interest rates. Like China's latest currency manipulation, both were merely stop-gap measures.
No one, least of all Obama and his corporate advisors, was ready to address corporate outsourcing
that has cost millions of jobs. Prime the pump a little, but never address the real problem.
The WTO sets the groundwork for trade among its member states. That groundwork is deeply flawed.
Trade between impoverished third world countries and sophisticated first world economies is not merely
a matter of regulating "dumping"-not allowing one country to flood the market with cheap goods-nor
is it a matter of insuring that the each country does not favor its indigenous firms over foreign
firms. Comparable labor and environmental standards are necessary. Does anyone think that a first
world worker can compete with virtual slave labor? Does anyone think that a first world nation with
excellent environmental regulations can compete with a third world nation that refuses to protect
its environment?
Only lately has Apple even mentioned that it might clean up its mess in China. The Apple miracle
has been on the backs of the Chinese poor and abysmal environmental wreckage that is China.
The WTO allows three forms of inequities-all of which encourage outsourcing: labor arbitrage,
tax arbitrage, and environmental arbitrage. For a fuller explanation of these inequities and the
"race to the bottom," see
here.
Of course now we have the mother of all Free Trade deals –the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)–
carefully wrapped in a black box so that none of us can see what finally is in store for us. Nothing
is ever "Free"–even trade. I suspect that China is becoming a bit too noxious and poisonous. It simply
has to deal with its massive environmental problems. Time to move the game to less despoiled and
maybe more impoverished countries. Meanwhile, newscasters are always careful to tout TPP.
Fast Tracking is a con man's game. Do it so fast that the marks never have a chance to watch their
wallets. In hiding negotiations from prying, public eyes, Obama, has given the con men a bigger edge:
A screen to hide the corporations making deals. Their interest is in profits, not in public good.
Consider the media. Our only defense is a strong independent media. At one time,
newsrooms were not required to be profitable. Reporting the news was considered a community service.
Corporate ownership provided the necessary funding for its newsrooms–and did not interfere.
But the 70′s and 80′s corporate ownership required its newsrooms to be profitable. Slowly but
surely, newsrooms focused on personality, entertainment, and wedge issues–always careful not to rock
the corporate boat, always careful not to tread on governmental policy. Whoever thought that one
major news service–Fox–would become a breeding ground for one particular party.
But consider CNN: It organizes endless GOP debates; then spends hours dissecting them. Create
the news; then sell it–and be sure to spin it in the direction you want.
Are matters of substance ever discussed? When has a serious foreign policy debate ever been allowed
occurred–without editorial interference from the media itself. When has trade and outsourcing been
seriously discussed–other than by peripheral news media?
Meanwhile, news media becomes more and more centralized. Murdoch now owns National Geographic!
Now, thanks to Bush and Obama, we have the chilling effect of the NSA. Just whom does the NSA
serve when it collects all of our digital information? Is it being used to ferret out the plans of
those exercising their right of dissent? Is it being used to increase the profits of favored corporations?
Why does it need all of your and my personal information–from bank accounts, to credit cards, to
travel plans, to friends with whom we chat .Why is it afraid of us?
jefemt, October 23, 2015 at 9:43 am
As Mr. Buffet so keenly said it, There is a war going on, and we are winning.
If 'they' are failing, I'd hate to see success!
Isn't it the un-collective WE who are failing?
failing to organize,
failing to come up with plausible, 90 degrees off present Lemming-to-Brink path alternative plans
and policies,
failing to agree on any of many plausible alternatives that might work
Divided- for now- hopefully not conquered ..
I gotta scoot and get back to Dancing with the Master Chefs
allan, October 23, 2015 at 10:03 am
Just type `TPP editorial' into news.google.com and watch a toxic sludge of straw men, misdirection,
and historical revisionism flow across your screen. And the `objective' straight news reporting
is no better.
Vatch, October 23, 2015 at 10:36 am
Don't just watch the toxic sludge; respond to it with a letter to the editor (LTE) of the offending
publication! For some of those toxic editorials, and contact information for LTEs, see:
A few of the editorials may now be obscured by paywalls or registration requirements, but most
should still be visible. Let them know that we see through their nonsense!
TedWa, October 23, 2015 at 10:38 am
"Why is it afraid of us?" Because we the people are perceived to be the enemy of America
the Corporation. Whistleblowers have already stated that the NSA info is used to blackmail politicians
and military leaders, provide corporate espionage to the highest payers and more devious machinations
than the mind can grasp from behind a single computer. 9/11 was a coup – I say that because looking
around the results tell me that.
TG, October 23, 2015 at 3:27 pm
The fourth estate (the media) has been purchased outright by the second estate (the nobility).
I guess you could call this an 'estate sale'. All power to the markets!
Pelham, October 23, 2015 at 8:32 pm
Even when newsrooms were more independent they probably would not, in general, have reported
on free trade with any degree of skepticism. The recent disappearance of the old firewall between
the news and corporate sides has made things worse, but at least since the "professionalization"
of newsrooms that began to really take hold in the '60s, journalists have tended to identify far
more with their sources in power than with their readers.
There have, of course, been notable exceptions. But even these sometimes serve more to obscure
the real day-to-day nature of journalism's fealty to the corporate world than to bring about any
significant change.
CHRIS HEDGES: We're going to be discussing a great Ponzi scheme that not only defines not only
the U.S. but the global economy, how we got there and where we're going. And with me to discuss this
issue is the economist Michael Hudson, author of
Killing
the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy. A professor of economics
who worked for many years on Wall Street, where you don't succeed if you don't grasp Marx's dictum
that capitalism is about exploitation. And he is also, I should mention, the godson of Leon Trotsky.
I want to open this discussion by reading a passage from your book, which I admire very much,
which I think gets to the core of what you discuss. You write,
"Adam Smith long ago remarked that profits often are highest in nations going fastest to
ruin. There are many ways to create economic suicide on a national level. The major way through
history has been through indebting the economy. Debt always expands to reach a point where it
cannot be paid by a large swathe of the economy. This is the point where austerity is imposed
and ownership of wealth polarizes between the One Percent and the 99 Percent. Today is not the
first time this has occurred in history. But it is the first time that running into debt has occurred
deliberately." Applauded. "As if most debtors can get rich by borrowing, not reduced to a condition
of debt peonage."
So let's start with the classical economists, who certainly understood this. They were reacting
of course to feudalism. And what happened to the study of economics so that it became gamed by ideologues?
HUDSON: The essence of classical economics was to reform industrial capitalism, to streamline
it, and to free the European economies from the legacy of feudalism. The legacy of feudalism was
landlords extracting land-rent, and living as a class that took income without producing anything.
Also, banks that were not funding industry. The leading industrialists from James Watt, with his
steam engine, to the railroads
HEDGES: From your book you make the point that banks almost never funded industry.
HUDSON: That's the point: They never have. By the time you got to Marx later in the 19th century,
you had a discussion, largely in Germany, over how to make banks do something they did not do under
feudalism. Right now we're having the economic surplus being drained not by the landlords
but also by banks and bondholders.
Adam Smith was very much against colonialism because that lead to wars, and wars led to public
debt. He said the solution to prevent this financial class of bondholders burdening the economy by
imposing more and more taxes on consumer goods every time they went to war was to finance wars on
a pay-as-you-go basis. Instead of borrowing, you'd tax the people. Then, he thought, if everybody
felt the burden of war in the form of paying taxes, they'd be against it. Well, it took all of the
19th century to fight for democracy and to extend the vote so that instead of landlords controlling
Parliament and its law-making and tax system through the House of Lords, you'd extend the vote to
labor, to women and everybody. The theory was that society as a whole would vote in its self-interest.
It would vote for the 99 Percent, not for the One Percent.
By the time Marx wrote in the 1870s, he could see what was happening in Germany. German banks
were trying to make money in conjunction with the government, by lending to heavy industry, largely
to the military-industrial complex.
HEDGES: This was Bismarck's kind of social – I don't know what we'd call it. It was a form
of capitalist socialism
HUDSON: They called it State Capitalism. There was a long discussion by Engels, saying, wait a
minute. We're for Socialism. State Capitalism isn't what we mean by socialism. There are two kinds
of state-oriented–.
HEDGES: I'm going to interject that there was a kind of brilliance behind Bismarck's policy
because he created state pensions, he provided health benefits, and he directed banking toward industry,
toward the industrialization of Germany which, as you point out, was very different in Britain and
the United States.
HUDSON: German banking was so successful that by the time World War I broke out, there were discussions
in English economic journals worrying that Germany and the Axis powers were going to win because
their banks were more suited to fund industry. Without industry you can't have really a military.
But British banks only lent for foreign trade and for speculation. Their stock market was a hit-and-run
operation. They wanted quick in-and-out profits, while German banks didn't insist that their clients
pay as much in dividends. German banks owned stocks as well as bonds, and there was much more of
a mutual partnership.
That's what most of the 19th century imagined was going to happen – that the world
was on the way to socializing banking. And toward moving capitalism beyond the feudal level, getting
rid of the landlord class, getting rid of the rent, getting rid of interest. It was going to be labor
and capital, profits and wages, with profits being reinvested in more capital. You'd have an expansion
of technology. By the early twentieth century most futurists imagined that we'd be living in a leisure
economy by now.
HEDGES: Including Karl Marx.
HUDSON: That's right. A ten-hour workweek. To Marx, socialism was to be an outgrowth of the reformed
state of capitalism, as seemed likely at the time – if labor organized in its self-interest.
HEDGES: Isn't what happened in large part because of the defeat of Germany in World War I?
But also, because we took the understanding of economists like Adam Smith and maybe Keynes. I don't
know who you would blame for this, whether Ricardo or others, but we created a fictitious economic
theory to praise a rentier or rent-derived, interest-derived capitalism that countered productive
forces within the economy. Perhaps you can address that.
HUDSON: Here's what happened. Marx traumatized classical economics by taking the concepts of Adam
Smith and John Stuart Mill and others, and pushing them to their logical conclusion.
Progressive
capitalist advocates – Ricardian socialists such as John Stuart Mill – wanted to tax away the land
or nationalize it. Marx wanted governments to take over heavy industry and build infrastructure to
provide low-cost and ultimately free basic services. This was traumatizing the landlord class and
the One Percent. And they fought back. They wanted to make everything part of "the market," which
functioned on credit supplied by them and paid rent to them.
None of the classical economists imagined how the feudal interests – these great vested interests
that had all the land and money – actually would fight back and succeed. They thought that the future
was going to belong to capital and labor. But by the late 19th century, certainly in America,
people like John Bates Clark came out with a completely different theory, rejecting the classical
economics of Adam Smith, the Physiocrats and John Stuart Mill.
HEDGES: Physiocrats are, you've tried to explain, the enlightened French economists.
HUDSON: The common denominator among all these classical economists was the distinction between
earned income and unearned income. Unearned income was rent and interest. Earned incomes were wages
and profits. But John Bates Clark came and said that there's no such thing as unearned income. He
said that the landlord actually earns his rent by taking the effort to provide a house and
land to renters, while banks provide credit to earn their interest. Every kind of income is thus
"earned," and everybody earns their income. So everybody who accumulates wealth, by definition, according
to his formulas, get rich by adding to what is now called Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
HEDGES: One of the points you make in
Killing
the Host which I liked was that in almost all cases, those who had the capacity to make money
parasitically off interest and rent had either – if you go back to the origins – looted and seized
the land by force, or inherited it.
HUDSON: That's correct. In other words, their income is unearned. The result of this anti-classical
revolution you had just before World War I was that today, almost all the economic growth in the
last decade has gone to the One Percent. It's gone to Wall Street, to real estate
HEDGES: But you blame this on what you call Junk Economics.
HUDSON: Junk Economics is the anti-classical reaction.
HEDGES: Explain a little bit how, in essence, it's a fictitious form of measuring the economy.
HUDSON: Well, some time ago I went to a bank, a block away from here – a Chase Manhattan bank
– and I took out money from the teller. As I turned around and took a few steps, there were two pickpockets.
One pushed me over and the other grabbed the money and ran out. The guard stood there and saw it.
So I asked for the money back. I said, look, I was robbed in your bank, right inside. And they said,
"Well, we don't arm our guards because if they shot someone, the thief could sue us and we don't
want that." They gave me an equivalent amount of money back.
Well, imagine if you count all this crime, all the money that's taken, as an addition to GDP.
Because now the crook has provided the service of not stabbing me. Or suppose somebody's held up
at an ATM machine and the robber says, "Your money or your life." You say, "Okay, here's my money."
The crook has given you the choice of your life. In a way that's how the Gross National Product accounts
are put up. It's not so different from how Wall Street extracts money from the economy. Then also
you have landlords extracting
HEDGES: Let's go back. They're extracting money from the economy by debt peonage. By raising
HUDSON: By not playing a productive role, basically.
HEDGES: Right. So it's credit card interest, mortgage interest, car loans, student loans. That's
how they make their funds.
HUDSON: That's right. Money is not a factor of production. But in order to have access to credit,
in order to get money, in order to get an education, you have to pay the banks. At New York University
here, for instance, they have Citibank. I think Citibank people were on the board of directors at
NYU. You get the students, when they come here, to start at the local bank. And once you are in a
bank and have monthly funds taken out of your account for electric utilities, or whatever, it's very
cumbersome to change.
So basically you have what the classical economists called the rentier class. The class
that lives on economic rents. Landlords, monopolists charging more, and the banks. If you have a
pharmaceutical company that raises the price of a drug from $12 a shot to $200 all of a sudden, their
profits go up. Their increased price for the drug is counted in the national income accounts as if
the economy is producing more. So all this presumed economic growth that has all been taken by the
One Percent in the last ten years, and people say the economy is growing. But the economy isn't growing
HEDGES: Because it's not reinvested.
HUDSON: That's right. It's not production, it's not consumption. The wealth of the One Percent
is obtained essentially by lending money to the 99 Percent and then charging interest on it, and
recycling this interest at an exponentially growing rate.
HEDGES: And why is it important, as I think you point out in your book, that economic theory
counts this rentier income as productive income? Explain why that's important.
HUDSON: If you're a rentier, you want to say that you earned your income by
HEDGES: We're talking about Goldman Sachs, by the way.
HUDSON: Yes, Goldman Sachs. The head of Goldman Sachs came out and said that Goldman Sachs workers
are the most productive in the world. That's why they're paid what they are. The concept of productivity
in America is income divided by labor. So if you're Goldman Sachs and you pay yourself $20 million
a year in salary and bonuses, you're considered to have added $20 million to GDP, and that's enormously
productive. So we're talking in a tautology. We're talking with circular reasoning here.
So the issue is whether Goldman Sachs, Wall Street and predatory pharmaceutical firms, actually
add "product" or whether they're just exploiting other people. That's why I used the word parasitism
in my book's title. People think of a parasite as simply taking money, taking blood out of a host
or taking money out of the economy. But in nature it's much more complicated. The parasite can't
simply come in and take something. First of all, it needs to numb the host. It has an enzyme so that
the host doesn't realize the parasite's there. And then the parasites have another enzyme that takes
over the host's brain. It makes the host imagine that the parasite is part of its own body, actually
part of itself and hence to be protected.
That's basically what Wall Street has done. It depicts itself as part of the economy. Not as a
wrapping around it, not as external to it, but actually the part that's helping the body grow, and
that actually is responsible for most of the growth. But in fact it's the parasite that is taking
over the growth.
The result is an inversion of classical economics. It turns Adam Smith upside down. It says what
the classical economists said was unproductive – parasitism – actually is the real economy. And that
the parasites are labor and industry that get in the way of what the parasite wants – which is to
reproduce itself, not help the host, that is, labor and capital.
HEDGES: And then the classical economists like Adam Smith were quite clear that unless that
rentier income, you know, the money made by things like hedge funds, was heavily taxed and put back
into the economy, the economy would ultimately go into a kind of tailspin. And I think the example
of that, which you point out in your book, is what's happened in terms of large corporations with
stock dividends and buybacks. And maybe you can explain that.
HUDSON: There's an idea in superficial textbooks and the public media that if companies make a
large profit, they make it by being productive. And with
HEDGES: Which is still in textbooks, isn't it?
HUDSON: Yes. And also that if a stock price goes up, you're just capitalizing the profits – and
the stock price reflects the productive role of the company. But that's not what's been happening
in the last ten years. Just in the last two years, 92 percent of corporate profits in America have
been spent either on buying back their own stock, or paid out as dividends to raise the price of
the stock.
HEDGES: Explain why they do this.
HUDSON: About 15 years ago at Harvard, Professor Jensen said that the way to ensure that corporations
are run most efficiently is to make the managers increase the price of the stock. So if you give
the managers stock options, and you pay them not according to how much they're producing or making
the company bigger, or expanding production, but the price of the stock, then you'll have the corporation
run efficiently, financial style.
So the corporate managers find there are two ways that they can increase the price of the stock.
The first thing is to cut back long-term investment, and use the money instead to buy back their
own stock. But when you buy your own stock, that means you're not putting the money into capital
formation. You're not building new factories. You're not hiring more labor. You can actually increase
the stock price by firing labor.
HEDGES: That strategy only works temporarily.
HUDSON: Temporarily. By using the income from past investments just to buy back stock, fire the
labor force if you can, and work it more intensively. Pay it out as dividends. That basically is
the corporate raider's model. You use the money to pay off the junk bond holders at high interest.
And of course, this gets the company in trouble after a while, because there is no new investment.
So markets shrink. You then go to the labor unions and say, gee, this company's near bankruptcy,
and we don't want to have to fire you. The way that you can keep your job is if we downgrade your
pensions. Instead of giving you what we promised, the defined benefit pension, we'll turn it into
a defined contribution plan. You know what you pay every month, but you don't know what's going to
come out. Or, you wipe out the pension fund, push it on to the government's Pension Benefit Guarantee
Corporation, and use the money that you were going to pay for pensions to pay stock dividends. By
then the whole economy is turning down. It's hollowed out. It shrinks and collapses. But by that
time the managers will have left the company. They will have taken their bonuses and salaries and
run.
HEDGES: I want to read this quote from your book, written by David Harvey, in
A Brief
History of Neoliberalism, and have you comment on it.
"The main substantive achievement of neoliberalism has been to redistribute rather than
to generate wealth and income. [By] 'accumulation by dispossession' I mean the commodification
and privatization of land, and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations; conversion of various
forms of property rights (common collective state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights;
suppression of rights to the commons; colonial, neocolonial, and the imperial processes of appropriation
of assets (including natural resources); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating
at all, the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession. To
this list of mechanisms, we may now add a raft of techniques such as the extraction of rents from
patents, and intellectual property rights (such as the diminution or erasure of various forms
of common property rights, such as state pensions, paid vacations, and access to education, health
care) one through a generation or more of class struggle. The proposal to privatize all state
pension rights, pioneered in Chile under the dictatorship is, for example, one of the cherished
objectives of the Republicans in the US."
This explains the denouement. The final end result you speak about in your book is, in essence,
allowing what you call the rentier or the speculative class to cannibalize the entire society until
it collapses.
HUDSON: A property right is not a factor of production. Look at what happened in Chicago, the
city where I grew up. Chicago didn't want to raise taxes on real estate, especially on its expensive
commercial real estate. So its budget ran a deficit. They needed money to pay the bondholders, so
they sold off the parking rights to have meters – you know, along the curbs. The result is that they
sold to Goldman Sachs 75 years of the right to put up parking meters. So now the cost of living and
doing business in Chicago is raised by having to pay the parking meters. If Chicago is going to have
a parade and block off traffic, it has to pay Goldman Sachs what the firm would have made
if the streets wouldn't have been closed off for a parade. All of a sudden it's much more expensive
to live in Chicago because of this.
But this added expense of having to pay parking rights to Goldman Sachs – to pay out interest
to its bondholders – is counted as an increase in GDP, because you've created more product simply
by charging more. If you sell off a road, a government or local road, and you put up a toll booth
and make it into a toll road, all of a sudden GDP goes up.
If you go to war abroad, and you spend more money on the military-industrial complex, all this
is counted as increased production. None of this is really part of the production system of the capital
and labor building more factories and producing more things that people need to live and do business.
All of this is overhead. But there's no distinction between wealth and overhead.
Failing to draw that distinction means that the host doesn't realize that there is a parasite
there. The host economy, the industrial economy, doesn't realize what the industrialists realized
in the 19th century: If you want to be an efficient economy and be low-priced and under-sell
competitors, you have to cut your prices by having the public sector provide roads freely. Medical
care freely. Education freely.
If you charge for all of these, you get to the point that the U.S. economy is in today. What if
American factory workers were to get all of their consumer goods for nothing. All their food,
transportation, clothing, furniture, everything for nothing. They still couldn't compete with
Asians or other producers, because they have to pay up to 43% of their income for rent or mortgage
interest, 10% or more of their income for student loans, credit card debt. 15% of their paycheck
is automatic withholding to pay Social Security, to cut taxes on the rich or to pay for medical care.
So Americans built into the economy all this overhead. There's no distinction between growth and
overhead. It's all made America so high-priced that we're priced out of the market, regardless of
what trade policy we have.
HEDGES: We should add that under this predatory form of economics, you game the system. So
you privatize pension funds, you force them into the stock market, an overinflated stock market.
But because of the way companies go public, it's the hedge fund managers who profit. And it's those
citizens whose retirement savings are tied to the stock market who lose. Maybe we can just conclude
by talking about how the system is fixed, not only in terms of burdening the citizen with debt peonage,
but by forcing them into the market to fleece them again.
HUDSON: Well, we talk about an innovation economy as if that makes money. Suppose you have an
innovation and a company goes public. They go to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street investment banks
to underwrite the stock to issue it at $40 a share. What's considered a successful float is when,
immediately, Goldman and the others will go to their insiders and tell them to buy this stock and
make a quick killing. A "successful" flotation doubles the price in one day, so that at the end of
the day the stock's selling for $80.
HEDGES: They have the option to buy it before anyone else, knowing that by the end of the day
it'll be inflated, and then they sell it off.
HUDSON: That's exactly right.
HEDGES: So the pension funds come in and buy it at an inflated price, and then it goes back
down.
HUDSON: It may go back down, or it may be that the company just was shortchanged from the very
beginning. The important thing is that the Wall Street underwriting firm, and the speculators it
rounds up, get more in a single day than all the years it took to put the company together. The company
gets $40. And the banks and their crony speculators also get $40.
So basically you have the financial sector ending up with much more of the gains. The name of
the game if you're on Wall Street isn't profits. It's capital gains. And that's something that wasn't
even part of classical economics. They didn't anticipate that the price of assets would go up for
any other reason than earning more money and capitalizing on income. But what you have had in the
last 50 years – really since World War II – has been asset-price inflation. Most middle-class families
have gotten the wealth that they've got since 1945 not really by saving what they've earned by working,
but by the price of their house going up. They've benefited by the price of the house. And they think
that that's made them rich and the whole economy rich.
The reason the price of housing has gone up is that a house is worth whatever a bank is going
to lend against it. If banks made easier and easier credit, lower down payments, then you're going
to have a financial bubble. And now, you have real estate having gone up as high as it can. I don't
think it can take more than 43% of somebody's income to buy it. But now, imagine if you're joining
the labor force. You're not going to be able to buy a house at today's prices, putting down a little
bit of your money, and then somehow end up getting rich just on the house investment. All of this
money you pay the bank is now going to be subtracted from the amount of money that you have available
to spend on goods and services.
So we've turned the post-war economy that made America prosperous and rich inside out. Somehow
most people believed they could get rich by going into debt to borrow assets that were going to rise
in price. But you can't get rich, ultimately, by going into debt. In the end the creditors always
win. That's why every society since Sumer and Babylonia have had to either cancel the debts, or you
come to a society like Rome that didn't cancel the debts, and then you have a dark age. Everything
collapses.
"... Furthermore, as Mark Kleiman sagely observes , the conventional case for trade liberalization relies on the assertion that the government could redistribute income to ensure that everyone wins - but we now have an ideology utterly opposed to such redistribution in full control of one party, and with blocking power against anything but a minor move in that direction by the other. ..."
A Protectionist Moment? : ... if Sanders were to make it to the White House, he would find
it very hard to do anything much about globalization - not because it's technically or economically
impossible, but because the moment he looked into actually tearing up existing trade agreements
the diplomatic, foreign-policy costs would be overwhelmingly obvious. ...
But it's also true
that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability,
scare tactics (
protectionism causes depressions !), vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization
and the costs of protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard
models actually predict. I hope, by the way, that I haven't done any of that...
Furthermore, as Mark Kleiman
sagely observes , the conventional case for trade liberalization relies on the assertion that
the government could redistribute income to ensure that everyone wins - but we now have an ideology
utterly opposed to such redistribution in full control of one party, and with blocking power against
anything but a minor move in that direction by the other.
So the elite case for ever-freer trade is largely a scam, which voters probably sense even
if they don't know exactly what form it's taking.
Ripping up the trade agreements we already have would, again, be a mess, and I would say that
Sanders is engaged in a bit of a scam himself in even hinting that he could do such a thing. Trump
might actually do it, but only as part of a reign of destruction on many fronts.
But it is fair to say that the case for more trade agreements - including TPP, which hasn't
happened yet - is very, very weak. And if a progressive makes it to the White House, she should
devote no political capital whatsoever to such things.
Again, just because automation has been a major factor in job loss doesn't mean "off shoring"
(using the term broadly and perhaps somewhat inaccurately) is not a factor.
The "free" trade deals suck. They are correctly diagnosed as part of the problem.
What would you propose to fix the problems caused by automation?
Automation frees labor to do more productive and less onerous tasks. We should expand our solar
production and our mass transit. We need to start re-engineering our urban areas. This will not
bring back the number of jobs it would take to make cities like Flint thrive once again.
Flint and Detroit have severe economic problems because they were mismanaged by road building
and suburbanization in the 1950s and 1960s. Money that should have been spent on maintaining and
improving urban infrastructure was instead plowed into suburban development that is not dense
enough to sustain the infrastructure required to support it. People moved to the suburbs, abandoned
the built infrastructure of the cities and kissed them goodbye.
Big roads polluted the cities with lead, noise, diesel particles and ozone and smog. Stroads
created pedestrian kill zones making urban areas, unwalkable, unpleasant- an urban blights to
drive through rather than destinations to drive to.
Government subsidized the white flight to the suburbs that has left both the suburbs and the
urban cores with too low revenue to infrastructure ratio. The inner suburbs have aged into net
losers, their infrastructure must be subsidized. Big Roads were built on the Big Idea that people
would drive to the city to work and play and then drive home. That Big idea has a big problem.
Urban areas are only sustainable when they have a high resident density. The future of cities
like Flint and Detroit will be tearing out the roads and replacing them with streets and houses
and renewing the housing stock that has been abandoned. It needs to be done by infill, revitalizing
inner neighborhoods and working outward. Cities like Portland have managed to protect much of
their core, but even they are challenged by demands for suburban sprawl.
Slash and burn development, creating new suburbs and abandoning the old is not a sustainable
model. Not only should we put people to work replacing the Flint lead pipes, but much of the city
should be rebuilt from the inside out. Flint is the leading edge of this problem that requires
fundamental changes in our built environment to fix. I recommend studying Flint as an object lesson
of what bad development policy could do to all of our cities.
An Interview with Frank Popper about Shrinking Cities, Buffalo Commons, and the Future of Flint
How does America's approach shrinking cities compare to the rest of the world?
I think the American way is to do nothing until it's too late, then throw everything at it
and improvise and hope everything works. And somehow, insofar as the country's still here, it
has worked. But the European or the Japanese way would involve much more thought, much more foresight,
much more central planning, and much less improvising. They would implement a more, shall we say,
sustained effort. The American way is different. Europeans have wondered for years and years why
cities like Detroit or Cleveland are left to rot on the vine. There's a lot of this French hauteur
when they ask "How'd you let this happen?"
Do shrinking cities have any advantages over agricultural regions as they face declining populations?
The urban areas have this huge advantage over all these larger American regions that are going
through this. They have actual governments with real jurisdiction. Corrupt as Detroit or Philadelphia
or Camden may be, they have actual governments that are supposed to be in charge of them. Who's
in charge of western Kansas? Who's in charge of the Great Plains? Who is in charge of the lower
Mississippi Delta or central Appalachia? All they've got are these distant federal agencies whose
past performance is not exactly encouraging.
Why wasn't there a greater outcry as the agricultural economy and the industrial economy collapsed?
One reason for the rest of the country not to care is that there's no shortage of the consumer
goods that these places once produced. All this decline of agriculture doesn't mean we're running
out of food. We've got food coming out of our ears. Likewise, Flint has suffered through all this,
but it's not like it's hard to buy a car in this country. It's not as if Flint can behave like
a child and say "I'm going to hold my nose and stop you from getting cars until you do the right
thing." Flint died and you can get zero A.P.R. financing. Western Kansas is on its last legs and,
gee, cereal is cheaper than ever.
In some sense that's the genius of capitalism - it's heartless. But if you look at the local
results and the cultural results and the environmental results you shake your head. But I don't
see America getting away from what I would call a little sarcastically the "wisdom" of the market.
I don't think it's going to change.
So is there any large-scale economic fallout from these monumental changes?
Probably not, and it hurts to say so. And the only way I can feel good about saying that is
to immediately point to the non-economic losses, the cultural losses. The losses of ways of life.
The notion of the factory worker working for his or her children. The notion of the farmer working
to build up the country and supply the rest of the world with food. We're losing distinctive ways
of life. When we lose that we lose something important, but it's not like The Wall Street Journal
cares. And I feel uncomfortable saying that. From a purely economic point of view, it's just the
price of getting more efficient. It's a classic example of Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction,
which is no fun if you're on the destruction end.
Does the decline of cities like Flint mirror the death of the middle class in the United States?
I think it's more the decline of the lower-middle class in the United States. Even when those
jobs in the auto factories paid very high wages they were still for socially lower-middle-class
people. I think there was always the notion in immigrant families and working-class families who
worked in those situations that the current generation would work hard so that the children could
go off and not have to do those kind of jobs. And when those jobs paid well that was a perfectly
reasonable ambition. It's the cutting off of that ambition that really hurts now. The same thing
has been true on farms and ranches in rural parts of the united states.
It is a much different thing to be small minded about trade than it is to be large minded about
everything else. The short story that it is all about automation and not trade will always get
a bad reception because it is small minded. When you add in the large minded story about everything
else then it becomes something entirely different from the short story. We all agree with you
about everything else. You are wrong about globalization though. Both financialization and globalization
suck and even if we paper over them with tax and transfer then they will still suck. One must
forget what it is to be a created equal human to miss that. Have you never felt the job of accomplishment?
Does not pride and self-confidence matter in your life?
While automation is part of the story, offshoring is just as important. Even when there is not
net loss in the numbers of jobs in aggregate, there is significant loss in better paying jobs
in manufacturing. It is important to look at the distributional effects within countries, as well
as between them
It would probably be cheaper and easier to just fix them. We don't need to withdraw from trade.
We just need to fix the terms of trade that cause large trade deficits and cross border capital
flows and also fix the FOREX system rigging.
What would it take to ignore trade agreements? They shouldn't be any more difficult to ignore
than the Geneva Conventions, which the US routinely flaunts.
In order to import we must export and in order to export we must import. The two are tied together.
Suppressing imports means we export less.
What free trade does is lower the price level relative to wages. It doesn't uniformly lower
the price level but rather lowers the cost of goods that are capable of being traded internationally.
It lowers the price on those goods that are disproportionately purchased by those with low incomes.
Free trade causes a progressive decline in the price level while protectionism causes a regressive
increase in the price level.
Funny rebuttal! Bhagwati probably has a model that says the opposite! But then he grew up in India
and should one day get a Nobel Prize for his contributions to international economics.
Our media needs to copy France 24, ... and have real debates about real issues. What we get is
along the lines of ignoring the problem then attacking any effort to correct. for example, the
media stayed away from the healthcare crisis, too complicated, but damn they are good at criticizing.
A seriously shameful article. Krugman has been a booster of trade & globalization for 30 years:
marginally more nuanced than the establishment, but still a booster.
Now, the establishment has what it wanted and the effects have been disastrous for those not
in the top 20 percent of the income distribution.
At this stage, comes insult to injury. Establishment economists (like Mr. Krugman) can reinvent
themselves with "brilliant new studies" showing the costs and damage of globalization. They pay
no professional costs for the grievous injuries inflicted; there is no mention of the fact that
critical outsider economists have been predicting and writing about these injuries and were right;
and they blithely say we must stay the course because we are locked-in and have few options.
Krugman is not Greg Mankiw. Most people who actually get international economics (Mankiw does
not) are not of the free trade benefits all types. Paul Samuelson certainly does not buy into
Mankiw's spin. Funny thing - Mankiw recently cited an excellent piece from Samuelson only to dishonestly
suggest Samuelson did not believe in what he wrote.
Why are you mischaracterizing what Krugman has written? That's my point. Oh wait - you misrepresent
what people write so you can "win" a "debate". Never mind. Please proceed with the serial dishonesty.
"The truth is that if Sanders were to make it to the White House, he would find it very hard to
do anything much about globalization - not because it's technically or economically impossible,
but because the moment he looked into actually tearing up existing trade agreements the diplomatic,
foreign-policy costs would be overwhelmingly obvious. In this, as in many other things, Sanders
currently benefits from the luxury of irresponsibility: he's never been anywhere close to the
levers of power, so he could take principled-sounding but arguably feckless stances in a way that
Clinton couldn't and can't."
As Dean Baker says, we need to confront Walmart and Goldman Sachs at home, who like these policies,
more than the Chinese.
The Chinese want access to our consumer market. They'd also like if we did't invade countries
like Iraq.
"so he could take principled-sounding but arguably feckless stances in a way that Clinton couldn't"
And what is that? Tear up trade deals? It is Krugman who is engaging in straw man arguments.
Krugman does indeed misrepresent Sanders' positions on trade. Sander is not against trade, he
merely insists on *Fair Trade*, which incorporates human rights and environmental protections.
His opposition is to the kinds of deals, like NAFTA and TPP, which effectively gut those (a central
element in Kruman's own critique of the latter).
Krugman has definitely backed off his (much) earlier boosterism and publicly said so. This is
an excellent piece by him, though it does rather downplay his earlier stances a bit. This is one
of the things I especially like about him.
I can get the idea that some people win, some people lose from liberalized trade. But what really
bugs me about the neoliberal trade agenda is that it has been part of a larger set of economically
conservative, laissez faire policies that have exacerbated the damages from trade rather than
offsetting them.
At the same time they were exposing US workers to greater competition from abroad and destroying
and offshoring working class jobs via both trade and liberalized capital flows, the neoliberals
were also doing things like "reinventing government" - that is, shrinking structural government
spending and public investment - and ending welfare. They have done nothing serious about steering
capital and job development efforts toward the communities devastated by the liberalization.
The neoliberal position has seem to come down to "We can't make bourgeois progress without
breaking a few working class eggs."
Agreed! "Krugman has been a booster of trade & globalization for 30 years: marginally more nuanced
than the establishment, but still a booster.'
Now he claims that he saw the light all along! "much of the elite defense of globalization
is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!),
vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection,
hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict.
I hope, by the way, that I haven't done any of that..."
You would be hard pressed to find any Krugman clips that cited any of those problems in the
past. Far from being an impartial economist, he was always an avid booster of free trade, overlooking
those very downsides that he suddenly decides to confess.
As far as I know, Sanders has not proposed ripping up the existing trade deals. His information
page on trade emphasizes (i) his opposition to these deals when they were first negotiated and
enacted, and (ii) the principles he will apply to the consideration of future trade deals. Much
of his argumentation concerning past deals is put forward to motivate his present opposition to
TPP.
Note also that Sanders connects his discussion of the harms of past trade policy to the Rebuild
America Act. That is, his approach is forward facing. We can't undo most of the past damage by
recreating the old working class economy we wrecked, but we can be aggressive about using government-directed
national investment programs to create new, high-paying jobs in the US.
You could have said the same about the 1920s
We can't undo most of the past damage by recreating the old agrarian class economy we wrecked,
but we can be aggressive about using government-directed national investment programs to create
new, high-paying jobs in the US.
The march of progress:
Mechanization of agriculture with displacement of large numbers of Ag workers.
The rise of factory work and large numbers employed in manufacturing.
Automation of Manufacturing with large displacement of workers engaged in manufacturing.
What do we want our workers to do? This question must be answered at the highest level of society
and requires much government facilitation. The absence of government facilitation is THE problem.
Memo to Paul Krugman - lead with the economics and stay with the economics. His need to get into
the dirty business of politics dilutes what he ends up sensibly writes later on.
""The truth is that if Sanders were to make it to the White House, he would find it very hard
to do anything much about globalization - not because it's technically or economically impossible,
but because the moment he looked into actually tearing up existing trade agreements the diplomatic,
foreign-policy costs would be overwhelmingly obvious. In this, as in many other things, Sanders
currently benefits from the luxury of irresponsibility: he's never been anywhere close to the
levers of power, so he could take principled-sounding but arguably feckless stances in a way that
Clinton couldn't and can't."
Yeah, it's pretty dishonest for Krugman to pretend that Sanders' position is "ripping up the trade
agreements we already have" and then say Sanders is "engaged in a bit of a scam" because he can't
do that. Sanders actual position (trying to stop new trade deals like the TPP) is something the
president has a lot of influence over (they can veto the deal). Hard to tell what Krugman is doing
here other than deliberately spreading misinformation.
Also worth noting that he decides to compare Sanders' opposition to trade deals with Trump,
and ignore the fact that Clinton has come out against the TPP as well .
Busy with real life, but yes, I know what happened in the primaries yesterday. Triumph for
Trump, and big upset for Sanders - although it's still very hard to see how he can catch Clinton.
Anyway, a few thoughts, not about the horserace but about some deeper currents.
The Sanders win defied all the polls, and nobody really knows why. But a widespread guess is
that his attacks on trade agreements resonated with a broader audience than his attacks on Wall
Street; and this message was especially powerful in Michigan, the former auto superpower. And
while I hate attempts to claim symmetry between the parties - Trump is trying to become America's
Mussolini, Sanders at worst America's Michael Foot * - Trump has been tilling some of the same
ground. So here's the question: is the backlash against globalization finally getting real political
traction?
You do want to be careful about announcing a political moment, given how many such proclamations
turn out to be ludicrous. Remember the libertarian moment? The reformocon moment? Still, a protectionist
backlash, like an immigration backlash, is one of those things where the puzzle has been how long
it was in coming. And maybe the time is now.
The truth is that if Sanders were to make it to the White House, he would find it very hard
to do anything much about globalization - not because it's technically or economically impossible,
but because the moment he looked into actually tearing up existing trade agreements the diplomatic,
foreign-policy costs would be overwhelmingly obvious. In this, as in many other things, Sanders
currently benefits from the luxury of irresponsibility: he's never been anywhere close to the
levers of power, so he could take principled-sounding but arguably feckless stances in a way that
Clinton couldn't and can't.
But it's also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest:
false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions! ** ), vastly exaggerated
claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection, hand-waving away
the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict. I hope, by the
way, that I haven't done any of that; I think I've always been clear that the gains from globalization
aren't all that (here's a back-of-the-envelope on the gains from hyperglobalization *** - only
part of which can be attributed to policy - that is less than 5 percent of world GDP over a generation);
and I think I've never assumed away the income distribution effects.
Furthermore, as Mark Kleiman sagely observes, **** the conventional case for trade liberalization
relies on the assertion that the government could redistribute income to ensure that everyone
wins - but we now have an ideology utterly opposed to such redistribution in full control of one
party, and with blocking power against anything but a minor move in that direction by the other.
So the elite case for ever-freer trade is largely a scam, which voters probably sense even
if they don't know exactly what form it's taking.
Ripping up the trade agreements we already have would, again, be a mess, and I would say that
Sanders is engaged in a bit of a scam himself in even hinting that he could do such a thing. Trump
might actually do it, but only as part of a reign of destruction on many fronts.
But it is fair to say that the case for more trade agreements - including Trans-Pacific Partnership,
which hasn't happened yet - is very, very weak. And if a progressive makes it to the White House,
she should devote no political capital whatsoever to such things.
Michael Mackintosh Foot (1913 – 2010) was a British Labour Party politician and man of letters
who was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992. He was Deputy
Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980, and later the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader
of the Opposition from 1980 to 1983.
Associated with the left of the Labour Party for most of his career, Foot was an ardent supporter
of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and British withdrawal from the European Economic Community.
He was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Employment under Harold Wilson in 1974,
and he later served as Leader of the House of Commons under James Callaghan. A passionate orator,
he led Labour through the 1983 general election, when the party obtained its lowest share of the
vote at a general election since 1918 and the fewest parliamentary seats it had had at any time
since before 1945.
There was so much wrong with Mitt Romney's Trump-is-a-disaster-whom-I-will-support-in-the-general
* speech that it may seem odd to call him out for bad international macroeconomics. But this is
a pet peeve of mine, in an area where I really, truly know what I'm talking about. So here goes.
In warning about Trumponomics, Romney declared:
"If Donald Trump's plans were ever implemented, the country would sink into prolonged recession.
A few examples. His proposed 35 percent tariff-like penalties would instigate a trade war and
that would raise prices for consumers, kill our export jobs and lead entrepreneurs and businesses
of all stripes to flee America."
After all, doesn't everyone know that protectionism causes recessions? Actually, no. There
are reasons to be against protectionism, but that's not one of them.
Think about the arithmetic (which has a well-known liberal bias). Total final spending on domestically
produced goods and services is
Total domestic spending + Exports – Imports = GDP
Now suppose we have a trade war. This will cut exports, which other things equal depresses
the economy. But it will also cut imports, which other things equal is expansionary. For the world
as a whole, the cuts in exports and imports will by definition be equal, so as far as world demand
is concerned, trade wars are a wash.
OK, I'm sure some people will start shouting "Krugman says protectionism does no harm." But
no: protectionism in general should reduce efficiency, and hence the economy's potential output.
But that's not at all the same as saying that it causes recessions.
But didn't the Smoot-Hawley tariff cause the Great Depression? No. There's no evidence at all
that it did. Yes, trade fell a lot between 1929 and 1933, but that was almost entirely a consequence
of the Depression, not a cause. (Trade actually fell faster ** during the early stages of the
2008 Great Recession than it did after 1929.) And while trade barriers were higher in the 1930s
than before, this was partly a response to the Depression, partly a consequence of deflation,
which made specific tariffs (i.e. tariffs that are stated in dollars per unit, not as a percentage
of value) loom larger.
Again, not the thing most people will remember about Romney's speech. But, you know, protectionism
was the only reason he gave for believing that Trump would cause a recession, which I think is
kind of telling: the GOP's supposedly well-informed, responsible adult, trying to save the party,
can't get basic economics right at the one place where economics is central to his argument.
The Gains From Hyperglobalization (Wonkish)
By Paul Krugman
Still taking kind of an emotional vacation from current political madness. Following up on
my skeptical post on worries about slowing trade growth, * I wondered what a state-of-the-art
model would say.
The natural model to use, at least for me, is Eaton-Kortum, ** which is a very ingenious approach
to thinking about multilateral trade flows. The basic model is Ricardian - wine and cloth and
labor productivity and all that - except that there are many goods and many countries, transportation
costs, and countries are assumed to gain productivity in any particular industry through a random
process. They make some funny assumptions about distributions - hey, that's kind of the price
of entry for this kind of work - and in return get a tractable model that yields gravity-type
equations for international trade flows. This is a good thing, because gravity models *** of trade
- purely empirical exercises, with no real theory behind them - are known to work pretty well.
Their model also yields a simple expression for the welfare gains from trade:
Real income = A*(1-import share)^(-1/theta)
where A is national productivity and theta is a parameter of their assumed random process (don't
ask); they suggest that theta=4 provides the best match to available data.
Now, what I wanted to do was apply this to the rapid growth of trade that has taken place since
around 1990, what Subramanian **** calls "hyperglobalization". According to Subramanian's estimates,
overall trade in goods and services has risen from about 19 percent of world GDP in the early
1990s to 33 percent now, bringing us to a level of integration that really is historically unprecedented.
There are some conceptual difficulties with using this rise directly in the Eaton-Kortum framework,
because much of it has taken the form of trade in intermediate goods, and the framework isn't
designed to handle that. Still, let me ignore that, and plug Subramanian's numbers into the equation
above; I get a 4.9 percent rise in real incomes due to increased globalization.
That's by no means small change, but it's only a fairly small fraction of global growth. The
Maddison database ***** gives us a 45 percent rise in global GDP per capita over the same period,
so this calculation suggests that rising trade was responsible for around 10 percent of overall
global growth. My guess is that most people who imagine themselves well-informed would give a
bigger number.
By the way, for those critical of globalization, let me hasten to concede that by its nature
the Eaton-Kortum model doesn't let us talk about income distribution, and it also makes no room
for the possible role of globalization in causing secular stagnation. ******
Still, I thought this was an interesting calculation to make - which may show more about my
warped sense of what's interesting than it does about anything else.
General Equilibrium Analysis of the Eaton-Kortum Model of International Trade
By Fernando Alvarez and Robert E. Lucas
We study a variation of the Eaton-Kortum model, a competitive, constant-returns-to-scale multicountry
Ricardian model of trade. We establish existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium with balanced
trade where each country imposes an import tariff. We analyze the determinants of the cross-country
distribution of trade volumes, such as size, tariffs and distance, and compare a calibrated version
of the model with data for the largest 60 economies. We use the calibrated model to estimate the
gains of a world-wide trade elimination of tariffs, using the theory to explain the magnitude
of the gains as well as the differential effect arising from cross-country differences in pre-liberalization
of tariffs levels and country size.
The gravity model of international trade in international economics, similar to other gravity
models in social science, predicts bilateral trade flows based on the economic sizes (often using
GDP measurements) and distance between two units. The model was first used by Jan Tinbergen in
1962.
The Hyperglobalization of Trade and Its Future
By Arvind Subramanian and Martin Kessler
Abstract
The open, rules-based trading system has delivered immense benefits-for the world, for individual
countries, and for average citizens in these countries. It can continue to do so, helping today's
low-income countries make the transition to middle-income status. Three challenges must be met
to preserve this system. Rich countries must sustain the social consensus in favor of open markets
and globalization at a time of considerable economic uncertainty and weakness; China and other
middle-income countries must remain open; and mega-regionalism must be prevented from leading
to discrimination and trade conflicts. Collective action should help strengthen the institutional
underpinnings of globalization. The world should move beyond the Doha Round dead to more meaningful
multilateral negotiations to address emerging challenges, including possible threats from new
mega-regional agreements. The rising powers, especially China, will have a key role to play in
resuscitating multilateralism.
"Furthermore, as Mark Kleiman sagely observes, the conventional case for trade liberalization
relies on the assertion that the government could redistribute income to ensure that everyone
wins"
That was never the conventional case for trade. Plus it's kind of odd that you have to add
"plus have the government redistribute" to the case your making.
Tom Pally above is correct. Krugman has been on the wrong side of this issue. He's gotten better,
but the timing is he's gotten better as the Democratic Party has moved to the left and pushed
back against corporate trade deals. Even Hillary came out late against Obama's TPP.
Sanders has nothing about ripping up trade deals. He has said he won't do any more.
As cawley predicted, once Sanders won Michigan, Krugman started hitting him again at his blog.
With cheap shots I might add. He's ruining his brand.
Tell Morning Edition: It's Not "Free Trade" Folks
by Dean Baker
Published: 10 March 2016
Hey, can an experienced doctor from Germany show up and start practicing in New York next week?
Since the answer is no, we can say that we don't have free trade. It's not an immigration issue,
if the doctor wants to work in a restaurant kitchen, she would probably get away with it. We have
protectionist measures that limit the number of foreign doctors in order to keep their pay high.
These protectionist measures have actually been strengthened in the last two decades.
We also have strengthened patent and copyright protections, making drugs and other affected
items far more expensive. These protections are also forms of protectionism.
This is why Morning Edition seriously misled its listeners in an interview with ice cream barons
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield over their support of Senator Bernie Sanders. The interviewer repeatedly
referred to "free trade" agreements and Sanders' opposition to them. While these deals are all
called "free trade" deals to make them sound more palatable ("selective protectionism to redistribute
income upward" doesn't sound very appealing), that doesn't mean they are actually about free trade.
Morning Edition should not have used the term employed by promoters to push their trade agenda.
This has been Dean Baker's excellent theme for a very long time. And if you actually paid attention
to what Krugman said about TPP - he agreed with Dean's excellent points. But do continue to set
up straw man arguments so you can dishonestly attack Krugman.
No. That is not a sign of a faulty memory, quite the contrary.
Krugman writes column after column praising trade pacts and criticizing (rightly, I might add)
the yahoos who object for the wrong reasons.
But he omits a few salient facts like
- the gains are small,
- the government MUST intervene with redistribution for this to work socially,
- there are no (or minimal) provisions for that requirement in the pacts.
I would say his omissions speak volumes and are worth remembering.
Krugman initially wrote a confused column about the TPP, treating it as a simple free trade deal
which he said would have little impact because tariffs were already so low. But he did eventually
look into the matter further and wound up agreeing with Baker's take.
"That was never the conventional case for trade". Actually it was. Of course Greg Mankiw never
got the memo so his free trade benefits all BS confuses a lot of people. Mankiw sucks at international
trade.
David Glasner attacks Krugman from the right, but he doesn't whitewash the past as you do.
He remembers Gore versus Perot:
"Indeed, Romney didn't even mention the Smoot-Hawley tariff, but Krugman evidently forgot the
classic exchange between Al Gore and the previous incarnation of protectionist populist outrage
in an anti-establishment billionaire candidate for President:
GORE I've heard Mr. Perot say in the past that, as the carpenters says, measure twice and cut
once. We've measured twice on this. We have had a test of our theory and we've had a test of his
theory. Over the last five years, Mexico's tariffs have begun to come down because they've made
a unilateral decision to bring them down some, and as a result there has been a surge of exports
from the United States into Mexico, creating an additional 400,000 jobs, and we can create hundreds
of thousands of more if we continue this trend. We know this works. If it doesn't work, you know,
we give six months notice and we're out of it. But we've also had a test of his theory.
PEROT When?
GORE In 1930, when the proposal by Mr. Smoot and Mr. Hawley was to raise tariffs across the
board to protect our workers. And I brought some pictures, too.
[Larry] KING You're saying Ross is a protectionist?
GORE This is, this is a picture of Mr. Smoot and Mr. Hawley. They look like pretty good fellows.
They sounded reasonable at the time; a lot of people believed them. The Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley
Protection Bill. He wants to raise tariffs on Mexico. They raised tariffs, and it was one of the
principal causes, many economists say the principal cause, of the Great Depression in this country
and around the world. Now, I framed this so you can put it on your wall if you want to.
You obviously have not read Krugman. Here is from his 1997 Slate piece:
But putting Greenspan (or his successor) into the picture restores much of the classical vision
of the macroeconomy. Instead of an invisible hand pushing the economy toward full employment in
some unspecified long run, we have the visible hand of the Fed pushing us toward its estimate
of the noninflationary unemployment rate over the course of two or three years. To accomplish
this, the board must raise or lower interest rates to bring savings and investment at that target
unemployment rate in line with each other.
And so all the paradoxes of thrift, widow's cruses, and so on become irrelevant. In particular,
an increase in the savings rate will translate into higher investment after all, because the Fed
will make sure that it does.
To me, at least, the idea that changes in demand will normally be offset by Fed policy--so
that they will, on average, have no effect on employment--seems both simple and entirely reasonable.
Yet it is clear that very few people outside the world of academic economics think about things
that way. For example, the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement was conducted almost
entirely in terms of supposed job creation or destruction. The obvious (to me) point that the
average unemployment rate over the next 10 years will be what the Fed wants it to be, regardless
of the U.S.-Mexico trade balance, never made it into the public consciousness. (In fact, when
I made that argument at one panel discussion in 1993, a fellow panelist--a NAFTA advocate, as
it happens--exploded in rage: "It's remarks like that that make people hate economists!")
Yes. But please do not interrupt PeterK with reality. He has important work do with his bash all
things Krugman agenda. BTW - it is a riot that he cites Ross Perot on NAFTA. Perot has a self
centered agenda there which Gore exposed. Never trust a corrupt business person whether it is
Perot or Trump.
Yes the model PeterK is using is unclear. He doesn't seem to have a grasp on the economics of
the issues. He seems to think that Sanders is a font of economic wisdom who is not to be questioned.
I would hate to see the left try to make a flawed candidate into the larger than life icon that
the GOP has made out of Reagan.
"Yes the model PeterK is using is unclear. He doesn't seem to have a grasp on the economics of
the issues."
Dean Baker and Jared Bernstein. Like you I want full employment and rising wages. And like
Krugman I am very much an internationalist. I want us to deal fairly with the rest of the world.
We need to cooperate especially in the face of global warming.
1. My first, best solution would be fiscal action. Like everyone else. I prefer Sanders's unicorn
plan of $1 trillion over five years rather than Hillary's plan which is one quarter of the size.
Her plan puts more pressure on the Fed and monetary policy.
a. My preference would be to pay for it with Pigouvian taxes on the rich, corporations, and
the financial sector.
b. if not a, then deficit spending like Trudeau in Canada
C. if the deficit hawks block that, then monetary-financing would be the way around them.
2. close the trade deficit. Dean Baker and Bernstein have written about this a lot. Write currency
agreements into trade deals. If we close the trade deficit and are at full employment, then we
can import more from the rest of the world.
3. If powerful interests block 1. and 2. then lean on monetary policy. Reduce the price of
credit to boost demand. It works as a last resort.
"I would hate to see the left try to make a flawed candidate into the larger than life icon
that the GOP has made out of Reagan.'
I haven't seen any evidence of this. It would be funny if the left made an old Jewish codger
from Brooklyn into an icon. Feel the Bern!!!
Sanders regularly points out it's not about him as President fixing everything, it's about
creating a movement. It's about getting people involved. He can't do it by himself. Obama would
say this too. Elizabeth Warren become popular by saying the same things Sanders is saying.
However to say that the conventional case for trade liberalization relies on the Compensation
Principle isn't quite accurate. The conventional case has traditionally relied on the assertion
that "we" are better off with trade since we could *theoretically* distribute the gains. However,
free trade boosters never seem to get around to worrying about distributing the gains *in practice*.
In practice, free trade is typically justified simply by the net aggregate gain, regardless of
how these gains are distributed or who is hurt in the process.
To my mind, before considering some trade liberalization deal we should FIRST agree to and
implement the redistribution mechanisms and only then reduce barriers. Implementing trade deals
in a backward, half-assed way as has typically been the case often makes "us" worse off than autarky.
"Krugman has at times advocated free markets in contexts where they are often viewed as controversial.
He has ... likened the opposition against free trade and globalization to the opposition against
evolution via natural selection (1996),[167]
(In fact, when I made that argument at one panel discussion in 1993, a fellow panelist--a NAFTA
advocate, as it happens--exploded in rage: "It's remarks like that that make people hate economists!")
[Thanks to electoral politics, we're all fellow panelists now.]
"To me, at least, the idea that changes in demand will normally be offset by Fed policy--so that
they will, on average, have no effect on employment--seems both simple and entirely reasonable.
Yet it is clear that very few people outside the world of academic economics think about things
that way."
As we've seen the Fed is overly fearful of inflation, so the Fed doesn't offset the trade deficit
as quickly as it should. Instead we suffer hysteresis and reduction of potential output.
"The truth is that if Sanders were to make it to the White House, he would find it very hard to
do anything much about globalization - not because it's technically or economically impossible,
but because the moment he looked into actually tearing up existing trade agreements the diplomatic,
foreign-policy costs would be overwhelmingly obvious."
Here Krugman is more honest. We're basically buying off the Chinese, etc. The cost for stopping
this would be less cooperation from the Chinese, etc.
This is new. He never used to say this kind of thing. Instead he'd go after "protectionists"
as luddites.
"This is new. He never used to say this kind of thing. Instead he'd go after "protectionists"
as luddites."
You have Krugman confused with Greg Mankiw. Most real international economics (Mankiw is not
one) recognize the distributional consequences of free trade v. protectionism. Then again - putting
forth the Mankiw uninformed spin is a prerequisite for being on Team Republican. Of course Republicans
will go protectionist whenever it is politically expedient as in that temporary set of steel tariffs.
Helped Bush-Cheney in 2004 and right after that - no tariffs. Funny how that worked.
Where is the "redistribution from government" in the TPP. There isn't any.
Even the NAFTA side agreements on labor and the environment are toothless. The point of these
corporate trade deals is to profit from the lower labor and environmental standards of poorer
countries.
The fact that you resort to calling me a professional Krugman hater means you're not interested
in an actual debate about actual ideas. You've lost the debate and I'm not participating.
One is not allowed to criticize Krugman lest one be labeled a professional Krugman hater?
Your resort to name calling just weakens the case you're making.
You of late have wasted so much space misrepresenting what Krugman has said. Maybe you don't hate
him - maybe you just want to get his attention. For a date maybe. Lord - the troll in you is truly
out of control.
Sandwichman may think Krugman changed his views but if one actually read what he has written over
the years (as opposed to your cherry picking quotes), you might have noticed otherwise. But of
course you want Krugman to look bad. It is what you do.
Sizeable numbers of Americans have seen wages decline in real terms for nearly 20 years. Many/most
parents in many communities do not see a better future before them, or for their children.
Notable quotes:
"... Democracy demands that ballot access rules be selected by referendum, not by the very legacy parties that maintain legislative control by effectively denying ballot access to parties that will pose a challenge to their continued rule. ..."
"... I think the U.S. Party system, in the political science sense, shifted to a new state during George W Bush's administration as, in Kevin Phillip's terms the Republican Party was taken over by Theocrats and Bad Money. ..."
"... My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education level rather than income. ..."
"... Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying hierarchy like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with ersatz status. ..."
"... For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community, but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations. ..."
"... Watching Clinton scoop up bankster money, welcome Republicans neocons to the ranks of her supporters does not fill me with hope. ..."
Legislators affiliated with the duopoly parties should not write the rules governing the ballot
access of third parties. This exclusionary rule making amounts to preserving a self-dealing duopoly.
Elections are the interest of the people who vote and those elected should not be able to subvert
the democratic process by acting as a cartel.
Democracy demands that ballot access rules be selected by referendum, not by the very legacy
parties that maintain legislative control by effectively denying ballot access to parties that
will pose a challenge to their continued rule.
Of course any meaningful change would require a voluntary diminishment of power of the duopoly
that now has dictatorial control over ballot access, and who will prevent any Constitutional Amendment
that would enhance the democratic nature of the process.
bruce wilder 08.02.16 at 8:02 pm
I think the U.S. Party system, in the political science sense, shifted to a new state during
George W Bush's administration as, in Kevin Phillip's terms the Republican Party was taken over
by Theocrats and Bad Money.
Ronan(rf) 08.04.16 at 10:35 pm
"I generally don't give a shit about polls so I have no "data" to evidence this claim,
but my guess is the majority of Trump's support comes from this broad middle"
My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning
classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved
in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education
level rather than income.
This would make some sense as they are generally in economically unstable jobs, they tend to
be hostile to both big govt (regulations, freeloaders) and big business (unfair competition),
and while they (rhetorically at least) tend to value personal autonomy and self sufficiency ,
they generally sell into smaller, local markets, and so are particularly affected by local demographic
and cultural change , and decline. That's my speculation anyway.
bruce wilder 08.06.16 at 4:28 pm
I am somewhat suspicious of leaving dominating elites out of these stories of racism as an
organizing principle for political economy or (cultural) community.
Racism served the purposes of a slaveholding elite that organized political communities to
serve their own interests. (Or, vis a vis the Indians a land-grab or genocide.)
Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying
hierarchy like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with
ersatz status. The ugly prejudices and resentful arrogance of working class whites is thus
a component of how racism works to organize a political community to serve a hegemonic master
class. The business end of racism, though, is the autarkic poverty imposed on the working communities:
slaves, sharecroppers, poor blacks, poor whites - bad schools, bad roads, politically disabled
communities, predatory institutions and authoritarian governments.
For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity
was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community,
but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of
social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations.
bruce wilder 08.06.16 at 4:31 pm
Watching Clinton scoop up bankster money, welcome Republicans neocons to the ranks of her
supporters does not fill me with hope.
Trump and the other illiberal populists have been benefiting from three overlapping backlashes.
The first is cultural. Movements for civil liberties have been remarkably successful over the
last 40 years. Women, ethnic and religious minorities, and the LGBTQ community have secured important
gains at a legal and cultural level. It is remarkable, for instance, how quickly same-sex marriage
has become legal in more than 20 countries when no country recognized it before 2001.
Resistance has always existed to these movements to expand the realm of civil liberties. But this
backlash increasingly has a political face. Thus the rise of parties that challenge multiculturalism
and immigration in Europe, the movements throughout Africa and Asia that support the majority over
the minorities, and the Trump/Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party with their appeals to primarily
white men.
The second backlash is economic. The globalization of the economy has created a class of enormously
wealthy individuals (in the financial, technology, and communications sectors). But globalization
has left behind huge numbers of low-wage workers and those who have watched their jobs relocate to
other countries.
Illiberal populists have directed all that anger on the part of people left behind by the world
economy at a series of targets: bankers who make billions, corporations that are constantly looking
for even lower-wage workers, immigrants who "take away our jobs," and sometimes ethnic minorities
who function as convenient scapegoats. The targets, in other words, include both the very powerful
and the very weak.
The third backlash, and perhaps the most consequential, is political. It's not just that people
living in democracies are disgusted with their leaders and the parties they represent. Rather, as
political scientists Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk
write in the Journal of Democracy , "they have also become more cynical about the value
of democracy as a political system, less hopeful that anything they do might influence public policy,
and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives."
Foa and Mounk are using 20 years of data collected from surveys of citizens in Western Europe
and North America – the democracies with the greatest longevity. And they have found that support
for illiberal alternatives is greater among the younger generation than the older one. In other countries
outside Europe and North America, the disillusionment with democratic institutions often takes the
form of a preference for a powerful leader who can break the rules if necessary to preserve order
and stability – like Putin in Russia or Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt or Prayuth Chan-ocha in Thailand.
These three backlashes – cultural, economic, political – are also anti-internationalist because
international institutions have become associated with the promotion of civil liberties and human
rights, the greater globalization of the economy, and the constraint of the sovereignty of nations
(for instance, through the European Union or the UN's "responsibility to protect" doctrine).
... ... ....
The current political order is coming apart. If we don't come up with a fair, Green, and internationalist
alternative, the illiberal populists will keep winning. John Feffer is the director of Foreign
Policy In Focus.
"... if neo-liberalism is partly defined by the free flow of goods, labor and capital - and that has been the Republican agenda since at least Reagan - how is Trump a continuation of the same tradition?" ..."
"... Trump is a conservative (or right populist, or whatever), and draws on that tradition. He's not a neoliberal. ..."
"... Trump is too incoherent to really represent the populist view. He's consistent w/the trade and immigration views but (assuming you can actually figure him out) wrong on banks, taxes, etc. ..."
"... But the next populists we see might be more full bore. When that happens, you'll see much more overlap w/Sanders economic plans for the middle class. ..."
"... There's always tension along the lead running between the politician and his constituents. The thing that seems most salient to me at the present moment is the sense of betrayal pervading our politics. At least since the GFC of 2008, it has been hard to deny that the two Parties worked together to set up an economic betrayal. And, the long-running saga of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also speak to elite failure, as well as betrayal. ..."
"... Trump is a novelty act. He represents a chance for people who feel resentful without knowing much of anything about anything to cast a middle-finger vote. They wouldn't be willing to do that, if times were really bad, instead of just disappointing and distressing. ..."
"... There's also the fact Reagan tapped a fair number of Nixon people, as did W years later. Reagan went after Nixon in the sense of running against him, and taking the party in a much more hard-right direction, sure. But he was repudiated largely because he got caught doing dirty tricks with his pants down. ..."
"... From what I can tell - the 1972 election gave the centrists in the democratic party power to discredit and marginalize the anti-war left, and with it, the left in general. ..."
"... Ready even now to whine that she's a victim and that the whole community is at fault and that people are picking on her because she's a woman, rather than because she has a habit of making accusations like this every time she comments. ..."
"... That is a perfect example of predatory "solidarity". Val is looking for dupes to support her ..."
"Once again, if neo-liberalism is partly defined by the free flow of goods, labor and capital
- and that has been the Republican agenda since at least Reagan - how is Trump a continuation
of the same tradition?"
You have to be willing to see neoliberalism as something different
from conservatism to have the answer make any sense. John Quiggin has written a good deal here
about a model of U.S. politics as being divided into left, neoliberal, and conservative. Trump
is a conservative (or right populist, or whatever), and draws on that tradition. He's not a neoliberal.
... ... ...
T 08.12.16 at 5:52 pm
RP @683
That's a bit of my point. I think Corey has defined the Republican tradition solely
in response to the Southern Strategy that sees a line from Nixon (or Goldwater) to Trump. But
that gets the economics wrong and the foreign policy too - the repub foreign policy view has not
been consistent across administrations and Trump's economic pans (to the extent he has a plan)
are antithetical to the Nixon – W tradition. I have viewed post-80 Dem administrations as neoliberals
w/transfers and Repub as neoliberals w/o transfers.
Trump is too incoherent to really represent the populist view. He's consistent w/the trade
and immigration views but (assuming you can actually figure him out) wrong on banks, taxes, etc.
But the next populists we see might be more full bore. When that happens, you'll see much
more overlap w/Sanders economic plans for the middle class. Populists have nothing against
gov't programs like SS and Medicare and were always for things like the TVA and infrastructure
spending. Policies aimed at the poor and minorities not so much.
T @ 685: Trump is too incoherent to really represent the populist view.
There's always tension along the lead running between the politician and his constituents.
The thing that seems most salient to me at the present moment is the sense of betrayal pervading
our politics. At least since the GFC of 2008, it has been hard to deny that the two Parties worked
together to set up an economic betrayal. And, the long-running saga of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
also speak to elite failure, as well as betrayal.
These are the two most unpopular candidates in living memory. That is different.
I am not a believer in "the fire next time". Trump is a novelty act. He represents a chance
for people who feel resentful without knowing much of anything about anything to cast a middle-finger
vote. They wouldn't be willing to do that, if times were really bad, instead of just disappointing
and distressing.
Nor will Sanders be back. His was a last New Deal coda. There may be second acts in American
life, but there aren't 7th acts.
If there's a populist politics in our future, it will have to have a much sharper edge. It
can talk about growth, but it has to mean smashing the rich and taking their stuff. There's very
rapidly going to come a point where there's no other option, other than just accepting cramdown
by the authoritarian surveillance state built by the neoliberals. that's a much taller order than
Sanders or Trump have been offering.<
Corey, you write: "It's not just that the Dems went after Nixon, it's also that Nixon had so few
allies. People on the right were furious with him because they felt after this huge ratification
that the country had moved to the right, Nixon was still governing as if the New Deal were the
consensus. So when the time came, he had very few defenders, except for loyalists like Leonard
Garment and G. Gordon Liddy. And Al Haig, God bless him."
You've studied this more than I have,
but this is at least somewhat at odds with my memory. I recall some prominent attackers of Nixon
from the Republican party that were moderates, at least one of whom was essentially kicked out
of the party for being too liberal in later years. There's also the fact Reagan tapped a fair
number of Nixon people, as did W years later. Reagan went after Nixon in the sense of running
against him, and taking the party in a much more hard-right direction, sure. But he was repudiated
largely because he got caught doing dirty tricks with his pants down.
To think that something similar would happen to Clinton (watergate like scandal) that would
actually have a large portion of the left in support of impeachment, she would have to be as dirty
as Nixon was, *and* the evidence to really put the screws to her would have to be out, as it was
against Nixon during watergate.
OTOH, my actual *hope* would be that a similar left-liberal sea change comparable to 1980 from
the right would be plausible. I don't think a 1976-like interlude is plausible though, that would
require the existence of a moderate republican with enough support within their own party to win
the nomination. I suppose its possible that such a beast could come to exist if Trump loses a
landslide, but most of the plausible candidates have already left or been kicked out of the party.
From what I can tell - the 1972 election gave the centrists in the democratic party power
to discredit and marginalize the anti-war left, and with it, the left in general. A comparable
election from the other side would give republican centrists/moderates the ability to discredit
and marginalize the right wing base. But unlike Democrats in 1972, there aren't any moderates
left in the Republican party by my lights. I'm much more concerned that this will simply re-empower
the hard-core conservatives with plausbly-deniable dog-whistle racism who are now the "moderates",
and enable them to whitewash their history.
Unfortunately, unlike you, I'm not convinced that a landslide is possible without an appeal
to Reagan/Bush republicans. I don't think we're going to see a meaningful turn toward a real left
until Democrats can win a majority of statehouses and clean up the ridiculous gerrymandering.
Val: "Similarly with your comments on "identity politics" where you could almost be seen
by MRAs and white supremacists as an ally, from the tone of your rhetoric."
That is 100% perfect Val. Insinuates that BW is a sort-of-ally of white supremacists - an infuriating
insinuation. Does this insinuation based on a misreading of what he wrote. Completely resistant
to any sort of suggestion that what she dishes out so expansively to others had better be something
she should be willing to accept herself, or that she shouldn't do it. Ready even now to whine
that she's a victim and that the whole community is at fault and that people are picking on her
because she's a woman, rather than because she has a habit of making accusations like this every
time she comments.
That is a perfect example of predatory "solidarity". Val is looking for dupes to support
her - for people to jump in saying "Why are you being hostile to women?" in response to people's
response to her comment.
"... More than a dozen Republican rivals, described as the strongest GOP field since 1980, were sent packing. This was the year Americans rose up to pull down the establishment in a peaceful storming of the American Bastille. ..."
"... If 2016 taught us anything, it is that if the establishment's hegemony is imperiled, it will come together in ferocious solidarity - for the preservation of their perks, privileges and power. All the elements of that establishment - corporate, cultural, political, media - are today issuing an ultimatum to Middle America: Trump is unacceptable. Instructions are going out to Republican leaders that either they dump Trump, or they will cease to be seen as morally fit partners in power. ..."
"... Our CIA, NGOs and National Endowment for Democracy all beaver away for "regime change" in faraway lands whose rulers displease us. How do we effect "regime change" here at home? ..."
"... Donald Trump's success, despite the near-universal hostility of the media, even much of the conservative media, was due in large part to the public's response to the issues he raised. ..."
"I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged," Donald Trump told voters
in Ohio and Sean Hannity on Fox News. And that hit a nerve.
"Dangerous," "toxic," came the recoil from the media.
Trump is threatening to "delegitimize" the election results of 2016.
Well, if that is what Trump is trying to do, he has no small point. For consider
what 2016 promised and what it appears about to deliver.
This longest of election cycles has rightly been called the Year of the Outsider.
It was a year that saw a mighty surge of economic populism and patriotism, a
year when a 74-year-old Socialist senator set primaries ablaze with mammoth
crowds that dwarfed those of Hillary Clinton.
It was the year that a non-politician, Donald Trump, swept Republican primaries
in an historic turnout, with his nearest rival an ostracized maverick in his
own Republican caucus, Senator Ted Cruz.
More than a dozen Republican rivals, described as the strongest GOP field
since 1980, were sent packing. This was the year Americans rose up to pull down
the establishment in a peaceful storming of the American Bastille.
But if it ends with a Clintonite restoration and a ratification of the same
old Beltway policies, would that not suggest there is something fraudulent about
American democracy, something rotten in the state?
If 2016 taught us anything, it is that if the establishment's hegemony
is imperiled, it will come together in ferocious solidarity - for the preservation
of their perks, privileges and power. All the elements of that establishment
- corporate, cultural, political, media - are today issuing an ultimatum to
Middle America: Trump is unacceptable. Instructions are going out to Republican
leaders that either they dump Trump, or they will cease to be seen as morally
fit partners in power.
It testifies to the character of Republican elites that some are seeking
ways to carry out these instructions, though this would mean invalidating and
aborting the democratic process that produced Trump.
But what is a repudiated establishment doing issuing orders to anyone?
Why is it not Middle America issuing the demands, rather than the other way
around?
Specifically, the Republican electorate should tell its discredited and rejected
ruling class: If we cannot get rid of you at the ballot box, then tell us how,
peacefully and democratically, we can be rid of you?
You want Trump out? How do we get you out? The Czechs had their Prague Spring.
The Tunisians and Egyptians their Arab Spring. When do we have our American
Spring? The Brits had their "Brexit," and declared independence of an arrogant
superstate in Brussels. How do we liberate ourselves from a Beltway superstate
that is more powerful and resistant to democratic change?
Our CIA, NGOs and National Endowment for Democracy all beaver away for
"regime change" in faraway lands whose rulers displease us. How do we effect
"regime change" here at home?
Donald Trump's success, despite the near-universal hostility of the media,
even much of the conservative media, was due in large part to the public's response
to the issues he raised.
He called for sending illegal immigrants back home, for securing America's
borders, for no amnesty. He called for an America First foreign policy to
keep us out of wars that have done little but bleed and bankrupt us.
He called for an economic policy where the Americanism of the people
replaces the globalism of the transnational elites and their K Street lobbyists
and congressional water carriers.
He denounced NAFTA, and the trade deals and trade deficits with China,
and called for rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
By campaign's end, he had won the argument on trade, as Hillary Clinton was
agreeing on TPP and confessing to second thoughts on NAFTA.
But if TPP is revived at the insistence of the oligarchs of Wall Street,
the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - backed by conscript
editorial writers for newspapers that rely on ad dollars - what do elections
really mean anymore?
And if, as the polls show we might, we get Clinton - and TPP, and amnesty,
and endless migrations of Third World peoples who consume more tax dollars than
they generate, and who will soon swamp the Republicans' coalition - what was
2016 all about?
Would this really be what a majority of Americans voted for in this most
exciting of presidential races?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable," said John F. Kennedy.
The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of social revolution in America, and
President Nixon, by ending the draft and ending the Vietnam war, presided over
what one columnist called the "cooling of America."
But if Hillary Clinton takes power, and continues America on her present
course, which a majority of Americans rejected in the primaries, there is going
to be a bad moon rising.
And the new protesters in the streets will not be overprivileged children
from Ivy League campuses.
"... the capitalist economy is more and more an asset driven one. This article does not even begin to address the issue of asset valuations, the explicit CB support for asset inflation and the effect on inequality, and especially generational plunder. ..."
"... the problem of living standards is obviously a Malthusian one. despite all the progress of social media tricks, we cannot fool nature. the rate of ecological degradation is alarming, and now irreversible. "the market" is now moving rapidly to real assets. This will eventually lead to war as all war is eventually for resources. ..."
No matter what central banks do, their actions will not be able to create the same level of
economic growth that we have become used to over the past seven decades.
Economic growth does not come from the central banks; if government sought to provide the basics
for all its citizens, including health care, education, a home, and proper food and all the infrastructure
needed to give people the basics, then you could have something akin to "growth" while at the
same time making life more pleasant for the less fortunate. There seems to be no definition of
economic growth that includes everyone.
This seems a very elaborate way of stating a simple problem, that can be summarised in three
points.
The living standards of most people have fallen over the last thirty years or so because of
the impact of neoliberal economic policies. Conventional politicians are promising only more
of the same. Therefore people are increasingly voting for non-conventional politicians.
Neoliberalism has only exacerbated falling living standards. Living standards would be falling
even without it, albeit more gradually.
Neoliberalism itself may even be nothing more than a standard type response of species that
have expanded beyond the capacity of their environment to support them. What we see as an evil
ideology is only the expression of a mechanism that apportions declining resources to the elites,
like shutting shutting down the periphery so the core can survive as in hypothermia.
I really don't have problem with this. Let the financial sector run the world into the ground
and get it over with.
In defference to a great many knowledgable commentors here that work in the FIRE sector, I
don't want to create a damning screed on the cost of servicing money, but at some point even the
most considered opinions have to acknowledge that that finance is flooded with *talent* which
creates a number of problems; one being a waste of intellect and education in a field that doesn't
offer much of a return when viewed in an egalitarian sense, secondly; as the field grows due to,
the technical advances, the rise in globilization, and the security a financial occuptaion offers
in an advanced first world country nowadays, it requires substantially more income to be devoted
to it's function.
This income has to be derived somewhere, and the required sacrifices on every facet of a global
economy to bolster positions and maintain asset prices has precipitated this decline in the well
being of peoples not plugged-in to the consumer capitalist regime and dogma.
Something has to give here, and I honestly couldn't care about your 401k or home resale value,
you did this to yourself as much as those day-traders who got clobbered in the dot-com crash.
the capitalist economy is more and more an asset driven one. This article does not even
begin to address the issue of asset valuations, the explicit CB support for asset inflation and
the effect on inequality, and especially generational plunder.
the problem of living standards is obviously a Malthusian one. despite all the progress
of social media tricks, we cannot fool nature. the rate of ecological degradation is alarming,
and now irreversible. "the market" is now moving rapidly to real assets. This will eventually
lead to war as all war is eventually for resources.
We have just witnessed one of the most significant steps toward a one world
economic system that we have ever seen. Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
have been completed, and if approved it will create the largest trading bloc
on the planet. But this is not just a trade agreement. In this treaty, Barack
Obama has thrown in all sorts of things that he never would have been able to
get through Congress otherwise. And once this treaty is approved, it will be
exceedingly difficult to ever make changes to it. So essentially what is happening
is that the Obama agenda is being permanently locked in for 40 percent of the
global economy.
The United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Brunei,
Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam all intend to sign
on to this insidious plan. Collectively, these nations have a total population
of about 800 million people and a combined GDP of approximately 28 trillion
dollars.
In hailing the agreement, Obama said, "Congress and the American people
will have months to read every word" before he signs the deal that he described
as a win for all sides.
"If we can get this agreement to my desk, then we can help our businesses
sell more Made in America goods and services around the world, and we can
help more American workers compete and win," Obama said.
Sadly, just like with every other "free trade" agreement that the U.S. has
entered into since World War II, the exact opposite is what will actually happen.
Our trade deficit will get even larger, and we will see even more jobs and even
more businesses go overseas.
But the mainstream media will never tell you this. Instead, they are just
falling all over themselves as they heap praise on this new trade pact. Just
check out a couple of the headlines that we saw on Monday…
Overseas it is a different story. Many journalists over there fully recognize
that this treaty greatly benefits many of the big corporations that played a
key role in drafting it. For example, the following comes
from a newspaper in Thailand…
You will hear much about the importance of the TPP for "free trade".
The reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members' trade
and investment relations - and to do so on behalf of each country's most
powerful business lobbies.
Packaged as a gift to the American people that will renew industry and
make us more competitive, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a Trojan horse.
It's a coup by multinational corporations who want global subservience to
their agenda. Buyer beware. Citizens beware.
The gigantic corporations that dominate our economy don't care about the
little guy. If they can save a few cents on the manufacturing of an item by
moving production to Timbuktu they will do it.
Over the past couple of decades, the United States has lost tens of thousands
of manufacturing facilities and millions of good paying jobs due to these "free
trade agreements". As we merge our economy with the economies of nations where
it is legal to pay slave labor wages, it is inevitable that corporations will
shift jobs to places where labor is much cheaper. Our economic infrastructure
is being absolutely eviscerated in the process, and very few of our politicians
seem to care.
Once upon a time, the city of Detroit was the greatest manufacturing city
on the planet and it had the highest per capita income in the entire nation.
But today it is a rotting, decaying hellhole that the rest of the world laughs
at. What has happened to the city of Detroit is happening to the entire nation
as a whole, but our politicians just keep pushing us even farther down the road
to oblivion.
Just consider what has happened since NAFTA was implemented. In the year
before NAFTA was approved, the United States actually had a trade surplus
with Mexico and our trade deficit with Canada was only 29.6 billion dollars.
But now things are very different. In one recent year, the U.S. had a combined
trade deficit with Mexico and Canada of
177 billion dollars.
And these trade deficits are not just numbers. They represent real jobs that
are being lost. It has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses
approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported
from overseas, and one professor has estimated that cutting our trade deficit
in half would create
5 million more jobs in the United States.
Just yesterday, I wrote about how there are
102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now. Once
upon a time, if you were honest, dependable and hard working it was easy to
get a good paying job in this country. But now things are completely different.
Why aren't more people alarmed by numbers like this?
And of course the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not just about "free trade".
In one of my
previous articles, I explained that Obama is using this as an opportunity
to permanently impose much of his agenda on a large portion of the globe…
It is basically a gigantic end run around Congress.
Thanks to leaks, we have learned that so many of the things that Obama has
deeply wanted for years are in this treaty. If adopted, this treaty
will fundamentally change our laws regarding Internet freedom, healthcare,
copyright and patent protection, food safety, environmental standards, civil
liberties and so much more. This treaty includes many of the rules
that alarmed Internet activists so much
when SOPA was being debated, it would essentially ban all "Buy American"
laws, it would give Wall Street banks much more freedom to trade risky
derivatives and it would force even more domestic manufacturing offshore.
The Republicans in Congress foolishly gave Obama
fast track negotiating authority, and so Congress will not be able to change
this treaty in any way. They will only have the opportunity for an up or down
vote.
I would love to see Congress reject this deal, but we all know that is extremely
unlikely to happen. When big votes like this come up, immense pressure is put
on key politicians. Yes, there are a few members of Congress that still have
backbones, but most of them are absolutely spineless. When push comes to shove,
the globalist agenda always seems to advance.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media will be telling the American people about
all of the wonderful things that this new treaty will do for them. You would
think that after how badly past "free trade" treaties have turned out that we
would learn something, but somehow that never seems to happen.
The agenda of the globalists is moving forward, and very few Americans seem
to care.
First of all, because NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying
American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement.
Freddie
Many of those NeoCon Bibi lovers and Jonathan Pollard conservatives love
TPP and H1B Ted Cruz. Ted is also a Goldman Sachs boy.
Squids_In
That giant sucking sound just got gianter.
MrTouchdown
Probably, but here's a thought:
It might be a blowing sound of all things USA deflating down (in USD
terms) to what they are actually worth when compared to the rest of the
world. For example, a GM assembly line worker will make what an assembly
line worker in Vietnam makes.
This will, of course, panic Old Yellen, who will promptly fill her diaper
and begin subsidizing wages with Quantitative Pleasing (QP1).
Buckaroo Banzai
If this gets through congress, the Republican Party better not bother
asking for my vote ever again.
Chupacabra-322
Vote? You seem to think "voting" will actually influence actions / Globalists
plans which have been decades in the making amoungst thse Criminal Pure
Evil Lucerferian Psychopaths hell bent on Total Complete Full Spectrum World
Domination.
Yea, keep voting. I'll be out hunting down these Evil doers like the
dogs that they are.
Buckaroo Banzai
I have no illusions regarding the efficacy of voting. It is indeed a
waste of time.
What I said was, they better not dare even ASK for my vote.
Ignatius
Doesn't matter. Diebold is so good at counting that you don't even need
to show up at the polls anymore. It's like a miracle of modern technology.
Peter Pan
Did the article say 40%?
I imagine they meant 40% of whatever is left after we all go to hell
in a hand basket.
Great day for the multinationals and in particular the pharmaceutical
companies.
But those politicians lucky enough to win discover -- if they did not know already -- that their
capacity to affect even their own domestic environment is constrained by forces beyond their control.
Notable quotes:
"... But those politicians lucky enough to win discover -- if they did not know already -- that their capacity to affect even their own domestic environment is constrained by forces beyond their control. ..."
"... In the case of Britain, the once-powerful centralized governments of that country are now multiply constrained. As the power of Britain in international affairs has declined, so has the British government's power within its own domain. Membership of the European Union constrains British governments' ability to determine everything from the quantities of fish British fishermen can legally catch to the amount in fees that British universities can charge students from other EU countries. ..."
"... Not least, the EU's insistence on the free movement of labor caused the Conservative-dominated coalition that came to power in 2010 to renege on the Tories' spectacularly ill-judged pledge to reduce to "tens of thousands a year" the number of migrants coming to Britain. The number admitted in 2014 alone was nearer 300,000. ..."
"... On top of all that, British governments -- even more than those of some other predominantly capitalist economies -- are open to being buffeted by market forces, whose winds can acquire gale force. In a world of substantially free trade, imports and exports of goods and services are largely beyond any government's control, and the Bank of England's influence over the external value of sterling is negligible. During the present election campaign, HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, indicated that it was contemplating shifting its headquarters from the City of London to Hong Kong. For good or ill, Britain's government was, and is, effectively helpless to intervene. ..."
"... That's why we need a federal Europe. Local governments for local issues and elected by the local people and a European government for European issues elected by all Europeans. ..."
Once upon a time, national elections were -- or seemed to be -- overwhelmingly domestic affairs,
affecting only the peoples of the countries taking part in them. If that was ever true, it is so
no longer. Angela Merkel negotiates with Greece's government with Germany's voters looming in the
background. David Cameron currently fights an election campaign in the UK holding fast to the belief
that a false move on his part regarding Britain's relationship with the EU could cost his Conservative
Party seats, votes and possibly the entire election.
Britain provides a good illustration of a general proposition. It used to be claimed, plausibly,
that "all politics is local." In 2015, electoral politics may still be mostly local, but the post-electoral
business of government is anything but local. There is a misfit between the two. Voters are mainly
swayed by domestic issues. Vote-seeking politicians campaign accordingly. But those politicians
lucky enough to win discover -- if they did not know already -- that their capacity to affect even
their own domestic environment is constrained by forces beyond their control.
Anyone viewing the UK election campaign from afar could be forgiven for thinking that British
voters and politicians alike imagined they were living on some kind of self-sufficient sea-girt island.
The opinion polls indicate that a large majority of voters are preoccupied -- politically as well
as in other ways -- with their own financial situation, tax rates, welfare spending and the future
of the National Health Service. Immigration is an issue for many voters, but mostly in domestic terms
(and often as a surrogate for generalized discontent with Britain's political class). The fact that
migrants from Eastern Europe and elsewhere make a positive net contribution to both the UK's economy
and its social services scarcely features in the campaign.
... ... ...
After polling day, all that will change -- probably to millions of voters' dismay. One American
presidential candidate famously said that politicians campaign in poetry, but govern in prose. Politicians
in democracies, not just in Britain, campaign as though they can move mountains, then find that most
mountains are hard or impossible to move.
In the case of Britain, the once-powerful centralized governments of that country are now
multiply constrained. As the power of Britain in international affairs has declined, so has the British
government's power within its own domain. Membership of the European Union constrains British governments'
ability to determine everything from the quantities of fish British fishermen can legally catch to
the amount in fees that British universities can charge students from other EU countries.
Not least, the EU's insistence on the free movement of labor caused the Conservative-dominated
coalition that came to power in 2010 to renege on the Tories' spectacularly ill-judged pledge to
reduce to "tens of thousands a year" the number of migrants coming to Britain. The number admitted
in 2014 alone was nearer 300,000.
The UK's courts are also far more active than they were. The British parliament in 1998 incorporated
the European Convention on Human Rights into British domestic law, and British judges have determinedly
enforced those rights. During the 1970s, they had already been handed responsibility for enforcing
the full range of EU law within the UK.
Also, Britain's judges have, on their own initiative, exercised increasingly frequently their
long-standing power of "judicial review," invalidating ministerial decisions that violated due process
or seemed to them to be wholly unreasonable. Devolution of substantial powers to semi-independent
governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has also meant that the jurisdiction of many
so-called UK government ministers is effectively confined to the purely English component part.
On top of all that, British governments -- even more than those of some other predominantly
capitalist economies -- are open to being buffeted by market forces, whose winds can acquire gale
force. In a world of substantially free trade, imports and exports of goods and services are largely
beyond any government's control, and the Bank of England's influence over the external value of sterling
is negligible. During the present election campaign, HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, indicated
that it was contemplating shifting its headquarters from the City of London to Hong Kong. For good
or ill, Britain's government was, and is, effectively helpless to intervene.
The heirs of Gladstone, Disraeli, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, Britain's political leaders
are understandably still tempted to talk big. But their effective real-world influence is small.
No wonder a lot of voters in Britain feel they are being conned.
ItsJustTim
That's globalization. And it won't go away, even if you vote nationalist. The issues are increasingly
international, while the voters still have a mostly local perspective. That's why we need
a federal Europe. Local governments for local issues and elected by the local people and a European
government for European issues elected by all Europeans.
"... it seems fair to say: Globalism isn't quite the Wave of the Future that most observers thought it was, even just a year ago. And so before we attempt to divide the true intentions of Clinton and Trump, we might first step back and consider how we got to this point. ..."
"... An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations . ..."
"... Clinton will say anything then she'll sell you out. I hope we never get a chance to see how she will sell us out on TPP ..."
"... What we would be headed for under Hillary Clinton is fascism--Mussolini's shorthand definition of fascism was the marriage of industry and commerce with the power of the State. That is what the plutocrats who run the big banks (to whom she owes her soul) aim to do. President, Thomas Jefferson knew the dangers of large European-style central banks. ..."
On the surface, it appears that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, for all their mutual antipathy,
are united on one big issue: opposition to new trade deals. Here's a recent headline in
The Guardian: "Trump and Clinton's free trade retreat: a pivotal moment for the world's
economic future."
And the subhead continues in that vein:
Never before have both main presidential candidates broken so completely with Washington orthodoxy
on globalization, even as the White House refuses to give up. The problem, however, goes much
deeper than trade deals.
In the above quote, we can note the deliberate use of the loaded word, "problem." As in, it's
a problem that free trade is unpopular-a problem, perhaps, that the MSM can fix. Yet in the
meantime, the newspaper sighed, the two biggest trade deals on the horizon, the well-known
Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the lesser-known
Trans Atlantic Trade Investment
Partnership (TTIP), aimed at further linking the U.S. and European Union (EU), are both in jeopardy.
So now we must ask broader questions: What does this mean for trade treaties overall? And what
are the implications for globalism?
More specifically, we can ask: Are we sure that the two main White House hopefuls, Clinton and
Trump, are truly sincere in their opposition to those deals? After all, as has been
widely reported, President Obama still has plans to push TPP through to enactment in the "lame
duck" session of Congress after the November elections. Of course, Obama wouldn't seek to do that
if the president-elect opposed it-or would he?
Yet on August 30, Politico reminded its Beltway readership, "How
Trump or Clinton could kill Pacific trade deal." In other words, even if Obama were to move TPP
forward in his last two months in office, the 45th president could still block its implementation
in 2017 and beyond. If, that is, she or he really wanted to.
Indeed, as we think about Clinton and Trump, we realize that there's "opposition" that's for show
and there's opposition that's for real.
Still, given what's been said on the presidential campaign trail this year, it seems fair
to say: Globalism isn't quite the Wave of the Future that most observers thought it was, even just
a year ago. And so before we attempt to divide the true intentions of Clinton and Trump, we might
first step back and consider how we got to this point.
2. The Free Trade Orthodoxy
It's poignant that the headline, "Trump and Clinton's free trade retreat", lamenting the decay
of free trade, appeared in The Guardian. Until recently, the newspaper was known as The
Manchester Guardian, as in Manchester, England. And Manchester is not only a big city, population
2.5 million, it is also a city with a fabled past: You see, Manchester was the cradle of the Industrial
Revolution, which transformed England and the world. It was that city that helped create the free
trade orthodoxy that is now crumbling.
Yes, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Manchester was the leading manufacturing city in the world,
especially for textiles. It was known as "Cottonopolis."
Indeed, back then, Manchester was so much more efficient and effective at mass production that
it led the world in exports. That is, it could produce its goods at such low cost that it could send
them across vast oceans and still undercut local producers on price and quality.
Over time, this economic reality congealed into a school of thought: As Manchester grew rich from
exports, its business leaders easily found economists, journalists, and propagandists who would help
advance their cause in the press and among the intelligentsia.
The resulting school of thought became known, in the 19th century, as "Manchester
Liberalism." And so, to this day, long after Manchester has lost its economic preeminence to
rivals elsewhere in the world, the phrase "Manchester Liberalism" is a well-known in the history
of economics, bespeaking ardent support for free markets and free trade.
More recently, the hub for free-trade enthusiasm has been the United States. In particular, the
University of Chicago, home to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, became free trade's
academic citadel; hence the "Chicago
School" has displaced Manchesterism.
And just as it made sense for Manchester Liberalism to exalt free trade and exports when Manchester
and England were on top, so, too, did the Chicago School exalt free trade when the U.S. was unquestionably
the top dog.
So back in the 40s and 50s, when the rest of the world was either bombed flat or still under the
yoke of colonialism, it made perfect sense that the U.S., as the only intact industrial power, would
celebrate industrial exports: We were Number One, and it was perfectly rational to make the most
of that first-place status. And if scribblers and scholars could help make the case for this new
status quo, well, bring 'em aboard. Thus the Chicago School gained ascendancy in the late 20th century.
And of course, the Chicagoans drew inspiration from a period even earlier than Manchesterism,
3. On the Origins of the Orthodoxy: Adam Smith and David Ricardo
One passage in that volume considers how individuals might optimize their own production and consumption:
It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home what it
will cost him more to make than to buy.
Smith is right, of course; everyone should always be calculating, however informally, whether
or not it's cheaper to make it at home or buy it from someone else.
We can quickly see: If each family must make its own clothes and grow its own food, it's likely
to be worse off than if it can buy its necessities from a large-scale producer. Why? Because, to
be blunt about it, most of us don't really know how to make clothes and grow food, and it's expensive
and difficult-if not downright impossible-to learn how. So we can conclude that self-sufficiency,
however rustic and charming, is almost always a recipe for poverty.
Smith had a better idea: specialization. That is, people would specialize in one line of
work, gain skills, earn more money, and then use that money in the marketplace, buying what they
needed from other kinds of specialists.
Moreover, the even better news, in Smith's mind, was that this kind of specialization came naturally
to people-that is, if they were free to scheme out their own advancement. As Smith argued, the ideal
system would allow "every man to pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality,
liberty and justice."
That is, men (and women) would do that which they did best, and then they would all come together
in the free marketplace-each person being inspired to do better, thanks to, as Smith so memorably
put it, the "invisible hand." Thus Smith articulated a key insight that undergirds the whole of modern
economics-and, of course, modern-day prosperity.
A few decades later, in the early 19th century, Smith's pioneering work was expanded upon by another
remarkable British economist, David Ricardo.
Ricardo's big idea built on Smithian specialization; Ricardo called it "comparative advantage."
That is, just as each individual should do what he or she does best, so should each country.
In Ricardo's well-known illustration, he explained that the warm and sunny climate of Portugal
made that country ideal for growing the grapes needed for wine, while the factories of England made
that country ideal for spinning the fibers needed for apparel and other finished fabrics.
Thus, in Ricardo's view, we could see the makings of a beautiful economic friendship: The Portuguese
would utilize their comparative advantage (climate) and export their surplus wine to England, while
the English would utilize their comparative advantage (manufacturing) and export apparel to Portugal.
Thus each would benefit from the exchange of efficiently-produced products, as each export paid for
the other.
Furthermore, in Ricardo's telling, if tariffs and other barriers were eliminated, then both countries,
Portugal and England, would enjoy the maximum free-trading win-win.
Actually, in point of fact-and Ricardo knew this-the relationship was much more of a win for England,
because manufacture is more lucrative than agriculture. That is, a factory in Manchester could crank
out garments a lot faster than a vineyard in Portugal could ferment wine.
And as we all know, the richer, stronger countries are industrial, not agricultural. Food is essential-and
alcohol is pleasurable-but the real money is made in making things. After all, crops can be grown
easily enough in many places, and so prices stay low. By contrast, manufacturing requires a lot of
know-how and a huge upfront investment. Yet with enough powerful manufacturing, a nation is always
guaranteed to be able to afford to import food. And also, it can make military weapons, and so, if
necessary, take foreign food and croplands by force.
We can also observe that Ricardo, smart fellow that he was, nevertheless was describing the economy
at a certain point in time-the era of horse-drawn carriages and sailing ships. Ricardo realized that
transportation was, in fact, a key business variable. He wrote that it was possible for a company
to seek economic advantage by moving a factory from one part of England to another. And yet in his
view, writing from the perspective of the year 1817, it was impossible to imagine
moving a factory from England to another country:
It would not follow that capital and population would necessarily move from England to Holland,
or Spain, or Russia.
Why this presumed immobility of capital and people? Because, from Ricardo's early 19th-century
perspective, transportation was inevitably slow and creaky; he didn't foresee steamships and airplanes.
In his day, relying on the technology of the time, it wasn't realistic to think that factories, and
their workers, could relocate from one country to another.
Moreover, in Ricardo's era, many countries were actively hostile to industrialization, because
change would upset the aristocratic rhythms of the old order. That is, industrialization could turn
docile or fatalistic peasants, spread out thinly across the countryside, into angry and self-aware
proletarians, concentrated in the big cities-and that was a formula for unrest, even revolution.
Indeed, it was not until the 20th century that every country-including China, a great civilization,
long asleep under decadent imperial misrule-figured out that it had no choice other than to industrialize.
So we can see that the ideas of Smith and Ricardo, enduringly powerful as they have been, were
nonetheless products of their time-that is, a time when England mostly had the advantages of industrialism
to itself. In particular, Ricardo's celebration of comparative advantage can be seen as an artifact
of his own era, when England enjoyed a massive first-mover advantage in the industrial-export game.
Smith died in 1790, and Ricardo died in 1823; a lot has changed since then. And yet the two economists
were so lucid in their writings that their work is studied and admired to this day.
Unfortunately, we can also observe that their ideas have been frozen in a kind of intellectual
amber; even in the 21st century, free trade and old-fashioned comparative advantage are unquestioningly
regarded as the keys to the wealth of nations-at least in the U.S.-even if they are so no longer.
4. Nationalist Alternatives to Free Trade Orthodoxy
As we have seen, Smith and Ricardo were pushing an idea, free trade, that was advantageous to
Britain.
So perhaps not surprisingly, rival countries-notably the United States and Germany-soon developed
different ideas. Leaders in Washington, D.C., and Berlin didn't want their respective nations to
be mere dependent receptacles for English goods; they wanted real independence. And so they wanted
factories of their own.
In the late 18th century, Alexander Hamilton, the visionary American patriot, could see that both
economic wealth and military power flowed from domestic industry. As the nation's first Treasury
Secretary, he persuaded President George Washington and the Congress to support a system of protective
tariffs and "internal improvements" (what today we would call infrastructure) to foster US manufacturing
and exporting.
And in the 19th century, Germany, under the much heavier-handed leadership of Otto von Bismarck,
had the same idea: Make a concerted effort to make the nation stronger.
In both countries, this industrial policymaking succeeded. So whereas at the beginning of the
19th century, England had led the world in steel production, by the beginning of the 20th century
century, the U.S. and Germany had moved well ahead. Yes, the "invisible hand" of individual self-interest
is always a powerful economic force, but sometimes, the "visible hand" of national purpose, animated
by patriotism, is even more powerful.
Thus by 1914, at the onset of World War One, we could see the results of the Smith/Ricardo model,
on the one hand, and the Hamilton/Bismarck model, on the other. All three countries-Britain, the
US, and Germany, were rich-but only the latter two had genuine industrial mojo. Indeed, during World
War One, English weakness became glaringly apparent in the 1915
shell crisis-as
in, artillery shells. It was only the massive importing of made-in-USA ammunition that saved Britain
from looming defeat.
Yet as always, times change, as do economic circumstances, as do prevailing ideas.
As we have seen, at the end of World War II, the U.S. was the only industrial power left standing.
And so it made sense for America to shift from a policy of Hamiltonian protection to a policy of
Smith-Ricardian export-minded free trade. Indeed, beginning in around 1945, both major political
parties, Democrats and Republicans, solidly embraced the new line: The U.S. would be the factory
for the world.
Yet if times, circumstances, and ideas change, they can always change again.
5. The Contemporary Crack-Up
As we have seen, in the 19th century, not every country wanted to be on the passive receiving
end of England's exports. And this was true, too, in the 20th century; Japan, notably, had its own
ideas.
If Japan had followed the Ricardian doctrine of comparative advantage, it would have focused on
exporting rice and tuna. Instead, by dint of hard work, ingenuity, and more than a little national
strategizing, Japan grew itself into a great and prosperous industrial power. Its exports, we might
note, were such high-value-adds as automobiles and electronics, not mere crops and fish.
Moreover, according to the same theory of comparative advantage, South Korea should have been
exporting parasols and kimchi, and China should have settled for exporting fortune cookies and pandas.
Yet as the South Korean economist
Ha-Joon Chang has chronicled,
these Asian nations resolved, in their no-nonsense neo-Confucian way, to launch state-guided private
industries-and the theory of comparative advantage be damned.
Yes, their efforts violated Western economic orthodoxy, but as the philosopher Kant once observed,
the actual proves the possible. Indeed, today, as we all know, the Asian tigers are among the richest
and fastest-growing economies in the world.
China is not only the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), but
also the world's largest manufacturing nation-producing 52 percent of color televisions, 75 percent
of mobile phones and 87 percent of the world's personal computers. The Chinese automobile industry
is the world's largest, twice the size of America's. China leads the world in foreign exchange
reserves. The United States is the main trading partner for seventy-six countries. China is the
main trading partner for 124.
In particular, we might pause over one item in that impressive litany: China makes 87 percent
of the world's personal computers.
Indeed, if it's true, as ZDNet reports, that
the Chinese have built "backdoors" into almost all the electronic equipment that they sell-that
is to say, the equipment that we buy-then we can assume that we face a serious military challenge,
as well as a serious economic challenge.
Yes, it's a safe bet that the People's Liberation Army has a good handle on our defense establishment,
especially now that the Pentagon has fully equipped itself with
Chinese-made iPhones and iPads.
Of course, we can safely predict that Defense Department bureaucrats will always say that there's
nothing to worry about, that they have the potential hacking/sabotage matter under control (although
just to be sure, the Pentagon might say, give us more money).
Yet we might note that this is the same defense establishment that couldn't keep track of lone
internal rogues such as Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Therefore, should we really believe that
this same DOD knows how to stop the determined efforts of a nation of 1.3 billion people, seeking
to hack machines-machines that they made in the first place?
Yes, the single strongest argument against the blind application of free- trade dogma is the doctrine
of self defense. That is, all the wealth in the world doesn't matter if you're conquered. Even Adam
Smith understood that; as he wrote, "Defense
. . . is of much more importance than opulence."
Yet today we can readily see: If we are grossly dependent on China for vital wares, then we can't
be truly independent of China. In fact, we should be downright fearful.
Still, despite these deep strategic threats, directly the result of careless importing, the Smith-Ricardo
orthodoxy remains powerful, even hegemonistic-at least in the English-speaking world.
Why is this so? Yes, economists are typically seen as cold and nerdy, even bloodless, and yet,
in fact, they are actual human beings. And as such, they are susceptible to the giddy-happy feeling
that comes from the hope of building a new utopia, the dream of ushering in an era of world harmony,
based on untrammeled international trade. Indeed, this woozy idealism among economists goes way back;
it was the British free trader Richard Cobden who declared in 1857,
Free trade is God's diplomacy. There is no other certain way of uniting people in the bonds
of peace.
And lo, so many wars later, many economists still believe that.
Indeed, economists today are still monolithically pro-fee trade; a
recent survey of economists found that 83 percent supported eliminating all tariffs and other
barriers; just 10 percent disagreed.
We might further note that others, too, in the financial and intellectual elite are fully on board
the free-trade train, including most corporate officers and their lobbyists, journalists, academics,
and, of course, the mostly for-hire think-tankers.
To be sure, there are always exceptions: As that Guardian article, the one lamenting the
sharp decrease in support for free trade as a "problem," noted, not all of corporate America is on
board, particularly those companies in the manufacturing sector:
Ford openly opposes TPP because it fears the deal does nothing to stop Japan manipulating its
currency at the expense of US rivals.
Indeed, we might note that the same Guardian story included an even more cautionary note,
asserting that support for free trade, overall, is remarkably rickety:
Some suggest a "bicycle theory" of trade deals: that the international bandwagon has to keep
rolling forward or else it all wobbles and falls down.
So what has happened? How could virtually the entire elite be united in enthusiasm for free trade,
and yet, even so, the free trade juggernaut is no steadier than a mere two-wheeled bike? Moreover,
free traders will ask: Why aren't the leaders leading? More to the point, why aren't the followers
following?
To answer those questions, we might start by noting the four-decade phenomenon of
wage stagnation-that's
taken a toll on support for free trade. But of course, it's in the heartland that wages have been
stagnating; by contrast,
incomes for
the bicoastal elites have been soaring.
We might also note that some expert predictions have been way off, thus undermining confidence
in their expertise. Remember, this spring, when all the experts were saying that the United Kingdom
would fall into recession, or worse, if it voted to leave the EU? Well, just the other day came this
New York Post headline: "Brexit
actually boosting the UK economy."
Thus from the Wall Street-ish perspective of the urban chattering classes, things are going well-so
what's the problem?
Yet the folks on Main Street have known a different story. They have seen, with their own eyes,
what has happened to them, and no fusillade of op-eds or think-tank monographs will persuade them
to change their mind.
However, because the two parties have been so united on the issues of trade and globalization-the
"Uniparty," it's sometimes called-the folks in the boonies have had no political alternative. And
as they say, the only power you have in this world is the power of an alternative. And so, lacking
an alternative, the working/middle class has just had to accept its fate.
Indeed, it has been a bitter fate, particularly bitter in the former industrial heartland. In
a 2013 paper, the
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) came to some startling conclusions:
Growing trade with less-developed countries lowered wages in 2011 by 5.5 percent-or by roughly
$1,800-for a full-time, full-year worker earning the average wage for workers without a four-year
college degree.
The paper added, "One-third of this total effect is due to growing trade with just China."
Continuing, EPI found that even as trade with low-wage countries caused a decrease in the incomes
for lower-end workers, it had caused an increase in the incomes of high-end workers-so no
wonder the high-end thinks globalism in great.
To be sure, some in the elite are bothered by what's been happening.
Peggy Noonan, writing earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal-a piece that must have
raised the hackles of her doctrinaire colleagues-put the matter succinctly: There's a wide, and widening,
gap between the "protected" and the "unprotected":
The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting
to push back, powerfully.
Of course, Noonan was alluding to the Trump candidacy-and also to the candidacy of Sen. Bernie
Sanders. Those two insurgents, in different parties, have been propelled by the pushing from all
the unprotected folks across America.
We might pause to note that free traders have arguments which undoubtedly deserve a fuller airing.
Okay. However, we can still see the limits. For example, the familiar gambit of outsourcing jobs
to China, or Mexico-or 50 other countries-and calling that "free trade" is now socially unacceptable,
and politically unsustainable.
Still, the broader vision of planetary freedom, including the free flow of peoples and their ideas,
is always enormously appealing. The United States, as well as the world, undoubtedly benefits from
competition, from social and economic mobility-and yes, from new blood.
As
Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, notes, "77
percent of the full-time graduate students in electrical engineering and 71 percent in computer science
at U.S. universities are international students." That's a statistic that should give every American
pause to ask: Why aren't we producing more engineers here at home?
We can say, with admiration, that Silicon Valley is the latest Manchester; as such, it's a powerful
magnet for the best and the brightest from overseas, and from a purely dollars-and-cents point of
view, there's a lot to be said for welcoming them.
So yes, it would be nice if we could retain this international mobility that benefits the U.S.-but
only if the economic benefits can be broadly shared, and patriotic assimilation of immigrants can
be truly achieved, such that all Americans can feel good about welcoming newcomers.
The further enrichment of Silicon Valley won't do much good for the country unless those riches
are somehow widely shared. In fact, amidst the ongoing outsourcing of mass-production jobs,
total employment in such boomtowns as San Francisco and San Jose has barely budged. That is,
new software billionaires are being minted every day, but their workforces tend to be tiny-or located
overseas. If that past pattern is the future pattern, well, something will have to give.
We can say: If America is to be
one nation-something Mitt "47 percent" Romney never worried about, although it cost him in the
end-then we will have to figure out a way to turn the genius of the few into good jobs for the many.
The goal isn't socialism, or anything like that; instead, the goal is the widespread distribution
of private property, facilitated, by conscious national economic development, as
I argued at the tail end of this piece.
If we can't, or won't, find a way to expand private ownership nationwide, then the populist upsurges
of the Trump and Sanders campaigns will be remembered as mere overtures to a starkly divergent future.
6. Clinton and Trump Say They Are Trade Hawks: But Are They Sincere?
So now we come to a mega-question for 2016: How should we judge the sincerity of the two major-party
candidates, Clinton or Trump, when they affirm their opposition to TPP? And how do we assess their
attitude toward globalization, including immigration, overall?
The future is, of course, unknown, but we can make a couple of points.
First, it is true that
many have questioned the sincerity of Hillary's new anti-TPP stance, especially given the presence
of such prominent free-traders as vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine and presidential transition-planning
chief Ken Salazar. Moreover, there's also Hillary's own decades-long association with open-borders
immigration policies, as well as past support for such trade bills as NAFTA, PNTR, and, of course,
TPP. And oh yes, there's the Clinton Foundation, that global laundromat for every overseas fortune;
most of those billionaires are globalists par excellence-would a President Hillary really
cross them?
Second, since there's still no way to see inside another person's mind, the best we can
do is look for external clues-by which we mean, external pressures. And so we might ask a basic question:
Would the 45th president, whoever she or he is, feel compelled by those external pressures to keep
their stated commitment to the voters? Or would they feel that they owe more to their elite friends,
allies, and benefactors?
As we have seen, Clinton has long chosen to surround herself with free traders and globalists.
Moreover, she has raised money from virtually every bicoastal billionaire in America.
So we must wonder: Will a new President Clinton really betray her own class-all those
Davos Men and Davos Women-for the sake of middle-class folks she has never met, except maybe
on a rope line? Would Clinton 45, who has spent her life courting the powerful, really stick her
neck out for unnamed strangers-who never gave a dime to the Clinton Foundation?
Okay, so what to make of Trump? He, too, is a fat-cat-even more of fat-cat, in fact, than Clinton.
And yet for more than a year now, he has based his campaign on opposition to globalism in all its
forms; it's been the basis of his campaign-indeed, the basis of his base. And his campaign policy
advisers are emphatic. According to Politico, as recently as August 30, Trump trade adviser
Peter Navarro reiterated Trump's opposition to TPP, declaring,
Any deal must increase the GDP growth rate, reduce the trade deficit, and strengthen the manufacturing
base.
So, were Trump to win the White House, he would come in with a much more solid anti-globalist
mandate.
Thus we can ask: Would a President Trump really cross his own populist-nationalist base by going
over to the other side-to the globalists who voted, and donated, against him? If he did-if he repudiated
his central platform plank-he would implode his presidency, the way that Bush 41 imploded his presidency
in 1990 when he went back on his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge.
Surely Trump remembers that moment of political calamity well, and so surely, whatever mistakes
he might make, he won't make that one.
To be sure, the future is unknowable. However, as we have seen, the past, both recent and historical,
is rich with valuable clues.
Clinton will say anything then she'll sell you out. I hope we never get a chance to see
how she will sell us out on TPP
Ellen Bell -> HoosierMilitia
You really do not understand the primitive form of capitalism that the moneyed elites are trying
to impose on us. That system is mercantilism and two of its major tenets are to only give the
workers subsistence level wages (what they are doing to poor people abroad and attempting to do
here) and monopolistic control of everything that is possible to monopolize. The large multi-nationals
have already done that. What we would be headed for under Hillary Clinton is fascism--Mussolini's
shorthand definition of fascism was the marriage of industry and commerce with the power of the
State. That is what the plutocrats who run the big banks (to whom she owes her soul) aim to do.
President, Thomas Jefferson knew the dangers of large European-style central banks. He said:
"...The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the
Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes
for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of
their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will
grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will
wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered..."
The power to create money was given to the private banking system of the Federal Reserve in
1913. Nearly every bit of our enormous debt has been incurred since then. The American people
have become debt-slaves. In the Constitution, only Congress has the right to issue currency. That's
why the plutocrats want to do away with it--among other reasons.
"... Donald Trump is challenging the very fabric of the institutional elites in this country on both sides that have, quite frankly, just straight up screwed this country up and made the world a mess. ..."
Tom Coyne, a lifelong Democrat and the mayor of Brook Park, Ohio, spoke
about his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump with Breitbart
News Daily SiriusXM host Matt Boyle.
Coyne said:
The parties are blurred. What's the difference? They say the same things
in different tones. At the end of the day, they accomplish nothing.
Donald Trump is challenging the very fabric of the institutional elites
in this country on both sides that have, quite frankly, just straight up
screwed this country up and made the world a mess.
Regarding the GOP establishment's so-called Never Trumpers, Coyne stated,
"If it's their expertise that people are relying upon as to advice to vote,
people should go the opposite."
In an interview last week, Coyne said that Democrats and Republicans
have failed the city through inaction and bad trade policies, key themes
Trump often trumpets.
"He understands us," Coyne said of Trump. "He is saying what we feel,
and therefore, let him shake the bedevils out of everyone in the canyons
of Washington D.C. The American people are responding to him."
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00
a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
"... Donald Trump isn't a politician -- he's a one-man wrecking ball against our dysfunctional and corrupt establishment. We're about to see the deluxe version of the left's favorite theme: Vote for us or we'll call you stupid. It's the working class against the smirking class. ..."
"... He understands that if we're ever going to get our economy back on its feet the wage-earning middle class will have to prosper along with investors ..."
"... Trump that really "gets" the idea that the economy is suffering because the middle class can't find employment at livable wages ..."
"... Ms. Coulter says it more eloquently: "The Republican establishment has no idea how much ordinary voters hate both parties." Like me, she's especially annoyed with Republicans, because we think of the Republican Party as being our political "family" that has turned against us: ..."
"... The RNC has been forcing Republican candidates to take suicidal positions forever They were happy to get 100 percent of the Business Roundtable vote and 20 percent of the regular vote. ..."
"... American companies used free trade with low-wage countries as an opportunity to close their American factories and relocate the jobs to lower-paying foreign workers. Instead of creating product and exporting it to other countries, our American companies EXPORTED American JOBS to other countries and IMPORTED foreign-made PRODUCTS into America! Our exports have actually DECLINED during the last five years with most of the 20 countries we signed free trade with. Even our exports to Canada, our oldest free trade partner, are less than what they were five years ago. ..."
"... Trade with Japan, China, and South Korea is even more imbalanced, because those countries actively restrict imports of American-made products. We run a 4x trade imbalance with China, which cost us $367 billion last year. We lost $69 billion to Japan and $28 billion to South Korea. Our exports to these countries are actually DECLINING, even while our imports soar! ..."
"... Why do Establishment Republicans join with Democrats in wanting to diminish the future with the WRONG kind of "free trade" that removes jobs and wealth from the USA? As Ms. Coulter reminds us, it is because Republican Establishment, like the Democrat establishment, is PAID by the money and jobs they receive from big corporations to believe it. ..."
"... The donor class doesn't care. The rich are like locusts: once they've picked America dry, they'll move on to the next country. A hedge fund executive quoted in The Atlantic a few years ago said, "If the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile [that] means one American drops out of the middle class, that's not such a bad trade." ..."
"... The corporate 1% who believe that the global labor market should be tapped in order to beat American workers out of their jobs; and that corporations and the 1% who own them should be come tax-exempt organizations that profit by using cheap overseas labor to product product that is sold in the USA, and without paying taxes on the profit. Ms. Coulter calls this group of Republican Estblishmentarians "locusts: once they've picked America dry, they'll move on to the next country." ..."
"... Pretending to care about the interests of minorities. Of course, the Republican Establishment has even less appeal to minorities than to the White Middle Class (WMC) they abandoned. Minorities are no more interested in losing their jobs to foreigners or to suffer economic stagnation while the rich have their increasing wealth (most of which is earned at the expense of the middle class) tax-sheltered, than do the WMC. ..."
"... Trump has given Republicans a new lease on life. The Establishment doesn't like having to take a back seat to him, but perhaps they should understand that having a back seat in a popular production is so much better than standing outside alone in the cold. ..."
Donald Trump isn't a politician -- he's a one-man wrecking ball against our dysfunctional
and corrupt establishment. We're about to see the deluxe version of the left's favorite theme: Vote
for us or we'll call you stupid. It's the working class against the smirking class.
No pandering! The essence of Trump in personality and issues , August 23, 2016
Ms. Coulter explains the journey of myself and so many other voters into Trump's camp. It captures
the essence of Trump as a personality and Trump on the issues. If I had to sum Ms. Coulter's view
of the reason for Trump's success in two words, I'd say "No Pandering!" I've heard many people,
including a Liberal tell me, "Trump says what needs to be said."
I've voted Republican in every election going back to Reagan in 1980, except for 2012 when
I supported President Obama's re-election. I've either voted for, or financially supported many
"Establishment Republicans" like Mitt Romney and John McCain in 2008. I've also supported some
Conservative ones like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. In this election I'd been planning to
vote for Jeb Bush, a superb governor when I lived in Florida.
Then Trump announced his candidacy. I had seen hints of that happening as far back as 2012.
In my Amazon reviews in 2012 I said that many voters weren't pleased with Obama or the Republican
Establishment. So the question became: "Who do you vote for if you don't favor the agendas of
either party's legacy candidates?" In November 2013 I commented on the book DOUBLE DOWN: GAME
CHANGE 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heileman:
=====
Mr. Trump occupies an important place in the political spectrum --- that of being a Republican
Populist.
He understands that if we're ever going to get our economy back on its feet the wage-earning
middle class will have to prosper along with investors, who are recovering our fortunes in
the stock market.
IMO whichever party nominates a candidate like Trump that really "gets" the idea that the
economy is suffering because the middle class can't find employment at livable wages, will
be the party that rises to dominance.
Mr. Trump, despite his flakiness, at least understood that essential fact of American economic
life.
November 7, 2013
=====
Ms. Coulter says it more eloquently: "The Republican establishment has no idea how much
ordinary voters hate both parties." Like me, she's especially annoyed with Republicans, because
we think of the Republican Party as being our political "family" that has turned against us:
===== The RNC has been forcing Republican candidates to take suicidal positions forever They were
happy to get 100 percent of the Business Roundtable vote and 20 percent of the regular vote.
when the GOP wins an election, there is no corresponding "win" for the unemployed blue-collar
voter in North Carolina. He still loses his job to a foreign worker or a closed manufacturing
plant, his kids are still boxed out of college by affirmative action for immigrants, his community
is still plagued with high taxes and high crime brought in with all that cheap foreign labor.
There's no question but that the country is heading toward being Brazil. One doesn't have to
agree with the reason to see that the very rich have gotten much richer, placing them well beyond
the concerns of ordinary people, and the middle class is disappearing. America doesn't make anything
anymore, except Hollywood movies and Facebook. At the same time, we're importing a huge peasant
class, which is impoverishing what remains of the middle class, whose taxes support cheap labor
for the rich.
With Trump, Americans finally have the opportunity to vote for something that's popular.
=====
That explains how Trump won my vote --- and held on to it through a myriad of early blunders
and controversies that almost made me switch my support to other candidates.
I'm no "xenophobe isolationist" stereotype. My first employer was an immigrant from Eastern
Europe. What I learned working for him launched me on my successful career. I've developed and
sold computer systems to subsidiaries of American companies in Europe and Asia. My business partners
have been English and Canadian immigrants. My family are all foreign-born Hispanics. Three of
my college roommates were from Ecuador, Germany, and Syria.
BECAUSE of this international experience I agree with the issues of trade and immigration that
Ms. Coulter talks about that have prompted Trump's rising popularity.
First, there is the false promise that free trade with low-wage countries would "create millions
of high-paying jobs for American workers, who will be busy making high-value products for export."
NAFTA was signed in 1994. GATT with China was signed in 2001. Since then we've signed free trade
with 20 countries. It was said that besides creating jobs for Americans, that free trade would
prosper the global economy. In truth the opposite happened:
American companies used free trade with low-wage countries as an opportunity to close their
American factories and relocate the jobs to lower-paying foreign workers. Instead of creating
product and exporting it to other countries, our American companies EXPORTED American JOBS to
other countries and IMPORTED foreign-made PRODUCTS into America! Our exports have actually DECLINED
during the last five years with most of the 20 countries we signed free trade with. Even our exports
to Canada, our oldest free trade partner, are less than what they were five years ago.
We ran trade SURPLUSES with Mexico until 1994, when NAFTA was signed. The very next year the
surplus turned to deficit, now $60 billion a year. Given that each American worker produces an
average of $64,000 in value per year, that is a loss of 937,000 American jobs to Mexico alone.
The problem is A) that Mexicans are not wealthy enough to be able to afford much in the way of
American-made product and B) there isn't much in the way of American-made product left to buy,
since so much of former American-made product is now made in Mexico or China.
Trade with Japan, China, and South Korea is even more imbalanced, because those countries
actively restrict imports of American-made products. We run a 4x trade imbalance with China, which
cost us $367 billion last year. We lost $69 billion to Japan and $28 billion to South Korea. Our
exports to these countries are actually DECLINING, even while our imports soar!
Thus, free trade, except with a few fair-trading countries like Canada, Australia, and possibly
Britain, has been a losing proposition. Is it coincidence that our economy has weakened with each
trade deal we have signed? Our peak year of labor force participation was 1999. Then we had the
Y2K collapse and the Great Recession, followed by the weakest "recovery" since WWII? As Trump
would say, free trade has been a "disaster."
Why do Establishment Republicans join with Democrats in wanting to diminish the future
with the WRONG kind of "free trade" that removes jobs and wealth from the USA? As Ms. Coulter
reminds us, it is because Republican Establishment, like the Democrat establishment, is PAID by
the money and jobs they receive from big corporations to believe it. Ms. Coulter says:
===== The donor class doesn't care. The rich are like locusts: once they've picked America dry,
they'll move on to the next country. A hedge fund executive quoted in The Atlantic a few years
ago said, "If the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India
out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile [that] means one American drops out
of the middle class, that's not such a bad trade."
=====
Then there is immigration. My wife, son, and extended family legally immigrated to the USA
from Latin America. The first family members were recruited by our government during the labor
shortage of the Korean War. Some fought for the United States in Korea. Some of their children
fought for us in Vietnam, and some grandchildren are fighting in the Middle East. Most have
become successful professionals and business owners. They came here LEGALLY, some waiting in
queue for up to 12 years. They were supported by the family already in America until they were
on their feet.
Illegal immigration has been less happy. Illegals are here because the Democrats want new voters
and the Republicans want cheap labor. Contrary to business propaganda, illegals cost Americans
their jobs. A colleague just old me, "My son returned home from California after five years, because
he couldn't get construction work any longer. All those jobs are now done off the books by illegals."
It's the same in technology. Even while our high-tech companies are laying off 260,000 American
employees in 2016 alone, they are banging the drums to expand the importation of FOREIGN tech
workers from 85,000 to 195,000 to replace the Americans they let go. Although the H1-B program
is billed as bringing in only the most exceptional, high-value foreign engineers, in truth most
visas are issued to replace American workers with young foreigners of mediocre ability who'll
work for much less money than the American family bread-winners they replaced.
Both parties express their "reverse racism" against the White Middle Class. Democrats don't
like them because they tend to vote Republican. The Republican Establishment doesn't like them
because they cost more to employ than overseas workers and illegal aliens. According to them the
WMC is too technologically out of date and overpaid to allow our benighted business leaders to
"compete internationally."
Ms. Coulter says "Americans are homesick" for our country that is being lost to illegal immigration
and the removal of our livelihoods overseas. We are sick of Republican and Democrat Party hidden
agendas, reverse-racism, and economic genocide against the American people. That's why the Establishment
candidates who started out so theoretically strong, like Jeb Bush, collapsed like waterlogged
houses of cards when they met Donald Trump. As Ms. Coulter explains, Trump knows their hidden
agendas, and knows they are working against the best interests of the American Middle Class.
Coulter keeps coming back to Mr. Trump's "Alpha Male" personality that speaks to Americans
as nation without pandering to specific voter identity groups. She contrasts his style to the
self-serving "Republican (Establishment) Brain Trust that is mostly composed of comfortable, well-paid
mediocrities who, by getting a gig in politics, earn salaries higher than a capitalist system
would ever value their talents." She explains what she sees as the idiocy of those Republican
Establishment political consultants who wrecked the campaigns of Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz by micromanaging
with pandering.
She says the Republican Establishment lost because it served itself --- becoming wealthy by
serving the moneyed interests of Wall Street. Trump won because he is speaking to the disfranchised
American Middle Class who loves our country, is proud of our traditions, and believes that Americans
have as much right to feed our families through gainful employment as do overseas workers and
illegal aliens.
"I am YOUR voice," says Trump to the Middle Class that until now has been ignored and even
sneered at by both parties' establishments.
I've given an overview of the book here. The real delight is in the details, told as only Anne
Coulter can tell them. I've quoted a few snippets of her words, that relate most specifically
to my views on Trump and the issues. I wish there were space to quote many more. Alas, you'll
need to read the book to glean them all!
Bruce, I would also add that the Republican Establishment chose not to represent the interests
of the White Middle Class on trade, immigration, and other issues that matter to us. They chose
to represent the narrow interests of:
1. The corporate 1% who believe that the global labor market should be tapped in order
to beat American workers out of their jobs; and that corporations and the 1% who own them should
be come tax-exempt organizations that profit by using cheap overseas labor to product product
that is sold in the USA, and without paying taxes on the profit. Ms. Coulter calls this group
of Republican Estblishmentarians "locusts: once they've picked America dry, they'll move on to
the next country."
2. Pretending to care about the interests of minorities. Of course, the Republican Establishment
has even less appeal to minorities than to the White Middle Class (WMC) they abandoned. Minorities
are no more interested in losing their jobs to foreigners or to suffer economic stagnation while
the rich have their increasing wealth (most of which is earned at the expense of the middle class)
tax-sheltered, than do the WMC.
The Republican Establishment is in a snit because Trump beat them by picking up the WMC votes
that the Establishment abandoned. What would have happened if Trump had not come on the scene?
The probable result is that the Establishment would have nominated a ticket of Jeb Bush and John
Kasich. These candidates had much to recommend them as popular governors of key swing states.
But they would have gone into the election fighting the campaign with Republican Establishment
issues that only matter to the 1%. They would have lost much of the WMC vote that ultimately rallied
around Trump, while gaining no more than the usual 6% of minorities who vote Republican. It would
have resulted in a severe loss for the Republican Party, perhaps making it the minority party
for the rest of the century.
Trump has given Republicans a new lease on life. The Establishment doesn't like having
to take a back seat to him, but perhaps they should understand that having a back seat in a popular
production is so much better than standing outside alone in the cold.
It's funny how White Men are supposed to be angry. But I've never seen any White men:
1. Running amok, looting and burning down their neighborhood, shooting police and other "angry
White men." There were 50 people shot in Chicago last weekend alone. How many of those do you
think were "angry white men?" Hint: they were every color EXCEPT white.
2. Running around complaining that they aren't allowed into the other gender's bathroom, then
when they barge their way in there complain about being sexually assaulted. No, it's only "angry
females" (of any ethnicity) who barge their way into the men's room and then complain that somebody
in there offended them.
Those "angry white men" are as legendary as "Bigfoot." They are alleged to exist everywhere,
but are never seen. Maybe that's because they mostly hang out in the quiet neighborhoods of cookie-cutter
homes in suburbia, go to the lake or bar-be-que on weekends, and take their allotment of Viagra
in hopes of occassionally "getting lucky" with their wives. If they're "angry" then at least they
don't take their angry frustrations out on others, as so many other militant, "in-your-face" activist
groups do!
"... I've tuned out Warren-she has become the "red meat" surrogate for Clinton. Just because Taibbi was excellent on exposing Wall St. doesn't mean he really knows s**t about politics. I find the depiction of Trump as some kind of monster-buffoon to be simply boring and not very helpful. ..."
"... (might be the Trump Chaos bc Hillary will strategically turn our war machine on us can't believe this is as good as it gets, sighed out) ..."
"... Having the establishment, the military-industrial complex and Wall Street against him helps Trump a lot. ..."
"... You can fool part of the people all the time, and all people part of the time, but Brexit won, so will Trump, politician extraordinaire ..."
"... Given his family, a Trump presidency may look more like JFK's, where Bobby had more power than LBJ. Also, given Trump's negotiating expertise, I would certainly not believe any assertion of support he proclaims for the VP. I expect he had little choice in the matter, and that he also plans to send the VP to the hinterlands at the first opportunity. I'm unclear why so many appear to believe the VP has any influence whatsoever; I believe GWB was the only post-WW2 president who let the VP have any power. ..."
"... What is a populist? Somebody that tries to do what the majority want. Current examples: Less wars and military spending. More infrastructure spending. Less support for banks and corps (imagine how many votes trump would gain if he said 'as pres I will jail bankers that break the law' And how that repudiates Obama and both parties.) Gun control (but not possible from within the rep party) ..."
"... What is a fascist? Somebody that supports corporations, military, and military adventures. ..."
"... Actually, it sounds a whole lot like a different candidate from a different party, doesn't it? ..."
"... Neoliberal "Goodthink" flag. What this means when neoliberals say it is not let's build a better global society for all it means Corporations and our military should be able to run roughshod over the world and the people's of other countries. Exploit their citizens for cheap Labor, destroy their environment and move on. These are the exact policies of Hillary Clinton (see TPP, increase foreign wars etc.). Hillary globalism is not about global Brotherhood it's about global economic and military exploitation. Trump is nationalist non – interventionist, which leads to less global military destruction than hillary and less global exploitation. So who is a better for those outside the US, hillary the interventionist OR trump the non-interventionist? ..."
"... Look, the Clintons are criminals, and their affiliate entities, including the DNC, could be considered criminal enterprises or co-conspirators at this point. ..."
"... The very fact that Establishment, Wall St and Koch bros are behind HRC is evidence that the current 'status quo' will be continued! I cannot stand another 4 years of Hilabama. ..."
"... The striving for American empire has so totally confused the political order of the country that up is down and down is up. The idea of government for and by the people is a distant memory. Covering for lies and contradictions of beliefs has blurred any notion of principles informing public action. ..."
"... If there is any principle that matters today, it is the pursuit of money and profit reigns supreme. Trump is populist in the sense he is talking about bringing money and wealth back to the working classes. Not by giving it directly, but by forcing businesses to turn their sights back to the US proper and return to making their profits at home. In the end, it is all nostalgia and probably impossible, but working class people remember those days so it rings true. That is hope and change in action. People also could care less if he cheats on his taxes or is found out lying about how much he is worth. Once again, fudging your net worth is something working people care little about. Having their share of the pie is all that matters and Trump is tapping into that. ..."
"... The only crime Trump has committed so far is his language. Liberals like Clinton, Blair and Obama drip blood. ..."
"... The 2016 election cannot be looked at in isolation. The wars for profit are spreading from Nigeria through Syria to Ukraine. Turkey was just lost to the Islamists and is on the road to being a failed state. The EU is in an existential crisis due to Brexit, the refugee crisis and austerity. Western leadership is utterly incompetent and failing to protect its citizens. Globalization is failing. Its Losers are tipping over the apple cart. Humans are returning to their tribal roots for safety. The drums for war with Russia are beating. Clinton / Kaine are 100% Status Quo Globalists. Trump / Pence are candidates of change to who knows what. Currently I am planning on voting for the Green Party in the hope it becomes viable and praying that the chaos avoids Maryland. ..."
I've tuned out Warren-she has become the "red meat" surrogate for Clinton. Just because
Taibbi was excellent on exposing Wall St. doesn't mean he really knows s**t about politics. I
find the depiction of Trump as some kind of monster-buffoon to be simply boring and not very helpful.
for all the run around Hillary, Trump's chosen circle of allies are Wall Street and Austerity
enablers. actually, Trump chaos could boost the enablers as easily as Hillary's direct mongering.
War is Money low hanging fruit in this cash strapped era and either directly or indirectly neither
candidate will disappoint.
So I Ask Myself which candidate will the majority manage sustainability while assembling to create
different outcomes? (might be the Trump Chaos bc Hillary will strategically turn our war machine
on us can't believe this is as good as it gets, sighed out)
War is only good for the profiteers when it can be undertaken in another territory. Bringing
the chaos home cannot be good for business. Endless calls for confidence and stability in markets
must reflect the fact that disorder effects more business that the few corporations that benefit
directly from spreading chaos. A split in the business community seems to be underway or at least
a possible leverage point to bring about positive change.
Even the splits in the political class reflect this. Those that benefit from spreading chaos are
loosing strength because they have lost control of where that chaos takes place and who is directly
effected from its implementation. Blowback and collateral damage are finally registering.
Trump may be a disaster. Clinton will be a disaster. One of these two will win. I won't vote
for either, but if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose, I'd take Trump. He's certainly
not a fascist (I think it was either Vice or Vox that had an article where they asked a bunch
of historians of fascism if he was, the answer was a resounding no), he's a populist in the Andrew
Jackson style. If nothing else Trump will (probably) not start WW3 with Russia.
And war with Russia doesn't depend just on Hillary, it depends on us in Western Europe agreeing
with it.
A laughable proposition. The official US policy, as you may recall, is
fuck the EU .
Where was Europe when we toppled the Ukrainian govt? Get back to me when you can actually spend
2% GDP on your military. At the moment you can't even control your illegal immigrants.
The political parties that survive display adaptability, and ideological consistency isn't
a requirement for that. Look at the party of Lincoln. Or look at the party of FDR.
If the Democrats decapitate the Republican party by bringing in the Kagans of this world and
Republican suburbanites in swing states, then the Republicans will go where the votes are; the
Iron Law of Institutions will drive them to do it, and the purge of the party after Trump will
open the positions in the party for people with that goal.
In a way, what we're seeing now is what should have happened to the Republicans in
2008. The Democrats had the Republicans down on the ground with Obama's boot on their neck. The
Republicans had organized and lost a disastrous war, they had lost the legislative and executive
branches, they were completely discredited ideologically, and they were thoroughly discredited
in the political class and in the press.
Instead, Obama, with his strategy of bipartisanship - good faith or not - gave them a hand
up, dusted them off, and let them right back in the game, by treating them as a legitimate opposition
party. So the Republican day of reckoning was postponed. We got various bids for power by factions
- the Tea Party, now the Liberty Caucus - but none of them came anywhere near taking real power,
despite (click-driven money-raising) Democrat hysteria.
And now the day of reckoning has arrived. Trump went through the hollow institutional shell
of the Republican Party like the German panzers through the French in 1939. And here we are!
(Needless to say, anybody - ***cough*** Ted Cruz ***cough*** - yammering about "conservative
principles" is part of the problem, dead weight, part of the dead past.) I don't know if the Republicans
can remake themselves after Trump; what he's doing is necessary for that, but may not be sufficient.
Republicans won Congress and the states because the Democrats handed them to them on a silver
platter. To Obama and his fan club meaningful power is a hot potato, to be discarded as soon as
plausible.
Having the establishment, the military-industrial complex and Wall Street against him helps
Trump a lot.
Pro-Sanders folks, blacks, and hispanics will mostly vote for Trump.
Having Gov. Pence on the ticket, core Republicans and the silent majority will vote for Trump.
Women deep inside know Trump will help their true interests better than the Clinton-Obama rinse
repeat
Young people, sick and tired of the current obviously rigged system, will vote for change.
You can fool part of the people all the time, and all people part of the time, but Brexit
won, so will Trump, politician extraordinaire
Even Michael Moore gets it
Trump has intimated that he is not going to deal with the nuts and bolts of government,
that will be Pence's job.
Given his family, a Trump presidency may look more like JFK's, where Bobby had more power
than LBJ.
Also, given Trump's negotiating expertise, I would certainly not believe any assertion of support
he proclaims for the VP. I expect he had little choice in the matter, and that he also plans to
send the VP to the hinterlands at the first opportunity. I'm unclear why so many appear to believe
the VP has any influence whatsoever; I believe GWB was the only post-WW2 president who let the
VP have any power.
Minorities will benefit at least as much as whites with infrastructure spending, which trump
says he wants to do It would make him popular, which he likes, why not believe him? And if pres
he would be able to get enough rep votes to get it passed. No chance with Hillary, who anyway
would rather spend on wars, which are mostly fought by minorities.
What is a populist? Somebody that tries to do what the majority want. Current examples:
Less wars and military spending. More infrastructure spending. Less support for banks and corps
(imagine how many votes trump would gain if he said 'as pres I will jail bankers that break the
law' And how that repudiates Obama and both parties.) Gun control (but not possible from within
the rep party)
What is a fascist? Somebody that supports corporations, military, and military adventures.
I'm saying you have a much better chance to pressure Clinton
Sorry, but this argues from facts not in evidence and closely resembles the Correct the Record
troll line (now substantiated through the Wikileaks dump) that Clinton "has to be elected" because
she is at least responsive to progressive concerns.
Except she isn't, and the degree to which the DNC clearly has been trying to pander to disillusioned
Republicans and the amount of bile they spew every time they lament how HRC has had to "veer left"
shows quite conclusively to my mind that, in fact, the opposite of what you say is true.
Also, when NAFTA was being debated in the '90s, the Clintons showed themselves to be remarkably
unresponsive both to the concerns of organized labor (who opposed it) as well as the majority
of the members of their own party, who voted against it. NAFTA was passed only with a majority
of Republican votes.
I have no way of knowing whether you're a troll or sincerely believe this, but either way,
it needs to be pointed out that the historical record actually contradicts your premise. If you
do really believe this, try not to be so easily taken in by crafty rhetoric.
BTW, I'll take Trump's record as a husband over HRC's record as a wife. He loves a woman, then
they break up, and he finds another one. This is not unusual in the US. Hillary, OTOH, "stood
by her man" through multiple publicly humiliating infidelities, including having to settle out
of court for more than $800,000, and rape charges. No problem with her if her husband was flying
many times on the "Lolita Express" with a child molester. Could be she had no idea where her "loved
one" was at the time. Do they in fact sleep in the same bed, or even live in the same house? I
don't know.
RE: calling Donald Trump a "sociopath"-this is another one of those words that is thrown around
carelessly, like "nazi" and "fascist". In the Psychology Today article "How to Spot a Sociopath",
they list 16 key behavioral characteristics. I can't see them in Trump-you could make a case for
a few of them, but not all. For example: "failure to follow any life plan", "sex life impersonal,
trivial, and poorly integrated", "poor judgment and failure to learn by experience", "incapacity
for love"-–you can't reasonably attach these characteristics to The Donald, who, indeed, has a
more impressive and loving progeny than any other prez candidate I can think of.
"I have a sense of international identity as well: we are all brothers and sisters."
Neoliberal "Goodthink" flag. What this means when neoliberals say it is not let's build
a better global society for all it means Corporations and our military should be able to run roughshod
over the world and the people's of other countries. Exploit their citizens for cheap Labor, destroy
their environment and move on. These are the exact policies of Hillary Clinton (see TPP, increase
foreign wars etc.). Hillary globalism is not about global Brotherhood it's about global economic
and military exploitation. Trump is nationalist non – interventionist, which leads to less global
military destruction than hillary and less global exploitation. So who is a better for those outside
the US, hillary the interventionist OR trump the non-interventionist?
"And not everyone feels the same way, but for most voters there is either a strong tribal loyalty
(Dem or Repub) or a weaker sense of "us" guiding the voter on that day.
Mad as I am about the Blue Dogs, I strongly identify with the Dems."
So you recognize you are a tribalist, and assume all the baggage and irrationality that tribalism
often fosters, but instead of addressing your tribalism you embrace it. What you seem to be saying
(to me)is that we should leave critical thinking at the door and become dem tribalists like you.
"But the Repubs and Dems see Wall Street issues through different cultural prisms. Republican
are more reflexively pro-business. It matters."
Hillary Clinton's biggest donors are Wallstreet and her dem. Husband destroyed glass-steagall.
Trump wants to reinstate glass-steagall, so who is more business friendly again?
"He is racist, and so he knows how to push ugly buttons."
This identity politics trope is getting so old. Both are racist just in different ways, Trump
says in your face racist things, which ensure the injustice cannot be ignored, where hillary has
and does support racist policies, that use stealth racism to incrementaly increase the misery
of minorities, while allowing the majority to pretend it's not happening.
"First, he will govern with the Republicans. Republican judges, TPP, military spending, environmental
rollbacks, etc. Trump will not overrule Repubs in Congress."
These are literally hillarys policies not trumps.
Trump: anti TPP, stop foreign interventions, close bases use money for infrastructure.
Hillary :Pro TPP, more interventions and military spending
"And no, no great Left populist party will ride to the rescue. The populist tradition (identity)
is mostly rightwing and racist in our society.
People do not change political identity like their clothes. The left tradition in the US, such
as it is, is in the Dem party."
So what you are saying is quit being stupid, populism is bad and you should vote for hillarys
neoliberalism. The democrats were once left so even if they are no longer left, we must continue
to support them if another party or candidate that is to the left isn't a democrat? Your logic
hurts my head.
Look, the Clintons are criminals, and their affiliate entities, including the DNC, could
be considered criminal enterprises or co-conspirators at this point. Those who haven't realized
that, or worse, who shill for them are willfully ignorant, amoral, or unethical. The fact that
that includes a large chunk of the population doesn't change that. I don't vote for criminals.
The very fact that Establishment, Wall St and Koch bros are behind HRC is evidence that
the current 'status quo' will be continued! I cannot stand another 4 years of Hilabama.
I hate Hillary more than Trump. I want to protest at the Establishment, which at this represented
by Hillary.
Populism (support for popular issues) is, well, popular.
Fascism (support for corps and military adventures) is, at least after our ME adventures, unpopular.
Commenters are expressing support for the person expressing popular views, such as infrastructure
spending, and expressing little support for the candidate they believe is most fascist.
Btw, Most on this site are liberals, few are reps, so to support him they have had to buck
some of their long held antipathy regarding reps.
Right, what is changing with Trump is the Republicans are going back to, say, the Eisenhower
era, when Ike started the interstate highway system, a socialist program if there ever was one.
It's a good article; this is a general observation. Sorry!
"Hate" seems to be a continuing Democrat meme, and heck, who can be for hate? So it makes sense
rhetorically, but in policy terms it's about as sensible as being against @ssh0les (since as the
good book says, ye have the @ssh0les always with you). So we're really looking at virtue signaling
as a mode of reinforcing tribalism, and to be taken seriously only for that reason. If you look
at the political class writing about the working class - modulo writers like Chris Arnade - the
hate is plain as day, though it's covered up with the rhetoric of meritocracy, taking care of
losers, etc.
Strategic hate management is a great concept. It's like hate can never be created or destroyed,
and is there as a resource to be mined or extracted. The Clinton campaign is doing a great job
of strategic hate management right now, by linking Putin and Trump, capitalizing on all the good
work done in the press over the last year or so.
For years we have been told that government should be run like a business. In truth that statement
was used as a cudgel to avoid having the government provide any kind of a safety net to its citizenry
because there was little or no profit in it for the people who think that government largess should
only be for them.
Here's the thing, if government had been run like a business, we the people would own huge
portions of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Chase today. We wouldn't have bailed them out without
an equity stake in them. Most cities would have a share of the gate for every stadium that was
built. And rather than paying nothing to the community Walmart would have been paying a share
of their profits (much as those have dropped over the years).
I do not like Trump's business, but he truly does approach his brand and his relationships
as a business. When he says he doesn't like the trade deals because they are bad business and
bad deals he is correct. IF the well being of the United states and his populace are what you
are interested in regarding trade deals, ours are failures. Now most of us here know that was
not the point of the trade deals. They have been a spectacular success for many of our largest
businesses and richest people, but for America as a whole they have increased our trade deficit
and devastated our job base. When he says he won't go there, this is one I believe him on.
I also believe him on NATO and on the whole Russian thing. Why, because of the same reasons
I believe him on Trade. They are not winners for America as a whole. They are bad deals. Europe
is NOT living up to their contractual agreement regarding NATO. For someone who is a believer
in getting the better of the deal that is downright disgusting. And he sees no benefit in getting
into a war with Russia. The whole reserve currency thing vs. nukes is not going to work for him
as a cost benefit analysis of doing it. He is not going to front this because it is a business
loser.
We truly have the worst choices from the main parties in my lifetime. There are many reasons
Trump is a bad candidate. But on these two, he is far more credible and on the better side of
things than the Democratic nominee. And on the few where she might reasonably considered to have
a better position, unfortunately I do not for a moment believe her to be doing more than giving
lip service based on both her record and her character.
Is it your opinion that to have globalisation we must marginalize russia to the extent that
they realize they can't have utopia and make the practical choice of allowing finance capitalism
to guide them to realistic incrementally achieved debt bondage?
The Democratic Party has been inching further and further to the right. Bernie tried to arrest
this drift, but his internal populist rebellion was successfully thwarted by party elite corruption.
The Democratic position is now so far to the right that the Republicans will marginalize themselves
if they try to keep to the right of the Democrats.
But, despite party loyalty or PC slogans, the Democrat's rightward position is now so obvious
that it can be longer disguised by spin. The Trump campaign has demonstrated, the best electoral
strategy for the Republican Party is to leapfrog leftward and campaign from a less corporate position.
This has given space for the re-evaluation of party positions that Trump is enunciating, and the
result is that the Trump is running to the
left of Hillary. How weird is this?
I meant to use right and left to refer generally to elite vs popular. The issue is too big
to discuss without some simplification, and I'm sorry it has distracted from the main issue. On
the face of it, judging from the primaries, the Republican candidates who represented continued
rightward drift were rejected. (Indications are that the same thing happened in the Democratic
Party, but party control was stronger there, and democratic primary numbers will never be known).
The main point I was trying to make is that the Democratic party has been stretching credulity
to the breaking point in claiming to be democratic in any sense, and finally the contradiction
between their statements and actions has outpaced the capabilities of their propaganda. Their
Orwellian program overextended itself. Popular recognition of the disparity has caused a kind
of political "snap" that's initiated a radical reorganization of what used to be the party of
the right (or corporations, or elites, or finance, or "your description here".)
Besides confusion between which issues are right or left for Republicans or Democrats on the
national level, internationally, the breakdown of popular trust in the elites, and the failure
of their propaganda on that scale, is leading to a related worldwide distrust and rejection of
elite policies. This distrust has been percolating in pockets for some time, but it seems it's
now become so widespread that it's practically become a movement.
I suspect, however, there's a Plan B for this situation to restore the proper order. Will be
interesting to see how this plays out.
The striving for American empire has so totally confused the political order of the country
that up is down and down is up. The idea of government for and by the people is a distant memory.
Covering for lies and contradictions of beliefs has blurred any notion of principles informing
public action.
If there is any principle that matters today, it is the pursuit of money and profit reigns
supreme. Trump is populist in the sense he is talking about bringing money and wealth back to
the working classes. Not by giving it directly, but by forcing businesses to turn their sights
back to the US proper and return to making their profits at home. In the end, it is all nostalgia
and probably impossible, but working class people remember those days so it rings true. That is
hope and change in action. People also could care less if he cheats on his taxes or is found out
lying about how much he is worth. Once again, fudging your net worth is something working people
care little about. Having their share of the pie is all that matters and Trump is tapping into
that.
Clintons arrogance is worse because the transcripts probably clearly show her secretly conspiring
with bankers to screw the working people of this country. Trumps misdeeds effect his relationship
to other elites while Clintons directly effect working people.
Such a sorry state of affairs. When all that matters is the pursuit of money and profit, moving
forward will be difficult and full of moral contradictions. Populism needs a new goal. The political
machinery that gives us two pro-business hacks and an ineffectual third party has fundamentally
failed.
The business of America must be redefined, not somehow brought back to a mythical past greatness.
Talk about insanity.
"Bill Clinton has been a disaster for the Democratic Party. Send him packing."
"There's not much the Democrats can do about Mrs. Clinton. She's got a Senate seat for six
years. But there is no need for the party to look to her for leadership. The Democrats need to
regroup, re-establish their strong links to middle-class and working-class Americans, and move
on."
"You can't lead a nation if you are ashamed of the leadership of your party. The Clintons are
a terminally unethical and vulgar couple, and they've betrayed everyone who has ever believed
in them."
"As neither Clinton has the grace to retire from the scene, the Democrats have no choice but
to turn their backs on them. It won't be easy, but the Democrats need to try. If they succeed
they'll deserve the compliment Bill Clinton offered Gennifer Flowers after she lied under oath:
"Good for you." "
Amazing how the New York Times has "evolved" from Herbert's editorial stance of 15 years ago
to their unified editorial/news support for HRC's candacy,
In my view, it is not as if HRC has done anything to redeem herself in the intervening years.
It takes liberals to create a refugee crisis.
What country are we going to bomb back into the stone age this week?
We are very squeamish about offensive language.
We don't mind dropping bombs and ripping people apart with red hot shrapnel.
We are liberals.
Liberal sensibilities were on display in the film "Apocalypse Now".
No writing four letter words on the side of aircraft.
Napalm, white phosphorous and agent orange – no problem.
Liberals are like the English upper class – outward sophistication hiding the psychopath underneath.
They were renowned for their brutality towards slaves, the colonies and the English working class
(men, women and children) but terribly sophisticated when with their own.
Are you a bad language sort of person – Trump
Or a liberal, psychopath, empire builder – Clinton
The only crime Trump has committed so far is his language. Liberals like Clinton, Blair
and Obama drip blood.
Lambert strether said: my view is that the democrat party cannot be saved, but it can be seized.
Absolutely correct.
That is why Trump must be elected. Only then through the broken remains of both Parties can the
frangible Democrat Party be seized and restored.
The 2016 election cannot be looked at in isolation. The wars for profit are spreading from
Nigeria through Syria to Ukraine. Turkey was just lost to the Islamists and is on the road to
being a failed state. The EU is in an existential crisis due to Brexit, the refugee crisis and
austerity. Western leadership is utterly incompetent and failing to protect its citizens. Globalization
is failing. Its Losers are tipping over the apple cart. Humans are returning to their tribal roots
for safety. The drums for war with Russia are beating. Clinton / Kaine are 100% Status Quo Globalists.
Trump / Pence are candidates of change to who knows what. Currently I am planning on voting for
the Green Party in the hope it becomes viable and praying that the chaos avoids Maryland.
"... Because we interpreted the end of the Cold War as the ultimate vindication of America's economic system, we intensified our push toward the next level of capitalism, called globalization. It was presented as a project that would benefit everyone. Instead it has turned out to be a nightmare for many working people. Thanks to "disruption" and the "global supply chain," many American workers who could once support families with secure, decent-paying jobs must now hope they can be hired as greeters at Walmart. Meanwhile, a handful of super-rich financiers manipulate our political system to cement their hold on the nation's wealth. ..."
"... Rather than shifting to a less assertive and more cooperative foreign policy, we continued to insist that America must reign supreme. When we declared that we would not tolerate the emergence of another "peer power," we expected that other countries would blithely obey. Instead they ignore us. We interpret this as defiance and seek to punish the offenders. That has greatly intensified tensions between the United States and the countries we are told to consider our chief adversaries, Russia and China. ..."
Because we interpreted the end of the Cold War as the ultimate vindication
of America's economic system, we intensified our push toward the next level
of capitalism, called globalization. It was presented as a project that
would benefit everyone. Instead it has turned out to be a nightmare for
many working people. Thanks to "disruption" and the "global supply chain,"
many American workers who could once support families with secure, decent-paying
jobs must now hope they can be hired as greeters at Walmart. Meanwhile,
a handful of super-rich financiers manipulate our political system to cement
their hold on the nation's wealth.
Enrique Ferro's insight:
Moments of change require adaptation, but the United States is not good
at adapting. We are used to being in charge. This blinded us to the reality
that as other countries began rising, our relative power would inevitably
decline. Rather than shifting to a less assertive and more cooperative
foreign policy, we continued to insist that America must reign supreme.
When we declared that we would not tolerate the emergence of another "peer
power," we expected that other countries would blithely obey. Instead they
ignore us. We interpret this as defiance and seek to punish the offenders.
That has greatly intensified tensions between the United States and the
countries we are told to consider our chief adversaries, Russia and China.
This is downright sickening and the people who are voting for Hillary will not even care what will
happen with the USA iif she is elected.
By attacking Trump using "Khan gambit" she risks a violent backlash (And not only via Wikileaks,
which already promised to release information about her before the elections)
People also start to understand that she is like Trump. He destroyed several hundred American lifes
by robbing them, exploiting their vanity (standard practice in the USA those days) via Trump University
scam. She destroyed the whole country -- Libya and is complicit in killing Khaddafi (who, while not
a nice guy, was keeping the country together and providing be highest standard of living in Africa for
his people).
In other words she is a monster and sociopath. He probably is a narcissist too. So there is no much
phychological difference between them. And we need tight proportions to judge this situation if we are
talking about Hillary vs Trump.
As for people voting for Trump -- yes they will. I think if Hillary goes aganst Trump, the female
neoliberal monster will be trumped. She has little chances even taking into account the level of brainwashing
in the USA (which actually is close to those that existed in the USSR).
Notable quotes:
"... The reason Trump and Sanders are doing well in the US while fascists are doing well in Europe is the same reason: neoliberalism has gutted, or is in the process of gutting, societies. Workers and other formerly "safe" white collar workers are seeing their job security, income security, retirement security all go up in smoke. Neoliberals are trying to snip and cut labor protections, healthcare, environmental regulations all for corporate profit. In Europe this is all in addition to a massive refugee crisis itself brought on by neoliberalism (neocon foreign policy is required for neoliberal social policy, they go hand-in-hand). The US and NATO destabilize countries with the intent of stealing their resources and protecting their markets, cause massive refugee flows which strain social structures in Europe (which falls right into the hands of the gutters and cutters of neoliberalism). Of course the people will lean fascist. ..."
"... U.S. Government Tried to Tackle Gun Violence in 1960s ..."
"... Another key feature of fascism is territorial expansionism. As far as I am aware, none of the nationalist parties advocate invading other countries or retaking former colonies. Once again, contemporary neoliberalism is far closer to fascism. But you are correct about both Israel and Turkey – our allies. They are much closer to the genuine article. But you won't hear those complaining about the rise of fascism in Europe complaining too much about them. ..."
"... The only way they have avoided complete revolt has been endless borrowing to fund entitlements, once that one-time fix plays out the consequences will be apparent. The funding mechanism itself (The Fed) has even morphed into a neo-liberal tool designed to enrich Capital while enslaving Labor with the consequences. ..."
"... "Every society chooses how resources are allocated between capital and labor." More specifically, isn't it a struggle between various political/economic/cultural movements within a society which chooses how resources are allocated between capital and labor. ..."
"... My objection to imprecise language here isn't merely pedantic. The leftist dismissal of right wing populists like Trump (or increasingly influential European movements like Ukip, AfD, and the Front national) as "fascist" is a reductionist rhetorical device intended to marginalize them by implying their politics are so far outside of the mainstream that they do not need to be taken seriously. ..."
"... " the gutters and cutters of neoliberalism" ..."
"... The neoliberals are all too aware that the clock is ticking. In this morning's NYT, yet more talk of ramming TPP through in the lame duck. ..."
"... The roads here are deteriorating FAST. In Price County, the road commissioner said last night that their budget allows for resurfacing all the roads on a 200 year basis. ..."
"... This Trump support seems like a form of political vandalism with Trump as the spray paint. People generally feel frustrated with government, utterly powerless and totally left out as the ranks of the precariat continue to grow. Trump appeals to the nihilistic tendencies of some people who, like frustrated teens, have decided to just smashed things up for the hell of it. They think a presidency mix of Caligula with Earl Scheib would be a funny hoot. ..."
"... Someone at American Conservative, when trying to get at why it's pointless to tell people Trump will wreck the place, described him as a "hand grenade" lobbed into the heart of government. You can't scare people with his crass-ness and destructive tendencies, because that's precisely what his voters are counting on when/if he gets into government. ..."
"... In other words, the MSM's fear is the clearest sign to these voters that their ..."
"... Your phrase "Trump is political vandalism" is great. I don't think I've seen a better description. NPR this morning was discussing Trump and his relationship with the press and the issues some GOP leaders have with him. When his followers were discussed, the speakers closely circled your vandalism point. Basically they said that his voters are angry with the power brokers and leaders in DC and regardless of whether they think Trump's statements are heartfelt or just rhetoric, they DO know he will stick it to those power brokers so that's good. Vandalism by a longer phrase. ..."
"... Meritocracy was ALWAYS a delusional fraud. What you invariably get, after a couple of generations, is a clique of elitists who define merit as themselves and reproduce it ad nauseam. Who still believes in such laughable kiddie stories? ..."
"... Campaign Finance Reform: If you can't walk into a voting booth you cannot contribute, or make all elections financed solely by government funds and make private contributions of any kind to any politician illegal. ..."
"... Re-institute Glass-Steagall but even more so. Limit the number of states a bank can operate in. Make the Fed publicly owned, not privately owned by banks. Completely revise corporate law, doing away with the legal person hood of corporations and limit of liability for corporate officers and shareholders. ..."
"... Single payer health care for everyone. Allow private health plans but do away with health insurance as a deductible for business. Remove the AMA's hold on licensing of medical schools which restricts the number of doctors. ..."
"... Do away with the cap on Social Security wages and make all income, wages, capital gains, interest, and dividends subject to taxation. Impose tariffs to compensate for lower labor costs overseas and revise industry. ..."
"... Cut the Defense budget by 50% and use that money for intensive infrastructure development. ..."
"... Raise the national minimum wage to $15 and hour. ..."
"... Severely curtail the revolving door from government to private industry with a 10 year restriction on working for an industry you dealt with in any way as a government official. ..."
"... Free public education including college (4 year degree). ..."
"... Obama and Holder, allowing the banks to be above the law have them demi-gods, many of whom are psychopaths and kleptocrats, and with their newly granted status, they are now re-shaping the world in their own image. Prosecute these demi-gods and restore sanity. Don't and their greed for our things will never end until nothings left. ..."
"... This is why Hillary is so much more dangerous than trump, because she and the demi gods are all on the same page. The TPP is their holy grail so I expect heaven and earth to be moved, especially if it looks like some trade traitors are going to get knocked off in the election, scoundrels like patty murray (dino, WA) will push to get it through then line up at the feed trough to gorge on k street dough. I plan to vote stein if it's not Bernie, but am reserving commitment until I see what kind of betrayals the dems have for me, if it's bad enough I'll go with the trump hand grenade. ..."
"... Totally agree tegnost, no more democratic neoliberals -- ..."
"... "they are now re-shaping the world in their own image" Isn't this intrinsic to bourgeois liberalism? ..."
"... Two things are driving our troubles: over-population and globalization. The plutocrats and kleptocrats have all the leverage over the rest of us laborers when the population of human beings has increased seven-fold in the last 70 years, from a little over a billion to seven billions (and growing) today. They are happy to let us freeze to death behind gas stations in order for them to compete with other oligarchs in excess consumption. ..."
"... Thank you for mentioning the third rail of overpopulation. Too often, this giant category of problems is ignored, because it makes people uncomfortable. The planet is finite, resources on the planet are finite, yet the number of people keeps growing. We need to strive for a higher quality of life, not a higher quantity of people. ..."
"... The issue goes beyond "current neoliberals up for election", it is most of our political establishment that has been corrupted by a system that provides for the best politicians money can buy. ..."
"... America has always been a country where a majority of the population has been poor. With the exception of a fifty five year(1950-2005) year period where access to large quantities of consumer debt by households was deployed to first to provide a wealth illusion to keep socialism at bay, followed by a mortgage debt boom to both keep the system afloat and strip the accumulated capital of the working class, i.e. home equity, the history of the US has been one of poverty for the masses. ..."
"... Further debt was foisted on the working class in the form of military Keynesianism, generating massive fiscal deficits which are to be paid for via austerity in a neo-feudal economy. ..."
The first comment gives a window into the hidden desperation in America that is showing up in statistics
like increasing opioid addiction and suicides, rather than in accounts of how and why so many people
are suffering. I hope readers will add their own observations in comments.
We recently took three months to travel the southern US from coast to coast. As an expat for
the past twenty years, beyond the eye opening experience it left us in a state of shock. From
a homeless man convulsing in the last throes of hypothermia (been there) behind a fuel station
in Houston (the couldn't care less attendant's only preoccupation getting our RV off his premises),
to the general squalor of near-homelessness such as the emergence of "American favelas" a block
away from gated communities or affluent ran areas, to transformation of RV parks into permanent
residencies for the foreclosed who have but their trailer or RV left, to social study one can
engage while queuing at the cash registers of a Walmart before beneficiaries of SNAP.
Stopping to take the time to talk and attempt to understand their predicament and their beliefs
as to the cause of their plight is a dizzying experience in and of itself. For a moment I felt
transposed to the times of the Cold War, when the Iron Curtain dialectics fuzzed the perception
of that other world to the west with a structured set of beliefs designed to blacken that horizon
as well as establish a righteous belief in their own existential paradigm.
What does that have to do with education? Everything if one considers the elitist trend that
is slowly setting the framework of tomorrow's society. For years I have felt there is a silent
"un-avowed conspiracy", why the seeming redundancy, because it is empirically driven as a by-product
of capitalism's surge and like a self-redeeming discount on a store shelf crystalizes a group
identity of think-alike know-little or nothing frustrated citizens easily corralled by a Fox or
Trump piper. We have re-rcreated the conditions or rather the reality of "Poverty In America"
barely half a century after its first diagnostic with one major difference : we are now feeding
the growth of the "underclass" by lifting ever higher and out of reach the upward mobility ladder,
once the banner of opportunity now fallen behind the supposedly sclerotic welfare states of Europe.
So Richard Cohen now fears American voters because of Trump. Well, on Diane Reem today (NPR)
was a discussion on why fascist parties are growing in Europe. Both Cohen and the clowns on NPR
missed the forest for the trees. The reason Trump and Sanders are doing well in the US while
fascists are doing well in Europe is the same reason: neoliberalism has gutted, or is in the process
of gutting, societies. Workers and other formerly "safe" white collar workers are seeing their
job security, income security, retirement security all go up in smoke. Neoliberals are trying
to snip and cut labor protections, healthcare, environmental regulations all for corporate profit.
In Europe this is all in addition to a massive refugee crisis itself brought on by neoliberalism
(neocon foreign policy is required for neoliberal social policy, they go hand-in-hand). The US
and NATO destabilize countries with the intent of stealing their resources and protecting their
markets, cause massive refugee flows which strain social structures in Europe (which falls right
into the hands of the gutters and cutters of neoliberalism). Of course the people will lean fascist.
In the US we don't have the refugees, but the neoliberalism is further along and more damaging.
There's no mystery here or in Europe, just the natural effects of governments failing to represent
real people in favor of useless eater rich.
Make the people into commodities, endanger their washes and job security, impose austerity,
and tale in floods of refugees. Of COURSE Europeans stay leaning fascist.
According to NPR's experts, many or most of those parties are "fascist". The fascist label
is getting tossed around a LOT right now. It is slung at Trump, at UKIP, or any others. Fascist
is what you call the opposition party to the right that you oppose. Now I don't call Trump a fascist.
A buffoon, yes, even a charlatan (I still rather doubt he really originally thought he would become
the GOP nominee. Perhaps I'm wrong but, like me, many seemed to think that he was pushing his
"brand" – a term usage of which I HATE because it IS like we are all commodities or businesses
rather than PEOPLE – and that he would drop by the wayside and profit from his publicity).
Be that as it may, NPR and Co were discussing the rise of fascist/neofascist parties and wondering
why there were doing so well. Easy answer: neoliberalism + refugee hoards = what you see in Europe.
I've also blamed a large part of today's gun violence in the USA on the fruits of neoliberalism.
Why? Same reason that ugly right-wing groups (fascist or not) are gaining ground around the Western
world. Neoliberalism destroys societies. It destroys the connections within societies (the USA
in this case). Because we have guns handy, the result is mass shootings and flashes of murder-suicides.
This didn't happen BEFORE neoliberalism got its hooks into American society. The guns were there,
always have been (when I was a teen I recall seeing gun mags advertising various "assault weapons"
for sale this was BEFORE Reagan and this was BEFORE mass shootings, etc). Machine guns were much
easier to come by BEFORE the 1980s yet we didn't have mass killings with machine guns, handguns,
or shotguns. ALL that stuff is a NEW disease. A disease rooted in neoliberalism. Neoliberalism
steals your job security, your healthcare security, your home, your retirement security, your
ability to provide for your family, your ability to send your kids to college, your ability to
BUY FOOD. Neoliberalism means you don't get to work for a company for 20 years and then see the
company pay you back for that long, good service with a pension. You'll be lucky to hold a job
at any company from month-to-month now and FORGET about benefits! Healthcare? Going by the wayside
too. Workers in the past felt a bond with each other, especially within a company. Neoliberalism
has turned all workers against each other because they have to fight to gain any of the scraps
being tossed out by the rich overlords. You can't work TOGETHER to gain mutual benefit, you need
to fight each other in a zero sum game. For ME to win you have to lose. You are a commodity. A
disposable and irrelevant widget. THAT combines with guns (that have always been available!) and
you get desperate acting out: mass shootings, murder suicides, etc.
There are actual fascist parties in Europe. To name a few in one country I've followed, Ukraine,
there's Right Sector, Svoboda, and others, and that's just one country. I don't think anyone calls
UKIP fascist.
@Praedor – Your comment that Yves posted and this one are excellent. One of the most succinct
statements of neoliberalism and its worst effects that I have seen.
As to the cause of recent mass gun violence, I think you have truly nailed it. If one thinks
at all about the ways in which the middle class and lower have been squeezed and abused, it's
no wonder that a few of them would turn to violence. It's the same despair and frustration that
leads to higher suicide rates, higher rates of opiate addiction and even decreased life expectancy.
"Machine guns were much easier to come by BEFORE the 1980s yet we didn't have mass killings
with machine guns, handguns, or shotguns. ALL that stuff is a NEW disease. A disease rooted in
neoliberalism."
Easy availability of guns was seen as a serious problem long before the advent of neoliberalism.
For one example of articles about this, see U.S. Government Tried to Tackle Gun Violence in
1960s . Other examples include 1920s and 1930s gangster and mob violence that were a consequence
of Prohibition (of alcohol). While gun violence per-capita might be increasing, the population
is far larger today, and the news media select incidents of violence to make them seem like they're
happening everywhere and that everyone needs to be afraid. That, of course, instills a sense of
insecurity and fear into the public mind; thus, a fearful public want a strong leader and are
willing to accept the inconvenience and dangers of a police state for protection.
America has plenty of refugees, from Latin America
Neo-liberal goes back to the Monroe Doctrine. We used to tame our native workers with immigrants,
and we still do, but we also tame them by globalism in trade. So many rationalizations for this,
based on political and economic propaganda. All problems caused by the same cause American predatory
behavior. And our great political choice iron fist with our without velvet glove.
Germany, Belgium, France, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Israel, Australia come to mind
(if one is allowed to participate in a European song contest, one is supposed to be part of Europe
:) They all have more or less fascist governments.
Once you realize that the ECB creates something like 60 billion euros a month, and gives nothing
to its citizens nor its nation-states, that means the money goes to corporations, which means
that the ECB, and by extension the whole EU, is a fascist construct (fascism being defined as
a government running on behalf of the corporations).
That's a fallacy. Corporatism is a feature of fascism, not the other way around.
None of the governments you mention, with the possible exception of Israel and Turkey, can
be called fascist in any meaningful sense.
Even the anti-immigration parties in the Western European countries you mention – AfD, Front
National, Vlaams Belang – only share their nationalism with fascist movements. And they are decidedly
anti-corporatist.
The problem here is one of semantics, really. You're using "fascist" interchangeably with "authoritarian",
which is a misnomer for these groups. The EU is absolutely anti-democratic, authoritarian, and
technocratic in a lot of respects, but it's not fascist. Both have corporatist tendencies, but
fascist corporatism was much more radical, much more anti-capitalist (in the sense that the capitalist
class was expected to subordinate itself to the State as the embodiment of the will of the Nation
or People, as were the other classes/corporate units). EU technocratic corporatism has none of
the militarism, the active fiscal policy, the drive for government supported social cohesion,
the ethno-nationalism, or millenarianism of Fascism.
The emergent Right parties like UKIP, FNP, etc. share far more with the Fascists, thought I'd
say they generally aren't yet what Fascists would have recognized as other Fascists in the way
that the NSDAP and Italian Fascists recognized each other -perhaps they're more like fellow travelers.
True, I posted a few minutes ago saying roughly the same thing – but it seems to have gone
to moderation.
Another key feature of fascism is territorial expansionism. As far as I am aware, none
of the nationalist parties advocate invading other countries or retaking former colonies. Once
again, contemporary neoliberalism is far closer to fascism. But you are correct about both Israel
and Turkey – our allies. They are much closer to the genuine article. But you won't hear those
complaining about the rise of fascism in Europe complaining too much about them.
When I was young, there were 4 divisions:
* who owned the means of production (public or private entities)
* who decided what those means were used for.
If it is a 'public entity' (aka government or regime) that decides what is built, we have a totalitarian
state, which can be 'communist' (if the means also belong the public entities like the government
or regional fractions of it) or 'fascist' (if the factories are still in private hands).
If it is the private owner of the production capacity who decides what is built, you get capitalism.
I don't recall any examples of private entities deciding what to do with public means of production
(mafia perhaps).
Sheldon Wolin
introduced
us to inverted totalitarism. While it is no longer the government that decides what must be
done, the private 'owners' just buy the government, the judiciary, the press, or whatever is needed
to achieve their means.
When I cite Germany, it is not so much AfD, but the 2€/hour jobs I am worried about. When I cite
Belgium, it is not the fools of Vlaams Belang, but rather the un-taxing of corporations and the
tear-down of social justice that worries me.
But Jeff, is Wolin accurate in using the term "inverted totalitarianism" to try to capture
the nature of our modern extractive bureaucratic monolith that apparently functions in an environment
where "it is no longer the government that decides what must be done..simply.."private owners
just buy the government, the judiciary, the press, or whatever is needed to achieve their means."
Mirowski argues quite persuasively that the neoliberal ascendency does not represent the retreat
of the State but its remaking to strongly support a particular conception of a market society
that is imposed with the help of the State on our society.
For Mirowski, neoliberalism is definitely not politically libertarian or opposed to strong
state intervention in the economy and society.
Inverted totalitarianism is the mirror image of fascism, which is why so many are confused.
Fascism is just a easier term to use and more understandable by all. There is not a strict adherence
to fascism going on, but it's still totalitarian just the same.
Hi
I live in Europe as well, and what to think of Germany's AfD, Greece's Golden Dawn, the Wilder's
party in the Netherlands etc. Most of them subscribe to the freeloading, sorry free trading economic
policies of neoliberalism.
There's LePen in France and the far-right, fascist leaning party nearly won in Austria. The
far right in Greece as well. There's clearly a move to the far right in Europe. And then there's
the totalitarian mess that is Turkey. How much further this turn to a fascist leaning right goes
and how widespread remains to be seen, but it's clearly underway.
Searched 'current fascist movements europe' and got these active groups from wiki.
National Bolshevik Party-Belarus
Parti Communautaire National-Européen Belgium
Bulgarian National Alliance Bulgaria
Nova Hrvatska Desnica Croatia
Ustaše Croatia
National Socialist Movement of Denmark
La Cagoule France
National Democratic Party of Germany
Fascism and Freedom Movement – Italy
Fiamma Tricolore Italy
Forza Nuova Italy
Fronte Sociale Nazionale Italy
Movimento Fascismo e Libertà Italy
Pērkonkrusts Latvia
Norges Nasjonalsosialistiske Bevegelse Norway
National Radical Camp (ONR) Poland
National Revival of Poland (NOP)
Polish National Community-Polish National Party (PWN-PSN)
Noua Dreaptă Romania
Russian National Socialist Party(formerly Russian National Union)
Barkashov's Guards Russia
National Socialist Society Russia
Nacionalni stroj Serbia
Otačastveni pokret Obraz Serbia
Slovenska Pospolitost Slovakia
España 2000 Spain
Falange Española Spain
Nordic Realm Party Sweden
National Alliance Sweden
Swedish Resistance Movement Sweden
National Youth Sweden
Legion Wasa Sweden
SPAS Ukraine
Blood and Honour UK
British National Front UK
Combat 18 UK
League of St. George UK
National Socialist Movement UK
Nationalist Alliance UK
November 9th Society UK
Racial Volunteer Force UK
"Fascism" has become the prefered term of abuse applied indiscriminately by the right thinking
to any person or movement which they want to tar as inherently objectionable, and which can therefore
be dismissed without the tedium of actually engaging with them at the level of ideas.
Most of the people who like to throw this word around couldn't give you a coherant definition
of what exactly they understand it to signify, beyond "yuck!!"
In fairness even students of political ideology have trouble teasing out a cosistent system
of beliefs, to the point where some doubt fascism is even a coherent ideology. That hardly excuses
the intellectual vacuity of those who use it as a term of abuse, however.
Precisely 3,248 angels can fit on the head of a pin. Parsing the true definition of "fascism"
is a waste of time, broadly, fascism is an alliance of the state, the corporation, and the military,
anyone who doesn't see that today needs to go back to their textbooks.
As far as the definition "neo-liberalism" goes, yes it's a useful label. But let's keep it
simple: every society chooses how resources are allocated between Capital and Labor. The needle
has been pegged over on the Capital side for quite some time, my "start date" is when Reagan busted
the air traffic union. The hideous Republicans managed to sell their base that policies that were
designed to let companies be "competitive" were somehow good for them, not just for the owners
of the means of production.
The only way they have avoided complete revolt has been endless borrowing to fund entitlements,
once that one-time fix plays out the consequences will be apparent. The funding mechanism itself
(The Fed) has even morphed into a neo-liberal tool designed to enrich Capital while enslaving
Labor with the consequences.
"Every society chooses how resources are allocated between capital and labor." More specifically,
isn't it a struggle between various political/economic/cultural movements within a society which
chooses how resources are allocated between capital and labor.
Take, for example, the late 1880s-1890s in the U.S. During that time-frame there were powerful
agrarian populists movements and the beginnings of some labor/socialist movements from below,
while from above the property-production system was modified by a powerful political movement
advocating for more corporate administered markets over the competitive small-firm capitalism
of an earlier age.
It was this movement for corporate administered markets which won the battle and defeated/absorbed
the agrarian populists.
What are the array of such forces in 2016? What type of movement doe Trump represent? Sanders?
Clinton?
fascism is an alliance of the state, the corporation, and the military, anyone who doesn't
see that today needs to go back to their textbooks
Which textbooks specifically?
The article I cited above in Vox canvasses the opinion of five serious students of fascism,
and none of them believe Trump is a fascist. I'd be most interested in knowing what you
have been reading.
As for your definition of "fascism", it's obviously so vague and broad that it really doesn't
explain anything. To the extent it contains any insight it is that public institutions (the state),
private businesses (the corporation) and the armed forces all exert significant influence on public
policy. That and a buck and and a half will get you a cup of coffee. If anything it is merely
a very crude descriptive model of the political process. It doesn't define fascism as a particular
set of beliefs that make it a distinct political ideology that can be differentiated from other
ideologies (again, see the Vox article for a discussion of some of the beliefs that are arguably
characteristic of fascist movements). Indeed by your standard virtually every state that has ever
existed has to a greater or lesser extent been "fascist".
My objection to imprecise language here isn't merely pedantic. The leftist dismissal of
right wing populists like Trump (or increasingly influential European movements like Ukip, AfD,
and the Front national) as "fascist" is a reductionist rhetorical device intended to marginalize
them by implying their politics are so far outside of the mainstream that they do not need to
be taken seriously. Given that these movements are only growing in strength as faith in traditional
political movements and elites evaporate this is likely to produce exactly the opposite result.
Right wing populism isn't going to disappear just because the left keeps trying to wish it away.
Refusing to accept this basic political fact risks condemning the left rather than "the fascists"
to political irrelevance.
I moved to a small city/town in Iowa almost 20 years ago. Then, it still had something of a
Norman Rockwell quality to it, particularly in a sense of egalitarianism, and also some small
factory jobs which still paid something beyond a bare existence.
Since 2000, many of those jobs have left, and the population of the county has declined by
about 10%. Kmart, Penney's, and Sears have left as payday/title loan outfits, pawnshops, smoke
shops, and used car dealers have all proliferated.
Parts of the town now resemble a combination of Appalachia and Detroit. Sanders easily won
the caucuses here and, no, his supporters were hardly the latte sippers of someone's imagination,
but blue collar folks of all ages.
My tale is similar to yours. About 2 years ago, I accepted a transfer from Chicagoland to north
central Wisconsin. JC Penney left a year and a half ago, and Sears is leaving in about 3-4 months.
Kmart is long gone.
I was back at the old homestead over Memorial Day, and it's as if time has stood still. Home
prices still going up; people out for dinner like crazy; new & expensive automobiles everywhere.
But driving out of Chicagoland, and back through rural Wisconsin it is unmistakeable.
2 things that are new: The roads here are deteriorating FAST. In Price County, the road
commissioner said last night that their budget allows for resurfacing all the roads on a 200 year
basis. (Yes, that means there is only enough money to resurface all the county roads if spread
out over 200 years.) 2nd, there are dead deer everywhere on the side of the road. In years past,
they were promptly cleaned up by the highway department. Not any more. Gross, but somebody has
to do the dead animal clean up. (Or not. Don't tell Snotty Walker though.)
Anyway, not everything is gloom and doom. People seem outwardly happy. But if you're paying
attention, signs of stress and deterioration are certainly out there.
This Trump support seems like a form of political vandalism with Trump as the spray paint.
People generally feel frustrated with government, utterly powerless and totally left out as the
ranks of the precariat continue to grow. Trump appeals to the nihilistic tendencies of some people
who, like frustrated teens, have decided to just smashed things up for the hell of it. They think
a presidency mix of Caligula with Earl Scheib would be a funny hoot.
You also have the more gullible fundis who have actually deluded themselves into thinking the
man who is ultimate symbol of hedonism will deliver them from secularism because he says he will.
Authoritarians who seek solutions through strong leaders are usually the easiest to con because
they desperately want to believe in their eminent deliverance by a human deus ex machina. Plus
he is ostentatiously rich in a comfortably tacky way and a TV celebrity beats a Harvard law degree.
And why not the thinking goes the highly vaunted elite college Acela crowd has pretty much made
a pig's breakfast out of things. So much for meritocracy. Professor Harold Hill is going to give
River City a boys band.
Someone at American Conservative, when trying to get at why it's pointless to tell people
Trump will wreck the place, described him as a "hand grenade" lobbed into the heart of government.
You can't scare people with his crass-ness and destructive tendencies, because that's precisely
what his voters are counting on when/if he gets into government.
In other words, the MSM's fear is the clearest sign to these voters that their
political revolution is working. Since TPTB decided peaceful change (i.e. Sanders) was a non-starter,
then they get to reap the whirlwind.
Your phrase "Trump is political vandalism" is great. I don't think I've seen a better description.
NPR this morning was discussing Trump and his relationship with the press and the issues some
GOP leaders have with him. When his followers were discussed, the speakers closely circled your
vandalism point. Basically they said that his voters are angry with the power brokers and leaders
in DC and regardless of whether they think Trump's statements are heartfelt or just rhetoric,
they DO know he will stick it to those power brokers so that's good. Vandalism by a longer phrase.
Meritocracy was ALWAYS a delusional fraud. What you invariably get, after a couple of generations,
is a clique of elitists who define merit as themselves and reproduce it ad nauseam. Who still
believes in such laughable kiddie stories?
Besides, consumers need to learn to play the long game and suck up the "scurrilous attacks"
on their personal consumption habits for the next four years. The end of abortion for four years
is not important - lern2hand and lern2agency, and lern2cutyourrapist if it comes to that. What
is important is that the Democratic Party's bourgeois yuppie constituents are forced to defend
against GOP attacks on their personal and cultural interests with wherewithal that would have
been ordinarily spent to attend to their sister act with their captive constituencies.
If bourgeois Democrats hadn't herded us into a situation where individuals mean nothing outside
of their assigned identity groups and their corporate coalition duopoly, they wouldn't be reaping
the whirlwind today. Why, exactly, should I be sympathetic to exploitative parasites such as the
middle class?
There are all good ideas. However, population growth undermines almost all of them. Population
growth in America is immigrant based. Reverse immigration influxes and you are at least doing
something to reduce population growth.
How to "reverse immigration influxes"?
Stop accepting refugees. It's outrageous that refugees from for example, Somalia,
get small business loans, housing assistance, food stamps and lifetime SSI benefits while some
of our veterans are living on the street.
No more immigration amnesties of any kind.
Deport all illegal alien criminals.
Practice "immigrant family unification" in the country of origin. Even if you have
to pay them to leave. It's less expensive in the end.
Eliminate tax subsidies to American corn growers who then undercut Mexican farmers'
incomes through NAFTA, driving them into poverty and immigration north. Throw Hillary Clinton
out on her ass and practice political and economic justice to Central America.
I too am a lifetime registered Democrat and I will vote for Trump if Clinton gets the crown.
If the Democrats want my vote, my continuing party registration and my until recently sizeable
donations in local, state and national races, they will nominate Bernie. If not, then I'm an Independent
forevermore. They will just become the Demowhig Party.
Campaign Finance Reform: If you can't walk into a voting booth you cannot contribute,
or make all elections financed solely by government funds and make private contributions of
any kind to any politician illegal.
Re-institute Glass-Steagall but even more so. Limit the number of states a bank can
operate in. Make the Fed publicly owned, not privately owned by banks.
Completely revise corporate law, doing away with the legal person hood of corporations
and limit of liability for corporate officers and shareholders.
Single payer health care for everyone. Allow private health plans but do away with
health insurance as a deductible for business. Remove the AMA's hold on licensing of medical
schools which restricts the number of doctors.
Do away with the cap on Social Security wages and make all income, wages, capital gains,
interest, and dividends subject to taxation.
Impose tariffs to compensate for lower labor costs overseas and revise industry.
Cut the Defense budget by 50% and use that money for intensive infrastructure development.
Raise the national minimum wage to $15 and hour.
Severely curtail the revolving door from government to private industry with a 10 year
restriction on working for an industry you dealt with in any way as a government official.
Free public education including college (4 year degree).
Obama and Holder, allowing the banks to be above the law have them demi-gods, many of whom
are psychopaths and kleptocrats, and with their newly granted status, they are now re-shaping
the world in their own image. Prosecute these demi-gods and restore sanity. Don't and their greed
for our things will never end until nothings left.
This is why Hillary is so much more dangerous than trump, because she and the demi gods
are all on the same page. The TPP is their holy grail so I expect heaven and earth to be moved,
especially if it looks like some trade traitors are going to get knocked off in the election,
scoundrels like patty murray (dino, WA) will push to get it through then line up at the feed trough
to gorge on k street dough. I plan to vote stein if it's not Bernie, but am reserving commitment
until I see what kind of betrayals the dems have for me, if it's bad enough I'll go with the trump
hand grenade.
Totally agree tegnost, no more democratic neoliberals -- Patty Murray (up for re-election)
and Cantwell are both trade traitors and got fast track passed.
Two things are driving our troubles: over-population and globalization. The plutocrats
and kleptocrats have all the leverage over the rest of us laborers when the population of human
beings has increased seven-fold in the last 70 years, from a little over a billion to seven billions
(and growing) today. They are happy to let us freeze to death behind gas stations in order for
them to compete with other oligarchs in excess consumption.
This deserves a longer and more thoughtful comment, but I don't have the time this morning.
I have to fight commute traffic, because the population of my home state of California has doubled
from 19M in 1970 to an estimated 43M today (if you count the Latin American refugees and H1B's).
Thank you for mentioning the third rail of overpopulation. Too often, this giant category
of problems is ignored, because it makes people uncomfortable. The planet is finite, resources
on the planet are finite, yet the number of people keeps growing. We need to strive for a higher
quality of life, not a higher quantity of people.
The issue goes beyond "current neoliberals up for election", it is most of our political
establishment that has been corrupted by a system that provides for the best politicians money
can buy.
In the 1980's I worked inside the beltway witnessing the new cadre of apparatchiks that drove
into town on the Reagan coattails full of moral a righteousness that became deviant, parochial,
absolutist and for whom bi-partisan approaches to policy were scorned prodded on by new power
brokers promoting their gospels in early morning downtown power breakfasts. Sadly our politicians
no longer serve but seek a career path in our growing meritocratic plutocracy.
America has always been a country where a majority of the population has been poor. With
the exception of a fifty five year(1950-2005) year period where access to large quantities of
consumer debt by households was deployed to first to provide a wealth illusion to keep socialism
at bay, followed by a mortgage debt boom to both keep the system afloat and strip the accumulated
capital of the working class, i.e. home equity, the history of the US has been one of poverty
for the masses.
Further debt was foisted on the working class in the form of military Keynesianism, generating
massive fiscal deficits which are to be paid for via austerity in a neo-feudal economy.
"... Money, it seems to him, has somehow changed its role. It has "increased" (is that possible, he asks?) while at the same time it has become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. It appears to seek to become an autonomous and dominating sector of economic life, functionally separated from production of real things, almost all of which seem to come from faraway places. "Real" actually begins to change its meaning, another topic more interesting still. This devotion to the world of money-making-money seems to have obsessed the lives of many of the most "important" Americans. Entire TV networks are devoted to it. They talk about esoteric financial instruments that to the ordinary citizen look more like exotically placed bets-on-credit in the casino than genuine ways to grow real-world business, jobs, wages, and family income. The few who are in position to master the game live material lives that were beyond what almost any formerly "wealthy" man or woman in Rip's prior life could even imagine ..."
"... children gone away and lost to either the relentless rootlessness of the trans-national economy or the virtual hell-world of meth and opioids and heroin and unending underemployed hopelessness. ..."
"... "If public life can suffer a metaphysical blow, the death of the labor question was that blow. For millions of working people, it amputated the will to resist." ..."
"... It's a Wonderful Life ..."
"... as educators ..."
"... OK, so I hear some of you saying, corporate America will never let this Civic Media get off the ground. My short answer to this is that corporations do what makes money for them, and in today's despairing political climate there's money to be made in sponsoring something truly positive, patriotic and constructive. ..."
"... I am paying an exorbitant subscription for the UK Financial Times at the moment. Anyway, the good news is that very regular articles are appearing where you can almost feel the panic at the populist uprisings. ..."
"... The kernel of Neoliberal Ideology: "There is no such a thing as society." (Margaret Thatcher). ..."
"... "In this postindustrial world not only is the labor question no longer asked, not only is proletarian revolution passé, but the proletariat itself seems passé. And the invisibles who nonetheless do indeed live there have internalized their nonexistence, grown demoralized, resentful, and hopeless; if they are noticed at all, it is as objects of public disdain. What were once called "blue-collar aristocrats"-skilled workers in the construction trades, for example-have long felt the contempt of the whole white-collar world. ..."
"... Or, we could replace Western liberal culture, with its tradition to consume and expand by force an unbroken chain from the Garden of Eden to Friedrich von Hayek, with the notion of maintenance and "enough". Bourgeois make-work holds no interest to me. ..."
"... My understanding of the data is that living standards increased around the world during the so-called golden age, not just in the U.S. (and Western Europe and Japan and Australia ). It could be that it was still imperialism at work, but the link between imperialism and the creation of the middle class is not straightforward. ..."
"... I thought neoliberalism was just the pogrom to make everyone – rational agents – as subscribed by our genetic / heraldic betters .. putting this orbs humans and resources in the correct "natural" order . ..."
"... Disheveled Marsupial for those thinking neoliberalism is not associated with libertarianism one only has to observe the decades of think tanks and their mouth organs roaming the planet . especially in the late 80s and 90s . bringing the might and wonders of the – market – to the great unwashed globally here libertarian priests rang in the good news to the great unwashed ..."
"... I would argue that neoliberalism is a program to define markets as primarily engaged in information processing and to make everyone into non-agents ( as not important at all to the proper functioning of markets). ..."
"... It also appears that neoliberals want to restrict democracy to the greatest extent possible and to view markets as the only foundation for truth without any need for input from the average individual. ..."
I am almost 70 years old, born and raised in New York City, still living in a near suburb.
Somehow, somewhere along the road to my 70th year I feel as if I have been gradually transported
to an almost entirely different country than the land of my younger years. I live painfully now
in an alien land, a place whose habits and sensibilities I sometimes hardly recognize, while unable
to escape from memories of a place that no longer exists. There are days I feel as I imagine a
Russian pensioner must feel, lost in an unrecognizable alien land of unimagined wealth, power,
privilege, and hyper-glitz in the middle of a country slipping further and further into hopelessness,
alienation, and despair.
I am not particularly nostalgic. Nor am I confusing recollection with sentimental yearnings
for a youth that is no more. But if I were a contemporary Rip Van Winkle, having just awakened
after, say, 30-40 years, I would not recognize my beloved New York City. It would be not just
the disappearance of the old buildings, Penn Station, of course, Madison Square Garden and its
incandescent bulb marquee on 50th and 8th announcing NYU vs. St. John's, and the WTC, although
I always thought of the latter as "new" until it went down. Nor would it be the disappearance
of all the factories, foundries, and manufacturing plants, the iconic Domino Sugar on the East
River, the Wonder Bread factory with its huge neon sign, the Swingline Staples building in Long
Island City that marked passage to and from the East River tunnel on the railroad, and my beloved
Schaeffer Beer plant in Williamsburg, that along with Rheingold, Knickerbocker, and a score of
others, made beer from New York taste a little bit different.
It wouldn't be the ubiquitous new buildings either, the Third Avenue ghostly glass erected
in the 70's and 80's replacing what once was the most concentrated collection of Irish gin mills
anywhere. Or the fortress-like castles built more recently, with elaborate high-ceilinged lobbies
decorated like a kind of gross, filthy-wealthy Versailles, an aesthetically repulsive style that
shrieks "power" in a way the neo-classical edifices of our Roman-loving founders never did. Nor
would it even be the 100-story residential sticks, those narrow ground-to-clouds skyscraper condominiums
proclaiming the triumph of globalized capitalism with prices as high as their penthouses, driven
ever upward by the foreign billionaires and their obsession with burying their wealth in Manhattan
real estate.
It is not just the presence of new buildings and the absence of the old ones that have this
contemporary Van Winkle feeling dyslexic and light-headed. The old neighborhoods have disintegrated
along with the factories, replaced by income segregated swatches of homogenous "real estate" that
have consumed space, air, and sunlight while sucking the distinctiveness out of the City. What
once was the multi-generational home turf for Jewish, Afro-American, Puerto Rican, Italian, Polak
and Bohunk families is now treated as simply another kind of investment, stocks and bonds in steel
and concrete. Mom's Sunday dinners, clothes lines hanging with newly bleached sheets after Monday
morning wash, stickball games played among parked cars, and evenings of sitting on the stoop with
friends and a transistor radio listening to Mel Allen call Mantle's home runs or Alan Freed and
Murray the K on WINS 1010 playing Elvis, Buddy Holly, and The Drifters, all gone like last night's
dreams.
Do you desire to see the new New York? Look no further than gentrifying Harlem for an almost
perfect microcosm of the city's metamorphosis, full of multi-million condos, luxury apartment
renovations, and Maclaren strollers pushed by white yuppie wife stay-at-homes in Marcus Garvey
Park. Or consider the "new" Lower East Side, once the refuge of those with little material means,
artists, musicians, bums, drug addicts, losers and the physically and spiritually broken - my
kind of people. Now its tenements are "retrofitted" and remodeled into $4000 a month apartments
and the new residents are Sunday brunching where we used to score some Mary Jane.
There is the "Brooklyn brand", synonymous with "hip", and old Brooklyn neighborhoods like Red
Hook and South Brooklyn (now absorbed into so desirable Park Slope), and Bushwick, another former
outpost of the poor and the last place I ever imagined would be gentrified, full of artists and
hipsters driving up the price of everything. Even large sections of my own Queens and the Bronx
are affected (infected?). Check out Astoria, for example, neighborhood of my father's family,
with more of the old ways than most but with rents beginning to skyrocket and starting to drive
out the remaining working class to who knows where.
Gone is almost every mom and pop store, candy stores with their egg creams and bubble gum cards
and the Woolworth's and McCrory's with their wooden floors and aisles containing ordinary blue
collar urgencies like thread and yarn, ironing boards and liquid bleach, stainless steel utensils
of every size and shape. Where are the locally owned toy and hobby stores like Jason's in Woodhaven
under the el, with Santa's surprises available for lay-away beginning in October? No more luncheonettes,
cheap eats like Nedicks with hot dogs and paper cones of orange drink, real Kosher delis with
vats of warm pastrami and corned beef cut by hand, and the sacred neighborhood "bar and grill",
that alas has been replaced by what the kids who don't know better call "dive bars", the detestable
simulacra of the real thing, slick rooms of long slick polished mahogany, a half-dozen wide screen
TV's blaring mindless sports contests from all over the world, over-priced micro-brews, and not
a single old rummy in sight?
Old Rip searches for these and many more remembered haunts, what Ray Oldenburg called the "great
good places" of his sleepy past, only to find store windows full of branded, high-priced, got-to-have
luxury-necessities (necessary if he/she is to be certified cool, hip, and successful), ridiculously
overpriced "food emporia", high and higher-end restaurants, and apparel boutiques featuring hardened
smiles and obsequious service reserved for those recognized by celebrity or status.
Rip notices too that the visible demographic has shifted, and walking the streets of Manhattan
and large parts of Brooklyn, he feels like what walking in Boston Back Bay always felt like, a
journey among an undifferentiated mass of privilege, preppy or 'metro-sexed' 20 and 30-somethings
jogging or riding bicycles like lean, buff gods and goddesses on expense accounts supplemented
by investments enriched by yearly holiday bonuses worth more than Rip earned in a lifetime.
Sitting alone on a park bench by the river, Rip reflects that more than all of these individual
things, however, he despairs of a city that seems to have been reimagined as a disneyfied playground
of the privileged, offering endless ways to self-gratify and philistinize in a clean, safe (safest
big city in U.S., he heard someone say), slick, smiley, center-of-the-world urban paradise, protected
by the new centurions (is it just his paranoia or do battle-ready police seem to be everywhere?).
Old ethnic neighborhoods are filled with apartment buildings that seem more like post-college
"dorms", tiny studios and junior twos packed with three or four "singles" roommates pooling their
entry level resources in order to pay for the right to live in "The City". Meanwhile the newer
immigrants find what place they can in Kingsbridge, Corona, Jamaica, and Cambria Heights, far
from the city center, even there paying far too much to the landlord for what they receive.
New York has become an unrecognizable place to Rip, who can't understand why the accent-less
youngsters keep asking him to repeat something in order to hear his quaint "Brooklyn" accent,
something like the King's English still spoken on remote Smith Island in the Chesapeake, he guesses
.
Rip suspects that this "great transformation" (apologies to Polanyi) has coincided, and is somehow
causally related, to the transformation of New York from a real living city into, as the former
Mayor proclaimed, the "World Capital" of financialized commerce and all that goes with it.
"Financialization", he thinks, is not the expression of an old man's disapproval but a way
of naming a transformed economic and social world. Rip is not an economist. He reads voraciously
but, as an erstwhile philosopher trained to think about the meaning of things, he often can't
get his head around the mathematical model-making explanations of the economists that seem to
dominate the more erudite political and social analyses these days. He has learned, however, that
the phenomenon of "capitalism" has changed along with his city and his life.
Money, it seems to him, has somehow changed its role. It has "increased" (is that possible,
he asks?) while at the same time it has become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. It appears
to seek to become an autonomous and dominating sector of economic life, functionally separated
from production of real things, almost all of which seem to come from faraway places. "Real" actually
begins to change its meaning, another topic more interesting still. This devotion to the world
of money-making-money seems to have obsessed the lives of many of the most "important" Americans.
Entire TV networks are devoted to it. They talk about esoteric financial instruments that to the
ordinary citizen look more like exotically placed bets-on-credit in the casino than genuine ways
to grow real-world business, jobs, wages, and family income. The few who are in position to master
the game live material lives that were beyond what almost any formerly "wealthy" man or woman
in Rip's prior life could even imagine
.
Above all else is the astronomical rise in wealth and income inequality. Rip recalls that growing
up in the 1950's, the kids on his block included, along with firemen, cops, and insurance men
dads (these were virtually all one-parent income households), someone had a dad who worked as
a stock broker. Yea, living on the same block was a "Wall Streeter". Amazingly democratic, no?
Imagine, people of today, a finance guy drinking at the same corner bar with the sanitation guy.
Rip recalls that Aristotle had some wise and cautionary words in his Politics concerning the stability
of oligarchic regimes.
Last year I drove across America on blue highways mostly. I stayed in small towns and cities,
Zanesville, St. Charles, Wichita, Pratt, Dalhart, Clayton, El Paso, Abilene, Clarksdale, and many
more. I dined for the most part in local taverns, sitting at the bar so as to talk with the local
bartender and patrons who are almost always friendly and talkative in these spaces. Always and
everywhere I heard similar stories as my story of my home town. Not so much the specifics (there
are no "disneyfied" Lubbocks or Galaxes out there, although Oxford, MS comes close) but in the
sadness of men and women roughly my age as they recounted a place and time – a way of life – taken
out from under them, so that now their years are filled with decayed and dead downtowns, children
gone away and lost to either the relentless rootlessness of the trans-national economy or the
virtual hell-world of meth and opioids and heroin and unending underemployed hopelessness.
I am not a trained economist. My graduate degrees were in philosophy. My old friends call me
an "Eric Hoffer", who back in the day was known as the "longshoreman philosopher". I have been
trying for a long time now to understand the silent revolution that has been pulled off right
under my nose, the replacement of a world that certainly had its flaws (how could I forget the
civil rights struggle and the crime of Viet Nam; I was a part of these things) but was, let us
say, different. Among you or your informed readers, is there anyone who can suggest a book or
books or author(s) who can help me understand how all of this came about, with no public debate,
no argument, no protest, no nothing? I would be very much appreciative.
I'll just highlight this line for emphasis
"there are no "disneyfied" Lubbocks or Galaxes out there, although Oxford, MS comes close) but
in the sadness of men and women roughly my age as they recounted a place and time – a way of life
– taken out from under them, so that now their years are filled with decayed and dead downtowns,
children gone away and lost to either the relentless rootlessness of the trans-national economy
or the virtual hell-world of meth and opioids and heroin and unending underemployed hopelessness."
my best friend pretty much weeps every day.
I don't have a book to recommend. I do think you identify a really underemphasized central
fact of recent times: the joint processes by which real places have been converted into "real
estate" and real, messy lives replaced by safe, manufactured "experiences." This affects wealthy
and poor neighborhoods alike, in different ways but in neither case for the better.
I live in a very desirable neighborhood in one of those places that makes a lot of "Best of"
lists. I met a new neighbor last night who told me how he and his wife had plotted for years to
get out of the Chicago burbs, not only to our city but to this specific neighborhood, which they
had decided is "the one." (This sentiment is not atypical.) Unsurprisingly, property values in
the neighborhood have gone through the roof. Which, as far as I can tell, most everyone here sees
as an unmitigated good thing.
At the same time, several families I got to know because they moved into the neighborhood about
the same time we did 15-20 years ago, are cashing out and moving away, kids off to or out of college,
parents ready (and financed) to get on to the next phase and the next place. Of course, even though
our children are all Lake Woebegoners, there are no next generations staying in the neighborhood,
except of course the ones still living, or back, at "home." (Those families won't be going anywhere
for awhile!)
I can't argue that new money in the hood hasn't improved some things. Our formerly struggling
food co-op just finished a major expansion and upgrade. Good coffee is 5 minutes closer than it
used to be. But to my wife and me, the overwhelming feeling is that we are now outsiders here
in this neighborhood where we know all the houses and the old trees but not what motivates our
new neighbors. So I made up a word for it: unsettling (adj., verb, noun).
"If public life can suffer a metaphysical blow, the death of the labor question was that
blow. For millions of working people, it amputated the will to resist."
Christopher Lash in "Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy" mentions Ray Oldenburg's
"The Great Good Places: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores,
Bars, Hangouts and How they Got You through the Day."
He argued that the decline of democracy is directly related to the disappearance of what he
called third places:,
"As neighborhood hangouts give way to suburban shopping malls, or, on the other hand private
cocktail parties, the essentially political art of conversation is replaced by shoptalk or personal
gossip.
Increasingly, conversation literally has no place in American society. In its absence how–or
better, where–can political habits be acquired and polished?
Lasch finished he essay by noting that Oldenburg's book helps to identify what is missing from
our then newly emerging world (which you have concisely updated):
"urban amenities, conviviality, conversation, politics–almost everything in part that makes
life worth living."
The best explainer of our modern situation that I have read is Wendell Berry. I suggest that
you start with "The Unsettling of America," quoted below.
"Let me outline briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kinds
of mind. I conceive a strip-miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the
old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer
is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The
exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health - his land's health, his own,
his family's, his community's, his country's. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only
how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much
more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from
it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter
wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly,
to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible.
The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order - a human
order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically
serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place.
The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, "hard facts"; the nurturer in terms of character,
condition, quality, kind."
I also think Prof. Patrick Deneen works to explain the roots (and progression) of decline.
I'll quote him at length here describing the modern college student.
"[T]he one overarching lesson that students receive is the true end of education: the only
essential knowledge is that know ourselves to be radically autonomous selves within a comprehensive
global system with a common commitment to mutual indifference. Our commitment to mutual indifference
is what binds us together as a global people. Any remnant of a common culture would interfere
with this prime directive: a common culture would imply that we share something thicker, an inheritance
that we did not create, and a set of commitments that imply limits and particular devotions.
Ancient philosophy and practice praised as an excellent form of government a res publica –
a devotion to public things, things we share together. We have instead created the world's first
Res Idiotica – from the Greek word idiotes, meaning "private individual." Our education system
produces solipsistic, self-contained selves whose only public commitment is an absence of commitment
to a public, a common culture, a shared history. They are perfectly hollowed vessels, receptive
and obedient, without any real obligations or devotions.
They won't fight against anyone, because that's not seemly, but they won't fight for anyone
or anything either. They are living in a perpetual Truman Show, a world constructed yesterday
that is nothing more than a set for their solipsism, without any history or trajectory."
Wow. Did this hit a nerve. You have eloquently described what was the city of hope for several
generations of outsiders, for young gay men and women, and for real artists, not just from other
places in America, but from all over the world. In New York, once upon a time, bumping up against
the more than 50% of the population who were immigrants from other countries, you could learn
a thing or two about the world. You could, for a while, make a living there at a job that was
all about helping other people. You could find other folks, lots of them, who were honest, well-meaning,
curious about the world. Then something changed. As you said, you started to see it in those hideous
80's buildings. But New York always seemed somehow as close or closer to Europe than to the U.S.,
and thus out of the reach of mediocrity and dumbing down. New York would mold you into somebody
tough and smart, if you weren't already – if it didn't, you wouldn't make it there.
Now, it seems, this dream is dreamt. Poseurs are not artists, and the greedy and smug drive
out creativity, kindness, real humor, hope.
It ain't fair. I don't know where in this world an aspiring creative person should go now,
but it probably is not there.
Americans cannot begin to reasonably demand a living wage, benefits and job security when there
is an unending human ant-line of illegals and legal immigrants willing to under bid them.
Only when there is a parity or shortage of workers can wage demands succeed, along with other
factors.
From 1925 to 1965 this country accepted hardly any immigrants, legal or illegal. We had the
bracero program where Mexican males were brought in to pick crops and were then sent home to collect
paychecks in Mexico. American blacks were hired from the deep south to work defense plants in
the north and west.
Is it any coincidence that the 1965 Great Society program, initiated by Ted Kennedy to primarily
benefit the Irish immigrants, then co-opted by LBJ to include practically everyone, started this
process of Middle Class destruction?
1973 was the peak year of American Society as measured by energy use per capita, expansion
of jobs and unionization and other factors, such as an environment not yet destroyed, nicely measured
by the The Real Progress Indicator.
Solution? Stop importing uneducated people. That's real "immigration reform".
Now explain to me why voters shouldn't favor Trump's radical immigration stands?
Maybe, but OTOH, who is it, exactly, who is recruiting, importing, hiring and training undocumented
workers to downgrade pay scales??
Do some homework, please. If businesses didn't actively go to Central and South America to
recruit, pay to bring here, hire and employ undocumented workers, then the things you discuss
would be great.
When ICE comes a-knocking at some meat processing plant or mega-chicken farm, what happens?
The undocumented workers get shipped back to wherever, but the big business owner doesn't even
get a tap on the wrist. The undocumented worker – hired to work in unregulated unsafe unhealthy
conditions – often goes without their last paycheck.
It's the business owners who manage and support this system of undocumented workers because
it's CHEAP, and they don't get busted for it.
Come back when the USA actually enforces the laws that are on the books today and goes after
big and small business owners who knowingly recruit, import, hire, train and employee undocumented
workers you know, like Donald Trump has all across his career.
This is the mechanism by which the gov't has assisted biz in destroying the worker, competition
for thee, but none for me. For instance I can't go work in canada or mexico, they don't allow
it. Policy made it, policy can change it, go bernie. While I favor immigration, in it's current
form it is primarily conducted on these lines of destroying workers (H1b etc and illegals combined)
Lucky for the mexicans they can see the american dream is bs and can go home. I wonder who the
latinos that have gained citizenship will vote for. Unlikely it'll be trump, but they can be pretty
conservative, and the people they work for are pretty conservative so no guarantee there, hillary
is in san diego at the tony balboa park where her supporters will feel comfortable, not a huge
venue I think they must be hoping for a crowd, and if she can't get one in san diego while giving
a "if we don't rule the world someone else will" speech, she can't get one anywhere. Defense contractors
and military advisors and globalist biotech (who needs free money more than biotech? they are
desperate for hillary) are thick in san diego.
I live part-time in San Diego. It is very conservative. The military, who are constantly screwed
by the GOP, always vote Republican. They make up a big cohort of San Diego county.
Hillary may not get a big crowd at the speech, but that, in itself, doesn't mean that much
to me. There is a segment of San Diego that is somewhat more progressive-ish, but it's a pretty
conservative county with parts of eastern SD county having had active John Birch Society members
until recently or maybe even ongoing.
There's a big push in the Latino community to GOTV, and it's mostly not for Trump. It's possible
this cohort, esp the younger Latino/as, will vote for Sanders in the primary, but if Clinton gets
the nomination, they'll likely vote for her (v. Trump).
I was unlucky enough to be stuck for an hour in a commuter train last Friday after Trump's
rally there. Hate to sound rude, but Trump's fans were everything we've seen. Loud, rude, discourteous
and an incessant litany of rightwing talking points (same old, same old). All pretty ignorant.
Saying how Trump will "make us great again." I don't bother asking how. A lot of ugly comments
about Obama and how Obama has been "so racially divisive and polarizing." Well, No. No, Obama
has not been or done that, but the rightwing noise machine has sure ginned up your hatreds, angers
and fears. It was most unpleasant. The only instructive thing about it was confirming my worst
fears about this group. Sorry to say but pretty loutish and very uninformed. Sigh.
part timer in sd as well, family for hillary except for nephew and niece .I keep telling my
mom she should vote bernie for their sake but it never goes over very well
Re Methland, we live in rural US and we got a not-very-well hidden population of homeless children.
I don't mean homeless families with children, I mean homeless children. Sleeping in parks in good
weather, couch-surfing with friends, etc. I think related.
Fascism is a system of political and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy and
purity of communities in which liberal democracy stand(s) accused of producing division and decline.
. . . George Orwell reminded us, clad in the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and
time, . . . an authentically popular fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black;
in Western Europe, secular and antisemitic, or more probably, these days anti-Islamic; in Russia
and Eastern Europe, religious, antisemitic, and slavophile.
Robert O. Paxton
In The Five Stages of Faschism
" that eternal enemy: the conservative manipulators of privilege who damn as 'dangerous agitators'
any man who menaces their fortunes" (maybe 'power and celebrity' should be added to fortunes)
Sinclair Lewis
It Can't Happen Here page 141
On the Boots To Ribs Front: Anyone hereabouts notice that Captain America has just been revealed
to be a Nazi? Maybe this is what R. Cohen was alluding to but I doubt it.
The four horse men are, political , social, economic and environmental collapse . Any one remember
the original Mad Max movie. A book I recommend is the Crash Of 2016 By Thom Hartmann.
From the comment, I agree with the problems, not the cause. We've increased the size and scope
of the safety net over the last decade. We've increased government spending versus GDP. I'm not
blaming government but its not neoliberal/capitalist policy either.
1. Globalization clearly helps the poor in other countries at the expense of workers in the
U.S. But at the same time it brings down the cost of goods domestically. So jobs are not great
but Walmart/Amazon can sell cheap needs.
2. Inequality started rising the day after Bretton Woods – the rich got richer everyday after
"Nixon Shock"
Hi rfam : To point 1 : Why is there a need to bring down the cost of goods? Is it because of
past outsourcing and trade agreements and FR policies? I think there's a chicken and egg thing
going on, ie.. which came first. Globalization is a way to bring down wages while supplying Americans
with less and less quality goods supplied at the hand of global corporations like Walmart that
need welfare in the form of food stamps and the ACA for their workers for them to stay viable
(?). Viable in this case means ridiculously wealthy CEO's and the conglomerate growing bigger
constantly. Now they have to get rid of COOL's because the WTO says it violates trade agreements
so we can't trace where our food comes from in case of an epidemic. It's all downhill. Wages should
have risen with costs so we could afford high quality American goods, but haven't for a long,
long time.
Globalization helps the rich here way more than the poor there. The elites get more money for
nothing (see QE before you respond, if you do, that's where the money for globalization came from)
the workers get the husk. Also the elite gets to say "you made your choices" and other moralistic
crap. The funny(?) thing is they generally claim to be atheists, which I translate into "I am
God, there doesn't need to be any other" Amazon sells cheap stuff by cheating on taxes, and barely
makes money, mostly just driving people out of business. WalMart has cheap stuff because they
subsidise their workers with food stamps and medicaid. Bringing up bretton woods means you don't
know much about money creation, so google "randy wray/bananas/naked capitalism" and you'll find
a quick primer.
The Walmart loathsome spawn and Jeff Bezos are the biggest welfare drains in our nation – or
among the biggest. They woefully underpay their workers, all while training them on how to apply
for various welfare benefits. Just so that their slaves, uh, workers can manage to eat enough
to enable them to work.
It slays me when US citizens – and it happens across the voting spectrum these days; I hear
just as often from Democratic voters as I do from GOP voters – bitch, vetch, whine & cry about
welfare abuse. And if I start to point out the insane ABUSE of welfare by the Waltons and Jeff
Bezos, I'm immediately greeted with random TRUE stories about someone who knew someone who somehow
made out like a bandit on welfare.
Hey, I'm totally sure and in agreement that there are likely a small percentage of real welfare
cheats who manage to do well enough somehow. But seriously? That's like a drop in the bucket.
Get the eff over it!!!
Those cheats are not worth discussing. It's the big fraud cheats like Bezos & the Waltons and
their ilk, who don't need to underpay their workers, but they DO because the CAN and they get
away with it because those of us the rapidly dwindling middle/working classes are footing the
bill for it.
Citizens who INSIST on focusing on a teeny tiny minority of real welfare cheats, whilst studiously
ignoring the Waltons and the Bezos' of the corporate world, are enabling this behavior. It's one
of my bugabears bc it's so damn frustrating when citizens refuse to see how they are really being
ripped off by the 1%. Get a clue.
That doesn't even touch on all the other tax breaks, tax loopholes, tax incentives and just
general all-around tax cheating and off-shore money hiding that the Waltons and Bezos get/do.
Sheesh.
"I'm immediately greeted with random TRUE stories about someone who knew someone who somehow
made out like a bandit on welfare."
is the key and a v. long term result of the application of Bernays' to political life. Its
local and hits at the gut interpersonal level 'cos the "someones" form a kind of chain of trust
esp. if the the first one on the list is a friend or a credentialed media pundit. Utterly spurious
I know but countering this with a *merely* rational analysis of how Walmart, Amazon abuse the
welfare system to gouge profits from the rest of us just won't ever, for the large majority, get
through this kind emotional wall.
I don't know what any kind of solution might look like but, somehow, we need to find a way
of seriously demonising the corporate parasites that resonates at the same emotional level as
the "welfare cheat" meme that Bill Clinton and the rest of the DLC sanctified back in the '90s.
Something like "Walmart's stealing your taxes" might work but how to get it out there in a
viral way ??
What a comment from seanseamour. And the "hoisting" of it to high visibility at the site is
a testament to the worth of Naked Capitalism.
seanseamour asks "What does that have to do with education?" and answers "Everything if one
considers the elitist trend " This question & answer all but brings tears to my eyes. It is so
utterly on point. My own experience of it, if I may say so, comes from inside the belly of the
beast. As a child and a product of America's elite universities (I have degrees from Harvard and
Yale, and my dad, Richard B. Sewall, was a beloved English prof at Yale for 42 years), I could
spend all morning detailing the shameful roles played by America's torchbearing universities –
Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc – in utterly abandoning their historic responsibility as educators
to maintaining the health of the nation's public school system.*
And as I suspect seanseymour would agree, when a nation loses public education, it loses everything.
But I don't want to spend all morning doing that because I'm convinced that it's not too late
for America to rescue itself from maelstrom in which it finds itself today. (Poe's "Maelstrom"
story, cherished by Marshall McLuhan, is supremely relevant today.)
To turn America around, I don't look to education – that system is too far gone to save itself,
let alone the rest of the country – but rather to the nation's media: to the all-powerful public
communication system that certainly has the interactive technical capabilities to put citizens
and governments in touch with each other on the government decisions that shape the futures of
communities large and small.
For this to happen, however, people like the us – readers of Naked Capitalism – need to stop
moaning and groaning about the damage done by the neoliberals and start building an issue-centered,
citizen-participatory, non-partisan, prime-time Civic Media strong enough to give all Americans
an informed voice in the government decisions that affect their lives. This Civic media would
exist to make citizens and governments responsive and accountable to each other in shaping futures
of all three communities – local, state and national – of which every one of us is a member.
Pie in the sky? Not when you think hard about it. A huge majority of Americans would welcome
this Civic Media. Many yearn for it. This means that a market exists for it: a Market of the Whole
of all members of any community, local, state and national. This audience is large enough to rival
those generated by media coverage of pro sports teams, and believe it or not much of the growth
of this Civic media could be productively modeled on the growth of media coverage of pro sports
teams. This Civic Media would attract the interest of major advertisers, especially those who
see value in non-partisan programming dedicated to getting America moving forward again. Dynamic,
issue-centered, problem-solving public forums, some modeled on voter-driven reality TV contests
like The Voice or Dancing with the Stars, could be underwritten by a "rainbow" spectrum of funders,
commericial, public, personal and even government sources.
So people take hope! Be positive! Love is all we need, etc. The need for for a saving alternative
to the money-driven personality contests into which our politics has descended this election year
is literally staring us all in the face from our TV, cellphone and computer screens. This is no
time to sit back and complain, it's a time to start working to build a new way of connecting ourselves
so we can reverse America's rapid decline.
OK, so I hear some of you saying, corporate America will never let this Civic Media get
off the ground. My short answer to this is that corporations do what makes money for them, and
in today's despairing political climate there's money to be made in sponsoring something truly
positive, patriotic and constructive. And I hear a few others saying that Americans are too
dumbed down, too busy, too polarized or too just plain stupid to make intelligent, constructive
use of a non-partisan, problem-solving Civic Media. But I would not underestimate the intelligence
of Americans when they can give their considered input – by vote, by comment or by active participation
– in public forums that are as exciting and well managed as an NFL game or a Word Series final.
I am paying an exorbitant subscription for the UK Financial Times at the moment. Anyway,
the good news is that very regular articles are appearing where you can almost feel the panic
at the populist uprisings.
Whatever system is put in place the human race will find a way to undermine it. I believe in
capitalism because fair competition means the best and most efficient succeed.
I send my children to private schools and universities because I want my own children at the
top and not the best. Crony capitalism is inevitable, self-interest undermines any larger system
that we try and impose.
Can we design a system that can beat human self-interest? It's going to be tricky.
"If that's the system, how can I take advantage of it?" human nature at work. "If that's the
system, is it working for me or not?" those at the top.
If not, it's time to change the system.
If so, how can I tweak it to get more out of it?
Neo-Liberalism
Academics, who are not known for being street-wise, probably thought they had come up with
the ultimate system using markets and numeric performance measures to create a system free from
human self-interest.
They had already missed that markets don't just work for price discovery, but are frequently
used for capital gains by riding bubbles and hoping there is a "bigger fool" out there than you,
so you can cash out with a handsome profit.
(I am not sure if the Chinese realise markets are supposed to be for price discovery at all).
Hence, numerous bubbles during this time, with housing bubbles being the global favourite for
those looking for capital gains.
If we are being governed by the markets, how do we rig the markets?
A question successfully solved by the bankers.
Inflation figures, that were supposed to ensure the cost of living didn't rise too quickly,
were somehow manipulated to produce low inflation figures with roaring house price inflation raising
the cost of living.
What unemployment measure will best suit the story I am trying to tell?
U3 – everything great
U6 – it's not so good
Labour participation rate – it hasn't been this bad since the 1970s
Anything missing from the theory has been ruthlessly exploited, e.g. market bubbles ridden
for capital gains, money creation by private banks, the difference between "earned" and "unearned"
income and the fact that Capitalism trickles up through the following mechanism:
1) Those with excess capital collect rent and interest.
2) Those with insufficient capital pay rent and interest.
I just went on a rant last week. (Not only because the judge actually LIED in court)
I left the courthouse in downtown Seattle, to cross the street to find the vultures selling
more foreclosures on the steps of the King County Administration Building, while above them, there
were tents pitched on the building's perimeter. And people were walking by just like this scene
was normal.
Because the people at the entrance of the courthouse could view this, I went over there and
began to rant. I asked (loudly) "Do you guys see that over there? Vultures selling homes rendering
more people homeless and then the homeless encampment with tents pitched on the perimeter above
them? In what world is this normal?" One guy replied, "Ironic, isn't it?" After that comment,
the Marshall protecting the judicial crooks in the building came over and tried to calm me down.
He insisted that the scene across the street was "normal" and that none of his friends or neighbors
have been foreclosed on. I soon found out that that lying Marshall was from Pierce County, the
epicenter of Washington foreclosures.
"In this postindustrial world not only is the labor question no longer asked, not only
is proletarian revolution passé, but the proletariat itself seems passé. And the invisibles who
nonetheless do indeed live there have internalized their nonexistence, grown demoralized, resentful,
and hopeless; if they are noticed at all, it is as objects of public disdain. What were once called
"blue-collar aristocrats"-skilled workers in the construction trades, for example-have long felt
the contempt of the whole white-collar world.
For these people, already skeptical about who runs things and to what end, and who are now
undergoing their own eviction from the middle class, skepticism sours into a passive cynicism.
Or it rears up in a kind of vengeful chauvinism directed at alien others at home and abroad, emotional
compensation for the wounds that come with social decline If public life can suffer a metaphysical
blow, the death of the labor question was that blow. For millions of working people, it amputated
the will to resist."
One thing I don't think I have seen addressed on this site (apologies if I have missed it!)
in all the commentary about the destruction of the middle class is the role of US imperialism
in creating that middle class in the first place and what it is that we want to save from destruction
by neo-liberalism. The US is rich because we rob the rest of the world's resources and have been
doing so in a huge way since 1945, same as Britain before us. I don't think it's a coincidence
that the US post-war domination of the world economy and the middle class golden age happened
at the same time. Obviously there was enormous value created by US manufacturers, inventors, government
scientists, etc but imperialism is the basic starting point for all of this. The US sets the world
terms of trade to its own advantage. How do we save the middle class without this level of control?
Within the US elites are robbing everyone else but they are taking what we use our military power
to appropriate from the rest of the world.
Second, if Bernie or whoever saves the middle class, is that so that everyone can have a tract
house and two cars and continue with a massively wasteful and unsustainable lifestyle based on
consumption? Or are we talking about basic security like shelter, real health care, quality education
for all, etc? Most of the stories I see seem to be nostalgic for a time when lots of people could
afford to buy lots of stuff and don't 1) reflect on origin of that stuff (imperialism) and 2)
consider whether that lifestyle should be the goal in the first place.
I went to the electronics recycling facility in Seattle yesterday. The guy at customer service
told me that they receive 20 million pounds per month. PER MONTH. Just from Seattle. I went home
and threw up.
It doesn't have to be that way. You can replace military conquest (overt and covert) with space
exploration and science expansion. Also, instead of pushing consumerism, push contentment. Don't
setup and goose a system of "gotta keep up with the Joneses!"
In the 50s(!!!) there was a plan, proven in tests and studies, that would have had humans on
the mars by 1965, out to Saturn by 72. Project Orion. Later, the British Project Daedalus was
envisioned which WOULD have put space probes at the next star system within 20 years of launch.
It was born of the atomic age and, as originally envisioned, would have been an ecological disaster
BUT it was reworked to avoid this and would have worked. Spacecraft capable of comfortably holding
100 personnel, no need to build with paper-thin aluminum skin or skimp on amenities. A huge ship
built like a large sea vessel (heavy iron/steel) accelerated at 1g (or more or slightly less as
desired) so no prolonged weightlessness and concomitant loss of bone and muscle mass. It was all
in out hands but the Cold War got in the way, as did the many agreements and treaties of the Cold
War to avoid annihilation. It didn't need to be that way. Check it out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
All that with 1950s and 60s era technology. It could be done better today and for less than
your wars in the Middle East. Encourage science, math, exploration instead of consumption, getting
mine before you can get yours, etc.
Or, we could replace Western liberal culture, with its tradition to consume and expand
by force an unbroken chain from the Garden of Eden to Friedrich von Hayek, with the notion of
maintenance and "enough". Bourgeois make-work holds no interest to me.
My understanding of the data is that living standards increased around the world during
the so-called golden age, not just in the U.S. (and Western Europe and Japan and Australia ).
It could be that it was still imperialism at work, but the link between imperialism and the creation
of the middle class is not straightforward.
Likewise, US elites are clearly NOT robbing the manufacturing firms that have set up in China
and other low-wage locations, so it is an oversimplification to say they are "robbing everyone
else."
Nostalgia is overrated but I don't sense the current malaise as a desire for more stuff. (I
grew up in the 60s and 70s and I don't remember it as a time where people had, or craved, a lot
of stuff. That period would be now, and I find it infects Sanders' supporters less than most.)
If anything, it is nostalgia for more (free) time and more community, for a time when (many but
not all) people had time to socialize and enjoy civic life.
those things would be nice as would just a tiny bit of hope for the future, our own and the
planet's and not an expectation of things getting more and more difficult and sometimes for entirely
unnecessary reasons like imposed austerity. But being we can't have "nice things" like free time,
community and hope for the future, we just "buy stuff".
I live on the south side, in the formerly affluent south shore neighborhood. A teenager was
killed, shot in the head in a drive by shooting, at 5 pm yesterday right around the corner from
my residence. A white coworker of mine who lives in a rich northwest side neighborhood once commented
to me how black people always say goodbye by saying "be safe". More easily said than done.
I thought neoliberalism was just the pogrom to make everyone – rational agents – as subscribed
by our genetic / heraldic betters .. putting this orbs humans and resources in the correct "natural"
order .
Disheveled Marsupial for those thinking neoliberalism is not associated with libertarianism
one only has to observe the decades of think tanks and their mouth organs roaming the planet .
especially in the late 80s and 90s . bringing the might and wonders of the – market – to the great
unwashed globally here libertarian priests rang in the good news to the great unwashed
I would argue that neoliberalism is a program to define markets as primarily engaged in
information processing and to make everyone into non-agents ( as not important at all to the proper
functioning of markets).
It also appears that neoliberals want to restrict democracy to the greatest extent possible
and to view markets as the only foundation for truth without any need for input from the average
individual.
But as Mirowski argues–carrying their analysis this far begins to undermine their own neoliberal
assumptions about markets always promoting social welfare.
When I mean – agents – I'm not referring to agency, like you say the market gawd/computer does
that. I was referencing the – rational agent – that 'ascribes' the markets the right at defining
facts or truth as neoliberalism defines rational thought/behavior.
Disheveled Marsupial yes democracy is a direct threat to Hayekian et al [MPS and Friends]
paranoia due to claims of irrationality vs rationally
I have trouble understanding the focus on an emergence of fascism in Europe, focus that seems
to dominate this entire thread when, put in perspective such splinter groups bear little weight
on the European political spectrum.
As an expat living in France, in my perception the Front National is a threat to the political
establishments that occupy the center left and right and whose historically broad constituencies
have been brutalized by the financial crisis borne of unbridled anglo-saxon runaway capitalism,
coined neoliberalism. The resulting disaffection has allowed the growth of the FN but it is also
fueled by a transfer of reactionary constituencies that have historically found identity in far
left parties (communist, anti-capitalist, anarchist ), political expressions the institutions
of the Republic allow and enable in the name of plurality, a healthy exultury in a democratic
society.
To consider that the FN in France, UKIP in the UK and others are a threat to democratic values
any more that the far left is non-sensical, and I dare say insignificant compared to the "anchluss"
our conservative right seeks to impose upon the executive, legislative and judicial branches of
government.
The reality in Europe as in America is economic. The post WWII era of reconstruction, investment
and growth is behind us, the French call these years the "Trente Glorieuses" (30 glorious years)
when prosperity was felt through all societal strats, consumerism for all became the panacea for
a just society, where injustice prevailed welfare formulas provided a new panacea.
As the perspective of an unravelling of this golden era began to emerge elites sought and conspired
to consolidate power and wealth, under the aegis of greed is good culture by further corrupting
government to serve the few, ensuring impunity for the ruling class, attempting societal cohesiveness
with brash hubristic dialectics (America, the greatest this or that) and adventurism (Irak, mission
accomplished), conspiring to co-opt and control institutions and the media (to understand the
depth of this deception a must read is Jane Mayer in The Dark Side and in Dark Money).
The difference between America and Europe is that latter bears of brunt of our excess.
The 2008 Wall St / City meltdown eviscerated much of America' middle class and de-facto stalled,
perhaps definitively, the vehicle of upward mobility in an increasingly wealth-ranked class structured
society – the Trump phenomena feeds off the fatalistic resilience and "good book" mythologies
remnant of the "go west" culture.
In Europe where to varying degrees managed capitalism prevails the welfare state(s) provided the
shock absorbers to offset the brunt of the crisis, but those who locked-in on neoliberal fiscal
conservatism have cut off their nose in spite leaving scant resources to spur growth. If social
mobility survives, more vibrantly than the US, unemployment and the cost thereof remains steadfast
and crippling.
The second crisis borne of American hubris is the human tidal wave resulting from the Irak adventure;
it has unleashed mayhem upon the Middle East, Sub Saharan Africa and beyond. The current migrational
wave Europe can not absorb is but the beginning of much deeper problem – as ISIS, Boko Haram and
so many others terrorist groups destabilize the nation-states of a continent whose population
is on the path to explode in the next half century.
The icing on the cake provided by a Trump election will be a world wave of climate change refugees
as the neoliberal establishment seeks to optimize wealth and power through continued climate change
denial.
Fascism is not the issue, nationalism resulting from a self serving bully culture will decimate
the multilateral infrastructure responsible nation-states need to address today's problems.
Broadly, Trump Presidency capping the neoliberal experience will likely signal the end of the
US' dominant role on the world scene (and of course the immense benefits derived for the US).
As he has articulated his intent to discard the art of diplomacy, from soft to institutional,
in favor of an agressive approach in which the President seeks to "rattle" allies (NATO, Japan
and S. Korea for example) as well as his opponents (in other words anyone who does not profess
blind allegiance), expect that such modus operandi will create a deep schism accompanied by a
loss of trust, already felt vis-a-vis our legislature' behavior over the last seven years.
The US's newfound respect among friends and foes generated by President Obama' presidency, has
already been undermined by the GOP primaries, if Trump is elected it will dissipate for good as
other nations and groups thereof focus upon new, no-longer necessarily aligned strategic relationships,
some will form as part as a means of taking distance, or protection from the US, others more opportunist
with the risk of opponents such as Putin filling the void – in Europe for example.
Neoliberalism isn't helping, but it's a population/resource ratio thing. Impacts on social
orders occur well before raw supply factors kick in (and there is more than food supply to basic
rations). The world population has more than doubled in the last 50 years, one doesn't get that
kind of accelerated growth without profound impacts to every aspect of societies. Some of the
most significant impacts are consequent to the acceleration of technological changes (skill expirations,
automations) that are driven in no small part by the needs of a vast + growing population.
I don't suggest population as a pat simplistic answer. And neoliberalism accelerates the declining
performance of institutions (as in the CUNY article and that's been going on for decades already,
neoliberalism just picked up where neoconservatism petered out), but we would be facing issues
like homelessness, service degradation, population displacements, etc regardless of poor policies.
One could argue (I do) that neoliberalism has undertaken to accelerate existing entropies for
profit.
Thanks for soliciting reader comments on socioeconomic desperation. It's encouraging to know
that I'm not the only failure to launch in this country.
I'm a seasonal farm worker with a liberal arts degree in geology and history. I barely held
on for six months as a junior environmental consultant at a dysfunctional firm that tacitly encouraged
unethical and incompetent behavior at all levels. From what I could gather, it was one of the
better-run firms in the industry. Even so, I was watching mid-level and senior staff wander into
extended mid-life crises while our entire service line was terrorized by a badly out-of-shape,
morbidly obese, erratic, vicious PG who had alienated almost the entire office but was untouchable
no matter how many firing offenses she committed. Meanwhile I was watching peers in other industries
(especially marketing and FIRE) sell their souls in real time. I'm still watching them do so a
decade later.
It's hard to exaggerate how atrociously I've been treated by bougie conformists for having
failed/dropped out of the rat race. A family friend who got into trouble with the state of Hawaii
for misclassifying direct employees of his timeshare boiler room as 1099's gave me a panic attack
after getting stoned and berating me for hours about how I'd wake up someday and wonder what the
fuck I'd done with my life. At the time, I had successfully completed a summer job as the de facto
lead on a vineyard maintenance crew and was about to get called back for the harvest, again as
the de facto lead picker.
Much of my social life is basically my humiliation at the hands of amoral sleazeballs who presume
themselves my superiors. No matter how strong an objective case I have for these people being
morally bankrupt, it's impossible to really dismiss their insults. Another big component is concern-trolling
from bourgeois supremacists who will do awfully little for me when I ask them for specific help.
I don't know what they're trying to accomplish, and they probably don't, either. A lot of it is
cognitive dissonance and incoherence.
Some of the worst aggression has come from a Type A social climber friend who sells life insurance.
He's a top producer in a company that's about a third normal, a third Willy Loman, and a third
Glengarry Glen Ross. This dude is clearly troubled, but in ways that neither of us can really
figure out, and a number of those around him are, too. He once admitted, unbidden, to having hazed
me for years.
The bigger problem is that he's surrounded by an entire social infrastructure that enables
and rewards noxious, predatory behavior. When college men feel like treating the struggling like
garbage, they have backup and social proof from their peers. It's disgusting. Many of these people
have no idea of how to relate appropriately to the poor or the unemployed and no interest in learning.
They want to lecture and humiliate us, not listen to us.
Dude recently told me that our alma mater, Dickinson College, is a "grad school preparatory
institution." I was floored that anyone would ever think to talk like that. In point of fact,
we're constantly lectured about how versatile our degrees are, with or without additional education.
I've apparently annoyed a number of Dickinsonians by bitterly complaining that Dickinson's nonacademic
operations are a sleazy racket and that President Emeritus Bill Durden is a shyster who brainwashed
my classmates with crude propaganda. If anything, I'm probably measured in my criticism, because
I don't think I know the full extent of the fraud and sleaze. What I have seen and heard is damning.
I believe that Dickinson is run by people with totalitarian impulses that are restrained only
by a handful of nonconformists who came for the academics and are fed up with the propaganda.
Meanwhile, I've been warm homeless for most of the past four years. It's absurd to get pledge
drive pitches from a well-endowed school on the premise that my degree is golden when I'm regularly
sleeping in my car and financially dependent on my parents. It's absurd to hear stories about
how Dickinson's alumni job placement network is top-notch when I've never gotten a viable lead
from anyone I know from school. It's absurd to explain my circumstances in detail to people who,
afterwards, still can't understand why I'm cynical.
While my classmates preen about their degrees, I'm dealing with stuff that would make them
vomit. A relative whose farm I've been tending has dozens of rats infesting his winery building,
causing such a stench that I'm just about the only person willing to set foot inside it. This
relative is a deadbeat presiding over a feudal slumlord manor, circumstances that he usually justifies
by saying that he's broke and just trying to make ends meet. He has rent-paying tenants living
on the property with nothing but a pit outhouse and a filthy, disused shower room for facilities.
He doesn't care that it's illegal. One of his tenants left behind a twenty-gallon trash can full
to the brim with his own feces. Another was seen throwing newspaper-wrapped turds out of her trailer
into the weeds. They probably found more dignity in this than in using the outhouse.
When I was staying in Rancho Cordova, a rough suburb of Sacramento, I saw my next-door neighbor
nearly come to blows with a man at the light rail station before apologizing profusely to me,
calling me "sir," "man," "boss," and "dog." He told me that he was angry at the other guy for
selling meth to his kid sister. Eureka is even worse: its west side is swarming with tweakers,
its low-end apartment stock is terrible, no one brings the slumlords to heel, and it has a string
of truly filthy residential motels along Broadway that should have been demolished years ago.
A colleague who lives in Sweet Home, Oregon, told me that his hometown is swarming with druggies
who try to extract opiates from local poppies and live for the next arriving shipment of garbage
drugs. The berry farm where we worked had ten- and twelve-year-olds working under the table to
supplement their families' incomes. A Canadian friend told me that he worked for a crackhead in
Lillooet who made his own supply at home using freebase that he bought from a meathead dealer
with ties to the Boston mob. Apparently all the failing mill towns in rural BC have a crack problem
because there's not much to do other than go on welfare and cocaine. An RCMP sergeant in Kamloops
was recently indicted for selling coke on the side.
Uahsenaa's comment about the invisible homeless is spot on. I think I blend in pretty well.
I've often stunned people by mentioning that I'm homeless. Some of them have been assholes about
it, but not all. There are several cars that I recognize as regular overnighters at my usual rest
area. Thank God we don't get hassled much. Oregon is about as safe a place as there is to be homeless.
Some of the rest areas in California, including the ones at Kingsburg and the Sacramento Airport,
end up at or beyond capacity overnight due to the homeless. CalTrans has signs reminding drivers
that it's rude to hog a space that someone else will need. This austerity does not, of course,
apply to stadium construction for the Kings.
Another thing that almost slipped my mind (and is relevant to Trump's popularity): I've encountered
entrenched, systemic discrimination against Americans when I've tried to find and hold menial
jobs, and I've talked to other Americans who have also encountered it. There is an extreme bias
in favor of Mexican peasants and against Americans in the fields and increasingly in off-farm
jobs. The top quintile will be lucky not to reap the whirlwind on account of this prejudice.
"... The number one issue fueling the leave vote was immigration – a lot like Trump's wall against Mexico. The number two issue was lack of accountability of government: Leavers believe that the EU government in Brussels is unaccountable to voters. For Trump supporters, resentment towards a distant and unaccountable Washington government ranks high as well. The Brexit constituency and the Trump constituency are both motivated by the same sense of loss and vulnerability. ..."
"... In both the U.S. and the U.K., a large and growing segment of voters has not prospered in today's complex, technology-driven global economy. Their wages have stagnated and in many cases fallen. Too few good-paying jobs exist for people lacking a college degree, or even people with a college degree, if the degree is not in the right field. These people are angry, frustrated, and afraid -- and with very good reason. Both countries' governments have done little to help them adapt, and little to soothe the sting of globalization. The voter's concerns in both places are mostly the same even though these concerns have coalesced around a policy issue ("leave") in the U.K. whereas here in the U.S. they have coalesced around a candidate (Trump). ..."
"... Similarly, the elite insiders of the Republican Party and their business allies badly underestimated Trump. Establishment candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush failed terribly. Now the Republican political insiders are trying to make sense of a presumptive nominee who trashes free trade, one of the fundamental principles of the party, and openly taunts one of most important emerging voting blocks. ..."
"... Perhaps the biggest reason for the impotence of today's political elites is that elites have trashed the very idea of competent and effective government for 35 years now, and the public has taken the message to heart. Ever since Reagan identified government as the problem, conservative elites have attacked the idea of government itself – rather than respecting the idea of government itself while criticizing the particular policies of a particular government. This is a crucial (and dangerous) distinction. In 1986, Reagan went on to say "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" ..."
In addition, the issues are similar between the two campaigns: The number
one issue fueling the leave vote was immigration – a lot like Trump's wall against
Mexico. The number two issue was lack of accountability of government: Leavers
believe that the EU government in Brussels is unaccountable to voters. For Trump
supporters, resentment towards a distant and unaccountable Washington government
ranks high as well. The Brexit constituency and the Trump constituency are both
motivated by the same sense of loss and vulnerability.
In both the U.S. and the U.K., a large and growing segment of voters
has not prospered in today's complex, technology-driven global economy. Their
wages have stagnated and in many cases fallen. Too few good-paying jobs exist
for people lacking a college degree, or even people with a college degree, if
the degree is not in the right field. These people are angry, frustrated, and
afraid -- and with very good reason. Both countries' governments have done little
to help them adapt, and little to soothe the sting of globalization. The voter's
concerns in both places are mostly the same even though these concerns have
coalesced around a policy issue ("leave") in the U.K. whereas here in the U.S.
they have coalesced around a candidate (Trump).
In both countries, political elites were caught flat-footed. Elites lost
control over the narrative and lost credibility and persuasiveness with angry,
frustrated and fearful voters. The British elites badly underestimated the intensity
of public frustration with immigration and with the EU. Most expected the vote
would end on the side of "remain," up to the very last moment. Now they are
trying to plot their way out of something they never expected would actually
happen, and never prepared for.
Similarly, the elite insiders of the Republican Party and their business
allies badly underestimated Trump. Establishment candidates like former Florida
Gov. Jeb Bush failed terribly. Now the Republican political insiders are trying
to make sense of a presumptive nominee who trashes free trade, one of the fundamental
principles of the party, and openly taunts one of most important emerging voting
blocks.
How did the elites lose control? There are many reasons: With social media
so pervasive, advertising dollars no longer controls what the public sees and
hears. With unrestricted campaign spending, the party can no longer "pinch the
air hose" of a candidate who strays from party orthodoxy.
Perhaps the biggest reason for the impotence of today's political elites
is that elites have trashed the very idea of competent and effective government
for 35 years now, and the public has taken the message to heart. Ever since
Reagan identified government as the problem, conservative elites have attacked
the idea of government itself – rather than respecting the idea
of government itself while criticizing the particular policies of a particular
government. This is a crucial (and dangerous) distinction. In 1986, Reagan went
on to say "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from
the government and I'm here to help.'"
Reagan booster Grover Norquist is known for saying, "I don't want to abolish
government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into
the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Countless candidates and elected
officials slam "Washington bureaucrats" even though these "bureaucrats" were
none other than themselves. It's not a great way to build respect. Then the
attack escalated, with the aim of destroying parts of government that were actually
mostly working. This was done to advance the narrative that government itself
is the problem, and pave the way for privatization. Take the Transportation
Security Administration for example. TSA has actually done its job. No terrorist
attacks have succeeded on U.S. airplanes since it was established. But by
systematically underfunding it , Congress has made the lines painfully long,
so people hate it. Take the Post Office. Here Congress manufactured a crisis
to force service cuts, making the public believe the institution is incompetent.
But the so-called "problem" is
due almost entirely to a requirement, imposed by Congress, forcing the Postal
Service to prepay retiree's health care to an absurd level, far beyond what
a similar private sector business would have to do. A similar dynamic now threatens
Social Security. Thirty-five years have passed since Reagan first mocked the
potential for competent and effective government. Years of unrelenting attack
have sunk in. Many Americans now distrust government leaders and think it's
pointless to demand or expect wisdom and statesmanship. Today's American voters
(and their British counterparts), well-schooled in skepticism, disdain and dismiss
leaders of all parties and they are ready to burn things down out of sheer frustration.
The moment of blowback has arrived.
PK has nearly lost all of his ability to see things objectively. Ambition got him, I suppose,
or maybe he has always longed to be popular. He was probably teased and ridiculed too much in
his youth. He is something of a whinny sniveler after-all.
Then too, I doubt if PK has ever used a public restroom in the Southwest, or taken his kids
to a public park in one of the thousands of small towns where non-English speaking throngs take
over all of the facilities and parking.Or had his children bullied at school by a gang of dark-skinned
kids whose parents believe that whites took their land, or abused or enslaved their distant ansestors.
It might be germane here too... to point out that some of this anti-white sentiment gets support
and validation from the very rhetoric that Democrats have made integral to their campaigns.
As for not knowing why crime rates have been falling, the incarceration rates rose in step,
so duh, if you lock up those with propensities for crime, well, how could crime rates not fall?
And while I'm on the subject of crime, the statistical analysis that is commonly used focuses
too much on violent crime and convictions. Thus, crimes of a less serious nature, that being the
type of crimes committed by poor folks, is routinely ignored. Then too, those who are here illegally
are often transient and using assumed names, and so they are, presumably, more difficult to catch.
So, statistics are all too often not as telling as claimed.
And, though I'm not a Trump supporter, I fully understand his appeal. As would PK if he were
more travelled and in touch with those who have seen their schools, parks, towns, and everything
else turn tawdry and dysfunctional. But of course the nation that most of us live in is much different
than the one that PK knows.
> And, though I'm not a Trump supporter, I fully understand his appeal
I wonder why everybody is thinking about this problem only in terms of identity politics.
This is a wrong, self-defeating framework to approach the problem. which is pushed by neoliberal
MSM and which we should resist in this forum as this translates the problems that the nation faces
into term of pure war-style propaganda ("us vs. them" mentality). To which many posters here already
succumbed
IMHO the November elections will be more of the referendum on neoliberal globalization (with
two key issues on the ballot -- jobs and immigration) than anything else.
If so, then the key question is whether the anger of population at neoliberal elite that stole
their jobs and well-being reached the boiling point or not. The level of this anger might decide
the result of elections, not all those petty slurs that neoliberal MSM so diligently use as a
smoke screen.
All those valiant efforts in outsourcing and replacing permanent jobs with temporary to increase
profit margin at the end have the propensity to produce some externalities. And not only in the
form "over 50 and unemployed" but also by a much more dangerous "globalization of indifference"
to human beings in general.
JK Galbraith once gave the following definition of neoliberal economics: "trickle down economics
is the idea that if you feed the horse enough oats eventually some will pass through to the road
for the sparrows." This is what neoliberalism is about. Lower 80% even in so-called rich countries
are forced to live in "fear and desperation", forced to work "with precious little dignity".
Human beings are now considered consumer goods in "job market" to be used and then discarded.
As a consequence, a lot of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: "without work, without
possibilities, without any means of escape" (pope Francis).
And that inevitably produces a reaction. Which in extreme forms we saw during French and Bolsheviks
revolutions. And in less extremist forms (not involving lampposts as the placeholders for the
"Masters of the Universe" (aka financial oligarchy) and the most obnoxious part of the "creative
class" aka intelligentsia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligentsia
) in Brexit vote.
Hillary and Trump are just symbols here. The issue matters, not personalities.
An interesting warning about possible return of neocons in Hillary administration. Looks like not
much changed in Washington from 2005 and Obama more and more looks like Bush III. Both Hillary and Trump
are jingoistic toward Iran. Paradoxically Trump is even more jingoistic then Hillary.
Notable quotes:
"... That no one yet claims actually exists, has begun. Once again we seem to be heading down a highway marked "counterproliferation war." What makes this bizarre is that the Middle East today, for all its catastrophic problems, is actually a nuclear-free zone except for one country, Israel, which has a staggeringly outsized, semi-secret nuclear arsenal. ..."
"... And not much has changed since. I recommend as well a piece written even earlier by Ira Chernus on a graphic about the Israeli nuclear arsenal tucked away at the MSNBC website (and still viewable ). ..."
"... Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and one of the founders of the group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, considers the Iranian and Israeli bombs, and Bush administration policy in relation to both below in a piece that, he writes, emerged from "an informal colloquium which has sprung up in the Washington, DC area involving people with experience at senior policy levels of government, others who examine foreign policy and defense issues primarily out of a faith perspective, and still others with a foot in each camp. We are trying to deal directly with the moral -- as well as the practical -- implications of various policy alternatives. One of our group recently was invited to talk with senior staffers in the House of Representatives about Iran, its nuclear plans, its support for terrorists, and U.S. military options. Toward the end of that conversation, a House staffer was emboldened to ask, 'What would be a moral solution?' This question gave new energy to our colloquium, generating a number of informal papers, including this one. I am grateful to my colloquium colleagues for their insights and suggestions." ..."
"... What about post-attack "Day Two?" Not to worry. Well-briefed pundits are telling us about a wellspring of Western-oriented I find myself thinking: Right; just like all those Iraqis who welcomed invading American and British troops with open arms and cut flowers. ..."
"... In 2001, the new President Bush brought the neocons back and put them in top policymaking positions. Even former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, convicted in October 1991 of lying to Congress and then pardoned by George H. W. Bush, was called back and put in charge of Middle East policy in the White House. In January, he was promoted to the influential post (once occupied by Robert Gates) of deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs. From that senior position Abrams will once again be dealing closely with John Negroponte, an old colleague from rogue-elephant Contra War days, who has now been picked to be the first director of national intelligence. ..."
"... Those of us who -- like Colin Powell -- had front-row seats during the 1980s are far too concerned to dismiss the re-emergence of the neocons as a simple case of déjà vu . They are much more dangerous now. Unlike in the eighties, they are the ones crafting the adventurous policies our sons and daughters are being called on to implement. ..."
"... So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a Sunday talk show a few months ago. Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to give the normal answer. Instead, he replied, "Well, you know, Israel has..." At that point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped. ..."
That no one yet claims actually exists, has begun. Once again we seem to be heading down a highway
marked "counterproliferation war." What makes this bizarre is that the Middle East today, for all
its catastrophic problems, is actually a nuclear-free zone except for one country, Israel, which
has a staggeringly outsized, semi-secret nuclear arsenal.
As Los Angeles Times reporter Douglas Frantz wrote at one point, "Though Israel is a democracy,
debating the nuclear program is taboo A military censor guards Israel's nuclear secrets." And this
"taboo" has largely extended to American reporting on the subject. Imagine, to offer a very partial
analogy, if we all had had to consider the Cold War nuclear issue with the Soviet, but almost never
the American nuclear arsenal, in the news. Of course, that would have been absurd and yet it's the
case in the Middle East today, making most strategic discussions of the region exercises in absurdity.
I wrote about this subject under the title,
Nuclear Israel
, back in October 2003, because of a brief break, thanks to Frantz, in the media blackout on the
subject. I began then, "Nuclear North Korea, nuclear Iraq, nuclear Iran - of these our media has
been full for the last year or more, though they either don't exist or hardly yet exist. North Korea
now probably has a couple of crude nuclear weapons, which it may still be incapable of delivering.
But nuclear Israel, little endangered Israel? It's hard even to get your head around the concept,
though that country has either the fifth or sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world." And
not much has changed since. I recommend as well a piece written even earlier
by Ira Chernus on a
graphic about the Israeli nuclear arsenal tucked away at the MSNBC website (and
still viewable
).
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and one of the founders of the group, Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity, considers the Iranian and Israeli bombs, and Bush administration policy
in relation to both below in a piece that, he writes, emerged from "an informal colloquium which
has sprung up in the Washington, DC area involving people with experience at senior policy levels
of government, others who examine foreign policy and defense issues primarily out of a faith perspective,
and still others with a foot in each camp. We are trying to deal directly with the moral -- as well
as the practical -- implications of various policy alternatives. One of our group recently was invited
to talk with senior staffers in the House of Representatives about Iran, its nuclear plans, its support
for terrorists, and U.S. military options. Toward the end of that conversation, a House staffer was
emboldened to ask, 'What would be a moral solution?' This question gave new energy to our colloquium,
generating a number of informal papers, including this one. I am grateful to my colloquium colleagues
for their insights and suggestions." Now, read on. ~ Tom
Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...
By Ray McGovern
"'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.'
"(Short pause)
"'And having said that, all options are on the table.'
"Even the White House stenographers felt obliged to note the result: '(Laughter).'"
For a host of good reasons -- the huge and draining commitment of U.S. forces to Iraq and Iran's
ability to stir the Iraqi pot to boiling, for starters -- the notion that the Bush administration
would mount a "preemptive" air attack on Iran seems insane. And still more insane if the objective
includes overthrowing Iran's government again, as in 1953 -- this time under the rubric of "regime
change."
But Bush administration policy toward the Middle East is being run by men -- yes, only men
-- who were routinely referred to in high circles in Washington during the 1980s as "the crazies."
I can attest to that personally, but one need not take my word for it.
According to James Naughtie, author of The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency
, former Secretary of State Colin Powell added an old soldier's adjective to the "crazies"
sobriquet in referring to the same officials. Powell, who was military aide to Defense Secretary
Casper Weinberger in the early eighties, was overheard calling them "the f---ing crazies" during
a phone call with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw before the war in Iraq. At the time, Powell
was reportedly deeply concerned over their determination to attack -- with or without UN approval.
Small wonder that they got rid of Powell after the election, as soon as they had no more use for
him.
If further proof of insanity were needed, one could simply look at the unnecessary carnage
in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003. That unprovoked attack was, in my view, the most fateful
foreign policy blunder in our nation's history...so far.
It Can Get Worse
"The crazies" are not finished. And we do well not to let their ultimate folly obscure
their current ambition, and the further trouble that ambition is bound to bring in the four years
ahead. In an immediate sense, with U.S. military power unrivaled, they can be seen as "crazy like
a fox," with a value system in which "might makes right." Operating out of that value system,
and now sporting the more respectable misnomer/moniker "neoconservative," they are convinced that
they know exactly what they are doing. They have a clear ideology and a geopolitical strategy,
which leap from papers they put out at the
Project for the New American Century
over recent years.
The very same men who, acting out of that paradigm, brought us the war in Iraq are now focusing
on Iran, which they view as the only remaining obstacle to American domination of the entire oil-rich
Middle East. They calculate that, with a docile, corporate-owned press, a co-opted mainstream
church, and a still-trusting populace, the United States and/or the Israelis can launch a successful
air offensive to disrupt any Iranian nuclear weapons programs -- with the added bonus of possibly
causing the regime in power in Iran to crumble.
But why now? After all, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency has just told Congress
that Iran is not likely to have a nuclear weapon until "early in the next decade?" The answer,
according to some defense experts, is that several of the Iranian facilities are still under construction
and there is only a narrow "window of opportunity" to destroy them without causing huge environmental
problems. That window, they say, will begin to close this year.
Other analysts attribute the sense of urgency to worry in Washington that the Iranians may
have secretly gained access to technology that would facilitate a leap forward into the nuclear
club much sooner than now anticipated. And it is, of course, neoconservative doctrine that it
is best to nip -- the word in current fashion is "preempt" -- any conceivable threats in the bud.
One reason the Israelis are pressing hard for early action may simply be out of a desire to ensure
that George W. Bush will have a few more years as president after an attack on Iran, so that they
will have him to stand with Israel when bedlam breaks out in the Middle East.
What about post-attack "Day Two?" Not to worry. Well-briefed pundits are telling us about
a wellspring of Western-oriented I find myself thinking: Right; just like all those Iraqis who
welcomed invading American and British troops with open arms and cut flowers. For me, this
evokes a painful flashback to the early eighties when "intelligence," pointing to "moderates"
within the Iranian leadership, was conjured up to help justify the imaginative but illegal arms-for-hostages-and-proceeds-to-Nicaraguan-Contras
caper. The fact that the conjurer-in-chief of that spurious "evidence" on Iranian "moderates,"
former chief CIA analyst, later director Robert Gates, was recently offered the newly created
position of director of national intelligence makes the flashback more eerie -- and alarming.
George H. W. Bush Saw Through "The Crazies"
During his term in office, George H. W. Bush, with the practical advice of his national security
adviser Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, was able to keep "the crazies"
at arms length, preventing them from getting the country into serious trouble. They were kept
well below the level of "principal" -- that is, below the level of secretary of state or defense.
Even so, heady in the afterglow of victory in the Gulf War of 1990, "the crazies" stirred up
considerable controversy when they articulated their radical views. Their vision, for instance,
became the centerpiece of the draft "Defense Planning Guidance" that Paul Wolfowitz, de facto
dean of the neoconservatives, prepared in 1992 for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. It dismissed
deterrence as an outdated relic of the Cold War and argued that the United States must maintain
military strength beyond conceivable challenge -- and use it in preemptive ways in dealing with
those who might acquire "weapons of mass destruction." Sound familiar?
Aghast at this radical imperial strategy for the post-Cold War world, someone with access to
the draft leaked it to the New York Times , forcing President George H. W. Bush either
to endorse or disavow it. Disavow it he did -- and quickly, on the cooler-head recommendations
of Scowcroft and Baker, who proved themselves a bulwark against the hubris and megalomania of
"the crazies." Unfortunately, their vision did not die. No less unfortunately, there is method
to their madness -- even if it threatens to spell eventual disaster for our country. Empires always
overreach and fall.
The Return of the Neocons
In 2001, the new President Bush brought the neocons back and put them in top policymaking
positions. Even former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, convicted in October 1991 of
lying to Congress and then pardoned by George H. W. Bush, was called back and put in charge of
Middle East policy in the White House. In January, he was promoted to the influential post (once
occupied by Robert Gates) of deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs.
From that senior position Abrams will once again be dealing closely with John Negroponte, an old
colleague from rogue-elephant Contra War days, who has now been picked to be the first director
of national intelligence.
Those of us who -- like Colin Powell -- had front-row seats during the 1980s are far too
concerned to dismiss the re-emergence of the neocons as a simple case of déjà vu . They
are much more dangerous now. Unlike in the eighties, they are the ones crafting the adventurous
policies our sons and daughters are being called on to implement.
Why dwell on this? Because it is second in importance only to the portentous reality that the
earth is running out of readily accessible oil – something of which they are all too aware. Not
surprisingly then, disguised beneath the weapons-of-mass-destruction smokescreen they laid down
as they prepared to invade Iraq lay an unspoken but bedrock reason for the war -- oil. In any
case, the neocons seem to believe that, in the wake of the November election, they now have a
carte-blanche "mandate." And with the president's new "capital to spend," they appear determined
to spend it, sooner rather than later.
Next Stop, Iran
When a Special Forces platoon leader just back from Iraq matter-of-factly tells a close friend
of mine, as happened last week, that he and his unit are now training their sights (literally)
on Iran, we need to take that seriously. It provides us with a glimpse of reality as seen at ground
level. For me, it brought to mind an unsolicited email I received from the father of a young soldier
training at Fort Benning in the spring of 2002, soon after I wrote an op-ed discussing the timing
of George W. Bush's decision to make war on Iraq. The father informed me that, during the spring
of 2002, his son kept writing home saying his unit was training to go into Iraq. No, said the
father; you mean Afghanistan... that's where the war is, not Iraq. In his next email, the son
said, "No, Dad, they keep saying Iraq. I asked them and that's what they mean."
Now, apparently, they keep saying Iran ; and that appears to be what they mean.
Anecdotal evidence like this is hardly conclusive. Put it together with administration rhetoric
and a preponderance of other "dots," though, and everything points in the direction of an air
attack on Iran, possibly also involving some ground forces. Indeed, from the
New Yorker reports
of Seymour Hersh to
Washington Post articles , accounts of small-scale American intrusions on the ground as well
as into Iranian airspace are appearing with increasing frequency. In a speech given on February
18, former UN arms inspector and Marine officer Scott Ritter (who was totally on target before
the Iraq War on that country's lack of weapons of mass destruction) claimed that the president
has already "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June in order to destroy its alleged nuclear
weapons program and eventually bring about "regime change." This does not necessarily mean an
automatic green light for a large attack in June, but it may signal the president's seriousness
about this option.
So, again, against the background of what we have witnessed over the past four years, and the
troubling fact that the circle of second-term presidential advisers has become even tighter, we
do well to inject a strong note of urgency into any discussion of the "Iranian option."
Why Would Iran Want Nukes?
So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a Sunday talk show a few months ago.
Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to give the normal answer. Instead, he replied, "Well,
you know, Israel has..." At that point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped.
Recovering quickly and realizing that he could not just leave the word "Israel" hanging there,
Lugar began again: "Well, Israel is alleged to have a nuclear capability."
Is alleged to
have ? Lugar is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and yet he doesn't know that
Israel has, by most estimates, a major nuclear arsenal, consisting of several hundred nuclear
weapons? (Mainstream newspapers are allergic to dwelling on this topic, but it is mentioned every
now and then, usually buried in obscurity on an inside page.)
Just imagine how the Iranians and Syrians would react to Lugar's disingenuousness. Small wonder
our highest officials and lawmakers -- and Lugar, remember, is one of the most decent among them
-- are widely seen abroad as hypocritical. Our media, of course, ignore the hypocrisy. This is
standard operating procedure when the word "Israel" is spoken in this or other unflattering contexts.
And the objections of those appealing for a more balanced approach are quashed.
If the truth be told, Iran fears Israel at least as much as Israel fears the internal security
threat posed by the thugs supported by Tehran. Iran's apprehension is partly fear that Israel
(with at least tacit support from the Bush administration) will send its aircraft to bomb Iranian
nuclear facilities, just as American-built Israeli bombers destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor
at Osirak in 1981. As part of the current war of nerves, recent statements by the president and
vice president can be
read as giving a green light to Israel to do just that; while Israeli Air Force commander Major
General Eliezer Shakedi told reporters on February 21 that Israel must be prepared for an air
strike on Iran "in light of its nuclear activity."
US-Israel Nexus
The Iranians also remember how Israel was able to acquire and keep its nuclear technology.
Much of it was stolen from the United States by spies for Israel. As early as the late-1950s,
Washington knew Israel was building the bomb and could have aborted the project. Instead, American
officials decided to turn a blind eye and let the Israelis go ahead. Now Israel's nuclear capability
is truly formidable. Still, it is a fact of strategic life that a formidable nuclear arsenal can
be deterred by a far more modest one, if an adversary has the means to deliver it. (Look at North
Korea's success with, at best, a few nuclear weapons and questionable means of delivery in deterring
the "sole remaining superpower in the world.") And Iran already has missiles with the range to
hit Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has for some time appeared eager to enlist Washington's support
for an early "pre-emptive" strike on Iran. Indeed,
American
defense officials have told reporters that visiting Israeli officials have been pressing the
issue for the past year and a half. And the Israelis are now claiming publicly that Iran could
have a nuclear weapon within six months -- years earlier than the Defense Intelligence Agency
estimate mentioned above.
In the past, President Bush has chosen to dismiss unwelcome intelligence estimates as "guesses"
-- especially when they threatened to complicate decisions to implement the neoconservative agenda.
It is worth noting that several of the leading neocons – Richard Perle, chair of the Defense Policy
Board (2001-03); Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and David Wurmser, Middle
East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney -- actually wrote policy papers for the Israeli government
during the 1990s. They have consistently had great difficulty distinguishing between the strategic
interests of Israel and those of the US -- at least as they imagine them.
As for President Bush, over the past four years he has amply demonstrated his preference for
the counsel of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who,
as Gen. Scowcroft said publicly , has the president "wrapped around his little finger." (As
Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board until he was unceremoniously removed
at the turn of the year, Scowcroft was in a position to know.) If Scowcroft is correct in also
saying that the president has been "mesmerized" by Sharon, it seems possible that the Israelis
already have successfully argued for an attack on Iran.
When "Regime Change" Meant Overthrow For Oil
To remember why the United States is no favorite in Tehran, one needs to go back at least to
1953 when the U.S. and Great Britain overthrew Iran's democratically elected Premier Mohammad
Mossadeq as part of a plan to insure access to Iranian oil. They then emplaced the young Shah
in power who, with his notorious secret police, proved second to none in cruelty. The Shah ruled
from 1953 to 1979. Much resentment can build up over a whole generation. His regime fell like
a house of cards, when supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini rose up to do some regime change of their
own.
Iranians also remember Washington's strong support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq after it decided
to make war on Iran in 1980. U.S. support for Iraq (which included crucial intelligence support
for the war and an implicit condoning of Saddam's use of chemical weapons) was perhaps the crucial
factor in staving off an Iranian victory. Imagine then, the threat Iranians see, should the Bush
administration succeed in establishing up to 14 permanent military bases in neighboring Iraq.
Any Iranian can look at a map of the Middle East (including occupied Iraq) and conclude that this
administration might indeed be willing to pay the necessary price in blood and treasure to influence
what happens to the black gold under Iranian as well as Iraqi sands. And with four more years
to play with, a lot can be done along those lines. The obvious question is: How to deter it? Well,
once again, Iran can hardly be blind to the fact that a small nation like North Korea has so far
deterred U.S. action by producing, or at least claiming to have produced, nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Is the Nub
The nuclear issue is indeed paramount, and we would do well to imagine and craft fresh approaches
to the nub of the problem. As a start, I'll bet if you made a survey, only 20% of Americans would
answer "yes" to the question, "Does Israel have nuclear weapons?" That is key, it seems to me,
because at their core Americans are still fair-minded people.
On the other hand, I'll bet that 95% of the Iranian population would answer, "Of course Israel
has nuclear weapons; that's why we Iranians need them" -- which was, of course, the unmentionable
calculation that Senator Lugar almost conceded. "And we also need them," many Iranians would probably
say, "in order to deter 'the crazies' in Washington. It seems to be working for the North Koreans,
who, after all, are the other remaining point on President Bush's 'axis of evil.'"
The ideal approach would, of course, be to destroy all nuclear weapons in the world
and ban them for the future, with a very intrusive global inspection regime to verify compliance.
A total ban is worth holding up as an ideal, and I think we must. But this approach seems unlikely
to bear fruit over the next four years. So what then?
A Nuclear-Free Middle East
How about a nuclear-free Middle East? Could the US make that happen? We could if we had moral
clarity -- the underpinning necessary to bring it about. Each time this proposal is raised, the
Syrians, for example, clap their hands in feigned joyful anticipation, saying, "Of course such
a pact would include Israel, right?" The issue is then dropped from all discussion by U.S. policymakers.
Required: not only moral clarity but also what Thomas Aquinas labeled the precondition for all
virtue, courage. In this context, courage would include a refusal to be intimidated by inevitable
charges of anti-Semitism.
The reality is that, except for Israel, the Middle East is nuclear free. But the discussion
cannot stop there. It is not difficult to understand why the first leaders of Israel, with the
Holocaust experience written indelibly on their hearts and minds, and feeling surrounded by perceived
threats to the fledgling state's existence, wanted the bomb. And so, before the Syrians or Iranians,
for example, get carried away with self-serving applause for the nuclear-free Middle East proposal,
they will have to understand that for any such negotiation to succeed it must have as a concomitant
aim the guarantee of an Israel able to live in peace and protect itself behind secure borders.
That guarantee has got to be part of the deal.
That the obstacles to any such agreement are formidable is no excuse not trying. But the approach
would have to be new and everything would have to be on the table. Persisting in a state of denial
about Israel's nuclear weapons is dangerously shortsighted; it does nothing but aggravate fears
among the Arabs and create further incentive for them to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.
A sensible approach would also have to include a willingness to engage the Iranians directly,
attempt to understand their perspective, and discern what the United States and Israel could do
to alleviate their concerns.
Preaching to Iran and others about not acquiring nuclear weapons is, indeed, like the village
drunk preaching sobriety -- the more so as our government keeps developing new genres of nuclear
weapons and keeps looking the other way as Israel enhances its own nuclear arsenal. Not a pretty
moral picture, that. Indeed, it reminds me of the Scripture passage about taking the plank out
of your own eye before insisting that the speck be removed from another's.
Lessons from the Past...Like Mutual Deterrence
Has everyone forgotten that deterrence worked for some 40 years, while for most of those years
the U.S. and the USSR had not by any means lost their lust for ever-enhanced nuclear weapons?
The point is simply that, while engaging the Iranians bilaterally and searching for more imaginative
nuclear-free proposals, the U.S. might adopt a more patient interim attitude regarding the striving
of other nation states to acquire nuclear weapons -- bearing in mind that the Bush administration's
policies of "preemption" and "regime change" themselves create powerful incentives for exactly
such striving. As was the case with Iraq two years ago, there is no imminent Iranian strategic
threat to Americans -- or, in reality, to anyone. Even if Iran acquired a nuclear capability,
there is no reason to believe that it would risk a suicidal first strike on Israel. That, after
all, is what mutual deterrence is all about; it works both ways.
It is nonetheless clear that the Israelis' sense of insecurity -- however exaggerated it may
seem to those of us thousands of miles away -- is not synthetic but real. The Sharon government
appears to regard its nuclear monopoly in the region as the only effective "deterrence insurance"
it can buy. It is determined to prevent its neighbors from acquiring the kind of capability that
could infringe on the freedom it now enjoys to carry out military and other actions in the area.
Government officials have said that Israel will not let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon; it would
be folly to dismiss this as bravado. The Israelis have laid down a marker and mean to follow through
-- unless the Bush administration assumes the attitude that "preemption" is an acceptable course
for the United States but not for Israel. It seems unlikely that the neoconservatives would take
that line. Rather
"Israel Is Our Ally."
Or so
said
our president before the cameras on February 17, 2005. But I didn't think we had a treaty
of alliance with Israel; I don't remember the Senate approving one. Did I miss something?
Clearly, the longstanding U.S.-Israeli friendship and the ideals we share dictate continuing
support for Israel's defense and security. It is quite another thing, though, to suggest the existence
of formal treaty obligations that our country does not have. To all intents and purposes, our
policymakers -- from the president on down -- seem to speak and behave on the assumption that
we do have such obligations toward Israel. A former colleague CIA analyst, Michael Scheuer, author
of Imperial Hubris , has put it this way: "The Israelis have succeeded in lacing tight
the ropes binding the American Gulliver to Israel and its policies."
An earlier American warned:
"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for
the favorite nation facilitates the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where
no real common interest exists, infuses into one the enmities of the other, and betrays the
former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement
or justification.... It also gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, who devote
themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own
country." ( George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796 )
In my view, our first president's words apply only too aptly to this administration's lash-up
with the Sharon government. As responsible citizens we need to overcome our timidity about addressing
this issue, lest our fellow Americans continue to be denied important information neglected or
distorted in our domesticated media.
Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years -- from the administration of John
F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. During the early 1980s, he was one of the writers/editors
of the President's Daily Brief and briefed it one-on-one to the president's most senior advisers.
He also chaired National Intelligence Estimates. In January 2003, he and four former colleagues
founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
"... One thing not mentioned yet, is Trump getting slammed by his populist base for his Secretary of State picks, which seem to come down to Romney and Giuliani. Romney is the worst of Wall Street, a complete tool of the neoliberal program, and Giuliani has a Hillary Clinton-like record on bloated speaking fees and pay-to-play deals with his law firm, Giuliani Partners. ..."
"... That's the biggest test case to see whether Trump, like Obama before him, is going to forget about his populist base and take the carrot Wall Street is offering him. ..."
"... If Trump really wanted to shake things up, he could pick Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary of State, that would be a clever move, far better than Giuliani or Romney. ..."
One thing not mentioned yet, is Trump getting slammed by his populist base for his Secretary
of State picks, which seem to come down to Romney and Giuliani. Romney is the worst of Wall Street,
a complete tool of the neoliberal program, and Giuliani has a Hillary Clinton-like record on bloated
speaking fees and pay-to-play deals with his law firm, Giuliani Partners. Either one of those
clowns as Secretary of State would be a complete betrayal of everything Trump said he stood for
on foreign policy. Romney however is drawing howls of protest from Rust Belt Trump supporters,
because he's so pro-NAFTA, pro-TPP:
https://www.thenation.com/article/more-nafta-anyone-romney-positions-free-trade-champion/
That's the biggest test case to see whether Trump, like Obama before him, is going to forget
about his populist base and take the carrot Wall Street is offering him. Another big one
is whether John Bolton, neocon war pig just like Clinton pals Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan,
ends up with a big foreign policy role. Forget about cooperation with Russia on ISIS in that case.
So, those are some serious issues that Trump might want to distract his base from, but they're
the major issues that will determine what kind of foreign policy, economic and military, Trump
will really pursue.
As far as Jill Stein, what the hell is she doing? The biggest Green Party issue right now should
be helping block the Dakota Accesss Pipeline debacle, a consortium of short-sighted interests
aiming at exporting Bakken crude overseas, including Warren Buffett, billionaire Democratic supporter,
whose in $6 billion to DAPL via Phillips 66, and Kelcy Warren, billionaire Republican supported,
CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, another DAPL partner.
Instead she's playing some dumb political game, totally ignoring the one issue any real
"Green Party" would be focusing on right now.
P.S. If Trump really wanted to shake things up, he could pick Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary
of State, that would be a clever move, far better than Giuliani or Romney.
I have written a number of posts, some using data and some not, on immigrstion. Some of those
posts attracted vitriol in comments, including from some who keep accusing me of hiding my punchline.
Personally I find myself repeating myself, or trying to restate a point yet a different way so it
will sink in. I figured it is probably time to put everything in one place, so here it is:
1. Some cultures prepare their people to function well in the US, some don't.
2. Ability to function well in the US is not the same thing as intelligence. As an example,
consider me. I lived almost a third of my life in South America. I have never been to Central Asia.
All else being equal, I can hit the ground running more easily in Argentina than in Iran. In Argentina
I know how to behave in a seamless way that won't raise eyebrows. In Iran, I would need to put effort
into day to day activities. Additionally, my communication skills wouldn't work as well. It isn't
just a matter of not speaking Farsi, but also being unable to unconsciously read and display the
myriad of social signals Iranian society uses. Therefore, my productivity will be greater in Argentina
than Iran (again, all things being equal). And yet my traits – the degree to which I am or am not
intelligent, creative, diligent, sane, honest, etc. – will be the same whether I am in Buenos Aires
or in Teheran. Most of my work related skills (less those involving communication) will also be the
same in both places. The difference between my productivity in Argentina v Iran will be due entirely
to differences in cultural compatibility.
3. Cultural compatibility runs the other way too. Arriving in the US doesn't automatically
confer respect for Western values. In many countries, anti-Christian or anti-Semitic attitudes are
common. In the West people argue about gay marriage. In some countries, the debate is whether gay
people should be stoned or thrown off tall buildings. Similarly, the treatment of women and children
in some countries would be criminal in the US. Think honor killings, child's marriages, FGM or bacha
bazi. (And yes, we are seeing those things happening here now.). Writing again from the role of someone
who was a guest in other peoples' countries for a third of his life, it should be the responsibility
of the newcomer to adapt to his/her new home, and not of the residents of his/her new home to adapt
to the newcomer.
4. In Western countries, immigrants who don't manage to bridge cultural gaps are more likely
to end up dependent on the taxpayer. Immigrants are disproportionate users of welfare. In general,
it seems (at a minimum) to be bad form to request entry into another society only to become a burden
on its people. It is one thing for refugees with no other option to do it, but most immigrants to
the US are not refugees.
5. Being overwhelmingly reliant on government largesse in a foreign society built by strangers
has got to be dispiriting to most thinking adults. It can only add to a person's feeling of alienation.
That in turn can lead to various dysfunctions – vices, crime, anti-social behavior and even terrorism.
It is no surprise that some of these issues exist disproportionately in some immigrant communities.
6. Countries whose emigrants do well in the US also tend to be countries with Western values
and strong economies. More precisely, countries whose immigrants do well in the West have economies
which thrive from the skills of its people, and not countries whose economies is based mostly on
raw material extraction directed by foreigners or on financial transfers from wealthier nations.
7. Countries whose emigrants function well in the US also function well in other Western countries.
Conversely, countries whose emigrants don't function well in the US also don't function well in other
Western countries.
8. Within any society, there are some who are more able to function in the US and some who
are less able to function in the US. To be blunt, some people have attitudes that allow them
to function well in the West. Typically they are dissidents in non Western countries. Place of origin
shouldn't be enough to, by itself, weed out one potential immigrant or guarantee entry to another
to another.
9. The fact that there is homegrown dysfunction isn't a good argument for importing more dysfunction.
The fact that there is need and poverty in this country that doesn't receive sufficient aid is an
argument against importing more need and poverty from abroad.
10. There are far more people who would like to immigrate to the US than we allow into the
US. Given that, it makes sense to be selective, both for our sake and the sake of those who are
unlikely to function well and would become alienated and unable to fend for themselves in the US.
I note that none of these points are new. I have stated them all before, but not all in one place.
The reasons for the election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S. will be analyzed and argued
about for many years to come. Undoubtedly there are U.S.-specific factors that are relevant, such
as racial divisions in voting patterns. But the election took place after the British vote to withdraw
from the European Union and the rise to power of conservative politicians in continental Europe,
so it is reasonable to ask whether globalization bears any responsibility.
Have foreign workers taken the jobs of U.S. workers? Increased trade does lead to a reallocation
of resources, as a country increases its output in those sectors where it has an advantage while
cutting back production in other sectors. Resources should flow from the latter to the former, but
in reality it can be difficult to switch employment across sectors.
Daron Acemoglu and David Autor of MIT,
David Dorn of the University of Zurich, Gordon Hanson of UC-San Diego and Brendan Price of MIT
have found that import competition from China after 2000 contributed to reductions in U.S. manufacturing
employment and weak U.S. job growth. They estimated manufacturing job losses due to Chinese competition
of 2.0 – 2.4 million.
Other studies
find similar results for workers who do not have high school degrees.
Moreover, multinational firms do shift production across borders in response to lower wages, among
other factors.
Ann E. Harrison of UC-Berkeley and Margaret S. McMillan of Tufts University looked at the hiring
practices of the foreign affiliates of U.S. firms during the period of 1977 to 1999. They found that
lower wages in affiliate countries where the employees were substitutes for U.S. workers led to more
employment in those countries but reductions in employment in the U.S. However, when employment across
geographical locations is complementary for firms that do significantly different work at home and
abroad, domestic and foreign employment rise and fall together.
Imports and foreign production, therefore, have had an impact on manufacturing employment in the
U.S. But several caveats should be raised. First, as
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT and others have pointed out, technology has had a
much larger effect on jobs. The U.S. is the second largest global producer of manufactured goods,
but these products are being made in plants that employ fewer workers than they did in the past.
Many of the lost jobs simply do not exist any more. Second, the U.S. exports goods and services as
well as purchases them. Among the manufactured goods that account for significant shares of U.S.
exports are
machines
and engines, electronic equipment and aircraft . Third, there is inward FDI as well as outward,
and the foreign-based firms hire U.S. workers. A 2013
Congressional Research Service
study by James V. Jackson reported that by year-end 2011 foreign firms employed 6.1 million Americans,
and 37% of this employment-2.3 million jobs-was in the manufacturing sector.
More recent data
shows that employment by the U.S. affiliates of multinational companies rose to 6.4 million in
2014. Mr. Trump will find himself in a difficult position if he threatens to shut down trade and
investment with countries that both import from the U.S. and invest here.
The other form of globalization that drew Trump's derision was immigration. Most of his ire focused
on those who had entered the U.S. illegally. However, in a speech in Arizona he said that he would
set up a commission that would
roll back the number of legal migrants to "historic norms."
The
current number of immigrants (42 million) represents around 13% of the U.S. population, and 16%
of the labor force. An increase in the number of foreign-born workers depresses the wages of some
native-born workers, principally high-school dropouts, as well as other migrants who arrived earlier.
But there are other, more significant reasons for the
stagnation in
working-class wages . In addition, a reduction in the number of migrant laborers would raise
the ratio of young and retired people to workers-the dependency ratio-and endanger the financing
of Social Security and Medicare. And by increasing the size of the U.S. economy,
these workers induce expansions in investment expenditures and hiring in areas that are complementary.
The one form of globalization that Trump has not criticized, with the exception of outward FDI,
is financial. This is a curious omission, as the crisis of 2008-09 arose from the financial implosion
that followed the collapse of the housing bubble in the U.S. International financial flows exacerbated
the magnitude of the crisis. But
Trump has pledged
to dismantle the Dodd-Frank legislation, which was enacted to implement financial regulatory
reform and lower the probability of another crisis. While
Trump has criticized China for undervaluing its currency in order to increase its exports to
the U.S., most economists believe that the
Chinese currency is no longer undervalued vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar.
Did globalization produce Trump, or lead to the circumstances that resulted in
46.7% of the electorate voting
for him? A score sheet of the impact of globalization within the U.S. would record pluses and minuses.
Among those who have benefitted are consumers who purchase items made abroad at cheaper prices, workers
who produce export goods, and firms that hire migrants. Those who have been adversely affected include
workers who no longer have manufacturing jobs and domestic workers who compete with migrants for
low-paying jobs. Overall, most studies find evidence of
positive net benefits from trade . Similarly,
studies of the cost and benefits of immigration indicate that overall foreign workers make a
positive contribution to the U.S. economy.
Other trends have exerted equal or greater consequences for our economic welfare. First, as pointed
out above, advances in automation have had an enormous impact on the number and nature of jobs, and
advances in artificial intelligence wii further change the nature of work. The launch of driverless
cars and trucks, for example, will affect the economy in unforeseen ways, and more workers will lose
their livelihoods. Second, income inequality has been on the increase in the U.S. and elsewhere for
several decades. While those in the upper-income classes have benefitted most from increased trade
and finance, inequality reflects many factors besides globalization.
Why, then, is globalization the focus of so much discontent? Trump had the insight that demonizing
foreigners and U.S.-based multinationals would allow him to offer simple solutions-ripping up trade
deals, strong-arming CEOs to relocate facilities-to complex problems. Moreover, it allows him to
draw a line between his supporters and everyone else, with Trump as the one who will protect workers
against the crafty foreigners and corrupt elite who conspire to steal American jobs. Blaming the
foreign "other" is a well-trod route for those who aspire to power in times of economic and social
upheaval.
Globalization, therefore, should not be held responsible for the election of Donald Trump and
those in other countries who offer similar simplistic solutions to challenging trends. But globalization's
advocates did indirectly lead to his rise when they oversold the benefits of globalization and neglected
the downside. Lower prices at Wal-Mart are scarce consolation to those who have lost their jobs.
Moreover, the proponents of globalization failed to strengthen the safety networks and redistributive
mechanisms that allow those who had to compete with foreign goods and workers to share in the broader
benefits.
Dani Rodrik of Harvard's Kennedy School has described how the policy priorities were changed:
"The new model of globalization stood priorities on their head, effectively putting democracy to
work for the global economy, instead of the other way around. The elimination of barriers to trade
and finance became an end in itself, rather than a means toward more fundamental economic and social
goals."
The battle over globalization is not finished, and there will be future opportunities to adapt
it to benefit a wider section of society. The goal should be to place it within in a framework that
allows a more egalitarian distribution of the benefits and payment of the costs. This is not a new
task. After World War II, the Allied planners sought to revive international trade while allowing
national governments to use their policy tools to foster full employment. Political scientist
John
Ruggie of the Kennedy School called the hybrid system based on fixed exchange rates, regulated
capital accounts and government programs "
embedded liberalism
," and it prevailed until it was swept aside by the wave of neoliberal policies in the 1980s
and 1990s.
What would today's version of "embedded liberalism" look like? In the financial sector, the pendulum
has already swung back from unregulated capital flows and towards the use of capital control measures
as part of macroprudential policies designed to address systemic risk in the financial sector. In
addition,
Thomas Piketty of the École des hautes etudes en sciences (EHESS) and associate chair at the Paris
School of Economics , and author of Capital in the Twenty-first Century, has called
for a new focus in discussions over the next stage of globalization: " trade is a good thing, but
fair and sustainable development also demands public services, infrastructure, health and education
systems. In turn, these themselves demand fair taxation systems."
The current political environment is not conducive toward the expansion of public goods. But it
is unlikely that our new President's policies will deliver on their promise to return to a past when
U.S. workers could operate without concern for foreign competition or automation. We will certainly
revisit these issues, and we need to redefine what a successful globalization looks like. And if
we don't? Thomas Piketty warns of the consequences of not enacting the necessary domestic policies
and institutions: "If we fail to deliver these, Trump_vs_deep_state will prevail."
Since 1980, US manufacturing output has approximately doubled while manufacturing employment
fell by about a third.
Yes, globalization impacts the composition of output and it is a contributing factor in the
weaker growth of manufacturing output. but overall it has accounted for a very minor share of
the weakness in manufacturing employment since 1980. Productivity has been the dominant factor
driving manufacturing employment down.
JimH November 29, 2016 11:11 am
"Overall, most studies find evidence of positive net benefits from trade."
Of course they do! And in your world, studies always Trump real world experience.
Studies on trade can ignore the unemployed workers with a high school education or less. How
were they supposed to get an equivalent paying job? EDUCATION they say! A local public university
has a five year freshman graduation rate of 25%. Are those older students to eat dirt while attempting
to accumulate that education!
Studies on trade can ignore that illegal immigration increases competition for the those under
educated employees. Since 1990 there has been a rising demand that education must be improved!
That potential high school drop outs should be discouraged by draconian means if necessary. YET
we allow immigrants to enter this country and STAY with less than the equivalent of an American
high school education! Why are we spending so much on secondary education if it is not necessary!
"In Mexico, 34% of adults aged 25-64 have completed upper secondary education, much lower than
the OECD average of 76% the lowest rate amongst OECD countries."
See: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/mexico/
Trade studies can ignore the fate of a small town when its major employer shuts down and leaves.
Trade studies can assume that we are one contiguous job market. They can assume that an unemployed
worker in Pennsylvania will learn of a good paying job in Washington state, submit an application,
and move within 2 weeks. Or assume that the Washington state employer will hold a factory job
open for a month! And they can assume that moving expenses are trivial for an unemployed person.
Our trade partners have not attempted anything remotely resembling balanced trade with us.
Here are the trade deficits since 1992.
Year__________US Trade Balance with the world
1992__________-39,212
1993__________-70,311
1994__________-98,493
1995__________-96,384
1996__________-104,065
1997__________-108,273
1998__________-166,140
1999__________-258,617
2000__________-372,517
2001__________-361,511
2002__________-418,955
2003__________-493,890
2004__________-609,883
2005__________-714,245
2006__________-761,716
2007__________-705,375
2008__________-708,726
2009__________-383,774
2010__________-494,658
2011__________-548,625
2012__________-536,773
2013__________-461,876
2014__________-490,176
2015__________-500,361
From:
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/gands.pdf
AND there is the loss of the income from tariffs which had been going to the federal government!
How has that effected our national debt?
"However, when employment across geographical locations is complementary for firms that do
significantly different work at home and abroad, domestic and foreign employment rise and fall
together."
And exactly how do you think that the US government could guarantee that complementary work
at home and abroad. Corporations are profit seeking, amoral entities, which will seek profit any
way they can. (Legal or illegal)
The logical conclusion of your argument is that we could produce nothing and still have a thriving
economy. How would American consumers earn an income?
Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are RUST BELT states. Were the voters
there merely ignorant or demented? You should never ever run for elected office.
Beverly Mann November 29, 2016 12:30 pm
Meanwhile, Trump today chose non-swampy Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell's current wife and GWBush's
former Labor Secretary, as Transportation Secretary, to privatize roads, bridges, etc.
JimH November 29, 2016 12:36 pm
The trade balances are in millions of dollars in the table in my last comment.
Global trade had a chance of success beginning in 1992. But that required a mechanism which
was very difficult to game. A mechanism like the one that the Obama administration advocated in
October 2010.
"At the meeting in South Korea's southern city of Gyeongju, U.S. officials sought to set a
cap for each country's deficit or surplus at 4% of its economic output by 2015.
The idea drew support from Britain, Australia, Canada and France, all of which are running trade
deficits, as well as South Korea, which is hosting the G-20 meetings and hoping for a compromise
among the parties.
But the proposal got a cool reception from export powerhouses such as China, which has a current
account surplus of 4.7% of its gross domestic product; Germany, with a surplus of 6.1%; and Russia,
with a surplus of 4.7%, according to IMF statistics."
See:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/24/business/la-fi-g20-summit-20101024
That cap was probably too high. But at least the Obama administration showed some realization
that global trade was exhibiting serious unpredicted problems. Too bad that Hillary Clinton could
not have internalized that realization enough to campaign on revamping problematic trade treaties.
(And persuaded a few more of the voters in the RUST BELT to vote for her.) Elections have consequences
and voters understand that, but what choice did they have?
In your world, while American corporations act out in ways that would be diagnosed as antisocial
personality disorder in a human being, American human beings are expected to wait patiently for
decades while global trade is slowly adjusted into some practical system. (As one shortcoming
after another is addressed.)
The article states almost exactly what you 'add' in your comment:
"Imports and foreign production, therefore, have had an impact on manufacturing employment
in the U.S. But several caveats should be raised. First, as Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
of MIT and others have pointed out, technology has had a much larger effect on jobs".
So, what gives? Is there an award today for who ever gets the biggest DUH??? If there is anything
worth adding, it would be a mention of the Ball St study that supports the author's claim but
is somehow overlooked. But your comment, well, DUH!!
=================================================
JimH,
Some good stuff there, your assessment of Economics and its penchant for ignoring variables,
and your insight which states that "studies can assume that we are one contiguous job market",
is all very true, and especially when it comes to immigration issues. I've lived most of my life
near the Southern border and when economists claim that undocumented workers are good for our
economy I can only chuckle and shake my head. I suppose I could also list all of the variables
which those economists ignore, and there are many to choose from, but, there is that quote by
Upton Sinclair: "You can't get a man to understand what his salary depends on his not understanding".
In all fairness though, The Dept. of Labor does of course have its JOLTS data, and so not all
such studies are based on broad assumptions, but Economics does have its blind spots, generally
speaking. And of course economists apply far too much effort and energy serving their political
and financial masters.
As for your comment in regards to the the trade deficit, you might want to read up a little
on the Triffin Dilemma. The essence of globalization has a lot to do with the US leadership choosing
to maintain the reserve-currency status and Triffin showed that an increasing amount of dollars
must supply the world's demand for dollars, or, global growth would falter. So, the trade deficit
since 1975 has been intentional, for that reason, and others. Of course the cost of labor in the
US was a factor too, and shipping and standards and so on. But, it is wise also, to remember that
these choices were made at time, during and just after the Viet Nam war, when military recruitment
was a very troubling issue for the leadership. And the option of good paying jobs for the working-class
was very probably seen as in conflict with military recruitment. Accordingly, the working-class
has been left with fewer options. This being accomplished in part with the historical anomaly
of high immigration quotas, (and by the tolerance for illegal immigration), during periods with
high unemployment, a falling participation-rate, inadequate infrastructure, and etc.
Ray LaPan-Love November 29, 2016 2:18 pm
JimH,
After posting my earlier comment it occurred to me that I should have recommended an article
by Tim Taylor that has some good info on the Triffin dilemma.
Also, it might be worth mentioning that you are making the common mistake of assigning blame
to an international undertaking that would be more accurately assigned to national shortcomings.
I'm referring here to what you quoted and said:
""Overall, most studies find evidence of positive net benefits from trade.""
"Of course they do! And in your world, studies always Trump real world experience".
My point being that "positive net benefits from trade" are based on just another half-baked
measurement as you suggest, but the problems which result from trade-related displacements are
not necessarily the fault of trade itself. There are in fact political options, for example, immigration
could have been curtailed about 40 years ago and we would now have about 40 million fewer citizens,
and thus there would almost certainly be more jobs available. Or, the laws pertaining to illegal
immigration could have been enforced, or the 'Employee Free Choice Act could have been passed,
or whatever, and then trade issues may have had much different impact.
Ray LaPan-Love November 29, 2016 3:12 pm
It seems worth mentioning here, that there are other more important goals that make globalization
valuable than just matters of money or employment or who is getting what. Let us not forget the
famous words of Immanuel Kant:
"the spirit of commerce . . . sooner or later takes hold of every nation, and is incompatible
with war."
coberly November 29, 2016 6:33 pm
Ray
the spirit of commerce did not prevent WW1 or WW2.
otherwise, thank you, and Jim H and Joseph Joyce for the first Post and Comments for grownups
we've had around here in some time.
Ray LaPan-Love November 29, 2016 7:03 pm
Hey Coberly, long time no see.
And yes, you are right, 'the spirit of commerce' theory has had some ups and downs. But, one
could easily and accurately argue that the effort which began with the League of Nations, and
loosely connects back to Kant's claim, has gained some ground since WW2. There has not, after-all,
been a major war since.
So, when discussing the pros and cons of globalization, that factor, as I said, is worthy of
mention. And it was a key consideration in the formation of the Bretton Woods institutions, and
in the globalization effort in general. This suggesting then that there are larger concerns than
the unemployment-rate, or the wage levels, of the working-class folks who may, or may not, have
been at the losing end of 'free-trade'.
I've been a 'labor-lefty' since the 1970s, but I am still capable of understanding that things
could have been much worse for the American working-class. Plus, if anyone must give up a job,
who better than those with a fairly well-constructed safety-net. History always has its winners
and losers, and progress rarely, if ever, comes in an even flow.
Meanwhile, those living in extreme poverty, worldwide, have dropped from 40% in 1981, to about
10% in 2015 (World Bank), so, progress is occurring. But of course much of that is now being ignored
by the din which has drowned out so many considerations that really do matter, and a great deal.
coberly November 29, 2016 8:25 pm
Ray
I am inclined to agree with you, but sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Especially
if one of those trees has fallen on you.
In general I am more interested in stopping predatory business models that really hurt people
than in creating cosmic justice.
as for the relative lack of big wars since WW2, I always thought that was because of mutual
assured destruction. I am sure Vietnam looked like a big enough war to the Vietnamese.
"... Moreover, the use of labels such as "populist right" are not really helping. Populism is not an ideology. The widespread use of the term by the majority of commentators distracts from the true nature of far-right parties. ..."
"... Are we then really sure that these movements moderated their agenda? In fact, they promote a narrow concept of community, that excludes all the "different" and foreigners. ..."
"... "Our European cultures, our values and our freedom are under attack. They are threatened by the crushing and dictatorial powers of the European Union. They are threatened by mass immigration, by open borders and by a single European currency," ..."
"... The Austrian Freedom Party , on a similar line, "supports the interests of all German native speakers from the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy" and the "right of self-determination" of the German-speaking Italian bordering region of South Tyrol. ..."
"... On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Front, promotes a principle of "national priority" for French citizens in many areas, from welfare to jobs in the public sector. ..."
Around a decade ago, Columbia University historian Robert Paxton rightly pointed out how "a fascism
of the future - an emergency response to some still unimagined crisis - need not resemble classical
fascism perfectly in its outward signs and symbols ... the enemy would not necessarily be Jews.
An authentically popular fascism in America would be pious, anti-black, and, since September 11,
2001, anti-Islamic as well; in Western Europe it would be secular and, these days, more likely anti-Islamic
than anti-Semitic; and in Russia and Eastern Europe it would be religious, anti-Semitic, Slavophile,
and anti- Western.
New fascisms would probably prefer the mainstream patriotic dress of their own place and time."
Does any of this sound familiar across the Atlantic?
Moreover, the use of labels such as "populist right" are not really helping. Populism is not
an ideology. The widespread use of the term by the majority of commentators distracts from the true
nature of far-right parties.
Are we then really sure that these movements moderated their agenda? In fact, they promote
a narrow concept of community, that excludes all the "different" and foreigners.
There is also a sense of decline and threat that was widely exploited by interwar fascism, and
by these extreme-right parties, which - after 1945 - resisted immigration on the grounds of defending
the so-called "European civilization".
The future of Europe?
The future of European societies could, however, follow these specific lines: "Our European
cultures, our values and our freedom are under attack. They are threatened by the crushing and dictatorial
powers of the European Union. They are threatened by mass immigration, by open borders and by a single
European currency," as Marcel de Graaff, co-president of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group
in the European Parliament, declared.
Another fellow party, the Belgian
Vlaams Belang , calls for an opposition to multiculturalism. It "defends the interests of the
Dutch-speaking people wherever this is necessary", and would "dissolve Belgium and establish an independent
Flemish state. This state ... will include Brussels", the current capital of the EU institutions.
The Austrian
Freedom Party , on a similar line, "supports the interests of all German native speakers from
the territories of the former Habsburg monarchy" and the "right of self-determination" of the German-speaking
Italian bordering region of South Tyrol.
On the other hand, Marine Le Pen, president of the French National Front, promotes a principle
of "national priority" for French citizens in many areas, from welfare to jobs in the public sector.
She also wants to renegotiate the European treaties and establish a "
pan-European Union " including Russia.
At the end of these inward-looking changes, there will be no free movement of Europeans across
Europe, and this will be replaced with a reconsolidation of the sovereignty of nation states.
Resentments among regional powers might rise again, while privileges will be based on ethnic origins
- and their alleged purity. In sum, this is how Europe will probably look if one follows the "moderate"
far-right policies. The dream of building the United States of Europe will become an obsolete memory
of the past. And the old continent will be surely less similar to the post-national one which guaranteed
peace and - relative - prosperity after the disaster of World War II.
Andrea Mammone is a historian of modern Europe at Royal Holloway, University of London.
He is the author of "Transnational Neofascism in France and Italy". He is currently writing a book
on the recent nationalist turn in Europe.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect
Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Exception of course are refugees (which one could say we have some moral responsibility to
rescue since our 15 year war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria (since we are
bombing quite a bit in Syria), and many other places has more than done or bit fan disorder and
violence from which the refugees flee rather than die, ditto the children fleeing Mexico and Central
America where our war on (some people) who use drugs has created both right wing Governments and
drug gangs and associated violence.)
I think it is bad form when left wing sites repeat right-wing memes (falsehoods and half-truths),
particularly when the new right-wing authoritarian kleptocrats who are taking over the Government
are talking about rounding up, placing in concentration camps, and deporting millions of people,
citizens and non-citizens alike..
rickstersherpa, November 30, 2016 11:46 am
Just out curiosity, since Mr. Kimel used the example of Iran, there was a huge Iranian immigration
to the U.S. In sense they both support (since many of the these people were high skill immigrants)
and rebut his point (since they came from a culture he marks as particularly "foreign" to U.S.
culture.
http://xpatnation.com/a-look-at-the-history-of-iranian-immigrants-in-the-u-s/ It has actually
been an amazingly successful immigration, with many now millionaires (a mark of "success" that
I find rather reflects the worse part of America, the presumption by Americans, Rich, Middle,
or poor, that if you are not rich, you are nothing, a loser; but still it appears to be a marker
that Mr. Kimel is using.
Beverly Mann, November 30, 2016 3:47 pm
To add to Rickstersherpa's comments, I'll also point out that among the Muslim immigrants who've
committed acts of terrorism in this country, none to my knowledge was on welfare nor were their
parents on welfare, None.
This post is just the latest in what is now many-months-long series of white supremacist/ white
nationalist posts by Kimel, whose original bailiwick at this blog was standard left-of-center
economics but obviously is something close to the opposite now. He left the blog for two or three
years, and came back earlier this year unrecognizable and with a vengeance. Literally.
I was a blogger here for six-and-a-half years until earlier this month, and was among regulars
who comment in the Comments threads who repeatedly expressed dismay. Kimel's last few posts, lik
this one, are published directly under his name. Before that Dan Crawford and run75441 were posting
them for him and crediting him with the posts.
In my comments int those threads, I've suggested as you did here that this blogger belongs
at Breitbart, or more accurately, you say that this blog is providing the same type of voice as
Breitbart.
But at least Breitbart hasn't been known as left-of-center blog. Allowing these posts on a
blog that has misleads readers into thinking, if only for a moment, that maybe this guy's saying
something that you're missing, or not saying something that you think he's saying. It's really
jarring.
The Rage November 30, 2016 3:49 pm
Sorry, but leftists were the originators of anti-immigration. They blasted classical
liberals and their "open borders" to buy talent on the market rather than "building within"
and using the state to develop talent.
"right wing" Christians are some of the worst people in terms of helping the underground
railroad for immigrants in the US.
The Rage November 30, 2016 3:54 pm
Beverly, Breitbart loves illegal immigration and wants it to stay, indeed quite illegal.
You represent the problem of modern politics. Anyone you don't agree with, you start
making dialectical points rather than going under the hood to find out the point.
Jack November 30, 2016 4:24 pm
Kimel,
Your points leave out any consideration of the cultural variabilities of this host country.
Given that the USofA is a country made up of immigrants from a wide variety of places across
the globe I would think that there is some benefit to varying the sources of immigration
in the present given the past. Some of the cultural distinctions that you suggest as different
from our own are not homogeneous within our own culture. For example, I wouldn't choose
to live in some parts of the US because of the degree of antisemitism that I might find
even though I am what one might call an agnostic Jew. There are many Americans that don't
make that distinction.
Face it Mike, there is probably a place for just about anyone from any place that would
be suitable for their emigration within the US. We don't all have to share the same values
with the new comer. We don't share values amongst ourselves as it is. We've got large numbers
of immigrants and their off spring from the Far East, South East Asia, Africa, South America
and the middle East. We even have many Europeans. Keep in mind that that last category is
made up of people who have spent the past two thousand years trying as hard as possible
to kill one another. So who is to say what immigrant group is best for the US? We've been
moving backwards for the past several decades. Maybe we need some new blood to get thinks
going forward again.
Beverly Mann November 30, 2016 4:27 pm
Apparently you aren't able to distinguish between racist proclamations and fears unrelated
to racism and ethnicity bias masquerading as "cultural" differences, on the one hand, and immigrants
willing to work for lower wages irrespective of their race and ethnicity, on the other hand,
The Rage. Even when the writer is extremely open, clear, and repetitive about his claims.
Rickstersherpa and I are able to make that distinction, and have done so.
Beverly Mann November 30, 2016 4:34 pm
CORRECTED COMMENT: Apparently, The Rage, you aren't able to distinguish between racist proclamations
masquerading as "cultural" differences, on the one hand, and fears unrelated to racism and
ethnicity bias, that immigrants willing to work for lower wages will put downward pressure
on wages in this country, irrespective of the race and ethnicity or the immigrant willing to
work for the low wages. Even when the writer is extremely open, clear, and repetitive about
his claims.
Rickstersherpa and I are able to make that distinction, and have done so.
(Definitely a cut-and-paste issue there with that first comment, which I accidentally clicked
"Post Comment" for before it was ready for posting.)
Jack, November 30, 2016 4:45 pm
I will accept one category of immigrant for exclusion. No identifiable criminals allowed.
We haven't always done so well on that trait. So let's do a better job of excluding those seeking
admission who can be shown to be actively involved with any form of criminal behavior. That
goes for Euros, Russians, Chinese, South Americans, etc. That also includes very wealthy criminals
whose wealth is the result of their positions of authority in their home country.
"The fact that there is homegrown dysfunction isn't a good argument for importing more dysfunction."
What manner of dysfunction beyond criminality did you have in mind?
" it makes sense to be selective, both for our sake and the sake of those who are unlikely
to function well and would become alienated and unable to fend for themselves in the US." Please
define "unlikely to function well" more precisely. Remember that the goal of our immigration
quotas is to allow a reasonable balance of people from varying countries to achieve admission.
"To be blunt, some people have attitudes that allow them to function well in the West. Typically
they are dissidents in non Western countries." That statement is generally problematic. What
measure of attitude do we use here? Is it the rabble rousers that you want to give preference
to? Then why only from non Western countries?
President-elect Donald Trump recently had an 'off the record' meeting with members of the American
press, aka mainstream media. Such events are not unusual for presidents and future presidents, but
according to a variety anonymous sources, Donald Trump has not extended an olive branch to media
figures who displayed their open bias against him throughout the campaign. >
According to The Hill, Trump said that being in front of the mainstream media was like, "Being
in front of a fucking firing squad". Other sources claim he repeatedly said that he was in a
"room full of liars". If he indeed said either of those things, it is difficult to disagree
with such an assessment. He also claimed that he "hated" CNN, feelings which seem self-evidently
mutual.
According to the generally anti-Trump Politico, the President-elect blasted NBC for using unflattering
photographs of him throughout their coverage.
Whether or not these reports are fully accurate is beside the point. Frankly, why would one trust
off the record comments from people who publicly slandered Trump on the record and did so without
a hint of shame.
What is more significant is what Trump said about his use of social media during his lengthy interview
on CBS's 60 Minutes. Here, Trump said that social media is an effective way to bypass big-media
and speak directly to the public. He also stated that it is a quick, cheap and effective way to clarify
misstatements made by the mainstream media.
This is unequivocally true and it is heartening. To think that a small smartphone has the ability
to reach as many and at times even more people than the mainstream media with their millions of dollars
worth of cameras, microphones, lights, sets, drivers, vehicles, offices and staff, is a sign that
the world is no longer beholden to the arrogant gatekeepers of news, perhaps better referred to as
"fake news".
Donald Trump was indeed given a very unfair time by the media and he has no reason to forget nor
forgive. He also has no reason to placate them, and frankly due to the power of new-media, online
media and his own highly effective use of social media, he doesn't need them.
They are relics of the past and he is a symbol of the future.
Steven Barry
The alt-media is the samizdat (google it) of the internet age. The genie is out of the
bottle and there is no putting it back.
Simon
Excellent. Yet even 'IF' the reports of this meeting are exaggerated, there is a fact that
is undeniable; The new President is holding Court in his own palace, on top of his own castle,
in New York.
All the supplicants are coming to him. Even the Japanese Prime minister. He sits there in the
economic capital of the USA rather than being in Washington - where presumably something like
the HQ of the Republican Party would be the more normal venue for a president-elect.
Far away in the DC Swamp (which voted 94% Hillary) the politicians, the hacks, the lobbyists
the 'professionals' are in panic - there's no way to meet him, no way to do lunch at 30mins
notice. All they have is the tragic ghost of BHO wandering around the White House, but the
glitz the zeitgeist the locus is now at Trump Tower. Every day we see its lobby and the golden
lift in the news.
Many believe nothing will change, but so far there are plenty signs that it has.
tom > Simon
Let's hope the Trump Tower doesn't get 9/11'd.
le-DeplorableFroggy > tom
As long as the Mossad terrorists are kept OUT of the US from now on, and every zionist
stooge is either locked up or thrown OUT of this country, NO more israHell/Mossad false flags
in the US.
● How Ehud Barak Pulled Off 9-11 - (bollyn dot com/how-ehud-barak-pulled-off-9-11-2)
● MADE IN ISRAEL - 9-11 and the Jewish Plot Against America PDF - (shop.americanfreepress dot
net/store/c/25-Israel.html)
● 9-11 EVIL - Israel's Central Role in the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks - (shop.americanfreepress
dot net/store/c/25-Israel.html)
● Get the Hell Out of Our Country! Parts 1 to 5 - (veteranstoday dot
com/2015/02/05/get-the-hell-out-of-our-country/)
● Israel a cornered rat - "In 10 years there will be no more Israel" - Henry 'Balloonie'
Kizzinger - (darkmoon dot me/2014/israel-a-cornered-rat/)
● Netanyahu tells ministers not to talk to Trump's people - (theuglytruth.wordpress dot
com/2016/11/21/netanyahu-tells-ministers-not-to-talk-to-trumps-people/#more-162166)
7.62x54r • 3 days ago
US media ( and other NATO media ) are propagandists. The US Big 6 should have their
licenses yanked for putting forth a flawed and wholly dishonest product. Screw them.
FRIEDMAN: What do you see as America's role in the world? Do you believe that the role
TRUMP: That's such a big question.
FRIEDMAN: The role that we played for 50 years as kind of the global balancer, paying more for
things because they were in our ultimate interest, one hears from you, I sense, is really shrinking
that role.
TRUMP: I don't think we should be a nation builder. I think we've tried that. I happen to think
that going into Iraq was perhaps I mean you could say maybe we could have settled the civil war,
O.K.? I think going into Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country. I think
getting out of it - I think we got out of it wrong, then lots of bad things happened, including the
formation of ISIS. We could have gotten out of it differently.
FRIEDMAN: NATO, Russia?
TRUMP: I think going in was a terrible, terrible mistake. Syria, we have to solve that problem
because we are going to just keep fighting, fighting forever. I have a different view on Syria than
everybody else. Well, not everybody else, but then a lot of people. I had to listen to [Senator]
Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking
Syria and attacking, you know, and it's like you're now attacking Russia, you're attacking Iran,
you're attacking. And what are we getting? We're getting - and what are we getting? And I have some
very definitive, I have some very strong ideas on Syria. I think what's happened is a horrible, horrible
thing. To look at the deaths, and I'm not just talking deaths on our side, which are horrible, but
the deaths - I mean you look at these cities, Arthur, where they're totally, they're rubble, massive
areas, and they say two people were injured. No, thousands of people have died. O.K. And I think
it's a shame. And ideally we can get - do something with Syria. I spoke to Putin, as you know, he
called me, essentially
UNKNOWN: How do you see that relationship?
TRUMP: Essentially everybody called me, all of the major leaders, and most of them I've spoken
to.
FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP: I wouldn't use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think - I would love
to be able to get along with Russia and I think they'd like to be able to get along with us. It's
in our mutual interest. And I don't go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would
say - when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump,
I said, huh, wouldn't it be nice, I'd say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn't it be nice
to actually report what they said, wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn't
it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it's
very expensive, and ISIS shouldn't have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and
give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that
I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that's a positive thing. It is a great thing that
we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.
JOSEPH KAHN, managing editor: On Syria, would you mind, you said you have a very strong idea about
what to do with the Syria conflict, can you describe that for us?
TRUMP: I can only say this: We have to end that craziness that's going on in Syria. One of the
things that was told to me - can I say this off the record, or is everything on the record?
Former Congressman and Libertarian icon Ron Paul has warned that 'shadow government' neocons could
orchestrate a 'false flag' incident in order to drag new president Donald Trump into a fresh war.
"I don't how anybody can say they know what is going to happen," Paul told
The Daily Caller, referring to Trump's foreign policy.
"All we need is a false flag and an accident and everybody will be for teaching them a lesson,"
Paul said, warning that such an event could trigger new foreign entanglement.
"The neocons always talked about it before 9/11 they kept saying, 'we aren't going to get our
program in until we have a Pearl Harbor event,'" the former congressman stated, stopping short of
saying he believes those attacks were staged.
"I think other countries could use false flags." Paul also added.
Paul also warned that a shadow government will continue to operate when Trump is president, just
as it did during Obama's time in office.
"Obama probably was much more attune to a different foreign policy of less aggression but why
then does he do it?" Paul said.
"I think there's the shadow government, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and all the
things that can be done because they just melt away and they do exactly what the establishment says."
the former Congressman added.
Paul warned that those within the shadow government are seeking to influence Trump now.
"He's very friendly with a lot of them right now, he's talking to them," Paul said, adding that
"We don't have a final answer, we have to wait to see who get's appointed."
"He doesn't talk about blowback and coming out of these countries. He has a better policy with
Russia but I think he still is talking with the neoconservatives." Paul also stated.
"The deep state is very very powerful and they have a lot of control," Paul said, adding "That
is one of my big issues about how shadow government is so powerful in all administrations."
Earlier this month, Paul
issued the same warnings, saying that neocons and shadow government figures are going to attempt
to infiltrate and influence Trump's presidency and prevent him from achieving successful change.
"The Trump campaign, meanwhile, delved into message tailoring, sentiment manipulation and
machine learning." - Oh, please, this sounds like a stereotypical Google-centric view of things.
They of course left out the most important part of the campaign, the key to its inception, which
could be described in terms like "The Trump campaign, meanwhile, actually noticed the widespread
misery and non-recovery in the parts of the US outside the elite coastal bubbles and DC beltway,
and spotted a yuuuge political opportunity." In other words, not sentiment manipulation – that
was, after all, the Dem-establishment-MSM-wall-street-and-the-elite-technocrats' "America is already
great, and anyone who denies it is deplorable!" strategy of manufactured consent – so much as
actual *reading* of sentiment. Of course if one insisted on remaining inside a protective elite
echo chamber and didn't listen to anything Trump or the attendees actually said in those huge
flyover-country rallies that wasn't captured in suitably outrageous evening-news soundbites, it
was all too easy to believe one's own hype.
" former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and
is currently advising the president-elect on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this
is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants in the FP establishment
and MSM are wont to do.
"Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian)
Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems
with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues.
"The TPP excludes China, which declined to join, proposing its own rival version, the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which excludes the US." You see, it is all China's
fault. No info presented on why China "declined" to join.
And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell
it to China.
Former Congressman and Libertarian icon Ron Paul has warned that 'shadow government' neocons could
orchestrate a 'false flag' incident in order to drag new president Donald Trump into a fresh war.
"I don't how anybody can say they know what is going to happen," Paul told
The Daily Caller, referring to Trump's foreign policy.
"All we need is a false flag and an accident and everybody will be for teaching them a lesson,"
Paul said, warning that such an event could trigger new foreign entanglement.
"The neocons always talked about it before 9/11 they kept saying, 'we aren't going to get our
program in until we have a Pearl Harbor event,'" the former congressman stated, stopping short of
saying he believes those attacks were staged.
"I think other countries could use false flags." Paul also added.
Paul also warned that a shadow government will continue to operate when Trump is president, just
as it did during Obama's time in office.
"Obama probably was much more attune to a different foreign policy of less aggression but why
then does he do it?" Paul said.
"I think there's the shadow government, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and all the
things that can be done because they just melt away and they do exactly what the establishment says."
the former Congressman added.
Paul warned that those within the shadow government are seeking to influence Trump now.
"He's very friendly with a lot of them right now, he's talking to them," Paul said, adding that
"We don't have a final answer, we have to wait to see who get's appointed."
"He doesn't talk about blowback and coming out of these countries. He has a better policy with
Russia but I think he still is talking with the neoconservatives." Paul also stated.
"The deep state is very very powerful and they have a lot of control," Paul said, adding "That
is one of my big issues about how shadow government is so powerful in all administrations."
Earlier this month, Paul
issued the same warnings, saying that neocons and shadow government figures are going to attempt
to infiltrate and influence Trump's presidency and prevent him from achieving successful change.
Donald Trump's unorthodox US presidential transition continued on Monday when he held talks with
one of the most prominent supporters of leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders.
The president-elect's first meeting of the day at Trump Tower in New York was with Tulsi Gabbard,
a Democratic maverick who endorsed the socialist Sanders during his unsuccessful primary battle with
Hillary Clinton.
... ... ...
At first glance Gabbard, who is from Hawaii and is the first Hindu member of the US Congress,
seems an unlikely counsellor. She resigned from the Democratic National Committee to back Vermont
senator Sanders and formally nominated him for president at the party convention in July, crediting
him with starting a "movement of love and compassion", although by then Clinton's victory was certain.
But the Iraq war veteran has also expressed views that might appeal to Trump, criticising Obama,
condemning interventionist wars in Iraq and Libya and taking a hard line on immigration. In 2014,
she called for a rollback of the visa waiver programme for Britain and other European countries with
what she called "Islamic extremist" populations.
In October last year she tweeted: "Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won't
bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911." She was then among 47 Democrats who joined Republicans
to pass a bill mandating a stronger screening process for refugees from Iraq and Syria coming to
the US.
"... Judging by the people who Trump has appointed, it is looking like an ugly situation for the US. If he actually hires people like John Bolton, we will know that a betrayal was certain. While I think that it is probable that he is the lesser evil, he was supposed to avoid neoconservatives and Wall Street types (that Clinton associates herself with). ..."
"... I think it would be a mistake to attribute too much "genius" to Trump and Kushner. It sounds like Kushner exhibited competence, and that's great. But Trump won in great measure because Democratic Party governance eviscerated those communities. ..."
"... This is akin to how Obama got WAY too much credit for being a brilliant orator. People wanted change in '08 and voted for it. That change agent betrayed them, so they voted for change again this time. Or, more accurately, a lot of Obama voters stayed home, the Republican base held together, and Trump's team found necessary little pockets of ignored voters to energize. But that strategy would never have worked if not for Obama's and Clinton's malfeasance and incompetence. Honestly, Hillary got closer to a win that she had a right to. That ought to be the real story. ..."
Does anyone else get the overwhelming impression that the US is heading for an impending collapse
or serious decline at least, unless it puts a fight it against the status quo?
Judging by the people who Trump has appointed, it is looking like an ugly situation for
the US. If he actually hires people like John Bolton, we will know that a betrayal was certain.
While I think that it is probable that he is the lesser evil, he was supposed to avoid neoconservatives
and Wall Street types (that Clinton associates herself with).
I find it amazing how tone deaf the Clinton campaign and Democratic Establishment are. Trump
and apparently his son in law, no matter what else, are political campaigning geniuses given their
accomplishments. For months people were criticizing their lack of experience in politics like
a fatal mistake..
I think that no real change is going to happen until someone authentically left wing takes
power or if the US collapses.
I think it would be a mistake to attribute too much "genius" to Trump and Kushner. It sounds
like Kushner exhibited competence, and that's great. But Trump won in great measure because Democratic
Party governance eviscerated those communities.
This is akin to how Obama got WAY too much credit for being a brilliant orator. People
wanted change in '08 and voted for it. That change agent betrayed them, so they voted for change
again this time. Or, more accurately, a lot of Obama voters stayed home, the Republican base held
together, and Trump's team found necessary little pockets of ignored voters to energize. But that
strategy would never have worked if not for Obama's and Clinton's malfeasance and incompetence.
Honestly, Hillary got closer to a win that she had a right to. That ought to be the real story.
It is not clear to me what exactly a collapse entails. The US doesn't have obvious lines to
fracture across, like say the USSR did. (I suppose an argument could be made for "cultural regions"
like the South, Cascadia etc separating out, but it seems far less likely to happen, even in the
case of continuing extreme economic duress and breakdown of democracy/civil rights).
The US is and has been in a serious decline, and will probably continue.
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
The President, as Commander-in-Chief, directs the wars that Congress declares. However, starting
with Truman's intervention in the Korean War in 1950 and continuing with invasions of Vietnam, Grenada,
Iraq and Afghanistan and the bombings of dozens more countries, the President's ability to unilaterally
initiate war with a sovereign nation has been normalized. Congress has not declared war since 1941
despite the fact the U.S. military has intervened in nearly every corner of the world in the years
since.
In recent years, George W. Bush assumed the power to kidnap, torture, and assassinate any
individual, anywhere in the world, at any time, without even a pretense of due process. Upon replacing
Bush, Barack Obama legitimized Bush's kidnapping and torture (by refusing to prosecute the perpetrators
or provide recourse to the victims) while enthusiastically embracing the power to assassinate at
will. Noam Chomsky has said this represents Obama trashing the 800-year-old Magna Carta, which King
John of England would have approved of.
Can there be anything more dictatorial than the power of a single individual to kill and make
war at will? While American presidents thankfully do not have the power to unilaterally impose taxes,
pass legislation, or incarcerate without charges inside U.S. borders, the illegitimate authority
they do possess to carry out unrestrained violence across the world is unquestionably a dictatorial
feature.
There has not been a single American president since World War II that has not exceeded his constitutional
authority by committing crimes that would meet the standard by which officials were convicted and
executed at the Nuremberg trials.
Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 to imprison Japanese Americans in concentration camps was a flagrant
violation of the Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law.
Truman's firebombing of Tokyo, nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and invasion of Korea
violated provisions of multiple treaties that are considered the "supreme law of the land" per Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution.
Eisenhower's use of the CIA to overthrow democratically elected presidents in Iran and Guatemala,
as well as the initiation of a terrorist campaign against Cuba, violated the UN Charter, another
international treaty that the Constitution regards as the supreme law of the land.
Kennedy was guilty of approving the creation of a mercenary army to invade Cuba, as well as covert
warfare in Vietnam. Johnson massively escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam with the introduction
of ground troops, which he fraudulently justified through misrepresentation of the Gulf of Tonkin
incident.
Succeeding Johnson, Nixon waged a nearly genocidal air campaign against not only Vietnam but Cambodia
and Laos, killing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying ecosystems across Indochina, and leaving
an unfathomable amount of unexploded ordnance, which continues to kill and maim hundreds of people
each year.
Ford covertly supported the South African invasion of Angola and overtly supported the Indonesian
invasion of East Timor. Carter continued supporting the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, as well
as providing financial and military support to military dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador.
Reagan oversaw the creation and operation of a terrorist army in Nicaragua, sponsored military dictatorships
throughout Central America, and directly invaded Grenada.
Bush the Elder invaded Panama and Iraq. Clinton oversaw sanctions in Iraq that killed as many
as 1 million people, carried out an air war that indiscriminately pulverized civilian targets from
15,000 feet in Serbia, and bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that produced medications for half
the country. Bush the Lesser invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama continued both of those
wars, as well as dramatically expanding the drone assassination program in as many as seven countries.
So I beg to differ with Blow and anyone else who claims the presidency deserves respect. Any institution
or position that permits such illegal and immoral actions unchecked should be eradicated and replaced
with some alternative that does not.
Liberal Clinton defender Matt Yglesias argues that from a historical perspective, Trump is uniquely
dangerous. "(P)ast presidents," Yglesias writes, "have simply been restrained by restraint. By a
belief that there are certain things one simply cannot try or do."
It is hard to take such vacuous proclamations with a straight face. As we have seen, every single
American president since at least WWII has engaged in serious violations of international and domestic
law to cause death, destruction and misery across the world, from murdering individuals without due
process to unleashing two nuclear bombs on civilian populations in a defeated country that was seeking
to surrender.
When Trump assumes the presidency, he will inherit a frightening surveillance/military/incarceration
apparatus that includes a targeted killing program; a vast NSA domestic and international spying
network; a death squad (the Joint Special Operations Command); and an extralegal system for indefinite
kidnapping and imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.
Partisans see a problem only when the presidency is in the "wrong" hands. If Obama is at the helm,
liberals are fine with unconstitutional mass surveillance or killing an American citizen without
charge or trial every now and then. Conservatives trusted Bush to warrantlessly surveill Americans,
but were outraged at the Snowden revelations.
Principled opponents recognize that no one should be trusted with illegitimate authority. The
hand-wringing and hyperventilation by liberals about the dangers of a Trump presidency ring hollow
and hypocritical.
American presidents long ago became the equivalent of elected monarchs, beyond the democratic
control of the those they purportedly serve. The occupant of the office is able to substitute his
own judgments and whims for a universally applicable set of laws and limits on the exercise of power.
It is what Dolores Vek describes as "actually existing fascism." Both parties have contributed to
it, the media has normalized it, and the public has accepted its creation and continued existence
without rebelling against it. It's time to stop treating the presidency itself with respect and start
actively delegitimizing it.
There have been two constants in his campaign: "stomp the weaker" and "lovin' Putin". That's
it.
"lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia relations.
You should better stay above this level in this blog.
Putin was and remains an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA. So
hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business. In
other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary attempt
to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington his lack
of desire to convert Russia into yet another vassal state.
The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and improve
the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that and resist
strong attempts to co-opt him into the standard set of neocon policies, which Washington pursued
for several decades.
His "Contract with America" does not cover foreign policy issues except rejection of TPP, NAFTA
and like.
The hypothesis that he will pursue isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks
in his close circle.
My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any strengthening
of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia.
Also under Trump the USA might be more selective as running six concurrent conflicts (Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine) which during Obama administration proved to be pretty expensive.
Libya is now a failed state. In Ukraine the standard of living dropped to the level of $2 per day
for the majority of population and the country became yet another debt slave, always balancing on
the wedge of bankruptcy. And costs for the USA are continuing to mount in at least three of the six
countries mentioned ( profits extracted in Ukraine and Iraq partially offset that). It is unclear
whether Trump administration will continue this Obama policy of multiple unilateral engagements but
I think is that during Trump administration the resistance to the USA unilateral interventionism
will be stronger as neoliberalism itself became much less attractive ideology. Which is more difficult
to "export". Similar to the fact that "communism" was more difficult to export after 60th by the
USSR. In a way, after 2008 it is a "damaged good" notwithstanding its recent victories in Brazil
and Argentina. See for example discussion at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/22/does-clintons-defeat-mean-the-decline-of-us-interventionism/
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions
reflects their punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a
new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale
for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way to suppress Russia and deprive
it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77)
at the Havana Summit in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian,
which did not respect the sovereignty of the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than
a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the war of Kosovo, which
made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy
of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during
her tenure as secretary of state. (5)
But, of course, we can only guess how Trump administration will behave.
"... Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism? Is
it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts. ..."
"... The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of
the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way
to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3) ..."
"... What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy
of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of
state. (5) ..."
"... At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
..."
"... Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard to
the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the United
States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they fail
to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied key
functions in his administration. ..."
"... Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and one
of the architects of the wars in the Middle East. ..."
"... it is more realistic to suppose that as long as the United States has interests in the countries of the South and
the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate to intervene. ..."
"... In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. ..."
"... (Translated from the French by Luciana Bohne) ..."
If the discourse of humanitarianism seduced the North, it has not been so in the South, even less in the Near and Middle
East, which no longer believe in it. The patent humanitarian disasters in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have disillusioned
them.
It is in this sense that Trump's victory is felt as a release, a hope for change, and a rupture from the policy of Clinton,
Bush, and Obama. This policy, in the name of edifying nations ("nation building"), has destroyed some of the oldest nations
and civilizations on earth; in the name of delivering well-being, it has delivered misery; in the name of liberal values,
it has galvanized religious zeal; in the name of democracy and human rights, it has installed autocracies and Sharia law.
Who is to blame?
Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism?
Is it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts.
Can the United States not learn from history, or does it just doom itself to repeat it? Does it not pose itself the
question of how al-Qaeda and Daesh originated? How did they organize themselves? Who trained them? What is their mobilizing
discourse? (1) Why is the US their target? None of this seems to matter to the US: all it cares about is
projecting its own idealism. (2)
The death of thousands of people in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, has it contributed to the well being of these
peoples? Or does the United States perhaps respond to this question in the manner of Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's
Secretary of State, who regretted the death of five-hundred-thousand Iraqi children, deprived of medications by the American
embargo, to conclude with the infamous sentence, "[But] it was worth it "?
Was it worth it that people came to perceive humanitarian intervention as the new crusades? Was it worth it that they
now perceive democracy as a pagan, pre-Islamic model, abjured by their belief? Was it worth it that they now perceive modernity
as deviating believers from the "true" path? Was it worth that they now perceive human rights as human standards as contrary
to the divine will? Was it worth it that people now perceive secularism as atheism whose defenders are punishable by beheading?
Have universal values become a problem rather than a solution? What then to think of making war in their name? Has humanitarian
intervention become punishment rather than help?
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions
of the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are
a way to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign
policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary
of state. (5)
The end of interventionism?
But are Clinton's defeat and Trump's accession to power sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism?
Donald Trump is a nationalist, whose rise has been the result of a coalition of anti-interventionists within the Republican
Party. They professe a foreign policy that Trump has summarized in these words: "We will use military force only in cases
of vital necessity to the national security of the United States. We will put an end to attempts of imposing democracy
and overthrowing regimes abroad, as well as involving ourselves in situations in which we have no right to intervene."
(6)
But drawing conclusions about the foreign policy of the United States from unofficial statements seems simplistic.
At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
One can't predict his policy with regard to the Near and Middle East, since he has not yet even formed his cabinet.
Moreover, presidents in office can change their tune in the course of their tenure. The case of George W. Bush provides
an excellent example.
Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard
to the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the
United States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they
fail to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied
key functions in his administration. (8)
Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and
one of the architects of the wars in the Middle East.
These indices show that nothing seems to have been gained by the South, still less by the Near and Middle East. There
appears to be no guarantee that the situation will improve.
The non-interventionism promised by Trump may not necessarily equate to a policy of isolationism. A non-interventionist
policy does not automatically mean that the United States will stop protecting their interests abroad, strategic or otherwise.
Rather, it could mean that the United States will not intervene abroad except to defend their own interests,
unilaterally -- and perhaps even more aggressively. Such a potential is implied in Trump's promise to increase
the budget for the army and the military-industrial complex. Thus, it is more realistic to suppose that as long as
the United States has interests in the countries of the South and the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate
to intervene.
In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. The political reality is too complex to be reduced to statements
by a presidential candidate campaigning for election, by an elected president, or even by a president in the course of
performing his office.
No one knows what the future will bring.
Marwen Bouassida is a researcher in international law at North African-European relations, University of Carthage,
Tunisia. He regularly contributes to the online magazine Kapitalis.
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
Notable quotes:
"... The anger against outsourcing jobs is very real and very dangerous for current corrupt neocon/neolib elite in Washington with their dream of global dominance and global neoliberal empire spanning all countries on all continents much like Trotsky dreamed about global Communist empire. ..."
"... The key information about his real intention would be the candidate for the Secretary of State. But even here uncertainty will remain. For example, it is not completely clear to me that if Bolton would be appointed he will be able to pursue the policies of his neocon past. After all Trump has distinct authoritarian inclinations and Bolton is not stupid enough not to understand that. ..."
"... Hopefully his foreign policy will be less jingoistic that Obama foreign policy. "Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war," said Trump, "unlike other candidates, war and aggression will not be my first instinct." ..."
"... "lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia relations ..."
"... Putin was and remain an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA. So hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business. In other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary attempt to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington his lack of desire to convert Russian into yet another vassal state. ..."
"... The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington pursued for several decades. ..."
"... Any idea that he will peruse isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks in his close circle. ..."
"... My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any strengthening of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia. ..."
"... This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5) ..."
"... The US Empire has been nice to the Russians before. It was called detente and caused almost (not quite) as much hysteria in war-mongering (proto-neoconservative) circles as Trump's 'neo-detente' is causing now. However, the proviso is (and always was) that the warmongering could be ramped up again any time the Americans chose, and of course it was again under Reagan. ..."
"... From the point of view of American imperialism, Trump's plan to (temporarily) be nice to Russia makes a lot of strategic sense: as you point out, under Obama American imperial forces were becoming increasingly overstretched. In any case, for historical reasons, Russia (white, capitalist, Christian) doesn't make as good an enemy as the mysterious dark forces of 'Radical Islam'. ..."
"... So I am guessing under Trump we will see temporary rapprochement with Russia in the East, and more concentration on command and control of the Middle East. I am also guessing Obama's 'Pivot to China' will be allowed to quietly continue. It's also likely the US' policy of quietly picking off 'weak links' in the 'pink tide' in South American (cf Brazil, Honduras) will continue. ..."
"... For the moment I take great comfort in the hostility Trump displayed to Eliot Cohen and his ilk – https://twitter.com/EliotACohen/status/798512852931788800 ..."
"... "After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly." ..."
Trump first and foremost is the symptom, not cause of crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. Ideology
is dead, like Bolshevism was dead soon after the end of WWII in the USSR.
Trump has two major path of his governance. He might try relying on nationalist insurgence
his election provoked and squeeze the "deep state" and neocon cabal in Washington, or he will
be co-opted by Republican brass. He probably understand that his positioning during election campaign
as a fighter against globalization and neoliberalism excesses in the USA is the key link that
provides political support for his administration. And throwing a couple on neocons or banksters
against the wall would be a populist gesture well received by American public.
The anger against outsourcing jobs is very real and very dangerous for current corrupt
neocon/neolib elite in Washington with their dream of global dominance and global neoliberal empire
spanning all countries on all continents much like Trotsky dreamed about global Communist empire.
My feeling is that a lot of people are really ready to fight for Trump and that creates for
problem for the "deep state", if Trump "indoctrination" by Washington establishment fails.
Past revolts in some US cities are just the tip of the iceberg. Obama lost not only his legacy
with Trump election. He lost his bid to keep all members of top 1% and first of all financial
oligarchy that drives the events on 2008 unaccountable.
So "accountability drive" which will be interpreted by neoliberals as "witch hunt" might well
be in the cards. I encourage everybody in this blog to listen to the following Trump election
advertisement.
Also I would not assume that he is a newcomer to political games. Real estate business is very
a political activity. So a more plausible hypothesis is that he is a gifted politician both by
nature and due to on the job training received in his occupation.
His idea of creating a circle of advisors who compete with each other and thus allow him to
be the final arbiter of major decisions is not new. He is not hostile to conflicts within his
inner circle.
The key information about his real intention would be the candidate for the Secretary of
State. But even here uncertainty will remain. For example, it is not completely clear to me that
if Bolton would be appointed he will be able to pursue the policies of his neocon past. After
all Trump has distinct authoritarian inclinations and Bolton is not stupid enough not to understand
that.
Hopefully his foreign policy will be less jingoistic that Obama foreign policy. "Our goal
is peace and prosperity, not war," said Trump, "unlike other candidates, war and aggression will
not be my first instinct."
There have been two constants in his campaign: "stomp the weaker" and "lovin' Putin".
That's it.
"lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia
relations . You should better stay above this level in this blog.
Putin was and remain an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA.
So hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business.
In other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary
attempt to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington
his lack of desire to convert Russian into yet another vassal state.
The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and
improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that
and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington
pursued for several decades.
His "Contract with America" does not cover foreign policy issues except rejection of TPP, NAFTA
and like.
Any idea that he will peruse isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks
in his close circle.
My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any
strengthening of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia.
Also under Trump the USA might be more selective as running six concurrent conflicts (Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine). Which during Obama administration proved to be pretty expensive.
Libya is now a failed state. In Ukraine the standard of living dropped to the level of $2 per
day for the majority of population and the country became yet another debt slave, always balancing
on the wedge of bankruptcy. And costs for the USA are continuing to mount in at least three of
the six countries mentioned ( profits extracted in Ukraine and Iraq partially offset that). It
is unclear whether Trump administration will continue this Obama policy of multiple unilateral
engagements but I think is that during Trump administration the resistance to the USA unilateral
interventionism will be stronger as neoliberalism itself became much less attractive ideology.
Which is more difficult to "export". Similar to the fact that "communism" was more difficult to
export after 60th by the USSR. In a way, after 2008 it is a "damaged good" notwithstanding its
recent victories in Brazil and Argentina. See for example discussion at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/22/does-clintons-defeat-mean-the-decline-of-us-interventionism/
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions
reflects their punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be
a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of the United States and its allies; they are a new
rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way to suppress Russia
and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World
(G77) at the Havana Summit in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including
humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of the states concerned. (4) This was
nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the
war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade,
of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by
Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5)
But, of course, we can only guess how Trump administration will behave.
'The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and
improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do
that and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington
pursued for several decades.'
The US Empire has been nice to the Russians before. It was called detente and caused almost
(not quite) as much hysteria in war-mongering (proto-neoconservative) circles as Trump's 'neo-detente'
is causing now. However, the proviso is (and always was) that the warmongering could be ramped
up again any time the Americans chose, and of course it was again under Reagan.
From the point of view of American imperialism, Trump's plan to (temporarily) be nice to
Russia makes a lot of strategic sense: as you point out, under Obama American imperial forces
were becoming increasingly overstretched. In any case, for historical reasons, Russia (white,
capitalist, Christian) doesn't make as good an enemy as the mysterious dark forces of 'Radical
Islam'.
So I am guessing under Trump we will see temporary rapprochement with Russia in the East,
and more concentration on command and control of the Middle East. I am also guessing Obama's 'Pivot
to China' will be allowed to quietly continue. It's also likely the US' policy of quietly picking
off 'weak links' in the 'pink tide' in South American (cf Brazil, Honduras) will continue.
'Trump: foreign policy continuity rather than change' may well be a typical graduate thesis
in 30 years' time.
I'm curious how Trump will deal with Erdogan. Erdogan seems to have all the tact and subtlety
of an angry Bison and with Trump's thin skin, there is bound to be a conflict at some stage. And
Erdogan is not Christian.
"... Many of these people voted for Obama in 2012. The reason they abandoned the Democrats this time is that they hadn't seen any improvement in their lives in the last 4 years. When Trump said Clinton was in the pocket of Wall Street, they agreed. They were right: she is. ..."
"... Berlusconi allied himself both with the nascent Lega and the remains of the neo-fascist MSI, members of which went on to hold high positions in his governments. The effects of this alliance were seen in spectacular fashion at the Genoa G8 meeting, which was used very effectively to outlaw street protest or at least to rebrand anyone protesting against government as 'extremist' (he similarly labelled anyone to his left as 'communist'). ..."
"... The Guardian's Trump nervous breakdown continues apace.... what would you talk about if he didn't exist?? ..."
"... As far as the part of non-deplorable voters are concerned, it is relatively clear what they want: economic security and perspective rather than the choice between unemployment and MacJobs, public services working reasonably well rather than garbage piling up in the streets, respectable political culture rather than corruption and nepotism. ..."
"... Obviously, and not without reason, the confidence of many voters in the ability of the political establishment has faded to a degree allowing exploitation by tycoons presented as 'can-do' strongmen. Neither crying nor shouting at the voters nor agreeing that the N-word is ok will change that. ..."
"... Trump wasn't as bad as Berlusconi however at the end of the day ordinary people are more concerned about their jobs, their own local economies, their hospitals, schools, local taxes, housing costs so in that respect they look to see change not the same oppressive status quo ..."
"... It's why Sarkozy was rejected yesterday outright as people don't want a fake offer and the neoliberal Establishment serving corporates, a bent media and banking interests at the cost to themselves and their families. ..."
Berlusconi was Italy's longest serving post war PM. Like Bill Clinton he was a talented totally
corrupt, sexually obsessed politician.
Derrick Hibbett
9m ago
People voted for Trump for a variety of reasons. Some wanted abortion made illegal, some were
KKK racists. It is pointless trying to "understand their concerns"; they will never support the
left.
Others voted for Trump because they believe he provide them with a secure job, with a salary
which allows them to support themselves and their families.
Many of these people voted for
Obama in 2012. The reason they abandoned the Democrats this time is that they hadn't seen any
improvement in their lives in the last 4 years. When Trump said Clinton was in the pocket of Wall
Street, they agreed. They were right: she is.
The problem is that in the absence of a strong labour movement they were prey to a trickster
who has no intention of challenging the corporations.
nadaward
22m ago
Something the article doesn't mention was Berlusconi's bringing of the far right out of the
political cupboard.
Berlusconi allied himself both with the nascent Lega and the remains of the neo-fascist MSI,
members of which went on to hold high positions in his governments. The effects of this alliance
were seen in spectacular fashion at the Genoa G8 meeting, which was used very effectively to outlaw
street protest or at least to rebrand anyone protesting against government as 'extremist' (he
similarly labelled anyone to his left as 'communist').
I'm not sure that apart from a sort of desire for privatization of the state apparatus Berlusconi
has or had strong political views. I think questions such as immigration were used in an instrumental
fashion.
It's often said that Berlusconi also brought what in Italy is called the language of the 'Bar
Sport' into the political arena. In other words he cancelled the veneer of respectability in political
language, with great help from the Lega. There was a sort of 'naughty boy' factor involved in
this taboo breaking that had enormous appeal outside of the 'educated classes'. People suddenly
felt entitled to let it all hang out and say what they wanted. A sort of nine-year stag night.
The more people objected to his version of 'pussy grabbing' the more they could be successfully
labelled stuck-up do-gooders.
On the question of the Church and its complicity, I think that had a lot to do with the conservative
papacies of the times.
pfcbg
23m ago
I love Donald Donny T. He is a phenomenal leader. Unlike Hillary, he isn't going to ally himself
with Islamists of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but in fact, might crush them. I love Donald Donny T.
He might unite with Russia crush Islamists.
qpdarloboy
25m ago
Berlusconi was a front man for the mafia. It's no coincidence that Forza Italia was launched
immediately after the judicial investigations into corruption in the existing political parties
looked set to wipe out the mafia's hold over Italian politics
Nick Pers
32m ago
it seems like the title of this article is inverted, Trump is like Berlusconi not the other
way around. At least chronologically Berlusconi's political engagement was much prior to Trump
and even on the financial level according to Forbes magazine Berlusconi is more than twice richer
than Trump and obviously had much more media influence, but I do not see how the contrary is true
as the title seems to suggest????
Hurrellr
1h ago
The Guardian's Trump nervous breakdown continues apace.... what would you talk about if
he didn't exist??
Actually perhaps nervous breakdown is the wrong metaphor, perhaps its
more like an orgasm ... he hits the sweet spot, you can protest endlessly... years and years
lie ahead of you blathering on about Trump being the devil. The ultimate orgasmic showcasing
of virtue. Christmas has come early!
carlygirl
2h ago
While it has received scant attention, Trump has also promised to repeal a 1954 ban that
prevents tax-exempt organisations like churches from getting involved in politics, a change
that could give churches an even more powerful role in US politics.
Pure idiocy. Putting cults that believe in 'invisible men' in charge of political policy - it
would be like the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan.
pollyp57 -> carlygirl
22m ago
The American religious right has a great deal in common with the Taliban - they aren't mad
keen on science, they want to impose their own version of social control and they both
absolutely agree that women should lip up and get on with the housework.
Peter Krall
2h ago
try and seriously understand what his voters want
What is this supposed to mean? Understanding that some deplorables feel terrorised by the
'p.c.-police' if using the N-word is deprecated and bowing to them? Sorry, no! It may be
possible to win the votes of these people by pursuing Trump's/Berlusconi's agenda but if this
agenda is to be pursued: why not just let them do it?
As far as the part of non-deplorable voters are concerned, it is relatively clear what
they want: economic security and perspective rather than the choice between unemployment and
MacJobs, public services working reasonably well rather than garbage piling up in the streets,
respectable political culture rather than corruption and nepotism.
Understanding this is the easy part. The problem is delivering.
Obviously, and not
without reason, the confidence of many voters in the ability of the political establishment
has faded to a degree allowing exploitation by tycoons presented as 'can-do' strongmen.
Neither crying nor shouting at the voters nor agreeing that the N-word is ok will change that.
Streatham
2h ago
And don't let's forget Berlusconi's pal Blair, he of the 'eye-catching initiatives' like
the destruction of Iraq. Trump and Berlusconi together will never be responsible for as much
evil as the billionaire Blair - close friend as well, of course, of Bill 'The Sleaze' Clinton.
SpiderJerusalem01
2h ago
People aren't that concerned with tabloid journalism. They worry about jobs, taxes, the
economy. You know, the real stuff. But then, when you don't have those worries I guess you can
indulge in fluff pieces.
That's why the jig is up for you elitists. The world is changing, and not in your favour. Heh.
Dimitri
3h ago
Of course this whole nightmare can be avoided if the electoral collage actually decides to
select the candidate who won the popular vote by over a million and a half...'such stuff as
dreams are made on.'...
tictactom -> Dimitri
3h ago
Careful. You'll get ticked off for listening to MSM propaganda talking like that!
FishDog -> Dimitri
3h ago
They will state by state.
Somefing Looms -> Dimitri
2h ago
Clinton stole votes in several large urban areas - those where the returns were abnormally
slow to be returned.
imo, Clinton lost the popular vote by millions if a true vote were recorded.
But, even if she didn't, without the Electoral College, a handful of states and even large
cities would be choosing the POTUS every term in perpetuity, irrespective of the wishes of
those elsewhere in the county.
Why do you think that's a good idea?
shaftedpig
3h ago
Trump wasn't as bad as Berlusconi however at the end of the day ordinary people are
more concerned about their jobs, their own local economies, their hospitals, schools, local
taxes, housing costs so in that respect they look to see change not the same oppressive status
quo
.
It's why Sarkozy was rejected yesterday outright as people don't want a fake
offer and the neoliberal Establishment serving corporates, a bent media and banking interests
at the cost to themselves and their families.
If you want to know who the culprit
politicos are look at people like Schauble who are openly threatening us and the democracy we
voted for. This guy wasn't even elected by us but feels he has a right to dictate to us as one
of his political ancestors once tried.
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump]
plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly
with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence
in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony,
he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is
going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow
through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So
far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House
chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until
toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee.
If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so
tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus
does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out
at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which
is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the
globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon
is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World
Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the
role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and
especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he
is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into
hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is
a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And
John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist,
and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment
of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in
a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post
in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential
administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon.
And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure).
If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration,
I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot
drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly
what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on
repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't
even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But
for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy
and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we
do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever
on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic
ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian,
pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound
asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he
ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully
that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political
hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly,
if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
Michael Flynn, expected to advise Donald Trump on counterproductive killing operations misleading
labeled "national security," is generally depicted as a lawless
torturer and assassin. But, whether for partisan reasons or otherwise, he's a lawless torturer
and assassin who has blurted out some truths he shouldn't be allowed to forget.
"Lt. Gen. Flynn, who since leaving the DIA has become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration,
charges that the White House relies heavily on drone strikes for reasons of expediency, rather
than effectiveness. 'We've tended to say, drop another bomb via a drone and put out a headline
that "we killed Abu Bag of Doughnuts" and it makes us all feel good for 24 hours,' Flynn said.
'And you know what? It doesn't matter. It just made them a martyr, it just created a new reason
to fight us even harder.'"
"When you drop a bomb from a drone you are going to cause more damage than you are going to
cause good. The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict."
Will Flynn then advise Trump to cease dropping bombs from drones? Or will he go ahead and advise
drone murders, knowing full well that this is counterproductive from the point of view of anyone
other than war profiteers?
From the same report:
"Asked . . . if drone strikes tend to create more terrorists than they kill, Flynn . . . replied:
'I don't disagree with that,' adding: 'I think as an overarching strategy, it is a failed strategy.'"
So Trump's almost inevitable string of drone murders will be conducted under the guidance of a
man who knows they produce terrorism rather than reducing it, that they endanger the United States
rather than protecting it. In that assessment, he agrees with the vast majority of Americans who
believe that the wars of the past
15 years have made the United States less safe, which is the view of numerous other
experts as well.
Flynn, too, expanded his comments from drones to the wars as a whole:
"What we have is this continued investment in conflict. The more weapons we give, the more
bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done but I am looking for
the other solutions."
Flynn also, like Trump, accurately cites the criminal 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as critical to
the creation of ISIS:
"Commenting on the rise of ISIL in Iraq, Flynn acknowledged the role played by the US invasion
and occupation of Iraq. 'We definitely put fuel on a fire,' he told Hasan. 'Absolutely there
is no doubt, history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003. Going
into Iraq, definitely it was a strategic mistake."
So there will be no advice to make similar strategic mistakes that are highly profitable to the
weapons industry?
Flynn, despite perhaps being a leading advocate of lawless imprisonment and torture, also admits
to the counterproductive nature of those crimes:
"The former lieutenant general denied any involvement in the litany of abuses carried out by
JSOC interrogators at Camp Nama in Iraq, as revealed by the
New York Times and
Human Rights Watch, but admitted the US prison system in Iraq in the post-war period 'absolutely'
helped radicalise Iraqis who later joined Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its successor organisation,
ISIL."
Recently the International Criminal Court teased the world with the news that it might possible
consider indicting US and other war criminals for their actions in Afghanistan. One might expect
all-out resistance to such a proposal from Trump and his gang of hyper-nationalist war mongers, except
that . . .
"Flynn also called for greater accountability for US soldiers involved in abuses against Iraqi
detainees: 'You know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable
History is not going to look kind on those actions and we will be held, we should be held, accountable
for many, many years to come.'"
Let's not let Flynn forget any of these words. On Syria he has blurted out some similar facts
to those Trump has also articulated:
"Publicly commenting for the first time on a previously-classified August 2012
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo,
which had predicted 'the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality
in Eastern Syria ( ) this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want' and confirmed
that 'the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving
the insurgency in Syria,' the former DIA chief told Head to Head that 'the [Obama] Administration'
didn't 'listen' to these warnings issued by his agency's analysts. 'I don't know if they turned
a blind eye,' he said. 'I think it was a decision, I think it was a willful decision.'"
Let that sink in. Flynn is taking credit for having predicted that backing fighters in Syria could
lead to something like ISIS. And he's suggesting that Obama received this information and chose to
ignore it.
Now, here's a question: What impact will "bombing the hell" out of people have? What good will
"killing their families" do? Spreading nukes around? "Stealing their oil"? Making lists of and banning
Muslims? Is it Flynn's turn to willfully ignore key facts and common sense in order to "advise" against
his better judgment a new president who prefers to be advised to do what he was going to do anyway?
Or can Flynn be convinced to apply lessons learned at huge human cost to similar situations going
forward even with a president of a different party, race, and IQ?
Trump essentially betrayed Flynn, who tried to did the billing of Kushner and persuade Russia to abstain from anti-Israel vote.
Notable quotes:
"... The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities. ..."
"... There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. ..."
"... General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept. ..."
"... in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. ..."
"... The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true. ..."
"... My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence. ..."
"... I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. ..."
"... Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam. ..."
"... One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam." ..."
When I had heard
in the news that Lt Gen Flynn might be chosen by Donald Trump as his Vice Presidential nominee,
I was quick to do some research on Flynn and came across this work. Having worked in the intelligence
community myself in the past several years, I was intrigued to hear what the previous director
of the DIA had to say. I have read many books on the topic of Islam and I am glad I picked this
up.
The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts'
conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the
message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that
spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western
universities.
If you have formed your opinion of Islam and the nature of the West's fight in the Middle East
on solely what you hear in the main steam media (all sides), you would do well to read this book
as a starting point into self-education on an incredibly complex topic.
There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration
with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. Usually this political opining
in a work such as this is distracting, but it does add much-needed context to decisions and events.
That said, Lt Gen Flynn did a great job addressing a complex topic in plain language. While this
is not a seminal work on
General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly
in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely
define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama
administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept.
He supports what he can
tell us with citations. Radical Islam has declared war on Western democracies, most of all on
the US. Its allies include Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and others. Their war against us
is a long-term effort, and our politicians (except Trump?) don't want to hear it. We need to demand
that our politicos prepare for this assault and start taking wise, strong steps to defeat it.
Western Europe may already have been fatally infiltrated by "refugees" who will seek to Islamize
it, and current birth rates suggest that those nations will have Muslim majorities in 20 years.
General Flynn details what we must do to survive the assault. I bought the Kindle version and
began reading it, but then paid more for the audible version so that I could get through it faster.
Please buy and read this book!
Looking Inward First, is What Generates the Strategy-Shifting Process. Flynn Gets This. Few
Others Do.
To begin with, I will say that the book is not exactly what one might expect from a recently
retired General. For starters, there were numerous spelling errors, an assortment of colloquialisms
and some instances in which the prose took on a decidedly partisan tone. The means of documenting
sources was something akin to a blog-posting, in that he simply copied and pasted links to pages,
right into the body of the work. I would have liked to have seen a more thoroughly researched
and properly cited work. All of this was likely due to the fact that General Flynn released his
book in the days leading up to Donald J. Trump's announcement of his Vice Presidential pick. As
Flynn is apparently a close national security advisor to Trump, I can understand why his work
appears to be somewhat harried. Nonetheless, I think that the book's timeliness is useful, as
the information it contains might be helpful in guiding Americans' election choices. I also think
that despite the absence of academic rigor, it makes his work more accessible. No doubt, this
is probably one of Mr. Trump's qualities and one that has catapulted him to national fame and
serious consideration for the office he seeks. General Flynn makes a number of important points,
which, despite my foregoing adverse commentary, gives me the opportunity to endorse it as an essential
read.
In the introductory chapter, General Flynn lays out his credentials, defines the problem, and
proceeds to inform the reader of the politically guided element that clouds policy prescriptions.
Indeed, he is correct to call attention to the fact that the Obama administration has deliberately
exercised its commanding authority in forbidding the attachment of the term "Islam" when speaking
of the threat posed by extremists who advocate and carry out violence in the religion's name.
As one who suffered at the hands of the administration for speaking truth to power, he knows all
too well what others in the Intelligence Community (IC) must suffer in order to hold onto their
careers.
In chapter one, he discusses where he came from and how he learned valuable lessons at home
and in service to his country. He also gives the reader a sense of the geopolitical context in
which Radical Islamists have been able to form alliances with our worst enemies. This chapter
also introduces the reader to some of his personal military heroes, as he delineates how their
mentorship shaped his thinking on military and intelligence matters. A key lesson to pay attention
to in this chapter is what some, including General Flynn, call 'politicization of intelligence.'
Although he maintains that both the present and previous administration have been guilty of this,
he credits the Bush administration with its strategic reconsideration of the material facts and
a search for better answers. (He mentions this again in the next chapter on p.42, signifying this
capability as a "leadership characteristic" and later recalls the president's "insight and courage"
on p. 154.)
Chapter two of The Field of Fight features an excellent summary of what transpires in a civil
war and the manner in which Iraqis began to defect from al-Qa'ida and cooperate with U.S. forces.
In this task, he explains for the layperson what many scholars do, but in far fewer pages. Again,
this makes his work more accessible. He also works through the process of intelligence failures
that are, in his opinion, produced by a superordinate policy failure housed in the upper echelons
of the military structure. In essence, it was a misperception (willful or not) that guided thinking
about the cause of the insurgency, that forbade an ability to properly address it with a population-centric
Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. He pays homage to the adaptability and ingenuity of General
Stanley McChrystal's Task Force 714, but again mentions the primary barrier to its success was
bureaucratic in nature.
The main thrust of chapter 3, aptly named "The Enemy Alliance," is geared toward tying together
the earlier assertion in chapter regarding the synergy between state actors like Iran, North Korea,
Syria, and the like. It has been documented elsewhere, but the Iranian (non-Arab Shi'a) connection
to the al-Qa'ida (Arab Sunni) terrorist organization can't be denied. Flynn correctly points out
how the relationship between strange bedfellows is not new in the Middle East. He briefly discusses
how this has been the case since the 1970s, with specific reference to the PLO, Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Bosnia and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's. He also references President Obama's "curious sympathy"
(p. 92) for enemies in places such as Venezuela and Cuba.
General Flynn then reminds readers of some facts that have either been forgotten, or virtually
unknown, by most Americans. Namely, the role that Saddam Hussein actually played with regard to
the recruitment of foreign terrorists, the internal policies of appeasement for Islamists in his
army and the support he lent to Islamists in other countries (e.g., Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan).
He also reminds the readers of the totalitarian mindset that consumes Islamist groups, such as
al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State. All the while, and in contrast to what his detractors might opine,
General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion
itself. This chapter is perhaps the most robust in the book and it is the sort of reading that
every American should do before they engage in conversations about the nature of political Islam.
Chapter four is a blueprint for winning what used to be called the 'global war on terror.' Although
such a phraseology is generally laughed at in many policy circles, it is clear, as General Flynn
demonstrates, that some groups and countries are locked in combat with us and our partners in
the West. Yet, as he correctly points out, the Obama administration isn't willing to use global
American leadership in order to defeat those who see us, and treat us, as their collective enemy.
General Flynn's prescription includes four strategic objectives, which I won't recite here, as
I'm not looking to violate any copyright laws. The essence of his suggestions, however, starts
with an admission of who the enemy is, a commitment to their destruction, the abandonment of any
unholy alliances we have made over the years, and a counter-ideological program for combating
what is largely an ideologically-based enemy strong suit. He points to some of the facts that
describe the dismal state of affairs in the Arab world, the most damning of which appear on pages
127-128, and then says what many are afraid to say on page 133: "Radical Islam is a totalitarian
political ideology wrapped in the Islamic religion." Nonetheless, Flynn discusses some of the
more mundane and pecuniary sources of their strength and the means that might be tried in an effort
to undermine them.
The concluding chapter of General Flynn's work draws the reader's attention to some of the works
of others that have been overlooked. He then speaks candidly of the misguided assumptions that,
coupled with political and bureaucratic reasons, slows adaptation to the changing threat environment.
Indeed, one of the reasons that I found this book so refreshing is because that sort of bold introspection
is perhaps the requisite starting point for re-thinking bad strategies. In fact, that is the essence
of both the academic and practical work that I have been doing for years. I highly recommend this
book, especially chapter 3, for any student of the IC and the military sciences.
It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, when DIA in late-1971 warned that
the Ho Chi Minh Trail was unusually active using this technique.
The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent
makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away
are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true.
My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC
in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and
during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available
for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive
of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence.
At a time when so much is hanging in the balance, General Flynn's book plainly
lays out a strategy for not only fighting ISIS/ISIL but also for preventing totalitarianism from
spreading with Russia, North Korea and Cuba now asserting themselves - again.
Sadly, because there is some mild rebuke towards President Obama, my fear is people who should
read this book to gain a better understanding of the mind of the jihadist won't because they don't
like their president being called out for inadequate leadership. But the fact remains we are at
war with not just one, but several ideologies that have a common enemy - US! But this book is
not about placing blame, it is about winning and what it will take to defeat the enemies of freedom.
We take freedom for granted in the West, to the point where, unlike our enemies, we are no
longer willing to fight hard to preserve those freedoms. General Flynn makes the complicated theatre
of fighting Radical Islam easier to understand. His experience in explaining how we can and have
won on the battlefield gives me great comfort, but also inspires me to want to help fight for
the good cause of freedom.
My sincerest hope is that both Trump and Clinton will read this book and then appoint General
Flynn as our next Defense Secretary!
I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical
Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations
that he discusses in his book. All of the radical fighting that has taken place in the world,
ever since the beginning evolution of the Islamic religion over 1400 years ago, has revolved around
radical interpretations of the Qur'an.
Until there is an Islamic religious reformation, there
will never be a lasting resolution to the current "Radical Islamic Terrorist" problem. It is a
religious ideology interpretation issue. Until that interpretation is resolved within the Islamic
world, there will always be continuing radical interpretation outbreaks, from within the entire
Islamic world, against all other forms of non-Islamic religions and their evolving cultures.
If
you require further insight, recommend you read " Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now"
, by Ayaan Hirisi Ali. DCC
Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the
reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion
can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as
apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is
certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative
evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals
and reactionaries of political Islam.
One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more
that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics,"
whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with
the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam."
As if there is any relationship
to relationship to Islam other than it is the predominant religion in a majority of the area where
they commit their criminal activity. As if the political war with terrorist is a function of a
label that is of itself a oversimplification of the issues. Indeed, suggesting it is a nothing
more than 'political correctness" and ignoring the possibility that it might be a function of
setting the conditions in an otherwise polygon of political justice. This argument alone is evidence
of the his willingness to develop domestic political will for war with a simple argument. Nevertheless,
as a national strategy, it lacks the a foundational argument to motivate friendly regional actors
who's authority is founded on political Islam.
In 2008 a national election was held and the pyrrhic nature of the war in Iraq adjudicated
via the process of democratic choice that ended support for continued large scale conventional
occupation. That there is some new will to continue large scale conventional occupation seems
unlikely, and as a democratic country, leaders must find other means to reach the desired end
state, prosecuting contiguous operations to suppress, neutralize, and destroy "ALL" who use terrorism
to expand and enforce their political will with a deliberate limited wars that have methodological
end states. Lastly, sounding more like a General MacArther, the General Flynn's diffuse strategy
seems to ignore the most principles of war deduced by Von Clausewitz and Napoleon: Concentration
of force on the objective to be attacked. Instead, fighting an ideology "Radical Islam" seems
more abstract then any splatter painting of modern are in principle form it suggests a commitment
to simplicity to motivate our nation to prepare for and endure the national commitment to a long
war.
Since we can all agree there is no magical solution, then normative pragmatism of the likes
that General. Flynn's assessment provides, must be taken into account in an operation and tactical
MDMP. Ignoring and silencing Subject Matter Experts (SME's) will net nothing more than failure,
a failure that could be measured in innocent civilian lives as a statistical body count. I could
see General Flynn's suggestions and in expertise bolstering a movement to establish a CORP level
active duty unit to prepare, plan, and implemented in phases 0, IV, & V (JP 5-0) . Bear in mind,
Counter Insurgency (COIN) was never considered a National strategy but instead at tactical strategy
and at most an operational strategy.
Several times in its nearly 250 years of existence our Nation has been at
a crossroads. Looking back on our War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII we know the decisions
made in those tumultuous times forever altered the destiny of our Republic.
We are once again at one of those crossroads where the battle lines have been drawn, only this
time in an asymmetrical war between western democracy and the radical Islamists and nation states
who nurture them. In his timely book Field of Fight, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn provides a unique
perspective on this war and what he believes are some of the steps necessary to meet this foe.
Field of Fight begins as an autobiography in which the author gives you a sense of who he is
as a man and a soldier. This background information then provides the reader with a better perspective
through which to evaluate his analysis of the challenges we face as well as the course of action
he believes we need to take to meet those challenges.
The following are a few of the guidelines General Flynn proposes for developing a winning strategy
in our war with radical Islam and other potential foes:
1. Properly assess your environment and clearly define your enemy;
2. Face reality – for politicians, this is never an easy thing to do;
3. Understand the social context and fabric of the operational environment;
4. Recognize who's in charge of the enemy's forces.
In Field of Fight General Flynn makes the case that we are losing this war with radical Islam
because our nation's leadership has failed to develop a winning strategy. Further he opines that
our current leaders lack the clarity of vision and moral certitude that understands American democracy
is a "better way", that not all forms of human government are equal, and that there are principled
reasons worth fighting for - the very basic of those being, "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."
I'll admit I'm concerned about the future of our country. As a husband and a father of five
I wonder about the world we leaving for our children to inherit. I fear we have lost our moral
compass thus creating a vacuum in which human depravity as exemplified by today's radical Islamists
thrives.
Equally concerning to me is what happens when the pendulum swings the other way. Will we have
the moral and principled leaders to check our indignation before it goes too far? When that heart
rending atrocity which is sure to come finally pushes the American people to white hot wrath who
will hold our own passions in check? In a nation where Judeo-Christian moral absolutes are an
outdated notion what will keep us from becoming that which we most hate?
As I stated at the start of this review, today we are at a crossroads. Once again our nation
needs principled men and women in positions of leadership who understand the Field of Fight as
described by General Flynn and have the wisdom and courage to navigate this battlefield.
* * *
In summary, although I don't agree with everything written in this book I found it to be an
educational read which will provided me with much food for thought over the coming months. As
a representative republic choosing good leadership requires that we as citizens understand the
problems and challenges we face as a nation. Today radical Islam is one of those challenges and
General Flynn's book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its
Allies gives a much needed perspective on the subject.
Gen Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He apparently did not get on well in DC with his
views on fighting terrorism. That is very relevant now as we are seeking better ways to fight
ISIS and terror in general. I read his book today to learn what is on his mind. Flynn had a lot
of experience starting in the 82nd Airborne and was almost always in intelligence work. Army intelligence
is narrowly focused - where is the enemy, how many of them are there, how are they armed and what
is the best way to destroy them. Undoubtedly he was good at this. However, that is not the kind
of intelligence we need to defeat ISIS. Flynn's book shows no sign of cultural awareness, which
is the context by which we must build intelligence about our opponent. In Iraq, he did learn the
difference between who was Sunni and who was Shia but that was it. He shows no sign of any historical
knowledge about these groups and how they think and live. In looking at Afghanistan, he seems
unaware of the various clans and languages amongst different people. The 2 primary languages of
Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari. Dari is essentially the same as Farsi, so the Persian influence
has been strong in the country for a long time. Flynn seems totally unaware. Intelligence in his
world is obtained from interrogation and captured documents. They are processed fast and tell
him who their next target should be. This kind of work is not broad enough to give him a strategic
background. He sees USA's challenges in the world as a big swath of enemies that are all connected
and monolithic. North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Syria, ISIS, and so forth. All need to be dealt
with in a forceful manner. He never seems to think about matching resources with objective.
This monlithic view of our opponents is obviously wrong. Pres George W Bush tried it that way
with the Axis of Evil. The 1950's Cold War was all built in fear of the monolithic Soviet Union
and China. All these viewpoints were failures.
Flynn does not see it though. In the book, Flynn says invading Iraq in 2003 might have been the
wrong choice. He would have invaded Iran. The full Neocon plan was for 7 countries in 5 years,
right after knocking down Iraq, then we would do the same to Iran. I hope we have lost a lot of
that hubris by now. But with poor vision by leaders like Flynn, we might get caught up again in
this craziness.
To beat ISIS and Al Qaeda type groups we need patience and allies. We have to dry up the source
of the terrorists that want to die. That will be done with a combination of cultural outreaches
as well as armed force.
I am sure the Presidential candidates will both see that Flynn does not have that recipe. Where
is a General that does? We have often made this mistake. Sixty Six years ago, we felt good that
Gen Douglas MacArthur "knew the Oriental mind" and he would guid us to victory in Korea. That
ended up as a disaster at the end of 1950. I think we are better off at working with leaders that
understand the people that are trying to terrorize us. Generals don't develop those kinds of empathic
abilities.
"... "How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite . We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. ..."
"... A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose." ..."
"... However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham, a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways." ..."
"... He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues." ..."
"... Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again," he warned. ..."
"... MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation. ..."
"... No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying. ..."
"... the U.S. Empire has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that. ..."
"... Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC. ..."
"... Yes. Out of NATO, stop the endless pointless wars in the M.E., embrace George Washington and avoiding "foreign entaglements." ..."
"... Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place. ..."
"... There is a problem with the long term approach...is that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war. ..."
"... With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks, the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore. ..."
"... The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period. ..."
"... You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything, just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses and happy days are here again. ..."
"... What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible for both nations. ..."
"... Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis ..."
"... Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence. ..."
"... In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment. ..."
"... Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk. ..."
"... Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease. ..."
"... The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him, as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. ..."
"... Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed. ..."
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was "guaranteed" to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that
among the neo-con, foreign policy "elites" of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter
of time before the "pacifist" Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary.
As the
WaPo reported , "there is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump's scorched-earth presidential campaign is treated as a
mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President
Obama's departure from the White House - and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton - is being met
with quiet relief ."
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.
Oops.
Not only did the "foreign policy" elite get the Trump "scorched-earth distraction" dead wrong, it now has to scramble to find
what leverage - if any - it has in defining Trump's foreign policy. Worse, America's warmongers are now waging war (if only metaphorically:
we all know they can't wait for the real thing) against libertarians for direct access to Trump's front door, a contingency they
had never planned for.
As The Hill reported
earlier , "a battle is brewing between the GOP foreign policy establishment and outsiders over who will sit on President-elect
Donald Trump's national security team. The fight pits hawks and neoconservatives who served in the former Bush administrations against
those on the GOP foreign policy edges."
Taking a page out of Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's commitments
around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and "nation-building," curtail expensive military campaigns and troop deployments,
and intervene militarily only to protect American interests. In short: these are people who believe that human life, and the avoidance
of war, is more valuable than another record quarter for Raytheon, Lockheed or Boeing.
On the other hand, the so-called establishment camp, many of whom disavowed Trump during the campaign, is made up of the same
people who effectively ran Hillary Clinton's tenure while she was Secretary of State, fully intent on creating zones of conflict,
political instability and outright war in every imaginable place, from North Africa to Ukraine. This group is pushing for Stephen
Hadley, who served as national security adviser under George W. Bush. Another Bush ally, John Bolton whose name has been floated
as a possible secretary of State, also falls into this camp.
According to The Hill, other neo-con, establishment candidates floated include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob
Corker (R-Tenn.), outgoing Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), rising star Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and senior fellow at conservative think-tank
American Enterprise Institute and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.).
"These figures all generally believe that the United States needs to take an active role in the world from the Middle East to
East Asia to deter enemies and reassure allies."
In short, should this group prevail, it would be the equivalent of 4 more years of HIllary Clinton running the State Department.
The outsider group sees things differently.
They want to revamp American foreign policy in a different direction from the last two administrations. Luckily, this particular
camp is also more in line with Trump's views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment camp.
"How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite
. We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles
Koch Institute.
A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last
few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed
to oppose."
... ... ...
However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham,
a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends
and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways."
He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on
national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues."
Funny, that's exactly what the experts said about Trump's chances of winning not even two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to
see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved
relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny.
That is where we must stand again," he warned.
Luckily, McCain - whose relationship with Trump has been at rock bottom ever since Trump's first appearance in the presidential
campaign - has zero impact on the thinking of Trump.
Furthermore, speaking of Russia, Retired Amy Col. Andrew Bacevich said there needs to be a rethink of American foreign policy.
He said the U.S. must consider whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan qualify as U.S. allies, and the growing divergence between the U.S.
and Israel. "The establishment doesn't want to touch questions like these with a ten foot pole," he said at a conference on Tuesday
hosted by The American Conservative, the Charles Koch Institute, and the George Washington University Department of Political Science.
Furthermore, resetting the "deplorable" relations with Russia is a necessary if not sufficient condition to halt the incipient
nuclear arms build up that has resulted of the recent dramatic return of the Cold War. As such, a Trump presidency while potentially
a failure, may be best remember for avoiding the launch of World War III. If , that is, he manages to prevent the influence of neo-cons
in his cabinet.
And then there are the wildcards: those Trump advisers who are difficult to peg into which camp they fall into. One example is
retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was selected by Trump as his national security
adviser. Flynn is a "curious case," said Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative. The retired Army general has
said he wants to work with Russia, but also expressed contrary views in his book "Field of Fight."
According to Larison, Flynn writes of an "enemy alliance" against the U.S. that includes Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria,
Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. From that standpoint, he is about
as "establishment" as they come.
It's also not crystal clear which camp Giuliani falls into. The former mayor is known as a fierce critic of Islamic extremism
but has scant foreign policy experience.
Most say what is likely is change.
"Change is coming to American grand strategy whether we like it or not,' said Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in National
Security at Texas A&M University.
"I think we are overdue for American retrenchment. Americans are beginning to suffer from hegemony fatigue," he said.
And, let's not forget, the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who are droned to death every year by anonymous
remote-control operators in the US just so the US can pursue its global hegemonic interest. They most certainly have, and unless
something indeed changes, will continue to suffer, leading to even more resentment against the US, and even more attacks against
US citizens around the globe, and on US soil. Some call them terrorism, others call them retaliation.
Help me here with this word (or whatever it means) REALISTS :
Article: Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and REALISTS see an opportunity . to intervene militarily only to
protect American interests.
So dear Libertarians, as I am about to show you two examples, but the list is long, that you have a problem, because of (US)
reality:
1) You are told by the left and right massmedia that the US is something like that: King of natural gas. We'll be the world
exporter. That we have enough natural gas for 100 years, or some nonsense like that. But here is the REALITY :
US "still" had to import almost 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2015.
2) Again, you might hear from the left and right massmedia that: US is shale this. US is shale that, even that shale is not
oil, but some form of kerogen. In any event, here' the reality: US crude oil imports, by Millions of Barrels a Day: 2014: 7,344
2015: 7,363 As of July 2016: 8,092 (MBD)
Key Point (in my opinion): Libertarians, you can't have both of best worlds -two incomparable believes. You have to chose,
otherwise you'll be a hypocrite while being a neocon as well.
MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the
US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation.
No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying.
This construction of the U.S. empire is a myth. Unlike the British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, or any other empire throughout
history you care to name, the construction of the U.S. Empire has been a drastic net drain on U.S. finances.
Unlike any preceding
empire, which invaded other lands in search of wealth and captured client states to monetize added value, the U.S. Empire
has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy
to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private
globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other
way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy
rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that.
In the process, the USA has been hollowed out from the inside, and risks imminent collapse. The greatest hope we can hold out
for a Trump presidency is a recognition of the truth of this. Bannon gets close sometimes, but I still have my doubts that there
is true recognition of just how dire these current circumstances are. In this, people like Ron Paul are right on target - to save
the Republic, the Empire and its enabling institutions (like the Fed) must go.
Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot
Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member
lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC.
Michael Flynn's book "Field of Fight" is co-authored by neocon Michael Ledeen, defender of Israel and
promoter of "universal fascism" . Ledeen
is a member of the "Foundation for Defense of Democracies" where Trump advisor James Woolsey is chairman. Woolsey, Clinton's ex-CIA
director, is also a member of the "Flynn Intel Group".
Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms
sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place.
The gov expansion into and control of the economy has so distorted the markets, and created so much dependency that we are
now in a situation where without it, our economy collapses. It would take decades to fix this problem without collapsing the economy
while you are doing it...
However, we would still feel the pain as we transition the economy. There is a problem with the long term approach...is
that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war.
With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks,
the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore.
The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know
violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and
beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period.
You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything,
just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses
and happy days are here again.
Only those doped up hippies worry about nukes. Don't listen to them.
I hear you do not like yo read, but you must read this ZH post that neatly summarizes the NeoCon influence in Wash. which has
run it's course with little tangible returns and many negative debt outcomes including loss of millions of lives . Time to change
or face world condemnation worse than Germany received after WWII. America has always been regarded as a savior Nation until the
Neocons took over Wash. for narrow corporate, DOD and foreign interests.
You have now heard all the arguments and must decide---compromise will only lead to more strife and possible economic collapse.
This is the most important decision of your Presidency ---all other decisions and promises depend on this one.
Fuck those stinking neo-con bastards. We are not going to be fighting Israel's wars again. This is the United States, not Israel,
no matter how much jew money controls congress and no matter how much jew money controls the media. I hope Trump understands this
very clearly.
What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if
Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame
the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible
for both nations.
The reason "Islamophobia" is even a thing is because Saudis paid Jewish SJWs to make it a thing, all while they pay WASPs like
Bolton to go apeshit on non-Wahhabi Muslims.
Yes, before you even start, I'm aware of the claims that the Saudis are some sort of "crypto-Jews". Whatever. They need to
be named regardless.
I don't recall the US fighting any wars that would directly benefit Saudi Arabia. Sure, the Saudis have a lot of money, but they
are just a bunch of camel-fuckers who got rich because they are sitting on oil. They are still a bunch of dumb camel-fuckers.
They don't have any nukes. I imagine the Saudis do nothing without the approval of the CIA Israel is a whole different story.
Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis
Let's deconstruct this statement shall we:
1971 Nixon goes off gold standard. Why? Deficit spending on Vietnam War was causing European Central Banks to hold dollars
they didn't want. They bought gold with it rather than mainstreet American goods. This then started depleting American Gold...especially
to France.
1973 Nixon sends his special JEW Kissinger to Saudi. Why? To make the petrodollar a world standard.
The Saudi Kissinger deal: Saudi gets protection by American War Machine, they get to Cartelize with OPEC, they get transhipment
protection by U.S. Navy, Saudi Illegitimate Coup is OK'd and sanctioned by the West, they get front line American Gear. Today
that gear includes the latest Jets and AWAC's.
What does America get, especially the Western Illuminist Bankers? All Saudi Petrodollars are to cycle into Western Capital
Market, including Western Banks. Saudi's are to buy TBILLs with their petrodollars. All oil is to be priced in dollars, to then
create demand for said dollars. Saudi's do not get to own a powerful financial center. (Can you name me a powerful Saudi bank?)
Our Jewish friends are not stupid and have been running the money game since forever.
The Coup for Saudi was actually a British MI6 project. If you trace MI6 back in time, it was an arm of Bank of England. BOE
was brought into existence by Jewish Capital out of Amsterrrdaaaamn.
Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC
as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded
the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence.
So- absolutely, the Salafists are on the side of our Illuminist friends.
The Shites, especially those of Iran/Persia - have had their "funds" absconded with and/or locked up.
So, which side of Islam has our Jewish Illuminist Cabal masters selected?
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see it. it generally tracks with my understanding
but i could use some solid source material.
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see i
Google 1973 Saudi Kissinger deal:
For BOE the sources are more obscure. I personally have tracked them through time using population statistics and the like.
I need to write a book, so I can quote myself.
BOE, Cromwell, the Orange Kings - the usurpation of England, are all related by way of Stock Market Capital in Amersterdamn.
You can trace our Jewish friends arrival in Amersterdamn with their loss of East West Mechanism (silver gold exchange rates on
the caravan routes). They lost it to the portuguese when Vasco de Gama discovered the Sourthern route.
The person who best cataloged these maneuvers was an american Alexander Del Mar - a great monetary historian. Look for his
books.
This stuff will take you years of effort, and I applaud anyone who takes it on.
For the circulation of dollars during Vietnam War, See Hudson's books... especially Super Imperialism
Dr. Bonzo •Nov 19, 2016 11:04 PM
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White
House.
In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that
they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos
in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the
point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment.
Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not
in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk.
A nation of fucking morons. I swear.
Victor999 -> Dr. Bonzo •Nov 20, 2016 4:09 AM
You answered your own question....Israel is the first priority of American foreign policy - always.
Chaos is precisely what Israel ordered in order to weaken central governments of the ME and destroy their military capability.
WWIII? Doesn't matter in the least for Israel who will quietly stand aside and let the goyim fight it out, and then pick up the
remains. We're all fucking morons for allowing the Jews to take over our money supply, our government, our intelligence services,
our media - and hide themselves under the protective cloak of liberalism, political correctness and 'anti-Semitism' to shut down
all rational debate and guard them against 'discriminatory' practices.
Neochrome •Nov 19, 2016 11:06 PM
First of all, McStain should STFU, we'll send a nurse to change his depends, no need to get all cranky.
Giuliani's foreign expertise comes down apparently to be so "brave" to kick down Serbs when they are down and to proclaim to
their face that they have deserved to be bombarded.
Bolton is exactly opposite of everything that Trump campaigned on.
Again, Mitt doesn't look half-bad considering the alternatives...
Kagemusho •Nov 19, 2016 11:13 PM
The Elite always signal their intent through the Traditional Media...like this:
Empire or Not? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role
by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 21 August 2001
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/empireOrNot.html
You will find the bastards were planning for war and just needed their Pearl Harbor 2 in order to launch it. The same PNAC,
Office of Special Plans NeoCon nutcases that want to get close to Trump were talking so glibly and blithely about 'empire'. I
knew even then that this was the Elite signaling intent, and we all know what happened a few weeks later. This article should
provide the benefit of hindsight when considering Cabinet postings. These NeoCon Israel-Firster assholes belong in prison for
war crimes!
Salzburg1756 •Nov 19, 2016 11:16 PM
neocon = Israel-Firster
If Trump disempowers them, he will be a great/good president.
the.ghost.of.22wmr -> Salzburg1756 •Nov 20, 2016 12:18 AM
Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad
is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend
and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease.
The Kurds have served our shared interests well , but like all Muslims have no real interest in becoming westernized and will
turn on us once they have achieved their goals.
UnschooledAustr... -> dunce •Nov 20, 2016 1:50 AM
You are wrong about the Kurds. Besides the Alevites the only sane people in this mess called the islamic world.
shovelhead -> dunce •Nov 20, 2016 9:35 AM
The Kurds are an ethnic identity, not a religious one. While most are of an Islamic rootstock, the are Kurds of various religious
beliefs. The Kurds are fighting for an autonomous region where all religions can co-exist without one being dominant and forcing
others to conform.
The Kurds problem is they are not physically separated by geography like Sicily, who falls under the Italian State but are
still distinctly Sicilian in language and culture while the outside world sees them as Italian.
The Kurds problem is that someone in Europe drew a line on a map without consulting them whether they wanted their traditional
homeland to be divided between three different countries.
Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 12:37 AM
BERNIE SANDERS would be a genius choice for Secretary of State. A kick in the teeth to the Clintonistas and the neocons, an
olive branch to liberals of good will, and a hilarious end to the American civil war that the MSM and Soros are trying to drum
up. Bernie's foreign policy was the only thing I
liked about him.
sinbad2 -> Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 1:02 AM
What a fantastic idea, political genius.
UnschooledAustr... -> Dabooda •Nov 20, 2016 1:30 AM
I - non-US citizen living in the US - frequently argued that I would have loved seeing Bernie run as VP for Trump.
Not a lot of people who got it. You did.
BTW: Fuck Soros.
Big Ben •Nov 20, 2016 12:51 AM
The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him,
as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it
did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
Incidentally, I've been looking at some websites that claim that the 911 attacks could not have happened the way the government
claimed. There were actually THREE buildings that collapsed: the North and South Towers and WTC7 which was never hit by an airplane.
The government claims it collapsed due to fires, but a whole bunch of architects and structural engineers say that isn't possible.
And if you look at the video of the collapse, it looks like a perfect controlled demolition. There have been a number of large
fires in steel framed skyscrapers and none of them has caused a collapse. And even if a fire somehow managed to produce a collapse,
it would create a messy uneven collapse where the parts with the hottest fires collapse first.
Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse
weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed.
Also Steven Jones, a retired BYU physics professor and other scientists have found particles of thermite in the dust from the
North and South tower collapses. Thermite is an incendiary used to cut steel. This suggests that the collapse of the the North
and South Towers was also caused by something other than an airplane collision.
I have seen claims that GW Bush's younger brother was a high executive in the company that handled WTC security.
So were the 9/11 attacks a preplanned event designed to create support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those
already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead
to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment
I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden
with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to
chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared
intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job.
He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back
from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against
Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states
and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts
to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up
the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run
by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible.
Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet.The
neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly President
was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result
in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants
a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and
buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a
placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran,
and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all
the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign
pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military),
the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim
that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't
attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only
check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a
brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow
the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump
protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color
revolution'.
"... Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments. ..."
"... I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. ..."
"... A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies). ..."
It is not about politics, but Trump's peculiar management style, Timofey Bordachev, Director
of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Faculty of World Economy
and International Affairs at Russia's High School of Economics, told RIA Novosti.
"Those who have been studying the business biography of the newly elected president have
noted that he has always played off his high-ranking employees against each other. While doing
so he remained above the fight," he said.
And
Gevorg Mirzayan, an assistant professor of the Political Science department at the Financial
University in Moscow pointed out two purposes for the nominations.
The above brings rationality to the diverse selections made by Trump.
However, the black swan event will be an economic collapse (fast or protracted over several
years). That will be the defining event in the Trump presidency. I have no inkling how he or those
who may replace him would respond.
I had guessed myself that Trump was going to run the government as a business corporation. Surrounding
himself with people of competing viewpoints, and hiring on the basis of experience and skills
(and not on the basis of loyalty, as Hillary Clinton might have done) would be two ways Trump
can change the government and its culture. Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity
of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow
and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with
Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures
for the various departments.
If running the US government as a large mock business enterprise brings a change in its culture
so it becomes more open and accountable to the public, less directed by ideology and identity
politics, and gets rid of people engaged in building up their own little empires within the different
departments, then Trump might just be the President the US needs at this moment in time.
Interesting that Russian academics have noted the outlines of Trump's likely cabinet and what
they suggest he plans to do, and no-one else has. Does this imply that Americans and others in
the West have lost sight of how large business corporations could be run, or should be run, and
everyone is fixated on fake "entrepreneurship" or "self-entrepreneur" (whatever that means) models
of running a business where it's every man, woman, child and dog for itself?
I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet.
Trump may have noted how Putin did an incredible turnaround of Russia and it all started with
three objectives: restore the integrity of the borders, rebuild the industrial base and run off
the globalists/liberals/kreakles. I am certainly not the first one to say this and I think that
there is a lot of basis for that analysis. However, Trump will have a far more difficult challenge
and frankly I don't think he has enough allies or smarts to pull it off.
A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions
remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected
and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies).
"... The good news is that Hillary Clinton won't be starting World War III. Also, at least for now and probably forever, we are rid of the two most noxious political families in recent American history, the Bushes and the Clintons. ..."
"... For this, thank Donald Trump. Remember him on Thanksgiving Day. ..."
"... The Clintons didn't do the Bushes in; Trump did. Then, a few months later, he took care of the Clintons. Three cheers to him for that! ..."
"... Will any more good come from the Donald's doings? The prospects are dimming. But if he does try to deliver on some of the positions he took during the campaign, there is a chance. ..."
"... And his views on relations with Russia and China, regime change wars, and imperial overreach, as best they can be ascertained, are a lot wiser and less lethal than hers. These are not so much left-right issues as matters of common sense. ..."
"... Clinton's overriding concern was and always has been to maintain and expand American world domination - in the face of economic decline, and at no matter what cost. Trump wants, or says he wants, to do business with other countries in the way that he did with sleaze ball real estate moguls and network executives, people like himself. He wants to make deals. ..."
"... Better that, though, than a foreign policy dedicated to keeping America the world's hegemon. That is the foreign policy establishment's aim; it is therefore Clinton's too. It is the way of perpetual war. Trump's way is far from ideal, but it is less wasteful, less onerous and less reckless. ..."
"... During the campaign, Trump would sometimes speak out against banksters and financiers, especially the too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail kind. For some time, though, the "populist" billionaire has been signaling to his class brothers and sisters in the financial "industry" that he is more likely to deregulate than to regulate their machinations. ..."
"... Many of the rich and heinous were skeptical of Trump's candidacy at first; because he is such a loose cannon. But now that he has won, the bastards are sucking up; and glee is returning to Wall Street. ..."
"... Trump is now starting too to allay the fears of the movers and shakers of the National Security State. He still has a way to go, however. We can therefore still hope that they are right to worry. What is bad for them is good for the country. ..."
"... Clinton's defeat also seems to have unnerved their counterparts in European capitals, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, and in Japan, South Korea and other countries where the presence of the American military has been very very good for the few at the top, and disastrous for ordinary people. ..."
"... Trump may not be quite the "isolationist" that some people think, but he has said repeatedly that the countries America "protects" should pay their own way. ..."
"... Then there is Israel. Trump thinks that the blank check the ethnocratic settler state already gets from the United States isn't nearly enough. So much for allies paying their own way! ..."
"... However, even if Trump leaves America's perpetual war regime and its military alliances intact, some good could come just from him being at the helm – not so much because, as a wheeler and dealer, he would be less inclined actually to start wars than has become the norm, but because he is vile enough, and enough of an embarrassment, to undermine America's prestige, hastening the day when the hegemon is a hegemon no more. ..."
"... This is "exceptional," all right, but not in the way that exponents of "American exceptionalism" like Obama and Clinton have in mind. Perhaps their commitment to that illusion has something to do with the zeal with which those two, along with many others, are now promoting a fallback position. ..."
"... Obama especially has been trumpeting the claim that, in the Land of the Free, when an election is over and the incumbent – or, as in this case, the continuator of his "legacy" - is out, we Americans transfer power not just peacefully but also cordially. Since this is the norm in much of the world these days, since there is nothing "exceptional" about it, it is not clear how this makes our "democracy" a model for the world. But leave that aside. ..."
"... Whatever the explanation, it was remarkable how he had taken it upon himself to make nice with Trump even before the dust had settled. What a feat of moral and psychological abasement! ..."
"... After all, the Donald has never had a kind word to say about the President; indeed, his line, from Day One, has been that Obama's presidency is illegitimate. ..."
"... As it turned out, Hillary, the role model, is teaching a less edifying lesson: that when you flub badly, blame everybody but yourself. What a piece of work that woman is! If FBI Director James Comey had done nothing that she could blame her failure on, it would be Jill Stein or Julian Assange, or most likely (and most far-fetched) of all, Vladimir Putin - anybody but her or her husband or the corporate-infested rotting hulk that the Democratic Party has become. ..."
"... The neoliberal world order that the Clintons did so much to fashion, and that Hillary was poised to take over and extend, is heading for a crash. Americans had better watch out. There are no soft landings for hegemons that insist on continuing to dominate the world after their time has passed. ..."
"... A soft landing would be a blessing, though – for the peoples of the world and for the American people. It would spare a lot of people a lot of grief. ..."
"... Until its Clintonism is expunged that opposition is not the Democratic Party. Far too many liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren among them, thought that it was – and look where that got us. ..."
The good news is that Hillary Clinton won't be starting World War III. Also, at least for now
and probably forever, we are rid of the two most noxious political families in recent American history,
the Bushes and the Clintons.
For this, thank Donald Trump. Remember him on Thanksgiving Day.
Thank corporate media too. They loved Hillary, but they loved advertising revenue more; and the
Donald was a godsend for their bottom lines. They showered him with enough free publicity to elect
a dozen buffoons.
Not long ago, when only the tabloids were reporting on Trump, it looked like the 2016 election
would be a Hillary versus Jeb Bush affair that would do in one or the other of their respective dynasties,
but not both.
It didn't work out that way, however. The Clintons didn't do the Bushes in; Trump did. Then, a
few months later, he took care of the Clintons. Three cheers to him for that!
***
Will any more good come from the Donald's doings? The prospects are dimming. But if he does try
to deliver on some of the positions he took during the campaign, there is a chance.
... ... ...
On trade policy, though, job creation, and infrastructure development, the positions Trump took
during the campaign beat anything Hillary promised. Trump outflanked her from the left.
And his views on relations with Russia and China, regime change wars, and imperial overreach,
as best they can be ascertained, are a lot wiser and less lethal than hers. These are not so much
left-right issues as matters of common sense.
Clinton's overriding concern was and always has been to maintain and expand American world domination
- in the face of economic decline, and at no matter what cost. Trump wants, or says he wants, to
do business with other countries in the way that he did with sleaze ball real estate moguls and network
executives, people like himself. He wants to make deals.
The Trump way is, as they say, "transactional." The idea is to wheel and deal on a case-by-case
basis, with no further, non-pecuniary end in view.
In the real estate world and in network television, that would mean wringing as much money out
of each transaction as possible. What it would mean in world affairs is unclear – except perhaps
to those who think that "making America great again" isn't meaningless cant.
Better that, though, than a foreign policy dedicated to keeping America the world's hegemon. That
is the foreign policy establishment's aim; it is therefore Clinton's too. It is the way of perpetual
war. Trump's way is far from ideal, but it is less wasteful, less onerous and less reckless.
During the campaign, Trump would sometimes speak out against banksters and financiers, especially
the too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail kind. For some time, though, the "populist" billionaire has
been signaling to his class brothers and sisters in the financial "industry" that he is more likely
to deregulate than to regulate their machinations.
This will become even clearer once Trump settles on key Cabinet posts and on his economic advisors.
It is already plain, though, that the modern day counterparts of Theodore Roosevelt's "malefactors
of great wealth" have little to fear; they and Trump are joined by indissoluble bonds of class-consciousness
and solidarity.
Many of the rich and heinous were skeptical of Trump's candidacy at first; because he is such
a loose cannon. But now that he has won, the bastards are sucking up; and glee is returning to Wall
Street.
There is no doubt about it: whoever voted for the Donald for "populist" reasons is an out and
out chump.
Trump is now starting too to allay the fears of the movers and shakers of the National Security
State. He still has a way to go, however. We can therefore still hope that they are right to worry.
What is bad for them is good for the country.
Clinton's defeat also seems to have unnerved their counterparts in European capitals, at NATO
headquarters in Brussels, and in Japan, South Korea and other countries where the presence of the
American military has been very very good for the few at the top, and disastrous for ordinary people.
Trump may not be quite the "isolationist" that some people think, but he has said repeatedly that
the countries America "protects" should pay their own way.
If he means it, then more power to him. The United States and the rest of the world would be well
rid of the American dominated military alliances now in place; NATO most of all. However, having
talked with him, Obama is now telling the Europeans that Trump is fine with NATO. Time will tell.
Then there is Israel. Trump thinks that the blank check the ethnocratic settler state already
gets from the United States isn't nearly enough. So much for allies paying their own way!
However, even if Trump leaves America's perpetual war regime and its military alliances intact,
some good could come just from him being at the helm – not so much because, as a wheeler and dealer,
he would be less inclined actually to start wars than has become the norm, but because he is vile
enough, and enough of an embarrassment, to undermine America's prestige, hastening the day when the
hegemon is a hegemon no more.
This would be good for most Americans, and good for the world.
The election he won has already done a lot to explode the idea, more widely believed at home than
abroad, that American "democracy" is somehow a model for the world.
What an odd idea! Leaving aside the inordinate influence of private money - political corruption
that a "conservative" Supreme Court regards as Constitutionally protected free speech - and the fact
our two major parties have concocted an electoral duopoly system that stifles even mildly reformist
political expression, in what kind of model can Clinton garner at least two million more votes than
Trump yet still lose the election?
More glaringly undemocratic yet, Democrats routinely garner more votes than Republicans in House
and Senate races, but only sometimes control either chamber. In the final years of the Obama presidency,
Democrats controlled neither one. A fine model indeed!
When he, like everyone else, was sure that he would lose, Trump would rail against how the system
is "rigged." It was rigged – by Clinton and Company against Bernie Sanders. It was hardly rigged
against Trump; at least not in any way that mattered. Quite to the contrary, the system worked to
Trump's advantage to such an extent that, unlike Hillary, he didn't need to cheat.
And what a system it is! After wasting prodigious quantities of money, time, and effort over more
than a year and a half, it produced a contest between two of the most appalling and unpopular candidates
ever to disgrace the political scene.
This is "exceptional," all right, but not in the way that exponents of "American exceptionalism"
like Obama and Clinton have in mind. Perhaps their commitment to that illusion has something to do
with the zeal with which those two, along with many others, are now promoting a fallback position.
Obama especially has been trumpeting the claim that, in the Land of the Free, when an election
is over and the incumbent – or, as in this case, the continuator of his "legacy" - is out, we Americans
transfer power not just peacefully but also cordially. Since this is the norm in much of the world
these days, since there is nothing "exceptional" about it, it is not clear how this makes our "democracy"
a model for the world. But leave that aside.
Perhaps Obama had no overriding propaganda purpose in mind, and was only being gracious. Whatever
the explanation, it was remarkable how he had taken it upon himself to make nice with Trump even
before the dust had settled. What a feat of moral and psychological abasement!
After all, the Donald has never had a kind word to say about the President; indeed, his line,
from Day One, has been that Obama's presidency is illegitimate. Trump launched his campaign for the
White House by championing birther nonsense, and it has been all downhill from there.
Nevertheless, if Obama wants to take the high ground, he should go for it. As Hillary's campaign
ads made clear, children need role models who are as unlike Trump as can be. Obama won't be fooling
anybody about the "exceptional" magnanimity of American democracy; that ship sailed long ago. But
a class act on his part now might at least be good for the kids.
Obama is better positioned for that than Hillary, even though one of the few remotely plausible
arguments for voting for her was that a woman President would be good for little girls – because
it would show them that, like little boys, they could someday achieve the highest office in the land.
Trump cut the ground out from that argument too - by devaluing the office.
As it turned out, Hillary, the role model, is teaching a less edifying lesson: that when you flub
badly, blame everybody but yourself. What a piece of work that woman is! If FBI Director James Comey
had done nothing that she could blame her failure on, it would be Jill Stein or Julian Assange, or
most likely (and most far-fetched) of all, Vladimir Putin - anybody but her or her husband or the
corporate-infested rotting hulk that the Democratic Party has become.
***
The neoliberal world order that the Clintons did so much to fashion, and that Hillary was poised
to take over and extend, is heading for a crash. Americans had better watch out. There are no soft
landings for hegemons that insist on continuing to dominate the world after their time has passed.
A soft landing would be a blessing, though – for the peoples of the world and for the American
people. It would spare a lot of people a lot of grief.
Is it possible that, through sheer inadvertence, Trump could get us there? It is too soon, at
this point to say what the chances are, but, by Inauguration Day, if not before, we should have a
good idea.
Since Trump knows little and cares less about governance, and since he is unfit for the job the
Electoral College will bestow upon him, it will be up to the people he appoints to do, or not do,
what he said he wanted to do during the campaign.
On that score, the news so far has been, to say the least, troubling.
Being as sure as everyone else that Trump would lose and therefore that they were not harming
their careers by dissing the Donald – that they were instead making a cost free political statement
that would benefit their careers in the long run - nearly all the usual suspects that a Republican
President-elect might call upon when setting up a new administration rejected Trump a long time ago.
Predictably, many of them want back in now, but the Donald is nothing if not vengeful.
Therefore Trump's "transition team" will have no choice but to scrape the very bottom of the barrel.
Even Sarah Palin has been mentioned. Even John Bolton.
We already now that Reince Priebus of the RNC, the Republican National Committee, will be Trump's
Chief of Staff and that Stephen Bannon, of Breitbart News, champion of the white nationalist "alt-right,"
will be his "chief strategist and senior counselor" - one mainstream mediocrity and one shameless
epigone of "the darker angels of our nature," as a later-day Lincoln might call them.
Eight years ago, when Obama's appointments also seemed hard to make sense of, pop historians would
go on about how, like Lincoln, Obama, in his infinite wisdom, was assembling "a team of rivals."
So far, no one has found anything similarly complimentary to say about what Trump and his inner circle
are up to. The news oozing out of Trump Tower is too repugnant to spin.
And the reasons for this are too evident to hide. They stem from Trump's egomania and insecurity.
He is therefore now doing what others like him in similar circumstances have done before: making
loyalty not just the main thing, but the only thing.
***
Too bad for the Donald that governments are bigger and more multi-faceted than real estate operations.
The "deep state" must be fed, and there aren't nearly enough people around who have a clue about
what needs to be done whose loyalty Trump doesn't doubt.
The evidence suggests too that Trump considers himself too important to worry about anything but
the "commanding heights" of his administration; and that he is eager to delegate the authority to
pick and choose underlings. If that authority can be delegated to someone he so far trusts, and whose
office carries an air of political legitimacy, then so much the better.
Enter Mike Pence.
In recent years, it has become practically an axiom of American presidential politics that by
their choices of Vice Presidents, ye shall know them.
Anyone who is not quite sure what a dodo John McCain is, should reflect on Sarah Palin. And as
if the support Obama got from Wall Street and corporate media wasn't enough to show which side he
was on, his choice of Joe Biden for a running mate ought to have sealed the deal.
Did Hillary really take a progressive turn, as she and her handlers wanted people to think when
they still feared the wrath of Sanders' supporters? By picking Tim Kaine to run with her, she settled
that question. How more eloquently could she have expressed contempt not just for people feeling
the Bern, but also for everyone less retrograde than she!
The best that can be said of the Vice President-elect, who famously described himself as "a Christian,
a conservative, and a Republican in that order," is that he is a rock solid reactionary - in the
Dick Cheney mold, with a little of Scott Walker, Wisconsin's union busting Governor, thrown in.
That, after kicking Chris Christie out, Trump chose him to head his transition-team, suggests
that the Trump administration will be less disruptive of ordinary Republican imbecility than those
of us who are looking for silver linings in Trump's victory would like.
We who underestimated the enormity of Hillary Clinton's ineptitude, and who still can't quite
understand how any Democrat, even she, could lose to Donald Trump, were, and are, of one mind with
Trump voters on that: many of them too were hoping that Trump would destroy or mortally wound the
GOP. We will have to wait a while longer for that now.
Ironically, the silver lining is that now the onus will be on Trump – for having given the Republican
Party new life. That should teach those Trump voters who thought they were sending a message to the
GOP establishment. It should also cause them to turn on Trump sooner than Clinton voters would have
turned on her, and a lot sooner than millions of Obama supporters came to realize how wrong-headed
Obamaphilia was.
By winning, Trump has placed himself in an untenable situation.
He cannot even begin to implement the agenda his base thought he would while relying only on his
children and the handful of Republicans he knows and doesn't have it in for. But neither can he throw
himself on the mercy of the establishment Republicans he ran against. That would go against his every
instinct; and, as a man without principles or convictions, instincts are all he has.
Also, it would cost him his base.
He therefore has no choice but to muddle on as best he can, disappointing everyone.
Obama ended up disappointing a lot of people too. When he ran in 2008, the people who voted for
"hope" and "change" found that what they got was the same old same old.
Now many Trump voters want change. They have fewer illusions; they don't expect their candidate
to usher in a Golden Age; few of them even like the Donald. All they wanted was not Hillary and in
her stead something, anything, different from what Democrats and Republicans have been handing them
for as long as they could remember. They too will find that what they voted into office was what
they thought they were voting out.
Therefore, they too will despair and, when the time comes, revolt. But it will be worse this time
because the President they voted into office is dangerously unhinged. Whatever else he may be, Obama
is cautious, thoughtful, and emotionally mature; Trump, though shrewd and adept at self-promotion,
is an ignoramus with the emotional maturity of a teenage boy.
When the people who put him in office realize this, as they very soon will, watch out!
Don't feel sorry for him, though. Whether or not his villainy is heartfelt or only a huckster-politician's
gimmick, he merits all the condemnation his detractors can muster.
And although many of the people who voted for him felt that there was no other way to tell the
political class how justifiably pissed off they are, don't feel sorry for them either.
Corporate media and the Commission on Presidential Debates and the National Committees of the
Democratic and Republic Parties saw to it that most voters wouldn't take third party alternatives
seriously, even if they somehow found out about them at all.
But to express contempt for Hillary, they didn't have to vote for Trump. For example, they could
have voted only in down-ticket contests, and not for President; or they could have not voted at all.
Better that than voting for someone associated, fairly or not, with nativism, racism and Islamophobia.
***
The tragic fact is that our democracy, or lack of it, made "deplorables" of us all. Trump enthusiasts
are the worst, though, for different and less reprehensible reasons, Clinton enthusiasts too have
a lot to answer for too. So do all the lesser evil and faute de mieux voters on both sides.
And so do those who didn't bother to vote, whether out of conviction, indifference or laziness, and
those of use who put integrity above efficacy by voting, as I did, for Jill Stein, or for Gary Johnson.
Once it became clear that the election would be between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, all
was lost. Even trying to jack up the Stein vote to the point where the Greens could get federal funding
next time around was a fool's errand. This was clear from the moment Bernie Sanders made good on
his pledge to support the Democratic ticket. Those of us who thought otherwise were deceiving ourselves.
In the circumstances, is there anything to do now except put it all behind us and move on?
The answer is emphatically Yes.
The first order of business now is to do all we can to protect the people whose vulnerability
Trump exploits and endangers: Muslims and undocumented Latinos, above all; to fight back in solidarity
with them – against Trump and his minions and against the miscreants in the larger society whose
nativism, racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and sexism Trump has unleashed.
If Trump starts deporting people, the deportations must do all we can to stop him - by any means
necessary. If he starts registering Muslims, we must insist on being registered too.
We must never lose sight, however, of the underlying cause of the Trump phenomenon – the Clintonite
(neoliberal, liberal imperialist, anti-working class) turn in American, especially Democratic Party,
politics.
Without making the mistake of going over to the opposite extreme, by forsaking the progressive
side of identity politics, the Clintonite turn must be reversed, as quickly and definitively as possible.
And so, the struggles ahead must be waged simultaneously on two fronts: in the first instance,
against reactionaries of the Trumpian sort and against reactionary Trumpian initiatives, but also
against the politics of Hillary and Bill and those who think like them.
Each day brings news of opposition in the streets; and plans are afoot for massive demonstrations
around Inauguration Day. This is all well and good. But it must not be forgotten that when there
are no effective means for achieving political ends, actions become merely expressive, and often
turn out badly. Even when the level of repression is minimal, there is always a backlash; and, when
militant energies are exhausted, quiescence generally follows.
Therefore act, but also think! And learn not just from experience, but also from the enemy.
House and Senate Republicans are, as a rule, more loathsome than their Democratic Party counterparts,
and they are not the brightest bulbs on the tree. But, through sheer obstinacy, they were able to
prevail over a popular, albeit weak, President, and to block all but his most timid initiatives.
The emerging anti-Trump resistance can learn a lot from their example.
Needless to say, House and Senate Democrats are ill equipped to do anything of the sort; they
are worse than useless. Many, maybe most, of them are no less politically retrograde than their Republican
counterparts, and they are all a lot less capable of keeping a President at bay through obstinacy
alone.
But if they will not, or cannot, follow the lead of their Republican colleagues, "we, the people"
can.
We can obstruct, obstruct, and obstruct some more.
But with a difference! House and Senate Republicans wanted only to cause Obama's presidency to
fail. We can do better than that.
Insofar as his administration actually does do some of the comparatively progressive things that
Trump promised it would, "we, the people" should support it, even as we do our best to keep Trump
and his followers from succumbing to their nefarious, quasi-fascist inclinations.
There is no time to lose. It is very likely that Trump's team, once it takes shape, will start
off with some spectacularly execrable displays of malice – intended to show that the Donald is indeed
a man of his word.
Trump has already said that he intends, right off, to deport some two to three million "illegal"
aliens.
Had Deporter-in-Chief Obama been taken on in the past, stopping Trump now would be a less daunting
task. But it can still be done – if the opposition is sufficiently militant and united.
Until its Clintonism is expunged that opposition is not the Democratic Party. Far too many liberals,
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren among them, thought that it was – and look where that got us.
The opposition now, though huge, has no party – except perhaps the Greens, and they are still
too marginal to count. Rectifying this situation is a matter of the utmost urgency, nearly as important,
even in the short run, as defending the victims of the new order that the failed, Clintonized Democratic
Party has foisted upon us.
Join the
debate on Facebook
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently
of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and
POLITICAL
KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His
most recent book is
In Bad
Faith: What's Wrong With the Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College
Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless:
Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). More articles by:
Andrew Levine
"... Thank you for this very good link. The swamp cant be drained with an election, the society has been infested and corrupt beyond redemption. There can't be a revolution either, because no charismatic figure could lead it, and the majority of the people prefer to bury their head in the sand. ..."
"... It'd be nice to think that the coming devolution won't be an exact repeat, e.g. a neo-Dark Age for hundreds of years, but who can say? Maybe science and philosophy won't be entirely lost this time around. But of course all speculation is rendered nul and void IF we have WW3 ..."
"... If Trump appoints any vetted neocons to high positions in his administration, he runs the risk of synchronized resignations if he decides to move closer to Russia. ..."
"... Fake Libertarians need to understand that Radical islam is a problem not because of America's wars in the Middle East or NATO. Radical islam is inherently violent. India has been a victim of this virus since the 8th century! India never invaded any country. ..."
Thank you for this very good link. The swamp cant be drained with an election, the society has
been infested and corrupt beyond redemption. There can't be a revolution either, because no charismatic
figure could lead it, and the majority of the people prefer to bury their head in the sand.
What will eventually happen is an economic implosion and chaos. The "elite" won't be able to
finance a repressive force since their "electronic money" will not be trusted, and everything
will fall apart.
And years after, small communities will gradually re-emerge since there will
be a need to protect the people with a local police force. But the notion of a super-state or
even more of a NWO will not survive, after an initial depopulation we'll have something similar
than what you had at the begining of the middle age, a life organized around small independant
comunities of 3,000 or 5,000 people.
Very close to my thinking ... and a precedent is the demize of the Roman Empire, when Europe devolved
into numerous small feudal regions, such as in England for over a thousand years, i.e after numerous
internal wars, such as the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Henry VIII, it wasn't until the
1600s and the so-called "Enlightenment" that England was unified ... and it wasn't until the 1700s
that Scotland was conquered and "Great Britain" existed, also having incorporated Wales and Ireland,
with at least Eire having gained independence during the 1920s, Wales never being really integrated,
nor Scotland now moving away from the centre of the whole shebang ... London always.
It'd be nice to think that the coming devolution won't be an exact repeat, e.g. a neo-Dark
Age for hundreds of years, but who can say? Maybe science and philosophy won't be entirely lost
this time around. But of course all speculation is rendered nul and void IF we have WW3 despite,
or because(?) of Trump and similar phenonema in the West.
If Trump appoints any vetted neocons to high positions in his administration, he runs the risk
of synchronized resignations if he decides to move closer to Russia.
And when that is picked up by the arch deceivers at the WaPo, NYT, WSJ etc, it will be embarrassing
for Mr Trump and for the foreign policy he campaigned on.
Mr. Trump, please move closer to Russia - Putin has longed for sane dialogue with the US for the
last 8 or more years and has gotten the cold shoulder.
Fake Libertarians need to understand that Radical islam is a problem not because of America's
wars in the Middle East or NATO. Radical islam is inherently violent. India has been a victim
of this virus since the 8th century! India never invaded any country.
Islam fundamentally is incompatible with a modern society.
With well-known blogger Jennifer Rubin Trump also raises red flags with his Flynn pick. She
writes :
Flynn's personal testiness, unhinged zealousness, rash judgment and anti-Muslim hysteria
echo Trump's deficiencies.
As far as I remember Jennifer Rubin was always a great friend of Muslims, wasn't she?
So, what's going on? Maybe with his statement that the creation of an ISIS caliphate in Syria
and Iraq happened due to a "willful decision" in Washington he hasn't made himself not only friends?
I think that he wants to talk with Russia couldn't be it, because virtually nobody I know would
prefer throwing nuclear missiles at each other instead.
For people not familiar with Flynn I think an interview with Flynn by Sophie Shevardnadze from
about a year ago can give some answers on what kind of worldview Flynn holds:
Trumps pick of Flynn not only raised red föags with Jennifer Rubin, but with the Washington Post
"Editorial Board" aka Fred Hiatt, too. The Post's View it's called, the title is "
Trump has made some dangerous appointments ," under the title is a picture of Flynn and then
the Washington Post states:
Mr. Flynn has attracted attention with his rhetorical assaults on Islam and Muslims. He
has described Islam as not a religion but a "political ideology" that hides "behind what we
call freedom of religion." He once tweeted that "Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL." the appointments
of Mr. Flynn and Mr. Pompeo suggest a turn toward policies that could deeply alienate U.S.
Muslim allies, including Sunni states whose assistance is critically needed to forge political
alternatives to the terrorists in Iraq and Syria The general has accepted payment from
the Russian propaganda network RT, and his consulting firm has lobbied for a businessman close
to Turkey's autocratic president.
So, if I may summarize that stance of the Washiongton Post. Mike Flynn is so anti-islamic,
that he "could deeply alienate U.S. Muslim allies, including Sunni states whose assistance is
critically needed to forge political alternatives to the terrorists in Iraq and Syria" – and his
biggest sins are being on RT and lobbying for Erdogan – who happens to be the president of the
most important U.S. Muslim ally, and of course Turkey is a Sunni majority state.
The Washington Post can't decide: is Flynn ugly because he's anti-muslim or is he ugly because
he's too cozy with muslim president Erdogan. It seems to me proof that the neocon Washington Post
is hiding why they are really against Flynn.
Whether it is criminal to aid Al Qaeda terrorists – who also happen to be the enemy in the
war on terror – may be a decision for courts. But I remember well the chants of "Lock her up"
and it looks to me some people are scared it could happen – and not only to her.
'The End of Political Judaism and the Israel Lobby/Jewish Lobby Alt Right Movement' – The Israel Lobby's famous 'Islamophobia Cottage Industry' IS the 'Alt Right' birthplace – and
Steve Bannon is a poster child for a 'Alt Right Pro-Israel' fascist
Why do Steve Bannon and Frank Gaffney and other Israeli Firsters/Kahanists/Neocons get along
so famously? Because they are both 'Alt Right' everybody clear? 'Alt Right Pro-Israel' targets
MUSLIMS not Jews. Everybody got it?
'Alt Right Pro-Israel' IS the Islamophobia cottage industry of the Israeli Lobby/Jewish Lobby/Neocons
in the US – they promote racism TOWARDS Muslims, not Jews
Dermer is having to explain Bannon to the rest of the Diaspora and America because they don't
get it – Bannon ain't anti-semitic, he's 'Alt Right Pro-Israel' – in fact he LOVES Israel – just
like Breivik Anders Breivik or Mike Huckabee or Gaffney or John Bolton or Pam Geller or Chuck
Krauthammer or Naftali Bennett or Yvet Lieberman etc, etc
Time to break America's trance SNAP! SNAP!
Israel itself is 'Alt Right' – as well as all the Neocons
David Horowitz, Pam Geller, Frank Gaffney, Cliff May, Anders Breivik, Charles Krauthammer,
Geert Wilders, and Neocons writ large are all part of it and they have one thing in common – they
target Muslims NOT Jews and love Israel
The Islamophobia industry is worldwide now and heavily promoted by the Israeli Lobby and Israel.
(David Horowitz donated $20K to Geert Wilder's party in 2014, Anders Breivik blogged at Pam Gellers
site/Gates of Vienna and admired Avigdor Lieberman and Israel)
The 'Alt Right' movement is a part of the Islamophobia Cottage industry of the Israel Lobby
of the US and they identify with extreme Right Wing Israel (Bibi, Bennett, Lieberman and the rest
of the true blue Kahanists)
This new fascism is CREATED by the Jewish Lobby/Israel Lobby/Neocons (and Israel) and targets
Muslims NOT Jews.
Yes Virigina, it's Israeli Lobby-CREATED fascism towards Muslims, NOT Jews. The Israeli Lobby
is famous for it – Gaffney is a poster child for it.
International 'Alt Right' fascists like Wilders and Breivik hate Muslims NOT Jews
Israel is 'Alt Right' – they hate Muslims NOT Jews
Neocons like Frank Gaffney are 'Alt Right' – they hate Muslims not Jews
Why do Steve Bannon and Frank Gaffney get along? Because they are both 'Alt Right'
.
'Alt Righters' LOVE 'Neocons', these are INTERCHANGEABLE TERMS in my mind, or perhaps even clearer,
Alt Right is synonymous with 'Kahanist'
Why is the Trump appointments/campaign getting stuffed with 'Alt Right' type and 'extreme right
wing Pro-Israel' appointments? Yep, you got it
The American Israel Lobby/Jewish Lobby/Neocons target Muslims (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Palestine)
NOT Jews
The Israelis target Muslims (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, the rest of their Clean Break targets)
NOT Jews
The International Islamophobes (LePen, Geert Wilders, Breivik, etc) target Muslims NOT Jews
Trump appointments are STUFFED with both the 'Alt Right' Gen Flynn, Mike Pompeo, Bannon – as
well as the Kahanist/extreme Right Wing Israeli Kahanist-type picks like David Friedman, Greenblatt,
maybe Frank Gaffney, etc.
They all get along and they all go watch 'Homeland' together to get their 'Alt Right Kahanist'
rocks off (Pompeo just met the 'Homeland' producers at Mike Rodger's house this week- can't make
it up)
Time to get this one fact clear – these new fascists ALL target Muslims, not Jews. The targets
of the Alt Right are MUSLIMS not Jews, and it's promoted by the Jewish Lobby/Israel Lobby
The collapse of Political Judaism in Israel (Zionism as practiced by it's Israeli enthusiasts,
which is Apartheid) and in America (the 'Alt Right Movement and it's Israeli Lobby/Jewish Lobby/Neocon
supporters') is in motion
When America's High Schoolers find out Trump and his 'Alt Right are really the 'Kahanist Alt
Right' it's gonna happen even faster.
"... The fundamental problem seems to be that the left / liberals are playing the game of the right for them and not being intelligent enough to realise it. ..."
"... Mass immigration is the case in point. The main beneficiaries from the movement of labour are the corporations and the capitalists. The losers are the incumbent population and the local workers. ..."
"... Mass low-skilled immigration (legal/illegal) is bad for working class people who are citizens of the US/UK. The "liberal" left are the ones who'd in the past naturally come to their defense. ..."
"... Multinational businesses love this mentality, because it allows them to indirectly harm billions of people, and get away with it. They push free trade (a very liberal concept) which cuts their taxes and makes them stronger than most national governments, so they wield vast, unaccountable power, and get away with massive levels of pollution. ..."
"... Mass immigration is the case in point. The main beneficiaries from the movement of labour are the corporations and the capitalists. The losers are the incumbent population and the local workers. ..."
The fundamental problem seems to be that the left / liberals are playing the game of the right
for them and not being intelligent enough to realise it.
Mass immigration is the case in point. The main beneficiaries from the movement of labour are
the corporations and the capitalists. The losers are the incumbent population and the local workers.
The liberal left are confusing the cries of alarm from those losing out with racism and bigotry,
which have been ingrained in their psyche due to identity politics.
Well put. Mass low-skilled immigration (legal/illegal) is bad for working class people
who are citizens of the US/UK. The "liberal" left are the ones who'd in the past naturally come
to their defense.
Instead, they've labelled them racists and islamphobes etc. because they are
not driven by (classical) liberalism but rather divisive identity politics focused on minority
groups (e.g. transgender issues, which is not going to win many votes.)
I think the liberals' horror at Jeremy Corbyn demonstrates this, as did the way liberals torpedoed
Bernie Sanders in favour of Hillary Clinton.
To be liberal is to let people do whatever they want, so long as they don't directly
harm other people.
Multinational businesses love this mentality, because it allows them to indirectly harm billions
of people, and get away with it. They push free trade (a very liberal concept) which cuts their
taxes and makes them stronger than most national governments, so they wield vast, unaccountable
power, and get away with massive levels of pollution.
Mass immigration is the case in point. The main beneficiaries from the movement of labour are
the corporations and the capitalists. The losers are the incumbent population and the local workers.
you might be putting the cart before the horse a little bit there. the problem isn't freedom of
movement (let's try not to use emotive terms like mass migration) is employers seeking cheap labour.
better wages would attract more local labour, instead employers actively seek cheap labour from abroad.
and that's a result of economic liberalism, which is very different to classical liberalism. classical
liberals built houses for their workers to live in, rather than not paying them enough to live in
their own house.
"... He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be." ..."
"... I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. ..."
"... Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States ..."
Stephen K. Bannon in a rare interview talks with Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal
about the winning campaign of Donald J. Trump and his part in helping the president-elect accomplish
his vision for America. Bannon also refutes charges of being antisemitic or a white nationalist saying
the allegations, "just aren't serious. It's a joke."
... ... ... Why does he think that leftists are so fixated on him? "They were ready to coronate
Hillary Clinton. That didn't happen, and I'm one of the reasons why. So, by the way, I wear these
attacks as an emblem of pride." Mr. Bannon believes Mr. Trump to be uniquely suited to make the
case, as "one of the best political orators in American history, rated with William Jennings Bryan."
He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security
adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting
choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says
something about what a historic figure he could be."
I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is
war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans.
"Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States"
It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all
need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism has been disastrous for the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial heartland, now little more than its wasteland ..."
"... The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate. ..."
"... two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair: offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. ..."
"... Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime. ..."
"... In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus, a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic) minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate, stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined. ..."
"... But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital (which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century capitalism. ..."
"... Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this. ..."
"... Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. ..."
"... Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too, along with a number of social drivers. ..."
"... The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico. ..."
"... I contend that in some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision appeared in sharp relief with Brexit. ..."
"... Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity, so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions that predate the emergence of identity politics. ..."
"... It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the plight of their cherished white working class. ..."
"... The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity. Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory present. ..."
"... Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'. ..."
"... Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness' threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation. Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like a minority vote. ..."
"... Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority, much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'? ..."
"... I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective. ..."
"... In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s." ..."
"... Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: "the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate." ..."
"... In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.' ..."
"... In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country, and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time, more and more power. ..."
"... To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their 2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced to pay. ..."
"... This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman white underclass (or so they see it). ..."
"... You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you), you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back. Nobody trusts the elite at all. ..."
"... You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem. ..."
"... One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016: the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people. This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party. ..."
"... Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery. ..."
"... None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it. ..."
"... . It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part. ..."
"... This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to the Ivy League, which is 90% of them. ..."
"... Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a "boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win? ..."
"... "The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians." ..."
"... "It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of rubble.' ..."
"... "One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats, one would be quite mistaken." ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response, governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to, and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time, is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon known as Goodhart's law. (..) ..."
"... " what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically, and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right to vote. ..."
"... "The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened. ..."
"... "The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism. It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun." ..."
"... They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue collar work. ..."
"... trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been "correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic party, have to accept. ..."
"... trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama was defending keeping what was already there. ..."
"... "Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html ..."
"... Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. "" ..."
The question is no longer her neoliberalism, but yours. Keep it or throw it away?
I wish this issue was being seriously discussed. Neoliberalism has been disastrous for
the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial
heartland, now little more than its wasteland (cf. "flyover zone" – a pejorative term which
inhabitants of the zone are not too stupid to understand perfectly, btw).
The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied
them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary
production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent
living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate.
As noted upthread, two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair:
offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. The jobs that have been lost will not return,
and indeed will be lost in ever greater numbers – just consider what will happen to the trucking
sector when self-driving trucks hit the roads sometime in the next 10-20 years (3.5 million truckers;
8.7 in allied jobs).
Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable
giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that
would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations
for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum
wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence
life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime.
In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus,
a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal
distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic)
minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate,
stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined.
I appreciate and espouse the goals of identity politics in all their multiplicity, and also
understand that the institutions of slavery and sexism predated modern capitalist economies.
But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital
(which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired
as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their
capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse
or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century
capitalism.
Also: Faustusnotes@100
For example Indiana took the ACA Medicaid expansion but did so with additional conditions that
make it worse than in neighboring states run by democratic governors.
And what states would those be? IL, IA, MI, OH, WI, KY, and TN have Republican governors. Were
you thinking pre-2014? pre-2012?
To conclude and return to my original point: what's to become of the Rust Belt in future? Did
the Democratic platform include a New New Deal for PA, OH, MI, WI, and IA (to name only the five
Rust Belt states Trump flipped)?
" Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic
and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive
governments to deal with this.
Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization
launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial
and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though,
was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the
Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. "
What should have been one comment came out as 4, so apologies on that front.
I spent the last week explaining the US election to my students in Japan in pretty much the
terms outlined by Lilla and PIketty, so I was delighted to discover these two articles.
Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too,
along with a number of social drivers. It was therefore very easy to call for a show of hands
to identify students studying here in Tokyo who are trying to decide whether or not to return
to areas such as Tohoku to build their lives; or remain in Kanto/Tokyo – the NY/Washington/LA
of Japan put crudely.
I asked students from regions close to Tohoku how they might feel if the Japanese prime minister
decided not to visit the region following Fukushima after the disaster, or preceding an election.
The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an
apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained
that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans
did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico.
I then asked the students, particularly those from outlying regions whether they believe Japan
needed a leader who would 'bring back Japanese jobs' from Viet Nam and China, etc. Many/most agreed
wholeheartedly. I then asked whether they believed Tokyo people treated those outside Kanto as
'inferiors.' Many do.
Piketty may be right regarding Trump's long-term effects on income inequality. He is wrong,
I suggest, to argue that Democrats failed to respond to Sanders' support. I contend that in
some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root
and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed
was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision
appeared in sharp relief with Brexit.
Also worth noting is that the rust belts problems are as old as Reagan – even the term dates
from the 80s, the issue is so uncool that there is a dire straits song about it. Some portion
of the decline of manufacturing there is due to manufacturers shifting to the south, where the
anti Union states have an advantage. Also there has been new investment – there were no Japanese
car companies in the us in the 1980s, so they are new job creators, yet insufficient to make up
the losses. Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity,
so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions
that predate the emergence of identity politics.
It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves
on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the
plight of their cherished white working class. Suddenly it's not the forces of capital and
the objective facts of history, but a bunch of whiny black trannies demanding safe spaces and
protesting police violence, that drove those towns to ruin.
And what solutions do they think the dems should have proposed? It can't be welfare, since
we got the ACA (watered down by representatives of the rust belt states). Is it, seriously, tariffs?
Short of going to an election promising w revolution, what should the dems have done? Give us
a clear answer so we can see what the alternative to identity politics is.
basil 11.19.16 at 5:11 am
Did this go through?
Thinking with WLGR @15, Yan @81, engels variously above,
The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people
and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of
the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great
injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation
of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic
vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan
C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity.
Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory
present.
I get that the tropes around race are easy, and super-available. Privilege confessing is very
in vogue as a prophylactic against charges of racism. But does it threaten the structures that
produce this abjection – either as embittered, immiserated 'white working class' or as threatened
minority group? It is always *those* 'white' people, the South, the Working Class, and never the
accusers some of whom are themselves happy to vote for a party that drowns out anti-war protesters
with chants of USA! USA!
Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces
ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'.
--
Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making
that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness'
threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans
are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation.
Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like
a minority vote.
Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder
if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of
the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority,
much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are
denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape
really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'?
I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants
in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but
this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective.
The 'racialisation' of class in Britain has been a consequence of the weakening of 'class'
as a political idea since the 1970s – it is a new construction, not an historic one.
.
This is not to deny the existence of working-class racism, or to suggest that racism is
somehow acceptable if rooted in perceived socio-economic grievances. But it is to suggest that
the concept of a 'white working class' needs problematizing, as does the claim that the British
working-class was strongly committed to a post-war vision of 'White Britain' analogous to the
politics which sustained the idea of a 'White Australia' until the 1960s.
Yes, old, settled neighbourhoods could be profoundly distrustful of outsiders – all outsiders,
including the researchers seeking to study them – but, when it came to race, they were internally
divided. We certainly hear working-class racist voices – often echoing stock racist complaints
about over-crowding, welfare dependency or exploitative landlords and small businessmen, but
we don't hear the deep pathological racial fears laid bare in the letters sent to Enoch Powell
after his so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 (Whipple, 2009).
But more importantly, we also hear strong anti-racist voices loudly and clearly. At Wallsend
on Tyneside, where the researchers were gathering their data just as Powell shot to notoriety,
we find workers expressing casual racism, but we also find eloquent expressions of an internationalist,
solidaristic perspective in which, crucially, black and white are seen as sharing the same
working-class interests.
Racism is denounced as a deliberate capitalist strategy to divide workers against themselves,
weakening their ability to challenge those with power over their lives (shipbuilding had long
been a very fractious industry and its workers had plenty of experience of the dangers of internal
sectarian battles).
To be able to mobilize across across racialised divisions, to have race wither away entirely
would, for me, be the beginning of a politics that allowed humanity to deal with the inescapable
violence of climate change and corporate power.
*To add to the bibliography – David R. Roediger, Elizabeth D. Esch – The Production of Difference
– Race and the Management of Labour, and Denise Ferreira da Silva – Toward a Global Idea of Race.
And I have just been pointed at Ian Haney-López, White By Law – The Legal Construction of Race.
FWIW 'merica's constitutional democracy is going to collapse.
Some day - not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change
forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies - there is going to be a collapse of the
legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we're lucky, it won't be violent.
If we're very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better,
more robust, political system. If we're less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen .
In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from
the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional
continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s."
Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly
important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the
Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When
they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the
basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote:
"the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly
legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate."
In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing
of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found,
a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a
period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative
and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.'
Given that the basic point is polarisation (i.e. that both the President and Congress have
equally strong arguments to be the the 'voice of the people') and that under the US appalling
constitutional set up, there is no way to decide between them, one can easily imagine the so to
speak 'hyperpolarisation' of a Trump Presidency as being the straw (or anvil) that breaks the
camel's back.
In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country,
and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral
result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious
democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time,
more and more power.
nastywoman @ 150
Just study the program of the 'Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland' or the Program of 'Die
Grünen' in Germany (take it through google translate) and you get all the answers you are looking
for.
No need to run it through google translate, it's available in English on their site. [Or one
could refer to the Green Party of the U.S. site/platform, which is very similar in scope and overall
philosophy. (www.gp.org).]
I looked at several of their topic areas (Agricultural, Global, Health, Rural) and yes, these
are general theses I would support. But they're hardly policy/project proposals for specific regions
or communities – the Greens espouse "think global, act local", so programs and projects must be
tailored to individual communities and regions.
To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the
Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their
2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced
to pay.
This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring
that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the
neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes
upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman
white underclass (or so they see it).
I expect at this point that Trump will be reelected comfortably. If not only the party itself,
but also most of its activists, refuse to actually change, it's more or less inevitable.
You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going
to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that
your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you),
you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't
stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or
not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back.
Nobody trusts the elite at all.
You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror
at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem.
One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016:
the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people.
This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party.
Folks, we have seen this before. Let's not descend in backbiting and recriminations, okay?
We've got some commenters charging that other commenters are "mansplaining," meanwhile we've got
other commenters claiming that it's economics and not racism/misogyny. It's all of the above.
Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists
also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has
happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising
to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the
existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able
to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery.
None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a
modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The
problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it.
Instead, what we're seeing is a whirlwind of finger-pointing from the Democratic leadership
that lost this election and probably let the entire New Deal get rolled back and wiped out. Putin
is to blame! Julian Assange is to blame! The biased media are to blame! Voter suppression is to
blame! Bernie Sanders is to blame! Jill Stein is to blame! Everyone and anyone except the current
out-of-touch influence-peddling elites who currently have run the Democratic party into the ground.
We need the feminists and the black lives matter groups and we also need the green party people
and the Bernie Sanders activists. But everyone has to understand that this is not an isolated
event. Trump did not just happen by accident. First there was Greece, then there was Brexit, then
there was Trump, next it'll be Renzi losing the referendum in Italy and a constitutional crisis
there, and after that, Marine Le Pen in France is going to win the first round of elections. (Probably
not the presidency, since all the other French parties will band together to stop her, but the
National Front is currently polling at 40% of all registered French voters.) And Marine LePen
is the real deal, a genuine full-on out-and-out fascist. Not a closet fascist like Steve Bannon,
LePen is the full monty with everything but a Hugo Boss suit and the death's heads on the cap.
Does anyone notice a pattern here?
This is an international movement. It is sweeping the world . It is the end of neoliberalism
and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp
out the authoritarian part.
Feminists, BLM, black bloc anarchiest anti-globalists, Sandernistas, and, yes, the former Hillary
supporters. Because it not just a coincidence that all these things are happening in all these
countries at the same time. The bottom 90% of the population in the developed world has been ripped
off by a managerial and financial and political class for the last 30 years and they have all
noticed that while the world GDP was skyrocketing and international trade agreements were getting
signed with zero input from the average citizen, a few people were getting very very rich but
nobody else was getting anything.
This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially
single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings
and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to
the Ivy League, which is 90% of them.
And the Democratic party is so helpless and so hopeless that it is letting the American Nazi
Party run to the left of them on health care, fer cripes sake! We are now in a situation
where the American Nazi Party is advocating single-payer nationalized health care, while the former
Democratic presidential nominee who just got defeated assured everyone that single-payer "will
never, ever happen."
C'mon! Is anyone surprised that Hillary lost? Let's cut the crap with the "Hillary
was a flawed candidate" arguments. The plain fact of the matter is that Hillary was running mainly
on getting rid of the problems she and her husband created 25 years ago. Hillary promised criminal
justice reform and Black Lives Matter-friendly policing policies - and guess who started the mass
incarceration trend and gave speeches calling black kids "superpredators" 20 years ago? Hillary
promised to fix the problems with the wretched mandate law forcing everyone to buy unaffordable
for-profit private insurance with no cost controls - and guess who originally ran for president
in 2008 on a policy of health care mandates with no cost controls? Yes, Hillary (ironically, Obama's
big surge in popularity as a candidate came when he ran against Hillary from the left, ridiculing
helath care mandates). Hillary promises to reform an out-of-control deregulated financial system
run amok - and guess who signed all those laws revoking Glass-Steagal and setting up the Securities
Trading Modernization Act? Yes, Bill Clinton, and Hillary was right there with him cheering the
whole process on.
So pardon me and lots of other folks for being less than impressed by Hillary's trustworthiness
and honesty. Run for president by promising to undo the damage you did to the country 25 years
ago is (let say) a suboptimal campaign strategy, and a distinctly suboptimal choice of presidential
candidate for a party in the same sense that the Hiroshima air defense was suboptimal in 1945.
Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a
"boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win?
Because we're back in the 1930s again, the economy has crashed hard and still hasn't recovered
(maybe because we still haven't convened a Pecora Commission and jailed a bunch of the thieves,
and we also haven't set up any alphabet government job programs like the CCC) so fascists and
racists and all kinds of other bottom-feeders are crawling out of the political woodwork to promise
to fix the problems that the Democratic party establishment won't.
Rule of thumb: any social or political or economic writer virulently hated by the current Democratic
party establishment is someone we should listen to closely right now.
Cornel West is at the top of the current Democratic establishment's hate list, and he has got
a great article in The Guardian that I think is spot-on:
"The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph
of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded
to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians."
Glenn Greenwald is another writer who has been showered with more hate by the Democratic establishment
recently than even Trump or Steve Bannon, so you know Greenwald is saying something important.
He has a great piece in The Intercept on the head-in-the-ground attitude of Democratic
elites toward their recent loss:
"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political
force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite
a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the
Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local
levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced
no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of
rubble.'
"One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked
political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce
a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats,
one would be quite mistaken."
Last but far from least, Scottish economist Mark Blyth has what looks to me like the single
best analysis of the entire global Trump_vs_deep_state tidal wave in Foreign Affairs magazine:
"At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass
unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response,
governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to,
and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time,
is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon
known as Goodhart's law. (..)
" what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary
regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this
world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at
all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically,
and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right
to vote.
"The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary
order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as
the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from
those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that
are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened.
"In short, to understand the election of Donald Trump we need to listen to the trumpets blowing
everywhere in the highly indebted developed countries and the people who vote for them.
"The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism.
It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing
above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun."
You don't live here, do you? I'm really asking a genuine question because the way you are framing
the question ("SPECIFICS!!!!!!) suggests you don't. (Just to show my background, born and raised
in Australia (In the electoral division of Kooyong, home of Menzies) but I've lived in the US
since 2000 in the midwest (MO, OH) and currently in the south (GA))
If this election has taught us anything it's no one cared about "specifics". It was a mood,
a feeling which brought trump over the top (and I'm not talking about the "average" trump voter
because that is meaningless. The average trunp voter was a republican voter in the south who the
Dems will never get so examining their motivations is immaterial to future strategy. I'm talking
about the voters in the Upper Midwest from places which voted for Obama twice then switched to
trump this year to give him his margin of victory).
trump voters have been pretty clear they don't actually care about the way trump does (or even
doesn't) do what he said he would do during the campaign. It was important to them he showed he
was "with" people like them. They way he did that was partially racialized (law and order, islamophobia)
but also a particular emphasis on blue collar work that focused on the work. Unfortunately these
voters, however much you tell them they should suck it up and accept their generations of familial
experience as relatively highly paid industrial workers (even if it is something only their fathers
and grandfathers experienced because the factories were closing when the voters came of age in
the 80s and 90s) is never coming back and they should be happy to retrain as something else, don't
want it. They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue
collar work.
trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs
and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been
"correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about
how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic
party, have to accept.
The idea they don't want "government help" is ridiculous. They love the government. They just
want the government to do things for them and not for other people (which unfortunately includes
blah people but also "the coasts", "sillicon valley", etc.). Obama won in 2008 and 2012 in part
due to the auto bailout.
trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like
the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama
was defending keeping what was already there.
"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the
automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable
labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses.
Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
So yes. Clinton needed vague promises. She needed something more than retraining and "jobs
of the future" and "restructuring". She needed to show she was committed to their way of life,
however those voters saw it, and would do something, anything, to keep it alive. trump did that
even though his plan won't work. And maybe he'll be punished for it. In 4 years. But in the interim
the gop will destroy so many things we need and rely on as well as entrench their power for generations
through the Supreme Court.
But really, it was hard for Clinton to be trusted to act like she cared about these peoples'
way of life because she (through her husband fairly or unfairly) was associated with some of the
larger actions and choices which helped usher in the decline.
Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned
out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump
economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's
economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. ""
"... Another tactic is to discourage international companies from doing business with Iran, an effort coordinated by the Iran Project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a premier anti-JCPOA lobbying center supported by Sheldon Adelson, a prominent donor to the Republicans and Trump. For instance, the FDD took a lead in denouncing the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for easing controls on dollar transactions between Iran and foreign banks and companies. ..."
"... With so much at stake, Iranians followed the American election with great interest. The Hezb-e Etedal va Toseh (Moderation and Development Party) of President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has the most to lose from the Trump presidency. ..."
"... Rouhani came to power in 2013 with a promise to fix the Iranian economy broken by years of mismanagement and sanctions. He managed to push through the JCPOA with assurances that the economic benefits would outweigh the cost of giving up the nuclear project-so much so that the Moderation and Development Party gained a majority in the 2016 parliamentary election. ..."
"... Even a cursory perusal of the Rouhani-affiliated media, such as Iran, Etemad and Arman newspapers, among others, indicates more than a passing level of anxiety about his chances in the wake of Trump's election. ..."
"... Rouhani's normalization plan, more than the JCPOA, puts the moderates on a collision course with the Revolutionary Guards and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The former are incensed about Rouhani's new banking regulations, while the latter opposes the type of broad opening to the world that the moderates are pushing. The supreme leader is known to worry that liberalization and Westernization would further undermine the corroding legitimacy of the theocratic state. Not surprisingly, hard-liners have reacted to Trump's victory with glee. Depicting Trump's election as "a victory of the insane over the liar," Kayhan, representing the Supreme Leader, called Trump "a shredder of the JCPOA, an agreement which had zero benefit for Iran." Javan, a mouthpiece for the Revolutionary Guards, wrote that Trump is better for Iran because he would undermine the credibility of the moderates. ..."
"... The hotly disputed ballistic-missile tests conducted by the Revolutionary Guards in the past year would also come under a review by the new administration; Congress is already crafting legislation that would further sanction implicated countries, companies and individuals. Even small infringements-like the recent incident in which the IAEA reported Iran exceeding the amount of heavy water allowed under the deal-can trigger more measures. ..."
"... Under Obama, such disputes were resolved by a special team of State Department and National Security Council officials, working with the IAEA. Whether the Trump administration would retain the team is doubtful, especially as such a move would be opposed by Bolton or other hard-liners, should they join the administration. Bolton, who accused the IAEA of covering up for Iran, would be most likely press for a more vigilant oversight of Iran's compliance, creating additional friction. This, in turn, can trigger potentially damaging developments. Under the JCPOA terms, Iran is not due additional sanction relief until 2023, but the president is required to sign periodical waivers on sanctions that are on the books if Iran is judged to be in compliance. By refusing to issue the waivers, the Trump administration would essentially abrogate American participation in the accord. ..."
Overlooked in the speculations about Trump's future decisions is the dominant role that Congress
would play in shaping American policy toward the JCPOA. In 2015, in conjunction with the government
of Israel and the Israel lobby in Washington, congressional Republicans mounted an unprecedented
but ultimately an unsuccessful campaign to derail the deal. Still, the lobby and its congressional
patrons have not abandoned their effort to limit the economic benefits of the deal to Iran. One effective
tool is new sanctions-generating legislation. Lawmakers from the House Republican Israel Caucus introduced
several bills which would, among others provisions, extend the Iran Sanctions Act due to expire in
December 2016, block the sale of eighty Boeing planes to Iran and prohibit the Export-Import Bank
from financing business with Iran. Unlike President Obama, President-elect Trump is not expected
to veto the anti-Iran legislation, setting a relatively low bar for its passage.
... ... ...
Another tactic is to discourage international companies from doing business with Iran, an
effort coordinated by the Iran Project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a premier
anti-JCPOA lobbying center supported by Sheldon Adelson, a prominent donor to the Republicans and
Trump. For instance, the FDD took a lead in denouncing the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) for easing controls on dollar transactions between Iran and foreign banks and
companies.
After initially banning all dollar-denominated transactions, OFAC reversed itself authorizing
such dealings provided they are not processed by the American financial system. In yet another effort
to spur international business with Iran, OFAC declared that foreign companies could transact business
with non-sanctioned Iranian companies even if a sanctioned entity held a minority share of its assets.
The Treasury also relaxed the requirement that foreign companies contracting with Iranian counterparts
do automatic due intelligence. Since the Revolutionary Guards have operated numerous ventures with
legitimate entities, the FDD decried this step as "green-lighting" business with the Guards.
... ... ...
With so much at stake, Iranians followed the American election with great interest. The Hezb-e
Etedal va Toseh (Moderation and Development Party) of President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani has the most to lose from the Trump presidency.
Rouhani came to power in 2013 with a promise to fix the Iranian economy broken by years of
mismanagement and sanctions. He managed to push through the JCPOA with assurances that the economic
benefits would outweigh the cost of giving up the nuclear project-so much so that the Moderation
and Development Party gained a majority in the 2016 parliamentary election. There is little
doubt that a serious reduction of the economic benefits accruing from the deal would hurt Rouhani's
chances in the 2017 presidential election. Even a cursory perusal of the Rouhani-affiliated media,
such as Iran, Etemad and Arman newspapers, among others, indicates more than a passing level of anxiety
about his chances in the wake of Trump's election.
... ... ...
Under Obama, such disputes were resolved by a special team of State Department and National Security
Council officials, working with the IAEA. Whether the Trump administration would retain the team
is doubtful, especially as such a move would be opposed by Bolton or other hard-liners, should they
join the administration. Bolton, who accused the IAEA of covering up for Iran, would be most likely
press for a more vigilant oversight of Iran's compliance, creating additional friction. This, in
turn, can trigger potentially damaging developments. Under the JCPOA terms, Iran is not due additional
sanction relief until 2023, but the president is required to sign periodical waivers on sanctions
that are on the books if Iran is judged to be in compliance. By refusing to issue the waivers, the
Trump administration would essentially abrogate American participation in the accord.
Even without a formal abrogation, an aggressive American policy would make it hard for Rouhani
to protect all the aspects of JCPOA-mandated compliance. Hard-liners may be encouraged by the fact
that the EU, Russia and China are not likely to agree on snapping back sanctions, because they would
hold the Trump administration responsible for disrupting flourishing trade with Tehran. It is virtually
impossible to predict whether Iran, under a hard-line leadership, would resume its nuclear project.
It is equally difficult to foresee whether an Obama-type coalition behind the JCPOA could be recreated
in the future, should the need arise.
A Trump administration could let Tehran's hard-liners sabotage the JCPOA.
Farhad Rezaei
November 16, 2016
Rouhani's normalization plan, more than the JCPOA, puts the moderates on a collision course
with the Revolutionary Guards and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The former are incensed about Rouhani's
new banking regulations, while the latter opposes the type of broad opening to the world that the
moderates are pushing. The supreme leader is known to worry that liberalization and Westernization
would further undermine the corroding legitimacy of the theocratic state. Not surprisingly, hard-liners
have reacted to Trump's victory with glee. Depicting Trump's election as "a victory of the insane
over the liar," Kayhan, representing the Supreme Leader, called Trump "a shredder of the JCPOA, an
agreement which had zero benefit for Iran." Javan, a mouthpiece for the Revolutionary Guards, wrote
that Trump is better for Iran because he would undermine the credibility of the moderates.
... ... ...
The hotly disputed ballistic-missile tests conducted by the Revolutionary Guards in the past
year would also come under a review by the new administration; Congress is already crafting legislation
that would further sanction implicated countries, companies and individuals. Even small infringements-like
the recent incident in which the IAEA reported Iran exceeding the amount of heavy water allowed under
the deal-can trigger more measures.
Under Obama, such disputes were resolved by a special team of State Department and National
Security Council officials, working with the IAEA. Whether the Trump administration would retain
the team is doubtful, especially as such a move would be opposed by Bolton or other hard-liners,
should they join the administration. Bolton, who accused the IAEA of covering up for Iran, would
be most likely press for a more vigilant oversight of Iran's compliance, creating additional friction.
This, in turn, can trigger potentially damaging developments. Under the JCPOA terms, Iran is not
due additional sanction relief until 2023, but the president is required to sign periodical waivers
on sanctions that are on the books if Iran is judged to be in compliance. By refusing to issue the
waivers, the Trump administration would essentially abrogate American participation in the accord.
Even without a formal abrogation, an aggressive American policy would make it hard for Rouhani
to protect all the aspects of JCPOA-mandated compliance. Hard-liners may be encouraged by the fact
that the EU, Russia and China are not likely to agree on snapping back sanctions, because they would
hold the Trump administration responsible for disrupting flourishing trade with Tehran. It is virtually
impossible to predict whether Iran, under a hard-line leadership, would resume its nuclear project.
It is equally difficult to foresee whether an Obama-type coalition behind the JCPOA could be recreated
in the future, should the need arise.
Dr. Farhad Rezaei is a research fellow at Middle East Institute, Sakarya University, Turkey.
He is the author of the forthcoming Iran's Nuclear Program: A Study in Nuclear Proliferation and
Rollback (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
"... " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement ," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ..."
"... Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches, so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400 kids." ..."
"... Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump" ..."
"... " The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ." ..."
"... ... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team ... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities ... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet. ..."
Bannon next discusses the "battle line" inside America's great divide.
He absolutely - mockingly - rejects the idea that this is a racial line. "I'm not a white nationalist,
I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist, " he tells me. " The globalists gutted the American
working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to
not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent
of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years.
That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion
market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about
."
Bannon's vision: an "entirely new political movement", one which drives the conservatives crazy.
As to how monetary policy will coexist with fiscal stimulus, Bannon has a simple explanation: he
plans to "rebuild everything" courtesy of negative interest rates and cheap debt throughout the world.
Those rates may not be negative for too long.
" Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement
," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the
guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the
world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all
jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be
as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists,
in an economic nationalist movement."
How Bannon describes Trump: " an ideal vessel"
It is less than obvious how Bannon, now the official strategic brains of the Trump operation,
syncs with his boss, famously not too strategic. When Bannon took over the campaign from Paul
Manafort, there were many in the Trump circle who had resigned themselves to the inevitability
of the candidate listening to no one . But here too was a Bannon insight: When the campaign seemed
most in free fall or disarray, it was perhaps most on target. While Clinton was largely absent
from the campaign trail and concentrating on courting her donors, Trump - even after the leak
of the grab-them-by-the-pussy audio - was speaking to ever-growing crowds of thirty-five or forty
thousand. "He gets it, he gets it intuitively," says Bannon, perhaps still surprised he has found
such an ideal vessel. "You have probably the greatest orator since William Jennings Bryan, coupled
with an economic populist message and two political parties that are so owned by the donors that
they don't speak to their audience. But he speaks in a non-political vernacular, he communicates
with these people in a very visceral way. Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches,
so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows
up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When
they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400
kids."
Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump"
At that moment, as we talk, there's a knock on the door of Bannon's office, a temporary, impersonal,
middle-level executive space with a hodgepodge of chairs for constant impromptu meetings. Sen.
Ted Cruz, once the Republican firebrand, now quite a small and unassuming figure, has been waiting
patiently for a chat and Bannon excuses himself for a short while. It is clear when we return
to our conversation that it is not just the liberal establishment that Bannon feels he has triumphed
over, but the conservative one too - not least of all Fox News and its owners, the Murdochs. "They
got it more wrong than anybody," he says. " Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump.
To him, Trump is a radical. Now they'll go centrist and build the network around Megyn Kelly."
Bannon recounts, with no small irony, that when Breitbart attacked Kelly after her challenges
to Trump in the initial Republican debate, Fox News chief Roger Ailes - whom Bannon describes
as an important mentor, and who Kelly's accusations of sexual harassment would help topple in
July - called to defend her. Bannon says he warned Ailes that Kelly would be out to get him too
.
Finally, Bannon on how he sees himself in the administration:
Bannon now becomes part of a two-headed White House political structure, with Reince Priebus
- in and out of Bannon's office as we talk - as chief of staff, in charge of making the trains
run on time, reporting to the president, and Bannon as chief strategist, in charge of vision,
goals, narrative and plan of attack, reporting to the president too. Add to this the ambitions
and whims of the president himself, and the novel circumstance of one who has never held elective
office, the agenda of his highly influential family and the end runs of a party significant parts
of which were opposed to him, and you have quite a complex court that Bannon will have to finesse
to realize his reign of the working man and a trillion dollars in new spending.
"I am," he says, with relish, "Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
" The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia.
The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he
means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the
black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they
were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people.
It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ."
... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team
... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities
... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful
accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet.
........ from wiki ...
Stephen Kevin Bannon was born on November 27, 1953, in Norfolk, Virginia into a working-class,
Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats. He graduated from Virginia Tech in
1976 and holds a master's degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. In 1983,
Bannon received an M.B.A. degree with honors from Harvard Business School.
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy, serving on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster
as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet and stateside as a special assistant to the
Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon.
After his military service, Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the Mergers
& Acquisitions Department. In 1990, Bannon and several colleagues from Goldman Sachs launched
Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media. Through Bannon & Co., Bannon negotiated
the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner. As payment, Bannon & Co. accepted a financial
stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld. Société Générale purchased Bannon & Co. in
1998.
In 1993, while still managing Bannon & Co., Bannon was made acting director of Earth-science
research project Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. Under Bannon, the project shifted emphasis from
researching space exploration and colonization towards pollution and global warming. He left the
project in 1995.
After the sale of Bannon & Co., Bannon became an executive producer in the film and media industry
in Hollywood, California. He was executive producer for Julie Taymor's 1999 film Titus. Bannon
became a partner with entertainment industry executive Jeff Kwatinetz at The Firm, Inc., a film
and television management company. In 2004, Bannon made a documentary about Ronald Reagan titled
In the Face of Evil. Through the making and screening of this film, Bannon was introduced to Peter
Schweizer and publisher Andrew Breitbart. He was involved in the financing and production of a
number of films, including Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman, The
Undefeated (on Sarah Palin), and Occupy Unmasked. Bannon also hosts a radio show (Breitbart News
Daily) on a Sirius XM satellite radio channel.
Bannon is also executive chairman and co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute,
where he helped orchestrate the publication of the book Clinton Cash. In 2015, Bannon was ranked
No. 19 on Mediaite's list of the "25 Most Influential in Political News Media 2015".
Bannon convinced Goldman Sachs to invest in a company known as Internet Gaming Entertainment.
Following a lawsuit, the company rebranded as Affinity Media and Bannon took over as CEO. From
2007 through 2011, Bannon was chairman and CEO of Affinity Media.
Bannon became a member of the board of Breitbart News. In March 2012, after founder Andrew
Breitbart's death, Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, the parent company
of Breitbart News. Under his leadership, Breitbart took a more alt-right and nationalistic approach
towards its agenda. Bannon declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016. Bannon
identifies as a conservative. Speaking about his role at Breitbart, Bannon said: "We think of
ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly 'anti-' the permanent political class."
The New York Times described Breitbart News under Bannon's leadership as a "curiosity of the
fringe right wing", with "ideologically driven journalists", that is a source of controversy "over
material that has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist." The newspaper also noted how
Breitbart was now a "potent voice" for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Bannon: " The globalists gutted the American working class ..the Democrats were talking
to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality.
They lost sight of what the world is about ."
Well said. Couldn't agree more.
Bannon: " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political
movement I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
Dear Mr. Bannon, it has to be way more than $1trillion in 10 years. Obama's $831 billion American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) didn't make up the difference for all the job lost
in 2007/08. Manufacturing alone lost about 9 million jobs since 1979, when it peaked.
Trump needs to go Ronald Reagan 180% deficit spending. If Trump runs 100% like Obama, Trump
will fail as well.
Speaking to foreign heads of state without briefing papers from neocon bottom feeders from the State
Department might be a wise move.
And meaningful contact with such the nation's foreign policy professionals as
Samantha Paul or Victoria Nuland
is probably impossible ;-).
"...turning a blind eye to Russia's designs on Ukraine and its support for the Assad regime
in Syria." might be what is really needed for the USA foreigh policy.
Like his new boss, Flynn appears very comfortable with the current Russian regime, working with
Russia Today , the Kremlin's propaganda TV network. He apparently
received classified intelligence briefings while running a lobbying firm for foreign clients.
He seems to favor working with Russia to combat Islamist terrorists while turning a blind eye
to Russia's designs on Ukraine and its support for the Assad regime in Syria.
... ... ..
In the brief time since he won the election, Trump's first call with a world leader was not
with a trusted US ally but with the Egyptian dictator President al-Sisi. He sat with prime minister
Abe of Japan this week, but his aides told the Japanese
not
to believe every word Trump said.
He met with the populist right wing British politician Nigel Farage before meeting the British
prime minister Theresa May. But he somehow found time to meet with several Indian
real estate developers to discuss his property interests with them, and the Trump Organization
signed a
Kolkata deal on Friday.
Amid his many interactions with foreign powers, Trump is speaking without briefing papers from
the State Department because his transition team is in such chaos that they have yet to establish
meaningful contact with the nation's foreign policy professionals.
Stillgrizzly
3d ago
85
86
The fundamental problem seems to be that the left /
liberals are playing the game of the right for them and
not being intelligent enough to realise it.
Mass immigration is the case in point. The main
beneficiaries from the movement of labour are the
corporations and the capitalists. The losers are the
incumbent population and the local workers.
The liberal left are confusing the cries of alarm from
those losing out with racism and bigotry, which have been
ingrained in their psyche due to identity politics.
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RJB73
Stillgrizzly
3d ago
48
49
Well put. Mass low-skilled immigration (legal/illegal)
is bad for working class people who are citizens of the
US/UK. The "liberal" left are the ones who'd in the
past naturally come to their defense. Instead, they've
labelled them racists and islamphobes etc. because they
are not driven by (classical) liberalism but rather
divisive identity politics focused on minority groups
(e.g. transgender issues, which is not going to win
many votes.)
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greenwichite
Stillgrizzly
3d ago
22
23
Liberals and the Left are not the same thing, though.
I think the liberals' horror at Jeremy Corbyn
demonstrates this, as did the way liberals torpedoed
Bernie Sanders in favour of Hillary Clinton.
To be liberal is to let people do whatever they
want, so long as they don't
directly
harm other
people.
Multinational businesses love this mentality,
because it allows them to indirectly harm billions of
people, and get away with it. They push free trade (a
very liberal concept) which cuts their taxes and makes
them stronger than most national governments, so they
wield vast, unaccountable power, and get away with
massive levels of pollution.
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Stillgrizzly
greenwichite
3d ago
9
10
The liberals "horror" at Corbyn is because he is
bringing out reactionary "hard" left elements amongst
other things, which are destroying what was a kind of
consensus.
This is fracturing the opposition and driving people
towards the right or "protest" parties. Corbyn is the
best recruiting tool UKIP never had.
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icansee
Stillgrizzly
3d ago
6
7
If you think that this was a universal backlash to the
effects of immigration on jobs , then you are missing
the point .
My advise is for you to check the archives of mother
jones and other blogs to find out how this faux rage
developed .
Trump's primary voters have an average income of
$70,000. They are not affected by mass migration .
This is a rage against Marriage equality ,Seperation of
the church and state ,continuation of the war against
affirmative action ,environmental protection ,union etc
.
The faux rage was engineered by l
1 Remnants of Koch brothers tea party
2 Fox news
3 Alt right
4 Evangelicals
5 Gun manufacturers
They created an hurricane and carried other
unwilling groups like blue collar democrats with them .
However , they wouldn't have stand any chance if
progressives had turned up .
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Jaisans
Stillgrizzly
3d ago
0
1
Mass immigration is the case in point. The main
beneficiaries from the movement of labour are the
corporations and the capitalists. The losers are the
incumbent population and the local workers.
you might
be putting the cart before the horse a little bit
there. the problem isn't freedom of movement (let's try
not to use emotive terms like mass migration) is
employers seeking cheap labour. better wages would
attract more local labour, instead employers actively
seek cheap labour from abroad. and that's a result of
economic liberalism, which is very different to
classical liberalism. classical liberals built houses
for their workers to live in, rather than not paying
them enough to live in their own house.
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Stillgrizzly
icansee
3d ago
2
3
Trump is allied with the Republican party, people seem
to have overlooked that. Therefore, shock horror, a lot
of Republican voters voted for him.
Also in the US, the level of non voting is huge,
suggesting a level of ignorance / disillusionment with
either of the choices.
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Stillgrizzly
Jaisans
3d ago
3
4
You're arguing for protectionism, just like Trump,
effectively state subsidy of the incumbent population
via tarriffs / subsidies / buy British / American
campaigns / increased welfare etc, the net effect is
the same.
isn't controlled
immigration also protectionism? employers exploiting
foreign workers at the expense of local labour is just
plain wrong, it's not market forces. and it's not the
fault of freedom of movement. and it causes
trouble...even keir hardie saw that
better welfare would be a good idea. a better one
would universal credit.
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Its_me
Stillgrizzly
2d ago
3
4
Yep, they hate Corbyn because he's rocking their cosy
boat where they could wear Red while having Blue
policies. The people who hate Corbyn are the same ones
who were vociferous against UKIP, for the same reasons
- they threatened to disrupt their LibLabCon club and
the opportunities they think they deserve.
"... "How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us
safer, in fact, quite the opposite. We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William
Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. ..."
"... Bolton has come under criticism from Sen. Rand Paul Rand Paul Battle brews over Trump's foreign
policy Steve Bannon - what do you actually know about him? America's public servants: Our last, best
hope MORE (R-Ky.), who was a skeptic of Bush's foreign policy. ..."
"... Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington
elite that Trump vowed to oppose." ..."
... The outsider group sees things differently. They want to revamp American foreign policy in
a different direction from the last two administrations. The second camp is also more in line
with Trump's views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment
camp.
"How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make
us safer, in fact, quite the opposite. We need to think really hard about these commitments,"
said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute.
Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in
Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose."
...military historian and Retired Amy Col. Andrew Bacevich said there needs to be a rethink
of American foreign policy. He said the U.S. must consider whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan qualify
as U.S. allies, and the growing divergence between the U.S. and Israel.
"The establishment doesn't want to touch questions like these with a ten foot pole," he said
at a conference on Tuesday hosted by The American Conservative, the Charles Koch Institute, and
the George Washington University Department of Political Science.
With some Trump advisers, it's not clear which camp they fall into. One example is retired
Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who may become Trump's
national security adviser.
Flynn is a "curious case," said Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative.
The retired Army general has said he wants to work with Russia, but also expressed contrary views
in his book "Field of Fight."
According to Larison, Flynn writes of an "enemy alliance" against the U.S. that includes Russia,
North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
It's also not crystal clear which camp Giuliani falls into. The former mayor is known as a
fierce critic of Islamic extremism but has scant foreign policy experience.
Most say what is likely is change.
"Change is coming to American grand strategy whether we like it or not,' said Christopher Layne,
Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A&M University.
"I think we are overdue for American retrenchment. Americans are beginning to suffer from hegemony
fatigue," he said.
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make
the Rich Richer
By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination, a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is
the enemy of the world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies
to help U.S. workers, specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being
of the world's poor because exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other
wealthy countries is their path out of poverty. The role model was China, which by
exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty and drastically reduced poverty among its
population. Sanders and his supporters would block the rest of the developing world from
following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the
millennial-oriented media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016).
After all, it was pretty irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich
was pushing policies that would condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less
valuable if you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an
introductory economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers
in the developing world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the
United States don't buy it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the
developing world will grind to a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have
enough people in the world to buy stuff. In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But
is it really true that no one else in the world would buy the stuff produced by
manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't sell it to consumers in the
United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff they produced
raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages
of demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended
toward full employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was
that we couldn't produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and
couldn't find anyone to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to
analyze trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect
total employment. Economies adjust so that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook
economics), capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively
plentiful and so gets a low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is
scarce and gets a high rate of return.
[Figure 1-1] Theoretical and actual capital flows.
So the United States, Japan, and the European Union should be running large trade
surpluses, which is what an outflow of capital means. Rich countries like ours should be
lending money to developing countries, providing them with the means to build up their
capital stock and infrastructure while they use their own resources to meet their people's
basic needs.
This wasn't just theory. That story accurately described much of the developing world,
especially Asia, through the 1990s. Countries like Indonesia and Malaysia were experiencing
rapid annual growth of 7.8 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively, even as they ran large
trade deficits, just over 2 percent of GDP each year in Indonesia and almost 5 percent in
Malaysia.
These trade deficits probably were excessive, and a crisis of confidence hit East Asia
and much of the developing world in the summer of 1997. The inflow of capital from rich
countries slowed or reversed, making it impossible for the developing countries to sustain
the fixed exchange rates most had at the time. One after another, they were forced to
abandon their fixed exchange rates and turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for
help.
Rather than promulgating policies that would allow developing countries to continue the
textbook development path of growth driven by importing capital and running trade deficits,
the IMF made debt repayment a top priority. The bailout, under the direction of the Clinton
administration Treasury Department, required developing countries to switch to large trade
surpluses (Radelet and Sachs 2000, O'Neil 1999).
The countries of East Asia would be far richer today had they been allowed to continue
on the growth path of the early and mid-1990s, when they had large trade deficits. Four of
the five would be more than twice as rich, and the fifth, Vietnam, would be almost 50
percent richer. South Korea and Malaysia would have higher per capita incomes today than
the United States.
[Figure 1-2] Per capita income of East Asian countries, actual vs. continuing on 1990s
growth path.
In the wake of the East Asia bailout, countries throughout the developing world decided
they had to build up reserves of foreign exchange, primarily dollars, in order to avoid
ever facing the same harsh bailout terms as the countries of East Asia. Building up
reserves meant running large trade surpluses, and it is no coincidence that the U.S. trade
deficit has exploded, rising from just over 1 percent of GDP in 1996 to almost 6 percent in
2005. The rise has coincided with the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing jobs,
roughly 20 percent of employment in the sector.
There was no reason the textbook growth pattern of the 1990s could not have continued.
It wasn't the laws of economics that forced developing countries to take a different path,
it was the failed bailout and the international financial system. It would seem that the
enemy of the world's poor is not Bernie Sanders but rather the engineers of our current
globalization policies.
There is a further point in this story that is generally missed: it is not only the
volume of trade flows that is determined by policy, but also the content. A major push in
recent trade deals has been to require stronger and longer patent and copyright protection.
Paying the fees imposed by these terms, especially for prescription drugs, is a huge burden
on the developing world. Bill Clinton would have much less need to fly around the world for
the Clinton Foundation had he not inserted the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights) provisions in the World Trade Organization (WTO) that require developing
countries to adopt U.S.-style patent protections. Generic drugs are almost always cheap -
patent protection makes drugs expensive. The cancer and hepatitis drugs that sell for tens
or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year would sell for a few hundred dollars in a free
market. Cheap drugs would be more widely available had the developed world not forced TRIPS
on the developing world.
Of course, we have to pay for the research to develop new drugs or any innovation. We
also have to compensate creative workers who produce music, movies, and books. But there
are efficient alternatives to patents and copyrights, and the efforts by the elites in the
United States and other wealthy countries to impose these relics on the developing world is
just a mechanism for redistributing income from the world's poor to Pfizer, Microsoft, and
Disney. Stronger and longer patent and copyright protection is not a necessary feature of a
21st century economy.
In textbook trade theory, if a country has a larger trade surplus on payments for
royalties and patent licensing fees, it will have a larger trade deficit in manufactured
goods and other areas. The reason is that, in theory, the trade balance is fixed by
national savings and investment, not by the ability of a country to export in a particular
area. If the trade deficit is effectively fixed by these macroeconomic factors, then more
exports in one area mean fewer exports in other areas. Put another way, income gains for
Pfizer and Disney translate into lost jobs for workers in the steel and auto industries....
It includes this interesting piece on international trade:
"I'll start with my favorite, the complaint that the trade policy advocating by Warren
and Sanders would hurt the poor in the developing world, or to use their words:
"And their ostensible protection of American workers leaves no room to consider the welfare
of poor people elsewhere in the world."
I like this one because it turns standard economic theory on its head to advance the
interests of the rich and powerful. In the economic textbooks, rich countries like the
United States are supposed to be exporting capital to the developing world. This provides
them the means to build up their capital stock and infrastructure, while maintaining the
living standards of their populations. This is the standard economic story where the
problem is scarcity.
But to justify trade policies that have harmed tens of millions of U.S. workers, either
by costing them jobs or depressing their wages, the Post discards standard economics and
tells us the problem facing people in the developing world is that there is too much stuff.
If we didn't buy the goods produced in the developing world then there would just be a
massive glut of unsold products.
In the standard theory the people in the developing world buy their own stuff, with rich
countries like the U.S. providing the financing. It actually did work this way in the
1990s, up until the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. In that period, countries like
Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia were growing very rapidly while running large trade
deficits. This pattern of growth was ended by the terms of the bailout imposed on these
countries by the U.S. Treasury Department through the International Monetary Fund.
The harsh terms of the bailout forced these and other developing countries to reverse
the standard textbook path and start running large trade surpluses. This post-bailout
period was associated with slower growth for these countries. In other words, the poor of
the developing world suffered from the pattern of trade the Post advocates. If they had
continued on the pre-bailout path they would be much richer today. In fact, South Korea and
Malaysia would be richer than the United States if they had maintained their pre-bailout
growth rate over the last two decades. (This is the topic of the introduction to my new
book, Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make
the Rich Richer, it's free.)"
Not sure that I fully agree with him, but I do agree that trade imbalances and
mercantilism is a large part of the problem.
The Washington Post editorial page decided to lecture readers * on the meaning of
progressivism. Okay, that is nowhere near as bad as a Trump presidency, but really, did we
need this?
The editorial gives us a potpourri of neo-liberal (yes, the term is appropriate here)
platitudes, all of which we have heard many times before and are best half true. For
framing, the villains are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who it tells us "are
embracing principles that are not genuinely progressive."
I'll start with my favorite, the complaint that the trade policy advocating by Warren
and Sanders would hurt the poor in the developing world, or to use their words:
"And their ostensible protection of American workers leaves no room to consider the
welfare of poor people elsewhere in the world."
I like this one because it turns standard economic theory on its head to advance the
interests of the rich and powerful. In the economic textbooks, rich countries like the
United States are supposed to be exporting capital to the developing world. This provides
them the means to build up their capital stock and infrastructure, while maintaining the
living standards of their populations. This is the standard economic story where the
problem is scarcity.
But to justify trade policies that have harmed tens of millions of U.S. workers, either
by costing them jobs or depressing their wages, the Post discards standard economics and
tells us the problem facing people in the developing world is that there is too much stuff.
If we didn't buy the goods produced in the developing world then there would just be a
massive glut of unsold products.
In the standard theory the people in the developing world buy their own stuff, with rich
countries like the U.S. providing the financing. It actually did work this way in the
1990s, up until the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. In that period, countries like
Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia were growing very rapidly while running large trade
deficits. This pattern of growth was ended by the terms of the bailout imposed on these
countries by the U.S. Treasury Department through the International Monetary Fund.
The harsh terms of the bailout forced these and other developing countries to reverse
the standard textbook path and start running large trade surpluses. This post-bailout
period was associated with slower growth for these countries. In other words, the poor of
the developing world suffered from the pattern of trade the Post advocates. If they had
continued on the pre-bailout path they would be much richer today. In fact, South Korea and
Malaysia would be richer than the United States if they had maintained their pre-bailout
growth rate over the last two decades. (This is the topic of the introduction to my new
book, "Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to
Make the Rich Richer," ** it's free.)
It is also important to note that the Post is only bothered by forms of protection that
might help working class people. The United States prohibits foreign doctors from
practicing in the United States unless they complete a U.S. residency program. (The total
number of slots are tightly restricted with only a small fraction open to foreign trained
doctors.) This is a classic protectionist measure. No serious person can believe that the
only way for a person to be a competent doctor is to complete a U.S. residency program. It
costs the United States around $100 billion a year ($700 per family) in higher medical
expenses. Yet, we never hear a word about this or other barriers that protect the most
highly paid professionals from the same sort of international competition faced by
steelworkers and textile workers.
Moving on, we get yet another Post tirade on Social Security.
"You can expand benefits for everyone, as Ms. Warren favors. Prosperous retirees who
live mostly off their well-padded 401(k)s will appreciate what to them will feel like a
small bonus, if they notice it. But spreading wealth that way will make it harder to find
the resources for the vulnerable elderly who truly depend on Social Security.
"But demographics - the aging of the population - cannot be wished away. In the 1960s,
about five taxpayers were helping to support each Social Security recipient, and the
economy was growing about 6 percent annually. Today there are fewer than three workers for
each pensioner, and the growth rate even following the 2008 recession has averaged about 2
percent . On current trends, 10 years from now the federal government will be spending
almost all its money on Medicare, Social Security and other entitlements and on interest
payments on the debt, leaving less and less for schools, housing and job training. There is
nothing progressive about that."
There are all sorts of misleading or wrong claims here. First, the economy did not grow
"about 6 percent annually" in the 1960s. There were three years in which growth did exceed
6.0 percent, and it was a very prosperous decade, but growth only averaged 4.6 percent from
1960 to 1970.
I suppose we should be happy that the Post is at least getting closer to the mark. A
2007 editorial *** praising The North American Free Trade Agreement told readers that
Mexico's GDP "has more than quadrupled since 1987." The International Monetary Fund data
**** put the gain at 83 percent. So by comparison, they are doing pretty good with the 6
percent growth number for the sixties.
But getting to the demographics, we did go from more than five workers for every retiree
to less than three today, and this number is projected to fall further to around 2.0
workers per retiree in the next fifteen years. This raises the obvious question, so what?
The economy did not collapse even as we saw the fall from 5 workers per retiree to less
than 3, so something really really bad happens when it falls further? We did raise taxes to
cover the additional cost and we will probably have to raise taxes in the future.
We get that the Post doesn't like tax increases (no one does), but this hardly seems
like the end of the world. The Social Security Trustees project ***** that real wages will
rise on average by more than 34 percent over the next two decades. Suppose we took back
5–10 percent of these projected wage gains through tax increases (still leaving workers
with wages that are more than 30 percent higher than they are today), what is the big
problem?
Of course most workers have not seen their wages rise in step with the economy's growth
over the last four decades. This is a huge issue which is the sort of thing that
progressives should be and are focusing on. But the Post would rather distract us with the
possibility that at some point in the future we may be paying a somewhat higher Social
Security tax.
The Post's route for savings is also classic misdirection. It tells how about
high-living seniors who get so much money from their 401(k)s they don't even notice their
Social Security checks. Only a bit more than 4.0 percent of the over 65 population has
non-Social Security income of more than $80,000 a year. If the point is to have substantial
savings from means-testing it would be necessary to hit people with incomes around $40,000
a year or even lower. That is not what most people consider wealthy.
We could have substantial savings on Medicare by pushing down the pay of doctors and
reducing the prices of drugs and medical equipment. The latter could be done by
substituting public financing for research and development for government granted patent
monopolies (also discussed in Rigged). These items would almost invariably be cheap in a
free market. But the Post seems uninterested in ways to save money that could affect the
incomes of the rich.
One can quibble with whether the current benefits for middle income people are right or
should be somewhat higher or lower, but it is ridiculous to argue that raising them $50 a
month, as proposed by Senator Warren, will break the bank.
Then we have the issue of free college. The Post raises the issue, pushed by Senator
Sanders in his presidential campaign, and then tells readers:
"Our answer - we would argue, the progressive answer - is that there are people in
society with far greater needs than that upper-middle-class family in Fairfax County that
would be relieved of its tuition burden at the College of William & Mary if Mr. Sanders got
his wish."
There are two points to be made here. First there is extensive research ****** showing
that many children from low- and moderate-income families hugely over-estimate the cost of
college, failing to realize that they would be eligible for financial aid that would make
it free or nearly free. This means that the current structure is preventing many relatively
disadvantaged children from attending college. Arguably better education on the
opportunities to get aid would solve this problem, but the problem has existed for a long
time and better education has not done much to change the picture thus far.
The second point is that the process of determining eligibility for aid is itself
costly. Many children have divorced parents, with a non-custodial parent often not anxious
to pay for their children's college. Perhaps it is appropriate that they should pay, but
forcing payment is not an easy task and it doesn't make sense to make the children in such
situations suffer.
In many ways, the free college solution is likely to be the easiest, with the tax coming
out of the income of higher earners, the vast majority of whom will be the beneficiaries of
this policy. There are ways to save on paying for college. My favorite is limiting the pay
of anyone at a public school to the salary of the president of the United States ($400,000
a year). We can also deny the privilege of tax exempt status to private universities or
other non-profits that don't accept a similar salary cap. These folks can pay their top
executives whatever they want, but they shouldn't ask the taxpayers to subsidize their
exorbitant pay packages.
There is one final issue in the column worth noting. At one point it makes a pitch for
the virtues of economic growth then tells readers:
"It's not in conflict with the goal of redistribution."
At least some of us progressive types are not particularly focused on "redistribution."
The focus of my book and much of my other writing is on the way that the market has been
structured to redistribute income upward, compared with the structures in place in the
quarter century after World War II. Is understandable that people who are basically very
satisfied with this upward redistribution of market income would not want this rigging of
the market even to be discussed, but serious progressives do.
Although I like much of what
Dean Baker, I don't like his term "loser liberalism", nor do I think his de-emphasis on
redistribution useful. Au contraire, I think talking about redistribution is absolutely
essential if we are to move to sustainable world. We can no longer be certain that per
person GDP growth will be sufficient to be able to ignore distribution or to rely on
"predistribution".
The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive
By Dean Baker
Upward Redistribution of Income: It Didn't Just Happen
Money does not fall up. Yet the United States has experienced a massive upward
redistribution of income over the last three decades, leaving the bulk of the workforce
with little to show from the economic growth since 1980. This upward redistribution was not
the result of the natural workings of the market. Rather, it was the result of deliberate
policy, most of which had the support of the leadership of both the Republican and
Democratic parties.
Unfortunately, the public and even experienced progressive political figures are not
well informed about the key policies responsible for this upward redistribution, even
though they are not exactly secrets. The policies are so well established as conventional
economic policy that we tend to think of them as incontrovertibly virtuous things, but each
has a dark side. An anti-inflation policy by the Federal Reserve Board, which relies on
high interest rates, slows growth and throws people out of work. Major trade deals hurt
manufacturing workers by putting them in direct competition with low-paid workers in the
developing world. A high dollar makes U.S. goods uncompetitive in world markets.
Almost any economist would acknowledge these facts, but few economists have explored
their implications and explained them to the general public. As a result, most of us have
little understanding of the economic policies that have the largest impact on our jobs, our
homes, and our lives. Instead, public debate and the most hotly contested legislation in
Congress tend to be about issues that will have relatively little impact.
This lack of focus on crucial economic issues is a serious problem from the standpoint
of advancing a progressive agenda....
The Defense Department
reports
that as of Aug. 31, the total cost of operations related to defeating ISIS is $9.3 billion and
the average daily cost is $12.3 million.
Printer-friendly version
Even if ISIS loses Mosul and Raqqa, and Trump increases resources for the fight against the group,
the terrorist danger won't go away, experts say. Indeed, like it or not, Trump will have to confront
a complex "day after" scenario that has proved stubbornly enduring.
"ISIS is not the problem, but a symptom of the problem," said Kenneth Pollack, a Middle East policy
expert at the Brookings Institution, in an interview with The Daily Signal. "If you've learned anything
over recent time, you can't get rid of terrorism by just killing terrorists, if you don't address
the underlying grievances. Even if you kill them all, they will come back the next day."
2. Afghanistan War:
...The U.S. continued military efforts in Afghanistan were underscored this weekend, when a suicide
bomber snuck into the main American military base in the country, killing four Americans. The Taliban,
the long-running Islamic group waging war against Afghanistan's government, took credit for the attack.
Indeed, this grinding 15-year war, and the U.S. contribution to it, shows no signs of ending anytime
soon.
3. Ukraine-Russia War:
... ... ..
Trump has not criticized Russia for its action in Ukraine, and has hinted he would accept the
annexation of Crimea.
The Republican-led House, meanwhile, approved a resolution for the U.S. to provide lethal arms
to the Ukrainian government, but the White House has resisted, saying that it would only encourage
more violence.
Based on his public comments, it seems unlikely Trump will escalate the U.S. involvement in Ukraine,
and perhaps back off from its current role.
4. Saudi Arabia-Yemen War:
... ... ...
The Houthis ousted Yemen's government and forced its U.S.-backed president, Abed Mansour Hadi,
to flee to Saudi Arabia. The Houthis receive support from Iran, Saudi Arabia's rival in the Middle
East.
Obama decided to intervene in the fight because he wanted to reassure the U.S.' commitment to
Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally that was troubled by the nuclear deal with Iran. In addition, the U.S.
is concerned the chaos in Yemen could benefit the country's al-Qaeda affiliate.
About 10,000 people, nearly half civilians, have been killed in the war, most of them by the Saudi
military coalition, according to the United Nations.
5. Campaigns Against Terrorists in Africa:
What's Happening Now:
Obama has described his efforts to destroy al-Qaeda's core leadership as one of the successes
of his national security policy. But the terrorist threat has spread to new regions in recent years,
prompting a U.S. military response, and Trump will have to decide how to proceed.
Unrelated campaigns in Libya and Somalia are prime examples of the diffuse threat.
In Libya, the U.S. has conducted more than 360 airstrikes in support of pro-government forces
trying to expel ISIS from the coastal Libyan city, Sirte. A small number of U.S. special operations
forces are also providing on-the-ground support.
President Barack Obama said Wednesday that America's election of Donald Trump and the U.K.'s
vote to leave the European Union reflect a political uprising in the West over economic
inequities spawned by leaders' mishandling of globalization.
"... Already, motor-vehicle manufacturers ship an automotive transmission back and forth across the US-Mexican border several times in the course of production. At some point, unpacking that production process still further will reach the point of diminishing returns. ..."
"... The story for cross-border flows of financial capital is even more dramatic. Gross capital flows – the sum of inflows and outflows – are not just growing more slowly; they are down significantly in absolute terms from 2009 levels. ..."
"... ... cross-border bank lending and borrowing that have fallen. Foreign direct investment – financial flows to build foreign factories and acquire foreign companies – remains at pre-crisis levels. ..."
"... This difference reflects regulation. Having concluded, rightly, that cross-border bank lending is especially risky, regulators clamped down on banks' international operations. ..."
Does Donald Trump's election as United States president mean that globalization is dead, or are
reports of the process' demise greatly exaggerated? If globalization is only partly incapacitated,
not terminally ill, should we worry? How much will slower trade growth, now in the offing, matter
for the global economy?
World trade growth would be slowing down, even without Trump in office. Its growth was already
flat in the first quarter of 2016, and it fell
by nearly 1% in the second quarter. This continues a prior trend: since 2010, global trade has
grown at an annual rate of barely 2%. Together with the fact that worldwide production of goods and
services has been rising by more than 3%, this means that the trade-to-GDP ratio has been falling,
in contrast to its steady upward march in earlier years.
... the resurgent protectionism manifest in popular opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
Causality in economics may be elusive, but in this case it is clear. So far, slower trade growth
has been the result of slower GDP growth, not the other way around.
This is particularly evident in the case of investment spending, which has
fallen sharply since
the global financial crisis. Investment spending is trade-intensive, because countries rely disproportionately
on a relatively small handful of producers, like Germany, for technologically sophisticated capital
goods.
In addition, slower trade growth reflects China's economic deceleration. Until 2011 China was
growing at double-digit rates, and Chinese exports and imports were growing even faster. China's
growth has now slowed by a third, leading to slower growth of Chinese trade.
China's growth miracle, benefiting a fifth of the earth's population, is the most important economic
event of the last quarter-century. But it can happen only once. And now that the phase of catch-up
growth is over for China, this engine of global trade will slow.
The other engine of world trade has been global supply chains. Trade in parts and components has
benefited from falling transport costs, reflecting containerization and related advances in logistics.
But efficiency in shipping is unlikely to continue to improve faster than efficiency in the production
of what is being shipped. Already, motor-vehicle manufacturers ship an automotive transmission
back and forth across the US-Mexican border several times in the course of production. At some point,
unpacking that production process still further will reach the point of diminishing returns.
The story for cross-border flows of financial capital is even more dramatic. Gross capital
flows – the sum of inflows and outflows – are not just growing more slowly; they are down significantly
in absolute terms from 2009 levels.
... cross-border bank lending and borrowing that have fallen. Foreign direct investment –
financial flows to build foreign factories and acquire foreign companies – remains at pre-crisis
levels.
This difference reflects regulation. Having concluded, rightly, that cross-border bank lending
is especially risky, regulators clamped down on banks' international operations.
In response, many banks curtailed their cross-border business. But, rather than alarming anyone,
this should be seen as reassuring, because the riskiest forms of international finance have been
curtailed without disrupting more stable and productive forms of foreign investment.
We now face the prospect of the US government revoking the Dodd-Frank Act and rolling back the
financial reforms of recent years. Less stringent financial regulation may make for the recovery
of international capital flows. But we should be careful what we wish for.
"... I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.) ..."
"... IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU. ..."
"... 'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"' ..."
"... In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office. ..."
"... The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much. ..."
"... If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that. ..."
"... My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney. ..."
"... "My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." ..."
"... Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms ..."
"... Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting? ..."
I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia.
(My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another
place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.)
IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted
to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might
have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his
own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU.
Which I am sure he will do once everyone recognizes that that is the appropriate thing to do.
But as we well know everyone else will have to do the heavy lifting of figuring that out before
he will even acknowledge the possibility.
In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter
and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he
goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go
the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office.
In this case, Obama is probably too vain and Michelle being the saner of the two might rein
him in? Best of any world would, as you say, STFU. (As the Ex Prez. Obamamometer, that is probably
not in the cards.)
Maybe he will end up like Geo Bush, sitting in the bathtub drooling while he paints childish
self-portraits
Or maybe he will end up like OJ, where he tries to go hang out with all his cool friends and they
tell him to get lost
Ppl still mention him as a master orator, etc. Lots of post presidency speaking engagements
I suppose. I'd prefer him not to but then again if he makes enough annually from it to beat the
Clintons we might get the satisfaction of annoying them
"My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach,
finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that
the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values
and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow
exactly our approach." What Obama is saying is he wants Russia to join America in bombing
hospitals, schools, children, doctors, public facilities like water treatment plants, bridges,
weddings, homes, and civilians to list just few – while arming and supporting terrorists for regime
change. And if anyone points this out, Russia like the US is supposed to say "I know you are but
what am I?"
Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so
enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international
norms
Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things
like that without vomiting?
Is this the same Russia that just hacked our election and subverted our fine democracy? Why,
President Obama, I believe it behooves you to stand up to Russia yourself. Show President-Elect
Trump how it is done sir!
Hasan (Interviewer) (From 11.15 onwards into the interview): "In 2012, your agency was
saying, quote: "The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda in Iraq [(which ISIS arose
out of)], are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria." In 2012, the US was helping
coordinate arms transfers to those same groups. Why did you not stop that if you're worried
about the rise of Islamic extremism?"
Flynn: "Well I hate to say it's not my job,
but my job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was
as good as it could be, and I will tell you, it goes before 2012. When we were in Iraq, and
we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011,
it was very clear what we were going to face."
Hasan (Interviewer): You are basically saying that even in government at the time,
you knew those groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it,
but who wasn't listening?"
Flynn: "I think the administration."
Hasan (Interviewer): "So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?"
Flynn: "I don't know if they turned a blind eye. I think it was a decision, a willful
decision."
Hasan (Interviewer): "A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists,
Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?"
Flynn: "A willful decision to do what they're doing You have to really ask the President
what is it that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place, because it is very,
very confusing."
Former US Intelligence Chief Admits Obama Took "Willful Decision" to Support ISIS Rise
"... Now you are worried about yourselves, but there are only the dead and their survivors left
for whom you didn't speak up for. Give me one reason why anybody should worry about you, who seem to
believe that only you count because you are Americans. My very best wishes for your precious safety
and comfort and may you continue to look in the mirror and see no one there. Trust me, a mirror does
not lie. ..."
"... https://youtu.be/G0R09YzyuCI Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter ..."
"... Eliminate the social cancer of private finance and unfettered inheritance or continue to repeat
history to assured extinction. ..."
I understand some of you are very worried about the election of Donald Trump. But I want you
think about this:
First they went for Yugoslavia, and you didn't worry: a country died
Then they went for Afghanistan and you didn't worry: 220,000 Afghans have died.
Then, they went for Iraq, and you didn't worry: 1 million Iraqis died.
Then they went for Libya, and you didn't worry: 30,000 to 50,000 people died. Did you worry
when Qaddafi was murdered with a bayonet up his rectum? No. And someone even laughed.
Then they went for Ukraine, and you didn't worry: 10,000 people died and are dying.
Then they went for Syria, and you didn't worry: 250,000 people died
Then they went for Yemen: over 6,000 Yemenis have been killed and another 27,000 wounded.
According to the UN, most of them are civilians. Ten million Yemenis don't have enough to eat,
and 13 million have no access to clean water. Yemen is highly dependent on imported food, but
a U.S.-Saudi blockade has choked off most imports. The war is ongoing.
Then there is Somalia , and you don't worry
Then there are the countries that reaped the fallout from the collapse of Libya. Weapons looted
after the fall of Gaddafi fuel the wars in Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic.
Now you are worried about yourselves, but there are only the dead and their survivors left
for whom you didn't speak up for. Give me one reason why anybody should worry about you, who seem
to believe that only you count because you are Americans. My very best wishes for your precious
safety and comfort and may you continue to look in the mirror and see no one there. Trust me,
a mirror does not lie.
Sincerely,
One who does not worry about you.
PS By the way the butcher bill I am here presenting is very conservative on the body count
and does not include the wounded, the homeless, the refugees, or the cost of the wars to you,
who continue to believe that before Trump the world was a nice and comfortable place--for you.
@ 33 Great comment, but remember the tribe. French revolution, Marxism, Russian revolution, Israel,
neoliberalism. I am from the hard "Grapes of Wrath" left. Marxism was a brilliant Jewish ploy
to split the left, then identity politics. Oh, they are so clever and we are so dumb...
Nice continuation of the Killary Pac comment. I want to take it further.
Since the Marxism ploy to split the left the folks that own private finance have developed/implemented
another ploy to redirect criticism of themselves/their tools by adding goyim to the fringes of
private finance to make it look like a respectable cornerstone of our "civilization".
Oh, they are so clever and we are so dumb...
Eliminate the social cancer of private finance and unfettered inheritance or continue to
repeat history to assured extinction.
"... The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and disable
their dominance. ..."
"... It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the neoliberal
turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution of income
between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments. In Europe,
the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. ..."
"... When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features of
his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading money
center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New York Federal
Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury in the Obama Administration,
but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citibank. The crisis served
to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political
power entirely into their hands as well. Simon Johnson called it a coup. ..."
"... Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980 drove
both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. ..."
"... It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility for
economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that just happened,
in a meteorological economics. ..."
"... This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could aid
the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting constraints.
..."
"... No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and draw
attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes the political
problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational clarity or
coherence. ..."
"... If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power,
Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional
critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected,
Obama isn't really trying. ..."
"... Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism, because
it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference. ..."
At the center of Great Depression politics was a political struggle over the distribution of
income, a struggle that was only decisively resolved during the War, by the Great Compression.
It was at center of farm policy where policymakers struggled to find ways to support farm incomes.
It was at the center of industrial relations politics, where rapidly expanding unions were seeking
higher industrial wages. It was at the center of banking policy, where predatory financial practices
were under attack. It was at the center of efforts to regulate electric utility rates and establish
public power projects. And, everywhere, the clear subtext was a struggle between rich and poor,
the economic royalists as FDR once called them and everyone else.
FDR, an unmistakeable patrician in manner and pedigree, was leading a not-quite-revolutionary
politics, which was nevertheless hostile to and suspicious of business elites, as a source of
economic pathology. The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek
to side-step and disable their dominance.
It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments.
In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle.
In retrospect, though the New Deal did use direct employment as a means of relief to good effect
economically and politically, it never undertook anything like a Keynesian stimulus on a Keynesian
scale - at least until the War.
Where the New Deal witnessed the institution of an elaborate system of financial repression,
accomplished in large part by imposing on the financial sector an explicitly mandated structure,
with types of firms and effective limits on firm size and scope, a series of regulatory reforms
and financial crises beginning with Carter and Reagan served to wipe this structure away.
When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New
York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five
banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well. Simon
Johnson called it a coup.
I don't know what considerations guided Obama in choosing the size of the stimulus or its composition
(as spending and tax cuts). Larry Summers was identified at the time as a voice of caution, not
"gambling", but not much is known about his detailed reasoning in severely trimming Christina
Romer's entirely conventional calculations. (One consideration might well have been worldwide
resource shortages, which had made themselves felt in 2007-8 as an inflationary spike in commodity
prices.) I do not see a case for connecting stimulus size policy to the health care reform. At
the time the stimulus was proposed, the Administration had also been considering whether various
big banks and other financial institutions should be nationalized, forced to insolvency or otherwise
restructured as part of a regulatory reform.
Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. Accelerating
the financialization of the economy from 1999 on made New York and Washington rich, but the same
economic policies and process were devastating the Rust Belt as de-industrialization. They were
two aspects of the same complex of economic trends and policies. The rise of China as a manufacturing
center was, in critical respects, a financial operation within the context of globalized trade
that made investment in new manufacturing plant in China, as part of globalized supply chains
and global brand management, (arguably artificially) low-risk and high-profit, while reinvestment
in manufacturing in the American mid-west became unattractive, except as a game of extracting
tax subsidies or ripping off workers.
It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that
just happened, in a meteorological economics.
It is conceding too many good intentions to the Obama Administration to tie an inadequate stimulus
to a Rube Goldberg health care reform as the origin story for the final debacle of Democratic
neoliberal politics. There was a delicate balancing act going on, but they were not balancing
the recovery of the economy in general so much as they were balancing the recovery from insolvency
of a highly inefficient and arguably predatory financial sector, which was also not incidentally
financing the institutional core of the Democratic Party and staffing many key positions in the
Administration and in the regulatory apparatus.
This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints.
No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence.
The short version of my thinking on the Obama stimulus is this: Keynesian stimulus spending is
a free lunch; it doesn't really matter what you spend money on up to a very generous point, so
it seems ready-made for legislative log-rolling. If Obama could not get a very big stimulus
indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen
spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again,
if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really
trying.
Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
Great comment. Simply great. Hat tip to the author !
Notable quotes:
"… The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and
disable their dominance. …"
"… It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist
commitments. In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. …"
"… When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the
New York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top
five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well.
Simon Johnson called it a coup. … "
"… Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. …"
"… It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces"
that just happened, in a meteorological economics. …"
"… This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints. …"
"… No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence. …"
"… If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of
power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular
and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic
Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really trying. …"
"… Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
…"
"President-elect Donald Trump has named retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his new
national security adviser, according to a close source. The former DIA chief has been criticized
in US circles for refusing to take an anti-Russian stance."
Ethnically divided population is easier to control. This is what identity politics is about...
Notable quotes:
"... In the year 1915 America was over 85% white, and a half-century later in 1965, that same 85% ratio still nearly applied. But partly due to the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of that year, America's demographics changed very rapidly over the following five decades. By 2015 there had been a 700% increase in the total number of Hispanics and Asians and the black population was nearly 100% larger, while the number of (non-Hispanic) whites had grown less than 25%, with much of even that small increase due to the huge influx of Middle Easterners, North Africans, and other non-European Caucasians officially classified by our U.S. Census as "white." As a consequence of these sharply divergent demographic trends, American whites have fallen to little more than 60% of the total, and are now projected to become a minority within just another generation or two, already reduced to representing barely half of all children under the age of 10. ..."
"... The answer is that for various pragmatic and ideological reasons, the ruling elites of both our major parties have largely either ignored or publicly welcomed the demographic changes transforming the nation they jointly control. Continuous heavy immigration has long been seen as an unabashed positive both by open borders libertarians of the economically-focused Right and also by open borders multiculturalists of the socially-focused Left, and these ideological positions permeate the community of policy experts, staffers, donors, and media pundits who constitute our political ecosphere. ..."
"... Earlier this year, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, an elderly individual with unabashed socialistic views, was interviewed by Vox ..."
"... These notions scandalized his neoliberal interlocutor, and the following day another Vox ..."
I think this one short paragraph provides a better clue to the unexpected political rise of Donald
Trump than would a hundred footnoted academic articles.
In the year 1915 America was over 85%
white, and a half-century later in 1965, that same 85% ratio still nearly applied. But partly due
to the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of that year, America's demographics
changed very rapidly over the following five decades. By 2015 there had been a 700% increase
in the total number of Hispanics and Asians and the black population was nearly 100% larger, while
the number of (non-Hispanic) whites had grown less than 25%, with much of even that small increase
due to the huge influx of Middle Easterners, North Africans, and other non-European Caucasians officially
classified by our U.S. Census as "white." As a consequence of these sharply divergent demographic
trends, American whites have fallen to little more than 60% of the total, and are now projected to
become a minority within just another generation or two, already reduced to representing
barely half of all children under the age of 10.
Demographic changes so enormous and rapid on a continental scale are probably unprecedented in
all human history, and our political establishment was remarkably blind for having failed to anticipate
the possible popular reaction. Over the last twelve months, Donald Trump, a socially liberal New
Yorker, has utilized the immigration issue to seize the GOP presidential nomination against the vehement
opposition of nearly the entire Republican establishment, conservative and moderate alike, and at
times his campaign has enjoyed a lead in the national polls, placing him within possible reach of
the White House. Instead of wondering how a candidate came to take advantage of that particular issue,
perhaps we should instead ask ourselves why it hadn't happened sooner.
The answer is that for various pragmatic and ideological reasons, the ruling elites of both our
major parties have largely either ignored or publicly welcomed the demographic changes transforming
the nation they jointly control. Continuous heavy immigration has long been seen as an unabashed
positive both by open borders libertarians of the economically-focused Right and also by open borders
multiculturalists of the socially-focused Left, and these ideological positions permeate the community
of policy experts, staffers, donors, and media pundits who constitute our political ecosphere.
Earlier this year, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, an elderly individual with
unabashed socialistic views,
was interviewed by Vox's Ezra Klein, and explained that "of course" heavy foreign immigration-let
alone "open borders"-represented the economic dream of extreme free market libertarians such as the
Koch brothers, since that policy would obviously drive down the wages of workers and greatly advantage
Capital at the expense of Labor.
These notions scandalized his neoliberal interlocutor, and the following
day another Vox colleague
joined in the attack, harshly denouncing the candidate's views as "ugly" and "wrongheaded," while
instead pointing to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal as the proper font of
progressive economic doctrine. Faced with such sharp attacks by young and influential Democratic
pundits less than half his age, Sanders soon retreated from his simple statement of fact, and henceforth
avoided raising the immigration issue during the remainder of his campaign.
The United States should threaten Russia with military force in order to contain the Kremlin's growing
power on the international stage, a top candidate to become Donald Trump's Secretary of State has
said.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York Mayor
who is believed to be the front runner to head Mr Trump's
State Department, made the comments at a Washington event sponsored by the
Wall Street Journal
.
In
quotes | The Trump - Putin relationship
Putin on Trump:
"He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about
that He is an absolute leader of the presidential race, as we see it today. He says that
he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level of relations with Russia.
How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it." -
December 2015
Trump on Putin:
"It is always a great honour to be so nicely complimented by a
man so highly respected within his own country and beyond." -
December 2015
"I think I would just get along very well with Putin. I just
think so. People say what do you mean? I just think we would." -
July 2015
"I have no relationship with [Putin] other than he called me a
genius. He said Donald Trump is a genius and he is going to be the leader of the party and
he's going to be the leader of the world or something. He said some good stuff about me I
think I'd have a good relationship with Putin, who knows." -
February 2016
"I have nothing to do with Putin, I have never spoken to him, I
don't know anything about him, other than he will respect me." -
July 2016
"I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there's nothing I can
think of that I'd rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to how they are right now
so that we can go and knock out Isis together with other people. Wouldn't it be nice if we
actually got along?" -
July 2016
"The man has very strong control over a country. It's a very
different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he's
been a leader." -
September 2016
"Well I think when [Putin] called me brilliant, I'll take the
compliment, okay?" -
September 2016
"... News that Trump might work 4 days a week as President, or at least work the same work week as Congress does, would suggest he plans on running a lean government. ..."
"... A counter-argument that could be put forward is that the Presidency doesn't (and shouldn't) define the office-holder's life and the Clintons themselves are an example of what can happen if the Presidency consumes their lives ..."
"... If it's Trump's intention to reform the political culture in Washington and make it more accountable to the public, and bring the Presidency closer to the public, then defining the maximum limits of the position on his time and sticking to them, perhaps through delegating roles and functions to his cabinet secretaries, is one path to reform. ..."
My impression is that Donald Trump is planning or at least thinking of running the government
as a business, choosing people as cabinet secretaries on the basis of past experience and on what
they would bring to the position, as opposed to choosing cabinet secretaries because they have
been loyal yes-people (as Hillary Clinton would have done)
News that Trump might work 4 days a week as President, or at least work the same work week
as Congress does, would suggest he plans on running a lean government. At present the prevailing
attitude among Washington insiders and the corporate media is that Trump is not really that interested
in being President and isn't committed to the job 24/7.
A counter-argument that could be put forward is that the Presidency doesn't (and shouldn't)
define the office-holder's life and the Clintons themselves are an example of what can happen
if the Presidency consumes their lives: it can damage the individuals and in Hillary Clinton's
case, cut her off so much from ordinary people that it disqualifies her from becoming President
herself.
If it's Trump's intention to reform the political culture in Washington and make it more accountable
to the public, and bring the Presidency closer to the public, then defining the maximum limits
of the position on his time and sticking to them, perhaps through delegating roles and functions
to his cabinet secretaries, is one path to reform.
"... Because I was critical of the George W. Bush regime, the liberal-progressive-leftwing and homosexual/transgendered rights groups have me on their mailing lists. ..."
"... Unless they provoke him beyond reason, Trump is not going to bother any of these people. Trump wants to bring middle class jobs back to Americans, including for all those paid to protest him. In order to avoid nuclear war, Trump wants to restore normal relations between the major nuclear powers. When there are no jobs for Americans that pay enough to support an independent existence, Trump doesn't see the point of massive legal and illegal immigration. This is only common sense. ..."
I guess we have all noticed that the holier-than-thou groups who whined that Trump wasn't going to
accept the outcome of the election refuse to accept it themselves.
Because I was critical of the George W. Bush regime, the liberal-progressive-leftwing and
homosexual/transgendered rights groups have me on their mailing lists.
And it is unbelievable. The entirety of "the other America" refuses to accept the people's decision.
They think that their concerns are more important than the concerns of the American people, who they
regard as nothing but a collection of racist homophobic rednecks.
Unless they provoke him beyond reason, Trump is not going to bother any of these people. Trump
wants to bring middle class jobs back to Americans, including for all those paid to protest him.
In order to avoid nuclear war, Trump wants to restore normal relations between the major nuclear
powers. When there are no jobs for Americans that pay enough to support an independent existence,
Trump doesn't see the point of massive legal and illegal immigration. This is only common sense.
Yet "the threatened people" see it as fascism. Who are "the threatened people?" As always, the
most powerful. Tell me, what lobby is more powerful than the Israel Lobby? You can't. But the Jewish
Lobby, J Street, has sent me a hysterical email at 5:11pm on 14 November. Unless "we all come together
and oppose Trump's appointment of Breitbart editor Stephan Bannon as chief strategist and senior
counselor" a "wave of hate will sweep across the land," consuming "Jews, Muslims, African-Americans,
LGBT peoople (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered), immigrants, Hispanics, women and other groups."
Really now! So is Trump's chief strategist, whatever position that is, going to attack the Jews
and those with unusual sexual impulses with drones and cluster bombs, like the Zionist neoconservatives
who controlled the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes did to millions of slaughtered and
displaced peoples in 7 countries, and like Israel does to Palestinians? Or is the former Breitbart
editor going to round them all up and torture them in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo like Bush and Obama
did. And like Netanyahu does in Israel?
Or will Trump simply shoot them down in the streets like Netanyahu does to the Palestinian women
and children.
How come J Street and the Oligarchy-funded fronts are only concerned with nonexistent threats
and ignore all of the real threats?
... ... ...
We must hope that Donald Trump understands the state of moral, cultural, legal, and political
collapse that America is in. Two years ago at the Valdai International Discussion Club, Russian President
Vladimir Putin said:
"Many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian
values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and
all traditional identities, national, cultural, religious, and even secular. They are implementing
policies that equate families with same-sex partnerships, worship of God with worship of Satan.
I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound
demographic and moral crisis."
Ordinary Americans know what he means. They are forced to accept blasphemous films about Jesus Christ
and shameless newspaper caricatures of the Virgin Mary, but if one of them calls a homosexual a pervert,
he has committed a hate crime.
America is a country without an honest media. A country without an honest judiciary. Without an
honest government. Without an honest legislature. Without honest schools and universities. A country
whose morals are confused by propaganda. A country whose elites believe that they are entitled to
all the income and wealth and that normal American people are the "deplorables," to use Hillary's
term for ordinary Americans.
"... So remember, if Iraqis die by the hundreds of thousands – Birthpangs of Democracy. By pure coincidence, the top three donors to McCain's Campaigns: Defense Electronics, For-profit Education, Misc Defense ..."
He graduated at the bottom of his class, successfully got shot down in the Nam, and lobbied
for Iraq, a war that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and
trillions of dollars, and now he's back to promote his favorite activity when he's not involved
it in: warfare. Johnny "Rotten Judgement" McCain:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/donald-trump-transition.html?_r=0
"Senator John McCain issued a blunt warning on Tuesday to President-elect Trump and his emerging
foreign policy team: Don't try another "reset" with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. During
the campaign, Mr. Trump described Mr. Putin as a strong leader and suggested that the United States
and Russia might join forces in fighting the Islamic State. Mr. Putin congratulated Mr. Trump
on his election in a phone call on Monday and discussed working together to combat terrorism and
resolve the crisis in Syria, according to the Kremlin's account. That was too much for Mr. McCain,
the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who cautioned the incoming administration
not to be taken in by "a former K.G.B. agent." "When America has been at its best, it's when
we've stood w/ those fighting tyranny- that's where we must stand again" McCain tweeted "The
Obama administration's last attempt at resetting relations with Russia culminated in Putin's invasion
of Ukraine and military intervention in the Middle East," Mr. McCain, the newly re-elected Arizona
Republican, said in a statement."
Got it everyone? Obama's reset in 2008 caused Ukraine in 2014. Because as we all know, nothing
really happened between 2008 and 2014. There was coup in Ukraine, no Arab Spring, nothing.
"At the very least, the price of another 'reset' would be complicity in Putin and Assad's butchery
of the Syrian people," he added. "This is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America
has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side of those fighting tyranny. That
is where we must stand again."
So remember, if Iraqis die by the hundreds of thousands – Birthpangs of Democracy. By pure
coincidence, the top three donors to McCain's Campaigns: Defense Electronics, For-profit Education,
Misc Defense
"... Clinton's defeat is more than anything else a rejection of Obama. Obama descended into the fray to bolster her campaign and witnessed the rejection of his own presidency. Conquered, in the 2008 electoral campaign, with a pledge of support not only for Wall Street but also "Main Street", that is, the ordinary citizen. Since then, the middle class has witnessed its conditions deteriorate, the rate of poverty has increased while the rich have become even richer. Now, marketing himself as the champion of the middle class, the billionaire outsider, Donald Trump, has won the presidency. ..."
"... As her e-mails make clear, when she was Secretary of State, she convinced President Obama to engage in war to demolish Libya and to roll out the same operation against Syria. She was the one to promote the internal destabilization of Venezuela and Brazil and the US "Pivot to Asia" – an anti-Chinese manoeuvre. And yet again, she also used the Clinton Foundation as a vehicle to prepare the terrain in Ukraine for the Maidan Square putsch which paved the way for Usa/Nato escalation against Russia. ..."
"... Given that all this has not prevented the relative decline of US power, it is up to the Trump Administration to correct its shot, while keeping its gaze fixed on the same target. There is no air of reality to the hypothesis that Trump intends to abandon the system of alliances centered around US-led Nato. ..."
"... Trump could seek an agreement with Russia, an additional objective of which would be to pull it away from China. China: against which Trump announces economic measures, accompanied by an additional strengthening of US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. ..."
"... Here you have the colossal financial groups that dominate the economy (the share value alone of the companies listed on Wall Street is higher than the entire US national income). ..."
"... Then you have the multinationals whose economic dimensions exceed those of entire states and which delocalize production to countries offering cheap labour. The knock-on effect? Domestically, factories will close and unemployment will increase, which will in turn lead to the conditions of the US middle class becoming even worse. ..."
"... It is 21st century capitalism, which the USA expresses in its most extreme form, that increasingly polarizes the rich and poor. 1% of the global population has more than the other 99%. The President[-elect], Trump, belongs to the class of the superrich. ..."
Clinton's defeat is more than anything else a rejection of Obama. Obama descended into the
fray to bolster her campaign and witnessed the rejection of his own presidency. Conquered, in the
2008 electoral campaign, with a pledge of support not only for Wall Street but also "Main Street",
that is, the ordinary citizen. Since then, the middle class has witnessed its conditions deteriorate,
the rate of poverty has increased while the rich have become even richer. Now, marketing himself
as the champion of the middle class, the billionaire outsider, Donald Trump, has won the presidency.
How will this change of guard at the White House change US foreign policy? Certainly, the core
objective of remaining the dominant global power will remain untouched. [Yet] this position is increasing
fragile. The USA is losing ground both within the economic and the political domains, [ceding] it
to China, Russia and other "emerging countries". This is why it is throwing the sword onto the scale.
This is followed by a series of wars where Hillary Clinton played the [lead] protagonist.
As her authorized biography reveals, she was the one as First Lady, to convince the President,
her consort, to engage in war to destroy Yugoslavia, initiating a series of "humanitarian interventions"
against "dictators" charged with "genocide".
As her e-mails make clear, when she was Secretary of State, she convinced President Obama
to engage in war to demolish Libya and to roll out the same operation against Syria. She was the
one to promote the internal destabilization of Venezuela and Brazil and the US "Pivot to Asia" –
an anti-Chinese manoeuvre. And yet again, she also used the Clinton Foundation as a vehicle to prepare
the terrain in Ukraine for the Maidan Square putsch which paved the way for Usa/Nato escalation against
Russia.
Given that all this has not prevented the relative decline of US power, it is up to the Trump
Administration to correct its shot, while keeping its gaze fixed on the same target. There is no
air of reality to the hypothesis that Trump intends to abandon the system of alliances centered around
US-led Nato. But he will of course thump his fists on the table to secure a deeper commitment,
particularly on military expenditure from the allies.
Trump could seek an agreement with Russia, an additional objective of which would be to pull
it away from China. China: against which Trump announces economic measures, accompanied by an additional
strengthening of US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Such decisions, that will surely open the door for further wars, do not depend on Trump's warrior-like
temperament, but on centres of power wherein lies the matrix of command on which the White House
itself depends.
Here you have the colossal financial groups that dominate the economy (the share value alone
of the companies listed on Wall Street is higher than the entire US national income).
Then you have the multinationals whose economic dimensions exceed those of entire states and
which delocalize production to countries offering cheap labour. The knock-on effect? Domestically,
factories will close and unemployment will increase, which will in turn lead to the conditions of
the US middle class becoming even worse.
Then you have the giants of the war industry that extract profit from war.
It is 21st century capitalism, which the USA expresses in its most extreme form, that increasingly
polarizes the rich and poor. 1% of the global population has more than the other 99%. The President[-elect],
Trump, belongs to the class of the superrich.
"... Liberal democracy has always depended on its relationships with an illiberal Other of one sort or another, and all too often "liberal progressivism" merely means responding to such relationships in one's own society, the capitalist exploitation of a domestic proletariat, by "outsourcing" our illiberal tendencies to consist largely of the imperial domination and subjugation of foreigners. ..."
"... demand that we stop hiding our society's illiberal underbelly and acknowledge/celebrate it for what it is, a demand that may be the single most authentic marker of the transition from liberalism to fascism. ..."
"... They very likely in our current regimes will not show up in the same places. Neoliberalism and neoimperialism show pretty much the contradictions of the older globalist orders (late 19th c), they are just now distributed so as re-intensify the differences, the combined etc, and concentrate the accumulation. ..."
"... And elites are fighting over the spoils. ..."
"... But there are also people who either liked Trump's economic rhetoric and just disregarded the racism/sexism stuff the same way Clinton voters like me disregarded her warmongering (Republicans:domestic minorities::Democrats:foreigners), and other people who didn't have their resentments channeled at all and just stayed home. ..."
The economic case for immigration may be attractive-and, for the moment at least, persuasive-but
it is essentially a conservative argument, suggesting that human beings ought to be treated
in a certain manner because it generates economic benefit, and not necessarily because it is morally
required. Of course, liberals don't really want to look a gift horse in the mouth: with the political
climate hostile to the humanitarian plight of even the most sympathetic of migrants, liberals
are thrilled to have statistics and pie charts and suchlike to lay before a skittish American
public. It isn't every day that the right thing to do is also the rationally self-interested thing
to do, and we should certainly celebrate those joyous occasions when they arise. However, it's
important not to lose sight of the moral dimension of the argument, and in that context there
are a few questions worth asking.
…
The left has something to learn from the moral clarity of the libertarian case for immigration,
which asserts that human beings simply have a natural right to migrate freely. The moral argument
is far more robust than the economic one, because it is true universally regardless of changing
economic conditions. One doesn't need to prove that immigrants grow the GDP or that they will
never compete for the same jobs as Americans. The better point is that there is no good moral
reason for putting up walls and keeping people out. And just as Americans feel entitled to the
freedom to go anywhere in the world they please (and would be surprised to be turned away at a
border), so everyone else should be granted the same basic entitlement. It's also worth emphasizing
the inherent arbitrariness of global inequality. Given that the earth's resources are unevenly
apportioned, and people's life circumstances depend on the geographic accident of their birth,
shouldn't we understand this to be a moral evil, and strive to correct it where we can? Perhaps
such arguments will fail to persuade. But they are far more sound, and ultimately, far more honest.
Increased immigration should be allowed because it is morally right, not because it is in our
narrow economic self-interest.
Point being, Dipper @ 108 has hit the nail quite squarely on the head.
Liberal democracy has always depended on its relationships with an illiberal Other of one
sort or another, and all too often "liberal progressivism" merely means responding to such relationships
in one's own society, the capitalist exploitation of a domestic proletariat, by "outsourcing" our
illiberal tendencies to consist largely of the imperial domination and subjugation of foreigners.
(Which can even happen inside one's own borders, as long as it remains suitably "illegal"; notice
how much less ideologically problematic it is to document the presence and labor of the most brutally
exploited migrant workers in e.g. China or the Gulf Arab states than in more liberal societies like
the US or EU.)
It's the height of either hypocrisy or obliviousness for those who consider themselves liberal
progressives to then act surprised when the people charged with carrying out this domination and
subjugation on our behalf - our Colonel Jessups, if you will
- demand that we stop hiding our society's illiberal underbelly
and acknowledge/celebrate it for what it is, a demand that may be the single most authentic marker
of the transition from liberalism to fascism. Is that easier to understand?
bob mcmanus 11.15.16 at 4:31 pm
I liked WLGR's at 115 a little better than Dipper, but there are many comments coming
better than anything I can do.
It may be that global manufacturing jobs are declining due to automation, but my recent reading
has convinced me that capital is now able to move low wage low skill manufacturing jobs so fast
that it is hard for analysis to keep up. LTV says that as long as the profits and wealth and accumulation
(and political power) are showing up, somewhere there is superexploited labor. They very likely
in our current regimes will not show up in the same places. Neoliberalism and neoimperialism
show pretty much the contradictions of the older globalist orders (late 19th c), they are just
now distributed so as re-intensify the differences, the combined etc, and concentrate the accumulation.
And elites are fighting over the spoils.
Consumatopia 11.15.16 at 3:54 pm
There's a weird disconnect between the debate among online leftists/liberals and the debate among
Democratic politicians now. Online it's socialists saying "they hate neoliberalism, reach out
to them!", social justice activists saying "they're racists, screw them!" In party institutions,
it's the same except the second group is saying "they're racists, we must avoid antagonizing them!"
Seriously, they're arguing that Bernie would have lost because he's Jewish and his ally Keith
Ellison shouldn't lead the DNC because he's Muslim.
So I just hope the people saying "they're racists!" understand that if the Democratic party
comes to agree with you then the party will move to the right on race–or at least it will pull
back from some of the rhetoric Chris (merian) described at 76.
Anyway, from the OP, "These have indeed failed people, and policies of austerity coupled with
bailouts for the banks have enraged the voters, so that many people, nostalgic for a more equal
and more functional society but confused about who to blame, have channelled their resentments
against immigrants and minorities. "
I think this is almost but not quite correct. There definitely exist some people for whom this
is true. But there are also people who either liked Trump's economic rhetoric and just disregarded
the racism/sexism stuff the same way Clinton voters like me disregarded her warmongering (Republicans:domestic
minorities::Democrats:foreigners), and other people who didn't have their resentments channeled
at all and just stayed home.
More that that, I just don't think anyone has a good understanding of what moves the white
working class to the right. It isn't just racism and sexism, and it ends up playing out
differently in different regions. It's not necessarily true that they're ready for Sanders–look
at Kentucky voting for a governor promising to end Medicaid expansion in 2015. This is a poor
but very white state. Lower middle class whites turned against further downscale whites. Poor
whites didn't show up. It wasn't racism that drove this, but it wasn't hatred of neoliberalism
either–it may be a response to pain neoliberalism caused, but they haven't been prepared to point
the finger there.
@WLGR: I do not believe that the case for free movement depends on economic arguments; I do believe
that when its opponents advance bogus economic arguments they should be rebutted.
"... Do you think Trump was serious when he called for a Russia détente? ..."
"... PC: He might be. It's not so stupid. To some degree, that's what we already have had: negotiations
and an attempted ceasefire with the Russians. You can justify that by saying that if there is going
to be any peace agreement in Syria, it has to be negotiated by the biggest players which are the U.S.
and Russia. They may not be enough to do it, they may not be able to control allies or proxies or something.
[But] that's sort of feasible. ..."
"... it's evident that within the U.S. government, different parts of the government have different
policies; you know, the CIA arming various rebel factions, the Pentagon tried this. But the idea of
arming factions that were supposedly moderate not only hasn't worked but it's been disastrous, it's
been a joke. Whatever the state of the Syrian political opposition, the armed opposition is dominated
by Islamists and has been a long time. So that might continue but I don't think it'll make much difference.
When it comes to troops, soldiers, on the ground cooperating with the U.S., of course, the Pentagon
did find people but it was the Kurds and various proxies supported by the Kurds. ..."
"... I don't think it works that way at the moment because they tend to think of Americans, Europeans,
not just non-Muslims but non-believers in that sort of Wahhabi variant of Islam that they believe in.
So to them all the world's an enemy, whether it's a Shia Muslim who's worthy of immediate death or Yazidis,
who many are enslaved. ..."
"... Now we're getting to-the fighting is in East Mosul and that's full of people. This is an important
question that's going to come up now in the next few weeks. The Iraqi army isn't making that much progress
over the last week in those areas, so what'll they do? One option is much more bombing and disregard
the civilian casualties. If that happens then the number of civilian casualties will soar vastly from
what it is now. ..."
Above all, what's the relationship to Iran? That's one thing Trump is very committed to, was denouncing
the Iran deal. Now, does that fall apart? Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies would be very pleased
if it did fall apart. If that falls apart then that further destabilizes the region and gives an
incentive to the Iranians to maybe increase their intervention [in Iraq] and Syria. It has all sorts
of repercussions.
That's probably the most menacing thing, is whether the deal Obama did with the Iranians is dropped
by Trump, which would probably delight the Israelis, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies. That's
the most destabilizing thing that could happen and is perhaps the most likely thing that could happen.
KK: What effect would killing the Iran deal have on the war against ISIS?
PC: There has always been this funny mixture particularly in Iraq, of public rivalry and private
cooperation between the Iranian army and the U.S. because for a long time they had the same enemies-initially
in Saddam Hussein and then al-Qaeda in Iraq. You had a Shia government [in Iraq] supported by the
U.S. after 2005 but it was also supported by Iran. They wanted to increase their influence and limit
that of America but they had the same friends and the same enemies. The degree of cooperation would
depend somewhat on this nuclear deal and has increased because of this nuclear deal.
Also the current government of Iran that is committed to this deal could fall apart. It's all
very negative if that goes.
KK: If Trump tears up the agreement, will there be a government more like Ahmadinejad's in
Iran?
PC: That's one thing that could happen…a tougher U.S. line on Iran provokes the whole Shia coalition
against the U.S., makes them look more towards war than diplomacy.
KK: Do you think Trump was serious when he called for a Russia détente?
PC: He might be. It's not so stupid. To some degree, that's what we already have had: negotiations
and an attempted ceasefire with the Russians. You can justify that by saying that if there is going
to be any peace agreement in Syria, it has to be negotiated by the biggest players which are the
U.S. and Russia. They may not be enough to do it, they may not be able to control allies or proxies
or something. [But] that's sort of feasible.
It's also true that policies such as Hillary Clinton's -- or just the people around her who were
talking about fighting Islamic State and fighting, getting rid of Assad-were never feasible. There
isn't a moderate opposition faction that could've fought both. It barely exists. The problem about
this is, what Trump has said, these are not defined policies. We don't know who the guys who are
meant to implement them are. So it's pretty incoherent.
KK: Do you think these attempts to arm the rebels will continue to happen?
PC: Yeah, it's evident that within the U.S. government, different parts of the government
have different policies; you know, the CIA arming various rebel factions, the Pentagon tried this.
But the idea of arming factions that were supposedly moderate not only hasn't worked but it's been
disastrous, it's been a joke. Whatever the state of the Syrian political opposition, the armed opposition
is dominated by Islamists and has been a long time. So that might continue but I don't think it'll
make much difference. When it comes to troops, soldiers, on the ground cooperating with the U.S.,
of course, the Pentagon did find people but it was the Kurds and various proxies supported by the
Kurds.
KK: Has Trump's victory helped jihadis in Syria in Iraq?
PC: Potentially it could, but I don't think it works that way at the moment because they tend
to think of Americans, Europeans, not just non-Muslims but non-believers in that sort of Wahhabi
variant of Islam that they believe in. So to them all the world's an enemy, whether it's a Shia Muslim
who's worthy of immediate death or Yazidis, who many are enslaved. One of the things about the
siege of Mosul, down the road from where I am, is that there are different armies-all of whom are
enemies of the Islamic state and all hate each other -- besieging the place at the moment.
Now potentially, [if] Muslims start getting kicked out, if some people get killed and so forth,
yeah that would play to their advantage. Any sort of communal punishment of Muslims anywhere is something
that they can take advantage of in their propaganda. The degree to which that's successful and helps
them of course depends on the degree of the communal punishment to which Muslims are subject.
KK: Do you think the numbers we're seeing are vastly understated with respect to civilian casualties
arising from the coalition airstrikes on ISIS territory?
PC: They're probably understated; whether they're vastly understated I don't know. Areas I've
been to between here and Mosul, most of the villages were uninhabited ever since ISIS took them over
in 2014. There weren't many people living there, so they could bomb these ISIS positions without
killing many civilians.
Now we're getting to-the fighting is in East Mosul and that's full of people. This is an important
question that's going to come up now in the next few weeks. The Iraqi army isn't making that much
progress over the last week in those areas, so what'll they do? One option is much more bombing and
disregard the civilian casualties. If that happens then the number of civilian casualties will soar
vastly from what it is now.
KK: Could Trump pursue that option?
PC: Potentially, yeah, they could up the bombing, particularly in places like Mosul. But it's
too early to say.
"... What Is Lost by Burying the Trans-Pacific Partnership? – The New York Times : "The Americans will have to explain their failure on the trade agreement to foreign leaders gathered in Lima, Peru, while China's leader, Xi Jinping, is there seeking progress toward an emerging alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, known as R.C.E.P., which includes China, Japan and 14 other Asian countries but excludes the United States. ..."
"... 'In the absence of T.P.P., countries have already made it clear that they will move forward in negotiating their own trade agreements that exclude the United States,' Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers wrote days before the election. 'These agreements would improve market access and trading opportunities for member countries while U.S. businesses would continue to face existing trade barriers.'" ..."
"... Foreign leaders and foreign populations hated the TPP because it wasn't a trade deal; it was a giveaways-to-big-corporations deal full of stuff about extending copyrights for Mickey Mouse and so on. ..."
I don't know enough about the finer points of the TPP to be for or against it.
But this article suggests that there are plans to exclude the US if it doesn't choose to be
a factor in world affairs.
What Is Lost by Burying the Trans-Pacific Partnership? – The New York Times : "The Americans
will have to explain their failure on the trade agreement to foreign leaders gathered in Lima,
Peru, while China's leader, Xi Jinping, is there seeking progress toward an emerging alternative
to the Trans-Pacific Partnership - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, known as R.C.E.P.,
which includes China, Japan and 14 other Asian countries but excludes the United States.
'In the absence of T.P.P., countries have already made it clear that they will move forward
in negotiating their own trade agreements that exclude the United States,' Mr. Obama's Council
of Economic Advisers wrote days before the election. 'These agreements would improve market access
and trading opportunities for member countries while U.S. businesses would continue to face existing
trade barriers.'"
Foreign leaders and foreign populations hated the TPP because it wasn't a trade deal; it was a
giveaways-to-big-corporations deal full of stuff about extending copyrights for Mickey Mouse and
so on.
China's trade deal is an *actual* trade deal and as such much more popular. We could join *it*.
"... Outgoing representative Randy Forbes of Virginia, a contender to be secretary of the Navy in
the new administration, recently said that the president elect would employ "an international defense
strategy that is driven by the Pentagon and not by the political National Security Council… Because
if you look around the globe, over the last eight years, the National Security Council has been writing
that. And find one country anywhere that we are better off than we were eight years [ago], you cannot
find it." ..."
"... Such a plan might actually blunt armed adventurism, since it was war-weary military officials
who reportedly pushed back against President Obama's plans to escalate Iraq War 3.0. ..."
"... Under President Obama, the U.S. has waged war in or carried out attacks on at least eight nations
- Afghanistan, Iran , Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. A Clinton presidency promised
more, perhaps markedly more, of the same - an attitude summed up in her infamous comment about the late
Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi: " We came, we saw, he died ." ..."
"... "Trump does not believe in war. He sees war as bad, destructive, death and a wealth destruction."...
..."
As Clinton's future in the Oval Office evaporated, leaving only a whiff of her stale dreams, I saw
all the foreign-policy certainties, all the hawkish policies and military interventions, all the
would-be bin Laden raids and drone strikes she'd preside over as commander-in-chief similarly vanish
into the ether.
With her failed candidacy went the
no-fly
escalation in Syria that she was sure to pursue as president with the vigor she had applied to
the disastrous
Libyan intervention of 2011 while secretary of state. So, too, went her continued pursuit of
the now-nameless war on terror, the attendant "
gray-zone " conflicts - marked by small contingents of U.S. troops, drone strikes, and
bombing campaigns - and all those
munitions she would ship to
Saudi Arabia
for its war in Yemen.
As the life drained from Clinton's candidacy, I saw her rabid pursuit of a
new Cold War start to wither and Russo-phobic comparisons of Putin's rickety Russian petro-state
to Stalin's Soviet Union begin to die. I saw the end, too, of her Iron Curtain-clouded vision of
NATO, of her blind faith in an alliance more in line with 1957 than 2017.
As Clinton's political fortunes collapsed, so did her Israel-Palestine policy - rooted in the
fiction that American and Israeli security interests overlap - and her commitment to what was clearly
an unworkable "peace process." Just as, for domestic considerations, she would blindly support that
Middle Eastern nuclear power, so was she likely to follow President Obama's
trillion-dollar path to modernizing America's nuclear arsenal. All that, along with her sure-to-be-gargantuan
military budget requests, were scattered to the winds by her ringing defeat.
... ... ....
...would he follow the dictum of candidate Trump who
said , "The current strategy of toppling regimes, with no plan for what to do the day after,
only produces power vacuums that are filled by terrorists."
Outgoing representative Randy Forbes of Virginia, a contender to be secretary of the Navy
in the new administration, recently said that the president elect would
employ
"an international defense strategy that is driven by the Pentagon and not by the political National
Security Council… Because if you look around the globe, over the last eight years, the National Security
Council has been writing that. And find one country anywhere that we are better off than we were
eight years [ago], you cannot find it."
Such a plan might actually blunt armed adventurism, since it was war-weary military officials
who reportedly
pushed back against President Obama's plans to escalate Iraq War 3.0.
According to some Pentagon-watchers, a potentially hostile bureaucracy might also put the brakes
on even fielding a national security team in a timely fashion.
While Wall Street investors seemed convinced that the president elect would be good for defense
industry giants like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, whose stocks
surged in the wake of Trump's win, it's unclear whether that indicates a belief in more armed
conflicts or simply more bloated military spending.
Under President Obama, the U.S. has waged war in or carried out attacks on at least eight
nations - Afghanistan,
Iran , Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. A Clinton presidency promised more,
perhaps markedly more, of the same - an attitude summed up in her infamous comment about the late
Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi: "
We came, we saw, he died ."
Trump advisor Senator Jeff Sessions
said
, "Trump does not believe in war. He sees war as bad, destructive, death and a wealth destruction."...
"... Trump has blamed George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for helping to create ISIS - but should add John Bolton to that list, who essentially agreed with all three on our regime change debacles. ..."
"... In 2011, Bolton bashed Obama "for his refusal to directly target Gaddafi" and declared, "there is a strategic interest in toppling Gaddafi… But Obama missed it." In fact, Obama actually took Bolton's advice and bombed the Libyan dictator into the next world. Secretary of State Clinton bragged , "We came, we saw, he died." ..."
"... All nuance is lost on the man. The fact that Russia has had a base in Syria for 50 years doesn't deter Bolton from calling for all out, no holds barred war in Syria. Bolton criticized the current administration for offering only a tepid war. For Bolton, only a hot-blooded war to create democracy across the globe is demanded. ..."
"... Bolton would not understand this because, like many of his generation, he used every privilege to avoid serving himself. Bolton said, with the threat of the Vietnam draft over his head, that "he had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy." ..."
"... But he's seems to be okay with your son or daughter dying wherever his neoconservative impulse leads us ..."
Bolton was one of the loudest advocates of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and still stupefyingly insists
it was the right call 13 years later. "I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct,"
Bolton
said
just last year.
Trump, rightly, believes that decision was a colossal mistake that destabilized the region. "Iraq
used to be no terrorists," Trump said in 2015. "(N)ow it's the Harvard of terrorism."
"If you look at Iraq from years ago, I'm not saying he was a nice guy, he was a horrible guy,"
Trump said of Saddam Hussein, "but it was a lot better than it is right now."
Trump has said U.S. intervention in Iraq in 2003 "helped to throw the region into chaos and gave
ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper." In contrast, Bolton has
said explicitly that he wants to repeat Iraq-style regime change in Syrian and Iran.
You can't learn from mistakes if you don't see mistakes.
Trump has blamed George W. Bush,
Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton for helping to create ISIS - but should add John Bolton to that list,
who essentially agreed with all three on our regime change debacles.
In 2011, Bolton
bashed Obama "for his refusal to directly target Gaddafi" and declared, "there is a strategic
interest in toppling Gaddafi… But Obama missed it." In fact, Obama actually took Bolton's advice
and bombed the Libyan dictator into the next world. Secretary of State Clinton
bragged , "We came, we saw, he died."
When Trump was asked last year if Libya and the region would be more stable today with Gaddafi
in power, he
replied "100 percent." Mr. Trump is
100 percent right .
No man is more out of touch with the situation in the Middle East or more dangerous to our national
security than Bolton.
All nuance is lost on the man. The fact that Russia has had a base in Syria for 50 years doesn't
deter Bolton from calling for all out, no holds barred war in Syria. Bolton criticized the current
administration for offering only a tepid war. For Bolton, only a hot-blooded war to create democracy
across the globe is demanded.
Woodrow Wilson would be proud, but the parents of our soldiers should be mortified. War should
be the last resort, never the first. War should be understood to be a hell no one wishes for. Dwight
Eisenhower
understood
this when he wrote, "I hate war like only a soldier can, the stupidity, the banality, the futility."
Bolton would not understand this because, like many of his generation, he used every privilege
to avoid serving himself. Bolton said, with the threat of the Vietnam draft over his head, that "he
had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy."
But he's seems to be okay with your son or
daughter dying wherever his neoconservative impulse leads us: "Even before the Iraq War, John Bolton
was a leading brain behind the neoconservatives' war-and-conquest agenda," notes
The American Conservative's Jon Utley.
At a time when Americans thirst for change and new thinking, Bolton is an old hand at failed foreign
policy.
"... Instead, by some accounts, we will quite possibly be getting Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Sarah Palin, Jose Rodriguez, Michael Ledeen, and Michael Flynn. Bolton, who is being tagged as a possible secretary of state, would be a one-man reactionary horror show, making one long for the good old days of Condi Rice and Madeleine Albright. ..."
"... It is reported that associates from the conservative Heritage Foundation have been tasked with the search for suitable national-security candidates as part of the transition team. One candidate to head the CIA is Jose Rodriguez, who back under W headed the agency's torture program. ..."
"... The White House could, however, de facto scuttle the agreement by imposing new sanctions on Iran and continuing to apply pressure on Iranian banks and credit through Washington's influence over international financial markets. ..."
"... Someone has to try to convince Trump that the Iranian agreement is good for everyone involved, including Israel and the United States. ..."
"... The president-elect is largely ignorant of the world and its leaders, so he has relied on a mixed bag of foreign-policy advisors. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, appears to be the most prominent. Flynn is associated with arch-neocon Michael Ledeen, and both are rabid about Iran, with Flynn suggesting that nearly all the unrest in the Middle East should be laid at Tehran's door. Ledeen is, of course, a prominent Israel-firster who has long had Iran in his sights. Their solution to the Iran problem would undoubtedly entail the use of military force against the Islamic Republic. Given what is at stake in terms of yet another Middle Eastern war and possible nuclear proliferation, it is essential that Donald Trump hear some alternative views. ..."
"... There are other foreign-policy areas as well where Trump will undoubtedly be receiving bad advice and would benefit from a broader vision. ..."
"... The Trump Asia policy, meanwhile, consists largely of uninformed and reactionary positions that would benefit from a bit of fresh air provided through access to alternative viewpoints. ..."
I would very much like to see the White House revert to a George Marshall type of foreign policy,
in which the United States would use its vast power wisely rather than punitively. As Donald Trump
knows little of what makes the world go round, senior officials and cabinet secretaries will play
a key role in framing and executing policy. One would like to see people like Jim Webb, Chas Freeman,
Andrew Bacevich, or even TAC 's own Daniel Larison in key government positions, as one might
thereby rely on their cool judgment and natural restraint to guide the ship of state. But that is
unfortunately unlikely to happen.
Instead, by some accounts, we will quite possibly be getting Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Rudy
Giuliani, John Bolton, Sarah Palin, Jose Rodriguez, Michael Ledeen, and Michael Flynn. Bolton, who
is being tagged as a possible secretary of state, would be a one-man reactionary horror show, making
one long for the good old days of Condi Rice and Madeleine Albright. There are also lesser, mostly
neocon luminaries lining up for supporting roles, résumés ready at hand. To be sure, we won't be
seeing the Kagans, Eliot Cohen, Eric Edelman, or Michael Hayden, who defected to Hillary in dramatic
fashion, but there are plenty of others who are polishing up their credentials and hoping to let
bygones be bygones. They are eager to return to power and regain the emoluments that go with high
office, so they will now claim to be adaptable enough to work for someone they once described as
unfit to be president.
It is
reported that associates from the conservative Heritage Foundation have been tasked with the
search for suitable national-security candidates as part of the transition team. One candidate to
head the CIA
is Jose Rodriguez, who back under W headed the agency's torture program. Another
former CIA officer who is a particularly polarizing figure and is apparently being looked at
for high office is Clare Lopez, who has claimed that the Obama White House is infiltrated by the
Muslim Brotherhood. Lopez is regarded by the Trump team as "one of the intellectual thought leaders
about why we have to fight back against radical Islam." She has long been associated with the
Center for Security
Policy , headed by Frank Gaffney, a fanatical hardliner who
believes that Saddam Hussein
was involved in both the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing, that Americans
for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist is a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, that Gen. David
Petraeus has "submitted to Sharia," and that the logo of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reveals
"official U.S. submission to Islam" because it "appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic
crescent and star."
But if Rodriguez and Lopez and others like them can be either discarded or kept in a closet somewhere,
let us hope for the best. If Trump appoints competent senior officials, they might actually undertake
a serious review of what America does around the world. Such an examination would be appropriate,
as Trump has more or less promised to shake things up. He has indicated that he would abandon the
policy of humanitarian intervention so loved by President Barack Obama and his advisors, and has
signaled that he will not be pursuing regime change in Syria. He will also seek détente with Russia,
a major shift from the increasingly confrontational policy of the past eight years.
Donald Trump rejects arming rebels as in Syria because we know little about whom we are dealing
with and increasingly find that we cannot control what develops from the relationship. He is against
foreign aid in principle, particularly to countries like Pakistan where the U.S. is strongly disliked.
These are all positive steps, and the new administration should be encouraged to pursue them. The
White House might also want to consider easing the United States out of Afghanistan through something
like the negotiated Paris Peace talks arrangement that ended Vietnam. Fifteen years of conflict with
no end in sight: Afghanistan is a war that is unwinnable.
Apart from several easy-to-identify major issues,
Trump's
foreign policy is admittedly quite sketchy, and he has not always been consistent in explaining
it. He has been slammed, appropriately enough, for being simple minded in saying that he would "bomb
the [crap] out of ISIS" and that he is willing to put 30,000 soldiers on the ground if necessary
to destroy the terrorist group, but he has also taken on the Republican establishment by specifically
condemning the George W. Bush invasion of Iraq. He has more than once indicated that he is not interested
in being either the world's policeman or a participant in new wars in the Middle East. He has repeatedly
stated that he supports NATO, but not as a blunt instrument designed to irritate Russia. He would
work with Putin to address concerns over Syria and Eastern Europe. He would demand that NATO countries
spend more for their own defense and also help pay for the maintenance of U.S. bases, which many
argue to be long overdue.
Trump's controversial call to stop all Muslim immigration has been rightly condemned, but he has
somewhat moderated that stance to focus on travelers and immigrants from countries that have been
substantially radicalized or where anti-American sentiment is strong. And the demand to take a second
look at some potential visitors or residents is not unreasonable in that the current process for
vetting new arrivals in this country is far from transparent and apparently not very effective.
Beyond platitudes, the Obama administration has not been very forthcoming on what might be done
to fix the entire immigration process, but Trump is promising to put national security and border
control first. If Trump were to receive good advice on the issue, he would indeed tighten border
security and gradually move to repatriate most illegal immigrants, but he would also look at the
investigative procedures used to examine the backgrounds and intentions of refugees and asylum seekers
who come in through other resettlement programs. The United States has an obligation to help genuine
refugees from countries that have been shattered through Washington's military interventions, but
it also has a duty to know exactly whom it is letting in.
Trump is also critical of the Iran nuclear agreement and the steps to normalize relations with
Cuba, the two most notable foreign-policy successes of the Obama administration. Any change in the
latter would have relatively little impact on the United States, but the Iran deal is important as
it stopped potential proliferation by Iran, which likely would have produced a nuclear arms race
in the Middle East. Trump has called the agreement "horrible" because it stopped short of total capitulation
by Tehran and has pledged to "renegotiate it," which might prove impossible given that the pact had
five other signatories. Iran would in any event refuse to make further concessions, particularly
as it would no longer be prepared to accept assurances that Washington would comply with any agreement.
The White House could, however, de facto scuttle the agreement by imposing new sanctions
on Iran and continuing to apply pressure on Iranian banks and credit through Washington's influence
over international financial markets. If enough pressure were applied, Iran could rightly claim that
the U.S. had failed to comply with the agreement and withdraw from it, possibly leading to an accelerated
nuclear-weapons program justified on the basis of self-defense. It is precisely the outcome that
many hardliners both in Washington and Iran would like to see, as it would invite a harsh response
from the White House, ending any possibility of an accord over proliferation.
Someone has to try to convince Trump that the Iranian agreement is good for everyone involved,
including Israel and the United States. Even though such a suggestion is unlikely to come from the
current group of advisors, who are strongly anti-Iranian, a good argument might be made based on
what Trump himself has been urging vis-à-vis Syria, stressing that ISIS is America's real enemy and
Iran is a major partner in the coalition that is actively fighting the terrorist group. As in the
case of Russia, it makes sense to cooperate with Iran when it is in our interest, and it also is
desirable to prolong the process, delaying Iran's possible decision to acquire a nuclear capability.
Working with Iran might even make the country's leadership less paranoid and would reduce the motivation
to acquire a weapon in the first place, an argument analogous to Trump's observations about dealing
with Russia.
But it all comes down to the type of "expert" advice Trump gets. The president-elect is largely
ignorant of the world and its leaders, so he has relied on a mixed bag of foreign-policy advisors.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, appears to be the most prominent.
Flynn is associated with arch-neocon Michael Ledeen, and both are rabid about Iran, with Flynn suggesting
that nearly all the unrest in the Middle East should be laid at Tehran's door. Ledeen is, of course,
a prominent Israel-firster who has long had Iran in his sights. Their solution to the Iran problem
would undoubtedly entail the use of military force against the Islamic Republic. Given what is at
stake in terms of yet another Middle Eastern war and possible nuclear proliferation, it is essential
that Donald Trump hear some alternative views.
There are other foreign-policy areas as well where Trump will undoubtedly be receiving bad advice
and would benefit from a broader vision. He has said that he would be an even-handed negotiator between
Israel and the Palestinians, but he has also declared that he is strongly pro-Israel and would move
the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem-which is a bad idea, not in America's interest, even if Benjamin Netanyahu
would like it. It would produce serious blowback from the Arab world and would inspire a new wave
of terrorism directed against the U.S. Someone should explain to Mr. Trump that there are real consequences
to pledges made in the midst of an acrimonious electoral campaign.
The Trump Asia policy, meanwhile, consists largely of uninformed and reactionary positions that
would benefit from a bit of fresh air provided through access to alternative viewpoints. In East
Asia, Trump has said he would encourage Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals
to deter North Korea. That is a very bad idea, a proliferation nightmare, but Trump evidently eased
away from that position during
a recent phone call to the president of South Korea. Trump would also prefer that China intervene
in North Korea and make Kim Jong Un "step down." He would put pressure on China to stop devaluing
its currency because it is "bilking us of billions of dollars" and would also increase U.S. military
presence in the region to limit Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea.
It is to be hoped that Donald Trump and his transition team will be good listeners over the next
60 days. Positions staked out during a heated campaign do not equate to policy and should be regarded
with considerable skepticism. American foreign policy, and by extension U.S. interests, have suffered
for 16 years under the establishment-centric but nevertheless quite different groupthinks prevailing
in the Bush and Obama White Houses. It is time for a little fresh advice.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National
Interest.
While focusing on preserving ObamaCare and other achievements of the Obama administration that are
threatened by a Donald Trump presidency, the DA's agenda includes panels on rethinking polling and
the left's approach to winning the working-class vote. The group will also stress funneling cash
into state legislative policy initiatives and races where Republicans took over last week.
President-elect Donald Trump has said his first 100 days will be dedicated to restoring "honesty,
accountability and change to Washington" through the following seven steps:
A Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress
A hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting
military, public safety, and public health)
A requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated
A five year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave
government service
A lifetime ban on the White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government
A complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections
Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America's
water and environmental infrastructure
Billionaire George Soros immediately had fingers of blame pointing at him for the anti-Trump riots
and protests that swept the nation since Nov. 9, as
his group MoveOn.org has organized most of them .
The billionaire committed
$25 million to boosting the Clinton campaign and other Democratic candidates and causes in 2016.
"... Well, I will say this about President-Elect Trump, so far so good. Media justifiably discredited, neocons sucking air, Democratic Party doubling down on the stupid and self-destructing by selling out to Soros, what's not to like? ..."
"... I was happy to hear that the old liberal Trump still exists. ..."
"... I still have not heard any rumors about Lt. Gen. Flynn. I am very interested to know where he is assigned. I thought he would have 2nd pick after Sessions so either DoD, CIA or Head of the NSC. ..."
"... As a lifelong liberal who voted for Trump primarily to keep to the warmongering wackjob Clinton out of power the early moves by Trump are promising. ..."
... co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which was a center for prominent
neoconservatives. He has been a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a committee
of civilians and retired military officers that the U.S. Secretary of Defense may call upon for
advice, that was instituted during the administration of President George W. Bush. He was put
on the board after acquaintance Richard Perle put forward his name. Cohen has referred to the
War on Terrorism as "World War IV". In the run-up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, he was a member
of Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group of prominent persons who pressed for an invasion.
It's over. Donald Trump, a man utterly unfit for the position by temperament, values and policy
preferences, will be the Republican nominee for president. He will run against Hillary Clinton,
who is easily the lesser evil ...
Mr. Trump's temperament, his proclivity for insult and deceit and his advocacy of unpredictability
would make him a presidential disaster - especially in the conduct of foreign policy, where clarity
and consistency matter.
...
Hillary Clinton is far better: She believes in the old consensus and will take tough lines on
China and, increasingly, Russia.
Cohen
in
The American Interest on November 10 2016 (immediately after Trump won):
Trump may be better than we think. He does not have strong principles about much, which means
he can shift. He is clearly willing to delegate legislation to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
And even abroad, his instincts incline him to increase U.S. strength-and to push back even against
Russia if, as will surely happen, Putin double-crosses him. My guess is that sequester gets rolled
back, as do lots of stupid regulations, and experiments in nudging and nagging Americans to behave
the way progressives think they should.
Cohen on Twitter November 15 2016
Eliot A Cohen @EliotACohen
After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry,
arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly.
Retweets 3,719 Likes 3,204
5:07 AM - 15 Nov 2016
I find the above very funny. How could that turncoat think he would be greeted by the Trump organization
with anything but derision? Cohen believed he and his ilk would be welcome with candies and roses
after insulting Trump in all major media? Who is the arrogant one in the above?
While the papers are full of (badly) informed rumors about who will get this or that position
in a Trump administration let's keep in mind that 90% of such rumors are just self promotions by
people like Cohen who shill for the rumored job. That is why I will not write about John Bolton or
Rudy Giuliani as coming Secretary of State. Both are possible (unqualified) candidates. But others
are just as likely to get that position. We will only know who it is after the official release.
Meanwhile Trump yesterday had a
phonecall with the Russian President Putin. They discussed bilateral relations, Syria and fighting
terrorism. Today the Russian and Syrian military started the long expected big campaign against the
"moderate" al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo city and Idleb governate. Air strikes on east-Aleppo had been
held back for 28 days. Today missiles and cruise missiles were launched against fixed targets and
dozens of carrier and land launched airplanes
attacked Nusra position on the various front and in its rear. Long range bombers flown from Russia
joined the campaign. Trump seems to have voiced no objections to this offensive.
The Russian military has upped its air defense in Syria. Additional to the S-400 system around
its airport in Latakia seven S-300 systems were deployed as a screen against U.S. cruise missile
attacks. These are joined by rehabilitated Syrian S-200 system and Pantsyr S-1 short range systems
for point defense. This should be enough to deter any stupid idea the Pentagon hawks, or dumb neocons
like Eliot Cohen, might have.
Posted by b on November 15, 2016 at 12:13 PM |
Permalink
Well, I will say this about President-Elect Trump, so far so good. Media justifiably discredited,
neocons sucking air, Democratic Party doubling down on the stupid and self-destructing by selling
out to Soros, what's not to like?
A lot sure to come, no doubt. But for now, go Donald!
I've never known a president-elect to have such an effect right after an election. It's like a
house of cards falling.
Hell, at this rate, Trump may be able to declare 'mission accomplished' before even taking
office!!! j/k :)
Thank you for this summary. Trump will be a mixed bag especially in domestic politics. I was happy
to hear that the old liberal Trump still exists. He may appoint an openly gay man to a Cabinet
position (I do not know if this is tokenism or not). If his appointments follow policy then I
think a lot of Clinton crybabies in the streets will have a harder time gaining traction with
the social justice warriors.
I sometimes used Cohen's WWIV statement to see how strongly a person held their neo-conservative
positions. Only a few knew what I was talking about during the 2nd Iraq War. I'm glad that is
he gone. I hope Trump can pull in some realists but I do not know where these people exist anymore.
People like that are typically weeded out at lower levels.
I still have not heard any rumors about Lt. Gen. Flynn. I am very interested to know where
he is assigned. I thought he would have 2nd pick after Sessions so either DoD, CIA or Head of
the NSC.
Ironic, shifting the balance of power over Syria means denial of both a successful coalition air
campaign as well as opportunity for stupid bait operation to create pretext for retaliation. Queen
against wall of pawns.
1
Timelines are the most valuable tool of all in outing ponderous idiots. Thanks, b.
Here's one for idiot Paul Krugman.
Nov09 (day after election) – PK: The markets are in free-fall, the recession has begun, it
will "never" end.
Reality: the markets were going thought the roof. Dow Jones went straight up and past it's
previous high.
Nov11 – PK: I have rethought what I said on Nov09 and there's a chance the markets will take
the elections results well.
Nov14 – PK: After giving my Nov09 prediction some thought, I "quickly" retracted it.
Yeah, you moran. You retracted it after seeing it was 180 degrees wrong and everyone can now
see that your fear-mongering about markets was just more of your bullshit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2
b: "That is why I will not write about John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani as coming Secretary of State.
Both are possible (unqualified) candidates. "
You just did.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3.
b: "Today the Russian and Syrian military started the long expected big campaign against the "moderate"
al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo city and Idleb governate."
I don't know about Aleppo. Here's RT earlier today:
" The Russian military has launched a large-scale operation against terrorists stationed in
Homs and Idlib provinces of Syria, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday."
/snip
"Journalists asked presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov about the possibility of the operation
which started on Tuesday to be expanded to include Aleppo. 'Aleppo has not been mentioned in
the report of the defense minister; it concerned other areas – Homs and Idlib [provinces],'
Peskov told the press.
/snip
"Russian jets have not been in the vicinity of Aleppo for the last 28 days"
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKBN13A16O
Intense air strikes resumed in rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo after a weeks-long pause
on Tuesday, killing at least three people, residents and a war monitor said.
Syrian state television said the Damascus government's air force took part in strikes against
"terrorist strongholds" in Aleppo's Old City while Russia said it had struck Islamic State and
former Nusra Front sites elsewhere in Syria, without mentioning Aleppo.
The bombardment appeared to mark the end of a pause in strikes on targets inside the city declared
by Syria's government and Russia on Oct 18.
~~~
On Monday and early Tuesday, air strikes hit hospitals in three towns and villages in rebel-held
areas to the west of Aleppo, putting them all out of action. Damascus and Moscow both deny targeting
hospitals.
Other strikes, including some by suspected Russian cruise missiles, hit Saraqeb in Idlib, a province
near Aleppo where many of the rebel factions have a large presence.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday Russia had launched attacks in Idlib and
Homs provinces using missiles and jets from the country's only aircraft carrier, which recently
arrived in the eastern Mediterranean.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-russia-mideast-idUSKBN13A2CN?il=0 Russia has long-term ambitions in the Middle East: Israeli official
By Luke Baker | JERUSALEM
Israel should be concerned about the deepening disconnect between Russia's aims in the Middle
East and its own goals, according to a senior Israeli official who held high-level meetings in
Moscow last week.
Avi Dichter, chairman of Israel's foreign affairs and defense committee and the former head of
the Shin Bet intelligence agency, said Russia's views on Iran, Syria's Bashar al-Assad and the
Lebanese militia Hezbollah were in sharp contrast to Israel's and a growing source of potential
conflict.
While he said Moscow appreciates the good ties it has with Israel and takes the diplomatic relationship
seriously, it won't hesitate to impose actions that serve its interests on any countries in the
Middle East, including Israel.
"The gap between us and them is large and disturbing," Dichter said in summing up discussions
with senior members of Russia's upper and lower houses of parliament, the deputy defense minister
and the deputy head of national security.
"Russia thinks and acts as a superpower and as such it often ignores Israeli interest when
it doesn't coincide with the Russian interest," he said.
Wow, more insightful analysis about the US!!!! FAIL.
Um, James Woolsey of PNAC was Trump's advisor. He was also financially backed by Adelson who
is one of the people who FUNDS the neocons or are we not going to talk about the neocon's Zionist
roots?
Gee, b, could the neocons have everyone in their pocket or do thoughts like that get in the
way of your devotion to this fascist girl-raping piece of garbage, Trump?
I can't remember, did Berlusconi send a shiver down your spine as well, b?
Here is another example of folks trying get in front of the Trump train and turn it into a parade.
"Trump has pledged to change things in Washington -- about draining the swamp. He is going
to need some people to help guide him through the swamp -- how do you get in and how do you get
out? We are prepared to help do that."
-former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, speaking on behalf of Squire Patton Boggs, the lobbying
firm he works for
Nuland has managed to "burrow" herself - convert their political slot to permanent one at Foggy
Bottom since Strobe Talbot after Bill Clinton's terms.
There are quite a few Israel firsters like her: Jeffrey Feltman is another one.
What have the poor people of Outer Mongolia ever done to deserve this: "Does this mean that Victoria
Nuland will be fired? Actually, can she be fired? or at at least transferred to the embassy in
Outer Mongolia?" I think all of the neo-cons should replace current prisoners at Gitmo, along
with BOTH Clintons, Obama, G W Bush, Cheney, et al. Then subjected to all sorts of 'information
gathering techniques' ...
Ha ha.
Obama has called a press conference to deliver a lecture about the consequences of a descent into
'tribalism'.
One hopes that Bibi and the pro-"Israel" crowd are paying attention...
Let's hope that all the radical rabbinical right-wing fascists like Cohen and Nuland and Bolton
can be pressed to death with stones at Foggy Bottom Swamp.
Very tiny stones, lol. Like Death of 3,035,795,900,000 Cuts they impose on US.
I did some math on Mil.Gov.Fed. There are 6,800 banks in the US, and an average bank robbery
in the US nets ~$10,000. If every bank in the US was robbed every 10 minutes, of every day, throughout
every month, for the entire year, that would equal the yearly depredation of our last life savings
by OneParty of Mil.Gov.Fed.
That's 6,800 211A police bank robbery calls, every 10 minutes, forever, and that doesn't include
$T a year interest-only forever payments on their odious 'debt'.
Maybe pressed to death with damp pig dung would be more appropriate for them.
"Thank you for this summary. Trump will be a mixed bag especially in domestic politics. I was
happy to hear that the old liberal Trump still exists. He may appoint an openly gay man to a Cabinet
position (I do not know if this is tokenism or not). If his appointments follow policy then I
think a lot of Clinton crybabies in the streets will have a harder time gaining traction with
the social justice warriors."
Yes.
As a lifelong liberal who voted for Trump primarily to keep to the warmongering wackjob
Clinton out of power the early moves by Trump are promising.
As someone who lived lived through the 1980s I remember how telling people how concerned and
fearful you were of nuclear war was most something you did in an attempt to make yourself look
'deep'.
This past six month have been the first time in my life where I was found myself really being
afraid. Sitting in my safe home that has never been touched by war it has been a sobering shock
of just how close the frantic push for all out war with Russia by Clinton and her army of neocon
cronies infesting the US government came to killing tens or hundreds of millions of people.
It is going to be a painful four years for a large number of liberal issues but the avoidance
of the horror of an actual all out war between two nuclear powers is worth the pain on many social
and environmental issues.
...
I hope Trump can pull in some realists but I do not know where these people exist anymore. People
like that are typically weeded out at lower levels.
...
Posted by: AnEducatedFool | Nov 15, 2016 12:39:17 PM | 4
Don't fret. Trump is a gifted personnel picker with a flair for innovation.
In 1980 he (very unfashionably) appointed a woman as the construction project manager for Trump
Tower, a task she performed with remarkable expertise.
Bacevich for Secretary of State!
Or at least Secretary of Defense.
Would be great to see Chas Freeman nominated for Sec/State but
GOP/Neocons/Zionists blocked him from lesser post under Obama.
Here we have Woolsey quoting and adopting Cohen's WWIV theory (I wonder who they think the
parties will be for WWIII) and Woolsey has even referred to Cohen as my friend just this
month!
I have adopted Eliot Cohen's formulation, distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins School
for Advanced International Studies, that we are in World War IV, World War III having been the
Cold War. And I think Eliot's formulation fits the circumstances really better than describing
this as a war on terrorism.
Yes, I do think you get your news from the MSM and what is worse is that you actually believe
it just like b.
Gee, do you think that having all of the neocons tell the MSM - and thus you - that they really
support HRC had anything to do with how much you, b and the other bedwetters p!ssed themselves
about OMG!1!! WWIII!!1!!1 especially as those announcements came out in March - now listen closely
- when HRC WAS RUNNING AGAINST BS?
Why, that sure was fuel to the fire for Bernie-bros, huh?
By deception thou shall wage war, huh?
Gee, I can't think of a worse poison pill for a fake-left Democratic candidate than to have
the endorsements of the neocons, can you? Why, that might even sway some easily fooled MSM-imbibers
as to whose string the neocons might end up pulling in the end, huh?
Why, maybe do ya think they might sway even more people by PUBLICLY tweeting about just HOW
MUCH they still hate that dastardly Trump, y'know, the same guy who was backed by the world's
richest Zionist Jew and who was advised by James Woosley throughout his campaign?
No one - but especially Israeli-backing neocons - would never think to use subterfuge to get
their way, huh?
But you and b and all the rest here don't pay attention to the MSM, huh? You all just happened
to have been parroting the "neocons love HRC" line that was first found in the MSM, huh?
Names have been floated for this and that positions in the Trump Administration but I haven't
seen Pat Buchanan been named for anything; or have I skipped too much comments? I rather think
much of Buchanan's world views are in line with Trump's, and he should make a sensible Secretary
of State.
Norm MacDonald the Canadian humorist was fired from Saturday Night Live in 1998 for allegedly
telling to many O.J. Simpson jokes. This 25 minute compilation video illustrates that the real
reason was most likely that Norm made fun of the Clinton's life of crime by actually stating their
crime spree facts disguised as humor?
Maybe Putin told Trump "the sooner we (Russia, Syria, etc. clear out Al Qaeda, the sooner we deal
with ISIS". An offer Trump would be an idiot to refuse, not that I think he's an idiot. Hopefully,
the moronic BS we had to put up with from Obama, Cameron, Hollande, The Grauniad, New York Times,
etc. about how Russia, Syria, weren't attacking ISIS but were attacking "moderate" Al Qaeda will
soon go away.
"Vice President-elect Mike Pence is the best person to shape the transition effort, with the president-elect's
input, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said."
"... On Sunday's "60 Minutes," Trump said: "You know, we've been fighting this war for 15 years. … We've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, $6 trillion - we could have rebuilt our country twice. And you look at our roads and our bridges and our tunnels … and our airports are … obsolete." ..."
"... They want to confront Vladimir Putin, somewhere, anywhere. They want to send U.S. troops to the eastern Baltic. They want to send weapons to Kiev to fight Russia in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. ..."
"... At the end of the Cold War, however, with the Soviet Empire history and the Soviet Union having disintegrated, George H.W. Bush launched his New World Order. His son, George W., invaded Iraq and preached a global crusade for democracy "to end tyranny in our world." ..."
"... Result: the Mideast disaster Trump described to Lesley Stahl, and constant confrontations with Russia caused by pushing our NATO alliance right up to and inside what had been Putin's country. ..."
"... The opportunity is at hand for Trump to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy to the world we now inhabit, and to the vital interests of the United States. ..."
However Donald Trump came upon the foreign policy views he espoused, they were as crucial to his
election as his views on trade and the border.
Yet those views are hemlock to the GOP foreign policy elite and the liberal Democratic interventionists
of the Acela Corridor. Trump promised an "America First" foreign policy rooted in the national interest, not in nostalgia.
The neocons insist that every Cold War and post-Cold War commitment be maintained, in perpetuity.
On Sunday's "60 Minutes," Trump said: "You know, we've been fighting this war for 15 years. …
We've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, $6 trillion - we could have rebuilt our country twice.
And you look at our roads and our bridges and our tunnels … and our airports are … obsolete."
Yet the War Party has not had enough of war, not nearly.
They want to confront Vladimir Putin, somewhere, anywhere. They want to send U.S. troops to the
eastern Baltic. They want to send weapons to Kiev to fight Russia in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
They want to establish a no-fly zone and shoot down Syrian and Russian planes that violate it,
acts of war Congress never authorized.
They want to trash the Iran nuclear deal, though all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies told us, with
high confidence, in 2007 and 2011, Iran did not even have a nuclear weapons program.
Other hardliners want to face down Beijing over its claims to the reefs and rocks of the South
China Sea, though our Manila ally is talking of tightening ties to China and kicking us out of Subic
Bay.
In none of these places is there a U.S. vital interest so imperiled as to justify the kind of
war the War Party would risk.
Trump has the opportunity to be the president who, like Harry Truman, redirected U.S. foreign
policy for a generation.
After World War II, we awoke to find our wartime ally, Stalin, had emerged as a greater enemy
than Germany or Japan. Stalin's empire stretched from the Elbe to the Pacific.
In 1949, suddenly, he had the atom bomb, and China, the most populous nation on earth, had fallen
to the armies of Mao Zedong.
As our situation was new, Truman acted anew. He adopted a George Kennan policy of containment
of the world Communist empire, the Truman Doctrine, and sent an army to prevent South Korea from
being overrun.
At the end of the Cold War, however, with the Soviet Empire history and the Soviet Union having
disintegrated, George H.W. Bush launched his New World Order. His son, George W., invaded Iraq and
preached a global crusade for democracy "to end tyranny in our world."
A policy born of hubris.
Result: the Mideast disaster Trump described to Lesley Stahl, and constant confrontations with
Russia caused by pushing our NATO alliance right up to and inside what had been Putin's country.
How did we expect Russian patriots to react?
The opportunity is at hand for Trump to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy to the world we now inhabit,
and to the vital interests of the United States.
What should Trump say?
As our Cold War presidents from Truman to Reagan avoided World War III, I intend to avert Cold
War II. We do not regard Russia or the Russian people as enemies of the United States, and we
will work with President Putin to ease the tensions that have arisen between us.
For our part, NATO expansion is over, and U.S. forces will not be deployed in any former republic
of the Soviet Union.
While Article 5 of NATO imposes an obligation to regard an attack upon any one of 28 nations
as an attack on us all, in our Constitution, Congress, not some treaty dating back to before most
Americans were even born, decides whether we go to war.
The compulsive interventionism of recent decades is history. How nations govern themselves
is their own business. While, as JFK said, we prefer democracies and republics to autocrats and
dictators, we will base our attitude toward other nations upon their attitude toward us.
No other nation's internal affairs are a vital interest of ours.
Europeans have to be awakened to reality. We are not going to be forever committed to fighting
their wars. They are going to have to defend themselves, and that transition begins now.
In Syria and Iraq, our enemies are al-Qaida and ISIS. We have no intention of bringing down
the Assad regime, as that would open the door to Islamic terrorists. We have learned from Iraq
and Libya.
Then Trump should move expeditiously to lay out and fix the broad outlines of his foreign policy,
which entails rebuilding our military while beginning the cancellation of war guarantees that have
no connection to U.S. vital interests. We cannot continue to bankrupt ourselves to fight other countries'
wars or pay other countries' bills.
The ideal time for such a declaration, a Trump Doctrine, is when the president-elect presents
his secretaries of state and defense.
"... The affluent and rich voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for the Democratic candidate in 2012. Among those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, Clinton benefited from a 9-point Democratic swing. Voters with family incomes above $250,000 swung toward Clinton by 11 percentage points. The number of Democratic voters amongst the wealthiest voting block increased from 2.16 million in 2012 to 3.46 million in 2016-a jump of 60 percent. ..."
"... Clinton's electoral defeat is bound up with the nature of the Democratic Party, an alliance of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus with privileged sections of the upper-middle class based on the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation ..."
"... Over the course of the last forty years, the Democratic Party has abandoned all pretenses of social reform, a process escalated under Obama. Working with the Republican Party and the trade unions, it is responsible for enacting social policies that have impoverished vast sections of the working class, regardless of race or gender. ..."
The elections saw a massive shift in party support among the poorest and wealthiest voters. The share
of votes for the Republicans amongst the most impoverished section of workers, those with family
incomes under $30,000, increased by 10 percentage points from 2012. In several key Midwestern states,
the swing of the poorest voters toward Trump was even larger: Wisconsin (17-point swing), Iowa (20
points), Indiana (19 points) and Pennsylvania (18 points).
The swing to Republicans among the $30,000 to $50,000 family income range was 6 percentage points.
Those with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 swung away from the Republicans compared to 2012
by 2 points.
The affluent and rich voted for Clinton by a much broader margin than they had voted for the
Democratic candidate in 2012. Among those with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000, Clinton benefited
from a 9-point Democratic swing. Voters with family incomes above $250,000 swung toward Clinton by
11 percentage points. The number of Democratic voters amongst the wealthiest voting block increased
from 2.16 million in 2012 to 3.46 million in 2016-a jump of 60 percent.
Clinton was unable to make up for the vote decline among women (2.1 million), African Americans
(3.2 million), and youth (1.2 million), who came overwhelmingly from the poor and working class,
with the increase among the rich (1.3 million).
Clinton's electoral defeat is bound up with the nature of the Democratic Party, an alliance
of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus with privileged sections of the upper-middle
class based on the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation.
Over the course of the last forty years, the Democratic Party has abandoned all pretenses
of social reform, a process escalated under Obama. Working with the Republican Party and the trade
unions, it is responsible for enacting social policies that have impoverished vast sections of the
working class, regardless of race or gender.
"... There are some who believe the elites are actually splintered into numerous groups and that domestic US elites have positioned themselves against the banking elites in London's City. ..."
"... US elites are basically in the employ of a handful of families, individuals and institutions in our view. It is confusing because it is hard to tell if Hillary, for instance, is operating on her own accord or at the behest of higher and more powerful authorities. ..."
"... It is probably a combination of both but at root those who control central banks are managing the world's move towards globalism. ..."
"... The vote to propel Trump to the US presidency reflects a profound backlash against open markets and borders, and the simmering anger of millions of blue-collar white and working-class people who blame their economic woes on globalisation and multiculturalism. ..."
"... If indeed Trump's election has damped the progress of TPP, and TTIP, this is a huge event. As we've pointed out, both agreements effectively substituted technocratic corporatism for the current sociopolitical model of "democracy." ..."
"... one of the elite's most powerful, operative memes today is "populism vs. globalism" ..."
"... No matter what, the reality of these two events, the victories of both Trump and Brexit, stand as signal proof that elite stratagems have been defeated, at least temporarily. Though whether these defeats have been self-inflicted as part of a change in tactics remains to be seen. ..."
Was Trump's victory actually created by the very globalist elites that Trump is supposed to have
overcome? There are some who believe the elites are actually splintered into numerous groups and
that domestic US elites have positioned themselves against the banking elites in London's City.
We
see no fundamental evidence of this.
The world's real elites in our view may have substantive histories in the hundreds and
thousands of years. US elites are basically in the employ of a handful of families,
individuals and institutions in our view. It is confusing because it is hard to tell if Hillary,
for instance, is operating on her own accord or at the behest of higher and more powerful
authorities.
It is probably a combination
of both but at root those who control central banks are managing the world's move towards globalism.
History easily shows us who these groups are – and they are not located in America.
This is a cynical perspective to be sure, and certainly doesn't remove the impact of Trump's victory
or his courage in waging his election campaign despite what must surely be death threats to himself
and his family..
But if true, this perspective corresponds to predictions that we've been making for nearly a decade
now, suggesting that sooner or later elites – especially those in London's City – would have to "take
a step back."
More:
The vote to propel Trump to the US presidency reflects a profound backlash against open markets
and borders, and the simmering anger of millions of blue-collar white and working-class people
who blame their economic woes on globalisation and multiculturalism.
"There are a few parallels to Switzerland – that the losers of globalisation find somebody
who is listening to them," said Swiss professor and lawyer Wolf Linder, a former director of the
University of Bern's political science institute.
"Trump is doing his business with the losers of globalisation in the US, like the Swiss People's
Party is doing in Switzerland," he said. "It is a phenomenon which touches all European nations."
... ... ...
If indeed Trump's election has damped the progress of TPP, and TTIP, this is a huge event. As
we've pointed out, both agreements effectively substituted technocratic corporatism for the current
sociopolitical model of "democracy." The elites were trying to move toward a new
model of world control with these two agreements. ...
Additionally, one of the elite's most powerful, operative memes today is "populism vs. globalism"
that seeks to contrast the potentially freedom-oriented events of Trump and Brexit to the discarded
wisdom of globalism. See
here and
here.
No matter what, the reality of these two events, the victories of both Trump and Brexit, stand
as signal proof that elite stratagems have been defeated, at least temporarily. Though whether these
defeats have been self-inflicted as part of a change in tactics remains to be seen.
Conclusion: But the change has come. One way or another the Internet and tens of millions or people
talking, writing and acting has forced new trends. This can be hardly be emphasized enough. Globalism
has been at least temporarily redirected.
Editor's Note: The Daily Bell is giving away a silver coin and a silver "white paper" to subscribers.
If you enjoy DB's articles and want to stay up-to-date for free, please subscribe
here .
The analysis is flawed in that it fails to understand the context for power and influence in the
western alliance. The Crowns in contest are seeking coordinated domination through political proxy,
i.e. the force behind the EU and the UN. The problem is the most influential crown was not in
a mind to destroy the fabric of their civilization and more importantly to continue to bail-out
the "socialist" paradises in the continent and beyond. Britannia has its own socialism to support
much less that of the world.
Trump represents keeping the Colony in line with a growing interest in keeping traditions intact
and in more direct control of Anglo values. Europe has this insane multi-culturalism that is fundamentally
incompatible with a "free" and robust civilization. The whole goal of detente with China was to
convert them to our values via proxy institutions and that is working in the long-run. In the
short-run, the Empire must reunite and solidify its value bulwark against the coming storm from
China and to a lesser extend from the expanded EU states. Russia is playing out on its own.
Most commenters do not realise that it is neoliberalism that caused the current suffering of
working people in the USA and elsewhere...
Notable quotes:
"... Working class wages destroyed. The wages of the low paid lowered. Ordinary people robbed of holiday and sickness pay. Working people priced out of ever owning their own home. Our city centers socially cleansed of the working class. Poor people forced to fight like rats in sacks with even poorer foreigners for jobs, housing, school places and social and health services. ..."
"... Keep going mate. Continue to pump out that snobbish attitude because every time you do you've bagged Mr Trump, Mr Farage and Ms LePen another few votes. ..."
"... I recall a time when any suggestion that immigration may be too high was silenced by cries of racism, eventually that label was misused so often that it lost its potency, one gets the sense that this trend for dubbing those who hold certain opinions as somehow unintelligent will go the same way. People are beginning to see through this most hateful tactic of the Modern Left. ..."
"... Which is why I think Mr D'Ancona and many others are wrong to say that Farage and Trump will face the whirlwind when voters realise that their promises were all unachievable. The promises were much less important than the chance to slap the political world in the face. Given another chance, a lot of voters will do the same again. ..."
"... I think the author completely misses the most salient point from the two events he cites: simply that the *vast* majority of people have become completely disenfranchised with the utter corruption that is mainstream politics today. ..."
"... It doesn't matter who is voted in, the status quo [big business and the super-rich get wealthier whilst the middle is squeezed and the poorest are destroyed] remains. ..."
"... The votes for Brexit and Trump are as much a rejection of "establishment" as anything else. Politicians in both countries heed these warnings at their peril... ..."
"... The majority of the people are sick and tired of PC ism and the zero hour, minimum wage economy that both Britain and America have suffered under "globalisation". And of the misguided "[neo]liberal" agenda of much of the media which simply does not speak to or for society. ..."
"... People in western democracies are rising up through the ballot box to defeat PC [neo]liberalism and globalisation that has done so much to impoverish Europe and America morally and economically. To the benefit of the tax haven corporates. ..."
"... Globalisation disembowelled American manufacturing so the likes of Blair and the Clintons could print money. The illimitable lives they destroyed never entered their calculus. ..."
"... I have stood in the blue lane in Atlanta waiting for my passport to be processed; in the adjoining lane was a young British female student (so she said to the official). The computer revealed she had overstayed her visa by 48 hours the last time she visited. She was marched out by two armed tunics to the next plane home. That's how Europeans get treated if they try to enter America illegally. Why the demented furor over returning illegal Hispanics or anyone else? ..."
Surely the people who voted for Trump and Farage are too stupid to realise the sheer,
criminal folly of their decision...
thoughtcatcher -> IanPitch 12h ago
Working class wages destroyed. The wages of the low paid lowered. Ordinary people
robbed of holiday and sickness pay. Working people priced out of ever owning their own home.
Our city centers socially cleansed of the working class. Poor people forced to fight like rats
in sacks with even poorer foreigners for jobs, housing, school places and social and health
services.
But yeah, they voted against the elite because they are "stupid".
attila9000 -> IanPitch 11h ago
I think at some point a lot of them will realize they have been had, but then they will
probably just blame immigrants, or the EU. Anything that means they don't have to take
responsibility for their own actions. It would appear there is a huge pool of people who can
be conned into acting against their own self interest.
jonnyoyster -> IanPitch 11h ago
Keep going mate. Continue to pump out that snobbish attitude because every time you do
you've bagged Mr Trump, Mr Farage and Ms LePen another few votes. Most people don't
appreciate being talked down to and this arrogant habit of calling those who hold views
contrary to your own 'stupid' is encouraging more and more voters to ditch the established
parties in favour of the new.
I recall a time when any suggestion that immigration may be too high was silenced by
cries of racism, eventually that label was misused so often that it lost its potency, one gets
the sense that this trend for dubbing those who hold certain opinions as somehow unintelligent
will go the same way. People are beginning to see through this most hateful tactic of the
Modern Left.
DilemmataDocta -> IanPitch 11h ago
A lot of the people who put their cross against Brexit or Trump weren't actually voting for
anything. They were just voting against this, that or the other thing about the world that
they disliked. It was voting as a gesture.
Which is why I think Mr D'Ancona and many others are wrong to say that Farage and Trump
will face the whirlwind when voters realise that their promises were all unachievable. The
promises were much less important than the chance to slap the political world in the face.
Given another chance, a lot of voters will do the same again.
Sproggit 12h ago
I think the author completely misses the most salient point from the two events he
cites: simply that the *vast* majority of people have become completely disenfranchised with
the utter corruption that is mainstream politics today.
It doesn't matter who is voted in, the status quo [big business and the super-rich get
wealthier whilst the middle is squeezed and the poorest are destroyed] remains.
The votes for Brexit and Trump are as much a rejection of "establishment" as anything
else. Politicians in both countries heed these warnings at their peril...
NotoBlair 11h ago
OMG, the lib left don't Geddit do they?
The majority of the people are sick and tired of PC ism and the zero hour, minimum wage
economy that both Britain and America have suffered under "globalisation". And of the
misguided "[neo]liberal" agenda of much of the media which simply does not speak to or for
society.
People in western democracies are rising up through the ballot box to defeat PC [neo]liberalism
and globalisation that has done so much to impoverish Europe and America morally and
economically. To the benefit of the tax haven corporates.
The sour grapes bleating of the lib left who refuse to accept the democratic will of the
people is a movement doomed failure.
Frankincensedabit 11h ago
Malign to whom? Wall Street and people who want us all dead?
Globalisation disembowelled American manufacturing so the likes of Blair and the Clintons
could print money. The illimitable lives they destroyed never entered their calculus.
I have stood in the blue lane in Atlanta waiting for my passport to be processed; in the
adjoining lane was a young British female student (so she said to the official). The computer
revealed she had overstayed her visa by 48 hours the last time she visited. She was marched
out by two armed tunics to the next plane home. That's how Europeans get treated if they try
to enter America illegally. Why the demented furor over returning illegal Hispanics or anyone
else?
I likely wouldn't have voted at all. But all my life the occupants of the White House
represented the interests of those nobody could ever identify. The owners of the media and the
numbered accounts who took away the life-chances of U.S. citizens by the million and called
any of them who objected a thick white-trash bigot. Whatever Trump is, he will be different.
That is why watching President-elect Trump's choices for his foreign policy team is so important.
If he chooses primarily alumni of the Bush administration, we can be fairly certain that there
will be few, if any, beneficial changes in Washington's security strategy. Indeed, it could conceivably
be even more interventionist than that pursued by the Clinton, Bush or Obama administrations.
The main difference might be that it would be conducted unilaterally rather than multilaterally,
especially if someone like John Bolton gets a key position.
If on the other hand, Trump begins to pick advisers who have little or no previous government
service, it would be an encouraging step. Watch for appointments from realist enclaves like Defense
Priorities, the Independent Institute and others. Also watch for the appointment of individual unorthodox
or "rogue" scholars from such places as Notre Dame University, George Mason University, the Lyndon
B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and (ironically) the Bush School
at Texas A&M University. Such moves would indicate that Trump was choosing new blood and really intending
to make a meaningful change in the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
Eight years ago, President Obama had a chance to change the warmongering direction that outgoing
President Bush and the U.S. national-security establishment had led America for the previous eight
years. Obama could have said, "Enough is enough. America has done enough killing and dying. I'm going
to lead our country in a different direction - toward peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people
of the world." He could have ordered all U.S. troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan to return
home. He could have ended U.S. involvement in the endless wars that Bush, the Pentagon, and the CIA
spawned in that part of the world. He could have led America in a new direction.
Instead, Obama decided to stay Bush's course, no doubt believing that he, unlike Bush, could win
the endless wars that Bush had started. It was not to be. He chose to keep the national-security
establishment embroiled in Afghanistan and Iraq. Death and destruction are Obama's legacy, just as
they were Bush's.
Obama hoped that Hillary Clinton would protect and continue his (and Bush's) legacy of foreign
death and destruction. Yesterday, a majority of American voters dashed that hope.
Will Trump change directions and bring U.S. troops home? Possibly not, especially given he is
an interventionist, just as Clinton, Bush, and Obama are. But there is always that possibility, especially
since Trump, unlike Clinton, owes no allegiance to the U.S. military-industrial complex, whose survival
and prosperity depends on endless wars and perpetual crises.
If Clinton had been elected, there was never any doubt about continued U.S. interventionism in
Afghanistan and the Middle East. Not only is she a died-in-the-wool interventionist, she would have
been owned by the national-security establishment. She would have done whatever the Pentagon, CIA,
and NSA wanted, which would have automatically meant endless warfare - and permanent destruction
of the liberty and prosperity of the American people.
It's obvious that Americans want a new direction when it comes to foreign policy. That's partly
what Trump's election is all about. Americans are sick and tired of the never-ending wars in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. That includes military families, especially the many who
supported Trump, Gary Johnson, or Jill Stein. Americans are also tired of the out of control spending
and debt that come with these wars. By electing Trump, it is obvious that Americans are demanding
a change on foreign policy.
Imagine the benefits to American society if Trump were to change directions on foreign policy.
No more anti-American terrorist blowback, which would mean no more war on terrorism. That means the
restoration of a sense of normality to American lives. No more TSA checkpoints at airports. No more
mass surveillance schemes to "keep us safe." No more color coded warnings. No more totalitarian power
to round up Americans, put them into concentration camps or military dungeons, and torture them.
No more power to assassinate people, including Americans. In other words, the restoration of American
civil liberties and privacy.
The Middle East is embroiled in civil wars - wars that have been engendered or magnified by U.S.
interventionism. Continued interventionism in an attempt to fix the problems only pours gasoline
on the fires. The U.S. government has done enough damage to Afghanistan and the Middle East. It has
already killed enough people, including those in wedding parties, hospitals, and neighborhoods. Enough
is enough.
Will Trump be bad on immigration and trade? Undoubtedly, but Clinton would have been bad in
those areas too. Don't forget, after all, that Obama has become America's greatest deporter-in-chief,
deporting more illegal immigrants than any U.S. president in history. Clinton would have followed
in his footsteps, especially in the hope of protecting his legacy. Moreover, while Trump will undoubtedly
begin trade wars, Clinton would have been imposing sanctions on people all over the world whose government
failed to obey the commands of the U.S. government. A distinction without a difference.
Another area for hope under a Trump presidency is with respect to the drug war, one of the most
failed, destructive, and expensive government programs in history. Clinton would have followed in
Bush's and Obama's footsteps by keeping it in existence, if for no other reason than to cater to
the army of DEA agents, federal and state judges, federal and state prosecutors, court clerks, and
police departments whose existence depends on the drug war.
While Trump is a drug warrior himself, he doesn't have the same allegiance to the vast drug-war
bureaucracy that Clinton has. If we get close to pushing this government program off the cliff -
and I am convinced that it is on the precipice - there is a good chance that Trump will not put much
effort into fighting its demise. Clinton would have fought for the drug war with every fiber of her
being.
There is another possible upside to Trump's election: The likelihood that Cold War II will
come to a sudden end. With Clinton, the continuation of the new Cold War against Russia was a certainty.
In fact, Clinton's Cold War might well have gotten hot very quickly, given her intent to establish
a no-fly zone over Syria where she could show how tough she is by ordering U.S. warplanes to shoot
down Russian warplanes. There is no telling where that would have led, but it very well might have
led to all-out nuclear war, something that the U.S. national-security establishment wanted with the
Soviet Union back in the 1960s under President Kennedy.
The danger of war with Russia obviously diminishes under a President Trump, who has said that
he favors friendly relations with Russia, just as Kennedy favored friendly relations with the Soviet
Union and Cuba in the months before he was assassinated.
Indeed, given Trump's negative comments about NATO, there is even the possibility of a dismantling
of that old Cold War dinosaur that gave us the crisis in Ukraine with Russia.
How about it, President-Elect Trump? While you're mulling over your new Berlin Wall on the Southern
(and maybe Northern) border and your coming trade wars with China, how about refusing to follow
the 16 years of Bush-Obama when it comes to U.S. foreign interventionism? Bring the troops home.
Lead America in a different direction, at least insofar as foreign policy is concerned - away from
death, destruction, spending, debt, loss of liberty and privacy, and economic impoverishment and
toward freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony.
"
TRYING" ???...That's a JOKE, Right? Gingrich, Giuliani, etc, etc, These Neocons
already have a lot of the wild cards and 'Trump Cards'...Closet Globalists, even though they
probably wouldn't admit it.
Reference Carroll Quigley and Craig Hulet if you really want to get the REAL skinny!
The chant echoed through Donald Trump's boisterous rallies leading up to Election Day: "Drain
the swamp! Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!"
"We are fighting for every citizen that believes that government should serve the people, not
the donors and not the special interests," the billionaire real estate developer promised exuberant
supporters at his last campaign rally in Manchester, N.H.
But just days later, there is little evidence that the president-elect is seeking to restrain
wealthy interests from having access and influence in his administration.
It's not just corporate lobbyists who are playing early, visible roles in the new power structure.
Some of Trump's biggest political donors are shaping the incoming administration, including Rebekah
Mercer, a daughter of billionaire Robert Mercer, who is figuring prominently in behind-the-scenes
discussions, according to people familiar with the transition.
Mercer is among four major donors appointed by Trump Friday to a 16-person executive committee
overseeing his transition. The others are campaign finance chairman Steven Mnuchin, New York financier
Anthony Scaramucci and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.
Meanwhile, top campaign fundraisers and a raft of lobbyists tied to some of the country's wealthiest
industries have been put in charge of hiring and planning for specific federal agencies. They
include J. Steven Hart, chairman of the law and lobbying shop Williams & Jensen; Michael McKenna,
an energy company lobbyist who is overseeing planning for the Energy Department; and Dallas fundraiser
Ray Washburne, was has been tapped to oversee the Commerce Department.
Billionaires who served as Trump's policy advisers, such as Oklahoma oil executive Harold Hamm,
are under consideration for Cabinet positions.
LOL .
LOL . So how about a new chant for protesters: DRAIN THE SWAP!?
... ... ...
UPDATE:
Asked about the tensions, and about Kushner's role in the leadership change at the transition
team, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said, "Anybody seeing today's news about the appointment of
Vice President-elect Mike Pence to run the Presidential Transition Team realizes that President-elect
Donald J. Trump is serious about changing Washington whether the town likes it or not. This might
ruffle the delicate sensitivities of the well-heeled two-martini lunch set, but President-elect
Trump isn't fighting for them, he's fighting for the hard-working men and women outside the Beltway
who don't care for insider bickering."
It's not uncommon for rivalries to emerge inside campaigns and administrations as advisers
jockey to place allies in key roles and advance their policy priorities. But the level of internecine
conflict during Trump's drive toward the GOP nomination was so extreme that it sometimes resulted
in conflicting directives for even simple hiring and spending decisions.
I was one of the millions of people that believed in you. Believed what you said. Heard you.
You got "hired" by 60 MILLION people. WE are your boss. YOU BECAME THE EMPLOYEE.
Something you are not used to.
I myself convinced nearly 20 people to vote for you over these last two years. Know what I
said?
"He's NOT a politician. He's a business man. He's an outsider – something Washington, D.C.
SORELY needs. He's NOT the same 'business as usual' guy. Mr. Trump will change things for the
better in Washington. Clean it up. Make peace with Russia – not war. Trump is a BUILDER – not
a destroyer. He'll negotiate FAIR deals with countries. Install sensible immigration policies.
Reverse the stranglehold on health care policies that have bankrupted millions." I made them see
how biased the media was against you. How they lied by omission – and sometimes outright lied
about you. (To a person, they NO LONGER WATCH, TRUST, OR HEED the media anymore.)
He'll change the culture of Washington – because that's EXACTLY WHAT IT NEEDS. CHANGE."
Washington has become a den of vipers. Self-enriching criminals that have sucked the life blood
out of US – YOUR EMPLOYERS . The phrase; "You're FIRED" must be repeated often to MANY people
over the next few years. People that have engorged themselves because of the previous employees,
who have mismanaged the nation, and lied to it's people.
Your very words from your speeches that convinced us to hire you. Your platform. Your slogans;
"Make America Great Again." "I'll take back this country for you".
You said that to 60 MILLION of us – and we hired you based on it.
We hired you because we're SICK AND TIRED OF CAREER POLITICIANS. We hired you because we are
sick of the GREED, DUPLICITY, THE CORRUPTION of Congress and the past administrations that have
enriched the elite, while robbing from the American taxpayer.
Already, the public has noticed that you have had a LOT of the old-guard/same ol' same ol'
Republican Washington "insiders" advising you. We understand that you will need some guidance
in the first few months. All "apprentices" do.
However, we, as your employers, will NOT TOLERATE THE SAME OL' SAME OL' ANYMORE.
We hired YOU to do the right THINGS. "Drain The Swamp" "Take Our Country BACK".
Commencing January 21, 2017, that's exactly what we demand of you – our new employee.
WE WILL WANT RESULTS. ACTIONS. CHANGE.
WE WILL WANT INVESTIGATIONS. ARRESTS. PROSECUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE THAT WRONGED THIS NATION.
STOLE FROM IT. CORRUPTED IT. DAMAGED IT.
Just like you monitored your "apprentices", and judged them on their performances, WE ARE JUDGING
YOU. And we are NOT going to be fooled, like the oppositions legions were and are; by a biased
media that lies to them. No one is going to get a "pass" anymore. Especially like your immediate
predecessor.
That's over.
On January 21, 2017, your official duties commence.
it was just yesterday that I had posted the following to a friend... very similar.
I know, well the Internet people that elected him may and can put tremendous pressure on him
to do the right thing... And I expect that to happen...I expect the people to demand through social
media that they keep their promises and that they do what they are told by the people that elected
them.....can you imagine the damage that could happen if the trump supporters starting to Diss
him because he didn't do what he was told by the people that elected him.
I think in the very near future countries will be run by the people of the country via the
Internet where everybody's voice counts and the people that want to share their voice will be
the actual leaders of the country and the people that want to watch sports and stick their head
in the sand will be sheeple.
I think referendums will be a much more common item
I wrote that in the hopes that someone on the "TTT" (Trump Transition Team) reads it, and maybe,
maybe, shows Trump himself.
We all know he trolls different sites - and I'll bet he trolls ZH.
I agree with you; the "internet people" elected him. The "alt-right" (which IS the new media)
elected him.
If we had no internet, and had to rely on the MSM, Clinton would have been elected.
Or worse.
But they are now the "old guard ". It is funny....sickening...and sad to watch them flail away
like they have relevancy -
THEY don't.
In a big way, this election was a wake up call to THEM (like the NYT piece on here shows),
to clean up THEIR act.
NO MORE business as usual. CFR meets and Washington insider parties of poo.
I actually DID convince 18 people to switch from Clinton to Trump (really, it was 12 from Cruz/Bush/Sanders,
and 6 outright flip Clinton to Trump).. and ALL of them HAD been a daily staple of watching the
MSM.
Getting them to stop was akin to getting a smoker off cigarettes. Some still do - but they
NOW know how the MSM LIES.
(One way I showed them? A tape on YouTube of 60 Minutes "editing techniques", linked below,
which REALLY opened some eyes)
The video embedded in this thread - when Ann Coulter was on Bill Maher and got mocked for her
backing Trump - in several instances - was me in 2014 and 2015. I got laughed at by many for coming
out for Trump back then.
However, what I wrote is true. I literally changed 18 people into Trump supporters from then
to now.
The reasons are many - but the MAIN one is;
I'm. PISSED. OFF.
I'm angry as to the mis-management, lies and over-regulation that has killed the little guy
in businesses. I'm angry as to the lies and deceit from the bought of main stream media. A whole
LOT of other reasons as well.
I am giving free reign for anyone here to re-post this on ANY internet forum they want; Brietbart,
Drudge, and ANY online newspaper comment op-ed section they wish.
I only am a commenter here. I choose not to become one on any other forum.
Please copy and paste it anywhere you'd like.
I'm just a little guy. A "peon". However, I did work hard for Trump. I expect no compensation.
No recognition.
I DO expect Trump however - to DO WHAT he said. As a political outsider.
I am concerned as to the vipers, old guard Washington insiders, and of course, the Deep State
- along with Israel - getting to Trump.
WE didn't elect them. We elected HIM.
So please - have at it. Post away.
I hope my post inspires others to do their own "Apprentice" type open letters to Trump.
He needs to hear from us (and I bet he does troll ZH and other finanical sites.)
That is why watching President-elect Trump's choices for his foreign policy team is so important.
If he chooses primarily alumni of the Bush administration, we can be fairly certain that there
will be few, if any, beneficial changes in Washington's security strategy. Indeed, it could conceivably
be even more interventionist than that pursued by the Clinton, Bush or Obama administrations.
The main difference might be that it would be conducted unilaterally rather than multilaterally,
especially if someone like John Bolton gets a key position.
If on the other hand, Trump begins to pick advisers who have little or no previous government
service, it would be an encouraging step. Watch for appointments from realist enclaves like Defense
Priorities, the Independent Institute and others. Also watch for the appointment of individual unorthodox
or "rogue" scholars from such places as Notre Dame University, George Mason University, the Lyndon
B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and (ironically) the Bush School
at Texas A&M University. Such moves would indicate that Trump was choosing new blood and really intending
to make a meaningful change in the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
Looks like Secretary of State shortlist is dominated by neocons. A couple of candidates would make
Hillary Clinton proud... the head of CIA is an informal head of shadow government and as such
is also very important. Allen Dulles example should still be remembered by all presidents, if
they do not want to repeat the face of JFK ....
(There are 5 women on the list, including Sarah Palin & NH's Kelly Ayotte, demonstrating that
ilsm has some influence.
For Sec/Defense - seriously. Alternatively for UN Ambassador. Right.)
Thomas Barrack Jr. Founder, chairman and executive chairman of Colony Capital; private equity
and real estate investor
Jeb Hensarling Representative from Texas and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee
Steven Mnuchin Former Goldman Sachs executive and Mr. Trump's campaign finance chairman
Tim Pawlenty Former Minnesota governor
Defense Secretary
Kelly Ayotte Departing senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee
Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn Former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (he would need
a waiver from Congress because of a seven-year rule for retired officers)
Stephen J. Hadley National security adviser under George W. Bush
Jon Kyl Former senator from Arizona
Jeff Sessions Senator from Alabama who is a prominent immigration opponent
Attorney General
Chris Christie New Jersey governor
Rudolph W. Giuliani Former New York mayor
Jeff Sessions Senator from Alabama
Interior Secretary
Jan Brewer Former Arizona governor
Robert E. Grady Gryphon Investors partner
Harold G. Hamm Chief executive of Continental Resources, an oil and gas company
Forrest Lucas President of Lucas Oil Products, which manufactures automotive lubricants, additives
and greases
Sarah Palin Former Alaska governor
Agriculture Secretary
Sam Brownback Kansas governor
Chuck Conner Chief executive officer of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives
Sid Miller Texas agricultural commissioner
Sonny Perdue Former Georgia governor
Commerce Secretary
Chris Christie New Jersey governor
Dan DiMicco Former chief executive of Nucor Corporation, a steel production company
Lewis M. Eisenberg Private equity chief for Granite Capital International Group
Labor Secretary
Victoria A. Lipnic Equal Employment Opportunity commissioner and work force policy counsel
to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Health and Human Services Secretary
Dr. Ben Carson Former neurosurgeon and 2016 presidential candidate
Mike Huckabee Former Arkansas governor and 2016 presidential candidate
Bobby Jindal Former Louisiana governor who served as secretary of the Louisiana Department
of Health and Hospitals
Rick Scott Florida governor and former chief executive of a large hospital chain
Energy Secretary
James L. Connaughton Chief executive of Nautilus Data Technologies and former environmental
adviser to President George W. Bush
Robert E. Grady Gryphon Investors partner
Harold G. Hamm Chief executive of Continental Resources, an oil and gas company
Education Secretary
Dr. Ben Carson Former neurosurgeon and 2016 presidential candidate
Williamson M. Evers Education expert at the Hoover Institution, a think tank
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Jeff Miller Retired chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee
Homeland Security Secretary
Joe Arpaio Departing sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz.
David A. Clarke Jr. Milwaukee County sheriff
Michael McCaul Representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee
Jeff Sessions Senator from Alabama
White House Chief of Staff
Stephen K. Bannon Editor of Breitbart News and chairman of Mr. Trump's campaign
Reince Priebus Chairman of the Republican National Committee
E.P.A. Administrator
Myron Ebell A director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a prominent climate change
skeptic
Robert E. Grady Gryphon Investors partner who was involved in drafting the Clean Air Act Amendments
of 1990
Jeffrey R. Holmstead Lawyer with Bracewell L.L.P. and former deputy E.P.A. administrator in
the George W. Bush administration
U.S. Trade Representative
Dan DiMicco Former chief executive of Nucor Corporation, a steel production company, and
a critic of Chinese trade practices
U.N. Ambassador
Kelly Ayotte Departing senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services
Committee
Richard Grenell Former spokesman for the United States ambassador to the United Nations during
the George W. Bush administration
CIA Director / Director of National Intelligence
Michael T. Flynn Former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Peter Hoekstra Former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
Mike Rogers Former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
Frances Townsend Former homeland security adviser under George W. Bush
National Security Adviser
Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn Former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Trump's Hires Will Set Course of His Presidency
http://nyti.ms/2eNUfRg
NYT - MARK LANDLER =- Nov 12
WASHINGTON - "Busy day planned in New York," President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Twitter
on Friday morning, two days after his astonishing victory. "Will soon be making some very important
decisions on the people who will be running our government!"
If anything, that understates the gravity of the personnel choices Mr. Trump and his transition
team are weighing.
Rarely in the history of the American presidency has the exercise of choosing people to fill
jobs had such a far-reaching impact on the nature and priorities of an incoming administration.
Unlike most new presidents, Mr. Trump comes into office with no elective-office experience, no
coherent political agenda and no bulging binder of policy proposals. And he has left a trail of
inflammatory, often contradictory, statements on issues from immigration and race to terrorism
and geopolitics.
In such a chaotic environment, serving a president who is in many ways a tabula rasa, the appointees
to key White House jobs like chief of staff and cabinet posts like secretary of state, defense
secretary and Treasury secretary could wield outsize influence. Their selection will help determine
whether the Trump administration governs like the firebrand Mr. Trump was on the campaign trail
or the pragmatist he often appears to be behind closed doors. ...
"... Washington insiders attempt to capture Trump and influence his positions, policies and decisions. ..."
"... Trump will likely form a very small team of offshoots of himself, people whom he trusts implicitly, in order to extend his capacity to choose people who will adhere to and execute his agenda. ..."
"... The presidency is an establishment and Washington is another. By being elected, Trump struck a blow at the members of the establishment who will be packing their bags while weeping over their losses (see here and here .) ..."
"... The Obama establishment is dead. The Democratic establishment is dead, at least for 4 years. There was a time, a very brief time under the Articles of Confederation, when Americans recognized the evils of the establishment and avoided instituting one. ..."
What happens next in Washington? Trump fills out his administration.
At the same time, Washington insiders attempt to capture Trump and influence his positions,
policies and decisions. The presidency is an institution, not a man, not a president. The presidency
is a network of enormous power with Trump now at its center.
Washington insiders who live and breathe politics are now in a race for positions of power and
influence. They hanker and vie for appointments. Trump must make appointments. He cannot operate
alone. He must delegate power to make decisions. He cannot monitor all information pertinent to every
issue in which the government has a hand.
The presidency is not 100 percent centralized. Decision-making power is allocated to levels below
the president himself and to levels surrounding him. It also lies outside the presidency in Congress.
Trump has his ideas and desires for actions, but their realization depends on the people he appoints.
He loses control and locks himself in with every appointment that he makes. People around him want
his power and want to influence him. They have a heavy influence on what he hears, whom he sees,
the options presented to him, and the evaluations of competing personnel. Trump will likely form
a very small team of offshoots of himself, people whom he trusts implicitly, in order to extend his
capacity to choose people who will adhere to and execute his agenda.
Power in Washington is not simply the apparatus of administering the presidency that will take
up headlines for the next few months. After the U.S. Treasury robs the tax-paying Americans, new
robbers (the Lobby) appear to rob the Treasury using every device they can get away with. There is
a second contingent, the power-seekers. Those who covet the exercise of power unceasingly work toward
their own narrow aims. As long as Washington remains the place that concentrates unbelievably large
amounts of money and powers, it will remain the swamp that Trump has promised to drain but won't.
He cannot drain it, not without destroying Washington's power and he cannot accomplish that, nor
does he even hint that he wants to accomplish that. His stated aims are the redirection of money
and powers, not their elimination for the sake of a greater justice, a greater right, and a truly
greater people and country.
The presidency is an establishment and Washington is another. By being elected, Trump struck
a blow at the members of the establishment who will be packing their bags while weeping over their
losses (see
here and
here .)
But elections do not strike the roots of the presidency, the establishment or Washington. Neither
will demonstrations against Trump.
The Obama establishment is dead. The Democratic establishment is dead, at least for 4 years.
There was a time, a very brief time under the Articles of Confederation, when Americans recognized
the evils of the establishment and avoided instituting one.
This gave way almost immediately (in 1787) to the constitutional seed that planted the enormous
tree that now cuts out the sun of justice from American lives. A domestic war failed to uproot that
tree. Long live the establishment, the Union, the American state, and may they be possessed of immense
powers over our lives - these became the social and political reality. Trump isn't going to change
it. He's a president administering a presidency. He's at the top of the heap. His credo is still
"Long Live the Establishment!"
"... Trump can renegotiate that Iranian treaty but he should never change the result: Iran loses its sanctions and joins the rest of the trading world. ditto with Russia. I have a feeling after trump has a long talk with Putin the Iranian deal will look somewhat different. ..."
Trump can renegotiate that Iranian treaty but he should never change the result: Iran loses its
sanctions and joins the rest of the trading world. ditto with Russia. I have a feeling after trump
has a long talk with Putin the Iranian deal will look somewhat different.
the last thing, the very fucking last thing, trump needs to do is start adopting the neocon,
Zionist, Israeli first agenda after the total opposite of those fucks elected him.
"... Real foreign policy positions will only emerge with the formation of a Trump cabinet when it becomes clear who will be in charge. ..."
"... But, if future policies remain unknowable, super-charged American nationalism combined with economic populism and isolationism are likely to set the general tone. ..."
"... This sort of aggressive nationalism is not unique to Trump. All over the world nationalism is having a spectacular rebirth in countries from Turkey to the Philippines. It has become a successful vehicle for protest in Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe. ..."
"... The most serious wars in which the US is already militarily involved are in Iraq and Syria and here Trump's comments during the campaign suggest that he will focus on destroying Isis, recognise the danger of becoming militarily over-involved and look for some sort of cooperation with Russia as the next biggest player in the conflict. This is similar to what is already happening. ..."
"... Trump's instincts generally seem less well-informed but often shrewd, and his priories have nothing to do with the Middle East. ..."
"... The region has been the political graveyard for three of the last five US presidents: Jimmy Carter was destroyed by the consequences of the Iranian revolution; Ronald Reagan was gravely weakened by the Iran-Contra scandal; and George W Bush's years in office will be remembered chiefly for the calamities brought on by his invasion of Iraq. Barack Obama was luckier and more sensible, but he wholly underestimated the rise of Isis until it captured Mosul in 2014. ..."
...the election campaign was focused almost exclusively on American domestic politics with voters
showing little interest in events abroad. This is unlikely to change.
Governments around the world can see this for themselves, though this will not stop them badgering
their diplomats in Washington and New York for an inkling as to how far Trump's off-the-cuff remarks
were more than outrageous attempts to dominate the news agenda for a few hours. Fortunately, his
pronouncements were so woolly that they can be easily jettisoned between now and his inauguration. Real foreign policy positions will only emerge with the formation of a Trump cabinet when it becomes
clear who will be in charge.
But, if future policies remain unknowable, super-charged American nationalism combined with
economic populism and isolationism are likely to set the general tone.Trump has invariably portrayed
Americans as the victims of the foul machinations of foreign countries who previously faced no real
resistance from an incompetent self-serving American elite.
This sort of aggressive nationalism is not unique to Trump. All over the world nationalism
is having a spectacular rebirth in countries from Turkey to the Philippines. It has become a successful
vehicle for protest in Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe.Though Trump is
frequently portrayed as a peculiarly American phenomenon, his populist nationalism has a striking
amount in common with that of the Brexit campaigners in Britain or even the chauvinism of President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. Much of this can be discounted as patriotic bombast, but in all cases
there is a menacing undercurrent of racism and demonisation, whether it is directed against illegal
immigrants in the US, asylum seekers in the Britain or Kurds in south east Turkey.
In reality, Trump made very few proposals for radical change in US foreign policy during the election
campaign, aside from saying that he would throw out the agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme
– though his staff is now being much less categorical about this, saying only that the deal must
be properly enforced. Nobody really knows if Trump will deal any differently from Obama with the
swathe of countries between Pakistan and Nigeria where there are at least seven wars raging – Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and South Sudan – as well as four serious insurgencies.
The most serious wars in which the US is already militarily involved are in Iraq and Syria and
here Trump's comments during the campaign suggest that he will focus on destroying Isis, recognise
the danger of becoming militarily over-involved and look for some sort of cooperation with Russia
as the next biggest player in the conflict. This is similar to what is already happening.
Hillary Clinton's intentions in Syria, though never fully formulated, always sounded more interventionist
than Trump's. One of her senior advisers openly proposed giving less priority to the assault on Isis
and more to getting rid of President Bashar al-Assad. To this end, a third force of pro-US militant
moderates was to be raised that would fight and ultimately defeat both Isis and Assad. Probably this
fantasy would never have come to pass, but the fact that it was ever given currency underlines the
extent to which Clinton was at one with the most dead-in-the-water conventional wisdom of the foreign
policy establishment in Washington.
President Obama developed a much more acute sense of what the US could and could not do in the
Middle East and beyond, without provoking crises exceeding its political and military strength. Its
power may be less than before the failed US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan following 9/11,
but it is still far greater than any other country's. Currently, it is the US which is successfully
coordinating the offensive against Isis's last strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa by a multitude of fractious
parties in Iraq and Syria. It was never clear how seriously one should have taken Clinton's proposals
for "safe zones" and trying to fight Isis and Assad at the same time, but her judgements on events
in the Middle East since the Iraq invasion of 2003 all suggested a flawed idea of what was feasible.
Trump's instincts generally seem less well-informed but often shrewd, and his priories have
nothing to do with the Middle East.Past US leaders have felt the same way, but they usually
end up by being dragged into its crises one way or other, and how they perform then becomes the test
of their real quality as a leader. The region has been the political graveyard for three of
the last five US presidents: Jimmy Carter was destroyed by the consequences of the Iranian
revolution; Ronald Reagan was gravely weakened by the Iran-Contra scandal; and George W Bush's
years in office will be remembered chiefly for the calamities brought on by his invasion of Iraq.
Barack Obama was luckier and more sensible, but he wholly underestimated the rise of Isis until
it captured Mosul in 2014.
(Reprinted from
The Independent by permission of author or representative)
"... if the rumors are true and Trump nominates John Bolton as secretary of state, it's almost unfathomable to believe that Washington would continue to certify that Tehran is meeting its nuclear commitments. ..."
"... This is the same guy who, during the tail-end of the P5+1 negotiating process for an interim, placeholder accord, wrote in the New York Times that the United States needed to bomb Iran's facilities or at least support the Israelis so they could do it themselves. ..."
"... John Bolton for SoS? Criminality! ..."
"... If the hardest core neocons are brought directly into the highest echelons of American government and institute the kinds of policies mentioned in this article there will be much destruction, and when the dust settles there will be a popularly mandated realignment of EU countries away from fast allegiance with the US, and finally, a functioning alternative monetary and financial system revolving around the BRICS countries. ..."
Trump's ambivalence and wishy-washiness isn't much comfort for people who worked on the negotiation
tirelessly over a matter of years. Richard Nephew, the former sanctions official who helped put in
place and implement nuclear-related economic restrictions on the Iranians,
strongly believes that the JCPOA is a dead deal walking and will be slowly strangled to death
as soon as Trump is sworn in. In many ways, he could be right;
if the rumors are true and Trump nominates
John Bolton as secretary of state, it's almost unfathomable to believe that Washington would continue
to certify that Tehran is meeting its nuclear commitments.
This is the same guy who, during the tail-end
of the P5+1 negotiating process for an interim, placeholder accord,
wrote in the New York Times that the United States needed to bomb Iran's facilities or
at least support the Israelis so they could do it themselves.
If the hardest core neocons are brought directly into the highest echelons of American
government and institute the kinds of policies mentioned in this article there will be much destruction,
and when the dust settles there will be a popularly mandated realignment of EU countries away
from fast allegiance with the US, and finally, a functioning alternative monetary and financial
system revolving around the BRICS countries.
It doesn't have to happen, but if Trump brings in fire breathing nut jobs like Bolton, it WILL
happen. Non-the-less, I do predict that Trump will be greatly coopted by "the establishment" he
vilified and that the public largely hates. It's an irresistible force that will only be brought
down with general social collapse.
We face the greatest challenges to our security in a generation. This is no time to question
the value of the partnership between Europe and the United States.
Britain is facing a diplomatic crisis with the US over Donald Trump's plans to forge an
alliance with Vladimir Putin and bolster the Syrian regime.
In a significant foreign policy split, officials admitted that Britain will have some "very
difficult" conversations with the President-elect in coming months over his approach to Russia.
I don't think it will be difficult for the US president-elect to tell the UK government where
to go.
Donald Trump's plans to forge an alliance with Vladimir Putin and bolster the Syrian regime. When
did he ever say he had any such plans? But now they are a fact in being, thanks to the Torygraph.
Britain has evolved into an expert panicker.
"... Trump, to a degree previously matched only by such outlier presidential candidates as Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, is challenging Washington's conventional wisdom that America must dominate the globe. ..."
"... He also criticized nation-building. "We have a country that's in bad shape," he reasonably allowed: "I just think we have to rebuild our country." ..."
"... Fifth, foreign policy is ultimately about domestic policy. "War is the health of the state," Randolph Bourne presciently declared a century ago. There is no bigger big government program war, no graver threat to civil liberties than perpetual conflict with the homeland the battlefield, no greater danger to daily life than blowback from military overreach. ..."
Still, Trump, to a degree previously matched only by such outlier presidential candidates as Ron
Paul and Dennis Kucinich, is challenging Washington's conventional wisdom that America must dominate
the globe. The "usual suspects" who manage foreign policy in every administration, Republican and
Democrat, believe that the U.S. must cow every adversary, fight every war, defend every ally, enforce
every peace, settle every conflict, pay every bill, and otherwise ensure that the lion lies down
with the lamb at the end of time, if not before.
Not Donald Trump. He recently shocked polite war-making society in the nation's capital when he
criticized NATO, essentially a welfare agency for Europeans determined to safeguard their generous
social benefits. Before the Washington Post editorial board he made the obvious point that "NATO
was set up at a different time." Moreover, Ukraine "affects us far less than it affects other countries
in NATO, and yet we're doing all of the lifting." Why, he wondered? It's a good question.
His view that foreign policy should change along with the world scandalized Washington policymakers,
who embody Public Choice economics, which teaches that government officials and agencies are self-interested
and dedicated to self-preservation. In foreign policy that means what has ever been must ever be
and everything is more important today than in the past, no matter how much circumstances have changed.
Trump expressed skepticism about American defense subsidies for other wealthy allies, such as
South Korea and Saudi Arabia as well as military deployments in Asia. "We spent billions of dollars
on Saudi Arabia and they have nothing but money," he observed. Similarly, he contended, "South Korea
is very rich, great industrial country, and yet we're not reimbursed fairly for what we do."
He also criticized nation-building. "We have a country that's in bad shape," he reasonably allowed:
"I just think we have to rebuild our country."
Unlike presidents dating back at least to George H.W. Bush, Trump appears reluctant to go to war.
He opposed sending tens of thousands of troops to fight the Islamic State: "I would put tremendous
pressure on other countries that are over there to use their troops." Equally sensibly, he warned
against starting World War III over Crimea or useless rocks in East Asian seas. He made a point that
should be obvious at a time of budget crisis: "We certainly can't afford to do this anymore."
... ... ...
Fifth, foreign policy is ultimately about domestic policy. "War is the health of the state,"
Randolph Bourne presciently declared a century ago. There is no bigger big government program war,
no graver threat to civil liberties than perpetual conflict with the homeland the battlefield, no
greater danger to daily life than blowback from military overreach.
"... America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there
are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers. ..."
"... Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being
mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team. ..."
"... There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions. ..."
"... Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit
them to infest his administration. ..."
"... PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William
Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle. ..."
"... HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED... ..."
"... Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because
that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through 501C3
groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a massive web
of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil. ..."
"... Tyler, please rerun this! How George Sorros destroys countries, profits from currency trading, convinces the countries to privatize
its assets, buys them and then sells them for yet another profit: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly...
..."
"... We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an
advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... ..."
"... JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world. ..."
"... If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will
unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him) ..."
"... Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction
and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen. ..."
Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning
after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned
in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent
the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete
ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon
George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros,
were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump
administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution
will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of
Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation
faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the
Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide
Huma Abedin
. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because
there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being
mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit
them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have
read as follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms
as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect
Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle
East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted
off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War.
Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his
administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies
but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with
the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities
to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed
at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and
the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org
and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle,
Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great
Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump
presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans
to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street
protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former
Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign
policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the
Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against
Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump
newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair
Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible
for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets
of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as
"anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's
son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics
not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George
Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
"It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care."
None of those "pressing issues" involve the DOJ or the FBI.
Investigate, prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton and her crew.
Trump is going to need a hostage or two to deal with these fucks.
News for the Clintons, The R's and D's already united to vote against Hillary.
I do not understand why they think street protests will bring down a POTUS? And that would be acceptable in a major nation.
Why isn't the government cracking down the separatists in Oregon, California, and elsewhere? They are not accepting the legal
outcome of an election. They are calling for illegal secession. (Funny in 1861 this was a cause for the federal government to
attack the joint and seveal states of the union.) If a group of whites had protested Obama's election in 2008?
The people living in Kalispell are reviled and ridiculed for their separatist views. Randy Weaver and family for not accepting
politically correct views. And so on.
This is getting out of hand. There will be no walking this back.
Purple is the color of royalty! Are these fuckers proclaiming themselves as King and Queen of America? If so, get the executioner
and give them a "French Haircut"!
"Yes. And who are the neocons really? Progressives. Neocon is a label successfully used by criminal progressives to shield
their brand."
Well let's go a little bit deeper in examing the 'who' thing:
"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right,
is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary , a media arm
of the American Jewish Committee , which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward , the oldest American
Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: " If there is an intellectual movement in America
to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.... "
The idea of arresting the Clinton Crime, Fraud and Crime Family would be welcomed. BUT, who is going to arrest them? Loretta Lynch,
James Comey, WHO? The problem here is that our so called "authorities" are all in the same bed. The tentacles of the Eastern Elite
Establishment are everywhere in high office, academia, the media, Big Business, etc. The swamp is thoroughly infested with this
elite scum of those in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, Club of Rome,
Committee of 300, Jason Society and numerous other private clubs of the rich, powerful and influential. The Illuminati has been
exposed, however they aren't going down lightly. They still have massive amounts of money, they own the media and the banking
houses. Some have described it as MIMAC, the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex. A few months ago here at Zero Hedge,
there was an article which showed a massive flow chart of the elites and their organization
They could IF and WHEN Trump gets to Washington after 20 Jan 2017, simply implode the economy and blame t it on Trump. Sort
of what happened to Herbert Hoover in the late 1920's. Unfortunately the situation in the US will continue to deteriorate. George
Soros, a major financial backer of Hillary will see to that. Soros is a Globalist and advocate of one world government. People
comment that Soros should be arrested. I agree, BUT who is going to do that?
Agree. I think Trump will yank all the "aid" to Israel as well as "aid" to the Islamic murderers of the Palitrashian human garbage
infesting the area. This "aid" money is simply a bribe to keep both from killing each other. F**k all of them. None of our business
what they do.
We got progressives ( lots and lots of Jews in that group) who are the enemy of mankind and then we got Islam who are also
the enemy of mankind. Why help either of them? Makes no sense.
Soros is hated in Israel and has never set foot there but his foundations have done such harm that a bill was recently passed
to ban foreign funding of non profit political organizations
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the man puts America first, really says
it all.
The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to act? There should be no question
about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
There are entirely way too many Intelligence Agencies. Plus the Contractors, some of who shouldn't have high level clearance to
begin with which the US sub contracts the Intel / work out to.
For Fucks sake, Government is so incompetent it can't even handle it own Intel.
Something along the lines of Eurpoe's Five Eyes would be highly effective.
Fuck those Pure Evil Psychopaths at the CIA They're nothing more than a bunch of Scum Fuck murdering, drug running, money laundering
Global Crime Syndicate.
The FBI is still investigating the Clinton Foundation, Trump needs to encourage that through backdoor channels. Soro's needs to
be investigated, he has been tied to a conspiracy to incite violence, this needs to be documented and dealt with. Trump can not
ignore this guy. If any of these investigations come back with a recommendation to indict then that process needs to be started.
Take the fight to them, they are vulnerable!
Make a National APB Warrent for the apprehension & arrest of George Sooros for inciting violence, endsrgerimg the public & calling
for the murder of our Nations Police through funding of the BLM Group.
Have every Law Informent Agency in the Nation on alert. Also, issue a Bounty in the Sum of $5,000,000 for his immediate apprehension.
Trump needs to replace FBI chickenshits & sellouts with loyal people then get the FBI counter-terrorism to investigate and shut
down Soros & the various agencies instigating the riots. It's really simple when you quit over-thinking a problem. It's domestic
terrorism. It's the FBI's job to stop it.
I read what Paul said this morning and thought, despite Paul's hostility to Trump during the primaries most likely due to his
son, Rand's loss, that Paul gave good advice to Trump.
Let's face it Donald Trump is a STOP GAP measure. And demographic change over the next 4 years makes his re-election very, very
UNLIKELY. If he keeps his campaign promises he will be a GREAT president. However as ZH reported earlier he appears to be balking
from repealing Obamacare, I stress the word APPEARS.
Let us give him a chance. This is all speculation. His enemies are DEADLY as they were once they got total control in Russia,
they killed according to Solzhenitsyn SIXTY-SIX MILLION Russian Christians. The descendants of those Bolsheviks are VERY powerful
in the USSA. They control the Fed, Hollyweird, Wall Street, the universities...
Much of the media and advertising exist by pushing buttons that trigger appropriate financially lucrative reflexes in their
audiences, from pornography to romantic movies to team sports. Media profits are driven by competition over how best to push
those buttons. But the effort to produce politically and racially cuckolded Whites adds a layer of complexity: What buttons
do you push to make Whites complicit in their own racial and cultural demise?
Actually, there are a whole lot of them, which shouldn't be surprising. This is a very sophisticated onslaught, enabled
by control over all the moral, intellectual, and political high ground by the left. With all that high ground, there are a
lot of buttons you can push.
Our enemies see this as a pathetic last gasp of a moribund civilization and it is quite true for our civilization is dying.
Identity Christians describe this phase as Jacob's Troubles and what the secular Guillaume Faye would, I think, describe as the
catastrophe required to get people motivated. The future has yet to be written, however I cannot help but think that God's people,
the White people, are stirring from their slumber.
"PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William
Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.
JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. "explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's
security" Served on JINSA's Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Perle."
If Trump has probable cause on the Soros crimes, have his DoJ request a warrant for all of Soros's communications via the NSA,
empanel a grand jury, indict the bastard, and throw his raggedy ass in prison. It would be hard for him to run his retarded purple
revolution when he's getting ass-raped by his cell mate.
I agree. Thing is, I think as president he can simply order the NSA to cough up whatever they have, just like Obama could have
done at any point. The NSA is part of the Defense Department, right? What am I missing here?
But in respect to Soro's money and the Dalas shooting or other incited events, there should be a grand jury empanelled and
then charges brought against him. I think nothing short of him hiding in an embassy with all his money blocked by Swift is justice
for the violence that he funded.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation
of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when
the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on
Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be
distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
And so it begins; I really hope that this is just some misinformation/disinformation, because HE PROMISED he would appoint
a special prosecutor, PROMISED...
The likes of Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg get to catch up on their Torah for the forseeable future but the likes
of Lloyd Blankfein will probably get to entertain the court since they have probably crossed paths doing business in NYC. The
"real conservative" deeply introspective, examine-my-conscience crowd screwed themselves to the wall, god love them.
Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because
that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through
501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a
massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil.
We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an
advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... (just in case you confused him with Mother Theresa)..
But then again JFK took office with a set of initiatives that were far more bellicose and provocative (like putting huge Jupiter
missile launchers on the USSR border in Turkey)... once he saw he light and fired the pro Nazi Dulles Gang , JFK was gunned
down in front of the whole world.
If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will
unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him)
I'm guessing though that deep down Trump is quite comfortable with a neoCon cabinet... hell he already offered Jamie Diamon
the office of Treasry Secretary... no doubt a calculated gesture to signal compliance with the Deep State.
The Clintons do not do things by accident. Coordination of colors at the concession speech was meant for something. Perhaps the
purple revolution or maybe they want to be seen as royals. It doesn't really matter why they did it; the fact is they are up to
something. They will not agree to go away and even if they offered to just disappear with their wealth we know they are dishonest.
They will come back... that is what they do.
They must be stripped of power and wealth. This act must be performed publicly.
In order to succeed Mr. Trump I suggest you task a group to accomplish this result. Your efforts to make America great again
may disintegrate just like Obamacare if you allow the Clintons and Co. to languish in the background.
The protestors are groups of individuals who may seek association for any number of reasons. One major reason might be the loss
of hope for a meaningful and prosperous life. We should seek out and listen to the individuals within these groups. If they are
truly desirous of being heard they will communicate what they want without use of violence. Perhaps individuals join these protest
groups because they do not have a voice.
Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction
and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen.
The articles reporting that Mr. Trump has changed his response to the protestors is a good effort to discover the protestors'
complaints and channel their energy into beneficial political activity. Something must be done quickly though, before the protests
get out of hand, for if that happens the protestors will be criminals and no one will want to work with them.
In order to make America great again we need input from all of America. Mr. Trump you can harness the energy of these protestors
and let them know they are a part of your movement.
Classical economists are experts on today's capitalism, it is 18th and 19th Century capitalism, it's how it all started.
Adam Smith would think we are on the road to ruin.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society.
On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalizing itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services.
Got that wrong as well.
Adam Smith wouldn't like today's lobbyists.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great
precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous,
but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of
the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions,
both deceived and oppressed it."
AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge
in her own country!
lakecity55 -> CoCosAB •Nov 12, 2016 7:53 AM
Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money. Trump will have to do some rough stuff,
but he needs to, it's what we hired him for.
"... It's a cliche to say that the cushiest positions of influence in any US administration go to figures who were seen to have brought something to the table during the campaign. ..."
"... a lot of high-ranking neoconservatives are expecting the exact opposite, figuring that they can step right into positions of power and influence despite openly campaigning against Trump. ..."
"... There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness" to work with Trump. ..."
"... In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions. ..."
"... For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions. ..."
There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican
White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout
the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness"
to work with Trump.
In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as
so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how
willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions.
The early indications are that a lot of the foreign policy-related positions are going to be led
by high-ranking former military officials who backed Trump's candidacy, with officials noting that
long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left them with a lot of such officials to choose from.
For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and
more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these
people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want
jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions.
"... What happened? Why is this clique's triumphant return to power erupting in massive scandal this time around? Probably because we are living in an era during which much that was mysterious is suddenly becoming clear. Probably because Trump's "silent majority" suddenly saw before them someone they had been waiting for for a long time – a man ready to defend their interests. ..."
"... Perhaps also it is because the middle class is choking on its growing exasperation with the "elite caste" occupying its native country. And it finally became clear to the sober-minded American patriots in law enforcement that the return to power of the people responsible for the current global chaos could be a big threat to the US and rest of the world. Because, in the end, everyone has children and no one wants a new world war. ..."
Today Trump represents an entirely new party made up of half of the American electorate, and they
are ready for action. And whatever the eventual political structure of this new model, this is what
is shaping America's present reality. Moreover, this does not seem like such a unique situation.
It rather appears to be the final chapter of some ancient story, in which the convoluted plotlines
finally take shape and find resolution.
The circumstances are increasingly reminiscent of 1860, when Lincoln's election so enraged the
South that those states began agitating for secession. Trump is today symbolic of a very real American
tradition that during
the Civil War (1860-1865) ran headlong into American revolutionary liberalism for the first time.
Right up until World War I traditional American conservatism wore the guise of "isolationism."
Prior to WWII it was known as "non-interventionism." Afterward, that movement attempted to use
Sen. Joseph
McCarthy to battle the left-liberal stranglehold. And in the 1960s it became the primary target
of the "counter-cultural revolution."
Its last bastion was
Richard
Nixon , whose fall was the result of an unprecedented attack from the left-liberal press in 1974.
And this is perhaps the example against which we should compare the present-day Trump and his current
fight.
And by the way, the crimes of Hillary Clinton, who has failed to protect state secrets and has
repeatedly been caught lying under oath, clearly outweigh the notorious Watergate scandal that led
to Nixon's forced resignation under threat of impeachment. But the liberal American media remains
silent, as if nothing has happened.
By all indications it is clear that we are standing before a truly epochal moment. But before
turning to the future that might await us, let's take a quick glance at the history of conflict between
revolutionary liberalism and traditional white conservatism in the US.
***
Immediately after WWII, an attack on two fronts was launched by the party of "expansionism" (we'll
call it that). The Soviet Union and Communism were designated the number one enemy. Enemy number
two (with less hype) was traditional American conservatism. The war against traditional "Americanism"
was waged by several intellectual fringe groups simultaneously.
The country's cultural and intellectual life was under the absolute control of a group known as
the " New York
Intellectuals ." Literary criticism as well as all other aspects of the nation's literary life
was in the hands of this small group of literary curators who had emerged from the milieu of a Trotskyist-communist
magazine known as the
Partisan Review (PR). No one could become a professional writer in the America of the 1950s and
1960s without being carefully screened by this sect.
The foundational tenets of American political philosophy and sociology were composed by militants
from the Frankfurt School
, which had been established during the interwar period in Weimar Germany and which moved to
the US after the National Socialists took power. Here, retraining their sights from communist to
liberal, they set out to design a "theory of totalitarianism" in addition to their concept of an
"authoritarian personality" – both hostile to "democracy."
The "New York Intellectuals" and representatives of the Frankfurt School became friends, and
Hannah Arendt , for example, was an
authoritative representative of both sects. This is where future neocons (Norman Podhoretz, Eliot
A. Cohen, and Irving Kristol) gained their experience. The former leader of the Trotskyist Fourth
International and godfather of the neocons,
Max Shachtman , held a place
of honor in the "family of intellectuals."
The anthropological school of Franz Boas and Freudianism reigned over the worlds of psychology
and sociology at that time. The Boasian approach in psychology argued that genetic, national, and
racial differences between individuals were of no importance (thus the concepts of "national culture"
and "national community" were meaningless).
Psychoanalysis also became fashionable, which primarily aimed to supplant traditional church institutions
and become a type of quasi-religion for the middle class.
The common denominator linking all these movements was anti-fascism. Did something look fishy
in this? But the problem was that the traditional values of the nation, state, and family were all
labeled "fascist." From this standpoint, any white Christian man aware of his cultural and national
identity was potentially a "fascist."
Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University, analyzed in detail
the seizure of America's cultural, political, and mental landscape by these "liberal sects" in his
brilliant book The Culture
of Critique , writing:
"The New York Intellectuals, for example, developed ties with elite universities, particularly
Harvard, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of California-Berkeley, while
psychoanalysis and anthropology became well entrenched throughout academia.
"The moral and intellectual elite established by these movements dominated intellectual
discourse during a critical period after World War II and leading into the countercultural revolution
of the 1960s."
It was precisely this intellectual milieu that spawned the countercultural revolution of the 1960s.
Riding the wave of these sentiments, the new
Immigration and Nationality Act was passed in 1965, encouraging this phenomenon and facilitating
the integration of immigrants into US society. The architects of the law wanted to use the celebrated
melting pot to "dilute" the "potentially fascist" descendants of European immigrants by making use
of new ethno-cultural elements.
The 60s revolution opened the door to the American political establishment to representatives
from both wings of the expansionist "party" – the neo-liberals and the neo-conservatives.
Besieged by the left-liberal press in 1974, Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment.
In the same year the US Congress passed the
Jackson-Vanik
Amendment (drafted by Richard
Perle ), which emerged as a symbol of the country's "new political agenda" – economic war against
the Soviet Union using sanctions and boycotts.
At that same time the "hippie generation" was joining the Democratic Party on the coattails of
Senator George McGovern's campaign . And that was when Bill Clinton's smiling countenance first
emerged on the US political horizon.
And the future neo-conservatives (at that time still disciples of the Democratic hawk Henry "Scoop"
Jackson) began to slowly edge in the direction of the Republicans.
In 1976, Mr. Rumsfeld and his fellow neo-conservatives resurrected the
Committee
on the Present Danger , an inter-party club for political hawks whose goal became the launch
of an all-out propaganda war against the USSR.
Former Trotskyists and followers of Max Shachtman (Kristol, Podhoretz, and Jeane Kirkpatrick)
and advisers to Sen. Henry Jackson (Paul Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliott Abrams, Charles Horner, and Douglas
Feith) joined Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and other "Christian" politicians with the intention
of launching a "campaign to transform the world."
This is where the neocons' "nonpartisan ideology" originated. And eventually today's "inalterable
US government" hatched from this egg.
American politics began to acquire its current shape during the Reagan era. In economics this
was seen in the policy of neoliberalism (politics waged in the interests of big financial capital)
and in foreign policy – in a strategy consisting of "holy war against the forces of evil." The Nixon-Kissinger
tradition of foreign policy (which viewed the Soviet Union and China as a normal countries with which
is essential to find common ground) was entirely abandoned.
The collapse of the USSR was a sign of the onset of the final phase of the "neocon revolution."
At that point their protégé, Francis Fukuyama, announced the "end of history."
***
As the years passed, the influence of the neo-conservatives (in politics) and neoliberals (in
economics) only expanded. Through all manner of committees, foundations, "think tanks," etc., the
students of Milton Friedman and Leo Strauss (from the departments of economics and political science
at the University of Chicago) penetrated ever more deeply into the inner workings of the Washington
power machine. The apotheosis of this expansion was the presidency of George W. Bush, during which
the neocons, having seized the primary instruments of power in the White House, were able to plunge
the country into the folly of a war in the Middle East.
By the end of the Bush presidency this clique was the object of universal hatred throughout the
US. That's why the middle-ground, innocuous figure of Barack Obama, a Democrat, was able to move
into the White House for the next eight years. The neocons stepped down from their central rostrums
of power and returned to their "influential committees." It is likely that this election was intended
to facilitate the triumphant return of the neoconservative-neoliberal paradigm all wrapped up in
"new packaging." For various reasons, the decision was made to assign this role to Hillary Clinton.
But it seems that at the most critical moment the flimsy packaging ripped open
What happened? Why is this clique's triumphant return to power erupting in massive scandal this
time around? Probably because we are living in an era during which much that was mysterious is suddenly
becoming clear. Probably because Trump's "silent majority" suddenly saw before them someone they
had been waiting for for a long time – a man ready to defend their interests.
Perhaps also it is because the middle class is choking on its growing exasperation with the "elite
caste" occupying its native country. And it finally became clear to the sober-minded American patriots
in law enforcement that the return to power of the people responsible for the current global chaos
could be a big threat to the US and rest of the world. Because, in the end, everyone has children
and no one wants a new world war.
How will this new conservative revolt against the elite end? Will Trump manage to "drain the swamp
of Washington, DC" as he has promised, or he will end up as the system's next victim? Very soon we
can finally get an answer to these questions.
Donald Trump's success or failure as the next US president will
largely depend on his ability to keep his independence from the "shadow government" and elite
structures that shaped the policies of previous administrations, former presidential candidate
Ron Paul told RT.
[...]
"
Unfortunately, there has been several neoconservatives that
are getting closer to Trump. And if gets his advice from them then I do not think that is a good
sign,
" Paul told the host of RT's Crosstalk show Peter Lavelle.
The retired Congressman said that people voted for Trump because
he stood against the deep corruption in the establishment, that was further exposed during the
campaign by WikiLeaks, and because of his disapproval of meddling in the wider Middle East.
"
During the campaign, he did talk a little bit about backing
off and being less confrontational to Russia and I like that. He criticized some the wars in the
Middle East at the same time. He believes we should accelerate the war against ISIS and terrorism,
"
Paul noted.
[...]
"
But quite frankly there is an outside source which we refer
to as the 'deep state' or the 'shadow government'. There is a lot of influence by people which
are actually more powerful than our government itself, our president,
" the congressman said.
"
Yes, Trump is his own guy, more so than most of those who
have ever been in before. We hope he can maintain an independence and go in the right direction.
But I fear the fact that there is so much that can be done secretly, out of control of our apparent
government and out of the view of so many citizens,
" he added.
More:
https://www.rt.com/usa/366404-trump-ron-paul-crosstalk/
Donald Trump's proposal for $1 trillion worth of new infrastructure construction relies entirely
on private financing, which industry experts say is likely to fall far short of adequately funding
improvements to roads, bridges and airports.
The president-elect's infrastructure plan largely boils down to a tax break in the hopes of
luring capital to projects. He wants investors to put money into projects in exchange for tax
credits totaling 82% of the equity amount. His plan anticipates that lost tax revenue would be
recouped through new income-tax revenue from construction workers and business-tax revenue from
contractors, making the proposal essentially cost-free to the government.
Mr. Trump has made a $1 trillion infrastructure investment over 10 years one of his first priorities
as president, promising in his victory speech early Wednesday morning to "rebuild our highways,
bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals."
The Trump team's $1 trillion infrastructure investment plan over 10 years is laid out in a
description of the proposal on the website (#) of Peter Navarro, an adviser to Mr. Trump and a
public-policy professor at the University of California, Irvine. A presidential transition website
that went up this week (*) said Mr. Trump planned to invest $550 billion in infrastructure, without
offering details on where that funding would come from. Top Trump aides couldn't be reached to
comment on the proposal.
Experts and industry officials, though, say there are limits to how much can be done with private
financing. Because privately funded projects need to turn a profit, they are better suited for
major projects such as toll roads, airports or water systems and less appropriate for routine
maintenance, such as repaving a public street, they say.
Officials also doubt that the nation's aging infrastructure can be updated without a significant
infusion of public dollars. ...
A sweeping Pacific trade pact meant to bind the U.S.and Asia effectively died Friday, as Republican
and Democratic leaders in Congress told the White House they won't advance it in the election's aftermath,
and Obama administration officials acknowledged it has no way forward now.
The failure to pass the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership-by far the biggest trade agreement
in more than a decade-is a bitter defeat for President Barack Obama, whose belated but fervent support
for freer trade divided his party and complicated the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The White House had lobbied hard for months in the hope of moving forward on the pact if Mrs.
Clinton had won.
The deal's collapse, which comes amid a rising wave of antitrade sentiment in the U.S., also dents
American prestige in the region at a time when China is flexing its economic and military muscles.
Just over a year ago, Republicans were willing to vote overwhelmingly in support of Mr. Obama's
trade policy. But as the political season approached and voters registered their concerns by supporting
Donald J. Trump, the GOP reacted coolly to the deal Mr. Obama's team reached with Japan and 10 others
countries just over a year ago in Atlanta. ...
NATO strategists are reportedly planning for a scenario in which Trump orders US troops out of Europe,
as the shock result of the US presidential election sinks in, spreading an atmosphere of uncertainty.
According to Spiegel magazine,
strategists from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg's staff have drafted a secret report
which includes a worst-case scenario in which Trump orders US troops to withdraw from Europe and
fulfills his threat to make Washington less involved in European security. Read more
German
defense minister says Trump should be firm with Russia as NATO stood by US after 9/11
"For the first time, the US exit from NATO has become a threat" which would mean the end
of the bloc, a German NATO officer told the magazine.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly slammed NATO, calling the alliance "obsolete." He
also suggested that under his administration, the US may refuse to come to the aid of NATO allies
unless they "pay their bills" and "fulfill their obligations to us."
"We are experiencing a moment of the highest and yet unprecedented uncertainty in the transatlantic
relationship," said Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador in Washington and head of the
prominent Munich Security Conference. By criticizing the collective defense, Trump has questioned
the basic pillar of NATO as a whole, Ischinger added.
The president-elect therefore has to reassure the European allies that he remains firm on the
US commitment under Article 5 of the NATO charter prior to his inauguration, the top diplomat stressed.
Earlier this week, Stoltenberg lambasted Trump's agenda, saying: "All allies have made a solemn
commitment to defend each other. This is something absolutely unconditioned."
Fearing that Trump would not appear in Brussels even after his inauguration, NATO has re-scheduled
its summit – expected to take place in early 2017 – to next summer, Spiegel said.
The report might reflect current moods within the EU establishment as well, as Jean-Claude Juncker,
President of the European Commission, has called on the member states to establish Europe's own military.
Washington "will not ensure the security of the Europeans in the long term... we have to do this
ourselves," he argued on Thursday.
If Trump is serious about reducing the number of US troops stationed in Europe, large NATO countries
like Germany have little to offer, Spiegel said. Even major member states' militaries lack units
able to replace the Americans, which in turn may trigger debate on strengthening NATO's nuclear arm,
a sensitive issue in most European countries for domestic reasons.
Still, an increase in defense spending has already been approved by the Europeans following pressure
from the outgoing US administration. Over the past few days in Brussels, representatives of NATO
states have been working on the so-called "Blue Book," a secret strategy paper which stipulates
each member's contribution in the form of troops, aircraft, warships, and heavy armor until 2032,
Spiegel reported.
The document stipulates an increase in each NATO members' military spending by one percent of
each nation's GDP, in addition to the current two percent.
Uncertainty over Trump's NATO policy seems to be taking its toll; Germany, one of the largest
military powers in Europe, plans to allocate 130 billion euros ($140bn) to military expenditures
by 2030, but the remarkable figure may be a drop in the ocean.
"No one knows yet if the one percent more would be enough," the German NATO officer told Spiegel.
Nevertheless, the US is continuing to deploy troops to eastern Europe, justifying the move with
the need to protect the region from "assertive Russia." Earlier this week, the largest arms
shipment yet, 600 containers, arrived in Germany to supply the US armored and combat aviation brigades,
expected to
deploy
in Europe by January 2017.
"... Better relations with Russia will encourage them to venture into Europe? How does that work? The more friendly they are with us, I'd think the less they'd want to upset us and destroy those gains. The alternative might end up in a war with Russia. Yeah, that's great! Good grief, CNN. ..."
"... " ultranationalistic rhetoric". This sensationalist hyperbole is wrecking our language. Being against intervening in other countries affairs is not being "ultranationalistic" ..."
"... When you [neo]liberals living in your bubble fly over middle America, over all the small towns, farms, factories and coal miners that you often forget about. Just remember that there is a big middle finger pointing up at you. ..."
"... Well now a substancial portion of Americans know that free trade isn't so good. When it started to hit home for non working class folks, eyes opened up. ..."
Flynn, like Trump, sees Russian president Vladimir Putin as someone the US can do business
with. In December, Flynn attended a banquet in Moscow where he sat next to Putin. He also has
appeared on the Kremlin TV mouthpiece, Russia Today (which Flynn has compared to CNN).
If Flynn is Trump's national security advisor or secretary of defense we can expect him to push
for a closer relationship with the Russians; a punitive policy on Iran -- and a more aggressive
war on Islamist militants around the world. These views mesh well with what we have heard from
Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
Daniel, 35 minutes ago
Mr. Bergen : "American Islamists, Flynn claims, are trying to create "an Islamic state
right here at home" by pushing to "gain legal standing for Sharia." Flynn cited no evidence
for this claim." !!!?? Really ?? "German court lets off 'Sharia police' patrol in Wuppertal"
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35059488
SimpleStupid
Not a bad article up until the last paragraph. Better relations with Russia will
encourage them to venture into Europe? How does that work? The more friendly they are with us,
I'd think the less they'd want to upset us and destroy those gains. The alternative might end
up in a war with Russia. Yeah, that's great! Good grief, CNN.
And "derail the deal that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons"? What is this,
backwards day?
Ron Lane
" ultranationalistic rhetoric". This sensationalist hyperbole is wrecking our language.
Being against intervening in other countries affairs is not being "ultranationalistic"
hanklmarcus
Iraq was a failure , But attacking IRAN will not be ??????????? FOOLS
CNN User
When you [neo]liberals living in your bubble fly over middle America, over all the
small towns, farms, factories and coal miners that you often forget about. Just remember that
there is a big middle finger pointing up at you.
We don't accept your values and are tired of having ours oppressed.
LizardKing
@Lenny Good - Ukraine should clearly be dominated by Russia and who gives a s t about
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Call me when Russia is threatening Poland
Dwright :
Well now a substancial portion of Americans know that free trade isn't so good. When it
started to hit home for non working class folks, eyes opened up.
Trump betrayed all his election promises. He should not be relelcted.
Notable quotes:
"... HiIlary Clinton is a perfect enemy of Trump. She has become rich in office, and as Harry Truman said "anyone who gets rich in politics is a crook". She has dedicated her life to political power at the top while growing ever wealthier from its use. And she loves foreign wars. She has supported a long line of eco-genocidal attacks and bombings of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, all of them still in motion and waiting for her to be escalated further. ..."
"... Know a man by his enemies. Trump has countless enemies, but most of them march to the drums of endless wars of aggression and care less about the casualties of tens of millions of lost good jobs in America. Most are neo-liberals in fact, the bipartisan doctrine of dispossession of citizens and foreign wars to grow the system further. The worst have been Washington servants of the world corporate machine looting the world. They above all condemn his peace overtures to Russia and his promise to repeal NAFTA – both unspeakable heresies on the US public stage until Trump's movement against them. ..."
"... Where Trump agrees with the US money-and-war party is on Israel and Iran. He started with a policy of more neutrality towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, but soon backed out when the attack-dogs went into action with a $50 million gift for his campaign from a wealthy Zionist at the same time. Then he declared " Israel is America". So Trump can proclaim opposite positions without a blink, including on the continuous war crimes of Israel supported by the US. ..."
"... When you join the dots to Trump preaching a policy revolt against the insatiable corporate jaws feeding on trillions of dollars of public budgets in Washington, the underlying meaning emerges. He wants to stop the non-productive transnational corporations from feasting on the public purse. At the beginning after 2008, he even dared to recognize that Wall Street should be nationalized, as it once was by the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln and FDR's Federal Reserve. This would be as big a turn of US government in the people's interests as stopping ruinous foreign wars. ..."
"... Trump also once said that the US "must be neutral, an honest broker" on the Israel-Palestine conflict – as unspeakable as it gets in US politics. Big Pharma was also called out with "$400 billion to be saved by government negotiation of prices". He even confronted the more powerful HMO's with the possibility of a "one-payer system" far better than the Obamacare pork-barrel for ever higher insurance premiums. ..."
HiIlary Clinton is a perfect enemy of Trump. She has become rich in office, and as Harry Truman
said "anyone who gets rich in politics is a crook". She has dedicated her life to political power
at the top while growing ever wealthier from its use. And she loves foreign wars. She has supported
a long line of eco-genocidal attacks and bombings of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine,
all of them still in motion and waiting for her to be escalated further.
Know a man by his enemies. Trump has countless enemies, but most of them march to the drums of
endless wars of aggression and care less about the casualties of tens of millions of lost good jobs
in America. Most are neo-liberals in fact, the bipartisan doctrine of dispossession of citizens and
foreign wars to grow the system further. The worst have been Washington servants of the world corporate
machine looting the world. They above all condemn his peace overtures to Russia and his promise to
repeal NAFTA – both unspeakable heresies on the US public stage until Trump's movement against them.
HiIlary Clinton is a perfect enemy of Trump. She has become rich in office, and as Harry Truman
said "anyone who gets rich in politics is a crook". She has dedicated her life to political power
at the top while growing ever wealthier from its use. And she loves foreign wars. She has supported
a long line of eco-genocidal attacks and bombings of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine,
all of them still in motion and waiting for her to be escalated further.
She wants a return to this bombing in Syria as a "free-fly zone" – free for US and NATO bombers
– just as she led Libya's destruction from 2011 on. She abuses Russia and slanders Putin at every
opportunity and she supported the neo-Nazi coup overthrowing the elected government of Ukraine and
the civil war since. She has done nothing but advocate or agree to endless US-led war crimes without
any life gain but only mass murder, social ruin and terror which she ignores. Like her mentor Madeleine
Allbright , even the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq by Clinton-led bombing are
"worth the price".
Where Trump agrees with the US money-and-war party is on Israel and Iran. He started with
a policy of more neutrality towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, but soon backed out when the attack-dogs
went into action with a $50 million gift for his campaign from a wealthy Zionist at the same time.
Then he declared " Israel is America". So Trump can proclaim opposite positions without a blink,
including on the continuous war crimes of Israel supported by the US.
Trump also bellows against on the giveaway of many billions of US money to Iran and prefers to
bomb their nuclear facilities as Israel wants, and has already done in Syria. He does not tell his
audience that all of this US money is Iran's money being returned to it from its US seizure
in exchange for its nuclear disarmament never suggested for Israel which has enough nuclear weaponry
to blow up the whole Middle East and beyond. Trump too is not to be trusted when it suits his run
to be US President. Yet even here Trump still holds to his position that use of nuclear weapons means
"game over". Clinton and the bipartisan money-and-war party express no such constraint.
Why the Establishment Hates Trump, But Will Accept Him
All of them have reason to hate Trump for a more basic reason. He is seemingly alone in the money-media-military
establishment to publicly deplore the rigged electoral system in which big money and media rule –
formerly unspeakable in the press and political discussion on stage. Trump has even voiced suspicion
of the 9-11 killing spectacle and the "six-trillion- dollar" haemorrhage of US money on Middle East
and Afghanistan wars propelled and justified by 9-11 from 2001 on.
Yet here again the problem is that Trump backs off as soon as he thinks he will not be able to
sell it. This is the art of political lying at which Trump, like Reagan, is a master. But the hard-line
difference between Trump and Reagan and neo-con-lib rulers over the last 30 years is deep – Trump's
denunciation of NAFTA and willingness to have peace with other nations not bowing to Uncle Sam.
Before Trump, job-destroying edicts of transnational global corporations and captive states called
'free trade' have been anathema to oppose in official society. But Trump sticks to his heretical
position. Right up to the election he has promised a "35% tariff" on products of US factories that
disemploy workers to get cheaper labor elsewhere. No-one in the US political establishment has risked
such a position, or blamed these corporate-rights treaties for hollowing out American society itself.
It is apostasy in the corporate 'free press'.
Trump is still hated for such deviations from the official corporate-state line. But the haters
cannot say this. They stick to the politically correct repudiations, and call him "racist", "sexist",
"bigot" and so on even if the conclusion does follow from what he says or does. Selected instances
are the ruling fallacy here.
Trump and the Media-Lie System
Trump is unique in calling out the major mass media as continuous purveyors of lies and propaganda
– although he centers it on himself and not global corporate rule across borders which they worship.
Anyone not doing so is excommunicated from the press. This profound disorder is never allowed into
the mass media as an issue, and Trump never raises it. He too is a believer, but one who sees the
life costs of the sacrifice-workers rule inside the US. He also advocates job-creating public spending
on physical infrastructure which is as crucial to his movement as it was to FDR. It is no longer
taboo inside the dumkopfen party
Trump is a first. Never before has anyone been able to denounce the mass media framing, half-truths
and fabrications and still come out stronger The onslaught of ideological assassination by
a hireling intelligentsia and media of record like the New York Times has always succeeded
before. Trump reacts only as it affects his own position, but his raw defiance right into the cameras
has been eye-popping and unique in America.
This may be Trump's most remarkable achievement. He has been slandered and demonized more than
Russia's Putin, and Russia-baiting him with McCarthy-like accusations of collaboration with Putin
has been part of the attack by Hillary and the press. Yet passionate voter support of Trump has still
grown in the face of all this denunciation by the political establishment.
An underlying revolution in thinking has occurred. Trump has tapped the deep chords of worker
rage at dispossession by forced corporate globalization, criminally disastrous Middle East wars,
and trillions of dollars of bailouts to Wall Street. He never connects the dots on stage. But by
Clinton's advocacy of all of them, she has made them her own and will go down because of it.
Trump's unflinching vast ego and media savvy have been what she and the political establishment
are too corrupted to defeat, The underlying contradiction that now raises its head pits the mass
media against the President of the United States himself – against the long sacred office of the
commander-in-chief of US power across the world, precisely what he is proposing to pacify with friendly
relations instead of ruinous war invasions as in Iraq. Many observers think that Wall Street and
big money won't let it happen. Or that Trump will like others before him will be determined by the
office. Or that Clinton's billion dollars of PAC money will succeed work in the end. But the meaning
is out and cannot be reversed out of sight.
Whatever happens next in this saga it will be ground-shaking. The worst that can happen to Trump's
enemies is that he wins despite the all-fronts attack. They define his underlying meaning, just as
the Enemy they construct abroad defines them. If he loses, there will be a carnival of the money-war-media
party pretending a healing of the great division that has come to view. But this is not a Republican-Democrat
division. It is as deep as all the lost jobs and lives since 2001, and it is ultimately grounded
in the tens of millions of dispossessed people which the life-blind global market system and its
wars have imposed on America too.
The Great Division Will Not Go Away
Trump is the closest to an egomaniac that has ever run for the presidential office. If he were
not, he could not have withstood the public shaming heaped upon him by the political establishment
and dominant media everywhere.
But the tens of millions of Americans for whom Trump speaks tend to have one thing in common more
than anything else. They have been dispossessed and smeared by the neo-con/ neo-liberal alliance
that has taken or traded away their life security and belittled them with political correctness –
the establishment's patronizing diversion from their fallen state.
All the while, the ruling money party behind the media and the wars is system-driven to seek limitlessly
more money under masks of 'free trade' and "America's interests abroad'. The majority is left behind
as the sacrificial living dead. Multiplying transnational money sequences of the very rich have bled
the world into a comatose state, and perpetual wars against the next Enemy of the cancerous system
have sown chaos across the world.
Trump at least starts remission by seeing a criminally blind rule and chaos inside America itself.
Before his campaign, there was helplessness against the invading wars and money sequences always
profiting from the global ruin. The reality has been taboo to see in public. Only entertainments
have appeared in ever new guises as the corporate money-and-war machine has rolled and careened on
across all borders, now marching East through Ukraine into Russia, Brazil to Venezuela to the Caribbean,
from the Congo to the South China Sea.
The Trump entertainment, the most watched in the world, may be the long bridge to taking down
the neo-liberal pillars of majority dispossession and war-criminal state.
Trump is the Opposite to Reagan in Policy Directions
On the face of it, Trump is an ideal leader for US empire. He is like Ronald Reagan on steroids.
His long practiced camera image, his nativist US supremacism, his down-home talk, and his reality-show
confidence all go one better. He is America come to meet itself decades down the road as its pride
slips away in third-world conditions.
But unlike Reagan and Bush who spoke to the rich becoming richer, Trump speaks to the losing white
working class and those who have come to hate the money-corrupted Washington forging the policies
of dispossession Reagan started.
Washington has since ignored and patronized their plight over 30 years. Trump's constituency has
been the disposable rejects from the corporate global system that it is rigged from top to bottom
with rights only for the profits of transnational abroad and bought politicians at home.
The Trump constituency may have no clear idea of this inner logic of the system. But they directly
experience the unemployment, underemployment, ever lower pay, deprived pensions, degraded living
conditions, public squalor, contempt from official society, and no future for their children.
At the surface level, what drives them mad is the 'political correctness' that diverts all attention
from their plight to pant-suit 'feminists' getting a leg up, racial rights with no life substance,
sexual queers they had been conditioned to abhor, and other symbols of oppression changed as the actually ruling system of dispossession becomes inexorably worse all the
way down to their grand children.
Here too Hillary Clinton has been an embodiment of the smug ideology of the system that bleeds
the unseen job-deprived into powerless humiliation: an existential crisi where the secure jobs and
goods of US life have been stripped from them in continuous eviction from the American way with no
notice.
While Trump's narrative is that the American Dream seeks recovery again, the dominant media and
political elite relentlessly denounce him for his message. He gives lots of ammunition to them. His
most popular line is "build the wall", "build the great wall" between Mexico and the US. No political
correctness cares that the biggest source of near-slave labor for the big businesses of the US South
is Mexican 'illegals', and Trump himself never mentions this. He prefers to blame the Mexican illegals
themselves for drugs, rape and violence, the standard lie of blame-the-poorer for your problems.
Trump also wants to tax their slim earnings to pay for the wall. This is the still running sore of
America beneath the lost jobs.
Trump has thus attracted lots of votes. But many non-ignorant people too recognise that the tens
of millions of illegal migrants seeking work in the richer USA cannot continue in any country with
borders, or any nation that seeks to keep worker wages up not down by lower priced labor flooding
in. The legal way must be the only way if the law of nations is to exist and working people are to
be secure from dispossession by starvation wages illegal migrants can be hired for. Borders are,
few notice, the very target of the carcinogenic neo-liberal program.
Of course the political discourse never gets to this real and complex economic base of the problem.
Nor does Trump. His choral promise is "'l'll fix it. Believe me". But something deeper than demagoguery
and blaming the weak is afoot here. An untapped historic resentment is boiling up from underneath
which has long been unspeakable on the political stage. Trump has mined it and proposed a concrete
solution – one grand gate through which immigrants must pass.
Is this really racist? It is rather that Trump is very good at bait and switch. From his now deserted
promise to halve the Pentagon's budget to getting the Congress off corporate-donation payrolls, now
by fixed congressional terms, the public wealth that the politicians and corporate lobbies stand
to lose from a Trump presidency is very disturbing to them. The Mexican wall does not fit the borderless
neo-liberal program either. But all of it is welcome to citizens' ears. That is why the establishment
hates Trump for exposing all these issues long kept in the closet and covered over by politically
correct identity politics.
On the other hand, Trump leaves the halving of the Pentagon's budget behind as soon as he sees
the massive private money forces against it. It is Reagan in reverse. He now promises hundreds of
billions more to the military – but he still opposes foreign wars. That might even do it. But this
most major issue of the election has been completely ignored by the media and opposing politicians
alike. It is the historic core of his bid for the presidency.
Yet the US political establishment across parties cannot yet even conceive it so used are they
to the Reagan-led war state, the military corporate lobbies paying them off in every Senate seat,
anti-union policies at macro as well as micro levels, and always designated foreign enemies to bomb
for resistance. "Say Uncle" said Reagan to the Sandinistas when they asked what could stop the mercenary
killers paid by US covert drug running from bombing their harbours, schools and clinics.
Trump is going the opposite direction in foreign affairs, but the establishment commentators call
it "isolationist" to discredit it. Clinton talks of overcoming the divisions in America, but has
never mentioned holding back on foreign wars. On the contrary, she approves more war power against
Russia and in Syria and in the Ukraine. This is the biggest danger that no media covers – ever more
ruinous US wars on other continents. The formula is old and Reagan exemplified it. Russia is portrayed
as the evil threat to justify pouring up to two billion dollars-a-day of public money into the US
war-for-profit machine occupying across the world, now prepping for China.
But the bipartisan war party backed by Wall Street is going down if Trump's policy can prevail.
This may be the salvation of America and the world, but it is silenced up to election day.
Trump Against the Special Interests
At the beginning g of his public campaign, Trump's policy claims threatened almost every big lobby
now in control of US government purse strings. And these policies grounded in no more foreign wars
which have already cost over 'six trillion dollars' of US public money. At the same time, the country's
physical infrastructures degrade on all levels, and its people's lives are increasingly impoverished
and insecure for the majority. Trump promises to rebuild them all.
Yet the cut-off of hundreds of billions of public giveaways to the Big Corps that Trump advocated
did not end here. It hit almost every wide-mouthed transnational corporate siphon into the US Treasury,
taxpayers' pockets and the working majority of America. Masses of American citizens increasingly
without living wages and benefits and in growing insecurity listened to what the political establishment
and corporate media had long silenced.
Trump raised the great dispossession into the establishment's face, and this is why he will win.
"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for
the vintage"."The grapes of wrath have risen from the long painful stripping of the people's livelihoods,
their social substance and their cities by corporate globalization selecting for the limitless enrichment
of the few living off an ever-growing takes from public coffers and the impoverishment of America's
working citizens. A primal rage has united them across party lines in the public person of Donald
Trump.
Can he deliver? Well he certainly has shown the guts necessary to do so, most uniquely in facing
down the corporate media and Washington politicians.
Looking Past the Victory
The issue still remains that Trump does not promise any fixing of the greatest transfer of wealth
to the very rich in history that Reagan started. This great transfer of wealth includes his own.
We may recall that his model Ronald Reagan started this Great Dispossession to "make America great
again" too.
Now Trump has promised a massive tax cut to the rich and private capital gains as Reagan did.
In the meantime nothing has been less talked about in election commentary than the globally powerful
interests Trump promised to rein back from the public troughs bleeding the country's capacities to
build for and to employ its people. On this topic, there has been only silence from the media and
politicians, and retreating vague generalizations from Trump.
At the beginning, he not only went after the foreign wars, but the sweetheart deals of the government
with Big Pharma, the health insurance racket, lobby-run foreign policy, off-shore tax evasion, and
global trade taking jobs in the tens of millions from home workers. This is why the establishment
so universally hated him. Most of their private interests in looting public wealth were named. He
reversed the tables on the parasite rich in Washington lobbying and gobbling up public money faster
than it could be bribed, printed and allocated to their schemes – except on real estate, his own
big money 'special interest' not centered in Washington. Indeed Trump loves 'eminent domain', state
seizure of people's private property for big developers like him.
This is where Trump joins hands with those depending on the deep system corruptions he has promised
to reverse. He even asked, in his loud way, how these huge private interests go on getting away with
a corporate-lobby state transferring ever more public wealth and control to them at the expense of
the American working majority and their common interest as Americans. But it had all pretty well
slid away by election day except the hatred of self-enriching Washington fixers like Hillary, Mexican
illegals, the Obamacare new charges (with no mention of the HMO's doing it), and the disrespect for
people bearing arms by the second-amendment right.
Do we have here the familiar positional determinism where political and economic class
leaders desert what they promised as they enter into elected office or have sold the goods?
Yet the victory Trump is about to reap is far from empty for America and the world if he keeps
to the promises he made. The money-and media-rigged elections have stayed front and center where
no-one in official politics dared say it before. The black-hole of US foreign wars has above all
has remained his historic target.
His entire strategy has been based on getting public attention, and he is a master at it. He is
unbuyably rich, has energy beyond a rock star, and is the most watched person in America across the
country and the world for months on end. He can't be shut up. Media stigmatization and slander without
let-up do not work as always before.
Trump is also capable of meeting perhaps the world's most important challenges, holding back the
global US war machine from perpetual eco-genocidal aggression and investing back into public infrastructure
and workers' productive jobs.
Most importantly, Trump challenges "the Enemy" cornerstone of US ideology when he says "wouldn't
it be nice to get along with Russia and China for a change?" And as he said to Canada whose branch-plant
corporate state still plays minion to its US corporate masters, "congratulations. You have become
independent".
As for Trump's much publicized 'denial of climate change, it is not really accurate. He has said
little on the topic, but has expressed his opposition to "bullshit government spending" on preventing
climate. So does James Lovelock, the famous global ecologist behind 'the Gaia hypothesis '. Certainly
the green-wash hoaxes of the private corporations (and Al Gore) becoming much richer than before
on solutions that do not work to prevent the global market-led climate destabilization do need more
astute appraisal.
When you join the dots to Trump preaching a policy revolt against the insatiable corporate
jaws feeding on trillions of dollars of public budgets in Washington, the underlying meaning emerges.
He wants to stop the non-productive transnational corporations from feasting on the public purse.
At the beginning after 2008, he even dared to recognize that Wall Street should be nationalized,
as it once was by the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln and FDR's Federal Reserve. This would
be as big a turn of US government in the people's interests as stopping ruinous foreign wars.
Trump also once said that the US "must be neutral, an honest broker" on the Israel-Palestine
conflict – as unspeakable as it gets in US politics. Big Pharma was also called out with "$400 billion
to be saved by government negotiation of prices". He even confronted the more powerful HMO's with
the possibility of a "one-payer system" far better than the Obamacare pork-barrel for ever higher
insurance premiums.
Trump is no working-class hero. He has long been a predatory capitalist with all the furies of
greed, egoism and self-promotion that the ruling system selects for. But he is not rich from foreign
wars of aggression, or from exporting the costs of labor to foreign jurisdictions with subhuman standards.
He has not been getting richer or more smug by seeking high office in a context of saturating slander
and denunciation from official society. He has initiated a long overdue recognition of parasite capitalism
eating out and wasting the life capacities of the US itself as well as the larger world.
Trump has now won the first major step that his enemies declared inconceivable, and he can now
do what he has promised 'in the place where the buck stops'.
Prof. John McMurtry is author of The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: From Crisis to Cure (available
from University of Chicago Press) and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
It also remains to be seen how the Oligarchy will respond to Trump's victory. Wall Street and
the Federal Reserve can cause an economic crisis in order to put Trump on the defensive, and they
can use the crisis to force Trump to appoint one of their own as Secretary of the Treasury. Rogue
agents in the CIA and Pentagon can cause a false flag attack that would disrupt friendly relations
with Russia. Trump could make a mistake and retain neoconservatives in his government.
With Trump there is at least hope. Unless Trump is obstructed by bad judgment in his appointments
and by obstacles put in his way, we should expect an end to Washington's orchestrated conflict
with Russia, the removal of the US missiles on Russia's border with Poland and Romania, the end
of the conflict in Ukraine, and the end of Washington's effort to overthrow the Syrian government.
However, achievements such as these imply the defeat of the US Oligarchy. Although Trump defeated
Hillary, the Oligarchy still exists and is still powerful.
Trump said that he no longer sees the point of NATO 25 years after the Soviet collapse. If he sticks
to his view, it means a big political change in Washington's EU vassals. The hostility toward Russia
of the current EU and NATO officials would have to cease. German Chancellor Merkel would have to
change her spots or be replaced. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg would have to be dismissed.
We do not know who Trump will select to serve in his government. It is likely that Trump is unfamiliar
with the various possibilities and their positions on issues. It really depends on who is advising
Trump and what advice they give him. Once we see his government, we will know whether we can be hopeful
for the changes that now have a chance.
If the oligarchy is unable to control Trump and he is actually successful in curbing the power
and budget of the military/security complex and in holding the financial sector politically accountable,
Trump could be assassinated.
"... Oh, what does anyone know about Pence? Folks have been saying he's going to be Trump's Cheney (and apparently Cheney is a Pence's avowed role model and personal hero). Cheney had a lifetime of insider experience and I'm guessing is both ambitious and intelligent (if evil). ..."
"... Did anyone catch Peter Thiel's speech to the National Press Club? Listen to this and tell me it is not spot on. His is actually on Rumps transition team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYLEPRiIyE ..."
"... "The deep state ushered in Trump because he's clearly their most useful decoy. As the country hopes in vain, the crooked men behind the curtain will go on with business as usual. Trump is simply an Obama for a different demographic. Nothing will change for the better." ..."
"... So is Trump Hope and Change for the Angry White Male demographic? ..."
"... I doubt very much that the Obama is providing "continuity". IMO this is a naive reading. Obama has just created a smokescreen that allows for preparing to 'facts on the ground' that will force Trump to respond accordingly. ..."
"... To claim the trump is more powerful and has more influence over the US deep state on day one is just ludicrous. ..."
"...the paradox problem is they'll have to charge Clinton before da boy can pardon her..."
That's one of those facts that sounds right but isn't true. If the law was logical that might
be correct, but then mathematicians would get the highest scores on the Law School Admission Test
(which supposedly tests aptitude to "think like a lawyer.")
The President of the U.S. can't pardon someone in advance for possible later crimes, but can give
a pardon for any and all past crimes without specifying those crimes. That's how Ford was able to
pardon Nixon, who had not been indicted, for any crimes "he might have committed."
If Obama wants he can pardon the Clintons for everything and anything they MIGHT have done up
to the final minutes of swearing in Trump. In that case they would never need to concede they had
ever broken any laws at all.
Remember, the U.S. Constitution was written by aristocrats who were still in many ways monarchists
who didn't want to give up all their power. That mindset also put the electoral college process into
the constitution.
Are you saying that Obama could pardon Bill Clinton and his entire foundation for financial crimes
(apparently) being investigated in New York wrt New York's laws regarding charitable foundation
practices? That seems like it would be "bigger than Marc Rich" demonstration of Democratic misuse
/ abuse of power, cronyism, etc.
If he can do it, he might do it ... if the punishment/threat for not doing it was sufficient.
I've not been impressed by Obama's "brilliance" or "vision" ... I have been impressed rather by
his self-promotion and self-interest -- Neither Bush or Bill Clinton had the sort of job opportunities
that GHWB enjoyed.
Oh, what does anyone know about Pence? Folks have been saying he's going to be Trump's
Cheney (and apparently Cheney is a Pence's avowed role model and personal hero). Cheney had a
lifetime of insider experience and I'm guessing is both ambitious and intelligent (if evil).
Does Pence have genuine potential as Cheney II ... and where does the awkward relationship
between the GOP establishment and Trump put "Pence as a new Cheney" ... The GOP might love it.
Is Trump ideologically consistent enough (don't laugh) to recognize the contradictions?
Did anyone catch Peter Thiel's speech to the National Press Club? Listen to this and tell
me it is not spot on. His is actually on Rumps transition team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYLEPRiIyE
Early days indeed. An alternative view of the recent events, by someone who said more or less
the same about Obama when he was selected.
"The deep state ushered in Trump because he's clearly their most useful decoy. As the country
hopes in vain, the crooked men behind the curtain will go on with business as usual. Trump is
simply an Obama for a different demographic. Nothing will change for the better."
I agree with Hoarsewhisperer @11: ... it's a crock and a trick.
I doubt very much that the Obama is providing "continuity". IMO this is a naive reading.
Obama has just created a smokescreen that allows for preparing to 'facts on the ground' that will
force Trump to respond accordingly.
We are at a very very dangerous point in time.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Also, giving ANY credence to 'Obama legacy' BS is misguided in the extreme. His 'legacy'
is dissembling and treachery. Anything thing beyond that is just BS meant to keep adversary's
off-balance.
@22 Where do you get the idea that those countries are somehow bad for USA? If we ramp up industries
in USA it will cost substantially more than in those countries. They've benefitted USA immensely.
If the industries come back to USA it won't go over too well, unless slave wages are truly instituted
I don't know if Trump can take credit ... but rather that the Clinton wing of the Pentagon
and CIA, etc. has been defanged and the threat of a coup (if Obama acted in ways contrary to Clinton
and the General's plans) is now neutralized ... Clinton's loss, I hope, will mean future books
will be more candid than might have been possible if she were in office... yes, I wanna know how
bad it's been these last 8 years.
Obama's personal stock wrt his future as a consultant, motivational speaker and all around
leader fell dramatically both with Clinton's campaign (and anticipated sharp turn from Obama's
foreign policy) but also with her defeat (now his legacy). He was spared the ongoing shaming by
a Clinton administration. Likely too little, too late ... when does Kerry get back from the Antarctica?
He's got a chance at some legacy mending as well.
I believe reports that the Clintons and the Obamas loathe each other ... particularly since
the Clintons hate everyone/anyone who does not grovel perfectly. Did Obama sell-out to the DLC
Democrats to secure his future $$$ with all their and the foundation's friends... it will be fun
to watch and look for breadcrumbs, particularly if the foundation implodes under scrutiny.
I think your worst case senario is now off the table. I believe Turkey has been told to keep
its planes out of Syria, and the US only conducts missions within reach of the Russian air defences
with Russian approval.
Turkey using only ground forces to achieve its aims? I suspect this is part of the reason the
Russian naval force is loitering off the Syrian coast (apart from securing the area prior to constructing
the naval base at Tartus).
Cruise missiles would decimate any conventional ground forces, and I believe the Granit anti
ship missiles have a land strike capability, also the S-300 S-400 may also have a ground strike
capability.
That would be as part of the carveup that we are not supposed to talk about because it is a
wicked "conspiracy theory"...
Posted by: paul | Nov 11, 2016 12:12:44 PM | 17
That's a mini-conspiracy compared with the one that the Fake War Of Terror has distracted people's
attention from. The Privatisation of almost every Publicly-owned asset and piece of infrastructure
in the West. The Neolib takeover was well-advanced in 1999 but slipped into overdrive in 2001.
Banks, Insurance Cos, Telcos, Airlines, Childcare, Hospitals, Health Clinics (preventative), Roads,
Rail, Electrical Generation and distribution.
In Oz the Govt/people used to own all of the above, or a competitive participant in the 'market'
in the case of banking, insurance, health clinics, airlines etc. In 2016 the govt owns only unprofitable
burdens. Public Education is currently under extreme pressure to be Privatised for Profit.
(The Yanks call it Anti-Communism but consumers call it an Effing Expensive way to get much
crappier service than in the Good Old Days).
I think you give Barrack Obongo way too much credit. He is a "selfishly concerned" narcissist
alright but that's about it. All his years at the bathhouses and public lavatories with his wookie-in-drag
in Chicago, has not made him particularly smarter you know, rather the opposite...
Dropping AQ means dropping KSA, i.e. the 9/11 enquiry will probably go ahead. As for the MB/Qatar
who run a bunch of other groups, this is left to the EU to decide what it want to do with Turkey.
You bet the Eurocrats are having a headache. And Hollande shows his muscles (sic) and claims he
will talk with Trump on the phone and gets some "clarifications" about his programme.
MSM are reporting on a daily basis of the huge problems with the "Syrian refugees" crossing
the Mediterranean Sea although there is just a handful of Syrians compared to Eritreans, Sudanese,
Gambians etc.
According to the report, the last time Turkish jets participated in airstrikes against terrorists
in Syria was on October 23, three days after around 200 PKK/PYD terrorists were killed.
Ash Carter is, together with John Brennan, the major anti-Russian force in the Obama administration.
He is a U.S. weapon industry promoter and the anti-Russia campaign, which helps to sell U.S. weapons
to NATO allies in Europe, is largely of his doing.
BTW, I do believe he re-won his senate seat, against the true patriot Arpaio there.
Hence his absence from the public scene these months.
So things have not changed much if at all, since still 70 days to Jan20, except for appearances
as they've rearranged some furniture & color-matched the curtains to the upholstery in the act/play
is all.
@11 Hoarsewhisperer - I think it's unrealistic to expect the US simply to leave..
...
Posted by: Grieved | Nov 11, 2016 12:33:02 PM | 27
Today, your guess is as good as mine (at least).
But I regard FrUKUS as Ter'rism Central and if Russia & China et al think they can put a stop
to TerCent without dislodging some teeth and kneecapping them, they're pissing into the wind/dreaming.
It's a bit ambiguous but China, according to CCTV Nov 12, during a chat about Sun Yat Sen and
China/Taiwan unity, seems to be issuing a Global reminder to Loyal Chinese Citizens overseas similar
to the one that Russia issued a month ago.
Saudi Arabia's government has set aside 100 billion riyals ($26.7 billion) to pay debts that
it owes to private sector companies after payment delays that have lasted months, an official
document seen by Reuters shows.
To help curb a huge budget deficit caused by low oil prices, the government of the world's
largest oil exporter has slashed spending and reduced or suspended payments that it owes to
construction firms, medical establishments and even some of the foreign consultants who helped
to design its economic reforms.
But the payment delays have seriously damaged some companies, slowing the economy,
and earlier this week the government said it would make all delayed payments by the end
of this year.
This seems to suggest that Saudi mismanagement is or is about to cost citizens their paychecks
even jobs ... KSA is such a black box police state, it's dangerous to speculate what public opinion
"might be."
I figured the "rebels" in Syria would keep fighting until the paychecks stopped coming,
but I've wondered how many "rebels" were dislodged from relatively personally safe "rebel strongholds"
recently and decided they'd rather quit than die.
Contra Obama's attempt to cleanse his legacy by using the US military to actually attack ISIS,
Russian media report that Ass Carter has warned the president not to cooperate with Russia in
Syria until they are sure Moscow will 'do the right thing'. The report is based on data avaialable
at the af.mil website
Disgusting as it is, yes, my understanding is Obama can do exactly that. My guess is, want
to or not, he probably will come under so much pressure he will have to pass out plenty of pardons.
Or maybe Lynch will give everyone involved in the Clinton Foundation immunity to testify and then
seal the testimony -- or never bother to get any testimony. So many games.
For Obama, it might not even take all that much pressure. From about his second day in office,
from his body language, he's always looked like he was scared.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut, which he would do, being the lawyer he is, Giuliani has
been screaming for the Clintons' scalps. That's exactly what a sharp lawyer would do if he was
trying to force Obama to pardon them. If he really meant to get them he would be agreeing with
the FBI, saying there doesn't seem to be any evidence of wrong doing, and then change his mind
once (if) he's AG and it's too late for deals.
With so many lawyers, Obama, the Clintons, Lynch, Giuliani, Comey, no justice is likely to
come out of this.
@ Posted by: Ken Nari | Nov 11, 2016 2:51:53 PM | 55
I heard a podcast on Batchelor with Charles Ortel which explained some things -- even if
there are no obvious likely criminal smoking guns -- given that foundations get away with a lot
of "leniency" because they are charities, incomplete financial statements and chartering documents,
as I recall. I was most interested in his description of the number of jurisdictions the Foundation
was operating under, some of whom, like New York were already investigating; and others, foreign
who might or might be, who also have very serious regulations, opening the possibility that if
the Feds drop their investigation, New York (with very very strict law) might proceed, and that
they might well be investigated (prosecuted/banned??) in Europe.
The most recent leak wrt internal practices was just damning ... it sounded like a playground
of favors and sinecures ... no human resources department, no written policies on many practices
...
This was an internal audit and OLD (2008, called "the Gibson Review") so corrective action
may have been taken, but I thought was damning enough to deter many donors (even before Hillary's
loss removed that incentive) particularly on top of the Band (2011) memo. Unprofessional to the
extreme.
It's part of my vast relief that Clinton lost and will not be in our lives 24/7/365 for the
next 4 years. (I think Trump is an unprincipled horror, but that's as may be, I'm not looking
for a fight). After the mess Clinton made of Haiti (and the accusations/recriminations) I somehow
thought they'd have been more careful with their "legacy" -- given that it was founded in 1997,
2008 is a very long time to be operating without written procedures wrt donations, employment
"... HiIlary Clinton is a perfect enemy of Trump. She has become rich in office, and as Harry Truman said "anyone who gets rich in politics is a crook". She has dedicated her life to political power at the top while growing ever wealthier from its use. And she loves foreign wars. She has supported a long line of eco-genocidal attacks and bombings of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, all of them still in motion and waiting for her to be escalated further. ..."
"... Know a man by his enemies. Trump has countless enemies, but most of them march to the drums of endless wars of aggression and care less about the casualties of tens of millions of lost good jobs in America. Most are neo-liberals in fact, the bipartisan doctrine of dispossession of citizens and foreign wars to grow the system further. The worst have been Washington servants of the world corporate machine looting the world. They above all condemn his peace overtures to Russia and his promise to repeal NAFTA – both unspeakable heresies on the US public stage until Trump's movement against them. ..."
"... Where Trump agrees with the US money-and-war party is on Israel and Iran. He started with a policy of more neutrality towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, but soon backed out when the attack-dogs went into action with a $50 million gift for his campaign from a wealthy Zionist at the same time. Then he declared " Israel is America". So Trump can proclaim opposite positions without a blink, including on the continuous war crimes of Israel supported by the US. ..."
"... When you join the dots to Trump preaching a policy revolt against the insatiable corporate jaws feeding on trillions of dollars of public budgets in Washington, the underlying meaning emerges. He wants to stop the non-productive transnational corporations from feasting on the public purse. At the beginning after 2008, he even dared to recognize that Wall Street should be nationalized, as it once was by the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln and FDR's Federal Reserve. This would be as big a turn of US government in the people's interests as stopping ruinous foreign wars. ..."
"... Trump also once said that the US "must be neutral, an honest broker" on the Israel-Palestine conflict – as unspeakable as it gets in US politics. Big Pharma was also called out with "$400 billion to be saved by government negotiation of prices". He even confronted the more powerful HMO's with the possibility of a "one-payer system" far better than the Obamacare pork-barrel for ever higher insurance premiums. ..."
HiIlary Clinton is a perfect enemy of Trump. She has become rich in office, and as Harry Truman
said "anyone who gets rich in politics is a crook". She has dedicated her life to political power
at the top while growing ever wealthier from its use. And she loves foreign wars. She has supported
a long line of eco-genocidal attacks and bombings of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine,
all of them still in motion and waiting for her to be escalated further.
Know a man by his enemies. Trump has countless enemies, but most of them march to the drums of
endless wars of aggression and care less about the casualties of tens of millions of lost good jobs
in America. Most are neo-liberals in fact, the bipartisan doctrine of dispossession of citizens and
foreign wars to grow the system further. The worst have been Washington servants of the world corporate
machine looting the world. They above all condemn his peace overtures to Russia and his promise to
repeal NAFTA – both unspeakable heresies on the US public stage until Trump's movement against them.
HiIlary Clinton is a perfect enemy of Trump. She has become rich in office, and as Harry Truman
said "anyone who gets rich in politics is a crook". She has dedicated her life to political power
at the top while growing ever wealthier from its use. And she loves foreign wars. She has supported
a long line of eco-genocidal attacks and bombings of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine,
all of them still in motion and waiting for her to be escalated further.
She wants a return to this bombing in Syria as a "free-fly zone" – free for US and NATO bombers
– just as she led Libya's destruction from 2011 on. She abuses Russia and slanders Putin at every
opportunity and she supported the neo-Nazi coup overthrowing the elected government of Ukraine and
the civil war since. She has done nothing but advocate or agree to endless US-led war crimes without
any life gain but only mass murder, social ruin and terror which she ignores. Like her mentor Madeleine
Allbright , even the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq by Clinton-led bombing are
"worth the price".
Where Trump agrees with the US money-and-war party is on Israel and Iran. He started with
a policy of more neutrality towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, but soon backed out when the attack-dogs
went into action with a $50 million gift for his campaign from a wealthy Zionist at the same time.
Then he declared " Israel is America". So Trump can proclaim opposite positions without a blink,
including on the continuous war crimes of Israel supported by the US.
Trump also bellows against on the giveaway of many billions of US money to Iran and prefers to
bomb their nuclear facilities as Israel wants, and has already done in Syria. He does not tell his
audience that all of this US money is Iran's money being returned to it from its US seizure
in exchange for its nuclear disarmament never suggested for Israel which has enough nuclear weaponry
to blow up the whole Middle East and beyond. Trump too is not to be trusted when it suits his run
to be US President. Yet even here Trump still holds to his position that use of nuclear weapons means
"game over". Clinton and the bipartisan money-and-war party express no such constraint.
Why the Establishment Hates Trump, But Will Accept Him
All of them have reason to hate Trump for a more basic reason. He is seemingly alone in the money-media-military
establishment to publicly deplore the rigged electoral system in which big money and media rule –
formerly unspeakable in the press and political discussion on stage. Trump has even voiced suspicion
of the 9-11 killing spectacle and the "six-trillion- dollar" haemorrhage of US money on Middle East
and Afghanistan wars propelled and justified by 9-11 from 2001 on.
Yet here again the problem is that Trump backs off as soon as he thinks he will not be able to
sell it. This is the art of political lying at which Trump, like Reagan, is a master. But the hard-line
difference between Trump and Reagan and neo-con-lib rulers over the last 30 years is deep – Trump's
denunciation of NAFTA and willingness to have peace with other nations not bowing to Uncle Sam.
Before Trump, job-destroying edicts of transnational global corporations and captive states called
'free trade' have been anathema to oppose in official society. But Trump sticks to his heretical
position. Right up to the election he has promised a "35% tariff" on products of US factories that
disemploy workers to get cheaper labor elsewhere. No-one in the US political establishment has risked
such a position, or blamed these corporate-rights treaties for hollowing out American society itself.
It is apostasy in the corporate 'free press'.
Trump is still hated for such deviations from the official corporate-state line. But the haters
cannot say this. They stick to the politically correct repudiations, and call him "racist", "sexist",
"bigot" and so on even if the conclusion does follow from what he says or does. Selected instances
are the ruling fallacy here.
Trump and the Media-Lie System
Trump is unique in calling out the major mass media as continuous purveyors of lies and propaganda
– although he centers it on himself and not global corporate rule across borders which they worship.
Anyone not doing so is excommunicated from the press. This profound disorder is never allowed into
the mass media as an issue, and Trump never raises it. He too is a believer, but one who sees the
life costs of the sacrifice-workers rule inside the US. He also advocates job-creating public spending
on physical infrastructure which is as crucial to his movement as it was to FDR. It is no longer
taboo inside the dumkopfen party
Trump is a first. Never before has anyone been able to denounce the mass media framing, half-truths
and fabrications and still come out stronger The onslaught of ideological assassination by
a hireling intelligentsia and media of record like the New York Times has always succeeded
before. Trump reacts only as it affects his own position, but his raw defiance right into the cameras
has been eye-popping and unique in America.
This may be Trump's most remarkable achievement. He has been slandered and demonized more than
Russia's Putin, and Russia-baiting him with McCarthy-like accusations of collaboration with Putin
has been part of the attack by Hillary and the press. Yet passionate voter support of Trump has still
grown in the face of all this denunciation by the political establishment.
An underlying revolution in thinking has occurred. Trump has tapped the deep chords of worker
rage at dispossession by forced corporate globalization, criminally disastrous Middle East wars,
and trillions of dollars of bailouts to Wall Street. He never connects the dots on stage. But by
Clinton's advocacy of all of them, she has made them her own and will go down because of it.
Trump's unflinching vast ego and media savvy have been what she and the political establishment
are too corrupted to defeat, The underlying contradiction that now raises its head pits the mass
media against the President of the United States himself – against the long sacred office of the
commander-in-chief of US power across the world, precisely what he is proposing to pacify with friendly
relations instead of ruinous war invasions as in Iraq. Many observers think that Wall Street and
big money won't let it happen. Or that Trump will like others before him will be determined by the
office. Or that Clinton's billion dollars of PAC money will succeed work in the end. But the meaning
is out and cannot be reversed out of sight.
Whatever happens next in this saga it will be ground-shaking. The worst that can happen to Trump's
enemies is that he wins despite the all-fronts attack. They define his underlying meaning, just as
the Enemy they construct abroad defines them. If he loses, there will be a carnival of the money-war-media
party pretending a healing of the great division that has come to view. But this is not a Republican-Democrat
division. It is as deep as all the lost jobs and lives since 2001, and it is ultimately grounded
in the tens of millions of dispossessed people which the life-blind global market system and its
wars have imposed on America too.
The Great Division Will Not Go Away
Trump is the closest to an egomaniac that has ever run for the presidential office. If he were
not, he could not have withstood the public shaming heaped upon him by the political establishment
and dominant media everywhere.
But the tens of millions of Americans for whom Trump speaks tend to have one thing in common more
than anything else. They have been dispossessed and smeared by the neo-con/ neo-liberal alliance
that has taken or traded away their life security and belittled them with political correctness –
the establishment's patronizing diversion from their fallen state.
All the while, the ruling money party behind the media and the wars is system-driven to seek limitlessly
more money under masks of 'free trade' and "America's interests abroad'. The majority is left behind
as the sacrificial living dead. Multiplying transnational money sequences of the very rich have bled
the world into a comatose state, and perpetual wars against the next Enemy of the cancerous system
have sown chaos across the world.
Trump at least starts remission by seeing a criminally blind rule and chaos inside America itself.
Before his campaign, there was helplessness against the invading wars and money sequences always
profiting from the global ruin. The reality has been taboo to see in public. Only entertainments
have appeared in ever new guises as the corporate money-and-war machine has rolled and careened on
across all borders, now marching East through Ukraine into Russia, Brazil to Venezuela to the Caribbean,
from the Congo to the South China Sea.
The Trump entertainment, the most watched in the world, may be the long bridge to taking down
the neo-liberal pillars of majority dispossession and war-criminal state.
Trump is the Opposite to Reagan in Policy Directions
On the face of it, Trump is an ideal leader for US empire. He is like Ronald Reagan on steroids.
His long practiced camera image, his nativist US supremacism, his down-home talk, and his reality-show
confidence all go one better. He is America come to meet itself decades down the road as its pride
slips away in third-world conditions.
But unlike Reagan and Bush who spoke to the rich becoming richer, Trump speaks to the losing white
working class and those who have come to hate the money-corrupted Washington forging the policies
of dispossession Reagan started.
Washington has since ignored and patronized their plight over 30 years. Trump's constituency has
been the disposable rejects from the corporate global system that it is rigged from top to bottom
with rights only for the profits of transnational abroad and bought politicians at home.
The Trump constituency may have no clear idea of this inner logic of the system. But they directly
experience the unemployment, underemployment, ever lower pay, deprived pensions, degraded living
conditions, public squalor, contempt from official society, and no future for their children.
At the surface level, what drives them mad is the 'political correctness' that diverts all attention
from their plight to pant-suit 'feminists' getting a leg up, racial rights with no life substance,
sexual queers they had been conditioned to abhor, and other symbols of oppression changed as the actually ruling system of dispossession becomes inexorably worse all the
way down to their grand children.
Here too Hillary Clinton has been an embodiment of the smug ideology of the system that bleeds
the unseen job-deprived into powerless humiliation: an existential crisi where the secure jobs and
goods of US life have been stripped from them in continuous eviction from the American way with no
notice.
While Trump's narrative is that the American Dream seeks recovery again, the dominant media and
political elite relentlessly denounce him for his message. He gives lots of ammunition to them. His
most popular line is "build the wall", "build the great wall" between Mexico and the US. No political
correctness cares that the biggest source of near-slave labor for the big businesses of the US South
is Mexican 'illegals', and Trump himself never mentions this. He prefers to blame the Mexican illegals
themselves for drugs, rape and violence, the standard lie of blame-the-poorer for your problems.
Trump also wants to tax their slim earnings to pay for the wall. This is the still running sore of
America beneath the lost jobs.
Trump has thus attracted lots of votes. But many non-ignorant people too recognise that the tens
of millions of illegal migrants seeking work in the richer USA cannot continue in any country with
borders, or any nation that seeks to keep worker wages up not down by lower priced labor flooding
in. The legal way must be the only way if the law of nations is to exist and working people are to
be secure from dispossession by starvation wages illegal migrants can be hired for. Borders are,
few notice, the very target of the carcinogenic neo-liberal program.
Of course the political discourse never gets to this real and complex economic base of the problem.
Nor does Trump. His choral promise is "'l'll fix it. Believe me". But something deeper than demagoguery
and blaming the weak is afoot here. An untapped historic resentment is boiling up from underneath
which has long been unspeakable on the political stage. Trump has mined it and proposed a concrete
solution – one grand gate through which immigrants must pass.
Is this really racist? It is rather that Trump is very good at bait and switch. From his now deserted
promise to halve the Pentagon's budget to getting the Congress off corporate-donation payrolls, now
by fixed congressional terms, the public wealth that the politicians and corporate lobbies stand
to lose from a Trump presidency is very disturbing to them. The Mexican wall does not fit the borderless
neo-liberal program either. But all of it is welcome to citizens' ears. That is why the establishment
hates Trump for exposing all these issues long kept in the closet and covered over by politically
correct identity politics.
On the other hand, Trump leaves the halving of the Pentagon's budget behind as soon as he sees
the massive private money forces against it. It is Reagan in reverse. He now promises hundreds of
billions more to the military – but he still opposes foreign wars. That might even do it. But this
most major issue of the election has been completely ignored by the media and opposing politicians
alike. It is the historic core of his bid for the presidency.
Yet the US political establishment across parties cannot yet even conceive it so used are they
to the Reagan-led war state, the military corporate lobbies paying them off in every Senate seat,
anti-union policies at macro as well as micro levels, and always designated foreign enemies to bomb
for resistance. "Say Uncle" said Reagan to the Sandinistas when they asked what could stop the mercenary
killers paid by US covert drug running from bombing their harbours, schools and clinics.
Trump is going the opposite direction in foreign affairs, but the establishment commentators call
it "isolationist" to discredit it. Clinton talks of overcoming the divisions in America, but has
never mentioned holding back on foreign wars. On the contrary, she approves more war power against
Russia and in Syria and in the Ukraine. This is the biggest danger that no media covers – ever more
ruinous US wars on other continents. The formula is old and Reagan exemplified it. Russia is portrayed
as the evil threat to justify pouring up to two billion dollars-a-day of public money into the US
war-for-profit machine occupying across the world, now prepping for China.
But the bipartisan war party backed by Wall Street is going down if Trump's policy can prevail.
This may be the salvation of America and the world, but it is silenced up to election day.
Trump Against the Special Interests
At the beginning g of his public campaign, Trump's policy claims threatened almost every big lobby
now in control of US government purse strings. And these policies grounded in no more foreign wars
which have already cost over 'six trillion dollars' of US public money. At the same time, the country's
physical infrastructures degrade on all levels, and its people's lives are increasingly impoverished
and insecure for the majority. Trump promises to rebuild them all.
Yet the cut-off of hundreds of billions of public giveaways to the Big Corps that Trump advocated
did not end here. It hit almost every wide-mouthed transnational corporate siphon into the US Treasury,
taxpayers' pockets and the working majority of America. Masses of American citizens increasingly
without living wages and benefits and in growing insecurity listened to what the political establishment
and corporate media had long silenced.
Trump raised the great dispossession into the establishment's face, and this is why he will win.
"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for
the vintage"."The grapes of wrath have risen from the long painful stripping of the people's livelihoods,
their social substance and their cities by corporate globalization selecting for the limitless enrichment
of the few living off an ever-growing takes from public coffers and the impoverishment of America's
working citizens. A primal rage has united them across party lines in the public person of Donald
Trump.
Can he deliver? Well he certainly has shown the guts necessary to do so, most uniquely in facing
down the corporate media and Washington politicians.
Looking Past the Victory
The issue still remains that Trump does not promise any fixing of the greatest transfer of wealth
to the very rich in history that Reagan started. This great transfer of wealth includes his own.
We may recall that his model Ronald Reagan started this Great Dispossession to "make America great
again" too.
Now Trump has promised a massive tax cut to the rich and private capital gains as Reagan did.
In the meantime nothing has been less talked about in election commentary than the globally powerful
interests Trump promised to rein back from the public troughs bleeding the country's capacities to
build for and to employ its people. On this topic, there has been only silence from the media and
politicians, and retreating vague generalizations from Trump.
At the beginning, he not only went after the foreign wars, but the sweetheart deals of the government
with Big Pharma, the health insurance racket, lobby-run foreign policy, off-shore tax evasion, and
global trade taking jobs in the tens of millions from home workers. This is why the establishment
so universally hated him. Most of their private interests in looting public wealth were named. He
reversed the tables on the parasite rich in Washington lobbying and gobbling up public money faster
than it could be bribed, printed and allocated to their schemes – except on real estate, his own
big money 'special interest' not centered in Washington. Indeed Trump loves 'eminent domain', state
seizure of people's private property for big developers like him.
This is where Trump joins hands with those depending on the deep system corruptions he has promised
to reverse. He even asked, in his loud way, how these huge private interests go on getting away with
a corporate-lobby state transferring ever more public wealth and control to them at the expense of
the American working majority and their common interest as Americans. But it had all pretty well
slid away by election day except the hatred of self-enriching Washington fixers like Hillary, Mexican
illegals, the Obamacare new charges (with no mention of the HMO's doing it), and the disrespect for
people bearing arms by the second-amendment right.
Do we have here the familiar positional determinism where political and economic class
leaders desert what they promised as they enter into elected office or have sold the goods?
Yet the victory Trump is about to reap is far from empty for America and the world if he keeps
to the promises he made. The money-and media-rigged elections have stayed front and center where
no-one in official politics dared say it before. The black-hole of US foreign wars has above all
has remained his historic target.
His entire strategy has been based on getting public attention, and he is a master at it. He is
unbuyably rich, has energy beyond a rock star, and is the most watched person in America across the
country and the world for months on end. He can't be shut up. Media stigmatization and slander without
let-up do not work as always before.
Trump is also capable of meeting perhaps the world's most important challenges, holding back the
global US war machine from perpetual eco-genocidal aggression and investing back into public infrastructure
and workers' productive jobs.
Most importantly, Trump challenges "the Enemy" cornerstone of US ideology when he says "wouldn't
it be nice to get along with Russia and China for a change?" And as he said to Canada whose branch-plant
corporate state still plays minion to its US corporate masters, "congratulations. You have become
independent".
As for Trump's much publicized 'denial of climate change, it is not really accurate. He has said
little on the topic, but has expressed his opposition to "bullshit government spending" on preventing
climate. So does James Lovelock, the famous global ecologist behind 'the Gaia hypothesis '. Certainly
the green-wash hoaxes of the private corporations (and Al Gore) becoming much richer than before
on solutions that do not work to prevent the global market-led climate destabilization do need more
astute appraisal.
When you join the dots to Trump preaching a policy revolt against the insatiable corporate
jaws feeding on trillions of dollars of public budgets in Washington, the underlying meaning emerges.
He wants to stop the non-productive transnational corporations from feasting on the public purse.
At the beginning after 2008, he even dared to recognize that Wall Street should be nationalized,
as it once was by the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln and FDR's Federal Reserve. This would
be as big a turn of US government in the people's interests as stopping ruinous foreign wars.
Trump also once said that the US "must be neutral, an honest broker" on the Israel-Palestine
conflict – as unspeakable as it gets in US politics. Big Pharma was also called out with "$400 billion
to be saved by government negotiation of prices". He even confronted the more powerful HMO's with
the possibility of a "one-payer system" far better than the Obamacare pork-barrel for ever higher
insurance premiums.
Trump is no working-class hero. He has long been a predatory capitalist with all the furies of
greed, egoism and self-promotion that the ruling system selects for. But he is not rich from foreign
wars of aggression, or from exporting the costs of labor to foreign jurisdictions with subhuman standards.
He has not been getting richer or more smug by seeking high office in a context of saturating slander
and denunciation from official society. He has initiated a long overdue recognition of parasite capitalism
eating out and wasting the life capacities of the US itself as well as the larger world.
Trump has now won the first major step that his enemies declared inconceivable, and he can now
do what he has promised 'in the place where the buck stops'.
Prof. John McMurtry is author of The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: From Crisis to Cure (available
from University of Chicago Press) and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
With President-elect Trump's victory last night, the last hopes of the Obama administration passing
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the lame duck session of Congress have evaporated. The
passage of the TPP through Congress was dependent upon support from members of the Republican majority,
and there is no realistic prospect that they will now pass the deal given their elected President's
firmly expressed opposition to it. Even if they did so, the new President would presumably veto the
pact's implementing legislation.
Ed209
5h ago
2
3
Good article, but it fails to mention immigration as a
further factor hammering the working class. Of course it's
pc to pretend that immigrants create jobs rather than
taking them etc etc. But I would put this question to any
economist, journalist or politician who doesn't believe
that immigration hurts the working classes: how would you
like it if a million workers arrived, all qualified to
your level or above in economics/journalism/politics, and
all willing to work for much less than you make?
Of course, in the case of the UK it hasn't been one
million, but more than three million. And in the case of
the USA, untold millions (illegals alone are thought to
number 10 million).
It's because economists, journalists and politicians
never have to face this kind of competition for their own
jobs that they are so keen on mass immigration. But
low-skill/no-skill workers face this reality everyday.
Nika2015
Ed209
4h ago
0
1
Telling it like it is...Bravo!
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Dana Todd
Ed209
4h ago
0
1
There's a pretty in-depth analysis of immigration's
effect on economy and workers/wages here
http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature
Bottom line is, it's complicated, and not all
immigrants are the same - or the same value to a
country. Immigrants with college degrees definitely add
to the GDP of their new home, typically estimated in
six figures cumulative per individual contribution.
Immigrants without college degree do place a drain on
the country, through depressed wages, because there's
parity (and since we haven't invested as much in our
educations here, we are not as competitive to outside
labor). Illegal immigrants cause a definite deficit,
albeit not so big as to threaten an entire economy -
but by creating an artificial competition they drive
wages down.
I am by all measures a liberal and very open to
immigration - I think we can't measure in dollars what
we get in new ideas, new energy, culture, art, food,
music - but for those who take a hard line look at the
return/impacts, it's worth taking the time to
understand the more complex story in the data.
"[Trump] has many tools to reverse the post World War II consensus on liberalizing U.S. trade
without needing congressional approval. For instance, he can withdraw from the North American Free
Trade Agreement, as he has threatened to do, by simply notifying the U.S.' Nafta partners, Mexico
and Canada, and waiting six months. Withdrawing from the World Trade Organization, which sets rules
for global trading and enforces tariffs, has a similar provision" [
Wall
Street Journal
, "Donald Trump Will Need to Leverage Size, Power of U.S. Economy to Remake Global
Trading System"]. "'Our major trading partners are far more likely to cooperate with an America resolute
about balancing its trade than they are likely to provoke a trade war,' wrote Trump economic advisers
Peter Navarro [
here
]
of the University of California-Irvine and investor Wilbur Ross in September. 'This is true for one
very simple reason: America's major trading partners are far more dependent on American markets than
America is on their markets.'"
TPP: "To take effect, TPP must be ratified by February 2018 by at least six countries that account
for 85 percent of the 12 members' aggregate economic output. This effectively means that the U.S.
and Japan, the world's third-largest economy and the second-largest that is a signatory nation, must
both be on board" [
DC
Velocity
].
TPP: "Mr. Trump's win also seals the fate of President Barack Obama's 12-nation trade agreement,
the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. The president-elect blamed the TPP on special interests who
want to "rape" the country" [
Wall
Street Journal
, "Donald Trump Win to Upend Trade Policy"]. "Mr. Obama had hoped to work with
Republican lawmakers to pass the TPP during the 'lame duck' session of Congress after the election,
where they faced an uphill battle even if Tuesday's vote had favored Hillary Clinton, who previously
backed the TPP negotiations. Now Republicans have little incentive to bring the TPP to a vote, since
Mr. Trump could easily threaten to unravel the deal when he takes office and block its implementation,
as well as punish lawmakers who vote for it."
TPP: "Donald Trump's historic victory Tuesday has killed any chance of Congress voting on President
Barack Obama's signature Asia-Pacific trade agreement while raising the odds of a damaging trade
confrontation with China - just two ways a Trump presidency could upend the global trading system
and usher in a new era of U.S. protectionism, analysts say" [
Politico
].
"'This is the end of globalization is we knew it … because what the U.S. is going to do is certainly
going to impact other countries' and their decisions on negotiations,' Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow
at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Politico. 'TPP is now in the history
dustbin for sure,' Hufbauer said."
TPP: "House GOP election outcomes will be key as House Speaker Paul Ryan decides whether to bring
the TPP to a vote in the lame-duck session with GOP voters strongly against and the GOP 's high-donor
base demanding action. With an eye to conservative GOP threats to withhold support for his speakership
and a possible 2020 presidential run, Ryan's decision is complicated. Whether the TPP will get a
lame-duck vote is his call. Beyond whether he can muster the votes of representatives who weathered
the wrath of trade voters in this cycle and worry about the 2018 primaries lies the longer-term implications
of his even trying to do so with the GOP voter base so intensely against the pact" [Lori Wallach,
Eyes on Trade
].
That's why a British court has effectively overturned the results of the Brexit vote – in
a lawsuit brought by a hedge fund manager and former model – and thrown the fate of the country
into the hands of pro-EU Tories, and their Labor and Liberal Democrat collaborators.
This stunning reversal was baked in to the legislation that enabled the referendum to begin
with, and is par for the course as far as EU referenda are concerned: in 1992,
Danish voters rejected the EU, only to have the Euro-crats demand a rematch with a "modified"
EU treaty which won narrowly. There have been repeated attempts to modify the modifications,
which have all failed. Ireland voted against both the Lisbon Treaty and the Nice Treaty, only
to have the issue brought up again until the "right" result was achieved.
"... "Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent to which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected white men." ... ..."
"... poor pk a leader of the Stalinist press ..."
"... the surprising success of Bernie Sanders -- a Brooklyn-born, Jewish socialist -- in the primaries is solid proof that the electorate was open to a coherent argument for genuine progressive change, and that a substantial portion of that electorate is not acting on purely racist and sexist impulses, as so many progressive commentators say. ..."
"... "I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine. I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine." That assumes you're about 85 years old...and don't have long to live! ..."
"... Laid out by whom? By the commercial "media" hype machine that has 12-16 hours of airtime to fill every day with the as sensationalized as possible gossip (to justify the price for the paid advertisements filling the remaining hours). ..."
"... Killary Clinton got no closer than Ann Arbor this weekend, a message! ..."
"... Mr. Krugman forgot to list the collusion of the DNC and the Clinton campaign to work against Sanders. ..."
"... putting crooked in the same sentence as Clinton or DNC is duplicative wording. This mortification is brought to US by the crooked and the stalinist press that calls crooked virtue. ..."
"... Krugman did so much to help create the mass of white working class discontent that is electing Trump. Krugman and co cheering on NAFTA/PNTR/WTO etc, US deindustrialization, collapse of middle class... ..."
"... Hopefully the working class masses will convince our rulers to abandon free trade before every last factory is sold off or dismantled and the US falls to the depths of a Chad or an Armenia. ..."
The Truth About the Sanders Movement
By Paul Krugman
In short, it's complicated – not all bad, by any means, but not the pure uprising of idealists
the more enthusiastic supporters imagine.
The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels have an illuminating discussion
of Sanders support. The key graf that will probably have Berniebros boiling is this:
"Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to
anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent
to which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected
white men." ...
[ Yes, I do find defaming people by speculation or stereotype to be beyond saddening. ]
The fact that Obama either won, or did so much better than Hillary appears to be doing with, the
white working-class vote in so many key battleground states, as well as the surprising success
of Bernie Sanders -- a Brooklyn-born, Jewish socialist -- in the primaries is solid proof that
the electorate was open to a coherent argument for genuine progressive change, and that a substantial
portion of that electorate is not acting on purely racist and sexist impulses, as so many progressive
commentators say.
And her opponent was/is incapable of debating on substance, as there was/is neither coherence
nor consistency in any part of his platform -- nor that of his party....
Question is, will Krugman be able to move on after the election...and talk about something useful?
Like how to get Hillary to recognize and deal with inequality...
Barbara Ehrenreich: "Forget fear and loathing. The US election inspires projectile vomiting. The
most sordid side of our democracy has been laid out for all to see. But that's only the beginning:
whoever wins, the mutual revulsion will only intensify... With either Clinton or Trump, we will
be left to choke on our mutual revulsion."
"I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine. I will live my life calmly
and my children will be just fine." That assumes you're about 85 years old...and don't have long
to live!
Laid out by whom? By the commercial "media" hype machine that has 12-16 hours of airtime to
fill every day with the as sensationalized as possible gossip (to justify the price for the paid
advertisements filling the remaining hours).
Something interesting today.... President Obama came to Michigan. I fully expected him to speak
in Detroit with a get out the vote message. Instead he is in Ann Arbor, speaking to an overwhelmingly
white and white-collar audience. On a related note, the Dems have apparently written off
the white blue collar vote in Michigan, even much of the union vote. the union leaders are pro
Clinton, but the workers not so much. Strange year.
The real danger of serious election-rigging: electronic voting machines. How do we know the machine
*really* recorded everyone's votes correctly? (Did any Florida county ever give Al Gore negative
something votes?)
That's a big subject but you are right, that is the biggest risk of significant fraud. Not just
the voting machines, but the automatic counting systems. Other forms of possible election fraud
are tiny by comparison.
Here is the transcript from 60 Minutes about the Luntz focus group rancor. Instructive to read
about the depth of feeling in case you didn't see the angry, disgusted faces of citizens.
putting crooked in the same sentence as Clinton or DNC is duplicative wording. This mortification
is brought to US by the crooked and the stalinist press that calls crooked virtue.
Before the 1970s the US was both rich and protectionist - no look at our horrible roads and hopeless
people - the miracle of free trade! : ,
November 07, 2016 at 07:13 PM
Krugman did so much to help create the mass of white working class discontent that is electing
Trump. Krugman and co cheering on NAFTA/PNTR/WTO etc, US deindustrialization, collapse of
middle class...
Hopefully the working class masses will convince our rulers to abandon free trade before
every last factory is sold off or dismantled and the US falls to the depths of a Chad or an Armenia.
"... What America objects to in Russia is that Americans couldn't buy control of their oil, couldn't buy control of their natural resources, couldn't buy control of their public utilities and charge economic rents and continue to make Russia the largest stock market boom in the world as it was from 1994 through 1998 when there was the crisis. ..."
"... So the conflict is not one of economic systems. It's simply that America wants to control other countries and keep other countries within the dollar orbit. And what that means is that if the whole world saves in the form of dollars, that means saving by buying Treasury bonds. ..."
"... And other countries are trying to withdraw from this and America says, "Well, we can smash you." ..."
"... There really is no alternative, and that's the objective of control: to create a society in which there is no choice. That's what a free market [myth] is really all about: preventing any choice by the people except what the government gives them. ..."
"... has the illusion of choice in choosing either between which is the lesser evil. They get to vote for the lesser evil when it's all really the same process. ..."
> Ashcroft: What sort of president then will Hillary Clinton be?
> Hudson: A dictator. She… a vindictive dictator, punishing her enemies, appointing neocons in the secretary
of state, in the defense department, appointing Wall Street people in the Treasury and the Federal Reserve,
and the class war will really break out very explicitly. And she'll-as Warren Buffet said, there is
a class war and we're winning it.
> Ashcroft: As in the one percent are winning it.
> Hudson: The one percent are winning it. And she will try to use the rhetoric to tell people: "Nothing
to see here folks. Keep on moving," while the economy goes down and down and she cashes in as she's
been doing all along, richer and richer, and if she's president, there will not be an investigator of
the criminal conflict of interest of the Bill Clinton Foundation, of pay-to-play. You'll have a presidency
in which corporations who pay the Clintons will be able to set policy. Whoever has the money to buy
the politicians will buy control of policy because elections have been privatized and made part of the
market economy in the United States. That's what the Citizens United Supreme Court case was all about.
> Hudson: Well, after 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up, it really went neoliberal. And Putin is basically
a neoliberal. So there's not a clash of economic systems as there was between capitalism and communism.
What America objects to in Russia is that Americans couldn't buy control of their oil, couldn't buy
control of their natural resources, couldn't buy control of their public utilities and charge economic
rents and continue to make Russia the largest stock market boom in the world as it was from 1994 through
1998 when there was the crisis.
So the conflict is not one of economic systems. It's simply that America
wants to control other countries and keep other countries within the dollar orbit. And what that means
is that if the whole world saves in the form of dollars, that means saving by buying Treasury bonds.
And that means lending all of the balance-of-payments surplus that Russia or China or other countries
look at, by lending it to the U.S. Treasury, which will use that money to militarily encircle these
countries and threaten to do to any country that seeks to withdraw from the dollar system exactly what
they did to Iraq or Libya or Afghanistan, or now Syria.
And other countries are trying to withdraw from
this and America says, "Well, we can smash you." No country's going to invade any other country. There's
not going to be a military draft in any country 'cause the students; the population would rise up. Nobody's
going to invade, and you can't control or occupy a country if you don't have an army. So the only thing
that America can do-or any country can do militarily-is drop bombs.
And that's sort of the equivalent
of, just like the European Central Bank told Greece, "We'll close down your banks and the ATM machines
will be empty," America will say, "Well, we'll bomb you, make you look like Syria and Libya if you don't
turn over your oil, your pipelines, your utilities to American buyers so we can charge rents; we can
be the absentee landlords. We can conquer the world financially instead of militarily. We don't need
an army; we can use finance. And the threat of military warfare and bombing you to achieve things."
Other countries are trying to stay free of the mad bomber, and it's all about who's going to control
the world's natural resources: water, real estate, utilities-not a question of economic systems so much
anymore.
> Well, President Obama, even though he's a tool of Wall Street, at least he says, "It's not worth blowing
up the world to fight in the near east." Hillary says, "It is worth pushing the world back to the Stone
Age if they don't let us and me, Hillary, tell the world how to behave." That's a danger of the world
and that's why the Europeans should be terrified of a Hillary presidency and terrified of the direction
that America is doing, saying, "We want to control the world." It's not control the world through a
different economic philosophy. It's to control the world through ownership of their land, natural resources
and essentially, governments and monetary systems. That's really what it's all about. And the popular
press is not doing a good job of explaining that context, but I can assure you, that's what they're
talking about in Russia, China and South America.
> There really is no alternative, and that's the objective of control: to create a society in which
there is no choice. That's what a free market [myth] is really all about: preventing any choice by the people
except what the government gives them. That's what the Austrian school was all about in the 1920s, waging
war and assassination against the labor leaders and the socialists in Vienna, and that's what the free
marketers in Chile were all about in the mass assassinations of labor leaders, university professors,
intellectuals, and that's exactly the situation in America today without the machine guns, because the
population doesn't really feel that it has any alternative, but has the illusion of choice in choosing
either between which is the lesser evil. They get to vote for the lesser evil when it's all really the
same process.
"... it's easy to imagine a President Trump refusing to heed our own highest court, which, as President Andrew Jackson observed, has no way, other than respect of institutions, to enforce its decisions. ..."
"... It's easy to carp like this but the sclerotic elite in charge of the country has failed to address demographic concerns, and has stamped out any politically incorrect thoughts as being signs of baseness. ..."
"... Now they are so upset that a challenger has arisen. It's unfortunate that this particular challenger has no background in government and will probably harm our economic growth with his lack of skill, but the elites will have to eat the cake they baked. ..."
"... Economists told us that free trade deals and open borders would make us prosperous and yet that hasn't happens. ..."
"... The technicians running trade policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy haven't held up their end of the bargain. ..."
"... Wealth and power has been redistributed upwards. ..."
"... The union movement has been destroyed in outright class war. ..."
"... The corporate media spread lies and distraction. It induces both apathy and a rat race/dog-eat-dog mentality. ..."
"... Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically leftist today. Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider. ..."
"... Yes, we've seen right wing policies killing jobs and steering wealth to the wealthy, and that's bad policy. But unfortunately it seems it's always possible to do *worse*. ..."
"... Trump's policies would double down on wealth transfer, while he spouts the typical RW mantra of "(my dopey policy which would destroy jobs) would be good for jobs." ..."
"... Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply? ..."
More Jobs, a Strong Economy, and a Threat to Institutions : ...Institutions are significant
to economists, who have come to see that countries become prosperous not because they have bounteous
natural resources or an educated population or the most advanced technology but because they have
good institutions. Crucially, formal structures are supported by informal, often unstated, social
agreements. A nation not only needs courts; its people need to believe that those courts can be
fair. ...
Over most of history, a small élite confiscated wealth from the poor. Subsistence farmers lived
under rules designed to tax them so that the rulers could live in palaces and pay for soldiers
to maintain their power. Every now and then, though, a system appeared in which leaders were forced
to accommodate the needs of at least some of their citizens. ... The societies with the most robust
systems for forcing the powerful to accommodate some of the needs of the powerless became wealthier
and more peaceful. ... Most nations without institutions to check the worst impulses of the rich
and powerful stay stuck in poverty and dysfunction. ...
This year's Presidential election has alarmed economists for several reasons. No economist,
save one , supports Donald J. Trump's stated economic plans, but an even larger concern is
that, were he elected, Trump would attack the very institutions that have provided our economic
stability. In his campaign, Trump has shown outright contempt for courts, free speech, international
treaties, and many other pillars of the American way of life. There is little reason to think
that, if granted the Presidency, Trump would soften his stand. ...
...it's easy to imagine a President Trump refusing to heed our own highest court, which, as
President Andrew Jackson observed, has no way, other than respect of institutions, to enforce
its decisions. No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on
the campaign trail, it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the
courts, the military, and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history
tells us, people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas. They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've
already amassed. Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses,
become poorer, uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail.
It's easy to carp like this but the sclerotic elite in charge of the country has failed to address
demographic concerns, and has stamped out any politically incorrect thoughts as being signs of
baseness.
Now they are so upset that a challenger has arisen. It's unfortunate that this particular
challenger has no background in government and will probably harm our economic growth with his
lack of skill, but the elites will have to eat the cake they baked.
"No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on the campaign trail,
it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the courts, the military,
and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history tells us, people stop
dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses, and new ideas.
They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've already amassed.
Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses, become poorer,
uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail."
This is all true but let's provide a little more context than the totebaggers' paint-by-numbers
narrative.
Economists told us that free trade deals and open borders would make us prosperous and
yet that hasn't happens.
The technicians running trade policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy haven't held up
their end of the bargain.
Wealth and power has been redistributed upwards.
The union movement has been destroyed in outright class war.
The corporate media spread lies and distraction. It induces both apathy and a rat race/dog-eat-dog
mentality.
The Democratic Party has been moved to right as the middle class has struggled.
And more and more people become susceptible to demagogues like Trump as Democrats try to play
both sides of the fence, instead of standing foresquarely behind the job class.
Let's hope we don't find out what Trump does if elected. My guess is that he'd delegate foreign
and domestic policy to Mike Pence as Trump himself would be free to pursue his own personal grudges
via whatever means are available.
Alex S -> Peter K.... , -1
As we can see here, through leftist glasses, the only possible remedy for solving a problem is
moving left.
Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically
leftist today.
Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider.
Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically
leftist today.
Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider.
Yes, we've seen right wing policies killing jobs and steering wealth to the wealthy, and that's
bad policy. But unfortunately it seems it's always possible to do *worse*.
Trump's policies would
double down on wealth transfer, while he spouts the typical RW mantra of "(my dopey policy which
would destroy jobs) would be good for jobs."
Tim Harford made a good case for trust accounting
for 99% of the difference in per capita GNP between the US and Somalia.
""If you take a broad enough definition of trust, then it would explain basically all the difference
between the per capita income of the United States and Somalia," ventures Steve Knack, a senior
economist at the World Bank who has been studying the economics of trust for over a decade. That
suggests that trust is worth $12.4 trillion dollars a year to the U.S., which, in case you are
wondering, is 99.5% of this country's income (2006 figures). If you make $40,000 a year, then
$200 is down to hard work and $39,800 is down to trust.
How could that be? Trust operates in all sorts of ways, from saving money that would have to
be spent on security to improving the functioning of the political system. But above all, trust
enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth." goo.gl/t3OqHc
Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration
By Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson
Abstract
The US economy has performed better when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather
than a Republican, almost regardless of how one measures performance. For many measures, including
real GDP growth (our focus), the performance gap is large and significant. This paper asks why.
The answer is not found in technical time series matters nor in systematically more expansionary
monetary or fiscal policy under Democrats. Rather, it appears that the Democratic edge stems mainly
from more benign oil shocks, superior total factor productivity (TFP) performance, a more favorable
international environment, and perhaps more optimistic consumer expectations about the near-term
future.
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
I was in college in the mid 1970's and we asked this question a lot. Some think this worry has
gone away. I don't agree with those types. Which is why a green technology investment drive makes
a lot of sense for so many reasons.
Quote from the paper you linked to: "Arguably, oil shocks have more to do with US foreign policy
than with US economic policy-the two Gulf Wars being prominent examples. That said, several economists
have claimed that US monetary policy played an important role in bringing on the oil shocks. See,
for example, Barsky and Kilian (2002)."
Do We Really Know that Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative
By Robert B. Barsky and Lutz Kilian
Abstract
This paper argues that major oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the
causal mechanism that generated the stagflation of the 1970s as is often thought. There is neither
a theoretical presumption that oil supply shocks are stagflationary nor robust empirical evidence
for this view. In contrast, we show that monetary expansions and contractions can generate stagflation
of realistic magnitude even in the absence of supply shocks. Furthermore, monetary fluctuations
help to explain the historical movements of the prices of oil and other commodities, including
the surge in the prices of industrial commodities that preceded the 1973/74 oil price increase.
Thus, they can account for the striking coincidence of major oil price increases and worsening
stagflation.
My quote dragged on too long. I should have ended it with the first sentence. Monetary policy
could play a role but foreign policy could still be the biggest factor.
"Former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said he's skeptical that fiscal policy will be loosened
a great deal if Clinton wins the election, as seems likely based on recent voter surveys.
"She is promising not to make budget deficits bigger by her programs," said Blinder, who is
now a professor at Princeton University. "Whatever fiscal stimulus there is ought to be small
enough for the Fed practically to ignore it."
PGL told us that Hillary's fiscal program would be YUGE.
Dean Baker in "Rigged" * reminds me of the lasting limits to growth that appear to follow the
sacrifice of growth, especially to the extent of allowing a recession, for the sake of budget
balancing during a time of surrounding economic weakness:
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich
Richer
By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the
world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies to help U.S. workers,
specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because
exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out
of poverty. The role model was China, which by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty
and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters would block the
rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented
media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016). After all, it was pretty
irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if
you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory
economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing
world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the United States don't buy
it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to
a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff.
In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world
would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't
sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff
they produced raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of
demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full
employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn't
produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find anyone
to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect total employment. Economies adjust so
that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics),
capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a
low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce and gets a high rate of
return....
It is yuuuuge - and no I did not say anything of the sort. Rather I noted it would be less than
1% of GDP. This is what I get for trying to get the facts right. It gets too complicated for you
even when we simplify things so you get angry and start screaming "liar". Grow up.
Per capta GDP grew from $51,100 to $51,400 between July 1 2015 and July 1 2016. This 0.6% growth
does not seem to me to be a statistic supporting claims of improving employment and improving
wage growth.
Dean has suggested in one of his commentaries that wage growth may be an artifact of a decline
in the quality of health insurance coverage. Wage growth is not figured net of increased outlays
for deductibles and copays related to changes in health insurance. PPACA discourages low deductible
and low copay health plans by placing a "Cadillac tax" on them, or at least threatening to do
so. The consequent rise in wage workers' outlays for copays and deductibles are not captured in
the statistics that claim to measure wage gains. This results in an income transfer from the well
to the sick, but can produce statistics that can be interpreted in politically convenient ways
by those so inclined
I get why the plans are taxed. I don't believe that the results of that policy have been beneficial
for the bulk of the population. Most of the good done by PPACA was done by the expansion of Medicaid
eligibility. I believe that requiring the working poor people to settle for high deductible high
copay policies has had the practical effect of requiring them to choose between adequate medical
and further impoverishment. I do not believe that the PPACA could not have been financed in a
way less injurious to the working poor. As the insurers have been unable to make money in this
deal, the hospital operators seem to have been the only winners in that their bad debt problems
have been ameliorated.
"people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas"
And this is entirely rational, as in the situation described, the fruits of their efforts will
likely be siphoned from their pockets by the elites and generally rent-seekers with higher social
standing and leverage, or at best their efforts will amount to too little to be worth the risk
(including the risk of wasting one's time i.e. opportunity cost). It also becomes correspondingly
harder to convince and motivate others to join or fund any worthwhile efforts. What also happens
(and has happened in "communism") is that people take their interests private, i.e. hidden from
the view of those who would usurp or derail them.
"Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about
the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it
is to die.
The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next, disguises
the fragility of its fabric. How many of our activities are made possible by the impression of
stability that pattern gives? So long as it repeats, or varies steadily enough, we are able to
plan for tomorrow as if all the things we rely on and don't think about too carefully will still
be there. When the pattern is broken, by civil war or natural disaster or the smaller-scale tragedies
that tear at its fabric, many of those activities become impossible or meaningless, while simply
meeting needs we once took for granted may occupy much of our lives.
What war correspondents and relief workers report is not only the fragility of the fabric,
but the speed with which it can unravel. As we write this, no one can say with certainty where
the unraveling of the financial and commercial fabric of our economies will end. Meanwhile, beyond
the cities, unchecked industrial exploitation frays the material basis of life in many parts of
the world, and pulls at the ecological systems which sustain it.
Precarious as this moment may be, however, an awareness of the fragility of what we call civilisation
is nothing new.
'Few men realise,' wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, 'that their life, the very essence of their
character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in
the safety of their surroundings.' Conrad's writings exposed the civilisation exported by European
imperialists to be little more than a comforting illusion, not only in the dark, unconquerable
heart of Africa, but in the whited sepulchres of their capital cities. The inhabitants of that
civilisation believed 'blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in
the power of its police and of its opinion,' but their confidence could be maintained only by
the seeming solidity of the crowd of like-minded believers surrounding them. Outside the walls,
the wild remained as close to the surface as blood under skin, though the city-dweller was no
longer equipped to face it directly.
Bertrand Russell caught this vein in Conrad's worldview, suggesting that the novelist 'thought
of civilised and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled
lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths.' What both Russell
and Conrad were getting at was a simple fact which any historian could confirm: human civilisation
is an intensely fragile construction. It is built on little more than belief: belief in the rightness
of its values; belief in the strength of its system of law and order; belief in its currency;
above all, perhaps, belief in its future.
Once that belief begins to crumble, the collapse of a civilisation may become unstoppable.
That civilisations fall, sooner or later, is as much a law of history as gravity is a law of physics.
What remains after the fall is a wild mixture of cultural debris, confused and angry people whose
certainties have betrayed them, and those forces which were always there, deeper than the foundations
of the city walls: the desire to survive and the desire for meaning."
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich
Richer By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the
world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies to help U.S. workers,
specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because
exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out
of poverty. The role model was China, which by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty
and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters would block the
rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented
media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016). After all, it was pretty
irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if
you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory
economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing
world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the United States don't buy
it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to
a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff.
In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world
would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't
sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff
they produced raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of
demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full
employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn't
produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find anyone
to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect total employment. Economies adjust so
that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics),
capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a
low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce and gets a high rate of
return....
More Jobs, a Strong Economy, and a Threat to Institutions : ...Institutions are significant
to economists, who have come to see that countries become prosperous not because they have bounteous
natural resources or an educated population or the most advanced technology but because they have
good institutions. Crucially, formal structures are supported by informal, often unstated, social
agreements. A nation not only needs courts; its people need to believe that those courts can be
fair. ...
Over most of history, a small élite confiscated wealth from the poor. Subsistence farmers lived
under rules designed to tax them so that the rulers could live in palaces and pay for soldiers
to maintain their power. Every now and then, though, a system appeared in which leaders were forced
to accommodate the needs of at least some of their citizens. ... The societies with the most robust
systems for forcing the powerful to accommodate some of the needs of the powerless became wealthier
and more peaceful. ... Most nations without institutions to check the worst impulses of the rich
and powerful stay stuck in poverty and dysfunction. ...
This year's Presidential election has alarmed economists for several reasons. No economist,
save one , supports Donald J. Trump's stated economic plans, but an even larger concern is
that, were he elected, Trump would attack the very institutions that have provided our economic
stability. In his campaign, Trump has shown outright contempt for courts, free speech, international
treaties, and many other pillars of the American way of life. There is little reason to think
that, if granted the Presidency, Trump would soften his stand. ...
...it's easy to imagine a President Trump refusing to heed our own highest court, which, as
President Andrew Jackson observed, has no way, other than respect of institutions, to enforce
its decisions. No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on
the campaign trail, it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the
courts, the military, and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history
tells us, people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas. They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've
already amassed. Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses,
become poorer, uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail.
It's easy to carp like this but the sclerotic elite in charge of the country has failed to address
demographic concerns, and has stamped out any politically incorrect thoughts as being signs of
baseness. Now they are so upset that a challenger has arisen. It's unfortunate that this particular
challenger has no background in government and will probably harm our economic growth with his
lack of skill, but the elites will have to eat the cake they baked.
"No one knows what Trump would do as President, but, based on his statements on the campaign trail,
it's possible to imagine a nation where people have less confidence in the courts, the military,
and their rights to free speech and assembly. When this happens, history tells us, people stop
dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses, and new ideas.
They focus, instead, on taking from others and holding tightly to what they've already amassed.
Those societies, without the institutions that protect us from our worst impulses, become poorer,
uglier, more violent. That is how nations fail."
This is all true but let's provide a little more context than the totebaggers' paint-by-numbers
narrative.
Economists told us that free trade deals and open borders would make us prosperous and
yet that hasn't happens.
The technicians running trade policy, monetary policy and fiscal policy haven't held up
their end of the bargain.
Wealth and power has been redistributed upwards.
The union movement has been destroyed in outright class war.
The corporate media spread lies and distraction. It induces both apathy and a rat race/dog-eat-dog
mentality.
The Democratic Party has been moved to right as the middle class has struggled.
And more and more people become susceptible to demagogues like Trump as Democrats try to play
both sides of the fence, instead of standing foresquarely behind the job class.
Let's hope we don't find out what Trump does if elected. My guess is that he'd delegate foreign
and domestic policy to Mike Pence as Trump himself would be free to pursue his own personal grudges
via whatever means are available.
As Bernie Sanders's campaign demonstrated, there is still hope. In fact hope is growing.
Lucky for us Sanders campaigned hard for Hillary, knowing what the stakes are.
Given the way people like PGL treated Sanders during the campaign and given what Wikileaks
showed, I doubt the reverse would have been true had Sanders won the primary.
The reverse would have been true, because we Democrats would have voted party above all else and
especially in this election year. Remember "party" the thing that Bernie supporters and Bernie
himself denigrated? I believe the term
"elites" was used more than once to describe the party faithful.
Alex S -> Peter K.... , -1
As we can see here, through leftist glasses, the only possible remedy for solving a problem is
moving left.
Consider how far we've moved right, so that Nixon e.g. would be considered hopelessly and radically
leftist today.
Given that, moving left should be one of the first things you consider.
Does the Right Hold the Economy Hostage to Advance Its Militarist Agenda?
That's one way to read Tyler Cowen's New York Times column * noting that wars have often been
associated with major economic advances which carries the headline "the lack of major wars may
be hurting economic growth." Tyler lays out his central argument:
"It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American
history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear
power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager
to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed
to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military
contracting, not today's entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik
satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic
growth."
This is all quite true, but a moment's reflection may give a bit different spin to the story.
There has always been substantial support among liberals for the sort of government sponsored
research that he describes here. The opposition has largely come from the right. However the right
has been willing to go along with such spending in the context of meeting national defense needs.
Its support made these accomplishments possible.
This brings up the suggestion Paul Krugman made a while back (jokingly) that maybe we need
to convince the public that we face a threat from an attack from Mars. Krugman suggested this
as a way to prompt traditional Keynesian stimulus, but perhaps we can also use the threat to promote
an ambitious public investment agenda to bring us the next major set of technological breakthroughs.
1. Baker's peaceful spending scenario is not likely because of human nature.
2. Even if Baker's scenario happened, a given dollar will be used more efficiently in a war.
If there is a threat of losing, you have an incentive to cut waste and spend on what produces
results.
3. The United States would not exist at all if we had not conquered the territory.
US Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion and Counting
Summary of Costs of the US Wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan and Homeland Security
By Neta C. Crawford
Summary
Wars cost money before, during and after they occur - as governments prepare for, wage, and
recover from them by replacing equipment, caring for the wounded and repairing the infrastructure
destroyed in the fighting. Although it is rare to have a precise accounting of the costs of war
- especially of long wars - one can get a sense of the rough scale of the costs by surveying the
major categories of spending.
As of August 2016, the US has already appropriated, spent, or taken on obligations to spend
more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria
and on Homeland Security (2001 through fiscal year 2016). To this total should be added the approximately
$65 billion in dedicated war spending the Department of Defense and State Department have requested
for the next fiscal year, 2017, along with an additional nearly $32 billion requested for the
Department of Homeland Security in 2017, and estimated spending on veterans in future years. When
those are included, the total US budgetary cost of the wars reaches $4.79 trillion.
But of course, a full accounting of any war's burdens cannot be placed in columns on a ledger....
Yes, we've seen right wing policies killing jobs and steering wealth to the wealthy, and that's
bad policy. But unfortunately it seems it's always possible to do *worse*. Trump's policies would
double down on wealth transfer, while he spouts the typical RW mantra of "(my dopey policy which
would destroy jobs) would be good for jobs." Tim Harford made a good case for trust accounting
for 99% of the difference in per capita GNP between the US and Somalia.
""If you take a broad enough definition of trust, then it would explain basically all the difference
between the per capita income of the United States and Somalia," ventures Steve Knack, a senior
economist at the World Bank who has been studying the economics of trust for over a decade. That
suggests that trust is worth $12.4 trillion dollars a year to the U.S., which, in case you are
wondering, is 99.5% of this country's income (2006 figures). If you make $40,000 a year, then
$200 is down to hard work and $39,800 is down to trust.
How could that be? Trust operates in all sorts of ways, from saving money that would have to
be spent on security to improving the functioning of the political system. But above all, trust
enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth." goo.gl/t3OqHc
Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration
By Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson
Abstract
The US economy has performed better when the president of the United States is a Democrat rather
than a Republican, almost regardless of how one measures performance. For many measures, including
real GDP growth (our focus), the performance gap is large and significant. This paper asks why.
The answer is not found in technical time series matters nor in systematically more expansionary
monetary or fiscal policy under Democrats. Rather, it appears that the Democratic edge stems mainly
from more benign oil shocks, superior total factor productivity (TFP) performance, a more favorable
international environment, and perhaps more optimistic consumer expectations about the near-term
future.
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
I was in college in the mid 1970's and we asked this question a lot. Some think this worry has
gone away. I don't agree with those types. Which is why a green technology investment drive makes
a lot of sense for so many reasons.
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
[ Having read and reread this question, I do not begin to understand what it means. There is
oil here, there is oil all about us, there is oil in Canada and Mexico and on and on, and the
supply of oil about us is not about to be disrupted by any conceivable war and an inconceivable
war is never going to be fought. ]
Economic growth fueled by foreign oil is nice while it lasts but what will happen to the country
when the oil runs out or we are forced to fight a war that disrupts the supply?
[ My guess is that this is a way of scarily pitching for fracking for oil right in my garden,
but I like my azealia bushes and mocking birds. ]
Quote from the paper you linked to: "Arguably, oil shocks have more to do with US foreign policy
than with US economic policy-the two Gulf Wars being prominent examples. That said, several economists
have claimed that US monetary policy played an important role in bringing on the oil shocks. See,
for example, Barsky and Kilian (2002)."
Do We Really Know that Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative
By Robert B. Barsky and Lutz Kilian
Abstract
This paper argues that major oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the
causal mechanism that generated the stagflation of the 1970s as is often thought. There is neither
a theoretical presumption that oil supply shocks are stagflationary nor robust empirical evidence
for this view. In contrast, we show that monetary expansions and contractions can generate stagflation
of realistic magnitude even in the absence of supply shocks. Furthermore, monetary fluctuations
help to explain the historical movements of the prices of oil and other commodities, including
the surge in the prices of industrial commodities that preceded the 1973/74 oil price increase.
Thus, they can account for the striking coincidence of major oil price increases and worsening
stagflation.
My quote dragged on too long. I should have ended it with the first sentence. Monetary policy
could play a role but foreign policy could still be the biggest factor.
"Former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said he's skeptical that fiscal policy will be loosened
a great deal if Clinton wins the election, as seems likely based on recent voter surveys.
"She is promising not to make budget deficits bigger by her programs," said Blinder, who is
now a professor at Princeton University. "Whatever fiscal stimulus there is ought to be small
enough for the Fed practically to ignore it."
PGL told us that Hillary's fiscal program would be YUGE.
Dean Baker in "Rigged" * reminds me of the lasting limits to growth that appear to follow the
sacrifice of growth, especially to the extent of allowing a recession, for the sake of budget
balancing during a time of surrounding economic weakness:
Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich
Richer
By Dean Baker
Introduction: Trading in Myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,
a new line became popular among the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the
world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies to help U.S. workers,
specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because
exporting manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out
of poverty. The role model was China, which by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty
and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters would block the
rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented
media upstart, and was quickly picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016). After all, it was pretty
irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if
you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory
economics course. It assumes that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing
world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people in the United States don't buy
it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to
a halt. In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff.
In other words, there is a shortage of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world
would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing world if they couldn't
sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff
they produced raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of
demand are not a problem. Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full
employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of supply. The problem was that we couldn't
produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find anyone
to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like
the Trans-Pacific Partnership assume trade doesn't affect total employment. Economies adjust so
that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics),
capital flows from slow-growing rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a
low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce and gets a high rate of
return....
It is yuuuuge - and no I did not say anything of the sort. Rather I noted it would be less than
1% of GDP. This is what I get for trying to get the facts right. It gets too complicated for you
even when we simplify things so you get angry and start screaming "liar". Grow up.
Per capta GDP grew from $51,100 to $51,400 between July 1 2015 and July 1 2016. This 0.6% growth
does not seem to me to be a statistic supporting claims of improving employment and improving
wage growth.
Dean has suggested in one of his commentaries that wage growth may be an artifact of a decline
in the quality of health insurance coverage. Wage growth is not figured net of increased outlays
for deductibles and copays related to changes in health insurance. PPACA discourages low deductible
and low copay health plans by placing a "Cadillac tax" on them, or at least threatening to do
so. The consequent rise in wage workers' outlays for copays and deductibles are not captured in
the statistics that claim to measure wage gains. This results in an income transfer from the well
to the sick, but can produce statistics that can be interpreted in politically convenient ways
by those so inclined
I get why the plans are taxed. I don't believe that the results of that policy have been beneficial
for the bulk of the population. Most of the good done by PPACA was done by the expansion of Medicaid
eligibility. I believe that requiring the working poor people to settle for high deductible high
copay policies has had the practical effect of requiring them to choose between adequate medical
and further impoverishment. I do not believe that the PPACA could not have been financed in a
way less injurious to the working poor. As the insurers have been unable to make money in this
deal, the hospital operators seem to have been the only winners in that their bad debt problems
have been ameliorated.
"people stop dreaming about what they could have if they invest in education, new businesses,
and new ideas"
And this is entirely rational, as in the situation described, the fruits of their efforts will
likely be siphoned from their pockets by the elites and generally rent-seekers with higher social
standing and leverage, or at best their efforts will amount to too little to be worth the risk
(including the risk of wasting one's time i.e. opportunity cost). It also becomes correspondingly
harder to convince and motivate others to join or fund any worthwhile efforts. What also happens
(and has happened in "communism") is that people take their interests private, i.e. hidden from
the view of those who would usurp or derail them.
"Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about
the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it
is to die.
The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next, disguises
the fragility of its fabric. How many of our activities are made possible by the impression of
stability that pattern gives? So long as it repeats, or varies steadily enough, we are able to
plan for tomorrow as if all the things we rely on and don't think about too carefully will still
be there. When the pattern is broken, by civil war or natural disaster or the smaller-scale tragedies
that tear at its fabric, many of those activities become impossible or meaningless, while simply
meeting needs we once took for granted may occupy much of our lives.
What war correspondents and relief workers report is not only the fragility of the fabric,
but the speed with which it can unravel. As we write this, no one can say with certainty where
the unraveling of the financial and commercial fabric of our economies will end. Meanwhile, beyond
the cities, unchecked industrial exploitation frays the material basis of life in many parts of
the world, and pulls at the ecological systems which sustain it.
Precarious as this moment may be, however, an awareness of the fragility of what we call civilisation
is nothing new.
'Few men realise,' wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, 'that their life, the very essence of their
character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in
the safety of their surroundings.' Conrad's writings exposed the civilisation exported by European
imperialists to be little more than a comforting illusion, not only in the dark, unconquerable
heart of Africa, but in the whited sepulchres of their capital cities. The inhabitants of that
civilisation believed 'blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in
the power of its police and of its opinion,' but their confidence could be maintained only by
the seeming solidity of the crowd of like-minded believers surrounding them. Outside the walls,
the wild remained as close to the surface as blood under skin, though the city-dweller was no
longer equipped to face it directly.
Bertrand Russell caught this vein in Conrad's worldview, suggesting that the novelist 'thought
of civilised and morally tolerable human life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled
lava which at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fiery depths.' What both Russell
and Conrad were getting at was a simple fact which any historian could confirm: human civilisation
is an intensely fragile construction. It is built on little more than belief: belief in the rightness
of its values; belief in the strength of its system of law and order; belief in its currency;
above all, perhaps, belief in its future.
Once that belief begins to crumble, the collapse of a civilisation may become unstoppable.
That civilisations fall, sooner or later, is as much a law of history as gravity is a law of physics.
What remains after the fall is a wild mixture of cultural debris, confused and angry people whose
certainties have betrayed them, and those forces which were always there, deeper than the foundations
of the city walls: the desire to survive and the desire for meaning."
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Hillary Clinton's plan for Syria would "lead to world war three"
because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, the Republican presidential nominee said defeating
Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading than Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to step
down, playing down a long-held goal of US policy.
Trump questioned how his Democratic opponent would negotiate with Russia's president Vladimir
Putin after having demonized him; blamed Barack Obama for a downturn in US relations with the Philippines
under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte;
bemoaned a lack of Republican unity behind his candidacy
and said he would easily win the election if the party leaders supported him.
"If we had party unity, we couldn't lose this election to Hillary Clinton," he said.
On Syria's civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the US into a world war with a more aggressive
posture toward resolving the conflict.
Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and "safe zones" on the ground to
protect noncombatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the US bring into
direct conflict with Russian fighter jets.
"What we should do is focus on Isis. We should not be focusing on Syria," said Trump as he
dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. "You're going to end up
in world war three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton," Trump said.
"You're not fighting Syria any more, you're fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia
is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,"
he said.
Trump said Assad is much stronger now than he was three years ago. He said getting Assad to leave
power was less important than defeating Isis.
"Assad is secondary, to me, to Isis," he said.
On Russia, Trump again knocked Clinton's handling of US-Russian relations while secretary
of state and said her harsh criticism of Putin raised questions about "how she is going to go back
and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil", if she wins the presidency.
On the deterioration of ties with the Philippines, Trump aimed his criticism at Obama, saying
the president "wants to focus on his golf game" rather than engage with world leaders.
Since assuming office, Duterte has expressed open hostility towards the US, rejecting criticism
of his violent anti-drug clampdown, using an expletive to describe Obama and telling the US not to
treat his country "like a dog with a leash".
The Obama administration has expressed optimism that the two countries can remain firm allies.
Trump said Duterte's latest comments showed "a lack of respect for our country".
"... In the presidential debates, Clinton talked of establishing a "no-fly zone" or a "safe zone" inside Syria. However, it is hard to see how that would be done without risking a direct clash with Russia, with all the risks that entails. The generals at the Pentagon, who have long argued against the feasibility of establishing such a zone, would work hard to block such a scheme. A Clinton White House is also likely to explore ways of increasing the flow of arms to moderate opposition groups. ..."
"... Trump has indicated that he would seek to work with Assad and Putin in a combined fight against Isis, and has not voiced criticism of the bombardment of rebel-held areas such as eastern Aleppo. That policy would also have heavy costs. The Syrian opposition and the Gulf states would see it as a betrayal, and the new administration would have to deal with the reality that neither the regime nor Russia has much immediate interest in fighting Isis. ..."
"... Trump is likely to take the opposite approach. He avoided criticism of Russia for its actions in Ukraine, hinted he might accept the annexation of Crimea, and ignored US intelligence findings that Moscow was behind the hacking of Democratic party's email. ..."
"... Trump has suggested, by contrast, that Nato is obsolete and questioned whether its security commitments in Europe are worth what the US is currently spending on them. ..."
"... Clinton first supported the TPP and then criticised it in the face of the primary challenge from Bernie Sanders. Her reservations may prolong the negotiations, but she is ultimately expected to pursue and seek completion of the ambitious multilateral trade deals. ..."
"... Trump built his campaign on opposition to all such deals , which he has characterised as inherently unfavourable to the US. He has promised to seek bilateral trade deals on better terms and to punish other countries deemed to be trading unfairly with sanctions, ignoring the threat of retaliation. ..."
Within his or her first year in office, a new US president would also face a direct challenge
to US power in the western Pacific. The Chinese programme of laying claim to reefs and rocks in
the South China Sea and turning them into naval and air bases gives Beijing potential control
over some the busiest shipping lanes in the world. US influence is under further threat by the
rise of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, who has
threatened to eject US troops , casting doubt on his predecessor's agreement to allow new
permanent American presence.
Clinton's likely policy will be to continue Obama's faltering "pivot to Asia", and to prioritise
restoring the faith of US allies in the region that Washington will help them resist Chinese attempts
to dominate the South China Sea. It is a policy that is held hostage to some extent by Duterte's
ultimate intentions, and it could lead to a rapid escalation of tension in the region.
Trump has pointed to the Chinese reef-building programme as a reflection of US weakness but has
not said what he would do about it. He has focused more on the threat posed to the US by its trade
relations with China. In the transactional model of foreign relations Trump favours, he
could
agree to turn a blind eye to creeping Chinese takeover in the South China Sea in exchange for
a bilateral trade deal with Beijing on better terms.
Syria
A new US president will arrive in office at a time of significant military advances against
Islamic State in Syria and
neighbouring Iraq, but diminishing options when it comes to helping shape the opposition battle
against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. It is possible that the rebel stand
in Aleppo will have fallen by then, giving the regime the upper hand and postponing yet again
any hopes of a political transition.
In the presidential debates, Clinton
talked of establishing a "no-fly zone" or a "safe zone" inside Syria. However, it is hard to
see how that would be done without risking a direct clash with Russia, with all the risks that entails.
The generals at the Pentagon, who have long argued against the feasibility of establishing such a
zone, would work hard to block such a scheme. A Clinton White House is also likely to explore ways
of increasing the flow of arms to moderate opposition groups.
Trump has indicated that he would seek to work with Assad and Putin in a combined fight against
Isis, and has not voiced criticism of the bombardment of rebel-held areas such as eastern Aleppo.
That policy would also have heavy costs. The Syrian opposition and the Gulf states would see it as
a betrayal, and the new administration would have to deal with the reality that neither the regime
nor Russia has much immediate
interest in fighting Isis.
Russia and Ukraine
A Clinton administration is expected to take a tougher line with Moscow than the Obama White House,
all the more so because of the
substantial evidence of the Kremlin's efforts to try to intervene in the US presidential election
in her opponent's favour. Clinton could well seek to take a leadership role in negotiations with
Moscow over Ukraine and the stalled Minsk peace process, which have hitherto been left to Germany
and France. She could also opt to send lethal aid to Ukraine as a way of increasing US leverage.
Trump is likely to take the opposite approach. He avoided criticism of Russia for its
actions in Ukraine, hinted he might accept the annexation of Crimea, and ignored US
intelligence findings that Moscow was behind the hacking of Democratic party's email. A
Trump administration is unlikely to contest Russian enforcement of its influence in eastern
Ukraine.
Europe and Nato
Clinton aides have signalled consistently that one of her priorities would be to show US willingness
to shore up EU and Nato cohesion,
and will attend summits of both organisations in February.
Trump has suggested, by contrast, that Nato is obsolete and questioned whether its security commitments
in Europe are worth what the US is currently spending on them. He said he would check whether US
allies "fulfilled their obligation to us" before
coming to their defence , calling into question the purpose of the defence pact. Later in the
campaign, he changed tack, saying he would seek to strengthen the alliance, but a win for Trump on
Tuesday would nonetheless deepen anxiety in eastern European countries, such as the Baltic states,
that a US-led Nato would come to their defence in the face of Russian encroachment.
Trade
The two major free trade projects of the Obama administration, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership with Europe (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with the countries on the
Pacific rim, will probably still be under negotiation when the new president comes into office, giving
him or her the option of killing or completing them.
Clinton
first supported the TPP and then criticised it in the face of the primary challenge from Bernie
Sanders. Her reservations may prolong the negotiations, but she is ultimately expected to pursue
and seek completion of the ambitious multilateral trade deals.
Trump built his campaign on
opposition to all such deals , which he has characterised as inherently unfavourable to the US.
He has promised to seek bilateral trade deals on better terms and to punish other countries deemed
to be trading unfairly with sanctions, ignoring the threat of retaliation.
"... An awful lot of people out there think we live in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is coming to be called the "Uniparty." ..."
"... There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people versus the politicians. ..."
"... Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. ..."
"... To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. ..."
"... Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important, the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment. ..."
A couple of remarks in
Professor Susan
McWillams' recent Modern Age piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of Christopher Lasch's
1991 book
The True and Only Heaven , which analyzed the cult of progress in its American manifestation,
have stuck in my mind. Here's the first one:
McWilliams adds a footnote to that: The 19 percent figure is from 2012, she says. Then she tells
us that in 1964, 64 percent of Americans agreed with the same statement.
Wow. You have to think that those two numbers, from 64 percent down to 19 percent in two generations,
tell us something important and disturbing about our political life.
Second McWilliams quote:
In 2016 if you type the words "Democrats and Republicans" or "Republicans and Democrats" into
Google, the algorithms predict your next words will be "are the same".
I just tried this, and she's right. These guesses are of course based on the frequency with which
complete sentences show up all over the internet. An awful lot of people out there think we live
in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is
coming to be called the "Uniparty."
There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national
politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people
versus the politicians.
Which leads me to a different lady commentator: Peggy Noonan, in her October 20th Wall Street
Journal column.
The title of Peggy's piece was:
Imagine
a Sane Donald Trump . [
Alternate link ]Its gravamen:
Donald Trump has shown up the Republican Party Establishment as totally out of touch with their base,
which is good; but that he's bat-poop crazy, which is bad. If a sane Donald Trump had done
the good thing, the showing-up, we'd be on course to a major beneficial correction in our national
politics.
It's a good clever piece. A couple of months ago on Radio Derb I offered up one and a half cheers
for Peggy, who gets a lot right in spite of being a longtime Establishment Insider. So it
was here. Sample of what she got right last week:
Mr. Trump's great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its
own base really thinks about the big issues. The party's leaders didn't know! They were shocked,
so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn't happening.
The party's leaders accept more or less open borders and like big trade deals. Half the base
does not! It is longtime GOP doctrine to cut entitlement spending. Half the base doesn't want
to, not right now! Republican leaders have what might be called assertive foreign-policy impulses.
When Mr. Trump insulted George W. Bush and nation-building and said he'd opposed the Iraq invasion,
the crowds, taking him at his word, cheered. He was, as they say, declaring that he didn't want
to invade the world and invite the world. Not only did half the base cheer him, at least half
the remaining half joined in when the primaries ended.
End of pause. OK, so Peggy got some things right there. She got a lot wrong, though
Start with the notion that Trump is crazy. He's a nut, she says, five times. His brain is "a TV
funhouse."
Well, Trump has some colorful quirks of personality, to be sure, as we all do. But he's no nut.
A nut can't be as successful in business as Trump has been.
I spent 32 years as an employee or contractor, mostly in private businesses but for two years
in a government department. Private businesses are intensely rational, as human affairs go-much more
rational than government departments. The price of irrationality in business is immediate and plainly
financial. Sanity-wise, Trump is a better bet than most people in high government positions.
Sure, politicians talk a good rational game. They present as sober and thoughtful on the Sunday
morning shows.
Look at the stuff they believe, though. Was it rational to respond to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
by moving NATO right up to Russia's borders? Was it rational to expect that post-Saddam Iraq would
turn into a constitutional democracy? Was it rational to order insurance companies to sell healthcare
policies to people who are already sick? Was the Vietnam War a rational enterprise? Was it rational
to respond to the 9/11 attacks by massively increasing Muslim immigration?
Make your own list.
Donald Trump displays good healthy patriotic instincts. I'll take that, with the personality quirks
and all, over some earnest, careful, sober-sided guy whose head contains fantasies of putting the
world to rights, or flooding our country with unassimilable foreigners.
I'd add the point, made by many commentators, that belongs under the general heading: "You don't
have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." If Donald Trump was not so very different from run-of-the-mill
politicians-which I suspect is a big part of what Peggy means by calling him a nut-would he have
entered into the political adventure he's on?
Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific on a hand-built wooden raft to prove a point, which
is not the kind of thing your average ethnographer would do. Was he crazy? No, he wasn't. It was
only that some feature of his personality drove him to use that way to prove the point he
hoped to prove.
And then there is Peggy's assertion that the Republican Party's leaders didn't know that half
the party's base were at odds with them.
Did they really not? Didn't they get a clue when the GOP lost in 2012, mainly because millions
of Republican voters didn't turn out for Mitt Romney? Didn't they, come to think of it, get the glimmering
of a clue back in 1996, when Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary?
Pat Buchanan is in fact a living counter-argument to Peggy's thesis-the "sane Donald Trump" that
she claims would win the hearts of GOP managers. Pat is Trump without the personality quirks. How
has the Republican Party treated him ?
Our own
Brad Griffin , here at VDARE.com on October 24th, offered a couple more "sane Donald Trumps":
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. How did they fare with the GOP Establishment?
Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he
has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. Probably he's less well-informed
about the world than the average pol. I doubt he could tell you what
the capital of Burkina Faso is. That's secondary, though. A President has people to look up that
stuff for him. The question that's been asked more than any other about Donald Trump is not, pace
Peggy Noonan, "Is he nuts?" but, "
Is he conservative? "
I'm sure he is. But my definition of "conservative" is temperamental, not political. My touchstone
here is the sketch of the conservative temperament given to us by the English political philosopher
Michael Oakeshott :
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried
to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the
near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss.
That fits Trump better than it fits any liberal you can think of-better also than many senior
Republicans.
For example, it was one of George W. Bush's senior associates-probably Karl Rove-who scoffed at opponents
of Bush's delusional foreign policy as "the reality-based community." It would be hard to think of
a more un -Oakeshottian turn of phrase.
Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important,
the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power
of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment.
I thank him for that, and look forward to his Presidency.
"... I'll be interested to see how much Hillary tries to "work with Republicans" when it comes to foreign or domestic policy, as she's promising on the campaign trail. ..."
"... In a recent interview Biden was talking about how his "friends" in the Senate like McCain, Lindsy Graham, etc. - the sane ones who hate Trump - have to come out in support of the Republican plan to block Clinton from nominating a Supreme Court judge, because of if they don't, the Koch brothers will primary them. ..."
"... While I agree that the Republican party has been interested in whatever argument will win elections and benefit their donor class, doesn't the Democratic Party also have a donor class? Haven't Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton had a close relationship with some business interests? Did anyone go to jail after the asset bubble? Did welfare reform work or simply shift the problem out of view? How complicit are the Democrats in the great risk shift? ..."
"... I would think the scorched earth politics of the neoliberals required Democrats to shift to the right if they ever hoped to win an election, again. That is what it has looked like to me. The American equivalent of New Labor in Britain. So, we have a more moderate business-interest group of Democrats and a radical business-interest group of Republicans during the past 40 years. I think Kevin Phillips has made this argument. ..."
"... Our grand experimental shift back to classical theory involved supply side tax cuts, deregulation based on the magic of new finance theory, and monetarist pro-financial monetary policy. All of which gave us the masquerade of a great moderation that ended in the mother of all asset bubbles. While we shredded the safety net. ..."
"... Now the population is learning the arguments about free trade magically lifting all boats up into the capitalist paradise has blown up. We've shifted the risk onto the working population and they couldn't bear it. ..."
"... Economists lied to the American people about trade and continue to lie about the issue day in and day out. Brainwashing kids with a silly model called comparative advantage. ..."
This is all true but Krugman always fails to tell the other side of the story.
I'll be interested to see how much Hillary tries to "work with Republicans" when it comes
to foreign or domestic policy, as she's promising on the campaign trail.
The centrists always do this to push through centrist, neoliberal "solutions" which anger the
left.
In a recent interview Biden was talking about how his "friends" in the Senate like McCain,
Lindsy Graham, etc. - the sane ones who hate Trump - have to come out in support of the Republican
plan to block Clinton from nominating a Supreme Court judge, because of if they don't, the Koch
brothers will primary them.
Let's hope Hillary does something about campaign finance reform and Citizen United and takes
a harder line against obstructionist Republicans.
While I agree that the Republican party has been interested in whatever argument will win
elections and benefit their donor class, doesn't the Democratic Party also have a donor class?
Haven't Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton had a close relationship with some business
interests? Did anyone go to jail after the asset bubble? Did welfare reform work or simply shift
the problem out of view? How complicit are the Democrats in the great risk shift?
I would think the scorched earth politics of the neoliberals required Democrats to shift
to the right if they ever hoped to win an election, again. That is what it has looked like to
me. The American equivalent of New Labor in Britain. So, we have a more moderate business-interest
group of Democrats and a radical business-interest group of Republicans during the past 40 years.
I think Kevin Phillips has made this argument.
Our grand experimental shift back to classical theory involved supply side tax cuts, deregulation
based on the magic of new finance theory, and monetarist pro-financial monetary policy. All of
which gave us the masquerade of a great moderation that ended in the mother of all asset bubbles.
While we shredded the safety net.
Now the population is learning the arguments about free trade magically lifting all boats
up into the capitalist paradise has blown up. We've shifted the risk onto the working population
and they couldn't bear it.
Perhaps the less partisan take-way would be - is it possible for any political candidate to
get elected in this environment without bowing to the proper interests? How close did Bernie get?
And, how do we fix it without first admitting that the policies of both political parties have
not really addressed the social adjustments necessary to capture the benefits of globalization?
We need an evolution of both political parties - not just the Republicans. If we don't get it,
we can expect the Trump argument to take even deeper root.
Economists lied to the American people about trade and continue to lie about the issue day
in and day out. Brainwashing kids with a silly model called comparative advantage. East Asian
economists including Ha Joon Chang among others debunked comparative advantage and Ricardianism
long ago.
Manufacturing is everything. It is all that matters. We needed tariffs yesterday. Without them
the country is lost.
"... Among the more prominent exchanges released in the latest, 27th, Wikileaks release of Podesta emails is a thread from March 2016 which discusses a Politico article tilted " Clintonites: How we beat Bernie on trade ", and which reports that " Clinton faced internal pressure from her Brooklyn headquarters to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal she helped craft as secretary of State ." ..."
Among the more prominent exchanges released in the latest, 27th, Wikileaks release of Podesta
emails is a thread from
March 2016 which discusses a Politico article tilted "
Clintonites: How we beat Bernie on trade ", and which reports that " Clinton faced internal pressure
from her Brooklyn headquarters to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal she helped craft
as secretary of State ."
Senior Clinton strategist, Joel Benenson, is quoted in the piece as saying:
"Voters agree that we have to compete and win in a global economy and that means we have to
make things in the United States that we can sell to 95 percent of the world's consumers who happen
to live outside of the United States. What the data from the exit polls says is these voters were
more aligned with her fundamental view of trade ."
* * *
Clinton instead pushed back on Sanders' opposition to the Export-Import Bank, and doubled down
on the idea that America needs to compete and win in the global economy.
"We engaged with him on trade more forcefully," Benenson said. In the end, " I guess he came
off as an economic isolationist."
The article prompted Gene Sperling, former economic policy assistant to both Bill Clinton and
Obama to say:
" Do not get our spin here. Why we not hyping claw back, ROO, out front on steel, tough enforcement
on China?! Was this just her not talking to any of us and off on her own take?(But Joel is in
there ) please clarify."
To which, a clearly angry Tanden replies:
"Is Joel off reservation? Does he not get that this story makes Hillary seem politically craven
at best or a liar at worse? Or if this is campaign position, can I object ?"
She then adds: " Hard to say she believes what she says when Joel is spinning that she doesn't
mean what she is out there saying. Her language was pretty tough last week. "
Finally, she concludes that " Sanders or trump can move on this. "
Thiel also criticized the media's coverage of Trump's bombastic remarks. He said that while the
media takes Trump's remarks "literally" but not "seriously," he believes Trump supporters take them
seriously but not literally. In short, Trump isn't actually going to impose religious tests on
immigrants or build a wall along the Mexican border, as he has repeatedly said, but will simply
pursue "saner, more sensible" immigration policies.
"His larger-than-life persona attracts a lot of attention. Nobody would suggest that Donald Trump is
a humble man. But the big things he's right about amount to a much needed dose of humility in our
politics," Thiel said.
While the Silicon Valley tech corridor and suburbs around Washington have thrived in the last
decade or more, many other parts of the country have been gutted by economic and trade policies
that closed manufacturing plants and shipped jobs overseas, Thiel said, reiterating a previous
talking point.
"Most Americans don't live by the Beltway or the San Francisco Bay. Most Americans haven't
been part of that prosperity," Thiel said Monday. "It shouldn't be surprising to see people vote
for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump, who is the only outsider left in the race."
Thiel later said he had hoped the presidential race might come down to Sanders and Trump, two
outsiders with distinct views on the root cause of the nation's economic malaise and the best
course of action to fix it. "That would have been a very different sort of debate," he said.
Thiel's prepared remarks seemed more of an admonishment of the state of the country today than a
ringing endorsement of Trump's persona and policies. He decried high medical costs and the lack
of savings baby boomers have on hand. He said millennials are burdened by soaring tuition costs
and a poor outlook on the future. Meanwhile, he said, the federal government has wasted trillions
of dollars fighting wars in Africa and the Middle East that have yet to be won.
Trump is the only candidate who shares his view that the country's problems are substantial and
need drastic change to be repaired, Thiel said. Clinton, on the other hand, does not see a need
for a hard reset on some of the country's policies and would likely lead the U.S. into additional
costly conflicts abroad, he said.
A self-described libertarian, Thiel amassed his fortune as the co-founder of digital payment
company PayPal and data analytics firm Palantir Technologies. He has continued to add to that
wealth through venture capital investments in companies that include Facebook, Airbnb, Lyft and
Spotify, among many others.
"... Actually there is a point about reducing migration that can be rationally made. It's not about racial purity or demonising refugees but the prospect of high population growth brings great challenges and a. Need to assess what population Australia can reasonably sustain. ..."
"... It's interesting that Australia has benefited greatly by migration since WW2. The enriching of our economic and cultural fabric has been incontestable. But maybe we've reached the safe limits of population growth. Even the Bernadis and Abetz clans have reached here relatively recently. ..."
"... Call me old fashioned but I thought it was the responsibility of Governments to develop sound policies in the interests of the country and EXPLAIN them to the voters so that they can get understanding and support. This seems to be way beyond our politicians now, they throw anything up in the air and abandon it when there is opposition. So much for integrity and conviction. ..."
"... This morning an economic think tank recommended doubling the immigration intake, saying it would "increase per capita GDP" despite the fact that per capita GDP has gone backwards due to increased migration. ..."
"... If you halved the current migration rate it would return to historical levels, and be better for the economy and for the well being of the people already here. ..."
"... The problem is not with migration in this country, but with the 457 visa program where employers, like Caltex and 7Eleven, pay below award wages and provide poor working conditions. ..."
"... This flows on into the broader community festering discontent amongst Australians who see their jobs and employment conditions disappearing. ..."
"... Rather than focusing on immigrants, how about a thoughtful discussion of growth: what it means, how it ought to be measured, what's good and bad about it, and moving forward, what we as a society want in those terms. Immigration will assume a far more meaningful place in the context of a discussion of that kind, which would hopefully incorporate a strong environmental focus. But even in terms of the latter, issues of sustainability are not simply about raw population numbers but ultimately about lifestyle, modes of consumption, and energy use. ..."
"... What's really interesting here are the telling contradictions within the governing party between its fundamental commitments to neo-liberalism and ever-increasing growth in GDP as absolute goods, and its stumbling attempts to also embrace political reaction against the economic consequences of both policies. ..."
"... In that sense Bernardi is a useful idiot - plays to reaction through the red herring of prejudice (plus allowing the extreme right in the LNP to vent a bit of steam) while remaining rock-solid behind neo-liberalism and free markets -- at least, when it comes to the free movement of capital anyway (though the LNP has very astutely used various categories of working visa as an attempt to gradually entrench the movement of labour also, though not in any 'free' sense, just in the interests of maximizing profits). ..."
"... Yes it has, but Australia is now a vastly different place to what it was in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Back then there was plenty of land and housing, jobs available to anyone who wanted them, and the roads and hospitals were virtually empty. ..."
"... Australia isn't like that anymore and anyone living in the major cities knows how overcrowded they currently are. The 2 bedroom flat opposite me is being rented out and 7 people are living in it. Also, one of the garages downstairs is being occupied by a small family of three.. ..."
"... We need pro family policies if we wish to reduce migration. Working women must be given bigger incentives. ..."
Liberal senator, who has reiterated his support for Trump while on taxpayer-funded
secondment to the UN, calls on government to 'reconsider' refugee intake
quintal -> MadDuck
Hi mad duck
Actually there is a point about reducing migration that can be rationally made. It's not
about racial purity or demonising refugees but the prospect of high population growth brings
great challenges and a. Need to assess what population Australia can reasonably sustain.
We are, Antarctica aside, the driest, ,soil poor of all the continents. To put further
pressure on our resources by too great a population increase is not wise.
It's interesting that Australia has benefited greatly by migration since WW2. The
enriching of our economic and cultural fabric has been incontestable. But maybe we've reached
the safe limits of population growth. Even the Bernadis and Abetz clans have reached here
relatively recently.
It's also instructive that those countries with relatively small populations that invest in
people as opposed to mines are economically more successful than are we. Think Singapore,
Sweden, Switzerland. Taken together they have about half of Austrlias population and are
amongst the strongest economies in the world.
So there's an irony that Senator BErnadi, detestable in so many of his statements, makes some
common purpose with environmental groups .
Ironic but I suppose that it is what it is and the issue needs some careful thought.
Cheers
Alpo88 1h ago
"Cory Bernardi warns One Nation will rise if migration not halved"....
Liberal Civil War- Dispatch from the front N. 22:
General Bernardi, commander of the Third Infantry Division of the Confederate Army of the
Australian Conservatives has sent an ultimatum to the besieged contingent of the Army of the
Waffler in Canberra warning that an all out assault, with a taking-no-prisoners rule is being
prepared unless the Waffler's Army surrenders immediately and unconditionally.
Commander in Chief Gen. Turnbull is reported to be in his bunker, frantically thinking how to
respond to the ultimatum: a task that he has described to his entourage as "squaring the
circle in a way that nobody notices I have failed in the task"....
A review of the young stormtroopers deployed to protect the bunker is planned for this
afternoon....
Facebook Twitter
McMurdo 1h ago
What an intelligent approach, there is criticism of policy so drop it quickly.
Call me old fashioned but I thought it was the responsibility of Governments to develop
sound policies in the interests of the country and EXPLAIN them to the voters so that they can
get understanding and support. This seems to be way beyond our politicians now, they throw
anything up in the air and abandon it when there is opposition. So much for integrity and
conviction.
Of course Bernardi is being opportunistic here and using scare tactics to get a policy
change he wants for other reasons. That he even tries this stunt indicates the very low point
our
politics has reached. In a healthy system his views would be disowned and rejected instantly.
Our brave pollies will spend days wafting in the wind waiting to see how much support he gets
before they declare a position, if they manage that at all. Pathetic.
ajostu 1h ago
OK I loathe Bernardi, but it's time to look at a bit of history.
John Howard has admitted that his "Stop The Boats" policy was a bait-and-switch scheme to
soften the public's resistance to higher immigration. Other ministers from the period
(Costello, Vanstone) have supported this version of history.
So while pushing the we-hate-boat-people line, Howard doubled the regular immigration intake.
Rudd, Gillard and Abbott have all gone along with this in a completely bipartisan fashion.
Why? Because it's what lazy, uninnovative Australian business wants. More people, business
expands, CEO bonus, that's all that matters.
Meanwhile people (particularly in Sydney and Melbourne) are noticing that their quality of
life has gone down. Cities are crowded, traffic appalling, and young people can't buy a house
(though immigration is a small factor in that last one).
Both Labour and Liberal have completely buggered up regular immigration. The 457 scheme is a
disaster, below-minimum-wage pseudo-slavery is widespread, and "students" are rorting the
system left right and centre.
And the Greens do SFA because they'd have to choose between genuine sustainability (which is,
you know, what Greens are supposed to be on about) and an open migration policy (because they
don't have the political skills to separate refugees from the overall intake).
This morning an economic think tank recommended doubling the immigration intake, saying it
would "increase per capita GDP" despite the fact that per capita GDP has gone backwards due to
increased migration.
If you halved the current migration rate it would return to historical levels, and be
better for the economy and for the well being of the people already here.
Of course Bernardi doesn't care about any of that he only cares about One Nation. But if One
Nation is the only party proposing a reduction in immigration, they'll get a lot of votes.
FredLurk 1h ago
I hate to agree with Bernadi, but he's dead right. Look at what is happening in Paris right
now. Ask yourself, do we want this here?
The problem is not with migration in this country, but with the 457 visa program where
employers, like Caltex and 7Eleven, pay below award wages and provide poor working conditions.
This flows on into the broader community festering discontent amongst Australians who
see their jobs and employment conditions disappearing.
But Bernadi and his ilk choose to distract from corporate malfeasance by playing the racist
card, and thereby protecting the vested interests of the Coalition.
Filipio 1h ago
I happen to be a fan of immigration to Australia. It's enriched Australian society
enormously. At the same time can we please move on from seeing GDP as some kind of sacred
measure of all that is holy and good, even in economic terms?
Rather than focusing on immigrants, how about a thoughtful discussion of growth: what it
means, how it ought to be measured, what's good and bad about it, and moving forward, what we
as a society want in those terms. Immigration will assume a far more meaningful place in the
context of a discussion of that kind, which would hopefully incorporate a strong environmental
focus. But even in terms of the latter, issues of sustainability are not simply about raw
population numbers but ultimately about lifestyle, modes of consumption, and energy use.
What's really interesting here are the telling contradictions within the governing party
between its fundamental commitments to neo-liberalism and ever-increasing growth in GDP as
absolute goods, and its stumbling attempts to also embrace political reaction against the
economic consequences of both policies.
In that sense Bernardi is a useful idiot - plays to reaction through the red herring of
prejudice (plus allowing the extreme right in the LNP to vent a bit of steam) while remaining
rock-solid behind neo-liberalism and free markets -- at least, when it comes to the free
movement of capital anyway (though the LNP has very astutely used various categories of
working visa as an attempt to gradually entrench the movement of labour also, though not in
any 'free' sense, just in the interests of maximizing profits).
jack1878 -> Filipio 43m ago
"I happen to be a fan of immigration to Australia. It's enriched Australian society
enormously."
Yes it has, but Australia is now a vastly different place to what it was in the 40s, 50s
and 60s. Back then there was plenty of land and housing, jobs available to anyone who wanted
them, and the roads and hospitals were virtually empty.
Australia isn't like that anymore and anyone living in the major cities knows how
overcrowded they currently are. The 2 bedroom flat opposite me is being rented out and 7
people are living in it. Also, one of the garages downstairs is being occupied by a small
family of three..
Is this what we really want? Just because a policy worked well 50 years ago doesn't mean it
should be retained for eternity.
jack1878 1h ago
I hate to say it, but I agree with Bernardi on the issue of immigration--but not much else.
To still be carrying out a policy of mass immigration in these disastrous economic times ie.
no jobs, shortage of housing, overcrowded roads, hospitals etc. is a recipe for social unrest.
To cause such social unrest merely to prop up an overheated housing market and create a large
pool of cheap labour for the benefit of wealthy elites is about as irresponsible a policy as
you can get.
James Graham 45m ago
We need pro family policies if we wish to reduce migration. Working women must be given
bigger incentives.
Abolish the tax breaks for novated lease vehicles for a start. Lift the GST on cars to 15%.
And lets offer even higher incentives to have the 2nd and 3rd child.
SisterRhino -> NambuccaBarry 34m ago
I note even CNN ( Clinton Network News!) that has championed the same views of Donald Trump
that you have just outlined, is starting to distance itself from Hillary.
She's so tainted that she will be of no use to her benefactors if she does squeak across
the line. Who'd be dumb enough to be asking for the favours they've paid for given the
scrutiny she'd going to be under from hereon in?
Just watch....as her backers desert the ship, one by one, then all at once.
"... HEDGES: Well what feeds the hatred toward the west has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It has to do with the one-thousand-pound iron fragmentation bombs and cruise missiles and 155 artillery shells that are being dropped all over areas that ISIS controls. ..."
"... That is a far more potent engine of rage than anything Trump says and I think sometimes we forget what we' re doing and the state terror that is delivered day in and day out on Muslims in areas that have been opened up by these failed states because of our military adventurism in countries like Libya and Iraq. ..."
"... : Chris the recently released WikiLeaks indicate that Hillary Clinton is involved in conspiring in maintaining Israels nuclear dominance in the region and containing Irans nuclear development program. ..."
"... Yea, I mean shes quite upfront. I have to give her credit on that in terms of her militantly pro-Israel stance. She of course has courted quite successfully wealthy pro-Israeli donors attacking the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement. ..."
"... So one of the dangers of Clinton and shes called for a no fly zone over Syria. Well, people forget that when you institute a no fly zone, that is patrolled and that requires very heavy presence of US forces. ..."
HEDGES: Well what feeds the hatred toward the west has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It
has to do with the one-thousand-pound iron fragmentation bombs and cruise missiles and 155 artillery
shells that are being dropped all over areas that ISIS controls.
That is a far more potent engine of rage than anything Trump says and I think sometimes we
forget what we' re doing and the state terror that is delivered day in and day out on Muslims in areas
that have been opened up by these failed states because of our military adventurism in countries
like Libya and Iraq.
PERIES: So connect those two for us. Give us some examples of how the war on terror in the Middle
East, Syria in particular, is causing this kind of islamophobia here and our hesitancy about doing
humanitarian work by accepting refugees that are fleeing these wars and how it manifests itself in
the form of islamophobia here.
HEDGES: Well, islamophobia here is a doctrine that plays quite conveniently into the goals of
the corporate state in the same way that anti-communism once played into the goals of our capitalist
democracy. So the caricature of threats from the Muslim world independent of the actual possibility
of those threats has especially since 9/11, one of the corner stones of the argument that has been
used by the security and surveillance state to strip us of basic civil liberties, including for instance,
under the Obama administration, misinterpreting the 2001 authorization to use military force act
as giving the executive branch to right to assassinate American citizens. Of course I'm talking about
Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son.
So the rise of islamophobia has been largely independent of anything Muslims have done other than
perhaps initially the attacks of 9/11. The continued over 15 years of indiscriminate violence, industrial
violence, delivered on whole swaps of the Muslim world has stirred up the kind of hornet' s nest that
we' re seeing enraged not only among Muslims in the Muslim world but Muslims in Europe and many other
parts of the globe who despite Clinton' s rhetoric see this as a war against Muslims. I think that
although she speaks in kind of a softer and more tolerate tone, Clinton has been one of the main
architects of the attacks for instance in Libya that have given or empowered or given rise to groups
like ISIS. While Clinton' s rhetoric is certainly more palatable, she has been an enthusiastic supporter
that we are going to bomb our way into peace in the Muslim world.
PERIES: Chris give us a sense of the climate created by what both candidates eluded to that Muslims
in this country has to help us in terms of identifying potential terrorists and any kind of activities
in the community that might feed terrorists attacks here. What does this do to a society?
HEDGES: Well it turns us into a society of informers. I think we have to acknowledge how pervasive
the harassment is of Muslim Americans when they go through the airport, intrusive invasions of their
privacy by Homeland Security, the FBI, and others. We have to acknowledge that almost all of the
homegrown terrorist attacks that the FBI have broken have been orchestrated by the FBI usually with
people of marginal means and sometimes marginal intelligence being prodded and often provided supposed
equipment to carry out terrorist attacks. The racial profiling that has gone on coupled with the
rhetoric and this is very dangerous because if you take already an alienated youth and subject it
to this kind of unrelenting harassment, then you provide a recipe for homegrown radicalism.
So yes it' s once again an effort in this case on part of the Trump rhetoric to blame the Muslims
for not only their own victimhood but for terrorist attacks that are being driven by jihadist whom
the vast majority, 99 plus percent of the Muslim world has no contact with and probably very little
empathy for, I mean there' s 4 to 5 million Muslims, I think I have that right, in the United States.
Most of them have integrated quite successfully into American. Unlike in Britain because Muslim immigrants
in the United States whereas in Europe, France, they came over as laborers, we largely absorbed Muslim
professional classes, doctors, engineers, and others and the Muslim community in the United States
is pretty solidly middle class and professional.
... ... ...
PERIES: Chris the recently released WikiLeaks indicate that Hillary Clinton
is involved in conspiring in maintaining Israels nuclear dominance in the region and containing
Irans nuclear development program. Your comments on those WikiLeaks.
HEDGES:Yea, I mean shes quite upfront. I have to give her credit on that in terms of
her militantly pro-Israel stance. She of course has courted quite successfully wealthy
pro-Israeli donors attacking the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement. And she has and will
continue what are considered Israeli interests in the region which are not our interest. Israel
pushed very heavily for an invasion of Iraq as a way to destroy a powerful state within the
region. That did not serve our interests at all. In fact, it elevated to the dominant position
within the region, Iran and out of these vacuums gave birth to these jihadist groups and got us
embroiled in wars that we can never win.
So one of the dangers of Clinton and shes called for a no fly zone over Syria. Well, people
forget that when you institute a no fly zone, that is patrolled and that requires very heavy
presence of US forces. Not just air forces but ground stations, radar stations,
anti-aircraft missile batteries. Shes quite openly calling for a further escalation for American
involvement in the Syrian quagmire which of course again we did so much to create by along with
our allies, the Saudis and Qataris and others pumping so many arms in them. I think we gave a
billion dollars worth of arms to Syrian rebels as if you can control where those arms go, just in
the last year.
"... The international community considers backroom corporate trade deals as one example of the general problem of fragmentation. The US government tries to end-run the UN Charter with NATO. It tries to end-run ILO conventions with the WTO. It tries to end-run economic and social rights with ISDS. It tries to end-run sovereign debt principles (e.g. A/69/L.84) with the Paris Club and the IMF. In response, the international community has been working to synthesize the different legal regimes in an objective way. ..."
"... Corporate special pleading gets subsumed in old-time diplomacy, finding common ground, so the pitched-battle narrative is absent, but when Zayas comes out and says ISDS cannot negate human rights, this is the context. They're trying to preserve a non-hierarchical regime in which the only absolute is the purposes and principles of the UN: peace and development, which comes down to human rights. ..."
The international community considers backroom corporate trade deals as one example of
the general problem of fragmentation. The US government tries to end-run the UN Charter with NATO.
It tries to end-run ILO conventions with the WTO. It tries to end-run economic and social rights
with ISDS. It tries to end-run sovereign debt principles (e.g. A/69/L.84) with the Paris Club
and the IMF. In response, the international community has been working to synthesize the different
legal regimes in an objective way.
Corporate special pleading gets subsumed in old-time diplomacy, finding common ground,
so the pitched-battle narrative is absent, but when Zayas comes out and says ISDS cannot negate
human rights, this is the context. They're trying to preserve a non-hierarchical regime in which
the only absolute is the purposes and principles of the UN: peace and development, which comes
down to human rights.
"... Reality dictates ...abstaining or voting for anyone other than Donald Trump is a de facto vote for Hillary Clinton. As POTUS she has declared her intentions of imposing a (Libyan style) "NO FLY" zone over Syria, to "Obliterate" "Iran" and "Russia", confront China and expand the globalization of the American economy. ..."
"... For the sake of all humanity, criminal warmonger Hillary must be voted out on Nov.8 2016 ..."
"... While what you say may be half true, you miss the point entirely. It's irrelevant weather or not Trump keeps his words as we have no control over that anyway. What we do have control over however is not giving a mandate to Hillary's criminal war making intentions and the only way to do that under the circumstances, is to vote her out, by voting Trump in period. ..."
"... The clever economic left realizes that although Trump has some of dem ebul GOP economic ideas, he's more sensible than Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... I think b should've taken note of the Hillary camp's attempt in recent days to play down her militarism. ..."
"... IMO the best strategy is to vote Trump in battleground states and vote Green everywhere else. ..."
"... Very early on, I was of the opinion that Hillary's negatives were so high that her run should be seen as electing the Republican. But neocon defections, DNC collusion, 'sheepdog' Sanders, and more convinced me that the establishment really does want a Hillary coronation. ..."
"... The lesser-evilists are assuming that there aren't enough votes, so you are just taking votes from the lesser evil and helping the greater evil. True if their assumption is true, that there aren't enough votes for a third party to win. ..."
"... Another third-party argument is sending a signal to party leaders and the public that there are voters who despise the oligarchy candidates. That would improve growth of a third party (it would also attract oligarchy influence to them). ..."
"... We need to stop letting the corporate press goad us into fighting over trivia - transgenders in bathrooms! Trump's hair! Clinton's smile! - and focus on what is truly crucial. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton is a monster and God help us all if she wins. I envision President Clinton with perfectly coiffed hair with a rosy plastic smile (kudos to her mortician) giving a perfectly written speech with all the trendy buzzwords (celebrating diversity, helping the middle class, sustainable energy, etc.etc.) while outside the world burns. ..."
"... Whatever you do, no matter how much the corporate press tells you that Trump is 'finished,' go to the polls and vote. Because for the first time in decades, a US presidential election matters. ..."
"... Trump will meet with much resistance from the establishment. His worst instincts will be constrained. That is not true for Hillary & Co. ..."
"... A loss for a corrupted Democratic Party is best for the country. A strong showing by Greens is a further embarrassment. The left can then build on a solid foundation. ..."
"... Chomsky advocated for voting for Hillary in battleground states and Greens elsewhere. ..."
"... I do not believe that the 'Third Way' Democratic Party can be changed from within. The example of Obama and Hillary should have disabused any progressive of such fantasies. ..."
"... Trump, both domestically and internationally is the best breath of fresh air in American politics since FDR. Of course purists and utopians might disagree, but when he wins on Nov.8,I'll treat that day as the second 4th of July. America first, at long last, instead of traitors for zion. Hoo haw. Todays Wapoo intimates Trump anti-Semite. And Colin liar Powell is for the Hell Bitch. ..."
"... This elections cycle almost all fake leftist and NeoCon, both Democratic Party and Republicans voting for Hillary. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is taken straight out of "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties" by Oded Yinon, also known as The Yinon Plan. ..."
"... I am a spectator outside the USSA. USSA policies affect all of humanity on planet earth. A vote for the Clinton adds another potential 16 years reign in the WH, a continuation of the corruption, death, destruction and endless wars. ..."
"... Since the 1990s in Arkansas then in D.C., their retirement is long overdue. Stop the Clintons from enriching themselves on the public purse…foreign and domestic. ..."
"... OMg Illary cares about women's rights but takes $millions in donations from such likes as KSA, Qatar. Not to mention, countries that are steeped in poverty. Take a look at the donors to the Clinton Foundation. ..."
Some highlights of a recent Donald Trump
interview with Reuters:
U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton's
plan for Syria would "lead to World War Three," because of the potential for conflict with military
forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a
higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down,..
Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin after
demonizing him; blamed President Barack Obama for a downturn in U.S. relations with the Philippines
under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte;...
Trump's foreign policy talk is far more sane than Clinton's and her camp's. It is ludicrous
to event think about openly attacking Russian (or Syrian) troops in Syria with an al-Qaeda supporting
"no-Fly-Zone". Russia would respond by taking down U.S. planes over Syria. The Russian government
would have to do so to uphold its authority internationally as well as at home.
The U.S. could respond by destroying all Russian assets in and around Syria. It has the capabilities.
But then what? If I were Putin my next step would be a nuclear test shoot in Siberia - a big one
- to make a point and to wake up the rest of the world. I would also provide secret support to any
indigenous anti-U.S. movement anywhere. China would support Russia as its first line of self defense.
"What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria," said Trump as he dined
on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. "You're going to end up in
World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton.
"You're not fighting Syria any more, you're fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia
is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,"
he said.
...
On Russia, Trump again knocked Clinton's handling of U.S.-Russian relations while secretary of
state and said her harsh criticism of Putin raised questions about "how she is going to go back
and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil," if she wins the presidency.
On the deterioration of ties with the Philippines, Trump aimed his criticism at Obama, saying
the president "wants to focus on his golf game" rather than engage with world leaders.
The last two points are important. Trump, despite all his bluster, knows about decency. What is
the point of arrogantly scolding negotiation partner who have the power to block agreements you want
or need?
Why blame Russia for hacking wide open email servers when
no Russian speakers were involved? Why blame Duterte? It is the U.S. that has a long
history of violent racism in the Philippines and FBI agents
committed false flag "terrorism" is Duterte's home town Davao. Bluster may paper over such history
for a moment but it does not change the facts or helps solving problems.
Trump's economic policies would be catastrophic for many people in the U.S. and elsewhere.
But Hillary Clinton would put her husband, the man who deregulated Wall Street, back in charge of
the economy. What do people expect the results would be?
The points above may be obvious and one might be tempted to just pass them and dig into some nig-nagging
of this or that election detail. But the above points as THE most important of any election. The
welfare of the people is not decided with some "liberal" concession to this or that niche of the
general society. The big issues count the most. Good or evil flow from them. Trumps principle, and
I think personal position, is leaning towards peaceful resolution of conflicts. Clinton's preference
is clearly, as her history shows, escalation and general belligerence. It is too risky to vote for
her.
Reality dictates ...abstaining or voting for anyone other than Donald Trump is a de facto vote
for Hillary Clinton. As POTUS she has declared her intentions of imposing a (Libyan style) "NO
FLY" zone over Syria, to "Obliterate" "Iran" and "Russia", confront China and expand the globalization
of the American economy.
Thus all Americans by default and their own actions will have given her a mandate to do her
will and thereby become complicit in their own economic destruction, war crimes and potentially
starting world war three and a planetary thermonuclear holocaust.
Striped of all the other none issue nonsense and distractions the critical choice we are all
faced with making is that simple. And one that will for all eternity weigh on our collective souls
conscience.
For the sake of all humanity, criminal warmonger Hillary must be voted out on Nov.8 2016
Why are you still beating on that worn out tin drum of yours, Dr. Jill Stein isn't going anywhere,
not even if she politically walks on water. You keep at it like the dog in a manger, gnawing on
the remains of some desiccated bone. What you (and others maintaining your OPINIONS) have become
is stool pigeons to land some herd of discontents into the position of self inflicted voter suppression,
their votes without effect on the outcome of the election. If you and the others weren't so completely
innumerate, you would realise the first division in the election was between elegible participants
and non-participants. Of the participants only voters for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump
will decide the eventual winner (with the highly probable event of assisted voting machine fraud).
All other votes are the effete delusions of some morally deranged cult. There Is No Alternative
(TINA) is the illusion of your political kindred is saying there is an alternative. You cannot
point out even one city commission in the top thousand that either the 'Greens' or 'Libertarians'
exercise control over, at best there may be a Communist mayor somewhere in that number. If perchance
Dr Stein were to win, where is the political support necessary to conduct governance at any level?
No your ideas come from Walt Disney directly - they are cartoon delusions. You need to carry a
warning whenever you express your opinions, like those posted on nuts - My opinion may contain
delusions.
About the only ability for today's voter to have any effect on the voting system is to provide
an unexpected aggregate that would draw back the curtains to expose the expectations and machinations
of the vote counters. Voting as you suggest will only allow those manipulations to remain hidden
- not effective voting by any measure, nor is it voting one's interests. If any of your ilk have
a counter argument that will stand scrutiny, please have at it, otherwise your silence after once
stating your opinion might be your best course to follow.
While what you say may be half true, you miss the point entirely. It's irrelevant weather or
not Trump keeps his words as we have no control over that anyway. What we do have control over
however is not giving a mandate to Hillary's criminal war making intentions and the only way to
do that under the circumstances, is to vote her out, by voting Trump in period.
Anything else amounts to a dereliction of patriotic duty and criminal negligence.
The idea that there is any real "choice" here to be had, other than doing what's of a critical
necessity at this point in time, is totally delusional in and of itself buying into the illusion
that we have any real freedom of choices here. Sorry we don't have that luxury.
We don't have a choice, other than to resister our protest vote against the political establishment
which clearly doesn't want to see Trump win the presidency of the US empire under any circumstances.
Given how close trump has gotten to within the reach of taking real power as commander in chief
of the worlds most powerful imperial empire, the deep state and political establishment will make
sure that, that threat will never happen again, if they even allow him to live very much longer.
So no second chances here for us all in another 4-8 years down the road, nor for all the men,
women and children victims to be killed by wars in all the countries Hillary has set her cross-hair
sights on as soon as she takes control of the entire state apparatus from the white house.
Time to get off our asses and get real here, and back on the right side of history, if but
for once in our lifetimes.
Talk is cheep but action is not. As in Trump's Gettysburg address he said "we have now crossed
the Rubicon" and heaven or hell there's no going back to the status quo, as he's already declared
war on the corrupt state department, the media and the whole of the elite's political establishment.
"So there's but one choice left to make here, and it's which side are you fighting on?"
According to an email from Marissa Astor, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook's assistant,
to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, the campaign knew Trump was going to run, and pushed
his legitimacy as a candidate.
WikiLeaks' release shows that it was seen as in Clinton's best
interest to run against Trump in the general election. The memo, sent to the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) also reveals the DNC and Clinton campaign were strategizing on behalf of their
candidate at the very beginning of the primaries. "We think our goals mirror those of the DNC,"
stated the memo, attached to the email under the title "muddying the waters."
The memo named Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson as wanted candidates. "We need to be
elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press
to them seriously," the memo noted.
Clinton was widely presumed to be the Democratic presidential nominee long before the primaries
began. This assumption was held by the mainstream media and the Democratic Party leadership.
Expecting Clinton to be the nominee, the DNC and Clinton campaign developed strategies for
the general election.
In June, hacker Guccifer 2.0 released an opposition research dossier on Trump, dated December
19, 2015. Coincidentally, no other opposition research dossiers were released by Guccifer 2.0
from the DNC hacks.
It was in the best interest of Clinton, and therefore the Democratic Party, that Trump was
the Republican presidential nominee. Polls indicated Sen. Rubio, Gov. Kasich, or almost any
other establishment Republican would likely beat Clinton in a general election. Even Cruz,
who is reviled by most Republicans, would still maintain the ability to rally the Republican
Party-especially its wealthy donors-around his candidacy. Clinton and Democrats expected the
FBI investigation into her private email server would serve as a major obstacle to Clinton's
candidacy, and the public's familiarity with her scandals and flip-flopping political record
put her at a disadvantage against a newcomer. Donald Trump solved these problems.
All the Clinton campaign had to do was push the mainstream media in the general direction
of covering and attacking Trump as though he was the star of the Republican presidential primaries.
As the presumed Democratic nominee, whomever she decided to dignify by responding to-whether
the comments were directed at her or not-would be presumed to be the spokesperson, or nominee,
of the Republican Party.
"Clinton, Trump trade insults as rhetoric heats up between front-runners," read the headline
from a CNN article in September 2015. "Hillary Clinton Seizes On Donald Trump's Remarks to
Galvanize Women," read a New York Times headline from December. Several media outlets criticized
the mainstream media obsession with Trump, but despite a few concerns that the media was propping
up his legitimacy as a candidate with their constant news coverage, it continued unabatedly.
The mainstream media was more than willing to do the Clinton campaign and DNC's work for
them by creating a narrative that the 2016 presidential elections was about Hillary Clinton
vs. Donald Trump.
Hey T bear are you Aussie, their was a poster T bear banging on in Aussie press, quite liked your
arguments as of now.
As Trump policy I predicted it (quite like Alexander Mercouris ) by 1. observation of what is
said, what was not said and what you can tease out of the rest. After the 2 debate i was convinced
that Trump would not declare "Assad must go " Just for this he has my consent to be POTUS.
How does the saying go?... 'oh what a tangled web we weave when we seek to deceive". Hence
I don't believe that if Hillary actually chose Trump to be who she ran against, that she (nor
all the expert politico's around her)had any real idea of what a Pandora's box they were opening.
Same thing go's for Trump, whom I don't think understood how fate and destiney would seize
him and transform his role in life into a renegade against the systemic corruption of the deep
state's political establishment.
Now only a year back, I would never have thought and sooner die and be the last person on earth
to be plumbing for a megalomaniac character like billionaire Trump.
But when faced with the real prospect of a criminally indictable and clinically insane, maniacal
psychopathic personality like Hillary, having her finger on the red nuclear button, my instincts
for survival and that of all humanity, informs my rational judgements and actions.
And that's essentially the basis on which I've decided that voting for Trump is the only sane
option left to try and avert more wars and the possibility of a thermonuclear disaster.
Very early on, I was of the opinion that Hillary's negatives were so high that her run should
be seen as electing the Republican. But neocon defections, DNC collusion, 'sheepdog' Sanders, and more convinced me that the establishment
really does want a Hillary coronation.
"About 30% of what's on Veterans Today is patently false. About 40% of what I write is at
least purposefully partially false. Because if I didn't write false information I wouldn't
be alive. I simply have to do that."
Your points are good but there is no need for this vitriol: the opposing points are also good
as far as they go.
You believe that a third party is the only way out of the 2-party oligarchy sham. True only
if it works, which it hasn't. You are assuming that there are, or eventually would be enough voters.
That argument is missing so far. Provide that evidence and you beat the lesser-evilists.
The lesser-evilists are assuming that there aren't enough votes, so you are just taking votes
from the lesser evil and helping the greater evil. True if their assumption is true, that there
aren't enough votes for a third party to win.
You both need to get that evidence before getting angry.
Another third-party argument is sending a signal to party leaders and the public that there
are voters who despise the oligarchy candidates. That would improve growth of a third party (it
would also attract oligarchy influence to them).
I think that your anger would be better directed at the problem (take out MSM stations and
staff and oligarchy generally). Between ourselves, let's get the evidence on vote effects.
Consider each state a 'battleground' state, there are national aggregates to consider that,
if nothing else, shed light on the historical contest for future historians to inspect and pass
judgement, particularly should the qualified 'not participating' outnumber the qualified participants.
No telling what future criteria will be about the validity of sub-median voter turnout, in some
places it is enough to invalidate a poll, that could easily spread.
@ 12
No, not Aussie but have friends who were. I hold the Australian government to be the hiding
place for the 3rd Reich, so not likely any beneficial relationship will exist.
@ fairleft | Oct 26, 2016 8:05:28 AM | 14
Experience informs those who rely on 'ad hominem' as defence against another's argument are
incapable of mounting a counter argument using facts. Furthermore, with few exception most so
doing have developmental problems and have not matured much past adolescence, they going
through life as man-children. Check back when you have matured. And that is definitely an ad
hominem - to the person.
We need to stop letting the corporate press goad us into fighting over trivia - transgenders
in bathrooms! Trump's hair! Clinton's smile! - and focus on what is truly crucial.
It's rational to worry about Trump. Yes, he has a good track record of getting along with business
partners when it counts, but he has no track record in governance. But Hillary Clinton is a monster
and God help us all if she wins. I envision President Clinton with perfectly coiffed hair with
a rosy plastic smile (kudos to her mortician) giving a perfectly written speech with all the trendy
buzzwords (celebrating diversity, helping the middle class, sustainable energy, etc.etc.) while
outside the world burns.
Whatever you do, no matter how much the corporate press tells you that Trump is 'finished,'
go to the polls and vote. Because for the first time in decades, a US presidential election matters.
Trump will meet with much resistance from the establishment. His worst instincts will be constrained.
That is not true for Hillary & Co.
A loss for a corrupted Democratic Party is best for the country. A strong showing by Greens
is a further embarrassment. The left can then build on a solid foundation.
@fair Chomsky advocated for voting for Hillary in battleground states and Greens elsewhere.
I do not believe that the 'Third Way' Democratic Party can be changed from within. The example
of Obama and Hillary should have disabused any progressive of such fantasies.
Trump, both domestically and internationally is the best breath of fresh air in American politics
since FDR.
Of course purists and utopians might disagree, but when he wins on Nov.8,I'll treat that day as
the second 4th of July.
America first, at long last, instead of traitors for zion.
Hoo haw. Todays Wapoo intimates Trump anti-Semite.
And Colin liar Powell is for the Hell Bitch.
The U.S. could respond by destroying all Russian assets in and around Syria. It has the capabilities.
But then what? If I were Putin my next step would be a nuclear test shoot in Siberia - a big
one - to make a point and to wake up the rest of the world.
Russia's "deescalation" procedure (in reality it could be viewed both ways) is a take off of
several strategic bombers (TU-160 from Engels) and deployment into the Arctic Region with subsequent
launch of salvo of cruise missiles (Kh-102) armed with nuclear warheads into the polygons or uninhabited
spaces. Putting all RVSN (nuclear strategic missile forces) on the immediate readiness (Combat
Station) is also an option.
There are certain ways, including diplomatic ones, to make "partners"
more attentive to the events. Plus, most likely, the price, which US and NATO would pay in case
some moron will decide to eliminate Russian Forces in Syria, will be very high purely militarily
and, especially, reputation-wise.
Attack on Russian Forces in Syria will also be the beginning
of the end of NATO, if not the outright collapse. In the end, Russia has means to directly conventionally
counter US, just this last quarter alone Russian Navy took delivery of 100+ cruise and ASMs of
Kaliber and Onyx-classes. Contingencies have been counted and planned for.
Trump's foreign policy summed up in a 35% levy threat on Ford exporting jobs to Mexico. Read my
lips ...! Nails the underlying tensions in the Race for the Place. The Big "F__k You!" election... Even the spinless Bernie S. is slithering into criticism of Klinton and the Wall St Gang. "Michael Moore Explains Why TRUMP Will Win"
James Clapper thinks the Russians just might be serious.....
'...says he wouldn't put it past Russia to "to shoot down an American aircraft" if a no-fly
zone is imposed over Syria.'
A loss for a corrupted Democratic Party is best for the country. A strong showing by Greens
is a further embarrassment. The left can then build on a solid foundation.
We are on the same wavelength. YES , we can't have Green and Democratic Party at the
same time. First eliminates the Democratic party in this election cycle. You can't eat your cake
and have it too . Therefore, voting against Democratic Party is my first priority.
This elections cycle almost all fake leftist and NeoCon, both Democratic Party and Republicans
voting for Hillary.
Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is taken straight out of "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen
Eighties" by Oded Yinon, also known as The Yinon Plan.
Here are are a few illustrative excerpts:
"The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated
than the Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place
recently. Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire
Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that
track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas
such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the
dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria
will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such
as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni
state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and
the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in
northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area
in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.
Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate
for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is
stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat
to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before
it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation
will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking
up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along
ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible."
Now compare this to what Gen. Wesley Clarke revealed about the lead-up to the Iraq War. Six
weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: "Are we still going to attack Iraq?" He said:
"Sir, it's worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: "I
just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office. It says we're going to attack and destroy
the governments in 7 countries in five years – we're going to start with Iraq, and then we're
going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran."
This document, and the events which have followed its publication, should lay to rest once
and for all any illusions we might have harboured in relation to the various wars in the Middle
East.
The depths of the associated treason and treachery are simply breathtaking and will continue in
overdrive should Hillary Rodent Clinton be elected President.
The only answer is eliminating the pre-selection mechanism that delivers the 2-candidate,
elephant/jackass non-choice every election.
This is the election to do so: No to Clinton, no to Trump
jfl, I have always admired and read your comments here on MoA.
Sadly your posit means either of these two candidates will be (s)elected. Third Party rise
in the USSA Will. Not. Happen. Anytime .Soon. Third Party candidates will not attract the ->$7
+ billions required to run for the presidency. The status quo prevails.
So, in this very close election, wherein Soros told Bloomberg Hillary is a done deal,
http://toprightnews.com/the-fix-is-in-george-soros-says-hillary-election-a-done-deal-despite-trump-landslide/
Amerikans are left with these two options; voting for the least dangerous of the two:
[.] The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won't do it, it's something.
Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don't want me to, and I believe I
must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton.
I am not of the mindset that any vote not for Trump is a vote for Hillary, but a vote for Trump
is a vote against Hillary. And I need to vote against Hillary. I need to vote against the media.
After the last debate, when no outlet "fact checked" Hillary's lie that her opposition to the
Heller decision had anything to do with children, or her lie that the State Department didn't
lose $6 billion under her leadership, I couldn't hold out any longer.
A Trump administration at least will include people I trust in positions that matter. I don't
know if they will be able to hold him completely in check, but I know a Clinton administration
will include people who have been her co-conspirators in corruption, and there won't even be a
media to hold her accountable.
The Wikileaks emails have exposed an arrogant cabal of misery profiteers who hold everyone,
even their fellow travelers deemed not pure enough, in contempt. These bigots who've made their
fortune from government service should be kept as far away from the levers of power as the car
keys should be kept from anyone named Kennedy on a Friday night. My one vote against it will not
be enough, but it's all I can do and I have to do all I can do.
I won't stop being critical of Trump when he deserves it; I won't pretend someone is handing
out flowers when they're shoveling BS. But I'd rather have BS shoveled out of a president than
our tax dollars shoveled to a president's friends and political allies.
The Project Vertias videos exposed a corrupt political machine journalists would have been
proud to expose in the past. The Wikileaks emails pulled back the curtain on why that didn't happen
– journalists are in on it. I can't pretend otherwise, and I have no choice but to oppose it.
[.]
I oppose much of what Donald Trump has said, but I oppose everything Hillary Clinton has done
and wants to do. And what someone says, no matter how objectionable, is less important than what
someone does, especially when it's so objectionable. A personal moral victory won't suffice when
the stakes are so high. As such, I am compelled to vote against Hillary by voting for the only
candidate with any chance whatsoever of beating her – Donald Trump.
~ ~ ~ I am a spectator outside the USSA. USSA policies affect all of humanity on planet earth. A vote
for the Clinton adds another potential 16 years reign in the WH, a continuation of the corruption,
death, destruction and endless wars.
Since the 1990s in Arkansas then in D.C., their retirement is long overdue. Stop the Clintons
from enriching themselves on the public purse…foreign and domestic.
OMg Illary cares about women's rights but takes $millions in donations from such likes as KSA,
Qatar. Not to mention, countries that are steeped in poverty. Take a look at the donors to the
Clinton Foundation.
The Clintons have no shame, no conscience and they can't grow one.
@ 12
No, not Aussie but have friends who were. I hold the Australian government to be one of
the hiding place s for the 3rd Reich, so not likely any beneficial relationship will exist.
...
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Oct 26, 2016 8:55:20 AM | 23
There, fixed it.
ALL of the Christian Colonial countries have pro-AmeriKKKan fascist governments which studiously
ignore the Will Of the People.
I can't think of a single X-tian government which has NOT fallen into lockstep with the US - in
flagrant defiance of the electorate.
Since we can't outbid the ppl who are bribing them to defy us, the only practical solution is
rg the lg's pitchforks.
I don't post here much anymore but Dr. Stein is the head of an NGO called the Green Party not
a political party. She is busy protesting in North Dakota to get on Democracy Now instead of camping
out in Bernie States pushing those voters to continue our political revolution with her. It's
a shame really.
I've never had much respect for the Green Party and they have shown that they are incapable
of becoming an oppisition party in the U.S.
If you are interested in 3rd parties take some time to check out the Justice Party and Rocky
Anderson. They are not active this cycle. The Justice Party does not have an International Party
which is problematic for the Greens in the U.S. The name Justice is much better in rhetorical
fights than Green and they are not riddled with former Democratic whores.
With that said vote for Trump in swing states. He is the Lesser of Two Evils and this time
we are talking about Nuclear War with Russia. Clinton is still a Goldwater Girl.
The Green Party should, for all intents and purposes, be opposed to a billionaire lobbyist like
Soros, however Jill Stein's running mate, Baraka, was also a board member at the Center for Constitutional
Rights, CCR.
There are other connections between the Green Party and George Soros, but I haven't got time
to pursue this....
Anyone interested should look into the period from 2004 to 2011, when Baraka was the Executive
Director of the US Human Rights Network, and look at who was funding the HUNDREDS of NGOs that
make up the Human Rights Network.
Anyone who seriously considers that voting...or NOT voting...for either of these creatures
will change a goddamned thing is totally asleep to what has happened in the U.S. over the past
60+ years.
Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen
and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional
government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized
political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish
a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology
but its organization… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government….
This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is
practically irremovable."
- Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech
Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law.
Say hello to America's shadow government.
A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed
by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents
the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.
No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow government is here
to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI reveal, this shadow government-also referred
to as "The 7th Floor Group"-may well have played a part in who will win the White House this
year.
And then go take care of your own business as best you can. The status quo will remain...hidden
in various ways as it has been hidden since the late '40s/early '50s...until it fails of its own
doing. No amount of talky talk talk, no amount of organizing, no amount of anything is going to
change what is up here. The best any of us can do is to try to reach one mind at a time.
Eisenhower tried to warn us in his farewell speech:
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the
main, understood these truths and have responded to them well in the face of threat and stress.
But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise.
Of these, I mention two only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty,
ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors
in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American
makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can
no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create
a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million
men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military
security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now
we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to
create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in
the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt
in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative
need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil,
resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous
rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the
proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture,
has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex,
and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal
government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces
of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university,
historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution
in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract
becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are
now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations,
and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also
be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive
of a scientific-technological elite.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations,
and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces,
new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme
goals of our free society.
"It is ludicrous to event think about openly attacking Russian (or Syrian) troops in Syria
with an al-Qaeda supporting "no-Fly-Zone". Russia would respond by taking down U.S. planes over
Syria. The Russian government would have to do so to uphold its authority internationally as well
as at home."
It is ludicrous. And stupid. It would also be tantamount to a declaration of war. And the chickenshit
US Military does NOT want a war with Russia, no matter what the daydreamers might say.
Stating that the Green Party can not win does not take reality into account. Only 18% of
voters participated in the primaries, the majority of voters are neither Democrats nor Republicans,
and the population of Millennials has surpassed that of the Baby Boomers.
Of course this doesn't change the fact that it is still very unlikely that Jill Stein will
win, but to imply that it's impossible is dishonest. I have always voted for the candidate that
I liked... never for the lesser of two evils. How different would the world be if Nader had either
won or gained popular support in 2000? Voting for the lesser of two evils has pushed the Republican
Party into crazy town with the Democratic Party taking their place.
I'm not arrogant enough to tell people how to vote, however I am arrogant enough to inform.
The lack of information and the inability to process more than one thought by both the voters
and the media, alternative included, is astounding.
I'm pretty sure that people on this site know what imposing a no-fly zone in Syria would entail.
How is this not advocating a war of aggression? Have we forgotten what the Nuremberg Tribunal
declared as the supreme international crime:
War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states
alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only
an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war
crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Not only do you have the current administration committing war crimes, you also have it's presidential
candidate openly advocating a war crime.
[.] The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won't do it, it's something.
Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don't want me to, and I believe I
must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton.
I am not of the mindset that any vote not for Trump is a vote for Hillary, but a vote for Trump
is a vote against Hillary. And I need to vote against Hillary. I need to vote against the media.
After the last debate, when no outlet "fact checked" Hillary's lie that her opposition to the
Heller decision had anything to do with children, or her lie that the State Department didn't
lose $6 billion under her leadership, I couldn't hold out any longer.
A Trump administration at least will include people I trust in positions that matter. I don't
know if they will be able to hold him completely in check, but I know a Clinton administration
will include people who have been her co-conspirators in corruption, and there won't even be a
media to hold her accountable.
The Wikileaks emails have exposed an arrogant cabal of misery profiteers who hold everyone,
even their fellow travelers deemed not pure enough, in contempt. These bigots who've made their
fortune from government service should be kept as far away from the levers of power as the car
keys should be kept from anyone named Kennedy on a Friday night. My one vote against it will not
be enough, but it's all I can do and I have to do all I can do.
I won't stop being critical of Trump when he deserves it; I won't pretend someone is handing
out flowers when they're shoveling BS. But I'd rather have BS shoveled out of a president than
our tax dollars shoveled to a president's friends and political allies.
The Project Vertias videos exposed a corrupt political machine journalists would have been
proud to expose in the past. The Wikileaks emails pulled back the curtain on why that didn't happen
– journalists are in on it. I can't pretend otherwise, and I have no choice but to oppose it.
[.]
I oppose much of what Donald Trump has said, but I oppose everything Hillary Clinton has
done and wants to do. And what someone says, no matter how objectionable, is less important than
what someone does, especially when it's so objectionable. A personal moral victory won't suffice
when the stakes are so high. As such, I am compelled to vote against Hillary by voting for the
only candidate with any chance whatsoever of beating her – Donald Trump.
~ ~ ~ ~
It is long past due and time to stop the corrupt Clintons from continuing to enrich themselves
off the backs of taxpayers; domestic and foreign.
Illary professes to care about women's rights yet her Clinton Family Foundation takes in $millions
from the likes of KSA and Qatar. Moreover, there is no shame in taking donations from small countries
steeped in poverty. It is high time to retire the Clintons. They have no conscience. If you haven't
a conscience you can't grow one.
RayB - well stated arguments to vote for Trump. Thank you for taking the time to post them.
As folks here already know, Hillary's stated commitment to impose a No-Fly Zone in Syria is
a show stopper for me. There is no way I can support more tragedy in Syria let alone elsewhere.
Any who don't think such a policy position does not matter tells me you are a supporter of
the neoliberal/neocon imperial building for which I cannot support. This is what a vote for Clinton
means.
I may have had a different opinion or thought about the U.S. morphing into the world's top
cop had I ever been asked, but I wasn't. I never was asked to vote on it or for/against it. These
sneaky rastards intentions were never spelled out, never communicated succinctly to the populous
let alone debated on the merits. Nope. These rastards are hell bent on shoving their neoliberal/neocon/third
way/nwo crap down American's throats.
And no, Donald is and always will be an outsider. If you believe otherwise you've obviously
not been paying much attention to him over the last four years. That man did not win the primaries
by chance, he won them handily through skill and out maneuvering his opponents. He has spent the
last four years learning up close the plethora of challenges an open border presents to the security
of the U.S. He gets the issues revolving around policing and the growing police state. He has
formiddable experience making, losing and making money again. He's had a front seat to big business
and its multiple machinations for decades.
And a vote for Hillary is a vote for the Establishment and their utopian new world order, which
includes WAR, WAR, and MORE WAR!
Touching naivety about Trump however the probability of him being 'different', given his record,
doesn't support it.
The problem with Trump is he made a #1 strategic mistake in supporting and giving in to the
religious right.
Apart from anything else this gives zero confidence that he'd stand up to the far more powerful
neo-liberal, neo-con 'war party' establishment if he got into power. If he caves totally to a
bunch of fundamentalist nutjobs, who themselves are neo-liberal and neo-conservative to the core,
it doesn't actually inspire any confidence whatsoever. Take one example Mike Pence is a neo-conservative
'Israel firster'... through and through.
Somehow I can't see the world being a safer place if the US tears itself to pieces trying to
become a fundamentalist religious 'state', dominated by a bunch of people wanting 'the end of
times'....
Despite the "with some "liberal" concession to this or that niche of the general society."
comment, he has threatened the rights of the majority of voters and even the very existence of
some.
In case no one had noticed 50% of the population are women, add in all the other minorities and
you have a healthy 60-70% he is directly threatening.
Religious right candidates (like Cruz and Pence) are unelectable, ever more so with time as
organised religion dies in the US and their policies on women and LGBTI people, plus let's not
forget their endemic racism, become every more unacceptable.
And note ALL the 'religious right' people are total neo-conservatives, that almost make Clinton
look like a pacifist.
Trump has nearly destroyed the Republican Party. And he has done so by speaking truths that
are rarely heard in "polite company": our politicians are puppets and our elections are "rigged".
Sanders spoke against inequality but he didn't go as far as Trump. He couldn't because he was
merely a sheepdog, leading his young 'flock' to Hillary.
If Trump wins, it would be a body blow to the Democrats who play on peoples fears to get elected
but never deliver workable solutions. Rinse. Repeat.
The Greens can win in 2020 after Trump fails and both parties are in disarray.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
I'm not telling people how to vote. I encourage people to think for themselves. This is only
MY opinion.
Its hard to emotionally accept the occurrence of a nuclear war today.
You should see how Saker couldn't cope with it at first.
If Russian assets in Syria get destroyed. The response will not to be nuking that little island
in the Indian ocean far away from everything or Hawaii that is in the middle of nowhere.
"The U.S. could respond by destroying all Russian assets in and around Syria. It has the capabilities.
But then what?" Then the US activates also activates phase D which is NATO invasion of Russia
(from Ukraine, the Baltics, Scandinavia) and China (from South Korea, Japan + other US bases scatered
all over the US empire).
I don't believe Trump's domestic and foreign policy will be any more different or peacefull.
I think he would just be facing a lot more resistance. Either way, unless Hillary dies there is
no doubt she will be the next POTUS.
As a 50 something adult who lives in a state where we have a healthy voter population of Christian
Right, which you refer to as religious right, folk let me assure you that your description of
them is way the hell out of line. Your distasteful comment shows just how inexperienced and ignorant
you are about this very American voting block.
Why are you even weighing in here? You seem more of a DailyKos kinda poster. Posters around
here tend to avoid language that is as divisive as yours and that all knowing punkish tone you
are using.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but these neoconservative you are talking about have
been leaving his camp in droves in the preceeding months. Please do not lecture us on some secret
collusion between Trump and those wicked shits. There is no doubt they will be crawling back to
the Donald when he sits on the throne. But make no mistake: he will not forget the treachery of
these subjects, just as the constituents of these jokers will not forget how they abandoned the
Donald and revealed their obedience to the uniparty. These are the voters that hate "politicians,"
remember? I can't wait to see Paul Ryan squirm.
And GTFO with your lgbtq trolling nonsense. Time to relegate these babies to their safe spaces
so we can all breathe a sigh of relief to be rid of their loud, obnoxious mental anguish over
their own petty insignificance. Remember, too, that Syrian lives matter. Once the culture of death
is curtailed anroad, we can tackle the culture of death at home. Ancient Chinese wisdom for dumb
trolls.
Trump sounds very scary in many ways but most of the stuff he babbles on about should not worry
anybody. The President of the US does not rule the US. Power in the US is distributed into the
three branches of government -- the executive, Congress and the judiciary. Most of Trump's worst
ideas will have to pass through Congress and the judiciary. There is only one area where the President
has total dominion and that is foreign policy and making war.
The question should come down to who do we want want as the next President -- a candidate that
seeks war with Russia or one who wants to negotiate and make deals? Given that question we will
be better off with Trump.
If Trump wins he will not have any support in Congress so it makes no sense that he will succeed
in cutting taxes for the richest or build the Mexican wall or any of the other nutty things he
advocates. But making peace with the Russians is the one thing he could accomplish.
Also I support Trump because the Democratic National Committee has been completely taken over
by the Hillary and neocon wing of the Democratic Party. As long as they control the Democratic
Party (which they do today) any US president that is a Democrat means that WWIII is a real option
always on the table. Tax cuts for the rich, increased monopolization of the economy, increased
poverty rates, restrictions on abortions, etc, are quite secondary. [BTW, I have served on a county
Democratic central committee for the last two decades and worked on presidential campaigns for
Democrats going back to Eisenhower-Stevens in 1956 (except for Humphrey in 1968). What I have
witnessed is that the entire party has been taken over by the big money contributions going down
to city council elections.] A Trump victory will give us a small chance for the grass roots Democrats
to regain some influence in national Party affairs -- today we have none.
NOT voting requires no amount of talky talk talk, no amount of organizing, no amount of anything.
but if everyone did it the central government would become immediately irrelevant and collapse,
and if the central government collapsed, its attendant institutions would unravel, the primary
grifters would atrophy on the vine, and the deep state would be in deep shit.
@1 I think it makes little sense to convince progressives that the should vote for Hillary. And
it is absurd to insist that a vote for anyone other than Trump is "a de facto vote for Hillary
Clinton." The more people that don't vote for Hillary the better. And a vote for Jill Stein builds
up the Green Party. If we could get the message out that Hillary is just too dangerous and that
a real progressive choice is Jill Stein, then it is possible that a good number of people who
may have voted for Hillary (and who can't stomach Trump) could take away Clinton's margin of victory
. I am voting for Jill Stein, I live in NY, it is not practical, given past elections, to think
Trump could win NY. I would be wasting my vote to vote for Trump in NY. When I vote for Jill Stein,
that is another vote NOT going to Hillary Clinton. see video:
VIDEO
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the U.S., 13% approve of the job Congress is doing, in line with approval
ratings ranging from 11% to 16% since August. The current rating is just four percentage points
above the record low of 9% recorded in November 2013.
'Selection' 2016 is a clown show. Trump, Hill & Bill, Bu$h I, Bu$h II even Romney are all heavily
involved is the drug money laundry business. A vote is a vote that legitimises the system.
I just cannot bring myself to vote for any of these criminals. Every vote legitimises this
freak show.
***Last letter of the alphabet does not work on my keyboard.
Donald Trump as the front runner and then candidate of the Republican Party didn't just happen.
This was by design, it was what the DNC and the Hillary campaign wanted and what they told the
media to do, to elevate him to leader of the pack. (
Wikileaks reveals
NOT voting requires no amount of talky talk talk, no amount of organizing, no amount of anything.
but if everyone did it the central government would become immediately irrelevant and collapse,
and if the central government collapsed, its attendant institutions would unravel, the primary
grifters would atrophy on the vine, and the deep state would be in deep shit.
A huge majority of the U.S. population is still caught up in the wonderful political virtual
reality game so generously provided for free by the Deep State-controlled media. They will clomp-clomp-clomp
on out of their zombified dwellings and vote for whichever of the two-dimensional VR candidates
for whom they root.
Ludicrous propaganda once again from b. B sure is trying his darndest to want to work for the
Russian state under his lord and saviour Putin the irresistible.
Trump himself said that China is a threat to the US. And he refuses to rule out no war with
China. Therefore Trump is likely wanting to start world War three by attacking China. How is that
worse than Hitlery wanting to attack Russia in Syria.
Trump will take Iraqs oil, make Mexico pay for a wall on the US side starting a war with them,
and so much more horrendous criminality
And Trumps foreign policy is "sane". What despicable ludicrous lies
Seriously people. If anyone believes either candidate means what they say, with all due respect,
you're delusional. No matter what, whomever "wins", they'll do as they're instructed to do.
Sorry b, with all due respect and gratitude for what you do, that includes you. Living up to
one's rhetoric is difficult, for anyone running for POTUS, impossible.
The only relevant vote against that crazy bitch from hell?
Of course:
Trump
A number of commentators have pointed out that the US could destroy Russia's assets - what they don't
point out is that this would expose US assets to destruction - which is why WW3 is almost inevitable
if the US escalates in Syria
A number of commentators have pointed out that the US could destroy Russia's assets - what they
don't point out is that this would expose US assets to destruction - which is why WW3 is almost
inevitable if the US escalates in Syria
Those who say: Its all a charade, voting changes nothing, Trump will do what he's told, etc. have
either given up in disgust or are purposely ignoring reality. The establishment is afraid of a
Trump win. There are numerous instances of their manipulating or attempting to manipulate the
election.
Vote Trump in swing states. Vote Green everywhere else.
So what? I've read that leak. Doesn't speak or reference in any way complicity of Trump's campaign
or even the repubs. I think you are framing that to fit your perspective that the DNC is the main
powerbroker, here. Whereas, the more hilarious conclusion to draw would be that, through their
arrogance and complete and utter disdain for the disaffected, they underestimated the threat of
a "fringe" candidate. Talk about the most fuckin' shortsighted political decision (all-time bone
head plays #1) this side of Joe Liebermann. God it makes me smile. And to think, the media played
right into Trump's tiny hands. That's showmanship. Face it: he is smarter and crafter and he knows
the people just a hair more.
Yes, we all want Trump to save the whales, make cake healthy, unite the Muslim world, make
college free, fix health-care, restore the rust-belt, solve climate - change while delivering
more jobs to energy sector, defeat Isis while not upsetting KSA, Qatar, et.al, and not go into
Syria.
I'll take one of those at least for my vote. Can you guess which one?
Lately I can understand why most people hate trump and love Clinton or vise versa. But I have
to say that both party's have great and solid points that needs to be taken serious the voting
will be harder then before that is for sure the only thing I hate about the politics is that when
the candidate has won all point's they have made in the election round will go out the window.
My dutch boyfriend just ask me why do they always put one man in the seat to control all why
not join forces will this not be a better option what do you think those he has a point or is
it just wrong thinking on his part.
Look at Greece. The progressives/socialists could not win. It seems that we need a nationalist.
It is a hard truth for progressives. The left has failed miserably to check the tyranny of
neolibcon Centrists who sell us all out to the highest bidder.
We need a Trump, like Russia needed a Putin. To right the ship.
When the dust settles, and lessons are learned, real progressives with integrity can rebuild.
Jimbo is giving a good daily rundown of the fraud coming in from the advance polls, & other things.
I like the one where the poll station workers are filling in the paper ballot votes after, for
those not voting. http://82.221.129.208/basepageq5.html
I don't know about Trump. But Hillary is a fucking nightmare. I don't live in America and I can't
vote there, but to those who do and can, please don't vote for that psycho bitch. Anyone else.
Anybody. But to cast a vote for her would be an exhibition of ignorance and willful sociopathy.
The world is begging you, please... Pleeeeeeeease. Do not vote for whole countries to be flushed
down the same toilet of meglomaniacal greed. Be nice. There are a lot of other people living on
this planet. We don't wanna kill anybody, we just wanna relax and thrive. Get with the program....
Trump loses in the Electoral College. Gets his own TV network and proceeds to preempt and co
opt 3rd party Constitution Party. Just like Dr. Ron Paul's campaign was co opted by supposed Tea
Party people who were in fact Conservative paid stooges. Right off the top the Cock brothers come
to mind.
@Jackrabbit 74
The Nationalist response is a natural one in the face of this unseen, centralising, globalist
beast. UK just had theirs with Brexit, and now we see the battle lines redrawn and subsequent
rally behind Corbyn. France could be next in Europe.
The left seems not to know where it is in the states... I agree it needs to fall into disarray
before rediscovering itself.
Trump has the momentum going down the straight, no one knows what the fuck is going on amongst
all the monkey shit being flung in the cage...but no one is oblivious to the the fact that the
establishment, from the neocon flight to the unprecedented MSM collusion and everything in-between,
is so OTT Trump. Too much so. It's what the progressive left always wanted, a hero like this,
to stand up to the machine.
All that money and all Hillary cam come up with is a naughty word and 'Never Trump' - almost
as if Trump goaded them into a shitfight by making idiotic, outlandish statements alongside his
more thoughtful output that doesn't make primetime cable news. Now the Dems have less than two
weeks to attack some real issues to quiet the silent majority's upcoming 'fuck you' vote...
I'd even go as far to say there will be plenty of silent Dems voting Trump if the election
was right now. No wonder Trump wants a 4th debate.
The only recourse the citizenry of the Outlaw US Empire has in attempting to restore its freedoms
and regain control of the national government is to revolt. Unfortunately, such a dire action
requires a high degree of solidarity amongst a body of citizens large enough to make the attempt
and there's no sign of such a body anywhere to be seen. Thus we'll see the selection of HRC and
the last gasp of the Neoliberalcons attempt to establish Full Spectrum Dominance of the planet
and its people that will likely escalate the already existing Hybrid WW3 to a hot war. In other
words, it doesn't matter who you vote for, so you ought to vote your conscience so you can be
right with yourself. Our household's voting Stein.
'The big issues count the most. Good or evil flow from them. Trumps principle, and I think personal
position, is leaning towards peaceful resolution of conflicts.' - b
The latter sentence contrasts with trump's determination to kill ISIS and take their oil. Sounds
like occupation to me. And his manner of fighting them - with unrestrained torture and bullets
dipped in pig's blood - is likely to catalyse supporty for them else where in the muslim world
(and the muslim parts of the west), even if ISIS is stomped flat in Syria/Iraq. Coup[led with
his blanket ban on muslim immigration, this sounds like a recipe for more conflict, not less.
Likewise with some other big issues: climate change and world trade. As shitty as the WTO system
can be, simply withdrawing and erecting huge tariffs would have catastrophic effects on world
trade that wwe comparable to if not worse than the 1931 Smoot-Hawley tariffs that crippled world
trade and set the stage for WW2. Worse, Trump's 100% opposition to acting on climate change, and
his determination to allow all fossil fuel extraction projects to go ahead, will guarantee catastrophic
global warming that will make WW2 itself look insignificant in the long run.
I agree that Hillary is a menace. But that doesn't make Trump less of one.
Perfect legacy of Obama is the just announced Obamacare insurance premium 25℅ avg rate increases.
Covered at WSWS but can't link from this phone. How about a $10,000 deductible for a family of
4 making $40,000? Things will get worse on several fronts next year, according to bipartisan plans
published in the NYT. Trump's 'solution' is going back to what we had before, ie he has no solution.
Wants to turn Medicaid, aid for our poor, into a voucher program. Don't vote for austerity, don't
vote for HillTrump.
Trump isn't a leftist, nor is he a pacifist. In fact, Trump is an ardent militarist, who has
been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years. It's a kind of nationalist hawkishness
that we haven't seen much of in the United States since the Cold War - but has supported some
of the most aggressive uses of force in American history.
You'll see a robust bill of particulars in the article; I've cited some of them earlier. To
little effect of course; Red Hats and Green Tea Bags make excellent counter-factual filters.
The author, Zack Beauchamp, quite helpfully puts The Day-Glo Orange Duckhead in historical
context. He quotes the historian Walter Russell Mead on the Jacksonian tradition in American foreign
policy. He's from Bard College, BTW, which rates fairly high up on the uber-liberal university
scale. So they don't be doin' too many Orange Jello Shots, know what I mean?
Jacksonians, according to Mead, are basically focused on the interests and reputation of the
United States. They are skeptical of ... idealistic quests removed from the interests of everyday
Americans. But when American interests are in question, or failing to fight will make America
look weak, Jacksonians are more aggressive than anyone.
"The Gulf War was a popular war in Jacksonian circles because the defense of the nation's
oil supply struck a chord with Jacksonian opinion.... With them it is an instinct rather than
an ideology - a culturally shaped set of beliefs and emotions rather than a set of ideas,"
Mead writes. Sound familiar?
Historically - and here's the important part - the Jacksonian tradition has been partly
responsible for a lot of what we see today as American atrocities....
Jackson himself is responsible for the "Trail of Tears."
On the campaign trail, Trump routinely cites Gens. George Patton and Douglas MacArthur as foreign
policy models - uber-Jacksonians both. Patton wanted to invade the Soviet Union after World
War II to head off perceived future threats to America. And President Harry Truman fired MacArthur,
despite his strategic genius, for publicly and insubordinately advocating total war against
China during the Korean War.
This is the tradition Trump's views seem to fit into. But while Patton and MacArthur at
least had real military expertise and intellectual heft animating their hawkishness, Trump
is just a collection of angry impulses. There's no worked-out strategic doctrine here, just
an impulse to act aggressively when it seems like America's interests and/or reputation are
at stake.
Just a bundle of anger, driven by emotion, no set plan, aggressive with poor impulse control.
What could possibly go wrong?
So he doesn't want the present wars in the Ukraine and Syria, he says, now. But all the better
to bomb Iraq and Iran into a pulp, it would seem.
Climate change is already affecting the world, and it will take a concerted effort over a much,
much longer period to get it under control, when compared to the Nazi threat.
This is scientifically certain. The prospect of WW3 under Hillary's presidency is very far from
being certain.
what oligarch will those pesky amerikkans vote for?
oligarch 1 - hillary
or oligarch 2 - trump
if it was me, i would be voting 2.. but being in canada, i don't get to vote.. i just get to
listen to bullshite 2016 election usa 24/7 any time i venture onto the internut..
The third - and final - presidential debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican
Donald Trump was held Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and moderated by Fox News'
Chris Wallace.
At one point Hillary said: "....and I'm going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe
havens within Syria"
A No Fly Zone means we shoot down Russian planes. And THAT MEANS WW-III.
= = = = Furthermore = = = =
With single-bid ("plurality") voting you only have two candidates to choose from.
I have described the strategic hedge simple score election method all over the Internet, and
it has been known of for many years. It is simple in the sense that does not require easily hackable
voting machines, and can easily work with hand counted paper ballots at non-centralized poling
stations. It is not hampered by any requirement to cater to so-called "sincere," "honest" (actually
artless and foolish) voters. It easily thwarts both the spoiler effect and the blind hurdle dilemma
(the "Burr Dilemma"), which prevents voters from exercising the strategies that they need to use
to defeat the big bosses. It just works.
Strategic hedge simple score voting can be described in one simple sentence: Strategically
bid no vote at all for undesired candidates (ignore them as though they did not exist), or strategically
cast from five to ten votes for any number of candidates you prefer (up to some reasonable limit
of, say, twelve candidates), and then simply add all the votes up.
Both IRV-style and approval voting methods suffer from the blind hurdle dilemma, which can
be overcome with the hedge voting strategy. An example of usage of the hedge strategy, presuming
the (most famous) case of a "leftist" voter, would be casting ten votes for Ralph Nader, and only
eight or nine "hedge votes" for Al Gore. This way, the voter would only sacrifice 20 or 10 percent
of their electoral influence if Nader did not win.
Don't be fooled by fake "alternatives" like "IRV" and "approval voting". Ranked choice voting
is supported by the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Foundations
(of Soros), and on and on.
Ranked choice voting is just as bad,or worse than out present single-bid ("plurality") method
with regard to enforcing the two party syndrome, and this has been demonstrated repeatedly in
history.
Score voting is fundamentally distinct from ranked choice voting, and does not promote the
two party syndrome. That's probably why it doesn't get hundreds of millions of promotion dollars
as the "Green" Party's ranked choice system does.
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers".
We are stuck with this miserable system because of a surprisingly large array of people who
I call the "election methods cognoscenti". Over many years, these cognoscenti have assembled an
enormous collection of distracting, unworkable election methods. This "intellectual subject" has,
for instance, consumed perhaps hundreds of pages in works such as the Wikipedia. These cognoscenti
have created a gigantic Glass Bead Game which serves no real purpose other than to facilitate
intellectual speculation. In nearly every instance where their election methods have been employed,
disaster has ensued, although in a few cases, their systems have languished on, providing no better
results than the choose-one voting system. Millions, perhaps tens of millions of dollars, have
been spent promoting the "IRV" method, which has been tried and abandoned in several venues where
it caused massive chaos.
We cannot afford any more of this intellectual masturbation, which has lead to this absurd
2016 "election". All we should be doing is protesting for safe, easy-to-understand strategic hedge
simple score voting.
And I will be voting for Donald Trump, even though I know that my "ballot" is going to be fed
into an infernal machine.
Clinton advised the mainstream media to push his legitimacy as a "pied piper" candidate because
she realized, after looking at the poll numbers, that she wouldn't stand a chance at winning the
presidency against any of the establishment republicans without making them "pied pipers" – it
just so happened that Donald was the easiest to play the role considering his long history of
friendship with the Clintons.
https://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2016/10/25/rigged-election-hillary-trump-caught-partying-like-bffs-kissinger-jesuit-gala.html
Oh c'mon. Stooping pretty low on that one. One of election's sicker sideshows: Briebert's site
covering Stein more then almost anyone else... when they can twist one of Jill's criticism's of
Hillary into and endorsement of Trump. Jill is most certainly a NASTY woman. :)
Trump has some strange ideas. And he'll cause some real harm in some areas.
But again, his strong medicine is what is needed. We can spill loads of electronic ink debating
the
reasons why and talking about how he sucks but that won't change the reality.
I am very much against the duopoly. But one of these two will win. A win by Trump and a strong
showing by the Greens is the best we can hope for.It sends a clear message. What message does
voting for Hillary send? That we will allow ourselves to be compromised yet AGAIN?
Trump says: "either you have a country, or you don't". So what are the 'borders' that the left
will
defend? Just how much will the Left allow its so-called leaders to compromise and marginalize
us?
There is a natural alliance between the principled left and principled right that the mercenary,
mendacious establishment fears. Don't be fooled by Hillary/DNC scare tactics and media manipulation!
Hillary tells some voters that she will continue Obama's policies and other voters that she
will be
different. She assures Goldman Sacks that her private positions differ very much from her public
positions. She runs pay to play scams via the Clinton Foundation, takes tons of money from Wall
Street
and pretends that none of that influences her. The Chair of the DNC joined her campaign after
her
work against Sanders was revealed! And Sanders response? He endorsed Hillary!!
The Democrats believe that YOU and your family, friends, and neighbors are confused and scared
or just
plain dumb and foolish enough to vote for Hillary and other Democrats that will ride her coattails.
Prove them wrong. Stand up for yourself! Vote for Trump in swing states and Jill Stein in other
states.
That the establishment candidate is not automatically the worst possible candidate. Not when
the other is an unrepentant racist determined to castrate the First Amendment and incinerate the
climate. What message does it send when a candidate whose campaign took off at the point he called
most - if not all - illegal immigrants 'rapists' wins the White House? Besides, you sound more
like a Sanders supporter than a Trump supporter - so maybe his thoughts are worth taking into
account here.
I had assumed your link would be garbage, but took a look, anyway. In fact, it raises significant
points. In particular, previously unknown (to me) details about his views about "taking the oil".
I'm definitely for Trump, consider him far safer and saner than Clinton wrt foreign policy
with most of the world (I suspect he could be worse wrt N Korea, than Clinton; also, no better
wrt Africa, than Clinton).
I have never been impressed with the Trumpian "take the oil" position that I learned of during
the campaign, and have described it as "goofy" and "sure sounding like a war crime". That this
particular stupidity (or hawkish stupidity, if you prefer) is nothing new, and extended to Libya,
is disappointing.
Still, on balance, compared to the endless hemming in and provocation of nuclear super-power
Russia (not to mention smearing of Putin), by the neocon class of which Hillary is an obvious
example of, the author's claim that Trump is more of a hawk than her still sounds absurd. Even
if the argument has some merits.
"Donald Trump's foreign policy speech last Wednesday deserves at least a solid B+ and you can
read my take on it in the June issue of Chronicles. It offered an eloquent argument for offensive
realism, based on the fact that the international system-composed of sovereign nation-states pursuing
their interests-is still essentially competitive and Hobbesian. Trump is the only candidate who
understands this cardinal fact, and who unambiguously states America is not and should not be
an exception to that timeless principle."
"Since leaving government, Flynn has angered U.S. officials over his friendly ties to Russia,
with which he has publicly advocated better relations and military cooperation in the Middle East
- a departure from the official Pentagon line. He even recently sat at the head table at a dinner
in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has praised."
This same article also says,
"Much as Trump likes to keep things in the family, Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, serves as
a chief adviser."
The idea that Trump wouldn't consult with the likes of Flynn - who might be his Secretary of Defense
- also seems goofy. Of course he will.
The Obama Administration, of which Hillary was an integral part, deliberately allowed ISIS
to flourish, in it's early stages. Trump's incompetence as a political candidate is amply demonstrated
by the fact that, even given 3 national debate audiences, he FAILED to pin the US non-interdiction
of the mega ISIS oil trade, run through Turkey, on the Obama administration (thus, to one degree
or another, also on Clinton). See "Russian intel spots 12,000 oil tankers & trucks on Turkey-Iraq
border - General Staff" for photos that Trump should have (pardon the expression) trumpeted during
all 3 national debates. Had he done so, in stead of being politically inept and inarticulate,
he would have cemented in the public's mind just HOW evil the foreign policy of both Obama and
Clinton were. (Of course, he should have also mentioned the wikileaks tick tock memos, crediting
uber SoS failure Hilary Clinton with steps on the road to the destruction of Libya).
Hillary has not just spouted militaristic, imperialistic hokum. She was also in the decision
loop, as war crimes against Libya, in particular, were being decided on, then perpetrated. She
has a history that is far more evidential of catastrophic militarism than goofy statements about
"taking the oil".
Very kind of you to note your new-found concerns, anytime.
Trump has net yet been in the loop. I do not want him there, he would be bad for the country
and planet. His public statements suggest he would make far worse decisions.
{quote} > BREAKING: JILL STEIN ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP
Oh c'mon. Stooping pretty low on that one. {end quote}
You are misquoting me intensionally. I put: "BREAKING: JILL STEIN ENDORSES DONALD TRUMP [Sort
Of][1 min., 15 sec.]" And that is because YouTube links often break up while their titles remain
searchable.
You ignored that I added "[Sort of]"!
I think there are likely a lot of DailyKos zombies around here tonight.
Trump may be a bullheaded semi-thug, but I'll vote for him before I join the "die with Hillary"
movement.
"His public statements suggest he would make far worse decisions."
On balance, no, they don't. Even if Flynn couldn't talk any sense into him regarding "taking
the oil", and a President Trump somehow managed to pull that off, and it turned into an endless
conflict, the $$ cost of which exceeded the oil profits thus obtained, that would still be preferable
to nuclear exchanges with Russia.
I read just today about a Russian nuke, called "Satan", that supposedly can destroy a country
the size of France (or the state of Texas). I had to read it twice, since the claim seemed preposterous.
(I assume it's some sort of multiple warhead device, and what the claim really means is that it
can destroy all cities in an area the size of France.)
Peace with Russia is, to use a Star Trek phrase, the "prime directive". Trusting that to Clinton
is a fool's errand. Trusting that to Trump is not.
No matter the facts, and b has laid it out as clearly as one can, the left and the urban classes
in America will vote for the proven warmonger. Why? For them virtue signalling is more important
than the existential threat of riding up an escalatory ladder to a nuclear exchange with Russia.
After listening to right-wingers howl and whine today, droning on about big bad gumint and the
only salvation is their guy and/or the free market. I say we end the misery that the capitalist
system produces once and for all by throwing all support for Hillary. An anti-war vote for Trump
helps preserve the madness, how could any sane person help capitalism, that to me is abnormal
behaviour that Hillary can rectify. Death is an inevitable human condition, Right-wing evangelists
are nothing but cowards. Viva Hillary and cheers to accelerating the process!
President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey's military operations in Syria aimed to secure al-Bab
and the town of Manbij, which a group of Kurdish and Arab militias seized from Islamic State
in August, but were not intended to stretch to Aleppo.
"Let's make a joint fight against terrorist organizations. But Aleppo belongs to the people
of Aleppo ... making calculations over Aleppo would not be right," he said in a speech in Ankara.
Turkey launched "Operation Euphrates Shield" two months ago, sending tanks and warplanes into
Syria in support of the largely Turkmen and Arab rebels.
Erdogan signaled Turkey could target the Afrin region of northwest Syria, which is controlled
by Kurdish YPG forces and lies just west of the "Euphrates Shield" area of operations.
"In order to defeat threats directed at our nation from Kilis to Kirikhan, we are also putting
that area on our agenda of cleansing from terror," he said, referring to two Turkish towns
across the border from Afrin.
Looks fairly clear the objectives are Al-bab & Manbij, and then the Afrin pocket. Definitely
if the Syrians/Russians don't intervene to "save" Afrin, then that would push the Kurds into the
arms of the Americans, but if that's all the Turks do, then that solidifies the Turkish-Russian
pact at the same time.
Inching ever closer, one reported death at a time, to the current world record holder who is either
Mark Twain or perhaps Binny himself.
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1877644
26 October 2016 14:48
Iraqi Analyst Discloses S.Arabia, Turkey's Plot to Transfer Al-Baghdadi to Libya
A prominent Iraqi military analyst disclosed that Riyadh and Ankara had hatched plots to transfer
ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from Mosul to Libya but the massive presence of the popular forces
and Russian fighter jets at the bordering areas of Iraq and Syria dissuaded them.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he wants all foreign troops, in which the majority
are American, out of the Philippines in the next two years.
This comes amidst his desire to realign his country with China and Russia, and further from
the grasps of Washington.
Russia has launched the latest addition to its series of super-stealth diesel-electric submarines,
the Veliky Novgorod, which sports advanced stealth technologies and increased combat range.
The latest addition to the Black Sea Fleet is capable of striking land, sea and underwater
targets and was officially launched from St. Petersburg's Admiralty Shipyard on Wednesday in the
presence of Russian Navy Deputy Commander Vice-Admiral Aleksandr Fedotenkov, and Admiralty Shipyard
CEO Alexander Buzakov.
GOP nominee Donald Trump does not believe that settlements built by the Zionist regime of Israel
in Palestine are illegal, his advisor on Israel says.
David Friedman, who was campaigning for the New York billionaire at a restaurant on Mount Zion
(Jabel Sahyoun) in East Jerusalem al-Quds, made the comments to AFP after the Wednesday rally.
Remember on November 8, vote for any party, but not The Democratic Party. The Democratic Party
is the war party.
For me still undecided - Donald Trump or Jill Stein.
Dr. William Wedin | Oct 27, 2016 12:48:06 AM |
112
I agree with Moon of Alabama's predictions up to the point that he asserts that Putin's "best"
or "most likely" response (I am not clear which) to having all of Russia's military assets in
Syria destroyed is the meek test-firing of a "big" tactical nuclear weapon in Siberia by way of
a non-lethal display of "shock and awe." Neither Putin nor his generals would ever let things
get so one-sided in America's father. Rather, the Russian military would respond the way Putin,
the 8th-degree black-belt Judoka has responded in every match that led to his becoming the Judo
Champion of Leningrad in 1976. Namely, they would attack, attack, attack--no matter the cost.
That's how General Zhukov defeated Hitler. The same way Grant won the Civil War. Zhukov never
let up the pressure. Putin learned his lesson on that score when he tried to teach the US the
Judo principle of Jita Kyoei (or the "mutual benefit") in mutual self-restraint in his acceptance
of a ceasefire and a partial pull-out of Russian forces back in March; followed by another betrayed
ceasefire last month. No more. Now if he is hit, he's going to hit back harder--in unexpected
places and ways. He has vowed to never fight another war on Russian soil. So he may well carry
the attack early to the US homeland. Study the way he won Judo matches--with lightning speed and
startling moves. The Saker would argue that Putin would go for lateral rather than vertical escalation.
But I think that Hillary's transsexual desire (I speak as a psychologist here) to prove herself
the "tougher man" may force Putin to launch a First Strike in the expectation she's about to.
Indeed he tells us that the first lesson he learned as a street fighter at the age of 10 was:
"Strike First." I think he will.
I can never under understand why so many 60s and 70s antiwar become warmongers today?
Amerika drops more than 7 millions tons of bombs, about 20 to 30% unexploded. They knew millions
innocent civilians perished and many more will die of unexploded bombs. Further Napalm & Agent
Orange was used and still causing deforms children today.
How can anyone vote for The Democratic Party is beyond common sense? The Democratic Party had
always been a warmonger party, yesterday, today and tomorrow....
With the Clinton's long list of shady deals Hillary would be an easy target for blackmail by some
organisation such as a security service that wants to control the policies of the president.
It's not funny how hypocritical the right-wing have become just to get their guy in office.
Fuck 'em I say. For those same fucktards that believe Obama a communist/socialist, they're simply
invoking a red scare tactic. The love to scapegoat the other, ie. teacher's, immigrants because
their brainwashed minds love their servitude and criticism of the capitalist system is beyond
the pale.
Both parties represent what you nominally call warmonger in one form or the other, serving
their corporate paymasters. Any minds reconciling the differences would be well advised to check
up on Glen Ford, Omali Yeshitela and the world socialist website periodically.
Would you please delete ArthurGilroy's comments
at #42 and #60?
#42 could have been an accident caused by
failure to Preview.
But #60 was a deliberate margin wrecker, imo.
@ psychohistorian | Oct 26, 2016 11:42:46 PM | 103
No they did not mess up their HTML, they put ==== well beyond the wrap limits. It happens when
commentators use any lengthy address that does not have hyphens incorporated. If the programming
were to put in a virtual hyphen, that changes the address for using, it seems. HTML is the tool
to use to get around that problem. The problem is few commentators are tool users; the result
is the reader suffers from one: stupid, inattention or intent. The perpetrator:
With Hillary Clinton in the audience, singer Adele told her fans at a Miami concert Tuesday
night not to vote for Donald Trump.
"Don't vote for him," the Grammy Award winner said on stage, according to a Clinton aide. "I can't
vote but I am 100% for Hillary Clinton, I love her, she's amazing."
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/26/politics/hillary-clinton-adele-concert/
And so on.
Also for example:
Elton John
John Fogerty
Neil Young
Paul mcCartney
Roger Waters
@119 FTH
Holier than thou superstars wrapped in the warm bosom of capitalism that is the 1%. Can't blame
them, they're being looked after. They just hear the un-pc bleating.
Working Class Nero | Oct 27, 2016 4:21:36 AM |
122
What makes me happiest about this election is that we are finally seeing some left/right cooperation
in the fight against the corporate oligarchy. I follow both sides closely and it is great to see
right wingers cheering Jill Stein, Julian Assange, and even Bernie Sanders.
In order for the left/right combination to work both sides have to make compromises. Certainly
we see the Trumpian right dumping the warmongering. as MoA is pointing out. Trumpsters are also
open to universal health care, and are less insistent on divisive social issues. And the rejection
of job-killing "free" trade is another great evolution towards sanity on the right.
The left are goig to have to abandon the idea of remaking America by pumping in millions of
3rd world immigrants. This is the largest wedge still existing between the left and right. if
you have not seen Bernie Sanders denouncing Open Borders as a Koch Borthers scam to lower wages
then you need to get busy on Google right now. Besides universal health care is absolutely impossible
without very tight borders -- just ask Canada who have far more Draconian immigration laws than
even Trump is proposing.
But the most important reason to vote Trump is because if he wins the Powers-That-Be will never
let him take power! Remember the Electoral College? TPTB can and will strip the victory away from
Trump and give it to someone else. This will do more to destroy the current capitalist system
than anything else.
@105, quoting Reuters: "Erdogan signaled Turkey could target the Afrin region of northwest Syria"
When Turkey launched "Operation Euphrates Shield" there was much commentary about how this
would end the Kurdish plan to link Kobane with the Afrin pocket.
At the time I thought to myself: OK, so does that leave the Afrin pocket exposed, or is it
pretty secure even when left to its own devices?
Nobody else seemed the slightest bit interested in pondering that though, apparently, Erdogan
has now decided that it is a blister that needs to be lanced.
@105: "then that would push the Kurds into the arms of the Americans"
Err, no, I suspect not. After all, it was Biden who ordered the Kurdish forces to withdraw
back behind the Euphrates once Erdogan started his little adventure, so it's pretty obvious that
if the choice is between (a) Turkey and (b) the Kurds then good ol' Uncle Sam is going to side
with the Turks.
Surprised to see Roger Waters on that list. WTF, Roger?
His condemnation of Israel and his love for Palestine has been clear.
Expressing his staunch I/P political views, Roger has consistently angered warmongering wingnuts
at his concerts. (They like his music, but they wish he would shut up about " his politics".)
Waters should know clearly that Hillary Rotten Clinton will explicitly follow the Yinon Plan
dictates for Greater Israel; and feed our sons and daughters (not hers) into the military meat
grinder.
Many thanks for those who read and comments.. I can never under understand why so many 60s
and 70s antiwar become warmongers today?
I'm from the sixties - baby boom generation, not antiwar but leaning from anti commie to warmonger.
I cannot understands why antiwar movements were against Vietnam war . America, land of
the free leading the fighting against the commies spreading from the North moving southward to
the two Korea, (Indochina) Laos, Cambodia, North &South Vietnam, Thailand, Malaya (independent),
Singapore British Crown colony, Hong Kong British Crown colony, Indonesia, The Philippines. The
warmonger was Lyndon B. Johnson a Democrat.
Blowin' In the Wind sang by leftist's antiwar singers. I'm especially touched by Peter, Paul
and Mary, Joan Baez... Where are they today? Warmongers for Hillary?
The red zionist leader pretend hates Trump.
Hee hee,the vitriol from the serial liars should be enough for sane human to vote Trump.
Imagine the debt that the HB will owe the zionists if they manage to steal this election for her,their
obvious chosen whore.
The zionists aint going to like the heartlands response to the fix.
The raw deal they are issuing to Trump will be rejected.
"But I think that Hillary's transsexual desire (I speak as a psychologist here) to prove herself
the "tougher man" may force Putin to launch a First Strike in the expectation she's about to.
Indeed he tells us that the first lesson he learned as a street fighter at the age of 10 was:
"Strike First." I think he will."
So do I. He did not go into Syria without a long-range strategy. And when he and China and
others use the term "multi-polar" they mean it. Their commitment/strategy is at the cellular level
which makes them unpredictable and dangerous to their adversary. Putin is all business.
----------------
Here's a vid of Podesta's think tank - Center for American Progress - where Mike Morrell NOT
Chris Morrell along with others discuss the Middle East and U.S. partners -
I've written along this line before, apologies for the repeat.
The US has lost power, particularly economic power, and some soft power -not military power-
in the last 20 or ++ years. An uncomfortable situation. This has disturbed, and will continue
to disrupt, nay shatter, the PTB (Shadow Gvmt., fake duopoly, corporate rule, neo-fascism, slot
in yr perso description) control.
The selection of Obama was a simplistic move: he could be ushered in as representing 'change',
and seemingly 'win' an 'election' twice, with biz as usual (hopefully) maintaining itself, continuing
with a puppet President. (As is organised 'abroad', see Poroshenko for ex.)
A crack on the political scene was the Tea Party, within Repub. circles, and it was genuine
(if wacky), unlike Occupy Wall Street, or the present Black Lives Matter, which are more or less
'fake color revol.' controlled splinters that can be turned on or off. The Sanders candidacy split
the Dem. base, and was either a nasty surprise for the neo-libs (they brought it on themselves,
read Podesta e-mails) or an 'allowed' move to maintain the pretense of real political options.
The Repubs. could not turn up a convincing candidate (anyone with brains would avoid this situation
like the plague, and the Rubio, Cruz type personas were just 'place holders') so the plan
morphed into letting Trump win the nomination and lose the election to the neo-lib-con (HRC)
faction. This plan was born out of arrogance, hubris, 'bubble' blindness and ignorance, and the
supposed iron grip control of the MSM, aka 'the narrative.'
Trump did much better than expected, went on doing so. CNN at first gave him a 1% chance of
winning the nomination, what a laugh. Imho Trump played the MSM masterfully, but that is neither
here nor there - the PTB were shocked to see their hold erode, they never imagined losing control
of the 'opposition' or the discontents, aka the rabble, the compliant sheeples: many different
strands: Greens, e.g. Stein, whose vicious tweets against HRC are something to behold, libertarians,
BernieBros for 'social democracy' and free college, now turned to Cleaning Out the Swamp, law
-n- order types, gun toters, Blacks for Trump, and on and on ..unimaginable.
As no reasoned politically argued response was available, the PTB went into attack mode which
completely backfired, as could readily be predicted. This is the post-Democracy Age (if it ever
existed and the term 'democracy' is of course BS.)
Trump appears to confusedly propose a way of dealing with the US loss of economic domination,
of power and place on the World Stage: nationalistic retrenchment, "better deals", OK, plus "a
stronger military," a double-pronged sword, not pacifist, on the face of it.
Makes a kind of hopeful sense, and appeals greatly. HRC (she is just a propped up figure) in
a corrupt circuit of PTB-NWO - the top 20% globalist class - has to push the agenda of the MIC,
of Wall Street, Big Corps, Silicon Valley, etc. for personal position. Donors who give mega-cash
get corp. and pol. favors, etc.
French MSM report as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Erdogan made a speech
to say he intends to get back Manbij from the Kurds and participate in getting back Northern Syria,
in cooperation with the US.
If the Turks enter that far, there is no doubt it will lead to a wider war ... Could that be the
reason Hollande is so sure of being reelected in May?
stopped going to VT several years ago during their grand support of the slaughter of Libya. duff
wrote I was posting from tel aviv.
have to be careful with vt. what is a lie and what is decent.
trump is hated/feared by repubs/dems, the establishment, wall st, the crooks, cronies, pedophiles,
liars, warmongers, creepers in the dark, rich beggars with hands out, culture-destroyers.
supporting legal immigration is sound national policy as is not wanting to fight wars for jewry.
supporting soc sec and medicare and spending tax dollars on repairing infrastructure in America
not Israel is also sound.
My take is similar to rufus magister, namely that Trump (a) talks a lot of nonsense, but unlike
a disciplined robot like Marco Rubio, he is eclectic and mixes that nonsense with surprisingly
reasonable statements.
Many attacks on Trump almost convince me that he is the best candidate out there. But his own
web site is much less convincing, and his personal appearances may be outright scary.
On domestic issues, he more or less follows all bad aspects of GOP model. His trade policy
ideas are so unworkable that nothing will come out of them. Not that I disagree that there is
too much of "free trade", but like with any complex system, it is much easier to make it worse
that to make it better.
Back to Trump as an architect of new, improved foreign policy. Here the room for improvement
is much more clear, because so much of the current policy is to effectively do little shits here
and there, and to sell more arms than before, so totally ineffective policy would be a plus. It
does not even need to be particularly consistent etc. But "greedy merchant" mentality exhibited
by Trump in many quotes, like "take their oil", "those allies do not pay their dues", and "why
did we give [returned!!!] money to Iran", make me genuinely worried that he would continue selling
weapons to Gulfies and help them bombing Yemen and smuggling weapons to Syria: if they pay us
that this is OK. Secondly, he was abjectly pandering to AIPAC. Thirdly, some mad statements about
decisive direct intervention and using torture. The only change that I would be sure under Trump
presidency is that CIA would be out of the loop, or at least, much less visible than now. And
he would probably stop pressing EU to maintain and expand sanctions on Russia. But he would restore
sanctions on Iran??
In other words, a mixed bag at best on foreign policy, probably ineffectual nonsense on trade
policy and very retrograde changes in domestic policy. To name the few, green light to all possible
abortion restriction, if not outlawing the abortion by SCOTUS, advocacy of police brutality, regressive
taxation, letting people with chronic diseases die as uninsurable etc. So one has to consider
how scary HRC is.
My estimate is that she would be basically Obama with inferior rhetoric. Leaked e-mails show
that her decision making is quite deliberative, and the circle of opinions that are included not
particularly insular. It is too neocon to my liking, and "Obama as is" happened to be much less
appealing than "Obama before elected". Since there is no consensus to attack the Russians, she
would not hammer it through.
Thus one can reasonably hope that HRC will be relatively harmless. And it is not even clear
that Russia is harmed by sanctions. They restrict somewhat the access to goods and financial services,
but during cheap oil, the top issues for Russia is import substitution, development of domestic
production, and curtailing the capital flight. Good access to financial services can be quite
detrimental to a country, as we can study on the example of Greece: joining Eurozone vastly improved
the access to the financial markets and enabled to borrow much more that prudent. As Russia remains
a net exporter by a quite large margin, keeping money at home is much more important than access
to credit.
That said, a reasonable hope does not exactly dispel the fears described above. Moreover, it
is predicated on the lack of "imperialist/neo-con consensus", and wobbly results of the elections
would help. Thus, everybody here who can vote should vote as she/he damn pleases. If you do not
like Clinton, I would suggest Stein, because she actually spells out a coherent and sensible position,
and not patches of senses and horror, so this is
Trump's policy and this is
Stein's
policy.
CETA: "EU's Canada free-trade CETA deal could be back on as Walloons agree to last-minute deal"
[
Telegraph
].
"Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel said that Wallonia was now in agreement, and the regional
parliaments may now agree to CETA by the end of Friday night, opening the door to the deal being
signed. Mr Tusk said that once the regional votes had taken place, he will inform Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau. Any extra concessions given to Wallonia may mean other countries will want
to look again at the deal, however." (The BBC's headline, then -
"EU-Canada trade deal: Belgians break Ceta deadlock"
- is quite irresponsible. As is–
CETA: "Belgium breaks Ceta deadlock" [
EUObserver
].
Not quite:
Belgium's political entities agreed to a declaration on Thursday (26 October), which gives
their government a green light to sign Ceta, the EU-Canada trade pact.
The agreement was promptly sent to EU ambassadors in Brussels, to be discussed later in the
afternoon.
After a week of marathon negotiations, Belgian prime minister Charles Michel said that Thursday's
talks had calmed "outstanding concerns".
As part of the trade-off, Belgium will ask the European Court of Justice to clarify the proposed
investment court system, which was one of the most controversial elements of the trade deal.
Ceta was due to be signed off by EU leaders and Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau at a
summit in Brussels on Thursday. Trudeau cancelled the trip during the night as no agreement had
been reached in Brussels.
It's not known when the summit will take place, or whether the Belgian go-ahead was the last
hurdle.
The other 27 EU countries must first accept the Belgian deal.
At their meeting on Thursday, EU ambassadors will be accompanied by lawyers and representatives
of the EU institutions, who will examine the legality and consequences of the text.
The Walloon parliament will vote on the agreement on Friday.
Still, how do we slay these undead deals? The same thing happened with TPP.
CETA: "The great CETA swindle" [
Corporate
Europe Observatory
]. "The latest PR move is a "joint interpretative declaration" on the trade
deal hammered out by Ottawa and Brussels and published by investigative journalist collective Correctiv
last Friday. It is designed to alleviate public concerns but in fact does nothing to fix CETA's flaws.
In September, Canada's Trade Minister, Chrystia Freeland, and her German counterpart, Sigmar Gabriel,
had announced such a text to appease Social Democrats, trade unions and the wider public who fear
that CETA would threaten public services, labour and environmental standards and undermine governments'
right to regulate in the public interest. Several governments, notably Austria, had linked their
'yes' to CETA to the declaration. [But] According to environmental group Greenpeace, the declaration
therefore has the 'legal weight of a holiday brochure'."
Legal experts have also warned that the declaration "could be misleading for non-lawyers, who
might think that the Declaration will alter or override the CETA". But it does not change CETA's
legal terms – and it is these terms which have raised concerns. As Canadian law Professor Gus
van Harten explains: "Based on principles of treaty interpretation, the CETA will be interpreted
primarily according to the text of its relevant provisions…. The Declaration would play a subsidiary
role, if any, in this interpretative process." In other words, legally (and thus politically),
the CETA text is far more important than the declaration – and the former could prevail over the
latter in case of a conflictive interpretation.
The post then goes on to analyze the provisions of the declaration in detail, comparing them to
the text. (Readers may remember that
TPP advocates have made the same sort of claim for the TPP Preamble, which the text also over-rides
.
So, the Belgians are smart to get a court ruling on this. And we might also expect the adminsitration
to use similar tactics to (the toothless distraction of) the CETA "resolution" in the upcoming attempt
to pass the TPP.
"Belgian officials were discussing a working document aimed at addressing Wallonia's concerns
on the trade deal. The document, published by Belgian state media RTBF, shows that Belgium is moving
toward requesting additional safeguards for the agricultural sector 'in cases of market turbulence.'
It also puts forward a number of requests regarding the investor court system, including 'progressing
towards hiring judges on a permanent basis'" [
Politico
].
This seems to be a
different
document from the "declaration"; it was leaked by a different
source.
Here is is; it's in French
.
TPP: "Eight major financial services industry associations made an appeal to congressional leaders
to support passage of the TPP this year, arguing that the deal is 'vital to ensuring that the U.S.
financial services sector remains a vibrant engine for domestic and global growth'" [
Politico
].
What the heck is a "vibrant engine"? Maybe a screw loose or something? Needs a tightening to stop
the shaking and shimmying?
TPP: "Health, labor and consumer groups are warning President Barack Obama to refrain from including
a 12-year monopoly period for biological drugs in legislation to implement the TPP as a means for
addressing congressional concerns over the pact. The groups argue that such a move could undermine
future efforts to shorten that protection period under U.S. law" [
Politico
].
"The letter, signed by Doctors Without Borders, the AFL-CIO, AARP, Oxfam and Consumers Union, also
expresses concern over reports that the administration is prepared to negotiate side letters with
TPP countries to reinforce U.S. lawmaker demands that countries respect a 12-year protection period,
which reflects U.S. law."
"The case against free trade – Part 1" [
Bill
Mitchell
].
"... Geithner's comments about his sacrifices in public service did not elicit any outcry from the media at the time because his perspective was widely shared. The implicit assumption is that the sort of person who is working at a high level government job could easily be earning a paycheck that is many times higher if they were employed elsewhere. In fact, this is often true. When he left his job as Treasury Secretary, Geithner took a position with a private equity company where his salary is likely several million dollars a year. ..."
"... The CEOs who are paid tens of millions a year would like the public to think that the market is simply compensating them for their extraordinary skills. A more realistic story is that a broken corporate governance process gives corporate boards of directors - the people who largely determine CEO pay -little incentive to hold down pay. Directors are more closely tied to top management than to the shareholders they are supposed to represent, and their positions are lucrative, usually paying six figures for very part-time work. Directors are almost never voted out by shareholders for their lack of attention to the job or for incompetence. ..."
"... We also have done little to foster medical travel. This could lead to enormous benefits to patients and the economy, since many high cost medical procedures can be performed at a fifth or even one-tenth the U.S. price in top quality medical facilities elsewhere in the world. In this context, it is not surprising that the median pay of physicians is over $250,000 a year and some areas of specialization earn close to twice this amount. In the case of physicians alone, if pay were reduced to West European-levels the savings would be close to $100 billion a year (@ 0.6 percent of GDP). ..."
"... As a technical matter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is a private bank. It is owned by the banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System in the New York District. ..."
Yves here. We are delighted to feature an excerpt from Dean Baker's new book
Rigged , which you can find at
http://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm via either a free download
or in hard copy for the cost of printing and shipping. The book argues that policy in five areas, macroeconomics, the financial sector,
intellectual property, corporate governance, and protection for highly paid professionals, have all led to the upward distribution
of income. The implication is that the yawning gap between the 0.1% and the 1% versus everyone else is not the result of virtue ("meritocracy")
but preferential treatment, and inequality would be substantially reduced if these policies were reversed.
I urge you to read his book in full and encourage your friends, colleagues, and family to do so as well.
By Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Chapter 1: Introduction: Trading in myths
In winter 2016, near the peak of Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, a new line became popular among
the nation's policy elite: Bernie Sanders is the enemy of the world's poor. Their argument was that Sanders, by pushing trade policies
to help U.S. workers, specifically manufacturing workers, risked undermining the well-being of the world's poor because exporting
manufactured goods to the United States and other wealthy countries is their path out of poverty. The role model was China, which
by exporting has largely eliminated extreme poverty and drastically reduced poverty among its population. Sanders and his supporters
would block the rest of the developing world from following the same course.
This line, in its Sanders-bashing permutation, appeared early on in Vox, the millennial-oriented media upstart, and was quickly
picked up elsewhere (Beauchamp 2016).
[1] After all, it was pretty irresistible. The ally of the downtrodden and enemy of the rich was pushing policies that would
condemn much of the world to poverty.
The story made a nice contribution to preserving the status quo, but it was less valuable if you respect honesty in public debate.
The problem in the logic of this argument should be apparent to anyone who has taken an introductory economics course. It assumes
that the basic problem of manufacturing workers in the developing world is the need for someone who will buy their stuff. If people
in the United States don't buy it, then the workers will be out on the street and growth in the developing world will grind to a
halt.
In this story, the problem is that we don't have enough people in the world to buy stuff. In other words, there is a shortage
of demand. But is it really true that no one else in the world would buy the stuff produced by manufacturing workers in the developing
world if they couldn't sell it to consumers in the United States? Suppose people in the developing world bought the stuff they produced
raising their living standards by raising their own consumption.
That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of demand are not a problem.
[2] Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack
of supply. The problem was that we couldn't produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find
anyone to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership
assume trade doesn't affect total employment.
[3] Economies adjust so that shortages of demand are not a problem.
In this standard story (and the Sanders critics are people who care about textbook economics), capital flows from slow-growing
rich countries, where it is relatively plentiful and so gets a low rate of return, to fast-growing poor countries, where it is scarce
and gets a high rate of return (Figure 1-1).
So the United States, Japan, and the European Union should be running large trade surpluses, which is what an outflow of capital
means. Rich countries like ours should be lending money to developing countries, providing them with the means to build up their
capital stock and infrastructure while they use their own resources to meet their people's basic needs.
This wasn't just theory. That story accurately described much of the developing world, especially Asia, through the 1990s. Countries
like Indonesia and Malaysia were experiencing rapid annual growth of 7.8 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively, even as they ran
large trade deficits, just over 2 percent of GDP each year in Indonesia and almost 5 percent in Malaysia.
These trade deficits probably were excessive, and a crisis of confidence hit East Asia and much of the developing world in the
summer of 1997. The inflow of capital from rich countries slowed or reversed, making it impossible for the developing countries to
sustain the fixed exchange rates most had at the time. One after another, they were forced to abandon their fixed exchange rates
and turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help.
Rather than promulgating policies that would allow developing countries to continue the textbook development path of growth driven
by importing capital and running trade deficits, the IMF made debt repayment a top priority. The bailout, under the direction of
the Clinton administration Treasury Department, required developing countries to switch to large trade surpluses (Radelet and Sachs
2000, O'Neil 1999).
The countries of East Asia would be far richer today had they been allowed to continue on the growth path of the early and mid-1990s,
when they had large trade deficits (Figure 1-2). Four of the five would be more than twice as rich, and the fifth, Vietnam, would
be almost 50 percent richer. South Korea and Malaysia would have higher per capita incomes today than the United States.
In the wake of the East Asia bailout, countries throughout the developing world decided they had to build up reserves of foreign
exchange, primarily dollars, in order to avoid ever facing the same harsh bailout terms as the countries of East Asia. Building up
reserves meant running large trade surpluses, and it is no coincidence that the U.S. trade deficit has exploded, rising from just
over 1 percent of GDP in 1996 to almost 6 percent in 2005. The rise has coincided with the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing
jobs, roughly 20 percent of employment in the sector.
There was no reason the textbook growth pattern of the 1990s could not have continued. It wasn't the laws of economics that forced
developing countries to take a different path, it was the failed bailout and the international financial system. It would seem that
the enemy of the world's poor is not Bernie Sanders but rather the engineers of our current globalization policies.
There is a further point in this story that is generally missed: it is not only the volume of trade flows that is determined by
policy, but also the content. A major push in recent trade deals has been to require stronger and longer patent and copyright protection.
Paying the fees imposed by these terms, especially for prescription drugs, is a huge burden on the developing world. Bill Clinton
would have much less need to fly around the world for the Clinton Foundation had he not inserted the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights ) provisions in the World Trade Organization (WTO) that require developing countries to adopt U.S.-style
patent protections. Generic drugs are almost always cheap -patent protection makes drugs expensive. The cancer and hepatitis drugs
that sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year would sell for a few hundred dollars in a free market. Cheap drugs
would be more widely available had the developed world not forced TRIPS on the developing world.
Of course, we have to pay for the research to develop new drugs or any innovation. We also have to compensate creative workers
who produce music, movies, and books. But there are efficient alternatives to patents and copyrights, and the efforts by the elites
in the United States and other wealthy countries to impose these relics on the developing world is just a mechanism for redistributing
income from the world's poor to Pfizer, Microsoft, and Disney. Stronger and longer patent and copyright protection is not a necessary
feature of a 21 st century economy.
In textbook trade theory, if a country has a larger trade surplus on payments for royalties and patent licensing fees, it will
have a larger trade deficit in manufactured goods and other areas. The reason is that, in theory, the trade balance is fixed by national
savings and investment, not by the ability of a country to export in a particular area. If the trade deficit is effectively fixed
by these macroeconomic factors, then more exports in one area mean fewer exports in other areas. Put another way, income gains for
Pfizer and Disney translate into lost jobs for workers in the steel and auto industries.
The conventional story is that we lose manufacturing jobs to developing countries because they have hundreds of millions of people
willing to do factory work at a fraction of the pay of manufacturing workers in the United States. This is true, but developing countries
also have tens of millions of smart and ambitious people willing to work as doctors and lawyers in the United States at a fraction
of the pay of the ones we have now.
Gains from trade work the same with doctors and lawyers as they do with textiles and steel. Our consumers would save hundreds
of billions a year if we could hire professionals from developing countries and pay them salaries that are substantially less than
what we pay our professionals now. The reason we import manufactured goods and not doctors is that we have designed the rules of
trade that way. We deliberately write trade pacts to make it as easy as possible for U.S. companies to set up manufacturing operations
abroad and ship the products back to the United States, but we have done little or nothing to remove the obstacles that professionals
from other countries face in trying to work in the United States. The reason is simple: doctors and lawyers have more political power
than autoworkers.
[4]
In short, there is no truth to the story that the job loss and wage stagnation faced by manufacturing workers in the United States
and other wealthy countries was a necessary price for reducing poverty in the developing world.
[5] This is a fiction that is used to justify the upward redistribution of income in rich countries. After all, it is pretty
selfish for rich country autoworkers and textile workers to begrudge hungry people in Africa and Asia and the means to secure food,
clothing, and shelter.
The other aspect of this story that deserves mention is the nature of the jobs to which our supposedly selfish workers feel entitled.
The manufacturing jobs that are being lost to the developing world pay in the range of $15 to $30 an hour, with the vast majority
closer to the bottom figure than the top. The average hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory workers in manufacturing in 2015
was just under $20 an hour, or about $40,000 a year. While a person earning $40,000 is doing much better than a subsistence farmer
in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is difficult to see this worker as especially privileged.
By contrast, many of the people remarking on the narrow-mindedness and sense of entitlement of manufacturing workers earn comfortable
six-figure salaries. Senior writers and editors at network news shows or at the New York Times and Washington Post
feel entitled to their pay because they feel they have the education and skills to be successful in a rapidly changing global economy.
These are the sort of people who consider it a sacrifice to work at a high-level government job for $150,000 to $200,000 a year.
For example, Timothy Geithner, President Obama's first treasury secretary, often boasts about his choice to work for various government
agencies rather than earn big bucks in the private sector. His sacrifice included a stint as president of the Federal Reserve Bank
of New York that paid $415,000 a year.
[6] This level of pay put Geithner well into the top 1 percent of wage earners.
Geithner's comments about his sacrifices in public service did not elicit any outcry from the media at the time because his perspective
was widely shared. The implicit assumption is that the sort of person who is working at a high level government job could easily
be earning a paycheck that is many times higher if they were employed elsewhere. In fact, this is often true. When he left his job
as Treasury Secretary, Geithner took a position with a private equity company where his salary is likely several million dollars
a year.
Not everyone who was complaining about entitled manufacturing workers was earning as much as Timothy Geithner, but it is a safe
bet that the average critic was earning far more than the average manufacturing worker - and certainly far more than the average
displaced manufacturing worker.
Turning the Debate Right-Side Up: Markets Are Structured
The perverse nature of the debate over a trade policy that would have the audacity to benefit workers in rich countries is a great
example of how we accept as givens not just markets themselves but also the policies that structure markets. If we accept it as a
fact of nature that poor countries cannot borrow from rich countries to finance their development, and that they can only export
manufactured goods, then their growth will depend on displacing manufacturing workers in the United States and other rich countries.
It is absurd to narrow the policy choices in this way, yet the centrists and conservatives who support the upward redistribution
of the last four decades have been extremely successful in doing just that, and progressives have largely let them set the terms
of the debate.
Markets are never just given. Neither God nor nature hands us a worked-out set of rules determining the way property relations
are defined, contracts are enforced, or macroeconomic policy is implemented. These matters are determined by policy choices. The
elites have written these rules to redistribute income upward. Needless to say, they are not eager to have the rules rewritten which
means they have no interest in even having them discussed.
But for progressive change to succeed, these rules must be addressed. While modest tweaks to tax and transfer policies can ameliorate
the harm done by a regressive market structure, their effect will be limited. The complaint of conservatives - that tampering with
market outcomes leads to inefficiencies and unintended outcomes - is largely correct, even if they may exaggerate the size of the
distortions from policy interventions. Rather than tinker with badly designed rules, it is far more important to rewrite the rules
so that markets lead to progressive and productive outcomes in which the benefits of economic growth and improving technology are
broadly shared
This book examines five broad areas where the rules now in place tend to redistribute income upward and where alternative rules
can lead to more equitable outcomes and a more efficient market:
Macroeconomic policies determining levels of employment and output. Financial regulation and the structure of financial markets.
Patent and copyright monopolies and alternative mechanisms for financing innovation and creative work. Pay of chief executive
officers (CEOs) and corporate governance structures. Protections for highly paid professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.
In each of these areas, it is possible to identify policy choices that have engineered the upward redistribution of the last four
decades.
In the case of macroeconomic policy, the United States and other wealthy countries have explicitly adopted policies that focus
on maintaining low rates of inflation. Central banks are quick to raise interest rates at the first sign of rising inflation and
sometimes even before. Higher interest rates slow inflation by reducing demand, thereby reducing job growth, and reduced job growth
weakens workers' bargaining power and puts downward pressure on wages. In other words, the commitment to an anti-inflation policy
is a commitment by the government, acting through central banks, to keep wages down. It should not be surprising that this policy
has the effect of redistributing income upward.
The changing structure of financial regulation and financial markets has also been an important factor in redistributing income
upward. This is a case where an industry has undergone very rapid change as a result of technological innovation. Information technology
has hugely reduced the cost of financial transactions and allowed for the development of an array of derivative instruments that
would have been unimaginable four decades ago. Rather than modernizing regulation to ensure that these technologies allow the financial
sector to better serve the productive economy, the United States and other countries have largely structured regulations to allow
a tiny group of bankers and hedge fund and private equity fund managers to become incredibly rich.
This changed structure of regulation over the last four decades was not "deregulation," as is often claimed. Almost no proponent
of deregulation argued against the bailouts that saved Wall Street in the financial crisis or against the elimination of government
deposit insurance that is an essential part of a stable banking system. Rather, they advocated a system in which the rules restricting
their ability to profit were eliminated, while the insurance provided by the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, and other arms of the government were left in place. The position of "deregulators" effectively amounted to arguing
that they should not have to pay for the insurance they were receiving.
The third area in which the rules have been written to ensure an upward redistribution is patent and copyright protection. Over
the last four decades these protections have been made stronger and longer. In the case of both patent and copyright, the duration
of the monopoly period has been extended. In addition, these monopolies have been applied to new areas. Patents can now be applied
to life forms, business methods, and software. Copyrights have been extended to cover digitally produced material as well as the
internet. Penalties for infringement have been increased and the United States has vigorously pursued their application in other
countries through trade agreements and diplomatic pressure.
Government-granted monopolies are not facts of nature, and there are alternative mechanisms for financing innovation and creative
work. Direct government funding, as opposed to government granted monopolies, is one obvious alternative. For example, the government
spends more than $30 billion a year on biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health - money that all parties agree
is very well spent. There are also other possible mechanisms. It is likely that these alternatives are more efficient than the current
patent and copyright system, in large part because they would be more market-oriented. And, they would likely lead to less upward
redistribution than the current system.
The CEOs who are paid tens of millions a year would like the public to think that the market is simply compensating them for their
extraordinary skills. A more realistic story is that a broken corporate governance process gives corporate boards of directors -
the people who largely determine CEO pay -little incentive to hold down pay. Directors are more closely tied to top management than
to the shareholders they are supposed to represent, and their positions are lucrative, usually paying six figures for very part-time
work. Directors are almost never voted out by shareholders for their lack of attention to the job or for incompetence.
The market discipline that holds down the pay of ordinary workers does not apply to CEOs, since their friends determine their
pay. And a director has little incentive to pick a fight with fellow directors or top management by asking a simple question like,
"Can we get a CEO just as good for half the pay?" This privilege matters not just for CEOs; it has the spillover effect of raising
the pay of other top managers in the corporate sector and putting upward pressure on the salaries of top management in universities,
hospitals, private charities, and other nonprofits.
Reformed corporate governance structures could empower shareholders to contain the pay of their top-level employees. Suppose directors
could count on boosts in their own pay if they cut the pay of top management without hurting profitability, With this sort of policy
change, CEOs and top management might start to experience some of the downward wage pressure that existing policies have made routine
for typical workers.
This is very much not a story of the natural workings of the market. Corporations are a legal entity created by the government,
which also sets the rules of corporate governance. Current law includes a lengthy set of restrictions on corporate governance practices.
It is easy to envision rules which would make it less likely that CEOs earn such outlandish paychecks by making it easier for shareholders
to curb excessive pay.
Finally, government policies strongly promote the upward redistribution of income for highly paid professionals by protecting
them from competition. To protect physicians and specialists, we restrict the ability of nurse practitioners or physician assistants
to perform tasks for which they are entirely competent. We require lawyers for work that paralegals are capable of completing. While
trade agreements go far to remove any obstacle that might protect an autoworker in the United States from competition with a low-paid
factory worker in Mexico or China, they do little or nothing to reduce the barriers that protect doctors, dentists, and lawyers from
the same sort of competition. To practice medicine in the United States, it is still necessary to complete a residency program here,
as though there were no other way for a person to become a competent doctor.
We also have done little to foster medical travel. This could lead to enormous benefits to patients and the economy, since many
high cost medical procedures can be performed at a fifth or even one-tenth the U.S. price in top quality medical facilities elsewhere
in the world. In this context, it is not surprising that the median pay of physicians is over $250,000 a year and some areas of specialization
earn close to twice this amount. In the case of physicians alone, if pay were reduced to West European-levels the savings would be
close to $100 billion a year (@ 0.6 percent of GDP).
Changing the rules in these five areas could reduce much and possibly all of the upward redistribution of the last four decades.
But changing the rules does not mean using government intervention to curb the market. It means restructuring the market to produce
different outcomes. The purpose of this book is to show how.
[1] See also Weissman (2016), Iacono (2016), Worstall (2016), Lane (2016), and Zakaria (2016).
[2] As explained in the next chapter, this view is not exactly correct, but it's what you're supposed to believe if you adhere
to the mainstream economic view.
[3] There can be modest changes in employment through a supply-side effect. If the trade deal increases the efficiency of the
economy, then the marginal product of labor should rise, leading to a higher real wage, which in turn should induce some people to
choose work over leisure. So the trade deal results in more people choosing to work, not an increased demand for labor.
[4] For those worried about brain drain from developing countries, there is an easy fix. Economists like to talk about taxing
the winners, in this case developing country professionals and rich country consumers, to compensate the losers, which would be the
home countries of the migrating professionals. We could tax a portion of the professionals' pay to allow their home countries to
train two or three professionals for every one that came to the United States. This is a classic win-win from trade.
[5] The loss of manufacturing jobs also reduced the wages of less-educated workers (those without college degrees) more generally.
The displaced manufacturing workers crowded into retail and other service sectors, putting downward pressure on wages there.
[6] As a technical matter, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is a private bank. It is owned by the banks that are members
of the Federal Reserve System in the New York District.
"Markets are never just given. Neither God nor nature hands us a worked-out set of rules determining the way property relations
are defined, contracts are enforced, or macroeconomic policy is implemented. These matters are determined by policy choices. The
elites have written these rules to redistribute income upward. Needless to say, they are not eager to have the rules rewritten
which means they have no interest in even having them discussed."
======================================================
It is one of those remarkable hypocrisies that free "unregulated" trade requires deals of thousands of pages .
but if these deals weren't so carefully structured to help the 1%, support would melt like snowmen in Fresno on a July day
Or check your local indy, or one of those that take orders (I refrain from naming my favorite co-op in Chicago, and anyway
I admit there are others). Nice to support those when you can.
Almost no proponent of deregulation argued against the bailouts that saved Wall Street in the financial crisis or against
the elimination of government deposit insurance that is an essential part of a stable banking system.
Actually I believe there were some Republicans who denounced the Wall Street bailout as a violation of capitalist principles.
My state's Mark Sanford comes to mind. It was the Dems at the urging of Pelosi who saved the bailout. On the other hand many of
my local politicians are big on "public/private" partnerships which would be a violation of laissez-faire that they approve. Perhaps
it was simply that there are no giant banks headquartered in SC.
The truth is there is no coherent intellectual basis to how the US economy is currently run. It's all about power and what
you can do with it. Which is to say it is our politics, above all, that is broken.
"That is how the economics is supposed to work. In the standard theory, general shortages of demand are not a problem.[2]
Economists have traditionally assumed that economies tended toward full employment. The basic economic constraint was a lack of
supply. The problem was that we couldn't produce enough goods and services, not that we were producing too much and couldn't find
anyone to buy them. In fact, this is why all the standard models used to analyze trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership
assume trade doesn't affect total employment.[3] Economies adjust so that shortages of demand are not a problem."
Unbelievable.
By the 1920s they realised the system produced so much stuff that extensive advertising was needed to shift it all.
One hundred year's later, we might take this on board.
What is the global advertising budget?
The amount necessary to shift all the crap the system produces today.
We need to move on from Milton Freidman's ideas and discover what trade in a globalized world is really about.
We are still under the influence of Milton Freidman's ideas of a globalised free trade world.
These ideas came from Milton Freidman's imagination where he saw the ideal as small state, raw capitalism and thought the public
sector should be sold off and entitlement programs whittled down until everything must be purchased through the private sector.
"You are free to spend your money as you choose"
Not mentioning its other meaning:
"No money, no freedom"
After Milton Freedman's "shock therapy" in Russia, people were left with so little money they couldn't afford to eat and starved
to death. In Greece people cannot afford even bread today.
But this is economic liberalism, the economy comes first.
Milton Freidman used his imagination to work out what small state, raw capitalism looked like whereas he could have looked
at it in reality through history books of the 18th and 19th centuries where it had already existed.
The Classical Economists studied it and were able to see its problems first hand and noted the detrimental effects of the rentier
class on the economy. They were constantly looking to get "unearned" income from doing nothing; sucking purchasing power out of
the economy and bleeding it dry.
Adam Smith observed:
"The Labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury.
The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions
from the industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money. But every
savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords, no usurers and no tax gatherers."
Adam Smith saw landlords, usurers (bankers) and Government taxes as equally parasitic, all raising the cost of doing business.
He sees the lazy people at the top living off "unearned" income from their land and capital.
He sees the trickle up of Capitalism:
1) Those with excess capital collect rent and interest.
2) Those with insufficient capital pay rent and interest.
He differentiates between "earned" and "unearned" income.
Today we encourage a new rentier class of BTL landlords who look to extract the "earned" income of generation rent for "unearned"
income. If you have a large BTL portfolio you can become a true rentier, do nothing productive at all and live off "unearned"
income extracted from generation rent, the true capitalist parasite. (UK)
The Classical Economists realised capitalism has two sides, the productive side where "earned" income is generated and the
unproductive, parasitic, rentier side where "unearned" income is generated.
You should tax "unearned" income to discourage the parasitic side of capitalism.
You shouldn't tax "earned" income to encourage the productive side of capitalism.
You should provide low cost housing, education and services to create a low cost of living, giving a low minimum wage making
you globally competitive. This is to be funded by taxes on "unearned" income.
The US has probably been the most successful in making its labour force internationally uncompetitive with soaring costs of
housing, healthcare and student loan repayments.
These all have to be covered by wages and US businesses are now squealing about the high minimum wage.
That's Milton Freidman's imagined small state, raw capitalism.
What he imagined bears little resemblance to the reality the Classical Economists saw firsthand.
We need to move on from Milton Freidman fantasy land.
Small state, raw capitalism as observed by Adam Smith:
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society.
On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
fastest to ruin."
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalising itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services
In the 18th Century they would have understood today's problems with growth and demand.
Luckily Jeff Bezos didn't inhabit Milton Freidman fantasy land.
He re-invested almost everything to turn Amazon onto the global behemoth it is today.
' The commitment to an anti-inflation policy is a commitment by the government, acting through central banks, to keep wages
down. '
This is strikingly silly. Insert the word 'nominal' before wages, and it's not a howler anymore.
Anti-inflation policy in fact has little influence on real wages (the variable of concern, not nominal wages). But it has a
lot to do with preventing the social chaos of constantly rising prices, strikes for higher wages, inability of first-time home
buyers to borrow at affordable rates, and so on.
Inflationism is greasy kid stuff not to mention a brazen fraud on the public.
As one who walked the corridors of power in a very modest capacity in my country in the early to mid 1990s, can I just say
that people with power or influence then were aware that globalisation would create winners and losers. I recall the consensus
of those I knew then was that steps would need to be taken to compensate the losers. The tragedy is that these steps were never
taken, or, if they were, only to a wholly inadequate degree.
The always elusive referents for cost, price and value the flip-side of social chaos would seem the entropic degradation of
wasted lives, excluded from participating {either-OR} abandoned as irredeemable
Higher interest rates slow inflation by reducing demand, thereby reducing job growth, and reduced job growth weakens workers'
bargaining power and puts downward pressure on wages.
Your assertion that anti-inflation policy has little influence on real wages does not address Baker's statement about the mechanism
by which he says it does. Given an argument between two people, one of whom cites a mechanism he is probably prepared to document
with numbers and one of whom merely declares his belief, which are people more likely to trust? Granted always, they should go
look for the numbers before they fully accept the statement, his credibility is currently higher than yours on this subject.
By contrast, since the 1970s real wages stalled, while interest rates round-tripped back to 2 percent.
Over nearly seven decades, the correlation is quite the opposite from that made up claimed by Dean Bonkers.
Namely, real wages soared under a regime of steadily rising nominal interest rates.
Since my original reply has disappeared in limbo, I will merely note that numbers are probably even crunchier when you don't
generalize across a span of decades: first there was A, then there was B, nothing else happened. It's a sure way to obscure patterns.
And Jim, please quit the ad hominem stuff! It's ugly and needless. If you really have an argument you don't need it, and if
you don't you don't gain by it. You know perfectly well he's not making things up and he's not bonkers. When you say stuff like
that, the obvious presumption is that you just don't want to consider his arguments because they lead somewhere you don't want
to go.
Perhaps I am missing the point being made, but if you are suggesting that increases in real wages in the 1945-1975 period caused
inflation, why not provide the data on inflation which would in fact show that inflation was essentially tame for 20 years in
this period (1952-1972, with a slight hiccup in 1969-1971), thereby contradicting your point? And if you are suggesting that Fed
increases in interest rate have not resulted in suppression of wages you will have to demonstrate that using analysis that takes
into account the lag in time between increase in rate and transmission to wages, and in that case would you not also use the Fed
Funds Rate itself as a variable?
Bulltwacky, they have been globalizing wages downwards while globalizing housing prices upwards!
Every time some stupid and moronic newsy floozy on one of the CorporateNonMedia outlets claims housing purchases may be going
down because consumer confidence is plummeting, they CHOOSE to ignore the foreign buyers of said houses!
Did I get this right? Full employment is an assumed boundary condition and so is fixed balance of trade? If the model is to
work as advertised then the boundary conditions must be hard wired to be true, right?
If the top 25 hedge fund managers saved around $5 billion per year in being taxed on their income at capital gains rate (carried
interest ruling in tax code - utterly corrupt), then think of the amount that is being robbed from the tax base when one considers
ALL the hedge fund people, and ALL the private equity types (who also do this), a conservative amount of tax revenues remitted
should be around $100 billion per year!
"... My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders. ..."
"... Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude. ..."
"... Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to me. ..."
"... In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and double dealing are still too fresh. ..."
"... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
"That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse."
Because of economic stagnation and anxiety among lower class Republicans. Trump blames immigration
and trade unlike traditional elite Republicans. These are economic issues.
Trump supporters no longer believe or trust the Republican elite who they see as corrupt
which is partly true. They've been backing Nixon, Reagan, Bush etc and things are just getting
worse. They've been played.
Granted it's complicated and partly they see their side as losing and so are doubling down
on the conservatism, racism, sexism etc. But Trump *brags* that he was against the Iraq war.
That's not an elite Republican opinion.
likbez -> DrDick... , -1
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican
brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after
so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to
me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern
this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that
Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and
double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control
of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be
otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks.
A vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, the Clinton campaign has suggested in broad ways
and subtle ones, isn't just a vote for a Democrat over a Republican: It's a vote for safety over
risk, steady competence over boastful recklessness, psychological stability in the White House
over ungovernable passions.
This theme has been a winning one for Hillary, in her debates and in the wider campaign, and
for good reason. The perils of a Trump presidency are as distinctive as the candidate himself,
and a vote for Trump makes a long list of worst cases - the Western alliance system's unraveling,
a cycle of domestic radicalization, an accidental economic meltdown, a civilian-military crisis
- more likely than with any normal administration.
Indeed, Trump and his supporters almost admit as much. "We've tried sane, now let's try crazy,"
is basically his campaign's working motto. The promise to be a bull in a china shop is part of
his demagogue's appeal. Some of his more eloquent supporters have analogized a vote for Trump
to storming the cockpit of a hijacked plane, with the likelihood of a plane crash entirely factored
in.
But passing on the plane-crash candidate doesn't mean ignoring the dangers of his rival.
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarian
unknowns, because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite groupthink,
of Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They're
the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn't recognize itself as either, because
it's convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it
cannot possibly be folly.
Almost every crisis that has come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this
establishmentarian type of folly. The Iraq War, which liberals prefer to remember as a conflict
conjured by a neoconservative cabal, was actually the work of a bipartisan interventionist consensus,
pushed hard by George W. Bush but embraced as well by a large slice of center-left opinion that
included Tony Blair and more than half of Senate Democrats.
Likewise the financial crisis: Whether you blame financial-services deregulation or happy-go-lucky
housing policy (or both), the policies that helped inflate and pop the bubble were embraced by
both wings of the political establishment. ...
(Crises happen. How are these two linked? The first came about because we were in the throes
of 9/11. The 2nd arguably because we were in the delayed throes of a dot.com bubble collapse.
And with a president who was out of his depth.)
likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs...
== quote ===
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarian unknowns,
because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite groupthink, of
Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They're
the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn't recognize itself as either, because
it's convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it
cannot possibly be folly.
=== end of quote ===
That looks like indirect attack on neocons which is atypical for NYT.
IMHO the main danger of Hillary presidency is the danger of WWIII due to her own jingoism and
recklessness as well as outsize neocons influence in her administration (she is the person who
promoted Cheney's associate Victoria Nuland, who got us into Ukrainian mess).
As such outweighs all possible dangers of Trump presidency by a wide margin.
Voting for Hillary is like voting for John McCain in a pantsuit in order to prevent decimation
of the remnants of the New Deal inherent in Trump administration.
Trump at least gives us some chance of détente with Russia.
Also he faces hostile Congress and "deep state", while Hillary is a creature of "deep state",
a marionette, if you wish, which will continue the current disastrous interventionist foreign
policy.
Of course Trump can be co-opted by "deep state" too. That's also a danger.
There is a nice cartoon, probably from Times, that I found at
In a lengthy speech on Saturday night in Manheim, Pennsylvania, Republican nominee for president
Donald J. Trump lambasted his opponent Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton for a secret tape
recording of her bashing supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont-and even called for Clinton
to be placed in prison and questioned as to whether she has been loyal to her husband former President
Bill Clinton.
Trump said in the speech on Saturday night:
A new audio tape that has surfaced just yesterday from another one of Hillary's high roller
fundraisers shows her demeaning and mocking Bernie Sanders and all of his supporters. You know,
and I'll tell you something we have a much bigger movement that Bernie Sanders ever had. We have
much bigger crowds than Sanders ever had. And we have a more important movement than Bernie Sanders
ever had because we're going to save our country, okay? We're going to save our country. But I
can tell you Bernie Sanders would have left a great, great legacy had he not made the deal with
the devil. He would have really left a great legacy. Now he shows up and 120 people come in to
hear him talk. Bernie Sanders would have left a great legacy had he not made the deal, had he
held his head high and walked away. Now he's on the other side perhaps from us and we want to
get along with everybody and we will-we're going to unite the country-but what Bernie Sanders
did to his supporters was very, very unfair. And they're really not his supporters any longer
and they're not going to support Hillary Clinton. I really believe a lot of those people are coming
over and largely because of trade, college education, lots of other things-but largely because
of trade, they're coming over to our side-you watch, you watch. Especially after Hillary mocks
him and mocks all of those people by attacking him and his supporters as 'living in their parents'
basements,' and trapped in dead-end careers. That's not what they are.
Also in his speech on Saturday night, Trump summed up exactly what came out in the latest Hillary
Clinton tapes in which she mocks Sanders supporters:
She describes many of them as ignorant, and [that] they want the United States to be more like
Scandinavia but that 'half the people don't know what that means' in a really sarcastic tone because
she's a sarcastic woman. To sum up, and I'll tell you the other thing-she's an incompetent woman.
She's an incompetent woman. I've seen it. Just take a look at what she touches. It never works
out, and you watch: her run for the presidency will never ever work out because we can't let it
work out. To sum up, Hillary Clinton thinks Bernie supporters are hopeless and ignorant basement
dwellers. Then, of course, she thinks people who vote for and follow us are deplorable and irredeemable.
I don't think so. I don't think so. We have the smartest people, we have the sharpest people,
we have the most amazing people, and you know in all of the years of this country they say, even
the pundits-most of them aren't worth the ground they're standing on, some of that ground could
be fairly wealthy but ground, but most of these people say they have never seen a phenomenon like
is going on. We have crowds like this wherever we go.
WATCH THE FULL SPEECH:
Later in the speech, Trump came back to the tape again and hammered her once more for it.
"Hillary Clinton all but said that most of the country is racist, including the men and women
of law enforcement," Trump said. "She said that the other night. Did anybody like Lester Holt? Did
anybody question her when she said that? No, she said it the other night. [If] you're not a die hard
Clinton fan-you're not a supporter-from Day One, Hillary Clinton thinks you are a defective person.
That's what she's going around saying."
In the speech, Trump questioned whether Clinton has the moral authority to lead when she considers
the majority of Americans-Trump supporters and Sanders supporters-to be "defective" people. And he
went so far as saying that Clinton "should be in prison." He went on:
How on earth can Hillary Clinton try to lead this country when she has nothing but contempt
for the people who live in this country? She's got contempt. First of all, she's got so many scandals
and she's been caught cheating so much. One of the worst things I've ever witnessed as a citizen
of the United States was last week when the FBI director was trying so hard to explain how she
away with what she got away with, because she should be in prison. Let me tell you. She should
be in prison. She's being totally protected by the New York Times and the Washington Post and
all of the media and CNN-Clinton News Network-which nobody is watching anyway so what difference
does it make? Don't even watch it. But she's being protected by many of these groups. It's not
like do you think she's guilty? They've actually admitted she's guilty. And then she lies and
lies, 33,000 emails deleted, bleached, acid-washed! And then they take their phones and they hammer
the hell out of them. How many people have acid washed or bleached a Tweet? How many?
He returned to the secret Clinton tape a little while later:
Hillary Clinton slanders and attacks anyone who wants to put America First, whether they
are Trump Voters or Bernie Voters. What she said about Bernie voters amazing. Like the European
Union, she wants to erase our borders and she wants to do it for her donors and she wants people
to pour into country without knowing who they are.
Trump later bashed the media as "dishonest as hell" when calling on the reporters at his event
to "turn your cameras" to show the crowd that came to see him.
"If they showed the kind of crowds we have-which people can hear, you know it's interesting: you
can hear the crowd when you hear the television but if they showed the crowd it would be better television,
but they don't know much about that. But it would actually be better television," Trump said.
Trump also questioned whether Hillary Clinton has been loyal to her husband, former President
Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton has been known to cheat on Hillary Clinton with a variety of mistresses
and has been accused of rape and sexual assault by some women.
"Hillary Clinton's only loyalty is to her financial contributors and to herself," Trump
said. "I don't even think she's loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really, folks,
really: Why should she be, right? Why should she be?"
Throughout the speech, Trump weaved together references to his new campaign theme about Clinton-"Follow
The Money"-with details about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. He said:
We're going to take on the corrupt media, the powerful lobbyists and the special interests
that have stolen your jobs, your factories, and your future-that's exactly what's happened. We're
going to stop Hillary Clinton from continuing to raid the industry from your state for her profit.
Hillary Clinton has collected millions of dollars from the same global corporations shipping
your jobs and your dreams to other countries. You know it and everybody else knows it. That's
why Clinton, if she ever got the chance, would 100 percent approve Trans Pacific Partnership-a
total disastrous trade deal. She called the deal the 'gold standard.' The TPP will bring economic
devastation to Pennsylvania and our campaign is the only chance to stop that and other bad things
that are happening to our country. She lied about the Gold Standard the other night at the debate.
She said she didn't say it-she said it. We want to stop the Trans Pacific Partnership and if we
don't-remember this, if we don't stop it, billions and billions [of dollars] in jobs and wealth
will be vacuumed right out of Pennsylvania and sent to these other countries. Just like NAFTA
was a disaster, this will be a disaster. Frankly I don't think it'll be as bad as NAFTA. It can't
get any worse than that-signed by Bill Clinton. All of us here in this massive room here tonight
can prevent this from happening. Together we can stop TPP and we can end the theft of American
jobs and prosperity.
Trump praised Sanders for being strongly opposed to the TPP:
I knew one man-I'm not a big fan-but one man who knew the dangers of the TPP was Bernie
Sanders. Crazy Bernie. He was right about one thing, only one thing, and that was trade. He was
right about it because he knew we were getting ripped off, but he wouldn't be able to do anything
about it . We're going to do a lot about it. We're going to have those highways running the
opposite direction. We're going to have a lot of trade, but it's going to come into our country.
We are going to start benefitting our country because right now it's one way road to trouble.
Our jobs leave us, our money leaves us. With Mexico, we get the drugs-they get the cash-it's that
simple.
Hillary Clinton, Trump noted, is "controlled by global special interests."
"She's on the opposite side of Bernie on the trade issue," Trump said. "She's totally on the opposite
side of Bernie."
He circled back to trade a bit later in the more-than-hour-long speech, hammering TPP and Clinton
cash connections. Trump continued:
Three TPP member countries gave between $6 and $15 million to Clinton. At least four lobbyists
who are actively lobbying for TPP passage have raised more than $800,000 for her campaign. I'm
just telling you Pennsylvania, we're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to
make it if we have Pennsylvania for sure. It'll be easy. But you cannot let this pass. NAFTA passed.
It's been the worst trade deal probably ever passed, not in this country but anywhere in the world.
It cleaned out New England. It cleaned out big portions of Pennsylvania. It cleaned out big portions
of Ohio and North Carolina and South Carolina-you can't let it happen.
Trump even called the politicians like Clinton "bloodsuckers" who have let America be drained
out of millions upon millions of jobs.
"These bloodsuckers want it to happen," Trump said. "They're politicians that are getting taken
care of by people that want it to happen. Other countries want it to happen because it's good for
them, but it's not good for us. So hopefully you're not going to let it happen. Whatever Hillary's
donors want, they get. They own her. On Nov. 8, we're going to end Clinton corruption. Hillary Clinton,
dishonest person, is an insider fighting for herself and for her friends. I'm an outsider fighting
for you. And by the way, just in case you're not aware, I used to be an insider but I thought this
was the right thing to do. This is the right thing to do, believe me."
The Walloon mouse : ...Instead of decrying people's stupidity and ignorance in rejecting trade
deals, we should try to understand why such deals lost legitimacy in the first place. I'd put
a large part of the blame on mainstream elites and trade technocrats who pooh-poohed ordinary
people's concerns with earlier trade agreements.
The elites minimized distributional concerns, though they turned out to be significant for
the most directly affected communities. They oversold aggregate gains from trade deals, though
they have been smallish since at least NAFTA. They said sovereignty would not be diminished though
it clearly was in some instances. They claimed democratic principles would not be undermined,
though they are in places. They said there'd be no social dumping though there clearly is at times.
They advertised trade deals (and continue to do so) as "free trade" agreements, even though Adam
Smith and David Ricardo would turn over in their graves if they read, say, any of the TPP chapters.
And because they failed to provide those distinctions and caveats now trade gets tarred with
all kinds of ills even when it's not deserved. If the demagogues and nativists making nonsensical
claims about trade are getting a hearing, it is trade's cheerleaders that deserve some of the
blame.
One more thing. The opposition to trade deals is no longer solely about income losses. The
standard remedy of compensation won't be enough -- even if carried out. It's about fairness, loss
of control, and elites' loss of credibility. It hurts the cause of trade to pretend otherwise.
... ... ..
Trump would propose and/or enact, he listed the following six:
"A Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress."
"A hiring freeze on all federal employees."
"A requirement that for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated."
"A 5-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government."
"A lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government."
"A complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections."
"
~~WWW~
Lot of reform is needed but may be
The forgotten spirit of American protectionism : , -1
The free traders have human economic history precisely inverted. Countries that practice protectionism
almost uniformly become wealthy and technologically advanced. Countries that don't become or remain
terribly sad, poverty-stricken producers of worthless raw materials and desperate labor migrants.
This has been true at least going back to Byzantium and its economic conquest by Genoa and Venice.
That the US thrived pre-1970 free trade is no coincidence. There is no alternative to protectionism.
Free trade = no industry = no money = no future.
There was another part of the Post
article I cited in my
last post that I wanted to address:
"The dynamic is totally different from what I saw a decade ago" when Democratic and Republican
elites were feuding over the invasion of Iraq, said Brian Katulis, a senior Middle East analyst
at the Center for American Progress. Today, the focus among the foreign policy elite is on rebuilding
a more muscular and more "centrist internationalism," he said [bold mine-DL].
Every term used in that last sentence is either misleading or flat-out wrong. A more aggressive
policy in Syria or anywhere else
shouldn't be described as "muscular" for a few reasons. For one thing, committing the U.S. to
short-sighted and ill-conceived military interventions does nothing to enhance the strength or security
of the country. Such a policy doesn't build strength–it wastes it. Calling an aggressive policy "muscular"
betrays a bias that aggressive measures are the ones that demonstrate strength, when they usually
just demonstrate policymakers' crude and clumsy approach to foreign problems. One might just as easily
describe these policies as meat-headed instead.
"Centrist" is one of the most overused and abused words in our politics. The term is often used
to refer to positions that are supposedly moderate, pragmatic, and relatively free of ideological
bias, but here we can see that it refers to something very different. Many people that are considered
to be "centrists" on the normal left-right political spectrum are frequently in favor of a much more
aggressive foreign policy than the one we have now, but that doesn't make their foreign policy a
moderate or pragmatic one. In fact, this "centrism" is not really a position in between the two partisan
extremes, both of which would be satisfied with a less activist and interventionist foreign policy
than we have today, but represents an extreme all its own.
Besides, there's nothing moderate or pragmatic about being determined to entangle the U.S.
deeper in foreign wars, and that is what this so-called "centrist" foreign policy aims to do.
Likewise, it is fairly misleading to call what is being proposed here internationalist. It
shows no respect for international law. Hawkish proposals to attack Syria or carve out "safe zones"
by force simply ignore that the U.S. has no right or authority to do either of these things.
There appears to be scant interest in pursuing international cooperation, except insofar as it is
aimed at escalating existing conflicts. One would also look in vain for working through international
institutions. The only thing that is international about this "centrist internationalism" seems to
be that it seeks to inflict death and destruction on people in other countries.
I keep trying to imagine what special interest is so invested in the no-fly zone that they
can force Hillary to keep proposing it, even though it is obviously no longer feasible. Is it
just inertia? She is so used to pushing the idea that she brings it up without thinking, and then
has to dodge out of the way? But the whole situation has passed out of the realm of rational thought.
It reminds me of Vietnam.
The idea the South and North Vietnam were separate countries was never
true, but John Foster Dulles insisted on repeating the lie at every opportunity and after a while
the Village all started to believe it.
None of the stated goals in Syria make any sense any longer
(if the ever did), but we keep pursuing them. Scary.
CETA's collapse is equivalent to the Budapest COMECON council session of
28/6/91. Corporate central planning has flopped down dead alongside Soviet
central planning. The Western Bloc is finally breaking up.
The Walloons, part of a barely real country. The Walloons, who brought you
much of Belgian colonialism, which got a bad name even among colonialists. The
Walloons, who oppressed the Flemings. There were cases of Dutch speakers being
condemned to death in courts that were in French and refused to provide
translation.
And yet the Walloons, a singularly unsuccessful people, are derailing a bad
trade deal.
Enlightening times. And times in which we cannot assume that we know where
our allies will come from.
Liberation weighs in with an interesting analysis: La Vallonie considers
CETA to be a Trojan horse bearing the subsidiaries of U.S. companies into
Belgium:
Shipping: "China is to build a deepwater tanker port in Malaysia off the
Malacca Strait, a key gateway for Chinese oil imports.The $1.9bn port,
located on the coast of Malacca City, will be able to accommodate very large
crude carriers" [Lloyd's List].
But, if the point of the TPP is to hem in China by excluding them and
bringing Malaysia into our "orbit" then why would they do this?
Unless, of course they know that any deal will make Malaysia a key gateway
to the American market and thus allow them to use it to wash their goods
through the TPP for cheap market access in the exact same way that they do it
now via Mexico.
It appears Belgium's Wallonia has put a nail on the coffin
of the EU-Canada trade agreement (CETA) by vetoing it. The
reasons, The Economist puts it, "are hard to understand."
Well, yes and no. Canada is one of the most progressive
trade partners you could hope to have, and it is hard to
believe that Walloon incomes or values are really being
threatened. But clearly something larger than the specifics
of this agreement is at stake here.
Instead of decrying people's stupidity and ignorance in
rejecting trade deals, we should try to understand why such
deals lost legitimacy in the first place. I'd put a large
part of the blame on mainstream elites and trade technocrats
who pooh-poohed ordinary people's concerns with earlier trade
agreements.
The elites minimized distributional concerns, though they
turned out to be significant for the most directly affected
communities. They oversold aggregate gains from trade deals,
though they have been smallish since at least NAFTA. They
said sovereignty would not be diminished though it clearly
was in some instances. They claimed democratic principles
would not be undermined, though they are in places. They said
there'd be no social dumping though there clearly is at
times. They advertised trade deals (and continue to do so) as
"free trade" agreements, even though Adam Smith and David
Ricardo would turn over in their graves if they read, say,
any of the TPP chapters.
And because they failed to provide those distinctions and
caveats now trade gets tarred with all kinds of ills even
when it's not deserved. If the demagogues and nativists
making nonsensical claims about trade are getting a hearing,
it is trade's cheerleaders that deserve some of the blame.
One more thing. The opposition to trade deals is no longer
solely about income losses. The standard remedy of
compensation won't be enough -- even if carried out. It's
about fairness, loss of control, and elites' loss of
credibility. It hurts the cause of trade to pretend
otherwise.
Reply
Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 09:32 AM
Peter K. -> Peter K....
, -1
Wallonia is adamantly blocking the EU's trade deal with
Canada
"HEY Canada, f!@# you." Within hours this tweet (the
result of a hack) from the Belgian foreign minister's account
was replaced with a friendlier message: "keep calm and love
Canada". Yet his country's actions are closer to the
original. On October 14th the regional parliament of Wallonia
voted to block the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
(CETA), a trade deal between the European Union and Canada.
As Europeans assess the fallout from the U.K.'s
Brexit referendum
, they face a series of elections that could equally shake the political establishment. In the
coming 12 months, four of Europe's five largest economies have votes that will almost certainly mean
serious gains for right-wing populists and nationalists. Once seen as fringe groups, France's National
Front, Italy's Five Star Movement, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands have attracted legions
of followers by tapping discontent over immigration, terrorism, and feeble economic performance.
"The Netherlands should again become a country of and for the Dutch people," says Evert Davelaar,
a Freedom Party backer who says immigrants don't share "Western and Christian values."
... ... ....
The populists are deeply skeptical of European integration, and those in France and the Netherlands
want to follow Britain's lead and quit the European Union. "Political risk in Europe is now far more
significant than in the United States," says Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of macro research at Barclays.
... ... ...
...the biggest risk of the nationalist groundswell: increasingly fragmented parliaments that will
be unable or unwilling to tackle the problems hobbling their economies. True, populist leaders might
not have enough clout to enact controversial measures such as the Dutch Freedom Party's call to close
mosques and deport Muslims. And while the Brexit vote in June helped energize Eurosceptics, it's
unlikely that any major European country will soon quit the EU, Morgan Stanley economists wrote in
a recent report. But they added that "the protest parties promise to turn back the clock" on free-market
reforms while leaving "sclerotic" labour and market regulations in place. France's National Front,
for example, wants to temporarily renationalise banks and increase tariffs while embracing cumbersome
labour rules widely blamed for chronic double-digit unemployment. Such policies could damp already
weak euro zone growth, forecast by the International Monetary Fund to drop from 2 percent in 2015
to 1.5 percent in 2017. "Politics introduces a downside skew to growth," the economists said.
"... The presidential candidate also tweeted the words of her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who said, "It should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war." ..."
"... Regrettably for Americans, Stein is right about the Democratic nominee. Those concerned about the future of America with someone as erratic as Donald Trump in the Oval Office are justified in their worry, but to believe Hillary is somehow a "better option" is not only a naive assumption - but a reckless one. A vote for Hillary is undoubtedly a conscious vote to go war with a nuclear-armed superpower. ..."
"... US empire is bigger than any President. No president can change it. ..."
Dr. Stein, who has
strongly advocated
for a more
peaceful approach
to U.S. relations in the Middle East - as well as throughout the world - recently took to her
Twitter account to boldly state what may come as a shock to many Americans:
"Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is much scarier than Donald Trump's."
The presidential candidate also tweeted the words of her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who said,
"It should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war."
Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is much scarier than Donald Trump's, who does not want to
go to war with Russia.
#PeaceOffensive
Dr. Stein elaborated on her social media statements when asked by a reporter in Texas this week
what she felt a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like.
"Well, we know what kind of Secretary of State she was,"
Stein said in her response.
"[Hillary] is in incredible service to Wall Street and to the war profiteers. She led the way
in Libya and she's trying to start an air war with Russia over Syria, which means, if Hillary
gets elected, we're kinda going to war with Russia, folks…a nuclear-armed power."
While many Americans act as if one's disdain for Hillary Clinton and her policies automatically
make them a supporter of Donald Trump for president - or vice versa - Stein went on to vocalize her
fear of both major party candidates.
"Who will sleep well with Trump in the White House? But you shouldn't sleep well with Hillary
in the White House either. Fortunately, we live in a democracy and we have more than two deadly
choices," Stein said, referring to herself and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
Regrettably for Americans, Stein is right about the Democratic nominee. Those concerned about
the future of America with someone as erratic as Donald Trump in the Oval Office are justified in
their worry, but to believe Hillary is somehow a "better option" is not only a naive assumption -
but a reckless one. A vote for Hillary is undoubtedly a conscious vote to go war with a nuclear-armed
superpower.
Still not a believer? Watch the video below and see for yourself:
There are so many holes on Dr. Stein observations that I don't even know where to start.
First: US empire is bigger than any President. No president can change it.
Second: Only the naive can think that a neocon (Hillary) can be more dangerous than a bully
(Trump).
Third: Dr. Stein, could you please tell us what will happen when the empire has not enough
energy, food, and resources to give to its people? Tell us your "un-reckless" solution, because
I can't wait to hear.
Ohh. I just remember. You can't, because it doesn't exist.
This well-articulated executive summary (10 minutes of your time) integrates the consequences
of the world's biggest financial bubble with the risk of military escalation with Russia in Syria,
the Balkans, or Ukraine. Hilllary's foreign policy goes head-to-head with Russia's foreign policy:
they are different with respect to use of nuclear weapons, particularly tactical nuclear weapons.
Show me ANY stories from her on ANY of the Million Dicks in a Bag "credible" media.....
<tapping foot>...............
................yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah
But Cankly-pooper has that jag off Air Force cucked dickwad on TeeVee ads every ten fucking
minutes saying Trump is unfit to have his finger on the button.
Just like the moron I talked to a couple of weeks ago, when he said he was voting for Catheter
because "Trump was going to take us to war".....(finding out he gets his "news" from social media,
Google News and the NYT)
MORONS...that's who Clinton has .....fucking morons....
Jill Stein - Green Party candidate, and Gary Johnson - Libtarian candidate .......
[In battleground states] BOTH need to come out and tell their voting supporters to NOT vote
for them but to vote Trump...and only vote for them if they can't vote Trump. Because there is
no point in a Greens platform if the planet is at war or in destruction, likewise their is no
chance of a Libertarian platform for a country in increased wars, or world at war.
The Libertarian and Greens platform assume a peaceful country and world - with Cliinton and
her backers the USA will ge the exact opposite.
This is why the Greens and Libitarians most not only endorse Trump but tell their voters they
must vote for Trump for there to be any hope for the USA's future.
In fact if I were Trump I would be making this pitch to them.
TPP: "CLINTON ADVISERS WALK THE KNIFE'S EDGE ON TPP: The hand wringing over Clinton's stance on the
TPP was even more evident in another batch of hacked emails posted by WikiLeaks on Wednesday. The
exchange from Oct. 6, like other emails allegedly* from the account of Clinton campaign chairman
John Podesta, is focused on the Democratic candidate's statement following the conclusion of TPP
negotiations last October and how to balance the former secretary of State's previous support for
the deal with demands from her base. 'The goal here was to
minimize our vulnerability to the
authenticity attack
and not piss off the WH [White House] any more than necessary," wrote chief
speechwriter Dan Schwerin when sending out a draft of the statement" [
Politico
].
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made. * Politico, can we
can get an asterisk on that allegedly? Something like "* Bob from Legal made us put this 'allegedly'
in, after he got a call from John." What say?
TPP: "El Salvador Ruling Offers a Reminder of Why
the TPP Must Be Defeated" [
The
Nation
(Re Silc)]. "Last week, the tribunal at the center of the proposed TPP ruled against a
global mining firm that sued El Salvador, but only after seven years of deliberations and over $12
million spent by the government of El Salvador. Equally outrageous, legal shenanigans by the Australian-Canadian
firm OceanaGold around corporate ownership will likely prevent El Salvador from ever recouping a
cent…. [N]o one should be complacent about defeating the TPP. Despite Hillary Clinton's professed
opposition to the agreement, she is not picking up the phone to convince members of Congress to vote
no."
TPP: "The Case for the TPP: Responding to the Critics" [
United
States Chamber of Commerce
]. These guys are rolling in dough. Is this really the best they can
do? Claim: "The TPP Will Undermine Regulations Protecting Health, Safety and the Environment."The
COC's answer: "ISDS has been included in approximately 3,000 investment treaties and trade agreements
over the past five decades. These neutral arbitrators have no power to overturn laws or regulations;
they can only order compensation." In the billions, right? No chilling effect there!
TISA: "Meanwhile, news out of Europe cast doubt on whether negotiators will actually finish TISA
this year because the EU cannot agree on how to handle cross-border data flows. The European Commission's
trade and justice departments have been squabbling for months over the issue, which Froman acknowledged
is an important outstanding concern. EU trade officials want data flows included in the pact, opening
up new markets for Europe's data economy to expand, while data protection officials are more concerned
about strong safeguards for privacy" [
Politico
].
Trump's promise to deport illegal immigrants and build a massive wall along the Mexican border
has been one of his signature issues of this campaign. "They are coming in illegally. Drugs are pouring
in through the border. We have no country if we have no border. Hillary wants to give amnesty, she
wants to have open borders," the GOP nominee argued.
And he also argued that the border problem was contributing to the drug and opioid crisis in the
country by allowing them to pore over the border.
"We're going to get them out, we're going to secure the border, and once the border is secured,
at a later date, we'll make a determination as to the rest, but we have some bad hombres here, and
we're going to get them out," Trump said.
Clinton said she didn't want to "rip families apart. I don't want to be sending parents away from
children. I don't want to see the deportation force that Donald has talked about in action in our
country." She pointed she voted for increased border security and that any violent person should
be deported.
"I think we are both a nation of immigrants and we are a nation of laws, and that we can act accordingly
and that's why I am introducing comprehensive immigration reform within the first hundred days with
a path to citizenship," Clinton promised.
This guy is die hard neoliberal. That's why he is fond of Washington consensus. He does not understand
that the time is over for Washington consensus in 2008. this is just a delayed reaction :-)
Notable quotes:
"... after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic "experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly blame for their economic travails. ..."
"... Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. ..."
"... They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath – thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy. ..."
"... The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration will rise, making politics even more toxic. ..."
"... At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic interests -- now, it is simply owned by them. ..."
"... The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus began to break down". ..."
"... In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable. ..."
"... However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded out the ostensibly centrist politics... ..."
"... The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme. In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean. ..."
In the 1990s and 2000s, for example, the so-called Washington Consensus dominated policymaking
in much of the world...
... ... ...
But after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is
breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic
"experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly
blame for their economic travails.
Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using
inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to
disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. The United Kingdom proved
that in June, with its Brexit vote – a decision that directly defied the broad economic consensus
that remaining within the European Union was in Britain's best interest.
... ... ...
... speeches by Prime Minister Theresa May and members of her cabinet revealed an intention to
pursue a "hard Brexit," thereby dismantling trading arrangements that have served the economy well.
They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies
that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath
– thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy.
Several other advanced economies are experiencing analogous political developments. In Germany,
a surprisingly strong showing by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in recent state
elections already appears to be affecting the government's behavior.
In the US, even if Donald Trump's presidential campaign fails to put a Republican back in the
White House (as appears increasingly likely, given that, in the latest twist of this highly unusual
campaign, many Republican leaders have now renounced their party's nominee), his candidacy will likely
leave a lasting impact on American politics. If not managed well, Italy's constitutional referendum
in December – a risky bid by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to consolidate support – could backfire,
just like Cameron's referendum did, causing political disruption and undermining effective action
to address the country's economic challenges.
... ... ...
The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration
will rise, making politics even more toxic. ...
Mr El-Erian, I know you are a good man, but it seems as though everyone believes we can synthetically
engineer a way out of this never ending hole that financial engineering dug us into in the first
place.
Instead why don't we let this game collapse, you are a good man and you will play a role in
the rebuilding of better system, one that nurtures and guides instead of manipulate and lie.
The moral suasion you mention can only appear by allowing for the self annihilation of this
financial system. This way we can learn from the autopsies and leave speculative theories to third
rate economists
It is sadly true that "the relationship between politics and economics is changing," at least
in the U.S.. At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic
interests -- now, it is simply owned by them.
It seems to me that the best we can hope for now is some sort of modest correction in the relationship
after 2020 -- and that the TBTF banks won't deliver another economic disaster in the meantime.
Petey Bee OCT 15, 2016
1. The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus
began to break down".
2. In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than
a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central
feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable.
In the concluding paragraph, the author states that the reaction is going to be slow. That's absolutely
correct, the evidence has been pushed higher and higher above the icy water line since 2008.
However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that
the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded
out the ostensibly centrist politics...
Paul Daley OCT 15, 2016
The Washington consensus collapsed during the Great Recession but the latest "consensus" among
economists regarding "good economics" deserves respect.
atul baride OCT 15, 2016
The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme.
In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective
and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean.
"... If you insist on focusing on individuals, you may miss the connection, because the worst off
within communities - actual chronic discouraged workers, addicts - are likely to express no opinion
to the degree they can be polled at all. Trump primary voters are white Republicans who vote, automatically
a more affluent baseline* than the white voters generally. ..."
EMichael quotes Steve Randy Waldman and Dylan Matthews in today's links:
""Trump voters, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver found, had a median household income of $72,000,
a fair bit higher than the $62,000 median household income for non-Hispanic whites in America."
...
""But it is also obvious that, within the Republican Party, Trump's support comes disproportionately
from troubled communities, from places that have been left behind economically, that struggle
with unusual rates of opiate addiction, low educational achievement, and other social vices."
I followed the link and failed to find any numbers on the "troubled communities" thing. It
seems strange to me that the two comments above are in conflict with each other."
It seems like you are missing the point of Waldman's blog post (and Stiglitz and Shiller)
You didn't quote this part:
"... If you insist on focusing on individuals, you may miss the connection, because the
worst off within communities - actual chronic discouraged workers, addicts - are likely to express
no opinion to the degree they can be polled at all. Trump primary voters are white Republicans
who vote, automatically a more affluent baseline* than the white voters generally.
"Among Republicans, Trump supporters have slightly lower incomes. But what really differentiates
them?"]
"At the community level**, patterns are clear. (See this*** too.) Of course, it could still
all be racism, because within white communities, measures of social and economic dysfunction are
likely correlated with measures you could associate with racism."
Of course, it could still all be racism, because within white communities, measures of social
and economic dysfunction are likely correlated with measures you could associate with racism.
Social affairs are complicated and the real world does not hand us unique well-identified models.
We always have to choose our explanations,**** and we should think carefully about how and why
we do so. Explanations have consequences, not just for the people we are imposing them upon, but
for our polity as a whole. I don't get involved in these arguments to express some high-minded
empathy for Trump voters, but because I think that monocausally attributing a broad political
movement to racism when it has other plausible antecedents does real harm....
The Hillary Clinton campaign says the hackers behind the leaked
email evidence of their collusion with the major media are from
Russia and linked to the Russian regime. If so, I want to publicly
thank those Russian hackers and their leader, Russian President
Vladimir Putin, for opening a window into the modern workings of
the United States government-corporate-media establishment.
We always knew that the major media were extensions of the
Democratic Party. But the email evidence of how figures like
Maggie
Haberman
of The New York Times,
Juliet
Eilperin
of The Washington Post, and
John
Harwood
of CNBC worked hand-in-glove with the Democrats is
important. The Daily Caller and Breitbart have led the way in
digging through the emails and exposing the nature of this
evidence. It is shocking even to those of us at Accuracy in Media
who always knew about, and had documented, such collusion through
analysis and observation.
The Clinton campaign and various intelligence officials insist
that the purpose of the Russian hacking is to weaken the confidence
of the American people in their system of government, and to
suggest that the American system is just as corrupt as the Russian
system is alleged to be. Perhaps our confidence in our system
should be shaken. The American people can see that our media are
not independent of the government or the political system and, in
fact, function as an arm of the political party in control of the
White House that wants to maintain that control after November 8.
In conjunction with other evidence, including the ability to
conduct vote fraud that benefits the Democrats, the results on
Election Day will be in question and will form the basis for Donald
J. Trump to continue to claim that the system is "rigged" against
outsiders like him.
The idea of an American system of free and fair elections that
includes an honest press has been terribly undermined by the
evidence that has come to light. We are not yet to the point of the
Russian system, where opposition outlets are run out of business
and dissidents killed in the streets. That means that the Russians
have not completely succeeded in destroying confidence in our
system. But we do know that federal agencies like the Federal
Election Commission (FEC) and Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) are poised to strike blows against free and independent
media. Earlier this year the three Democrats on the FEC
voted
to punish
filmmaker Joel Gilbert for distributing a film
critical of President Barack Obama during the 2012 campaign.
The New York Times is
reporting
that
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta has been contacted by the
FBI about the alleged Russian hackers behind the leaks of his
emails. This is what Podesta and many in the media want to talk
about.
But the Russians, if they are responsible, have performed a
public service. And until there is a thorough house-cleaning of
those in the major media who have made a mockery of professional
journalism, the American people will continue to lack confidence in
their system. The media have been caught in the act of sabotaging
the public's right to know by taking sides in the presidential
contest. They have become a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party,
coordinating with the Hillary Clinton for president campaign, which
apparently was being run out of Georgetown University, where John
Podesta was based. Many emails carry the web address of
[email protected], a reference to the Georgetown
University position held by the chairman of the 2016 Hillary
Clinton presidential campaign. Podesta is a Visiting Professor at
Georgetown University Law Center. His other affiliations include
the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress and the United
Nations High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Podesta and the other members of this U.N. panel had proposed "
A
New Global Partnership for the World
," which advocated for a
"profound economic transformation" of the world's economic order
that would result in a new globalist system. Shouldn't the American
people be informed about what Podesta and his Democratic allies
have planned for the United States should they win on November 8?
That Podesta would serve the purposes of the U.N. is not a
surprise. But it is somewhat surprising that he would use his base
at Georgetown University to run the Hillary campaign. On the other
hand, Georgetown, the nation's oldest Catholic and Jesuit
university,
describes
itself
as preparing "the next generation of global citizens to lead and
make a difference in the world."
When a Catholic university serves as the base for the election
of a Democratic Party politician committed to taxpayer-funded
abortion on demand and transgender rights, you know America's
political system and academia are rotten to the core. The
disclosure from WikiLeaks that Podesta used his Georgetown email to
engage in party politics only confirms what we already knew.
If the Russians are ultimately responsible for the release of
these emails, some of which
show
an anti-Catholic animus
on the part of Clinton campaign
officials, we are grateful to them. The answer has to be to clean
out the American political system of those who corrupt it and
demonstrate to the world that we can achieve higher standards of
integrity and transparency.
For its part, Georgetown University should be stripped of its
Catholic affiliation and designated as an official arm of the
Democratic Party.
Paul Kersey
balolalo
Oct 14, 2016 12:02 PM
The well deserved hatred for Hillary and the globalists is so
great, that at least 40% of the males in this country would back
anyone who went up against the Clintons. That's just not the
same thing as "BUYING TRUMPS BULLSHIT HOOK, LINE, AND SINKER".
Trump is exposing the corruption and the hypocrisy of the
Clintons in a way that no one has ever had the guts to do in the
past. He's doing it on national TV with a large national
audience. With Trump we may get anarchy, but with the Clintons,
Deep State is guaranteed. It is Deep State that is working
overtime to finish building the expressway to neofeudalism.
Killary only can beg that voters hold their noses and vote for her. Guardian neoliberal presstitutes
still don't want to understand that Hillary is more dangerous then trump, Sge with her attempt that
she is more militant then male neocons can really provoke a confrontation with Russia or China.
Notable quotes:
"... War at home versus another foreign war, nothing will get through Congress, and either will get impeached...so third party all the way for me. ..."
"... Keep in mind, the election is not over and that drip, drip, drip of Hillary emails may push more people towards Trump. ..."
"... Shameless. Absolutely shameless, Guardian. This is not-even-disguised Clinton sycophancy... ..."
"... Clinton has everything going for her. The media, the banks, big business, the UN, foreign leaders, special interest lobbyists, silicon valley, establishment Republicans. How can she not win in an landslide?! ..."
"... We came, we saw, and he grabbed some pussy. ..."
"... It seems nobody wants to talk about what is really going on here - instead we are fed this bilge from both sides about 'sexual misconduct' and other fluff ..."
"... The stagnation of middle-class incomes in the West may last another five decades or more. ..."
"... This calls into question either the sustainability of democracy under such conditions or the sustainability of globalization. ..."
"... These classes of "globalization losers," particularly in the United States, have had little political voice or influence, and perhaps this is why the backlash against globalization has been so muted. They have had little voice because the rich have come to control the political process. The rich, as can be seen by looking at the income gains of the global top 5 percent in Figure 1, have benefited immensely from globalization and they have keen interest in its continuation. ..."
"... But while their use of political power has enabled the continuation of globalization, it has also hollowed out national democracies and moved many countries closer to becoming plutocracies. Thus, the choice would seem either plutocracy and globalization – or populism and a halt to globalization. ..."
The vast majority of her support comes from people that will be holding their noses as they vote
for her. Seems to me that convincing those same people that you have it in the bag will just cause
them to think voting isn't worth their time since they don't want to anyway.
I know Trump's supporters, the real ones, and the anyone-but-Hillary club will show up as well.
Funny if this backfires and he wins.
I won't be voting for either one and couldn't care less which one wins. War at home versus
another foreign war, nothing will get through Congress, and either will get impeached...so third
party all the way for me.
"Trump has to be the limit, and there has to be a re-alignment"
Trump has shown one must fight fire with fire. The days of the meek and mild GOP are over. Twice
they tried with nice guys and failed. Trump has clearly shown come out with both fists swinging
and you attract needed media and you make the conversation about you. Trump's mistake was not
seeking that bit of polish that leaves your opponent on the floor.
Keep in mind, the election is not over and that drip, drip, drip of Hillary emails may
push more people towards Trump.
Shameless. Absolutely shameless, Guardian. This is not-even-disguised Clinton sycophancy...
tugend49
For every woman that's been sexually harassed, bullied, raped, assaulted, catcalled, groped,
objectified, and treated lesser than, a landslide victory for Clinton would be an especially sweet
"Fuck You" to the Trumps of this world.
Clinton has everything going for her. The media, the banks, big business, the UN, foreign
leaders, special interest lobbyists, silicon valley, establishment Republicans. How can she not
win in an landslide?!
It might be a reaction against Trump, but it's also a depressing example of the power of the
establishment, and their desire for control in democracy. Just look at how they squealed at Brexit.
It seems nobody wants to talk about what is really going on here - instead we are fed this
bilge from both sides about 'sexual misconduct' and other fluff
There is a report from two years ago, July 2014, before the candidates had even been selected,
by the economist Branko Milanovic for Yale 'Global' about the impact of Globalisation on the Lower
Middle Classes in the West and how this was basically going to turn into exactly the choice the
American electorate is facing now
Why won't the media discuss these issues instead of pushing this pointless circus?
These are the penultimate paragraphs of the article on the report (there is a similar one for
the Harvard Business Review
here ):
The populists warn disgruntled voters that economic trends observed during the past three
decades are just the first wave of cheap labor from Asia pitted in direct competition with
workers in the rich world, and more waves are on the way from poorer lands in Asia and Africa.
The stagnation of middle-class incomes in the West may last another five decades or more.
This calls into question either the sustainability of democracy under such conditions
or the sustainability of globalization.
If globalization is derailed, the middle classes of the West may be relieved from the immediate
pressure of cheaper Asian competition. But the longer-term costs to themselves and their countries,
let alone to the poor in Asia and Africa, will be high. Thus, the interests and the political
power of the middle classes in the rich world put them in a direct conflict with the interests
of the worldwide poor.
These classes of "globalization losers," particularly in the United States, have had
little political voice or influence, and perhaps this is why the backlash against globalization
has been so muted. They have had little voice because the rich have come to control the political
process. The rich, as can be seen by looking at the income gains of the global top 5 percent
in Figure 1, have benefited immensely from globalization and they have keen interest in its
continuation.
But while their use of political power has enabled the continuation of globalization, it
has also hollowed out national democracies and moved many countries closer to becoming plutocracies.
Thus, the choice would seem either plutocracy and globalization – or populism and a halt to
globalization.
Globalisation will continue to happen. It has pulled a large part of the world population out
of poverty and grown the global economy.
Sure on the downside it has also hugely benefitted the 1%, while the western middle classes
have done relatively less well and blue collar workers have suffered as they seek to turn to other
types (less well paid) of work.
The issue is the speed of change, how to manage globalisation and spread the wealth more equitably.
Maybe it will require slowing but it cannot and should not be stopped.
"... Now we're in a situation in which superexploitation options are largely gone. Routine profit generation has become difficult due to global productive overcapacity, leading to behavioral sinkish behavior like the US cannibalizing its public sector to feed capital. ..."
"... Since the late 19th century US foreign policy has been organized around the open markets mantra. It may be possible for the Chinese, with their greater options for economy manipulation, to avoid the crashes the US feared from lack of market access. ..."
"... But the current situation on its face does not have anything like the colonial escape valve available in the 19th century. ..."
"... To the extent that colonialism or neocolonialism does not actually hold fixed boundary ground is irrelevant, since assets are more differential and flexible needing only corporate law to sustain strict boundaries on possession or instruments that convert to the same power over assets. No one, of course, wants to assess stocks and bonds as instruments of global oppression or exploitation that far exceeds 19th century's crude colonial rule. ..."
"... The TPP is a corporate power grab, a 5,544-page document that was negotiated in secret by big corporations while Congress, the public, and unions were locked out. ..."
"... Multinationals like Google, Exxon, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, UPS, FedEx, Apple, and Walmart are lobbying hard for it. Virtually every union in the U.S. opposes it. So do major environmental, senior, health, and consumer organizations. ..."
"... The TPP will mean fewer jobs and lower wages, higher prices for prescription drugs, the loss of regulations that protect our drinking water and food supply, and the loss of Internet freedom. It encourages privatization, undermines democracy, and will forbid many of the policies we need to combat climate change ..."
"... "Though the Obama administration touts the pact's labor and environmental protections, the official Labor Advisory Committee on the TPP strongly opposes it, arguing that these protections are largely unenforceable window dressing." ..."
global scenario that the down-to-earth presidents of China and Russia seem to have in mind
resembles the sort of balance of power that existed in Europe.
The article floats away here. China and Russia might want to have something that "resembles"
that time, but the analogy overlooks the fact that the relatively calm state of affairs -
Franco-Prussian war? - on the European continent after Napoleon coexisted with savage colonial
expansion. The forms of superexploitation thereby obtained did much to help stabilize Europe,
even as competition for colonial lands became more and more destabilizing and were part of what
led to WW1.
Now we're in a situation in which superexploitation options are largely gone. Routine profit
generation has become difficult due to global productive overcapacity, leading to behavioral
sinkish behavior like the US cannibalizing its public sector to feed capital.
Since the late 19th century US foreign policy has been organized around the open markets
mantra. It may be possible for the Chinese, with their greater options for economy manipulation,
to avoid the crashes the US feared from lack of market access.
But the current situation on its face does not have anything like the colonial escape valve
available in the 19th century.
Of course, duplicitous political COPORATISM means systems over a systemic characterized by
marked or even intentional deception that is now sustained and even spearheaded by state
systems.
Many contemporary liberal idealists living in urban strongholds of market mediated comfort
zones will not agree to assigning such strong description to an Obama administration. It is
too distant and remote to assign accountability to global international finance and currency
wars that have hegemonic hedge funds pumping and dumping crisis driven anarchy over global
exploit (ruled by market capital fright / fight and flight).
To the extent that colonialism or neocolonialism does not actually hold fixed boundary
ground is irrelevant, since assets are more differential and flexible needing only corporate
law to sustain strict boundaries on possession or instruments that convert to the same power
over assets. No one, of course, wants to assess stocks and bonds as instruments of global
oppression or exploitation that far exceeds 19th century's crude colonial rule.
Recall, however, how "joint stock" corporations first opened chartered exploit at global
levels under East and West Trading power aggregates that were profit driven enter-prize. So in
reality the current cross border market system of neoliberal globalization is, in fact, a
stealth colonialism on steroids.
TPP is part of that process in all its stealthy dimensions.
"The TPP is a corporate power grab, a 5,544-page document that was negotiated in secret
by big corporations while Congress, the public, and unions were locked out.
Multinationals like Google, Exxon, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, UPS, FedEx, Apple, and Walmart
are lobbying hard for it. Virtually every union in the U.S. opposes it. So do major
environmental, senior, health, and consumer organizations.
The TPP will mean fewer jobs and lower wages, higher prices for prescription drugs, the
loss of regulations that protect our drinking water and food supply, and the loss of
Internet freedom. It encourages privatization, undermines democracy, and will forbid many
of the policies we need to combat climate change."
This is very handy, thanks. However the conclusion stops short of what the SCO is saying and
doing. They have no interest in an old-time balance of power. They want rule of law, a very
different thing. Look at Putin's Syria strategy: he actually complies with the UN Charter's
requirement to pursue pacific dispute resolution. That's revolutionary. When CIA moles in Turkey
shot that Russian jet down, the outcome was not battles and state-sponsored terror, as CIA
expected. The outcome was support for Turkey's sovereignty and rapprochement. Now when CIA starts
fires you go to Russia to put them out.
While China maintains its purist line on the legal principle of non-interference, it is
increasingly vocal in urging the US to fulfill its human rights obligations. That will sound
paradoxical because of intense US vilification of Chinese authoritarianism, but when you push for
your economic and social rights here at home, China is in your corner. Here Russia is leading by
example. They comply with the Paris Principles for institutionalized human rights protection
under independent international oversight. The USA does not.
When the USA goes the way of the USSR, we'll be in good hands. The world will show us how
developed countries work.
"RULE OF LAW" up front and personal (again?)
Now why would the USA be worried about global rule of law?
An Interesting ideal. No country above the law.
"…US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill that would have allowed the families of the
victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.
In a statement accompanying his veto message, Obama said on Friday he had
"deep sympathy" for the 9/11 victims' families and their desire to seek justice for
their relatives.
The president said, however, that the bill would be "detrimental to US national interests"
and could lead to lawsuits against the US or American officials for actions taken by groups
armed, trained or supported by the US.
"If any of these litigants were to win judgements – based on foreign domestic laws as
applied by foreign courts – they would begin to look to the assets of the US government held
abroad to satisfy those judgments, with potentially serious financial consequences for the
United States," Obama said."
-----------------------
To the tune of "Moma said…" by The Shirelles –
….Oh don't you know…Obama said they be days like this,
…..they would be days like this Obama said…
One interesting irony is that in Obama's TPP "The worst part is an Investor-State
Dispute Settlement provision, which allows a multinational corporation to sue to override
any U.S. law, policy, or practice that it claims could limit its future profits."
"Though the Obama administration touts the pact's labor and environmental protections, the
official Labor Advisory Committee on the TPP strongly opposes
it, arguing that these protections are largely unenforceable window dressing."
Britain's Economy Was Resilient After 'Brexit.'
Its Leaders Learned the Wrong Lesson.
http://nyti.ms/2dOx0Is
via @UpshotNYT
NYT - Neil Irwin - OCT. 10, 2016
This article must begin with a mea culpa. When British
voters decided in June that they wanted to depart the
European Union, I agreed with the conventional wisdom that
the British economy would probably slow and that uncertainty
put it at risk of recession.
Advocates of "Brexit" argued that was hogwash, and the
early evidence suggests they were right. For example, surveys
of purchasing managers showed that both the British
manufacturing and service sectors plummeted after the vote in
July, yet were comfortably expanding in August and September.
But the events of the last couple of weeks suggest that
British leaders are drawing the wrong conclusions from the
fact that their predictions proved right. The British
currency is plummeting again, most immediately because of
comments from French and German leaders suggesting they will
take a tough line in negotiating Brexit. But the underlying
reason is that the British government is ignoring the lessons
from the relatively benign immediate aftermath of the vote.
The British pound fell to about $1.24 on Friday from $1.30
a week earlier and continued edging down Monday. Even if you
treat a "flash crash" in the pound on Asian markets Thursday
night as an aberration - it fell 6 percent, then recovered in
a short span - these types of aberrations seem to happen only
when a market is already under severe stress. (See, for
example, the May 2010 flash crash of American stocks, during
a flare-up of the eurozone crisis).
Sterling, as traders refer to the currency, is acting as
the global market's minute-to-minute referendum on how
significant the economic disruption from Brexit will end up
being. So what does the latest downswing represent? It's
worth understanding why British financial markets and the
country's economy stabilized quickly after the Brexit vote to
begin with.
The vote set off a chaotic time of political disruption,
especially the resignation of the prime minister, David
Cameron, who had advocated for the country's remaining part
of the E.U. Theresa May won the internal battle to become the
next prime minister, which was to markets and business
decision makers a relatively benign result.
Down, Down, Down for the Pound
The British currency plummeted after the country's vote to
leave the European Union, and again this week.
(graph at the link: £ at ~$1.45 Jan-June 30,
then down to $1.30-1.35 thru Sep 30,
then plunging to $1.24.)
Ms. May, the former home secretary, is temperamentally
pragmatic. She reluctantly supported remaining in the union.
And while she pledged to follow through on leaving it
("Brexit means Brexit," she said), she seemed like the kind
of leader who would ensure that some of the worst-case
possibilities of how Brexit might go wouldn't materialize.
Exporters would retain access to European markets. London
could remain the de facto banking capital of Europe. All
would be well.
Meanwhile, the Bank of England sprang into action to
cushion the economic blow of Brexit-related uncertainty.
Despite the inflationary pressures created by a falling
pound, the bank, projecting loss of jobs and economic output,
cut interest rates and started a new program of quantitative
easing to try to soften the blow.
All of that - the prospect of "soft Brexit" and easier
monetary policy - helped financial markets stabilize and then
rally, and kept the economic damage mild, as the purchasing
managers' surveys show.
But in the last couple of weeks, the tenor has shifted.
The May government has sent a range of signals indicating
it will take a hard line in negotiations with European
governments over the terms of Brexit. At a conservative party
conference, she pledged to begin the "Article 50" process of
formally unwinding Britain's E.U. membership by the end of
March, declaring that the government's negotiators would
insist that Britain would assert control of immigration and
not be subject to decisions of the European Court of Justice.
That sets up confrontational negotiations between the
British government and its E.U. counterparts. European
leaders will be reluctant to allow Britain continued free
access to its markets, which the May government wants,
without similarly free movement of people across borders.
And beyond the substance of the negotiations, the British
government has signaled in recent days that it is looking
inward, and will be hostile to those who are not British
citizens. ...
The much-hyped severe Brexit
recession does not, so far, seem to be materializing – which
really shouldn't be that much of a surprise, because as I
warned, the actual economic case for such a recession was
surprisingly weak. (Ouch! I just pulled a muscle while
patting myself on the back!) But we are seeing a large drop
in the pound, which has steepened as it becomes likely that
this will indeed be a very hard Brexit. How should we think
about this?
Originally, stories about a pound plunge were tied to that
recession prediction: domestic investment demand would
collapse, leading to sustained very low interest rates, hence
capital flight. But the demand collapse doesn't seem to be
happening. So what is the story?
For now, at least, I'm coming at it from the trade side –
especially trade in financial services. It seems to me that
one way to think about this is in terms of the "home market
effect," an old story in trade but one that only got
formalized in 1980.
Here's an informal version: imagine a good or service
subject to large economies of scale in production, sufficient
that if it's consumed in two countries, you want to produce
it in only one, and export to the other, even if there are
costs of shipping it. Where will this production be located?
Other things equal, you would choose the larger market, so as
to minimize total shipping costs. Other things may not, of
course, be equal, but this market-size effect will always be
a factor, depending on how high those shipping costs are.
In one of the models I laid out in that old paper, the way
this worked out was not that all production left the smaller
economy, but rather that the smaller economy paid lower wages
and therefore made up in competitiveness what it lacked in
market access. In effect, it used a weaker currency to make
up for its smaller market.
In Britain's case, I'd suggest that we think of financial
services as the industry in question. Such services are
subject to both internal and external economies of scale,
which tends to concentrate them in a handful of huge
financial centers around the world, one of which is, of
course, the City of London. But now we face the prospect of
seriously increased transaction costs between Britain and the
rest of Europe, which creates an incentive to move those
services away from the smaller economy (Britain) and into the
larger (Europe). Britain therefore needs a weaker currency to
offset this adverse impact.
Does this make Britain poorer? Yes. It's not just the
efficiency effect of barriers to trade, there's also a
terms-of-trade effect as the real exchange rate depreciates.
But it's important to be aware that not everyone in
Britain is equally affected. Pre-Brexit, Britain was
obviously experiencing a version of the so-called Dutch
disease. In its traditional form, this referred to the way
natural resource exports crowd out manufacturing by keeping
the currency strong. In the UK case, the City's financial
exports play the same role. So their weakening helps British
manufacturing – and, maybe, the incomes of people who live
far from the City and still depend directly or indirectly on
manufacturing for their incomes. It's not completely
incidental that these were the parts of England (not
Scotland!) that voted for Brexit.
Is there a policy moral here? Basically it is that a
weaker pound shouldn't be viewed as an additional cost from
Brexit, it's just part of the adjustment. And it would be a
big mistake to prop up the pound: old notions of an
equilibrium exchange rate no longer apply.
Britain's Economy Was Resilient After 'Brexit.'
Its Leaders Learned the Wrong Lesson.
http://nyti.ms/2dOx0Is
via @UpshotNYT
NYT - Neil Irwin - OCT. 10, 2016
This article must begin with a mea culpa. When British
voters decided in June that they wanted to depart the
European Union, I agreed with the conventional wisdom that
the British economy would probably slow and that uncertainty
put it at risk of recession.
Advocates of "Brexit" argued that was hogwash, and the
early evidence suggests they were right. For example, surveys
of purchasing managers showed that both the British
manufacturing and service sectors plummeted after the vote in
July, yet were comfortably expanding in August and September.
But the events of the last couple of weeks suggest that
British leaders are drawing the wrong conclusions from the
fact that their predictions proved right. The British
currency is plummeting again, most immediately because of
comments from French and German leaders suggesting they will
take a tough line in negotiating Brexit. But the underlying
reason is that the British government is ignoring the lessons
from the relatively benign immediate aftermath of the vote.
The British pound fell to about $1.24 on Friday from $1.30
a week earlier and continued edging down Monday. Even if you
treat a "flash crash" in the pound on Asian markets Thursday
night as an aberration - it fell 6 percent, then recovered in
a short span - these types of aberrations seem to happen only
when a market is already under severe stress. (See, for
example, the May 2010 flash crash of American stocks, during
a flare-up of the eurozone crisis).
Sterling, as traders refer to the currency, is acting as
the global market's minute-to-minute referendum on how
significant the economic disruption from Brexit will end up
being. So what does the latest downswing represent? It's
worth understanding why British financial markets and the
country's economy stabilized quickly after the Brexit vote to
begin with.
The vote set off a chaotic time of political disruption,
especially the resignation of the prime minister, David
Cameron, who had advocated for the country's remaining part
of the E.U. Theresa May won the internal battle to become the
next prime minister, which was to markets and business
decision makers a relatively benign result.
Down, Down, Down for the Pound
The British currency plummeted after the country's vote to
leave the European Union, and again this week.
(graph at the link: £ at ~$1.45 Jan-June 30,
then down to $1.30-1.35 thru Sep 30,
then plunging to $1.24.)
Ms. May, the former home secretary, is temperamentally
pragmatic. She reluctantly supported remaining in the union.
And while she pledged to follow through on leaving it
("Brexit means Brexit," she said), she seemed like the kind
of leader who would ensure that some of the worst-case
possibilities of how Brexit might go wouldn't materialize.
Exporters would retain access to European markets. London
could remain the de facto banking capital of Europe. All
would be well.
Meanwhile, the Bank of England sprang into action to
cushion the economic blow of Brexit-related uncertainty.
Despite the inflationary pressures created by a falling
pound, the bank, projecting loss of jobs and economic output,
cut interest rates and started a new program of quantitative
easing to try to soften the blow.
All of that - the prospect of "soft Brexit" and easier
monetary policy - helped financial markets stabilize and then
rally, and kept the economic damage mild, as the purchasing
managers' surveys show.
But in the last couple of weeks, the tenor has shifted.
The May government has sent a range of signals indicating
it will take a hard line in negotiations with European
governments over the terms of Brexit. At a conservative party
conference, she pledged to begin the "Article 50" process of
formally unwinding Britain's E.U. membership by the end of
March, declaring that the government's negotiators would
insist that Britain would assert control of immigration and
not be subject to decisions of the European Court of Justice.
That sets up confrontational negotiations between the
British government and its E.U. counterparts. European
leaders will be reluctant to allow Britain continued free
access to its markets, which the May government wants,
without similarly free movement of people across borders.
And beyond the substance of the negotiations, the British
government has signaled in recent days that it is looking
inward, and will be hostile to those who are not British
citizens. ...
Reply
Tuesday,
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...
,
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 07:17 AM
The much-hyped severe Brexit
recession does not, so far, seem to be materializing – which
really shouldn't be that much of a surprise, because as I
warned, the actual economic case for such a recession was
surprisingly weak. (Ouch! I just pulled a muscle while
patting myself on the back!) But we are seeing a large drop
in the pound, which has steepened as it becomes likely that
this will indeed be a very hard Brexit. How should we think
about this?
Originally, stories about a pound plunge were tied to that
recession prediction: domestic investment demand would
collapse, leading to sustained very low interest rates, hence
capital flight. But the demand collapse doesn't seem to be
happening. So what is the story?
For now, at least, I'm coming at it from the trade side –
especially trade in financial services. It seems to me that
one way to think about this is in terms of the "home market
effect," an old story in trade but one that only got
formalized in 1980.
Here's an informal version: imagine a good or service
subject to large economies of scale in production, sufficient
that if it's consumed in two countries, you want to produce
it in only one, and export to the other, even if there are
costs of shipping it. Where will this production be located?
Other things equal, you would choose the larger market, so as
to minimize total shipping costs. Other things may not, of
course, be equal, but this market-size effect will always be
a factor, depending on how high those shipping costs are.
In one of the models I laid out in that old paper, the way
this worked out was not that all production left the smaller
economy, but rather that the smaller economy paid lower wages
and therefore made up in competitiveness what it lacked in
market access. In effect, it used a weaker currency to make
up for its smaller market.
In Britain's case, I'd suggest that we think of financial
services as the industry in question. Such services are
subject to both internal and external economies of scale,
which tends to concentrate them in a handful of huge
financial centers around the world, one of which is, of
course, the City of London. But now we face the prospect of
seriously increased transaction costs between Britain and the
rest of Europe, which creates an incentive to move those
services away from the smaller economy (Britain) and into the
larger (Europe). Britain therefore needs a weaker currency to
offset this adverse impact.
Does this make Britain poorer? Yes. It's not just the
efficiency effect of barriers to trade, there's also a
terms-of-trade effect as the real exchange rate depreciates.
But it's important to be aware that not everyone in
Britain is equally affected. Pre-Brexit, Britain was
obviously experiencing a version of the so-called Dutch
disease. In its traditional form, this referred to the way
natural resource exports crowd out manufacturing by keeping
the currency strong. In the UK case, the City's financial
exports play the same role. So their weakening helps British
manufacturing – and, maybe, the incomes of people who live
far from the City and still depend directly or indirectly on
manufacturing for their incomes. It's not completely
incidental that these were the parts of England (not
Scotland!) that voted for Brexit.
Is there a policy moral here? Basically it is that a
weaker pound shouldn't be viewed as an additional cost from
Brexit, it's just part of the adjustment. And it would be a
big mistake to prop up the pound: old notions of an
equilibrium exchange rate no longer apply.
"... But if the third globalisation wave is mostly about taking advantage of cheap labour not commodities - whilst simultaneously reducing industrial capacity at home - today's global imbalances could result in a very different type of correction (something which may or may not be happening now). ..."
"... The immediate consequence may be the developed world's desire to engage in significant industrial on-shoring. ..."
"... I'm not convinced the end of globalization and the retrenchment of banking industry are the same thing. There are some things that can't be exp/imported. Maybe we just got to the point where it didn't make sense to order moules marinieres from Brussels!? ..."
"... You forget the third leg - reducing the price of labour for services via immigration of labour from poorer countries. On top of the supply-and-demand effects, it reduces social solidarity (see Robert Putnam) - of which trades union membership and activity is one indicator. It's a win-win for capital. ..."
According to strategists Bhanu Baweja, Manik Narain and Maximillian
Lin the elasticity of trade to GDP - a measure of wealth creating
globalisation - rose to as high as 2.2. in the so-called third wave
of globalisation which began in the 1980s. This compared to an
average of 1.5 since the 1950s. In the post-crisis era, however,
the elasticity of trade has fallen to 1.1, not far from the weak
average of the 1970s and early 1980s but well below the second and
third waves of globalisation.
... ... ...
The anti-globalist position has always been simple. Global trade isn't a net positive for anyone
if the terms of trade relationships aren't reciprocal or if the trade exists solely for the purpose
of taking advantage of undervalued local resources like labour or commodities whilst channeling
rents/profits to a single central beneficiary. That, they have always argued, makes it more akin to
an imperialistic relationship than a reciprocal one.
If the latest wave of "globalisation" is mostly an expression of
American imperialism, then it does seem logical it too will fade as
countries wake-up to the one-sided nature of the current global
value chains in place.
Back in the first wave of globalisation,
of course, much of the trade growth was driven by colonial empires
taking advantage of cheap commodity resources abroad in a bid to
add value to them domestically. When these supply chains unravelled,
that left Europe short of commodities but long industrial capacity
- a destabilising imbalance which coincided with two world wars.
Simplistically speaking, resource rich countries at this point
were faced with only two options: industrialising on their own
autonomous terms or be subjugated by even more oppressive
imperialist forces, which had even grander superiority agendas than
their old colonial foes. That left those empires boasting domestic
industrial capacity but lacking natural resources of their own,
with the option of fighting to defend the rights of their former
colonies in the hope that the promise of independence and friendly
future knowledge exchanges (alongside military protection) would be
enough to secure resource access from then on.
But if the third globalisation wave is mostly about taking
advantage of cheap labour not commodities - whilst simultaneously
reducing industrial capacity at home - today's global imbalances
could result in a very different type of correction (something
which may or may not be happening now).
The immediate consequence
may be the developed world's desire to engage in significant
industrial on-shoring.
But while reversing the off-shoring trend may boost productivity
in nations like the US or even in Europe, it's also likely to
reduce demand for mobile international capital as a whole. As UBS
notes, global cross border capital flows are already decelerating
significantly as a share of GDP post-crisis, and the peak-to-trough
swing in capital inflows to GDP over the past ten years has been
much more dramatic in developed markets than in emerging ones:
To note, in China trade as a % of GDP fell from
65% in 2006 to 42% in 2014. The relationship
between trade and GDP is in reality more variable
than is usually claimed.
I'm not convinced the end of globalization and
the retrenchment of banking industry are the same
thing. There are some things that can't be
exp/imported. Maybe we just got to the point
where it didn't make sense to order moules
marinieres from Brussels!?
"if the third globalisation wave is mostly about taking advantage of cheap labour not
commodities - whilst simultaneously reducing
industrial capacity at home"
You forget the third leg - reducing the
price of labour for services via immigration of
labour from poorer countries. On top of the
supply-and-demand effects, it reduces social
solidarity (see Robert Putnam) - of which trades
union membership and activity is one indicator.
It's a win-win for capital.
The simple problem with globalization is that it was based off economic views which looked
at things in aggregate - but people are
individuals, not aggregates. "On average, GDP
per person has gone up" doesn't do anything for
the person whose income has gone down. "Just
think about all the people in China who are so
much better off than they used to be" isn't going
to do much for an American or European whose
standard of living has slipped from middle class
to working class to government assistance.
"Redistribution" is routinely advertised as
the solution to all of this. I leave it as an
exercise to the reader to figure out how to
redistribute wealth from the areas that have
prospered the most (Asia, particularly China) to
the individuals (primarily in the West) who have
lost the most. In the absence of any viable
redistribution scheme, though, I suspect the most
likely outcome will be a pulling back on
globalization.
@
Terra_Desolata
The aggregates also do apply to countries -
i.e. the US on aggregate has benefited from
globalisation, but median wages have been
stagnant in real terms, meaning that the
benefits of globalisation have not been
well distributed across the country
(indeed, companies like Apple have
benefited hugely from reducing the costs of
production, while you could make the case
that much of the benefits of lower
production costs have been absorbed into
profit margins).
That suggests that redistribution can
occur at the country level, rather than
requiring a cross-border dimension.
@
Meh...
in the US, median male wages were
lower in 2014 than in 1973 - when a
far higher proportion of working-age
males were active in the labour
force.
Growing up in the 1970s, it would
have been unthinkable for wages to
have fallen since the 1930s.
Terra_Desolata
5pts
Featured
8 hours ago
@
Meh...
@
Terra_Desolata
Yes, there has been uneven
distribution of income within
countries as well as between them -
but as the Panama Papers revealed, in
a world of free movement of capital,
incomes can also move freely between
borders. (See: Apple.) While the
U.S. has lower tolerance than Europe
and Asia for such games, any attempts
at redistribution would necessarily
include an effort to keep incomes
from slipping across national
borders, which would have the same
effect: a net reduction in
globalization.
"... "In my lifetime I cannot remember anything like the scepticism about these values that we see today," said Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. ..."
"... There was much discussion this week about the underlying causes of that scepticism - low growth, stagnant wages and other scars of the 2008 global financial crisis - together with calls for governments to do more to ensure the benefits of globalisation are distributed more widely. ..."
"... Lou Jiwei, China's finance minister, told reporters on Friday, the current "political risks" would in the immediate future lead only to "superficial changes" for the global economy. But underlying them was a deeper trend of "deglobalisation". ..."
The world's economic elite spent this week invoking fears of protectionism and the
existential
crisis facing globalisation
.... ... ...
Mr Trump has raised the possibility of trying to renegotiate the terms of the US sovereign debt
much as he did repeatedly with his own business debts as a property developer. He also has proposed
imposing punitive tariffs on imports from China and Mexico and ripping up existing US trade pacts.
... ... ...
"Once a tariff has been imposed on a country's exports, it is in that country's best interest
to retaliate, and when it does, both countries end up worse off," IMF economists wrote.
It is not just angst over Mr Trump. There are similar concerns over Brexit and the rise of populist
parties elsewhere in Europe. All present their own threats to the advance of the US-led path of economic
liberalisation pursued since Keynes and his peers gathered at Bretton Woods in 1944.
"In my lifetime I cannot remember anything like the scepticism about these values that we
see today," said Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
There was much discussion this week about the underlying causes of that scepticism - low growth,
stagnant wages and other scars of the 2008 global financial crisis - together with calls for governments
to do more to ensure the benefits of globalisation are distributed more widely.
Lou Jiwei, China's finance minister, told reporters on Friday, the current "political risks" would
in the immediate future lead only to "superficial changes" for the global economy. But underlying
them was a deeper trend of "deglobalisation".
"... Weak global trade, fears that the U.K. is marching towards a hard Brexit , and polls indicating that the U.S. election remains a tighter call than markets are pricing in have led a bevy of analysts to redouble their warnings that a backlash over globalization is poised to roil global financial markets-with profound consequences for the real economy and investment strategies. ..."
"... From the economists and politicians at the annual IMF meeting in Washington to strategists on Wall Street trying to advise clients, everyone seems to be pondering a future in which cooperation and global trade may look much different than they do now. ..."
"... "The main risk with potentially tough negotiating tactics is that trade partners could panic, especially if global coordination evaporates." ..."
Weak global trade, fears that the U.K. is marching towards a
hard Brexit , and polls indicating that the U.S. election remains a
tighter call than markets are
pricing in have led a bevy of analysts to redouble their warnings that a backlash over globalization
is poised to roil global financial markets-with profound consequences for the real economy and investment
strategies.
From the economists and politicians at the annual
IMF meeting in Washington to strategists on Wall Street trying to advise clients, everyone seems
to be pondering a future in which cooperation and
global trade may look much different than they do now.
Brexit
Suggestions that the U.K. will prioritize control over its migration policy at the expense of
open access to Europe's single market in negotiations to leave the European Union-a strategy that's
being dubbed a "hard Brexit"-loomed large over global markets. The U.K. government is "strongly supportive
of open markets, free markets, open economies, free trade," said
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York
on Thursday. "But we have a problem-and it's not just a British problem, it's a developed-world problem-in
keeping our populations engaged and supportive of our market capitalism, our economic model."
Trade
Citing the rising anti-trade sentiment, analysts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch warned that
"events show nations are becoming less willing to cooperate, more willing to contest," and a
backlash against inequality is likely to trigger more activist fiscal policies. Looser government
spending in developed countries-combined with trade protectionism and wealth redistribution-could
reshape global investment strategies, unleashing a wave of inflation, the bank argued, amid a looming
war against inequality.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew did his part to push for more openness. During an interview in
Washington on Thursday, he said that efforts to boost trade, combined with a more equitable distribution
of the fruits of economic growth, are key to ensuring
U.S. prosperity. Rolling back on globalization would be counterproductive to any attempt to boost
median incomes, he added.
Trump
Without mentioning him by name, Lew's comments appeared to nod to Donald Trump, who some believe
could take the U.S. down a more isolationist trading path should he be elected president in November.
"The emergence of Donald Trump as a political force reflects a mood of growing discontent about immigration,
globalization and the distribution of wealth," write analysts at Fathom Consulting, a London-based
research firm. Their central scenario is that a Trump administration might be benign for the U.S.
economy. "However, in our downside scenario, Donald Dark, global trade falls sharply and a global
recession looms. In this world, isolationism wins, not just in the U.S., but globally," they caution.
Analysts at Standard Chartered Plc agree that the tail risks of a Trump presidency could be significant.
"The main risk with potentially tough negotiating tactics is that trade partners could panic, especially
if global coordination evaporates." They add that business confidence could take a big hit in this
context. "The global trade system could descend into a spiral of trade tariffs, reminiscent of what
happened after the
Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 , and ultimately a trade war, possibly accompanied by foreign-exchange
devaluations; this would be a 'lose-lose' deal for all."
Market participants are also concerned that populism could take root under a Hillary Clinton administration.
"We believe the liberal base's demands on a Clinton Administration could lead to an overly expansive
federal government with aggressive regulators," write analysts at Barclays Plc. "If the GOP does
not unify, Clinton may expand President Obama's use of executive authority to accomplish her goals."
"The top trade negotiators involved in the Trade in
Services Agreement (TiSA) will meet in Washington later
this month to review their latest market access offers and
prepare the groundwork for a final deal in December" [
Bloomberg
].
"The high-level meeting follows a successful September
negotiating round and recent signals from Washington that
a TiSA deal could be forged before the end of the year."
Yikes! Dark horse coming up on the outside!
"TTIP AG TALKS SET TO DRIFT: The U.S. summarily
rejected a European Union request for three days of
agriculture talks at this week's Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership round, further indicating that
political uncertainty has limited what either side is able
to discuss in the negotiations, sources close to the talks
say" [
Politico
].
"'I think we can get there,' Lew said, referring to a
vote on the Asia-Pacific pact. He argued that voting for
TPP should be easier than voting for last year's Trade
Promotion Authority bill because it has tangible benefits
that will grow the economy. He said current voter angst is
not due to TPP itself but rather to other domestic needs
that the government has not adequately addressed" [
Politico
].
"'If we were investing more in infrastructure, which I
believe we should, if we were investing more
smartly
in education and training and in child care, I'm not so
sure we'd be in the same place,' Lew said." I think
"hysteresis" is the word for the fact that you can't
reverse a 40-year screw job handwaving about a policy
pivot. And whenever you hear a liberal use the word
"smart," get your back against the nearest wall.
"The American Brexit Is Coming" [James Stavridis,
Foreign Policy
]. "The case for the TPP is economically
strong, but the geopolitical logic is even more
compelling. The deal is one that China will have great
difficulty accepting, as it would put Beijing outside a
virtuous circle of allies, partners, and friends on both
sides of the Pacific. Frankly, that is a good place to
keep China from the perspective of the United States….
Over 2,500 years ago, during the Zhou dynasty, the
philosopher-warrior Sun Tzu wrote the compelling study of
conflict The Art of War. There is much wisdom in that slim
volume, including this quote: "The supreme art of war is
to subdue the enemy without fighting." The United States
can avoid conflict best in East Asia by using a robust
combination of national tools - with the TPP at the top of
the list. Looking across the Atlantic to the Brexit
debacle, we must avoid repeating the mistake in the
Pacific." And we get?
"12 U.S. Senators Outline TPP's Fundamental Flaws, Tell
President Obama it Shouldn't Be Considered Until
Renegotiated" (PDF) [
Public
Citizen
]. Brown, Sanders, Blumenthal, Merkley,
Franken, Markey, Schatz, Casey, Warren, Whitehouse, Hirono,
and Baldwin call for renegotiation. "It is simply not
accurate to call an agreement progressive if it does not
require trading partners to ban trade in goods made with
forced labor or includes a special court for corporations
to challenge legitimate, democratically developed public
policies."
"The way ahead" [Barack Obama,
The Economist
]. "Lifting productivity and wages also
depends on creating a global race to the top in rules for
trade. While some communities have suffered from foreign
competition, trade has helped our economy much more than
it has hurt. Exports helped lead us out of the recession.
American firms that export pay their workers up to 18%
more on average than companies that do not, according to a
report by my Council of Economic Advisers. So, I will keep
pushing for Congress to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership
and to conclude a Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership with the EU. These agreements, and stepped-up
trade enforcement, will level the playing field for
workers and businesses alike." I should really get out my
Magic Marker's for this one.
Steve C
October 7, 2016 at 4:45 pm
"Global race to the top" is vintage Obama propaganda. A "smart" sounding
phrase meant to obscure the impact of TPP on the non-elite. The adoring
comments make it all the worse. He sure knows the lingo to appeal to educated
professionals.
This is a lot of patented, soaring Obama verbiage that boils down to
surrendering to global corporations and the big banks.
Yeah, no one is thinking through the analogy to note that there are very
few races where everyone wins. In point of fact, except for those where
finishing is considered an accomplishment like marathons, there is only one
winner and what's left are also ran and losers. So why are we involved in a
situation where most are going to lose?
"... Any argument that democracy can't work because of mass ignorance also has to answer the question: what evidence is there that people are worse informed/more actively mislead than in the twentieth century? Yellow journalism, for example, is nothing new historically. ..."
"... The Left get a bloody nose from the electorate over a major shift in the course society is going to take for the first time in 30 years and suddenly democracy isn't a satisfactory way of deciding things. ..."
"... How convenient. I've always said the Left don't really give a sh*t about the people they purport to represent, its all just a facade to gain power. I think the response to the Brexit vote pretty much settles it. ..."
"... So much for Democracy http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html ..."
"... I think direct democracy is untenable. It would bring forth every economically bankrupt and socially disastrous policy under the sun. Don't be under any illusions about that. ..."
I suppose immigration is particularly sensitive because the newcomers will likely settle and become British citizens, thus giving
them the vote and a say in how the country is run. If the newcomers fail to assimilate then they may vote in ways that the "native"
population object to and bring about changes that would not otherwise have occurred.
Imagine for example a referendum on the
monarchy that is won by republicans based on the votes from first generation immigrants who, understandably, are less likely to
have attachment to the institution. I suppose another way to put it is: do the original inhabitants of a territory have a right
to prevent social/cultural/political/economic change brought about by newcomers?
@AndrewD what is your point? That there are no such people as British people? That those who live here have no more rights than
those who don't?
Brexit in a nutshell: decades of treating the population of the UK as if they are nobodies: ask them "are you happy to continue
being treated as if you are worthless nobodies?" Answer "no".
My point is that the concept of "original inhabitents" for any part of the world (save possibly a small part of East Africa) is
meaningless in historical terms. Historically, immigrants came with "fire and slaughter". Justify your statement about the rights
of those here over other immigrants to come in any way other than a claim we were here first.
The difference between Daniel Kahnemann and Jason Brennan is that Kahnemann talks about the biases we all (including him) have
and Brennan talks about the biases that "they" have. Which is why I take Kahnemann seriously and not Brennan. What's more, Dan
Kahan's work on motivated reasoning suggests that it affects Type 2 (slow) thinking as well and that the bias is greatest among
the most educated. In other words, we're all prone to cognitive biases and there's no justification from that to restrict the
franchise.
Any argument that democracy can't work because of mass ignorance also has to answer the question: what evidence is there
that people are worse informed/more actively mislead than in the twentieth century? Yellow journalism, for example, is nothing
new historically.
The Left get a bloody nose from the electorate over a major shift in the course society is going to take for the first time
in 30 years and suddenly democracy isn't a satisfactory way of deciding things.
How convenient. I've always said the Left don't really give a sh*t about the people they purport to represent, its all
just a facade to gain power. I think the response to the Brexit vote pretty much settles it.
AndrewD - "Justify your statement about the rights of those here over other immigrants to come in any way other than a claim we
were here first."
well that's just about the whole of human history. If everyone has rights to be everywhere then no-one gets to influence what
happens in "their" area. I like my neighbours but they live in their house and I live in mine.
More specifically and recently, the switch of who "we" are from the UK to Europe has created a bonanza for some people and
left others on the scrap heap.
For example, you're relying on the idea of an in group and an out group. What about the Scots, who are pro-immigration ATM? Are
they part of your in group or not? What about people in your street that like immigration? Where are your borders? Then think
about Europe where, to put it mildly, there has been a recent history of "fluid" boundaries.
@aragon Ah good, I wondered how long it would be before the Appeal to Nature fallacy reared its head. Social Darwinism anybody?
How do you reconcile the fact that the areas of the UK that saw the most EU immigration were the areas that were the most tolerant
of it, and vice versa?
Lastly your wisdom of crowds reference is a bit silly. What we saw in the referendum was crowd psychology rather than diverse
collections of independently deciding individuals, because the media drip fed them their views over 20 years or more.Crowds can
be made to behave stupidly too.
"What about the Scots, who are pro-immigration ATM? Are they part of your in group or not?" this is a critical question that
recent referenda have thrown up, even more so than left/right and class. The scots are part of my group but I suspect increasingly
I am not part of theirs.
"What about people in your street that like immigration?" well once out of the EU we can all vote for parties that reflect
our views on immigration. While in the EU over 450 million people have the right of residence and our various opinions matter
not a jot.
@ Tonybirte. so people who disagree with you have been drop fed views over 20 years and are too stupid to see the truth.
Are you sure its not you who has been drip-fed views over the past 20 years? Are you absolutely sure you are not the one behaving
stupidly? Have you done your due diligence?
Gastro George, the Scots are not pro-immigration. Opinion polling suggests they are less opposed to it than the UK as a whole,
but still opposed overall.
I think direct democracy is untenable. It would bring forth every economically bankrupt and socially disastrous policy
under the sun. Don't be under any illusions about that.
"Morning Trade was let down - along with many on Twitter - that there was no mention of the TPP [in
the Vice-Presidential Debate], a deal that both vice presidential candidates initially supported until
they signed on as running-mates and flip-flopped" [
Politico
].
Especially given that in Trump's strong first half-hour, he hammered Clinton with it.
"In conference at Yale Law School, DeLauro pushes to stop controversial Trans Pacific Partnership"
[
New
Haven Register
]. Detailed report of speech. ".S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said the administration
will be "relentless" in its pursuit of a positive vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership in the lame
duck Congress, something she and a coalition in Congress are hoping to stop…. '(T)he agreement is undemocratic
in its drafting, undemocratic in its contents and it cannot be passed during an unaccountable lame duck
period,' she told Yale Law students and staff in attendance."
"Obama Hails Enforcement on Trade Deals to Win Support for T.P.P." [
New
York Times
]. "Such actions against other countries' subsidies, dumping and market barriers, however,
do not address two big concerns of trade skeptics: currency manipulation and workers' rights."
"The French decision follows Uruguay and Paraguay leaving the controversial US backed TISA negotiations
last year and the recent humiliating back down of the EU on Investor State Dispute Resolution. With
Germany and France so critical and Great Britain on the way out of the EU, it is hard to see how the
European Commission can continue the negotiations" [
Public
Services International
].
Now the predatory class claims to be aghast at what its
policies have enabled--Trump. But are Trumps policies really
the problem...or is the problem that doesn't use the
reassuring, coded language that the predatory class has
carefully crafted to cover its exploitation?
The vice presidential debate was an irritating and boring event. One notable part was when Mike Pence
outlined his views of what the U.S. should do in Syria:
Asked how a Trump-Pence administration would stop the civil war carnage in Aleppo, Pence said
that he, at least, "truly believe(s) that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish
safe zones, so that families and children can work out of those areas," and "work with our partners [to]
make that happen. Provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength." If Russia "continues
to be involved" in airstrikes along with the Syrian government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
he said, "the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike the
military forces of the Assad regime" and "prevent this crisis in Aleppo."
Trump has said very little about Syria's civil war–and advocated none of the measures Pence
outlined.
That last part is not really true. Trump has
endorsed creating safe zones in Syria on
more than one occasion . While I don't believe Trump has a clear idea of what establishing a
safe zone requires, he has had no problem voicing support for the idea several times. The fact that
Pence felt comfortable outlining a very aggressive Syria policy in tonight's debate suggests that
Trump doesn't really have a problem with what his running mate proposed. As I said when I was watching
the debate, Pence's answer on Syria was deranged. He more or less threatened to initiate hostilities
with Russia, and he seemed oblivious to the serious negative consequences this would have. He kept
invoking "American leadership" and "American strength," as if uttering these phrases was all that
mattered. Pence's advocacy for much more U.S. involvement in Syria could have been an easy target
for Kaine, but of course he and Clinton have no disagreements with the Republican ticket on this
issue. For all the quarreling between the two campaigns, both tickets apparently support U.S. escalation
in Syria. As bad as the moderator for the debate was, she did at least manage to get both candidates
to take positions on an issue that was completely ignored in the first presidential debate.
Overall, Kaine's performance was shaky and didn't seem all that impressive to anyone that didn't
know much about him. Despite arguably having better foreign policy experience than Pence, he did
a worse job of demonstrating his readiness to be president if needed. His constant interruptions
of Pence were jarring and off-putting, and created the impression of being an overly loyal terrier
trying to defend his master. Pence's repeated failure to come to Trump's defense in response to Kaine's
many jabs presumably hurt Trump, but it also made Pence seem much less agitated and rattled. Neither
VP nominee significantly harmed his running mate, but Pence did a better job of making the case for
his party's ticket.
" it also made Pence seem much less agitated and rattled"
I agree. Kaine's nervousness, grimacing, and non-stop interruptions were annoying and a bit
flaky. Pence seemed more composed and stable, even if some of what he said was a lot of nonsense
straight out of the Interventionist Handbook.
Temperamentally, Pence is the guy you'd want a heartbeat away from taking that 3:00AM call
Kaine looked like he'd still be awake, jabbering into a dictaphone while vacuuming the Oval
Office for the fifth time.
As far as Syria, and the middle east in general, this is sort of why I glossed over the statements
that Hillary is a hawk: because I don't see any doves (that don't have far too many other problems
to support). Trump started out sounding like he was but as time went on it sounded more and more
like the regular republican "more money to the military. World Police! WIN!" talk.
So at this point it sounds like both are going to keep us in the middle east. Though it seems
Trump may mess with the Iran deal (though it might be less attacking it as it is just poking at
the administration any chance you get).
As far as the debate, Pence wanted a debate about policy while Kaine wanted a debate about
Trump. if this was a presidential debate Pence probably would've been in a better standing.
But I think Kaine wasn't even fighting him. He wasn't after policy. Beyond stating his points
and a token defense his primary purpose was one thing, to say "remember, you aren't voting for
Pence, but for Trump." He's picturing the public saying "Oh, Pence seems pretty coo..oh yeah,
but he's with Trump..ewww."
It pretty much sums up the entire deal with the republican side of the campaign. Take Trump
out of it and you have a strong platform and an actual attempt at trying to extend somewhat past
the old GOP mindset while evoking that Need For Change that pushed democrats back in '08. It's
an actual strong case.
The issue is that it's all on the hopes of Trump. And THAT is the hard sell. I don't even see
many supporters defending him. It's like Pence: they bypass him and either focus on the dream
or the enemy.
Which leads to something interesting: If the roles were reversed: same platform, same general
message, but Pence as President and Trump as VP, would it be hard for folks not two-feet in the
Democratic ticket to vote R? Would there be a questioin as to who would win?
I have a feeling that many would say : " I don't know. But I would have liked that campaign I
would have liked that campaign very much.
If you'd told me that one of the two gentlemen debating last night was a Virginian and asked me
who it was, I would have said Pence, solely because of his demeanor.
Pence's thoughts on Syria were dumb (and dangerous), but I find it hard to hold that against
run-of-the-mill politicians these days because they're getting such rotten information and advice
from establishment "experts" and mainstream pundits. The country needs a changing of the guard
when it comes to "experts".
Kaine struck me as a third stringer trying to compensate for his own weaknesses by poking a
stick in the other fellow's spokes. And no better on Syria, that's certain.
The way the question was phrased, evoking endangered children and the classic what should America
'do' .doesn't really allow a candidate to say 'nothing – we have no vital interests in Syria'.
If Pence is pushing that same "get tough with Russia and Assad" idea he's taking the opposite
tack than Trump. Either they aren't communicating, the campaign figured that they could get away
with completely altering their position from one debate to the next, or Pence doesn't really care
what Trump thinks and is an unreformed GOP hawk.
Isn't the joke here Pence had a great debate running for President? In reality, it is very likely
Pence does all the real work and all Donald really wants is the national audience to take the
credit. So it was a goo debate for Pence that has minimal effect on the polls because the headliners
personality are dominant this cycle.
Tim Kaine was overly-aggressive and appeared to be not ready for Prime time.
"The fact that Pence felt comfortable outlining a very aggressive Syria policy in tonight's debate
suggests that Trump doesn't really have a problem with what his running mate proposed. As I said
when I was watching the debate, Pence's answer on Syria was deranged. He more or less threatened
to initiate hostilities with Russia, and he seemed oblivious to the serious negative consequences
this would have. He kept invoking"
I didn't watch the debate. This morning, when I was asked about it - I didn't think it would
be a contest. Gov. Pence, should have no issues.
But if I had watched and heard the above comments. I might have had conniptions. I am not going
to say more at the moment. I would sound like I am abandoning my candidate. I like Gov. Pence,
but that response is rife with campaign and policy self inflicting damages - good grief.
Pence is a fine Christian man and I'm glad he did well last night. However, his hawkishness was
disturbing. Somebody who is pro life should be wary of policies that lead to wars and thousands
dying.
As somebody who wants our borders secured, I don't feel I have a choice on Nov. 8. I will be
praying, though, that Trump doesn't delegate the FP heavy lifting to his vice president as Bush
43 did to his.
"Safe Zones" sound all well and good, but the only way to guarantee a safe zone is to have US
troops on the ground in Syria. You cannot enforce a safe zone from the air.
So, it sounds like both parties are willing to commit US ground troops to Syria and risk a
possible confrontation with Russian troops who are already there.
This is more Neocon nonsense being foisted on the American people by politicians who do not
really understand the ramifications of their actions.
Jesus. Very disappointed in Pence's answer on Syria. War against russia would cost thousands of
american lives. We need to stay out of Syria plain and simple. Pence's statememt also goes completely
against "we need to beat ISIS" rant that trump goes on every two sentences. To beat ISIS we would
have to be on the same side as Syria/Russia. This whole election is cluster .How the heck did
we end up with these two choices?
LHM: exactly. I'd just add that war with Russia conventionally would probably costs hundreds of
thousands of us soldier lives and could cripple our military for subsequent actual DEFENSE against
the country that actually will have the means to threaten the very existence or freedom of the
USA:
China, with an economy vastly bigger and more diversified than Russia's, a population eight
times as numerous as Russia's, and for that matter a far, far larger diaspora to influence politics,
culture, and economics in the formerly white western countries (USA, Canada (especially "British"
Columbia), and Australia, in particular).
Also, as pointed out in columns on Unz and elsewhere, conventional war could escalate to nuclear
exchange more easily than many people think. God help us.
How many safe zones do we need in Syria, we already have 3. 1. Govt held areas (unless we bomb them).
2. Kurdish territory (unless Turkey bombs them). 3. The Turkish zone in N. Syria.
In fact weren't we begging Turkey to establish a zone just for this purpose?
Of course, what we really want is an Assad free zone that covers all of Syria and filled with
Al Qaeda groups that we pretend are moderates.
Trump needs to state clearly that he is not in agreement with Pence position on Russia & Syria.
To beat ISIS we need to be on the same side as Russia. If Pence is a fine Christian, how can he
be so carless to be on side of ISIS in Syria like Obama is, and have hand in destroying Syria
the cradle of Christianity.
"Jesus. Very disappointed in Pence's answer on Syria. War against russia would cost thousands
of american lives. We need to stay out of Syria plain and simple. Pence's statememt also goes
completely against "we need to beat ISIS" rant that trump goes on every two sentences. To beat
ISIS we would have to be on the same side as Syria/Russia."
it's the problem with being involved with the entire middle east without a firm desire of exactly
what we want from there. We started out fighting Sunni threats, then took out the big Sunni country
that we earlier set up to hold back the big Shi'a country we felt was a threat. So when said Shi'a
country gained power we stood against them. And..well, that sort of ended up with us fighting
both sides at the same time depending on the location.
It's much more complicated than that, which is why jumping in there without really understanding
the region was a bad idea.
" This whole election is cluster .How the heck did we end up with these two choices?"
My belief.
Democratic voters are used to 'playing it safe' instead of going for more Left choices since
"liberal" triggers a BIG backlash in this country. Thus why you get candidates like Clinton instead
of candidates like Sanders and why you keep getting things like Obamacare's quasi-private insurance
instead of single-payer.
Republican voters are sick of the GOP and wanted someone, anyone, who wasn't a democrat but
wasn't holding the GOP platform. Remember how, other than Trump, the other Republican candidates
were all trying to "Out Right" each other? Trump was the only one that did more than outright
ignore them.
So in a way, the GOP caused it all by putting so much hate against the Left that the Left always
plays it safe and caring so little about their base that they eloped to the first man that told
them they were pretty and deserved better.
Clinton was the 'safe pick'. Trump smiled. And here we are.
It actuslly sounds less stupid when you see it that way. It's less that we're all idiots and
more just a set of unfortunate events caused by a political scene that looked a lot like a youtube
comment section.
I tend to discount Pence's comments on Syria in the debate. If Trump manages to win, he rather
than Pence will be calling the shots on foreign policy. And to the extent that Trump has any coherent
ideas on foreign policy, how could he come down hard on the mistake of invading Iraq and support
getting deeply involved in Syria?
In fact, Trump may have welcomed Pence's statement on Syria, since it may have attracted the
votes of some establishment and neocon types without binding him to any particular policy if he
becomes president.
"In fact, Trump may have welcomed Pence's statement on Syria, since it may have attracted the
votes of some establishment and neocon types without binding him to any particular policy if he
becomes president."
Altogether too close to the Bush-Cheney parallel for comfort. The last thing we want is for
the neocons to come creeping back in through the Blair House back door.
Thought Pence was the superior of the two. Considering the options in Syria while running for
President/VP you have to show a position of strength. My thought is that Trump wants to play nice
with Putin for a while and eventually will pull out of Syria. You just can't say that during an
election or you look weak.
Pence is a fine Christian -- I admire his courage in bringing up abortion in such an important
debate. Unfortunately, most conservatives have a blind spot toward Christians in the Mideast.
Part of it might be bias–Orthodox Christians aren't "true" Christians. Also many Evangelicals
have been brain washed into believing that support of Israel is the only thing that counts.
"My thought is that Trump wants to play nice with Putin for a while and eventually will pull out
of Syria."
One thing Trump has successfully done is to launch a campaign so free of any real policy that
anything you want to believe can be projected onto him. Play nice with Putin and then pull out?
Sure! He's never said that, and in fact he's said the exact opposite but why not?
"... I usually remark that one must look at the 'second tier' of a political cabal to predict future actions by a 'candidate.' The people surrounding the 'candidate' and their track records on issues in their sphere of expertise tell the mind sets that 'drive' policy. Trump comes from the business world, where delegation of responsibility is standard for larger enterprises. His 'advisors' are key to future performance. Clinton seems to be encapsulated in a bubble of sycophants. So, the same rationale applies to her as applies to Trump. Who are her main 'advisors?' ..."
"... As anyone possessed of discernment would have noticed in the 2008 campaign, Obama surrounded himself with 'less than progressive' advisors. His subsequent governance followed suit so that we find the nation in the mess it is in today. ..."
"... Finally, all signs are that the Russians are not taking this slide towards bellicosity lightly. The Russians are demonstrating a clear sighted view of Americas dysfunctions. For the Russians to hold massive Civil Defense drills now is a clear message; "We are preparing for the worst. How about you?" ..."
"... The tone of this piece is remarkably similar to a long article Bacevich headed in a recent Harper's article on US foreign policy. Presented as a roundtable discussion, it centered on the dogged insistence of some State Department-tied clown that Russia is The Aggressor, while Bacevich and a two other participants nicked away at her position, largely, as I recall, by granting the Russians some right to a regional interest. While they slowed her down, the great missing element was a characterization of global aims of the US her position reflected. ..."
"... In short, Bacevich, a good liberal, will not name the beast of US imperialism. As a result he makes it seem as though any policy can be judged on a truncated logic of its own, and so policy debates fragment into a disconnected series of arguments that bid for "fresh thinking" without daring to consider the underlying drivers. It's one of the reasons Eisenhower, with his criticism of the military-industrial complex, still comes across as a guiding light. ..."
"... I'll put it out there: We have too many upper-middle-class white women who claim to understand foreign policy who should have been subject to a draft to concentrate their minds on what happens when a person is forced into the military and sent off to drive around with a rifle as people lob bombs at them. Madeleine Albright is the classic case: "What good is our exquisite military, if I, a compassion-challenged expert, can't waste a lot of lives on my follies?" Bacevich's personal history means that he knows what war is about (as did Gen. Sherman). ..."
"... Perry is forthright when he says: "Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger." He also tells us that the nuclear danger is "growing greater every year" and that even a single nuclear detonation "could destroy our way of life." ..."
"... Perry does not use his memoir to score points or settle grudges. He does not sensationalize. But, as a defense insider and keeper of nuclear secrets, he is clearly calling American leaders to account for what he believes are very bad decisions, such as the precipitous expansion of NATO, right up to the Russian border,* and President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, originally signed by President Nixon. ..."
"... Interesting comments by Mr. Perry who had a starring role in 1979's "First Strike" propaganda film where he advocated for the MX ICBM system. ..."
"... So what's a voter to do? ..."
"... Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief. ..."
"... Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a significant number of people from his own party. ..."
"... But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs. some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull it off. ..."
"... What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times revealed that she always ..."
"... All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone" she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly, as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia. ..."
"... Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear ..."
"... How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief, Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued participation in NATO. ..."
"... Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of wet sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with Hillary Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live on. ..."
"... At least Harding was aware of the damage his friends caused to him: "I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! " ..."
"... As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Harding had the political courage to pardon, and free from prison, Eugene V. Debs for his crime of giving an anti-war speech the Wilson administration did not like. ..."
"... Harding did not believe in foreign involvements and was never personally implicated in the financial corruption of his administration. ..."
"... If Clinton is to be compared to Harding, it would be to view Clinton as a "new" Harding who now believes she is well qualified to be President, wants to do much foreign military involvement, perhaps resulting in war, who is now trusting of her sycopathic friends to give her good advice, and who is personally involved in selling government favors (via the Clinton foundation) ..."
"... HRC is more dangerous because she is the 1st woman to become a serious contender for a position that has traditionally been considered a "man's job". Therefore she believes she must not, in any way, be perceived as "soft" or lacking "toughness" or aggressiveness. She feels compelled to "out-macho" the macho guys. ..."
"... The only bright spot in the prospect of a Hellary Klinton presidency is the probability that she may not survive long enough to start a war with Russia. I wonder how the training for the Mark I body double is coming? ..."
"... On the other hand, why should anyone think that a bubble-headed blowhard like Trumpet has the intelligence or gumption to have any effect upon the operations of the Warfare State? When the opinion makers of his own party and the neoliberal leaders of Klinton's party are all riding on the Military-Industrial gravy train looking for the next enemy to keep business booming? ..."
"... And how can anyone with a functioning brain cell think that anything a politician says or promises during an election has any connection to how they will act once elected? Remember Obama, Mr. "Audacity of Hope?" ..."
Prof. Bacevitch has bought up the one overriding problem with this election cycle: Lack of
substance.
I usually remark that one must look at the 'second tier' of a political cabal to predict
future actions by a 'candidate.' The people surrounding the 'candidate' and their track records
on issues in their sphere of expertise tell the mind sets that 'drive' policy. Trump comes from
the business world, where delegation of responsibility is standard for larger enterprises. His
'advisors' are key to future performance. Clinton seems to be encapsulated in a bubble of sycophants.
So, the same rationale applies to her as applies to Trump. Who are her main 'advisors?'
As anyone possessed of discernment would have noticed in the 2008 campaign, Obama surrounded
himself with 'less than progressive' advisors. His subsequent governance followed suit so that
we find the nation in the mess it is in today.
Finally, all signs are that the Russians are not taking this slide towards bellicosity
lightly. The Russians are demonstrating a clear sighted view of Americas dysfunctions. For the
Russians to hold massive Civil Defense drills now is a clear message; "We are preparing for the
worst. How about you?"
As always, Prof. Bacevitch is a joy to read. Live long, prosper, and hope those in positions
of power take his message to heart.
The tone of this piece is remarkably similar to a long article Bacevich headed in a recent
Harper's article on US foreign policy. Presented as a roundtable discussion, it centered on the
dogged insistence of some State Department-tied clown that Russia is The Aggressor, while Bacevich
and a two other participants nicked away at her position, largely, as I recall, by granting the
Russians some right to a regional interest. While they slowed her down, the great missing element
was a characterization of global aims of the US her position reflected.
That's pretty much what's going on here. "Do we really need a trillion dollar upgrade to US
nuclear capability?" Good question. But why, oh why, Andrew is it being proposed in the first
place? (Actually O has been pursuing the preliminaries for some time.) There's nothing about feeding
a military-industrial complex, nothing about trying to further distort the Russian economy to
promote instability, nothing about trying to capitalize on the US' military superiority as its
economic hegemony slips away.
In short, Bacevich, a good liberal, will not name the beast of US imperialism. As a result
he makes it seem as though any policy can be judged on a truncated logic of its own, and so policy
debates fragment into a disconnected series of arguments that bid for "fresh thinking" without
daring to consider the underlying drivers. It's one of the reasons Eisenhower, with his criticism
of the military-industrial complex, still comes across as a guiding light.
The round-table in Harper's, for background. One of the "takeaways" that I had is that both
of the women who participated are gratuitously hawkish. I am now tending to favor a universal
draft.
I'll put it out there: We have too many upper-middle-class white women who claim to understand
foreign policy who should have been subject to a draft to concentrate their minds on what happens
when a person is forced into the military and sent off to drive around with a rifle as people
lob bombs at them. Madeleine Albright is the classic case: "What good is our exquisite military,
if I, a compassion-challenged expert, can't waste a lot of lives on my follies?" Bacevich's personal
history means that he knows what war is about (as did Gen. Sherman).
Knowing what war's all about doesn't help much with knowing why wars come about, I'm afraid.
Bacevich is not helpful here. This reminds me of a great article by Graham Allison on bureaucratic
drivers in the Cuban Missile crisis, set out as three competing/complementary theories. Within
its mypoic scope, excellent, but as far as helping with the Cold War context, nada. He went on
to scotomize away in a chair at Harvard, gazing out his very fixed Overton window of permissible
strategic critique.
Wow. I just went to the TomDispatch site to look at Bacevich's work there. He does have a piece
criticizing Trump and HRC in light of Eisenhower, but slaps Eisenhower, appropriately, for various
crap, including the military-industrial complex takeoff. Why is it missing from this article?
At least Eisenhower criticized it.
Surprised that Bacevitch omits the thrust of Jerry Brown's important review:
My Journey at the Nuclear Brink
by William J. Perry, with a foreword by George P. Shultz
Stanford Security Studies, 234 pp., $85.00; $24.95 (paper)
I know of no person who understands the science and politics of modern weaponry better than
William J. Perry, the US Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997. When a man of such unquestioned
experience and intelligence issues the stark nuclear warning that is central to his recent
memoir, we should take heed. Perry is forthright when he says: "Today, the danger of some
sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and
most people are blissfully unaware of this danger." He also tells us that the nuclear danger
is "growing greater every year" and that even a single nuclear detonation "could destroy our
way of life."
Perry does not use his memoir to score points or settle grudges. He does not sensationalize.
But, as a defense insider and keeper of nuclear secrets, he is clearly calling American leaders
to account for what he believes are very bad decisions, such as the precipitous expansion of
NATO, right up to the Russian border,* and President George W. Bush's withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, originally signed by President Nixon.
*"The descent down the slippery slope began, I believe, with the premature NATO expansion,
and I soon came to believe that the downsides of early NATO membership for Eastern European
nations were even worse than I had feared" (p. 152).
Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political
complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular
concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing
for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as
Commander-in-Chief.
Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has
proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy
on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a
significant number of people from his own party.
But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs.
some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in
a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull
it off.
What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate
to pull the trigger. An illuminating
article in the NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and
reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited.
All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest
thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone"
she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly,
as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia.
Her willingness to roll the dice, to gamble with other people's lives, is ingrained within
her political personality, of which she is so proud.
Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak
on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear . That fear is what drives
her to the most extreme of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in
front of the criticism she anticipates.
It is what we can count on. She will most assuredly get America into a war within the first
6-9 months of her Presidency, since she will be looking forward to the muscular response she will
order when she is 'tested', as she expects.
How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief,
Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of
responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between
Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a
threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued
participation in NATO.
These differences alone are enough to move me to actually vote for someone I find politically
detestable, simply because I fear that the alternative is a high probability of war, and a greatly
enhanced risk of nuclear annihilation-through miscalculation-under a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
Yep. In the meantime, you have to wonder just how bad the false choice between the GOP / Dem
has to be before people vote in numbers for a better third-party candidate? Really, can it possible
get any worse than Trump v. Clinton?
Between this post and the VP debate I am growing comfortable with a decision to vote Green
and will probably continue voting Green in future elections.
Not that this isn't an important issue, but I disagree on the desirability of posing wonkish
questions in presidential debates, in the hopes of proving that someone didn't do enough homework.
Far too much policy is hidden by the constant recourse to bureaucratic language, which often rests
on other policy positions that remain undiscussed. One example: "chained CPI". Talking about it
/ taking it seriously presupposes that you subscribe to the notion that poor people may be told
to eat cardboard if some economist / committee member designated such an adequate replacement
for food. Yet most listeners will not catch on to that fact, were it ever to even come up in a
debate.
Words are just words, especially for politicians. If you want an idea of how they would govern,
go by what they did in the past. Right now we have the choice between a touchy blowhard with bad
hair and a mendacious conniver with bad judgement; you'd be foolish take anything either says
too seriously, even aside from the fact that they're wannabe politicians.
The response to why the nuclear arsenals need to be so large and constantly updated would have
been an interesting one if it had materialized. The fact is even a fairly limited exchange between
other nuclear powers with much smaller arsenals has the potential for rapid climate change that
renders Earth unlivable.
The Cold War notion that you just have to hole up a few days to avoid fallout doesn't really
make any more sense than using these weapons in the first place.
Just along these line, I did some order of magnitude calculations based on the US SLBM fleet.
Since the MIRV warheads are dial a yield, I calculated a range of 1210 – 1915 Megatons.
I know your point is more on the limited exchange scenario; just wanted to point out the destructive
potential of one country's submarine nuclear capability.
Of Harding's speechifying, H.L. Mencken wrote at the time, "It reminds me of a string of
wet sponges." Mencken characterized Harding's rhetoric as "so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps
into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle
of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." So, too, with
Hillary Clinton. She is our Warren G. Harding. In her oratory, flapdoodle and balderdash live
on.
And when a person keeps pointing out the importance of keeping one's word, it almost always
means that he or she is lying.
At least Harding was aware of the damage his friends caused to him: "I have no trouble
with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends,
they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights! "
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Harding had the political courage to pardon, and free from
prison, Eugene V. Debs for his crime of giving an anti-war speech the Wilson administration did
not like.
Harding did not believe in foreign involvements and was never personally implicated in
the financial corruption of his administration.
The Presidency was pushed on him, and he admitted felt he was not qualified.
I believe Harding gets a bad rap because he was not the leader of bold actions (wars) and the
corruption of people in his administration was well-documented.
His death was widely mourned in the USA.
As far as long term harm to the country, the do-nothing Harding was not bad for the country.
If Clinton is to be compared to Harding, it would be to view Clinton as a "new" Harding
who now believes she is well qualified to be President, wants to do much foreign military involvement,
perhaps resulting in war, who is now trusting of her sycopathic friends to give her good advice,
and who is personally involved in selling government favors (via the Clinton foundation)
Clinton is probably well coached by well paid advisors in her oratory.
Probably Harding wrote his own..
I would prefer Clinton to be like the old Harding, and the country would muddle through.
All it would take would be for a couple of strategically placed EMPs over the north american
continent ..
and poof . nothing functions anymore . while we get to stand and watch our 'supreme' military
launch their roman candles .
When it comes to war & nukes, I believe that HRC is the more dangerous of the two.
Before I explain, I would like to invite Yves or any female NC reader to consider & give their
POV on what I'm about say.
HRC is more dangerous because she is the 1st woman to become a serious contender for a
position that has traditionally been considered a "man's job". Therefore she believes she must
not, in any way, be perceived as "soft" or lacking "toughness" or aggressiveness. She feels compelled
to "out-macho" the macho guys.
Obviously this could have serious implications in any situation involving escalating tensions.
Negotiation or compromise would be off the table if she thought it could be perceived as soft
or weak (and she contemplates being a 2 term pres.)
What say you NC readers? Is this a justified concern or am I letting male bias color my view?
The only bright spot in the prospect of a Hellary Klinton presidency is the probability
that she may not survive long enough to start a war with Russia. I wonder how the training for
the Mark I body double is coming?
On the other hand, why should anyone think that a bubble-headed blowhard like Trumpet has
the intelligence or gumption to have any effect upon the operations of the Warfare State? When
the opinion makers of his own party and the neoliberal leaders of Klinton's party are all riding
on the Military-Industrial gravy train looking for the next enemy to keep business booming?
And how can anyone with a functioning brain cell think that anything a politician says
or promises during an election has any connection to how they will act once elected? Remember
Obama, Mr. "Audacity of Hope?"
"... Average US wages rose 350% in the 40 years between 1932 and 1972, but only 22% over the next 40 years. The pattern holds similar across the developed world. In other words, for all their hype, the computer and the internet have done less to lift economic growth than the flush toilet. ..."
"... ahem… the computer and the internet sped outsourcing to countries like China. Ask China or India how their economic growth has been since 1972. The author is mixing up several things at once. ..."
"... When so many of our jobs, technology and investment is offshored to China (and elsewhere), the future for innovation is certainly not bright, and this should be obvious to everyone, including the author. ..."
" Average US wages rose 350% in the 40 years between 1932 and 1972, but only 22% over the next
40 years. The pattern holds similar across the developed world. In other words, for all their hype,
the computer and the internet have done less to lift economic growth than the flush toilet."
ahem… the computer and the internet sped outsourcing to countries like China. Ask China or India
how their economic growth has been since 1972. The author is mixing up several things at once.
Great comments, and please allow me to piggyback off them:
When so many of our jobs, technology and investment is offshored to China (and elsewhere), the
future for innovation is certainly not bright, and this should be obvious to everyone, including
the author.
When so many have contributed so much, only to see their jobs and livelihoods offshored again
and again and again, that great jump the others have will then zero out OUR innovation!
Afaict, neither HRC nor Trump has said much of anything about the worldwide
network of U.S. bases. HRC doesn't talk about (this aspect of) the U.S. global
military footprint, and while Trump rambles on about making S Korea and Japan
shoulder more (or all) of their own security (and ponders aloud whether it
might be a good idea for both to acquire their own nuclear weapons), I haven't
heard him address the issue of bases: a question is whether Trump even knows
that the base network exists.
Doing what contemporary American economists
suggest: eliminate tariffs, don't worry about huge capital inflows or a ridiculously overvalued dollar,
has led the US from being the envy of the world to being a non-developed economy with worse roads
than Cuba or Ghana.
That US economists are still treated with any degree of credibility it totally
appalling. They are so obviously bought-and-paid for snake oil salesmen that people are finally tuning
them out.
TRUMP 2016: Return America to Protectionism - Screw globalism
[There is a pdf at the link. Olivier Blanchard has
surprised me again. As establishment economists go he is not
so bad. There is plenty that he still glosses over but
insofar as status quo establishment macroeconomics goes he is
thorough and coherent. One might hope that those that do not
understand either the debate for higher inflation targets or
the debate for fiscal policy to accomplish what monetary
policy cannot might learn from this article by Olivier
Blanchard, but I will not hold my breath waiting for that. In
any case the article is worth a read for anyone that can.]
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
,
Friday, September 30, 2016 at 07:07 AM
Get real! No alumni of the Peterson Institute and IMF is
going to go all mushy on the down sides of globalization and
wealth distribution.
The State of Advanced Economies and Related Policy
Debates: A Fall 2016 Assessment
By Olivier Blanchard
Perhaps the most striking macroeconomic fact about
advanced economies today is how anemic demand remains in the
face of zero interest rates.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, we had a
plausible explanation why demand was persistently weak:
Legacies of the crisis, from deleveraging by banks, to fiscal
austerity by governments, to lasting anxiety by consumers and
firms, could all explain why, despite low rates, demand
remained depressed.
This explanation is steadily becoming less convincing.
Banks have largely deleveraged, credit supply has loosened,
fiscal consolidation has been largely put on hold, and the
financial crisis is farther in the rearview mirror. Demand
should have steadily strengthened. Yet, demand growth has
remained low.
Why? The likely answer is that, as the legacies of the
past have faded, the future has looked steadily bleaker.
Forecasts of potential growth have been repeatedly revised
down. And consumers and firms-anticipating a gloomier
future-are cutting back spending, leading to unusually low
demand growth today....
"... "Over the last 25 years, the number of people living in extreme poverty has been cut from nearly 40 percent of humanity to under 10 percent." This is roughly true, according to World Bank data, but the story of how it happened goes against his whole speech - which argues that this progress is a result of the "globalization" that Washington leads and supports wherever it has influence in the developing world. In fact, the majority of the reduction in extreme poverty during this period (more than 1.1 billion people worldwide) took place in China. But during this period China was really the counterexample to the "principles of open markets" with which Obama insists "we must go forward, not backward." ..."
"... If we go back a bit more and look at 1981–2012, China accounted for even more of the reduction of the world population in extreme poverty, about 70 percent. This would indicate that other parts of the developing world increased their economic and social progress during the 21st century, relative to China, and indeed many developing countries did (as compared to the last two decades of the 20th century). But China played an increasingly large role in reducing poverty in other countries during this period. ..."
"... It was so successful in its economic growth and development - by far the fastest in world history - that it became the largest economy in the world, and pulled up many developing countries through its imports. Chinese imports went from a negligible 0.1 percent of other developing countries' exports to 3 percent, from 1980–2010. China also provided hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, loans, and aid to low- and middle-income countries in the 21st century. (In the last few years, Chinese growth has slowed, along with that of most countries, and that has contributed - although perhaps not as much as Europe has - to the global slowdown since 2011.) ..."
"... the "principles of open markets" that Obama refers to is really code for "policies that Washington supports." ..."
"... In his defense of a world economic order ruled by Washington and its rich country allies, President Obama also asserted that "we have made international institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund more representative." But that is a gross exaggeration: the most recent reform of IMF voting shares left the US with an unchanged 16.7 percent share, enough to veto many important decisions (that require an 85 percent majority) by itself; and it left Washington and its traditional rich country allies with a solid majority of more than 60 percent of votes. Of course, it is the developing countries, especially poorer ones, that are most subject to IMF decisions. But the IMF is - by a gentleman's agreement among the rich country governments - headed by a European, and the World Bank by an American. It should not be surprising if these institutions do not look out for the interests of the developing world. ..."
President Obama Inadvertently Gives High Praise to China
in UN Speech
By Mark Weisbrot
President Obama's speech at the UN last week was mostly a
defense of the world's economic and political status quo,
especially that part of it that is led or held in place by
the US government and the global institutions that Washington
controls or dominates. In doing so, he said some things that
were exaggerated or wrong, or somewhat misleading. It is
worth looking at some of the things that media reports on
this speech missed.
"Over the last 25 years, the number of people living
in extreme poverty has been cut from nearly 40 percent of
humanity to under 10 percent." This is roughly true,
according to World Bank data, but the story of how it
happened goes against his whole speech - which argues that
this progress is a result of the "globalization" that
Washington leads and supports wherever it has influence in
the developing world. In fact, the majority of the reduction
in extreme poverty during this period (more than 1.1 billion
people worldwide) took place in China. But during this period
China was really the counterexample to the "principles of
open markets" with which Obama insists "we must go forward,
not backward."
China's historically unprecedented economic growth in the
past 25 years (or 35 years, or even more) was accomplished
with state-owned enterprises and banks dominating the
economy. State control over investment, technology transfer,
and foreign exchange was vastly greater than in other
developing countries. China rejected the neoliberal policies
of an "independent central bank," indiscriminate opening to
international trade and investment, and rapid privatization
of state companies. Instead, it chose a gradual transition,
over 35 years, from an overwhelmingly planned economy to a
mixed economy in which the state still plays a leading role.
Even today, China expanded the investment of state-owned
enterprises by 23.5 percent in the first six months of 2016
(as compared to the same period in 2015), to help boost the
economy.
If we go back a bit more and look at 1981–2012, China
accounted for even more of the reduction of the world
population in extreme poverty, about 70 percent. This would
indicate that other parts of the developing world increased
their economic and social progress during the 21st century,
relative to China, and indeed many developing countries did
(as compared to the last two decades of the 20th century).
But China played an increasingly large role in reducing
poverty in other countries during this period.
It was so
successful in its economic growth and development - by far
the fastest in world history - that it became the largest
economy in the world, and pulled up many developing countries
through its imports. Chinese imports went from a negligible
0.1 percent of other developing countries' exports to 3
percent, from 1980–2010. China also provided hundreds of
billions of dollars in investment, loans, and aid to low- and
middle-income countries in the 21st century. (In the last few
years, Chinese growth has slowed, along with that of most
countries, and that has contributed - although perhaps not as
much as Europe has - to the global slowdown since 2011.)
Of course, the "principles of open markets" that Obama
refers to is really code for "policies that Washington
supports." Some of them are the exact opposite of "open
markets," such as the lengthening and strengthening of patent
and copyright protection included in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) agreement. President Obama also made a plug
for the TPP in his speech, asserting that "we've worked to
reach trade agreements that raise labor standards and raise
environmental standards, as we've done with the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, so that the benefits [of globalization] are more
broadly shared." But the labor and environmental standards in
the TPP, as with those in previous US-led commercial
agreements, are not enforceable; whereas if a government
approves laws or regulations that infringe on the future
profit potential of a multinational corporation - even if
such laws or regulations are to protect public health or
safety - that government can be hit with billions of dollars
in fines. And they must pay these fines, or be subject to
trade sanctions.
In his defense of a world economic order ruled by
Washington and its rich country allies, President Obama also
asserted that "we have made international institutions like
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund more
representative." But that is a gross exaggeration: the most
recent reform of IMF voting shares left the US with an
unchanged 16.7 percent share, enough to veto many important
decisions (that require an 85 percent majority) by itself;
and it left Washington and its traditional rich country
allies with a solid majority of more than 60 percent of
votes. Of course, it is the developing countries, especially
poorer ones, that are most subject to IMF decisions. But the
IMF is - by a gentleman's agreement among the rich country
governments - headed by a European, and the World Bank by an
American. It should not be surprising if these institutions
do not look out for the interests of the developing world.
"We can choose to press forward with a better model of
cooperation and integration," President Obama told the world
at the UN General Assembly. "Or we can retreat into a world
sharply divided, and ultimately in conflict, along age-old
lines of nation and tribe and race and religion."
But the rich country governments led by Washington are not
offering the rest of the world any better model of
cooperation and integration than the failed model they have
been offering for the past 35 years. And that is a big part
of the problem....
China's historically unprecedented economic growth in the
past 25 years (or 35 years, or even more) was accomplished
with state-owned enterprises and banks dominating the
economy. State control over investment, technology transfer,
and foreign exchange was vastly greater than in other
developing countries. China rejected the neoliberal policies
of an "independent central bank," indiscriminate opening to
international trade and investment, and rapid privatization
of state companies. Instead, it chose a gradual transition,
over 35 years, from an overwhelmingly planned economy to a
mixed economy in which the state still plays a leading role.
Even today, China expanded the investment of state-owned
enterprises by 23.5 percent in the first six months of 2016
(as compared to the same period in 2015), to help boost the
economy....
Even today, China expanded the investment of state-owned
enterprises by 23.5 percent in the first six months of 2016
(as compared to the same period in 2015), to help boost the
economy....
Yale Professors Offer Economic Prescriptions
By Brenda Cronin - Wall Street Journal
Richard C. Levin, president of Yale - and also a professor
of economics - moderated the conversation among Professors
Judith Chevalier, John Geanakoplos, William D. Nordhaus,
Robert J. Shiller and Aleh Tsyvinski....
An early mistake during the recession, Mr. Levin said, was
not targeting more stimulus funds to job creation. He
contrasted America's meager pace of growth in gross domestic
product in the past few years with China's often double-digit
pace, noting that after the crisis hit, Washington allocated
roughly 2% of GDP to job creation while Beijing directed 15%
of GDP to that goal....
Repeatedly there are warnings from Western economists that
the Chinese economy is near collapse, nonetheless economic
growth through the first 2 quarters this year is running at
6.7% and the third quarter looks about the same. The point is
to ask and describe how after these last 39 remarkable years:
Before the crash, complacent Democrats, ... tended to agree
with them that the economy was largely self-correcting.
Who is a complacent Democrat? Obama ran as a fiscal
conservative and appointed a GOP as his SecTreas. Geithner
was a "banks need to be bailed out" and the economy self
corrects. Geithner was not in favor of cram down or mortgage
programs that would have bailed out the injured little folks.
Democrats like Romer and Summers were in favor a fiscal
stimulus, but not enough of it. I expect to see the Clinton
economic team include a lot more women and especially focus
on economic policies that help working women and families.
I have always thought that a big reason for the Bush
jobless recovery was his lack of true fiscal stimulus. Bush
had tax cuts for the wealthy, but the latest from Summers
shows why trickle down does not work.
Full employment may have been missing from the 1992
platform, but full employment was pursued aggressively by
Bill Clinton. He got AG to agree to allow unemployment to
drop to 4% in exchange for raising taxes and dropping the
middle class tax cuts. Bill Clinton used fiscal policy to tax
the economy and as a break so monetary policy could be
accommodating.
He should include raising the MinWage. Maybe that has not
changed but it is a lynchpin for putting money in the pockets
of the working poor.
"... Will the media ever stop the ridiculous charade of pretending that the path of globalization that we are on is somehow and natural and that it is the outcome of a "free" market? Are longer and stronger patent and copyright monopolies the results of a free market? ..."
"... The NYT should up its game in this respect. It had a good piece on the devastation to millions of working class people and their communities from the flood of imports of manufactured goods in the last decade, but then it turns to hand-wringing nonsense about how it was all a necessary part of globalization. Actually, none of it was a necessary part of a free trade. ..."
"... First, the huge trade deficits were the direct result of the decision of China and other developing countries to buy massive amounts of U.S. dollars to hold as reserves in this period. This raised the value of the dollar and made our goods and services less competitive internationally. This problem of a seriously over-valued dollar stems from the bungling of the East Asian bailout by the Clinton Treasury Department and the I.M.F. ..."
"... The second point is political leaders are constantly working to make patents and copyrights stronger and longer. This raises the price that ordinary workers have to pay for everything from drugs to computer games. The result is lower real wages for ordinary workers and higher incomes for the beneficiaries of these rents. It also slows economic growth since markets are not smart enough to distinguish between a 10,000 percent price increase due to a tariff and a 10,000 percent price increase due to a patent monopoly. (In other words, all the bad things that "free trade" economists say about tariffs also apply to patents and copyrights, except the impact is far larger in the later case.) ..."
Why are none of the "free trade" members of
Congress pushing to change the regulations that require
doctors go through a U.S. residency program to be able to
practice medicine in the United States? Obviously they are
all protectionist Neanderthals.
Will the media ever stop the ridiculous charade of
pretending that the path of globalization that we are on is
somehow and natural and that it is the outcome of a "free"
market? Are longer and stronger patent and copyright
monopolies the results of a free market?
The NYT should up its game in this respect. It had a good
piece on the devastation to millions of working class people
and their communities from the flood of imports of
manufactured goods in the last decade, but then it turns to
hand-wringing nonsense about how it was all a necessary part
of globalization. Actually, none of it was a necessary part
of a free trade.
First, the huge trade deficits were the direct result of
the decision of China and other developing countries to buy
massive amounts of U.S. dollars to hold as reserves in this
period. This raised the value of the dollar and made our
goods and services less competitive internationally. This
problem of a seriously over-valued dollar stems from the
bungling of the East Asian bailout by the Clinton Treasury
Department and the I.M.F.
If we had a more competent team in place, that didn't
botch the workings of the international financial system,
then we would have expected the dollar to drop as more
imports entered the U.S. market. This would have moved the
U.S. trade deficit toward balance and prevented the massive
loss of manufacturing jobs we saw in the last decade.
The second point is political leaders are constantly
working to make patents and copyrights stronger and longer.
This raises the price that ordinary workers have to pay for
everything from drugs to computer games. The result is lower
real wages for ordinary workers and higher incomes for the
beneficiaries of these rents. It also slows economic growth
since markets are not smart enough to distinguish between a
10,000 percent price increase due to a tariff and a 10,000
percent price increase due to a patent monopoly. (In other
words, all the bad things that "free trade" economists say
about tariffs also apply to patents and copyrights, except
the impact is far larger in the later case.)
Finally, the fact that trade has exposed manufacturing
workers to international competition, but not doctors and
lawyers, was a policy choice, not a natural development.
There are enormous potential gains from allowing smart and
ambitious young people in the developing world to come to the
United States to work in the highly paid professions. We have
not opened these doors because doctors and lawyers are far
more powerful than autoworkers and textile workers. And, we
rarely even hear the idea mentioned because doctors and
lawyers have brothers and sisters who are reporters and
economists.
Addendum:
Since some folks asked about the botched bailout from the
East Asian financial crisis, the point is actually quite
simple. Prior to 1997 developing countries were largely
following the textbook model, borrowing capital from the West
to finance development. This meant running large trade
deficits. This reversed following the crisis as the
conventional view in the developing world was that you needed
massive amounts of reserves to avoid being in the situation
of the East Asian countries and being forced to beg for help
from the I.M.F. This led to the situation where developing
countries, especially those in the region, began running very
large trade surpluses, exporting capital to the United
States. (I am quite sure China noticed how its fellow East
Asian countries were being treated in 1997.)
"... Reuters reports that an investigation conducted by it in 2013 found that around three-fourths of the 50 biggest U.S. technology companies use practices that are similar to Apple's to avoid paying tax. So Verstager has taken on not just one giant, but the worlds corporate elite. She should not lose. But even if she does this time, this is a battle well begun. ..."
"... Thus the power of the multinationals comes not just from their own size and reach, and from the support that their own governments afford them, but from their ability to divide desperate countries seeking the presence of global giants to make a small difference to their economic conditions ..."
"... Those who support globalisation support this power disparity. ..."
The case of Apple's Irish operations is an extreme example of such tax avoidance accounting. It relates
to two Apple subsidiaries Apple Sales International and Apple Operations Europe. Apple Inc US has
given the rights to Apple Sales International (ASI) to use its "intellectual property" to sell and
manufacture its products outside of North and South America, in return for which Apple Inc of the
US receives payments of more than $2 billion per year. The consequence of this arrangement is that
any Apple product sold outside the Americas is implicitly first bought by ASI, Ireland from different
manufacturers across the globe and sold along with the intellectual property to buyers everywhere
except the Americas. So all such sales are by ASI and all profits from those sales are recorded in
Ireland. Stage one is complete: incomes earned from sales in different jurisdictions outside the
Americas (including India) accrue in Ireland, where tax laws are investor-friendly. What is important
here that this was not a straight forward case of exercising the "transfer pricing" weapon. The profits
recorded in Ireland were large because the payment made to Apple Inc in the US for the right to use
intellectual property was a fraction of the net earnings of ASI.
Does this imply that Apple would
pay taxes on these profits in Ireland, however high or low the rate may be? The Commission found
it did not. In two rather curious rulings first made in 1991 and then reiterated in 2007 the Irish
tax authority allowed ASI to split it profits into two parts: one accruing to the Irish branch of
Apple and another to its "head office". That "head office" existed purely on paper, with no formal
location, actual offices, employees or activities. Interestingly, this made-of-nothing head office
got a lion's share of the profits that accrued to ASI, with only a small fraction going to the Irish
branch office. According to Verstager's Statement: "In 2011, Apple Sales International made profits
of 16 billion euros. Less than 50 million euros were allocated to the Irish branch. All the rest
was allocated to the 'head office', where they remained untaxed." As a result, across time, Apple
paid very little by way of taxes to the Irish government. The effective tax rate on its aggregate
profits was short of 1 per cent. The Commissioner saw this as illegal under the European Commission's
"state aid rules", and as amounting to aid that harms competition, since it diverts investment away
from other members who are unwilling to offer such special deals to companies.
In the books, however, taxes due on the "head office" profits of Apple are reportedly treated
as including a component of deferred taxes. The claim is that these profits will finally have to
be repatriated to the US parent, where they would be taxed as per US tax law. But it is well known
that US transnationals hold large volumes of surplus funds abroad to avoid US taxation and the evidence
is they take very little of it back to the home country. In fact, using the plea that it has "permanent
establishment" in Ireland and, therefore, is liable to be taxed there, and benefiting from the special
deal the Irish government has offered it, Apple has accumulated large surpluses. A study by two non-profit
groups published in 2015 has argued that Apple is holding as much as $181 billion of accumulated
profits outside the US, a record among US companies. Moreover, The Washington Post reports that Apple's
Chief Executive Tim Cook told its columnist Jena McGregor, "that the company won't bring its international
cash stockpile back to the United States to invest here until there's a 'fair rate' for corporate
taxation in America."
This has created a peculiar situation where the US is expressing concern about the EC decision
not because it disputes the conclusion about tax avoidance, but because it sees the tax revenues
as due to it rather than to Ireland or any other EU country. US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew criticised
the ruling saying, "I have been concerned that it reflected an attempt to reach into the U.S. tax
base to tax income that ought to be taxed in the United States." In Europe on the other hand, the
French Finance Minister and the German Economy Minister, among others, have come out in support of
Verstager, recognizing the implication this has for their own tax revenues. Governments other than
in Ireland are not with Apple, even if not always for reasons advanced by the EC.
... ... ...
Thus the power of the multinationals comes not just from their own size and reach, and from
the support that their own governments afford them, but from their ability to divide desperate
countries seeking the presence of global giants to make a small difference to their economic
conditions. The costs of garnering that difference are, therefore, often missed. Reuters
reports that an investigation conducted by it in 2013 found that around three-fourths of the 50
biggest U.S. technology companies use practices that are similar to Apple's to avoid paying tax.
So Verstager has taken on not just one giant, but the worlds corporate elite. She should not
lose. But even if she does this time, this is a battle well begun.
I think the common misconception that multinational corporations exist because "they are big
companies that happen to operate in more than one country" is one of the biggest lies ever told.
From the beginning (e.g. Standard Oil, United Fruit) it was clear that multinational status
was an exercise in political arbitrage.
" Thus the power of the multinationals comes not just from their own size and reach, and
from the support that their own governments afford them, but from their ability to divide desperate
countries seeking the presence of global giants to make a small difference to their economic conditions
"
Those who support globalisation support this power disparity.
I'm all for reducing the unmanageably high levels of total immigration
into the U.S., and I strongly believe in penalizing illegal employers, but I
think you have exaggerated the number of illegal immigrants.
According to Numbers USA, there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in
the U.S.:
"... It is not clear what the NYT thinks it is telling readers with this comment. The economy grows and creates jobs, sort of like the tree in my backyard grows every year. The issue is the rate of growth and job creation. While the economy has recovered from the lows of the recession, employment rates of prime age workers (ages 25-54) are still down by almost 2.0 percentage points from the pre-recession level and almost 4.0 percentage points from 2000 peaks. There is much research ** *** showing that trade has played a role in this drop in employment. ..."
"... It is not surprising that Ford's CEO would say that shifting production to Mexico would not cost U.S. jobs. It is likely he would make this claim whether or not it is true. Furthermore, his actual statement is that Ford is not cutting U.S. jobs. If the jobs being created in Mexico would otherwise be created in the United States, then the switch is costing U.S. jobs. The fact that Michigan and Ohio added 75,000 jobs last year has as much to do with this issue as the winner of last night's Yankees' game. ..."
"... The piece goes on to say that the North American Free Trade Agreement has "for more than two decades has been widely counted as a main achievement of [Bill Clinton]." It doesn't say who holds this view. The deal did not lead to a rise in the U.S. trade surplus with Mexico, which was a claim by its proponents before its passage. It also has not led to more rapid growth in Mexico which has actually fallen further behind the United States in the two decades since NAFTA. ..."
"... It is worth noting that none of the analyses that provide the basis for this assertion take into the account the impact of the increased protectionism, in the form of longer and stronger patent and copyright protections, which are a major part of the TPP. These forms of protection are equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent on the protected items. As they apply to an ever growing share of the economy, the resulting economic losses will expand substantially in the next decade, especially if the TPP is approved. ..."
NYT Editorial In News Section for TPP Short on Substance
When the issue is trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the New York Times
throws out its usual journalistic standards to push its pro-trade deal agenda. Therefore it is
not surprising to see a story * in the news section that was essentially a misleading advertisement
for these trade deals.
The headline tells readers that Donald Trump's comments on trade in the Monday night debate
lacked accuracy. The second paragraph adds:
"His aggressiveness may have been offset somewhat by demerits on substance."
These comments could well describe this NYT piece.
For example, it ostensibly indicts Trump with the comment:
"His [Trump's] first words of the night were the claim that "our jobs are fleeing the country,"
though nearly 15 million new jobs have been created since the economic recovery began."
It is not clear what the NYT thinks it is telling readers with this comment. The economy
grows and creates jobs, sort of like the tree in my backyard grows every year. The issue is the
rate of growth and job creation. While the economy has recovered from the lows of the recession,
employment rates of prime age workers (ages 25-54) are still down by almost 2.0 percentage points
from the pre-recession level and almost 4.0 percentage points from 2000 peaks. There is much research
** *** showing that trade has played a role in this drop in employment.
The NYT piece continues:
"[Trump] singled out Ford for sending thousands of jobs to Mexico to build small cars and worsening
manufacturing job losses in Michigan and Ohio, but the company's chief executive has said 'zero'
American workers would be cut. Those states each gained more than 75,000 jobs in just the last
year."
It is not surprising that Ford's CEO would say that shifting production to Mexico would
not cost U.S. jobs. It is likely he would make this claim whether or not it is true. Furthermore,
his actual statement is that Ford is not cutting U.S. jobs. If the jobs being created in Mexico
would otherwise be created in the United States, then the switch is costing U.S. jobs. The fact
that Michigan and Ohio added 75,000 jobs last year has as much to do with this issue as the winner
of last night's Yankees' game.
The next sentence adds:
"Mr. Trump said China was devaluing its currency for unfair price advantages, yet it ended
that practice several years ago and is now propping up the value of its currency."
While China has recently been trying to keep up the value of its currency by selling reserves,
it still holds more than $4 trillion in foreign reserves, counting its sovereign wealth fund.
This is more than four times the holdings that would typically be expected of a country its side.
These holdings have the effect of keeping down the value of China's currency.
If this seems difficult to understand, the Federal Reserve now holds more than $3 trillion
in assets as a result of its quantitative easing programs of the last seven years. It raised its
short-term interest rate by a quarter point last December, nonetheless almost all economists would
agree the net effect of the Fed's actions is the keep interest rates lower than they would otherwise
be. The same is true of China and its foreign reserve position.
The piece goes on to say that the North American Free Trade Agreement has "for more than
two decades has been widely counted as a main achievement of [Bill Clinton]." It doesn't say who
holds this view. The deal did not lead to a rise in the U.S. trade surplus with Mexico, which
was a claim by its proponents before its passage. It also has not led to more rapid growth in
Mexico which has actually fallen further behind the United States in the two decades since NAFTA.
In later discussing the TPP the piece tells readers:
"Economists generally have said the Pacific nations agreement would increase incomes, exports
and growth in the United States, but not significantly."
It is worth noting that none of the analyses that provide the basis for this assertion
take into the account the impact of the increased protectionism, in the form of longer and stronger
patent and copyright protections, which are a major part of the TPP. These forms of protection
are equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent on the protected items. As they apply to
an ever growing share of the economy, the resulting economic losses will expand substantially
in the next decade, especially if the TPP is approved.
Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook and other top Democrats refused to answer whether
Clinton wants President Barack Obama to withdraw the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) from consideration
before Congress during interviews with Breitbart News in the spin room after the first presidential
debate here at Hofstra University on Monday night.
The fact that Mook, Clinton campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon, and Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman Donna Brazile each refused
to answer the simple question that would prove Clinton is actually opposed to the Trans Pacific Partnership
now after praising it 40 times and calling it the "gold standard" is somewhat shocking.
After initially ignoring the question entirely four separate times, Mook finally replied to Breitbart
News. But when he did respond, he didn't answer the question:
BREITBART NEWS: "Robby, does Secretary Clinton believe that the president should withdraw the
TPP?"
ROBBY MOOK: "Secretary Clinton, as she said in the debate, evaluated the final TPP language
and came to the conclusion that she cannot support it."
BREITBART NEWS: "Does she think the president should withdraw it?"
ROBBY MOOK: "She has said the president should not support it."
Obama is attempting to ram TPP through Congress as his last act as president during a lame duck
session of Congress. Clinton previously supported the TPP, and called it the "Gold Standard" of trade
deals. That's something Brazile, the new chairwoman of the DNC who took over after Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz (D-FL) was forced to resign after email leaks showed she and her staff at the DNC undermined
the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and in an untoward way forced the nomination
into Clinton's hands, openly confirmed in her own interview with Breitbart News in the spin room
post debate. Brazile similarly refused to answer if Clinton should call on Obama to withdraw the
TPP from consideration before Congress.
"... Global is gone as a main driving force, pan-European is gone, and whether the United States will stay united is far from a done deal. We are moving towards a mass movement of dozens of separate countries and states and societies looking inward. All of which are in some form of -impending- trouble or another. ..."
"... And of course it's confusing that the protests against the 'old regimes' and the growth and centralization -first- manifest in the rise of faces and voices who do not reject all of the above offhand. That is to say, the likes of Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage may be against more centralization, but none of them has a clue about growth being over. They don't get that part anymore than Hillary or Hollande or Merkel do. ..."
"... Dems in the US, Labour in the UK, and Hollande's 'Socialists' in France have all become part of the two-headed monster that is the political center, and that is (held) responsible for the deterioration in people's lives. ..."
But nobody seems to really know or understand. Which is odd, because it's not that hard. That
is, this all happens because growth is over. And if growth is over, so are expansion and centralization
in all the myriad of shapes and forms they come in.
Global is gone as a main driving force, pan-European is gone, and whether the United States
will stay united is far from a done deal. We are moving towards a mass movement of dozens of separate
countries and states and societies looking inward. All of which are in some form of -impending-
trouble or another.
What makes the entire situation so hard to grasp for everyone is that nobody wants to acknowledge
any of this. Even though tales of often bitter poverty emanate from all the exact same places
that Trump and Brexit and Le Pen come from too.
That the politico-econo-media machine churns out positive growth messages 24/7 goes some way
towards explaining the lack of acknowledgement and self-reflection, but only some way. The rest
is due to who we ourselves are. We think we deserve eternal growth.
And of course it's confusing that the protests against the 'old regimes' and the growth
and centralization -first- manifest in the rise of faces and voices who do not reject all of the
above offhand. That is to say, the likes of Marine Le Pen, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage may be
against more centralization, but none of them has a clue about growth being over. They don't get
that part anymore than Hillary or Hollande or Merkel do.
So why these people? Look closer and you see that in the US, UK and France, there is nobody
left who used to speak for the 'poor and poorer'. While at the same time, the numbers of poor
and poorer increase at a rapid clip. They just have nowhere left to turn to. There is literally
no left left.
Dems in the US, Labour in the UK, and Hollande's 'Socialists' in France have all become
part of the two-headed monster that is the political center, and that is (held) responsible for
the deterioration in people's lives. Moreover, at least for now, the actual left wing may
try to stand up in the form of Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders, but they are both being stangled
by the two-headed monster's fake left in their countries and their own parties.
================================================
This is from today's Links, but I didn't have a chance to post this snippet. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RL1A225NBEA
Long time since we had 5% – if the whole system is financial scheme is premised on growth,
and there is less and less of it ever year, it doesn't look sustainable. How bad http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/200pm-water-cooler-9272016.html#comment-2676054does
it have to get for how many before the model is chucked???
In the great depression, even the bankers were having a tough time. If the rich are exempt
from suffering, I think history has shown that a small elite can impose suffering on masses for
a long time…
'there is nobody left who used to speak for the 'poor and poorer'.
Actually, there are plenty who SPEAK for the poor, there just is NONE who ACT.
How would we measure this growth that is supposed to be over? Yes of course there are the conventional
measurements like GDP, but it's not zero. Yes of course if inflation is understated it would overstate
GDP, and yes GDP measurements may not measure much as many critics have said. But what about other
measures?
Is oil use down, are CO2 emissions down, is resource use in general down? If not it's growth
(or groath). This growth is at the cost of the planet but that's why GDP is flawed. And the benefit
of this groath goes entirely to the 1%ers, but that's distribution.
The left failed, I don't know all the reasons (and it's always hard to oppose the powers that
be, the field always tilts toward them, it's never a fair fight) but it failed. That's what we
see the results of.
Someone very smart said "the Fed makes the economy more stable".
He also quoted The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you
think".
Definition of stable: firm; steady; not wavering or changeable.
As in: US GDP growth of a paltry 1.22% per year.
But hey it only took an additional trillion $ in debt per year to stay "stable".
there are plenty who SPEAK for the poor, there just is NONE who ACT.
========
That's why in 1992 Francis Futurama refirmed the end of history that was predicted by Hegel some
150 years earlier.
TPP is practically written by the lobbyists from the multi-international corporations that
exploit every possible tax laws, labor laws, environmental and public health regulations, legal
representations and consequences. It is imperialism 2.0 in the 21st century, exclusively serving
the interests of top point one percent while greatly depressing the wages of middle class;
it is overwhelmingly opposed by the public opinion, law makers of all sides and current president
candidates. There is zero chance Obama could make it through legislation before his exit; Clinton
will not even consider bringing it back if she wins the election because she already flip-flopped
once on the issue during her campaign; and it would seriously damage her chance of re-election
if she does. As for Trump, I leave it to anyone's imaginations.
"... Conventionally the US is being outplayed but it is possible that it is playing a different game in which it is complicit in the transition from nation state to corporate oligarchy. Isn't that the Neoliberal end game? ..."
"... The biggest mistake was to enact a policy shunning Russia, when Russia should be a key, partner of Europe and the US. ..."
"... And the USA invaded Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua with the contras, Iraq, Afghanistan, are currently bombing the crap out of another dozen nations, has militarily occupied another 100 nations with their bases and you are worried about Russia with Georgia and The Ukraine? What in Hades is wrong with this picture? ..."
"... "Barack Obama's 'Asian pivot' failed. China is in the ascendancy" says the heading. So Obama's "Asian pivot" was meant to thwart China's development. ..."
"... And the big problem with Trump's approach is that good ol' American corporations are the ones who are profiting wildly from business in China. They wanted access to the Chinese labor force, e.g. Walmart and every other manufacturer who now peddles goods made in China in US stores. They are the entities that cost western workers millions of jobs, creating massive trade deficits. ..."
"... They are wealthy beyond measure and anyone who wants to alter this system whereby American corporations manufacture in China and ship products around the world, inc. to the US, would have to fight them. And if anyone believes that Trump would succeed in this battle, they are delusional. ..."
"... "These two juggernauts are on a collision course" is far too alarmist. Relying mainly on right-wing US thinktanks for analysis doesn't help. ..."
"... Now we are waking up to the realisation that we are the big loosers of globalisation. ..."
"... "The west has been long living under the illusion that the so called globalised world would be beneficial for all. " No, actually they thought it would be beneficial for the Western countries mostly. And it was, but whatever benefits developing countries received allowed them to rise to the level of a potential future threat to the unquestionable Western dominance. And now the US is looking for a way to destroy them preemptively. The US is paranoid. ..."
"... I think this "ascendancy" and nationalistic fervor is actually a sign of internal turmoil. ..."
"... The labor supply is assured because there are still multi millions in poverty and signing up as cheap labor is exactly what brings them out of poverty. I assume you've never been to China and therefore have never heard of Chunyun, the largest human migration in the world. This is partly the ruralites returning home from the cities with their years spoils. This year individual journeys totalled almost 3bn. ..."
"... By the way, China is reducing it's land army by a third over the next few years and has just concluded very constructive summits with all it's neighbours during last weeks ASEAN bunfight. ..."
"... a collapse of the chinese economy would collapse the American economy as well ..."
"... Fascinating & well structured article - except for one glaring omission - the LNP selling of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese Government business. Yeh, sure it's a '99 year lease' but for all effective purposes it's a sellout of a strategic port to the Chinese Government. ..."
"... America is in terminal decline, beset by economic and fiscal crises, sapped by imperial overstretch, a victim of a cosmopolitan ennui and fecklessness, divided politically and culturally, belligerent and militant to the extreme. An empire in decline is at its most dangerous. America today is a far greater threat to world peace than China. Simply witness America's accommodation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the odious Saudi theocracy, and how its insane policy in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan has led to hundreds of thousands of lives lost and millions displaced ..."
"... The US has no significantly greater percentage of debt than any of the other Western nations except Germany. If you think the Americas bankrupt then you'd have to think a whole lot of other nations including the UK is as well. ..."
"... "China has divided and conquered certain countries in SE Asia." These certain SE Asian countries would say that it's because they are not willing to be Uncle Sam's "yes man". ..."
"... The US is still so very powerful but the problem is they feel powerless from time to time with their hammer in hand against flying mosquitos. Why they always wanted to solve problems using force is beyond stupidity. ..."
"... It also destabilises the entire region. Something the Americans are masters of. ..."
"... Were the US to form a cooperative instead of confrontational relationship with China the world would be a better place. The same could be said for the US relationship with Russia. ..."
"... Of course the military-industrial-banking-congressional complex that governs Washington's behavior would not be happy. WIthout confrontation the arms industries can't sell their weapons of war, banks' profits take a hit and congress critters don't get their kickbacks, err, "donations". ..."
"... Given the way the US government has screwed the Philippines over steadily since 1898, it's not surprising that Pres. Dutarte has decided to be friendly with his neighbor. Obama of the Kill List lecturing other countries about human rights abuses! What hypocrisy. ..."
"... Is what China doing in the south china sea different from what the USA does in the gulf of Mexico or in Panama... not to mention that Chi a is litterally surounded by US bases that sit squarely across all its sea trading routes: Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Fillipines ..."
"... China has been accumulating debt at unprecedented rates to try to maintain faltering growth. In 2007 Chinese debt stood at $7 trillion. By 2014 it had quadrupled to $28 trillion. That's $60 billion of extra debt every week. It's still rising rapidly as the government desperately tries to keep momentum. ..."
"... TPP is practically written by the lobbyists from the multi-international corporations that exploit every possible tax laws, labor laws, environmental and public health regulations, legal representations and consequences. It is imperialism 2.0 in the 21st century, exclusively serving the interests of top point one percent while greatly depressing the wages of middle class; it is overwhelmingly opposed by the public opinion, law makers of all sides and current president candidates. There is zero chance Obama could make it through legislation before his exit; Clinton will not even consider bringing it back if she wins the election because she already flip-flopped once on the issue during her campaign; and it would seriously damage her chance of re-election if she does. As for Trump, I leave it to anyone's imaginations. ..."
"... Globalisation is another word for one world government and all that brings, one currency, one police force, taxation, dissolution of borders, an end to sovereignty and all of our hard won freedoms. Freedom is a thing of the past, with MSM owned by the globalist elites, enforcing a moratorium on truth, and a population that has no idea what is going on behind the scenes. ..."
"... Another brilliant thought from Rand; when in doubt, shoot from the hip .... ..."
"... They tell their employers what they want to hear. ..."
"... Do Americans not realize that Chinese and Russians read this too and plan accordingly? This is madness. I am fairly certain preemptive strikes are against international law. Why nobody has the guts to call the US out on this kind of illegal warmongering? ..."
"... The dilemma is clear: amid rising nationalism in both countries, China is not willing to have its ambitions curbed or contained and the US is not ready to accept the world number two spot. These two juggernauts are on a collision course. ..."
"... What does the criticism in USA get you? It is just blah blah blah. ONly criticism that matters is from the corporations and wealthy individuals like Koch bros and Sheldon Edelson and their ilk. Rest can watch football. ..."
"... Simon Tisdall and many Europeans as well as the US GOP party still thinks that US is an empire similar to what the British had in the 18th century. This assumption is completely wrong especially in the 21th century where Western Europe, Japan, Korea if they want can be spend their money and also become global military power. ..."
"... Being a large country surrounded by many other occasionally threatening powers, the governments' priority is and always has been defending its territorial integrity. China is happy enough to leave the command and conquer stuff, sorry "democratization" to the US. ..."
"... Why did Obama say that his greatest regret was Libya.? Because Obama's policy is/was to manage the decline of US power. To manage the end of US hegemony. I doubt that Obama believes that any pivot to any where can restore or maintain US dominance on planet earth. ..."
"... China wishes to expand trade and improve economic conditions for its people and for those with whom it trades. That is not aggression except when it interferes with US global economic hegemony. ..."
"... The most belligerent nation in the world the nation with its army in over 100 countries, the nation bombing and conducting perpetual war throughout the middle east, the country invading countries for "regime change" and creating only misery and death -- it is not China. ..."
"... The US and its Neoliberal capitalist system must expand to grow - plus they clearly want total global domination - the US and its Imperial agents have encircled both China and Russia with trillions of dollars of the most destructive weapons in the world including nuclear weapons - do you thin they have done that for "security" if so you simply ignore the aggression and hubris of an Imperial US. ..."
Before the pivot could even get underway the Saudis threw their rattle out of the pram and drew
US focus back to the Middle East and proxy war two steps removed with Russia. Empires don't get
to focus, they react to each event and seek to gain from the outcome so the whole pivot idea was
flawed.
Obama's foreign policy has been clumsy and amoral. It remains to be seen whether it will become
more so in an effort to double down. Under Clinton it definitely will, under Trump who knows but
random isn't a recommendation.
Conventionally the US is being outplayed but it is possible that it is playing a different
game in which it is complicit in the transition from nation state to corporate oligarchy. Isn't
that the Neoliberal end game?
So the Rand Think Tank would sooner have war now than later. Who wouldda guessed that.
The Chinese want to improve trade and business with the rest of the world. The US answer? destroy
China militarily. so who best to lead the world. I think the article answers that question unintentionally.
The rest of the world has had it up to the ears with American military invasions, regeime changes,
occupations and bombing of the world. They are ready for China´s approach to international relations.
it is about time the adults took over the leadership of the world. Europe and the USA and their
offspring have clearly failed.
China has been handed everything it needs to fly solo: money, factories, IP, etc. Fast forwarding
into the western civic model limits (traffic, pollution, etc.), its best bet is to offload US
"interests" and steer clear.
No clear sign India's learned/recovered from British occupation, as they let tech create more
future Kanpurs.
The biggest mistake was to enact a policy shunning Russia, when Russia should be a key, partner
of Europe and the US.
Was it really worth expanding NATO to Russia's borders instead of offering neutrality to former
Soviet States and thus retain Russia's confidence in global matters that far out weigh the interests
of the neo-cons?
neutrality? Russia invaded non-NATO members Georgie, Ukraine, and Moldavia, and created puppet-states
on their soil.
The Jremlin-rules are simple: the former Sovjet states should be ruled by a pro-Russian dictator
(Bella-Russia, Kazachstan, etc. etc...). Democracies face boycots, diplomatic and military support
of rebels, and in the end simply a military invasion.
The only reason why the baltic states are now thriving democracies, is that they are NATO members.
And the USA invaded Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua with the contras, Iraq, Afghanistan, are currently
bombing the crap out of another dozen nations, has militarily occupied another 100 nations with
their bases and you are worried about Russia with Georgia and The Ukraine? What in Hades is wrong
with this picture?
When Obama took office his first major speech was in Cairo - where he said
"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around
the world," US President Barack Obama said to the sounds of loud applause which rocked not
only the hall, but the world. "One based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based
upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead,
they overlap, and share common principles-principles of justice and progress; tolerance and
the dignity of all human beings."
He displayed a dangerous mix of innocence, foolishness, disregard for the truth and misunderstanding
of the nature of Islamic regimes - does the West have common values with Lebanon which practices
apartheid for Palestinians, Saudi, where women cannot drive a car, Syria, where over 17,000 have
died in Assad's torture chambers, we can go on and on.
And on China - Trump has it right - China has been manipulating its currency exchange rate
for years, costing western workers millions of jobs, creating massive trade deficits and something
needs to be done about it.
" America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap,
and share common principles-principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of
all human beings. "
He spoke about the whole of Islam, not specific " Islamic regimes ". And he is correct
on it. All religions share a great deal of values with the USAmerican constition and even each
other .
The overwhelming majority of USAmerican muslims have accepted the melting pot with their whole
heart, second generation children have JOINED its fighting forces to protect the interest of the
USA all over the world. Normally this full an integration is reached with the third generation.
The west has won against those religious fanatics. How else to explain that exactly the people
those claim to speak turn up with us?
And the big problem with Trump's approach is that good ol' American corporations are the ones
who are profiting wildly from business in China. They wanted access to the Chinese labor force,
e.g. Walmart and every other manufacturer who now peddles goods made in China in US stores. They
are the entities that cost western workers millions of jobs, creating massive trade deficits.
They are wealthy beyond measure and anyone who wants to alter this system whereby American
corporations manufacture in China and ship products around the world, inc. to the US, would have
to fight them. And if anyone believes that Trump would succeed in this battle, they are delusional.
"These two juggernauts are on a collision course" is far too alarmist. Relying mainly on right-wing
US thinktanks for analysis doesn't help.
Interesting in particular to see RAND is still in its Cold War mindset. There's famous footage
of RAND analysts in the 60s (I think) discussing putative nuclear war with the USSR and concluding
that the US was certain of 'victory' following a missile exchange because its surviving population
(after hundreds of millions of deaths and the destruction of almost all urban centres) would be
somewhat larger.
China's island claims are all about a broader strategic aim- getting unencumbered access to
the Pacific for its growing blue water navy. It's not aimed at Taiwan or Japan in any sort of
specific sense and, save for the small possibility of escalation following an accident (ships
colliding or something), there's very little risk of conflict in at least the medium term.
It's crucial to remember just how much China and the US depend upon each other economically.
The US is by far China's largest single export market, powering its manufacturing economy. In
return, China uses the surplus to buy up US debt, which allows the Americans to borrow cheaply
and keep the lights on. Crash China and you crash the US- and vice versa.
For now, China is basically accepting an upgraded number 2 spot (along with the US acknowledging
them as part of a 'G2'), but supporting alternative governance structures when it doesn't like
the ones controlled by the US/Japan (so the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS etc.).
This doesn't mean that the two don't see each other as long term strategic and economic rivals.
But the risks to both of rocking the boat are gigantic and not in the interest of either party
in the foreseeable future. Things that could change that:
a. a succession of Trump-like US presidents (checks and balances are probably sufficient to
withstand one, were it to come to that);
b. a revolution in China (possible if the economy goes South- and what comes next is probably
not liberal democracy but anti-Japanese or anti-US authoritarian nationalism);
c. an unpredictable chain of events arising from N Korean collapse or a regional nuclear race
(Japan-China is a more likely source of conflict than US-China).
"The west has been long living under the illusion that the so called globalised world would
be beneficial for all. " No, actually they thought it would be beneficial for the Western countries
mostly. And it was, but whatever benefits developing countries received allowed them to rise to
the level of a potential future threat to the unquestionable Western dominance. And now the US
is looking for a way to destroy them preemptively. The US is paranoid.
The writing is on the wall: the future is with China. All the US can do is make nice or reap the
dire consequences. If China can clean up its human rights record, I would be happy to see them
supplant or rival the US as a global hegemon. After all, looked at historically, haven't they
earned it? - An American, born and bred, but no nationalist
Well, that is naïve. Look at China and how the Chinese people are governed. Look at the US. And
please don't tell me you don't see a difference. I'll take a world with the US as the global hegemon
any day.
A regional counter balance is needed. Cooperation is hindered by Japan. They should be the center
point of a regional alliance strong enough to contain China with US help, but it doesn't work:
whilst everybody fears China, everybody hates Japan.
The reason is they failed miserably to rebuild trust after WWII, rather than going cap in hand,
acknowledging respondibility for atrocities and other crimes and injustice, and compensate victims,
they kept their pride and isolation. They are now paying the price - possibly together with the
rest of us.
Maybe a full scale change after 7 decades of to-little-to-late diplomacy can still achieve
sth.
The ass the US should kick sits in Tokyo - something they failed to do properly after WWII,
when they managed it well in West Germany (ok - they had help from the Brits there, who for all
their failings understand foreign nations far better), where it facilitated proper integration
into European cooperation.
I think this "ascendancy" and nationalistic fervor is actually a sign of internal turmoil.
Countries that do well don't need to crack down on dissidents to the point of kidnappings
or spend millions of stupid man made islands that pisses everyone off but have all the military
value of a threatening facial tattoo. The South China Sea tactics is partially Chinese "push until
something pushes back" diplomacy but also stems from the harsh realisation that their resources
can be easily choked of and even the CPC knows it can't hold down a billion plus Chinese people
once the hunger sets it.
China is facing the dilemna that as it brings people out of poverty it reduces the supply of
the very cheap labor that makes it rich. You can talk about Lenovo all you want, no one is buying
a Chinese car anytime soon. Nor is any airline outside of China going to buy one of their planes.
Copyright fraud is one thing the West can retaliate easily upon and will if they feel China has
gone too far. Any product found in a western court to be a blatant copy can effectively be banned.
The next step is to refuse to recognize Chinese copyright on the few genuine innovations that
come out of it.
Plus the deal Deng Xiaoping made with the urban classes is fraying. It was wealth in exchange
for subservience. The people in the cities stay out of direct politics but quality of life issues,
safety, petty corruption and pollution are angering them and scaring them hence the vast amount
of private Chinese money being sunk into global real estate.
The military growth and dubious technobabble is just typical Chinese mianzi gaining. If you
do have a brand new jet stealth jet fighter, you don't release pictures of it to the world press.
They got really rattled when Shinzo Abe decided the JSDF can go and deliver slappings abroad to
help their friends if needed. Because an army that spends a lot of time rigging up Michael Bayesque
set maneuvers for the telly is not what you want to pit against top notch technology handled by
obsessive perfectionists.
No one plays hardball with China because we all like cheap shit. But once that is over then
China is a very vulnerable country with not one neighbour they can call a friend. They know it.
Obama hasn't failed.. It's the histrionics that prove it not the other way round.
The labor supply is assured because there are still multi millions in poverty and signing
up as cheap labor is exactly what brings them out of poverty. I assume you've never been to China
and therefore have never heard of Chunyun, the largest human migration in the world. This is partly
the ruralites returning home from the cities with their years spoils. This year individual journeys
totalled almost 3bn.
No-one is buying a Chinese car? Check the sales for Wuling. They produce the small vans that
are the lifeblood of the small entrepreneur. BYD are already exporting electric buses to London.
The likes of VW, BMW, Land Rover, are all in partnership with Chinese auto-makers and China is
the largest car market in the world.
Corruption has been actively attacked and over a quarter of a million officials have been brought
to book in Xi's time in office. The pollution causing steel and coal industries are being rapidly
contracted and billions spent on re-training.
Plus the fact that while the Chinese are mianzi gazing, the last thing they think about is
politics. They simply don't want to know.
By the way, China is reducing it's land army by a third over the next few years and has
just concluded very constructive summits with all it's neighbours during last weeks ASEAN bunfight.
The conclusion is that bi-lateral talks, not US led pissing contests are the way forward.
"What has happened is the ICA has ruled against China in the SCS..." Nothing new. The UN Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf had also ruled against the
UK and the International Court of Justice had ruled against the US.
Fascinating & well structured article - except for one glaring omission - the LNP selling
of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese Government business. Yeh, sure it's a '99 year lease' but for
all effective purposes it's a sellout of a strategic port to the Chinese Government.
Just look at how gobsmacked the US Military & President were over such a stupidly undertaken
sale by the LNP. This diplomatically lunatic sell off by the LNP of such a vital national asset
has effectively taken-out any influence or impact Australia may have, or exert, over critical
issues happening on our northern doorstep.
If there was ever a case for buying back a strategic national asset, this is definitely the
one. Oh, if folks are worried about the $Billions in penalties incurred, simple solution - just
stop the $Billions of Diesel Fuel Rebates gifted to Miners for, say, 10 years..... Done!
America is in terminal decline, beset by economic and fiscal crises, sapped by imperial overstretch,
a victim of a cosmopolitan ennui and fecklessness, divided politically and culturally, belligerent
and militant to the extreme. An empire in decline is at its most dangerous. America today is a
far greater threat to world peace than China. Simply witness America's accommodation of the Israeli
occupation of Palestine, the odious Saudi theocracy, and how its insane policy in Libya, Syria,
Iraq, and Afghanistan has led to hundreds of thousands of lives lost and millions displaced.
Europe
is under siege by endless tides of refugees that are the direct consequence of America's neo-Conservative
and militant foreign policy. Meanwhile, America's neo-liberal economic and trade policies have
not only decimated her own manufacturing base and led to gross inequality but also massive dislocations
in South America, Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Tired, irritated, frustrated,
exhausted, cynical, violent, moral-less, deeply corrupt, and rudderless, America is effectively
bankrupt and on the verge of becoming another Greece, if not for the saving grace of the petro-Dollar.
Europe would be well-advised to keep the Yanks at arm's length so as to escape as much as possible
the fallout from her complete collapse. As for Britain, soon to be divorced from the EU, time
draws nigh to end the humiliating, one-sided servitude that is the 'Special Relationship' and
forge an independent foreign policy. The tectonic plates of history is again shifting, and there
nothing America can do to stop it.
I don't know America probably occupies the most prime geographical spot on the planet, and buffered
by two oceans. It doesn't have to worry about refugees and the other problems and ultimately they
can produce enough food and meet all of its energy needs domestically. And it's the third most
populous nation on earth and could easily grow its population with immigration.
The US has no significantly greater percentage of debt than any of the other Western nations
except Germany. If you think the Americas bankrupt then you'd have to think a whole lot of other
nations including the UK is as well.
Given the facts it would be daft a write off America. Every European nation have lost their
number one spot in history and they seem to be doing just fine. Is there some reason why this
can't be America's destiny as well? Does it really have to end in flames?
"China has divided and conquered certain countries in SE Asia."
These certain SE Asian countries would say that it's because they are not willing to be Uncle
Sam's "yes man".
The US is still so very powerful but the problem is they feel powerless from time to time with
their hammer in hand against flying mosquitos. Why they always wanted to solve problems using
force is beyond stupidity.
Pivot to Asia is about one thing only, sending more war ships to encircle China. But for what
purpose exactly? It does one thing though, it united china by posing as a threat.
Those blaming Obama most stridently for not keeping China in its box are those most responsible
for China's rise. American and Western companies shafted their own people to make themselves more
profit. They didn't care what the consequences might be, as long as the lmighty "Shareholder Value"
continued to rise. Now they demand that the taxes from all those people whose jobs they let go
be used to contain the new superpower that they created. As usual, Coroporate America messes
things up then demands to know what someone else is going to do about it
Were the US to form a cooperative instead of confrontational relationship with China the world
would be a better place. The same could be said for the US relationship with Russia.
Of course the military-industrial-banking-congressional complex that governs Washington's behavior
would not be happy. WIthout confrontation the arms industries can't sell their weapons of war,
banks' profits take a hit and congress critters don't get their kickbacks, err, "donations".
Given the way the US government has screwed the Philippines over steadily since 1898, it's not
surprising that Pres. Dutarte has decided to be friendly with his neighbor. Obama of the Kill List lecturing other countries about human rights abuses! What hypocrisy.
fuck his pivot.....this ain't syria.....having destroyed the middle east it was our turn.....this
is americas exceptionalism........stay #1 by desabilising/destroying everyone else.....p.s. shove
the TPP also..........
The real question is why should not China be more dominant in Asia... i understands the USA tendency
especially since the fall of the soviet union at seing themselves as the only world superpower.
And i understand why China would like to balance tbat especially in her own neighborhood.
Is what China doing in the south china sea different from what the USA does in the gulf of Mexico
or in Panama... not to mention that Chi a is litterally surounded by US bases that sit squarely
across all its sea trading routes: Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Fillipines,... and considering that the
chinese have a long memory of werstern gunboat diplomacy and naval for e projection, if i was
them i would feel a little uncomfortable at how vulnerable my newfound trade is... especially
when some western politician so clearly think that china needs to be contained...
China has been accumulating debt at unprecedented rates to try to maintain faltering growth.
In 2007 Chinese debt stood at $7 trillion. By 2014 it had quadrupled to $28 trillion. That's
$60 billion of extra debt every week. It's still rising rapidly as the government desperately tries to keep momentum.
Much of this money has been funnelled into 'investments' that will never yield a return. The most almighty crash is coming. Which will be interesting to say the least.
Now that is interesting but odd. They are buying phuqing HUGE swathes of land in Africa, investing
everywhere they can on rest of the planet. All seemingly on domestic debt then.
Yes. The Japanese went on a spending spree abroad in the 1980s, while accumulating debt at home,
and when that popped the economy entered 20 years of stagnation, as bad debts hampered the financial
system.
The Chinese bubble is far larger, and made worse by the fact that much of the debt has been
taken on by inefficient state owned enterprises and local government, spending not because the
figures make sense but to meet centrally-dictated growth targets. Much of the rest has been funnelled
into real estate, which now makes up more than twice the share of the Chinese economy than is
the case in the UK. Property prices in some major Chinese cities have reached up to 30 times local
incomes, making London look cheap in comparison.
TPP is practically written by the lobbyists from the multi-international corporations that exploit
every possible tax laws, labor laws, environmental and public health regulations, legal representations
and consequences. It is imperialism 2.0 in the 21st century, exclusively serving the interests
of top point one percent while greatly depressing the wages of middle class; it is overwhelmingly
opposed by the public opinion, law makers of all sides and current president candidates. There
is zero chance Obama could make it through legislation before his exit; Clinton will not even
consider bringing it back if she wins the election because she already flip-flopped once on the
issue during her campaign; and it would seriously damage her chance of re-election if she does.
As for Trump, I leave it to anyone's imaginations.
Don't believe for a second Hillary won't ram through a version of the TPP/IP if she wins. What
she's actually said is that she's against it in its current form
Remember she is part of an owned by the 0.1% that stand to benefit from the agreement, she
will do their bidding and be well rewarded. A few cosmetic changes will be applied to the agreement
so she can claim that she wasn't lying pre-election and we'll have to live with the consequences.
Well done all you globalists for failing to spot the bleedin obvious...that millions of homes
worldwide full of 'Made In China' was ultimately going to pay for the People's Liberation
Army. Still think globalisation is wonderful ?
Quite. How can you believe in a liberal, global free market and then do business with the Socialist
Republic of China, that is the antithesis of free markets. The name is above the door, so there's
no use acting all surprised when it doesn't pan out the way you planned it.
Anything good can be made evil, including globalization. Imagine fair trade completely globalized
so very nation relies on every other nation for goods. That type of shared destiny is the only
way to maintain peace because humans are tribalist to a fault. We evolved in small groups, our
social dynamics are not well suited to large diverse groups. If nation has food but nation B does
not, nation B will go to war with nation A, so hopefully both nations trade and alleviate that
situation. Nations with high economic isolation are beset by famines and poverty. Germany usually
beats China in total exports and Germany is a wonderful place to live. It's not globalization
that is the problem, it's exploitation and failure of our leaders to follow and enforce the Golden
Rule.
Roll out the barrel.....
Well said and you are so right.
15 years ago, I had a conversation in an airport with an American. I remarked that, by outsourcing
manufacturing to China the US had sold its future to an entity that would prove to be their enemy
before too long. I was derided and ridiculed. I wonder where that man is and whether he remembers
our conversation.
Globalisation is another word for one world government and all that brings, one currency, one
police force, taxation, dissolution of borders, an end to sovereignty and all of our hard won
freedoms. Freedom is a thing of the past, with MSM owned by the globalist elites, enforcing a
moratorium on truth, and a population that has no idea what is going on behind the scenes.
I despair of "normalcy bias" and the insulting term "conspiracy theorist". People have lost
the ability to work things out for themselves and the majority knows nothing about Agenda 21 aka
Sustainable Development Goals 2030, until the land grabs start and private ownership is outlawed.
... the study also suggests that, if war cannot be avoided, the US might be best advised to
strike first, before China gets any stronger and the current US military advantage declines further
..
Another brilliant thought from Rand; when in doubt, shoot from the hip ....
Do Americans not realize that Chinese and Russians read this too and plan accordingly? This is
madness.
I am fairly certain preemptive strikes are against international law. Why nobody has the guts
to call the US out on this kind of illegal warmongering?
1. With respect, Mr Tidsall is badly off track in painting China as the one evil facing an innocent
world.
2. The fact is that US' belief in and repeated resort to force has created a huge mess in the
Middle East, brought true misery to millions, and truly thrown Europe in turmoil in the bargain.
3. Besides this Middle East mess, the US neoliberal economic policies have wreaked havoc, culminating
in an unprecedented financial and economic crisis that has left millions all over the world without
any hope for the future
4. Hence Mr Tidsall's pronouncement:
This dilemma – how to work constructively with a powerful, assertive China without compromising
or surrendering national interests – grows steadily more acute.
Ought to read:
This dilemma – how to work constructively with a powerful, assertive United States
without compromising or surrendering national interests – grows steadily more acute.
5. US would be better advised to focus on its growing social problems, evident in the growing
random killings, police picking on blacks, etc, and on its fast decaying infrastructure. We now
read that China has the fastest computer, the largest telescope, etc, whilst US just kills and
kills all over the world.
6. Mr Tidsall, may I request that you kindly focus on realities rather than come up with opinion
that approaches science fiction
I agree that Mr Tisdall's treatment of the US is somewhat naive and ignorant. However couldn't
it be that both countries are capable of aggression and assertiveness? The US's malign influence
is mainly focussed on the Middle East and North Africa region, while China's is on its neighbours.
China's attitude to Taiwan is pure imperialism, as is its treatment of dissenting voices on the
mainland and in Hong Kong. China's contempt for international law and the binding ruling by the
UNCLOS Arbitral Tribunal is also deeply harmful to peace and justice in the region and worldwide.
We now read that China has the fastest computer, the largest telescope, etc, whilst US just
kills and kills all over the world.
Very superficial indeed - compare, just as one example, the number of Nobel prizes won by American
scientists recently with those by Chinese. The US is still, in general, far ahead of China in
terms of scientific research (though China is making rapid progress). (That is not intended to
excuse US killing of course.)
The US follows the USSR path of increasingly ignoring the needs of its own population in order
to retain global dominance. It will end the same as the USSR. That which cannot continue will
not continue.
Xi is not looking for a fight. His first-choice agent of change is money, not munitions.
According to Xi's "One Belt, One Road" plan, his preferred path to 21st-century Chinese hegemony
is through expanded trade, business and economic partnerships extending from Asia to the Middle
East and Africa. China's massive Silk Road investments in central and west Asian oil and gas
pipelines, high-speed rail and ports, backed by new institutions such as the Asia Infrastructure
Investment Bank, are part of this strategy, which simultaneously encourages political and economic
dependencies. Deng Xiaoping once said to get rich is glorious. Xi might add it is also empowering.
The most realistic assessment on Xi and China.
The dilemma is clear: amid rising nationalism in both countries, China is not willing to
have its ambitions curbed or contained and the US is not ready to accept the world number two
spot. These two juggernauts are on a collision course.
A Grim and over-paranoid predicament: US is not in decline and need not worry about China's "ambition";
China is well aware it remains a poor nation compared to developed world and is decades behind
of US in military, GDP per capital and science, that is not including civil liberty, citizen participation,
Gov't transparency and so on. China is busy building a nation confident of its culture and history,
military hegemony plays no part of its dream.
US is not in decline and need not worry about China's "ambition"
Oh come on, $20 Trillion in debt and with Social Security running out of money, there will
be no more to lend the government.
China has forged an agreement with Russia for all its needs in oil ( Russia has more oil than
Saudi Arabia) and payment will not be in US dollars. Russia will not take US$ for trade and the
BRICS nations will squeeze the US$ out of its current situation as reserve currency. When the
dollars all find their way back to the USA hyperinflation will cause misery.
Before the Chinese or anyone else gets any ideas, they should reflect on the size of the US defence
budget, 600 billion dollars in 2015, and consider what that might imply in the event of conflict.
a third of that budget goes in profit for the private companies they employ to make duds like
the F35 - so you can immediately reduce that to 400 billion. The US have been fighting third world
countries for 50 years, and losing, their military is bloated, out of date and full of retrograde
gear that simply wont cut it against the Russians. Privately you would find that most top line
military agree with that statement. They also have around 800 bases scattered world wide, spread
way too thin. Its why theyve stalled in Ukraine and can't handle the middle east. The Russians
spend less than $50 billion but have small, highly mobile forces, cutting edge missile defence
systems (which will have full airspace coverage by 2017). The Chinese policy of A2D/AD or access
denial has got the US surface fleet marooned out in the oceans as any attempt to get close enough
to be effective would be met with a hail of multiple rocket shedding war heads. The only place
where it is probable (but my no means certain) that the US still has the edge is in submarine
warfare, although again if the Russians and Chinese have full coverage of their airspace nothing
(or little) would get through.
Two theorys are in current operation about the election and the waring factions in the NSA and
the CIA 1) HRC wins but is too much of a warmonger and would push america into more wars they
simply cannot win 2) there is a preference for Trump to win amongst the MIC because he would (temporarily)
seek 'peace' with the Russians thus giving the military the chance to catch up - say in 3 or 4
years - plus all the billions and billions of dollars that would mean for them.
Overwhelming fire power no longer wins wars, the US have proved that year in year out since
the end of the second world war, theyve lost every war theyve started/caused/joined in. Unless
you count that limited skirmish on British soil in Grenada - and I guess we could call Korea a
score draw. The yanks are bust and they know it, the neocons are all bluster and idiots like Breedlove,
Power and Nuland are impotent because they don't have right on their side or the might to back
it up. The US is mired in the middle east, locked out of asia and would grind to halt in Europe
against the Russians. (every NATO wargame simulation in the last 4 years has conclusively shown
this) Add to that the fact that the overwhelming majority of US citizens dont have the appetite
for a conventional war and in the event of a nuclear war the US would suffer at least as much
as Europe and youve got a better picture of where we are at.
Well it is just ABOUT money.Also during Vietnam and Iraq war US was biggest spender.
Nobody in US still thinks that Vietnam war was a good idea and the same applies to Iraq.Iraq war
will be even in history books for biggest amount spend to achieve NOTHING.
Chinese military spending is at least on a par with American. A huge part of American military
money goes to personnel salary while China does NOT pay to Chinese soldiers for their service
as China holds a compulsory military service system.
This article assumes China is evil and the US is the righteous protector of all nations in the
SE Asian region against the evil China which is obviously out to destroy the hapless SE Asian
nations. This assumption is obviously nonsense. The US itself is rife with racial problems. Everybody
has seen what it had done to Vietnam. Nobody believes that a racist US that cares nothing for
the welfare of its own black, Latino and Asian population will actually care for the welfare of
the same peoples outside of the US and especially in SE Asia.
The truth is China is not the evil destroyer of nations. The truth is the US is the evil destroyer
of nations. The US has brought nothing but bloodshed and destruction to the SE Asian regions for
the last 200 years. The US had killed millions of Filipinos during it colonial era. The US had
killed millions of Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. The US had incited pogroms against the ethnic
Chinese unceasingly. The May 13 massacre in Malaysia, the anti-Chinese massacres in the 1960's
and the 1990's in Indonesia, and many other discrimination and marginalization of ethnic Chinese
throughout the entire SE Asia are all the works of the US. It is the US that is the killer and
destroyer.
Therefore, it is a good thing that the evil intents of the US had failed. With the all but
inevitable rise of China, the influence of the Japanese and the americans will inevitably wane.
The only danger to China is the excessive xenocentrism of the Dengist faction who is selling out
China to these dangerous enemies. If the CPC government sold out China's domestic economy, then
China will become a colony of the Japanese and americans without firing a single shot. And the
Chinese economy will slide into depression as it had done in the Qing Dynasty and Chinese influence
in the SE Asian region will collapse.
Therefore, the task before the CPC government is to ban all foreign businesses out of China's
domestic economy, upgrade and expand China's education and R&D, urbanize the rural residents and
expand the Chinese military, etc. With such an independent economic, political and military policies,
China will at once make itself the richest and the most powerful nation in the world dwarfing
the Japanese and American economies and militaries. China can then bring economic prosperity and
stability to the SE Asian region by squeezing the evil Japanese and americans out of the region.
Lets be honest what has Obama achieved,he got the Nobel peace prize for simply not being George
Bush Jr he has diplayed a woeful lack of leadership with Russia over Syria Libya and the Chinese
Simply being the first African American president will not be a legacy
Do you know of one Leninist state that ever built a prosperous modern industrial nation? Therein
lies the advantage and the problem with China. China is totally export dependant and therefore
its customers can adversely affect its economy - put enough chinese out of work and surely political
instability will follow. A threatened dictatorship with a large army, however, is a danger to
its neighbors and the world.
China are now net consumers. You need to read up on whats happening, not from just the western
press. They are well on their way to becoming the most powerful nation on earth, they have access
(much like Russia) to over two thirds of the population of the worlds consumers and growing (this
is partially why sanctions against Russia have been in large part meaningless) China will never
want for buyers of their products (the iphone couldnt be made without the Chinese) with the vast
swaithes of unplumbed Russian resources becoming available to them its hard to see how the west
can combat the Eurasians. The wealth is passing from west to east, its a natural cycle the 'permanant
growth' monkies in the west have been blind to by their own greed and egotism. Above all the Chinese
are a trading nation, always seeking win/win trading links. The west would be better employed
trading and linking culturally with the Chinese rather than trying to dictate with military threats.
The west comprises only 18% of the global population and our growth and wealth is either exhausted
or locked away in vaults where it is doing no one any good. Tinme to wise up or get left behind.
Tisdall...absolute war-monger and neo-con "dog of war". Is this serious journalism? The rise of
China was as inevitable as the rise of the US in the last century..."no man can put a stop to
the march of a nation". It's Asias century and it's not the first time for China to be the No
1 economy in the world. They have been here before and have much more wisdom than the west...for
too long the tail has wagged the dog...suck it up Tisdall!
The US grand strategy post-Bush was to reposition itself at the heart of a liberal economic system
excluding China through TTIP with the EU and TPP with Asia-Pac ex. China and Russia. The idea
was that this would enable the US to sustain its hegemony.
It has been an absolute failure. Brexit has torpedoed TTIP and TPP has limited value- the largest
economy in the partnership, Japan, has been largely integrated in to the US for the past 70 years.
IMO the biggest failure of the US has been hating Russia too much. The Russians have just as
much reason to be afraid of China as the US do and have a pretty capable army. If the US patched
things up with the Russians, firstly it could redeploy forces and military effort away from the
Middle East towards Asia Pac and secondly it would give the US effective leverage over China-
with the majority of the oil producing nations aligned with the US, China would have difficulty
in conducted a sustained conflict. It's old Cold War thinking that has seen America lose its hegemony-
similar to how the British were so focused on stopping German ascendancy they didn't see the Americans
coming with the knife.
America is reaping the fruits of what they sowed during the time of Reagan. It was never a good
idea to outsource your entire manufacturing industry to a country that is a dictatorship and does
not embrace western liberal democratic values. Now the Americans are hopelessly dependent on China
- a country that does not play by the rules in any sphere - it censors free speech, it blatantly
violates intellectual property, it displays hostile intent towards nearly all South East Asian
countries, its friends include state sponsors of terror like Pakistan and North Korea, it is carefully
cultivating the enemies of America and the west in general.
In no way, shape or form does China fulfill the criteria for being a trustworthy partner of
the west. And yet today, China holds all the cards in its relationship with the west, with the
western consumerist economies completely dependent on China. Moral of the story - Trade and economics
cannot be conducted in isolation, separate from geopolitical realities. Doing so is a recipe for
disaster.
Mr Tisdall should declare his affiliation, if any, with the military-industrial complex.
It is surprising coming from a Briton which tried to contain Germany and fought two
wars destroying itself and the empire. War may be profitable for military-industrial complex
but disastrous for everyone else. In world war 2, USA benefited enormously by ramping
up war material production and creating millions of job which led to tremendous
prosperity turning the country around from a basket case in 1930s to a big prosperous power
which dominated the world till 2003.
US insistence on being top cat in a changing world will end up by dragging us all into a WW III.
Why can't the US leave the rest of the world alone? Americans do not need a military presence
to do business with the rest of the world and earn a lot of money with such trade. And they are
too ignorant, too unsophisticate and too weak to be able to impose their will on the rest of us.
The (very) ugly Americans are back and all we want is for them to go back home and forever remain
there... The sooner the better...
The world is going to look fantastically different in a hundred years time.
Points of world power will go back to where they was traditionally; Europe and Asia. America
is a falling power, it doesn't get the skilled European immigrants it use to after German revolution
and 2 world wars. And it's projected white population will be a minority by 2050. America's future
lies with south America.
Australia with such a massive country but with a tiny population of 20million will look very
attractive to China. It's future lies with a much stronger commonwealth, maybe a united military
and economic commonwealth between the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Even without the EU, Europe is going to have to work together, including Russia to beat the
Chinese militarily and economically. America will not be the same power in another 30-50 years
and would struggle to beat them now.
China are expansionists, always have been. War is coming with them and North Korea sometime
in the future.
From the article above, it is clear who is the more dangerous power. While China is aiming to
be the hegemon through economic means like the neo silk road projects, the US is aiming to maintain
its hegemon status through military power. The US think thank even suggest to preemptive strike
against China to achieve that. This is also the problem with US pivot to Asia, it may fail to
contain China, but it didn't fail to poison the atmosphere in Asia. Asia has never been this dangerous
since the end of cold war, all thanks to the pivot.
Obama is trying to maintain the status quo. China and N. Korea are the ones pushing military intimidation.
The key to the US plan is to form an alliance between countries in the region that historically
distrust each other. The Chinese are helping that by threatening everybody at the same time. Tisdall
sees this conflict strictly as between the US and China. Obama's plan is to form a group of countries
to counter China. Japan will have a major role in this alliance but the problem is whether the
other victims of WW2 Japanese aggression will agree to it.
The US's disastrous foreign policy since 9/11 which has unleashed so much chaos in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc etc... is not exactly a commendation for credibility these days.
A useful summary of the state of play in the Pacific and SCS. It is somewhat hawkish in analysis,
military fantasists will always be legion, they should be listened to with extra large doses of
salt, or discussion of arguments which favour peaceful cooperation and development, such as trade,
cultural relations, and natural stalemates. American anxiety at its own perception of decline,
is at least as dangerous for the world as the immature expression of rising Chinese confidence.
But the biggest problem it seems we face, is finding a way to accommodate and translate the aspirations
of rising global powers with the existing order established post-45, in incarnated in the UN and
other international bodies, in international maritime law as in our western notions of universal
human rights. Finding a way for China to express origination of these ideas compatible with its
own history, to be able to proclaim them as a satisfactory settlement for human relations, is
an ideal, but apparently unpromising task.
Perhaps Samuel P Huntingdon was broadly correct when he wrote "The Clash of Civilizations" in
the late 90's. He was criticized for his work by neo-liberals who believed that after the Cold
War the rest of the world would follow the west and US in particular.
The problem with the neo-liberal view is that only their opinions on issues are correct, and
all others therefore should be ridiculed. What has happened in Ukraine is a prime example. Huntingdon
called the Ukraine a "cleft" country split between Russia and Europe. The EU and the US decided
to stir up trouble in the Ukraine to get even with Putin over Syria. It was never about EU or
NATO membership for the Ukraine which is now further away than ever.
A Trump presidency is regarded with fear. The Obama presidency has been a failure with regard
to foreign policy and a major reason was because Clinton was Secretary of State in the 1st four
years. In many ways a Clinton presidency is every bit as dangerous as a Trump presidency.
Certainly relations with Russia will be worse under Clinton than under Trump, and for the rest
of the world that is not a good thing. To those that believe liek Clinton that Putin is the new
Hitler, then start cleaning out the nuclear bunkers. If he is then WW3 is coming like it or not
and Britain better start spending more on defence.
What does the criticism in USA get you? It is just blah blah blah.
ONly criticism that matters is from the corporations and wealthy individuals
like Koch bros and Sheldon Edelson and their ilk. Rest can watch football.
Never mind that a general, high-intensity war in Northern Asia would be disastrous for all involved,
whatever the outcome.
Never mind that much of the discussion about containing China is by warmongers urging such
a conflict.
Never mind that very little depth in fact lies behind the shell of American and Japanese military
strength, or that a competently-run Chinese government is well able to grossly outproduce "us"
all in war materiel.
Never mind that those same warmongers and neocons drove and drive a succession of Imperial
disasters; they remain much-praised centres of attention, just as the banksters and rentiers that
are sucking the life from Americans have never had it so good.
Never mind that abbott encouraged violence as the automatic reaction to problems, while his
Misgovernment was (while Turnbull to a lesser extent still is) working hard to destroy the economic
and social strengths we need to have any chance of surmounting those problems.
Yes, it is a proper precaution to have a military strength that can deny our approaches to
China. Unfortunately that rather disregards that "we" have long pursued a policy of globalisation
involving the destruction of our both own manufacturing and our own merchant navy. Taken together
with non-existent fuel reserves, "our" military preparations are pointless, because we would have
to surrender within a fortnight were China to mount even a partial maritime blockade of Australia.
What I don't quite understand is how all this comes as any surprise to those in the know. China
has been on target to be the #1 economic power in the world in this decade for at least 30 years.
And who made it so? Western capitalists. China is now not only the world's industrial heartbeat,
it also owns a large proportion of Western debt - despite the fact that its differences with the
West (not least being a one-party Communist state) couldn't be more obvious - and while I doubt
it's in its interests to destabilise its benefactorrs at the moment, that may not always be the
case.
It also has another problem: In fifty or sixty years time it is due to be overtaken by India,
which gives it very little time to develop ASEAN in its own image; but I suspect that it's current
"silk glove" policy is far smarter and more cost-effective than any American "iron fist".
The US is just worried about losing out on markets and further exploitation. They should have
no authority over China's interest in the South China Sea. If China do rise to the point were
they can affect foreign governments, they will unlikely be as brutal as the United States. [Indonesia
1964, Congo 1960s, Brazil 1964, Chile 1973, Central America 1980s, Egyptian military aid, Saudi
support, Iraq 2003, the Structural Adjustments of the IMF]
Simon Tisdall and many Europeans as well as the US GOP party still thinks that US is an empire
similar to what the British had in the 18th century. This assumption is completely wrong especially
in the 21th century where Western Europe, Japan, Korea if they want can be spend their money and
also become global military power.
While many Europeans and others including our current GOP party
thinks we are the global empire and we should stick our nose everywhere, our people doesn't we
are an empire or we should stick our nose in every trouble spot in the world spending our blood
and treasure to fight others battles and get blame when everything goes wrong. President Obama
doesn't think of himself as Julius Ceaser and America is not Rome.
He will be remembered as one
of our greatest president ever setting a course for this country's foreign policy towards trying
to solve the world's problems through alliances and cooperation with like minded countries as
the opposite of the war mongering brainless, trigger happy GOP presidents. However when lesser
powers who preach xenophobia and destabilize their neighborhood through annexation as the Hitler
like Putin has, he comes down with a hammer using tools other than military to punish the aggressor.
All you need to do is watch what is happening to the Russian economy since he imposed sanctions
to the Mafiso Putin.
This article is completely misleading and the author is constricting himself in his statement
that Obama's pivot to Asia is a failure. Since China tried to annex the Islands near the Philippines,
countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, India, etc. has ask the US for more cooperation
both military and economically these countries were moving away from US under Bush and others
so I think this is a win for Obama not a loss. Unlike the idiotic Russians, China is a clever
country and is playing global chess in advancing her foreign policy goals. While the US cannot
do anything with China's annexation of these disputed Islands has costs her greatly because the
Asian countries effected by China's moves are running towards the US, this is a win for the US.
China's popularity around her neighborhood has taken a nose dive similar to Russian's popularity
around her neighborhood. These are long term strategic wins for the US, especially if Hillary
wins the white house and carry's on Obama's mantel of speaking softly but carry a big stick. Obama
will go down as our greatest foreign policy president by building alliances in Europe to try stop
Mafioso Putin and alliances in Asia to curtail China's foreign policy ambitions. This author's
thesis is pure bogus, because he doesn't indicate what Obama should have done to make him happy?
Threaten Chine military confertation?
All you have to do is go back 8 years ago and compare our last two presidents and you can see
where Obama is going.
For the allusion to Rome, I think they act like the old empire when they had to send their army
to keep the peace....and it is an empire of the 21 first century, not like the old ones (Assange).
China needs western consumerism to maintain its manufacturing base. If China's growth impacts
the ability of the West to maintain its standard of consumerism, then China will need a new source
of affluent purchaser. If China's own citizens become affluent, they will expect a standard of
living commensurate with that status, accordingly China will not be able to maintain its manufacturing
base.
So the options for China are:
a) Prop up western economies until developing nations in Africa and South America (themselves
heavily dependent on the West) reach a high standard of consumerism.
b) Divide China into a ruling class, and a worker class, in which the former is a parasite
on the latter.
The current tactic seems to be to follow option b, until option a becomes viable.
However, the longer option a takes to develop, and therefore the longer option b is in effect,
the greater the chances of counter-revolution (which at this stage is probably just revolution).
The long and the short of it, is that China is boned.
Being a large country surrounded by many other occasionally threatening powers, the governments'
priority is and always has been defending its territorial integrity. China is happy enough to
leave the command and conquer stuff, sorry "democratization" to the US.
It's got it's hands full
at home. As long as the West doesn't try to get involved in what China sees as its historical
territory (i.e. The big rooster shaped landmass plus Hainan and Hong Kong and various little islands)
there's absolutely nothing to worry about.
Why did Obama say that his greatest regret was Libya.? Because Obama's policy is/was to manage
the decline of US power. To manage the end of US hegemony. I doubt that Obama believes that any
pivot to any where can restore or maintain US dominance on planet earth. There is absolutely nothing
exceptional about a power not admitting publicly what is known to many,see the outpourings of
the British elites during the end of its empire.
As usual the Guardian is on its anti-China horse. Look through this article and every move China
has made is "aggressive" or when it tries to expand trade (and produce win win economic conditions)
it is "hegemonic" while the US is just trying to protect us all and is dealing with the "Chinese
threat" -- a threat to their economic interests and global imperial hegemony is what they mean.
The US still maintains a "one China" policy and the status quo is exactly that "one China"
It would be great for someone in the west to review the historical record instead of arming Taiwan
to the teeth. Additionally, before China ever started its island construction the US had already
begun the "pivot to Asia" which now is huge with nuclear submarines patrolling all around China,
nuclear weapons on the - two aircraft carrier fleets now threatening China - very rare for the
US to have two aircraft carrier fleets in the same waters - the B-1 long range nuclear bombers
now in Australia, and even more belligerent the US intends to deploy THAAD missals in South Korea
- using North Korea as an excuse to further seriously threaten China.
China wishes to expand trade and improve economic conditions for its people and for those with
whom it trades. That is not aggression except when it interferes with US global economic hegemony.
Just look around the world - where are the conflicts - the middle east and Africa - who is
there with military and arms sales and bombing seven countries -- is it China?
The most belligerent nation in the world the nation with its army in over 100 countries, the
nation bombing and conducting perpetual war throughout the middle east, the country invading countries
for "regime change" and creating only misery and death -- it is not China.
The US and its Neoliberal capitalist system must expand to grow - plus they clearly want total
global domination - the US and its Imperial agents have encircled both China and Russia with trillions
of dollars of the most destructive weapons in the world including nuclear weapons - do you thin
they have done that for "security" if so you simply ignore the aggression and hubris of an Imperial
US.
"... By Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, Research Fellow, UNU-WIDE, Laurence Roope, Researcher, Health Economics Research Centre, University of Oxford, and Finn Tarp, Director, UNU-WIDER. Originally published at VoxEU ..."
"... See original post for references ..."
"... John Ross argues that the reduction in poverty has been pretty much all China. I'm also not convinced China is actually that much richer than before. A sweatshop worker has a higher income than a traditional farmer, but probably has a lower standard of living, and while the traditional farmer maintains the natural resource base, the industrial worker destroys it. ..."
"... Globalization is an economic and ecological disaster. We have outsourced wealth creation to China and they do it in the most polluting way possible, turning their country into a toxic waste dump in the process. ..."
"... The peasants slaving away in the cinder block hellholes of their factories churning out the crapola on Wal-Mart's shelves also get paid squat, while the leaders of the Chinese Criminal Party steal half of their effort for themselves and smuggle the loot out, to get away from the pollution. The other half gets stolen by the likes of Wal-Mart and Apple. ..."
"... The elites sold globalization as something that would generate such a munificent surplus that those in harms way would be helped. It ends up as a lie, where the elites the world over help themselves to the stolen sweat of the lowest people in society, with nothing left over, except for a polluted planet. ..."
"... Yes, those who "have seen their incomes stagnating in real terms for over 20 years" are indeed experiencing "considerable discontent." But this anodyne phrasing masks the reality of entire communities seeing their means of livelihood ripped out and shipped across the globe. This rhetoric makes it sound like, Oh those prosperous American workers can't buy as many luxuries now, boo hoo, when the standard practice from NAFTA on of globalization-as-corporate-welfare has meant real impoverishment for hundreds of thousands of individuals, entire cities and large chunks of whole states. As Lambert always says, Whose economy? ..."
...if you look at absolute inequality, as opposed to relative inequality, inequality has increased
around the world. This calls into question one of the big arguments made in favor of globalization:
that the cost to workers in advanced economies are offset by gains to workers in developing economies,
and is thus virtuous by lowering inequality more broadly measured.
By Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, Research Fellow, UNU-WIDE, Laurence Roope, Researcher, Health
Economics Research Centre, University of Oxford, and Finn Tarp, Director, UNU-WIDER. Originally published
at VoxEU
Since the turn of the century, inequality in the distribution of income, together with concerns
over the pace and nature of globalisation, have risen to be among the most prominent policy issues
of our time. These concerns took centre stage at the recent annual G20 summit in China. From President
Obama to President Xi, there was broad agreement that the global economy needs more inclusive and
sustainable growth, where the economic pie increases in size and is at the same time divided more
fairly. As President Obama emphasised, "[t]he international order is under strain." The consensus
is well founded, following as it does the recent Brexit vote, and the rise of populism (especially
on the right) in the US and Europe, with its hard stance against free trade agreements, capital flows
and migration.
... ... ...
The inclusivity aspect of growth is now more imperative than ever. Globalisation has not been
a zero sum game. Overall perhaps more have benefitted, especially in fast-growing economies in the
developing world. However, many others, for example among the working middle class in industrialised
nations, have seen their incomes stagnating in real terms for over 20 years. It is unsurprising that
this has bred considerable discontent, and it is an urgent priority that concrete steps are taken
to reduce the underlying sources of this discontent. Those who feel they have not benefitted, and
those who have even lost from globalisation, have legitimate reasons for their discontent. Appropriate
action will require not only the provision of social protection to the poorest and most vulnerable.
It is essential that the very nature of the ongoing processes of globalisation, growth, and economic
transformation are scrutinised, and that broad based investments are made in education, skills, and
health, particularly among relatively disadvantaged groups. Only in this way will the world experience
sustained – and sustainable – economic growth and the convergence of nations in the years to come.
John Ross argues that the reduction in poverty has been pretty much all China. I'm also
not convinced China is actually that much richer than before. A sweatshop worker has a higher
income than a traditional farmer, but probably has a lower standard of living, and while the traditional
farmer maintains the natural resource base, the industrial worker destroys it.
Only in this way will the world experience sustained – and sustainable
– economic growth and the convergence of nations in the years to come.
Globalization is an economic and ecological disaster. We have outsourced wealth creation
to China and they do it in the most polluting way possible, turning their country into a toxic
waste dump in the process.
The peasants slaving away in the cinder block hellholes of their factories churning out
the crapola on Wal-Mart's shelves also get paid squat, while the leaders of the Chinese Criminal
Party steal half of their effort for themselves and smuggle the loot out, to get away from the
pollution. The other half gets stolen by the likes of Wal-Mart and Apple.
The elites sold globalization as something that would generate such a munificent surplus
that those in harms way would be helped. It ends up as a lie, where the elites the world over
help themselves to the stolen sweat of the lowest people in society, with nothing left over, except
for a polluted planet.
The notable presence of public policies that exacerbate racial and economic inequality and
the lack of will by Washington to change the system mean that the ethnic/racial wealth gap is
becoming more firmly entrenched in society.
"broad based investments are made in education, skills, and health, particularly among relatively
disadvantaged groups. Only in this way will the world experience sustained – and sustainable
– economic growth and the convergence of nations in the years to come."
…I guess if the skills were sustainable low chemical and diverse farming in 5 acre lots or
in co-ops then I might have less complaint, however the skills people apparently are going to
need are supervising robots and going to non jobs in autonomous vehicles and being fed on chemical
mush shaped like things we used to eat, a grim dystopia.
Yesterday I had the unpleasant experience of reading the hard copy nyt wherein kristof opined
that hey it's not so bad, extreme poverty has eased (the same as in this article, but without
this article's Vietnamese example where 1 v. 8 becomes 8 v. 80),ignoring the relative difference
while on another lackluster page there was an article saying immigrants don't take jobs from citizens
which had to be one of the most thinly veiled press releases of some study made by some important
sounding acronym and and, of course a supposed "balance" between pro and anti immigration academics.
because in this case, they claim we're relatively better off.
So there you have it, it's all relative. Bi color bird cage liner, dedicated to the ever shrinking
population of affluent/wealthy who are relatively better off as opposed to the ever increasing
population of people who are actually worse off…There was also an article on the desert dwelling
uighur and their system of canals bringing glacier water to farm their arid land which showed
some people who were fine for thousands of years, but now thanks to fracking, industrial pollution
and less community involvement (kids used to clean the karatz, keeping it healthy) now these people
can be uplifted into the modern world(…so great…) that was reminiscent of the nyt of olde which
presented the conundrum but left out the policy prescription which now always seems to be "the
richer I get the less extreme poverty there is in the world so stop your whining and borrow a
few hundred thousand to buy a PhD "
Yes, those who "have seen their incomes stagnating in real terms for over 20 years" are
indeed experiencing "considerable discontent." But this anodyne phrasing masks the reality of
entire communities seeing their means of livelihood ripped out and shipped across the globe. This
rhetoric makes it sound like, Oh those prosperous American workers can't buy as many luxuries
now, boo hoo, when the standard practice from NAFTA on of globalization-as-corporate-welfare has
meant real impoverishment for hundreds of thousands of individuals, entire cities and large chunks
of whole states. As Lambert always says, Whose economy?
Three reading recommendations for anyone who doesn't grasp your sentiment, shared by millions:
Sold Out , by Michelle Malkin Outsourcing America , by Ron Hira America: Who
Stole the Dream? , by Donald L. Barlett
Reply ↓
"... I wonder if there is a simpler explanation. US immigration policy has come to be about suppressing wages. The suppressing wages operation has been great for those at the top of the food chain at the cost of overall growth. ..."
"... As long as there exist Western countries to act as "safety valves" there is no incentive for immigrant source countries to correct the deficiencies in their economical / political / social systems or resolve ongoing conflicts. In fact, there is every incentive to maintain the status quo. ..."
"... And when will the Wester polity finally figure out that if you destabilize a metastable regime by force, the result isn't stability but inevitably chaos and a further flood of refugee/immigrants? ..."
"... Now most of the net immigration across the US-Mexican border comes from Central America: countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala destabilized by the Reagan regime in the 1980s. Now they're dominated by violent gangs trained in California prisons and repatriated to Central America. ..."
"... Immigration across the U.S.-Mexican border is driven by Central American refugees fleeing gross instability, crime and violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala; not by Mexicans. The U.S. played a deep long-term role in creating the mess that Central America is today. ..."
"... U.S. creates instability (war, coup) in a region. ..."
"... The ensuing instability creates a class of desperate folks, who then seek bodily, economic, and political safety within the borders of the empire. This leads to a class of desperate workers, often undocumented and constantly at risk of deportation, willing to work for far less compensation than the native population. ..."
"... Poorer countries suffer brain drain. They do receive large amount of remittances, but an economy which sends its best and the brightest to benefit the industrial countries and receives industrial products in exchange does not seem like it can develop very easily. ..."
"... Here's a somewhat interesting backgrounder on American immigration. The author's premise is that US immigration policies were always about race (white Europeans welcome to stay, brown Mexicans welcome to do manual labor and leave) but this is undoubtedly a simplification as the discrimination in favor of high skills–talked about in the above post–undoubtedly a factor. ..."
"... most other countries do not offer citizenship unless you have something valuable to offer them. An acquaintance who thought about becoming Canadian found this out. ..."
"... It is dangerous for Trump to demonize undocumented immigrants without holding the corporations that attracted and hired them responsible and the system that allowed it. ..."
"... I would argue that migration has both positive and negative impact on the receiving country. But at some point I believe the 'self' is selfish and not necessarily selfless. In a world of limited resources and opportunities it is normal for the 'self' to be highly selfish hence the contradictory nature of the theory of free market economy under globalization. ..."
"... So the UK National Health system nurtured me through my early years, and the UK education system gave me primary, secondary and degree level education. I have spent most of my working life doing an R&D job in the US. The US has benefited from my work during my working life. If I should choose to retire back to the UK, I will remit my pension income back there, and because of the tax treaty, pay income taxes there, which I claim as a full credit against the US tax return. So I'm "taking money out of the US, to the detriment of social cohesion and economic growth". ..."
"... H1-B visas tap larger, typically Asian populations than the U.S. for their best & brightest. ..."
"... Roughly 50% of the undocumented are from Asia. Yet 90% of the deportations are Hispanic. ..."
"... My experience is that the Asian population is either native or here on student visas. The chinese student population is quite large in Los Angeles. Student visas don't allow foreign students to work off-campus, so many of them are family-funded. So they're not taking jobs, but do impact the housing/rental market. (The California colleges love them for their out-of-state fees and strong study habits.) ..."
Posted on
September 21, 2016 by
Yves Smith Yves here.
I wonder if there is a simpler explanation. US immigration policy has come to be about suppressing
wages. The suppressing wages operation has been great for those at the top of the food chain at the
cost of overall growth.
In
a
recent post , I showed that looking at data since 1950 or so, the percentage of the population
that is foreign born is negatively correlated with job creation in later years. I promised an explanation,
and I will attempt to deliver on that promise in this post.
I can think of a few reasons for the finding, just about all of which would have been amplified
since LBJ's Presidency due to two things: the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act and the launch of the Great Society.
The Hart-Cellar Act may be better known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. It phased
out country quotas in existence since the 1920s. As a result of these quotas, about 70% of all immigrants
were coming from England, Germany and Ireland, with most of the remainder coming from elsewhere in
Western Europe and from Latin America. The Great Society, of course, included a number of welfare
programs, many of which (or their descendants) are still in existence.
With that, reasons why the foreign born population is negatively correlated with subsequent job
creation include:
1. Immigrants who are sufficiently similar to the existing population when it comes to language,
culture, skillsets and expectations will integrate more smoothly. Slower and more imperfect integration
necessarily requires more expenditure of resources, resources which otherwise could go toward economic
development.
2. Naturally, skills and values that are more productive and efficient than those of the existing
population are conducive toward growth. Conversely, bringing inferior technology and processes
does not improve the economy. As the source of immigrants shifted away from sources of sources of
high technology like England and Germany and toward the developing and not-developing world, the
likelihood that a randomly selected new immigrant will improve productivity diminishes.
3. Eligibility for welfare can change the incentive structure for existing and potential immigrants.
An immigrant arriving in the US in 1890 certainly had no expectation of being supported by the
state. It may be that most immigrants arriving in the US now also don't have that expectation. However,
it is no secret that welfare exists so some percentage of potential immigrants arrive expecting to
be supported to some degree by the state. In some (many?) cases, the expectation increases post-arrival.
(Like any great economist, Milton Friedman got a lot of things wrong about how the economy works
but he had a point when he said you can have a welfare state or open borders but not both.)
4. Rightly or wrongly, reasons 1 – 3 above may combine to create resentment in the existing
population. Think "my grandparents came to this country with nothing and nobody gave them anything "
Resentment can break down trust and institutions necessary for the economy to function smoothly.
5. Over time, transportation has become cheaper and easier. As a result, the likelihood
that an immigrant has come to the US to stay has diminished. Many immigrants come to the US for several
years and then go back to their country of origin. This in turn leads to four issues that can have
negative impacts on the economy:
5a. Immigrants that expect to leave often send back remittances, taking resources out of the
US economy. For example, in 2010, remittances from workers in the US
amounted to 2.1% of Mexican GDP .
5b. Relative to many non-Western countries, the US taxpayer invests heavily in the creation
of a state that is conducive toward acquiring useful skills and education. Often, the acquisition
of such skills and education is heavily subsidized. When people acquire those tools and then leave
without applying them, the value of the resources could have been better spent elsewhere.
5c. Immigrants who don't expect to stay can have less reason to integrate culturally and economically;
any real estate investor can tell you that all else being equal, a neighborhood made up largely
of homeowners is almost always nicer than a neighborhood made up largely of renters.
5d. Immigrants who arrive with a non-negligible expectation of leaving are, on average, more
likely to take risks which generate private gains and social losses. If the bet goes well, congratulations.
If the bet goes bad, "so long suckers!" The bet may even involve a crime.
6. (This one is more conjecture than the others – I think it is true, but I haven't given it
enough thought, particularly whether it is entirely separate from the previous reasons.) The
non-existence of a lump of labor does not mean there isn't a population to labor multiplier, or that
the multiplier cannot change over time. In an era of relatively slow economic growth, economies of
scale, and outsourcing abroad, the number of new employment opportunities per new customer (i.e.,
job creation per resident) can shrink. We've certainly seen something resembling that since about
2000.
None of this is to say that immigration is good or bad, or even that it should be opposed or encouraged.
In this post I simply tried to explain what I saw in the data. I will have one or more follow-up
posts.
I think one of the best things the US can do re immigration is to develop policies that make
it easier for people to stay in their country of origin which many probably want to do. Our policies
have tended to have the opposite effect such as
and Syria/Libya etc "An estimated 11 million Syrians have fled their homes
since the outbreak of the civil war in March 2011. Now, in the sixth year of war, 13.5 million
are in need of humanitarian assistance within the country. " (
http://syrianrefugees.eu/ )
We are also very much in need of a job guarantee paying a living wage which would put pressure
on major employers such as Walmart and McDonalds and get their executives off of government subsidies.
(they pay a wage so low their workers are forced into food stamps and medicaid) (One of the major
beneficiaries of the nation's food-stamp program is actually a hugely profitable company:
Walmart .) (
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/31/walmart-food-stamps_n_4181862.html )
Another great post, read word-for-word, and I very much look forward your subsequent ones.
You've cogently explored the "yin" of immigration, but what about the "yang"?
As long as there exist Western countries to act as "safety valves" there is no incentive
for immigrant source countries to correct the deficiencies in their economical / political / social
systems or resolve ongoing conflicts. In fact, there is every incentive to maintain the status
quo.
And when will the Wester polity finally figure out that if you destabilize a metastable
regime by force, the result isn't stability but inevitably chaos and a further flood of refugee/immigrants?
'As long as there exist Western countries to act as "safety valves" there is no incentive
for immigrant source countries to correct the deficiencies in their economical / political / social
systems or resolve ongoing conflicts.'
After a mere ten years, NAFTA succeeded in reversing net immigration from Mexico.
Now most of the net immigration across the US-Mexican border comes from Central America:
countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala destabilized by the Reagan regime in the 1980s. Now
they're dominated by violent gangs trained in California prisons and repatriated to Central America.
Increasingly Mexico will focus on its own southern border with Guatemala, as it becomes more
of a destination country rather than simply a transit country, as detailed here:
Immigration across the U.S.-Mexican border is driven by Central American refugees fleeing
gross instability, crime and violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala; not by Mexicans.
The U.S. played a deep long-term role in creating the mess that Central America is today.
Yes. It is a pernicious cycle with something like these dimensions. . .
U.S. creates instability (war, coup) in a region.
The ensuing instability creates a class of desperate folks, who then seek bodily, economic,
and political safety within the borders of the empire. This leads to a class of desperate workers,
often undocumented and constantly at risk of deportation, willing to work for far less compensation
than the native population.
Native population sees the contours of its society change with the influx along with a
lessening in quality of living standards, which leads to dangerous, xenophobic mental associations.
Xenophobic politics begin to take root and thrive.
The real solution is for our country to stop doing step 1.
Poorer countries suffer brain drain. They do receive large amount of remittances, but an
economy which sends its best and the brightest to benefit the industrial countries and receives
industrial products in exchange does not seem like it can develop very easily.
Its clear that the emigree benefits, and the receiving country receives a subsidy in the form
of valuable human capital. But how does the originating country develop? Invest in education and
the best leave. Invest in industry and you compete with the products of the developed countries.
And of course, the rich in unstable countries have little reason to care about the long term
consequences of their actions if they can take their loot and run. There is a reason so many rich
Chinese are emigrating.
David Harvey once told a story about how he warned investment bankers that if things keep getting
worse, the US could end up a failed state like Mexico. In typical Wall Street fashion they asked
Harvey if they should buy villas in France.
I think this is the first article I have EVER read that even supposes there might be negative
ECONOMIC effects of immigration.
I would note that if there ever was a jobs program with the explicit goal of reducing unemployment
to 4% (and not pretending the people who have dropped out don't want a job because they CAN'T
get a job) and providing a job to any and all applicants – well, I think the immigration from
South America that has slowed would amp right up again – of course.
You know, I have been reading some of the Davos Man class going on and on about how they didn't
really do enough to ameliorate the negative effects of "free" trade on those who don't benefit
from trade. But NAFTA is going on a quarter of a century – and in every subsequent trade deal
such promises are either never kept or never effectively implemented.
I suspect that to REALLY provide jobs of equal pay and equal benefits is not economically feasible.
Think of it this way – people who worked as landscapers, when displaced by immigrants, may not
have the aptitude, skills, or even desire to change careers – if you work outside, why in the
hell do you want to have to start working indoors???
Go to college and become a computer programmer .H1b .
What are you gonna do keep these people employed – have the same lawn mowed twice every week?
Have the same computer code written twice?????
Again, the whole scenario has struck me as not being ever critically thought through. The benefits
to consumers getting low prices are endlessly pointed out, but the negative effect of fewer jobs
at low pay are glossed over or NOT ACKNOWLEDGED. The whole deal is that less income to workers
and more income to capital – is it REALLY unforseeable that eventually there will be a demand
dearth?? Decades of experience of jobs shipped overseas and not replaced are not acknowledged.
Ever growing inequality. We have been sold a load of bullsh*t because it benefited a very, very
narrow slice at the top only.
Go to college and become a computer programmer .H1b .
Over 100K H-1B Visas issued so far for 2016 alone, over 10% of those were issued in my state
of Massachusetts. The Mathworks Inc. of Natick was given a $3 million dollar state tax subsidy
in return for "creating" 600 new jobs – they created jobs alright, 386 H-1B jobs so far, Americans
need not apply.
The HB-1 Indian workers that have flooded Boston's labor market seem to fit this part because
they get on and off Public transportation enmass at stops with clusters of rental buildings --
"5c. Immigrants who don't expect to stay can have less reason to integrate culturally and economically;
any real estate investor can tell you that all else being equal, a neighborhood made up largely
of homeowners is almost always nicer than a neighborhood made up largely of renters."
As a lifelong blue collar worker for nearly 40 years, I found my ability to remain employed
competing against a never-ending influx of 22 year old immigrants to be a sinking, and finally
sunk quagmire. I lost. I cannot be 22 forever.
Coming up in the 1970's many of my acquaintances and I were skilled laborers, we got up in
the morning and went out everyday to work hard for a living. None of us would even be considered
for any of those entry level positions any more. They all go to immigrants from somewhere else
or another. As a native born white American you don't even get a chance at those jobs anymore,
no employer would even bother talking to you.
The US has all but done away with apprenticeship programs for the skilled trades. We just bring
in exploitable people from all over the world to build our stuff, and then when we're done with
them, they go back to where they came from. I know this is true because I've asked them, I've
worked with them – they have no intention of staying in America longer than it takes to educate
their kids, build up a nest egg, and go back home. A lot of them don't really like it here.
But we Americans don't have those options. We can't go to Guatemala or Germany or the Philippines
to work for 10 or 20 years to return to America with saved money on which we can survive for the
rest of a lifetime.
This deal is a one-way street.
As an American, I challenge you to get a job abroad. I challenge you to get a foreign residency
visa or a work visa. I challenge you to do any of the things that immigrants do in our country.
You can't.
I'm not anti-immigrant. I'm pro- our people first. Us first, and then when we need other folks
they're welcome too. But that's not what has been happening in my work lifetime of the last 40
years.
Here's a somewhat interesting backgrounder on American immigration. The author's premise
is that US immigration policies were always about race (white Europeans welcome to stay, brown
Mexicans welcome to do manual labor and leave) but this is undoubtedly a simplification as the
discrimination in favor of high skills–talked about in the above post–undoubtedly a factor.
For example most other countries do not offer citizenship unless you have something valuable
to offer them. An acquaintance who thought about becoming Canadian found this out.
In any case the below author does talk about how the notion of "illegal" immigrants is a more
recent phenomenon and in earlier periods Mexicans were freely allowed to come across and work.
I think it's also useful to consider private prison labor. This article notes that half this
revenue comes from undocumented immigrants but that means the other half comes from US citizens.
private prisons
""Private prisons bring in about $3 billion in revenue annually, and over half of that comes
from holding facilities for undocumented immigrants. Private operations run between 50% to 55%
of immigrant detainment facilities. The immigration bill battling its way through Washington right
now might also mean good things for private prisons. Some estimate that the crackdown on undocumented
immigrants will lead to 14,000 more inmates annually with 80% of that business going to private
prisons.
The prison industry has also made money by contracting prison labor to private companies. The
companies that have benefited from this cheap labor include Starbucks (SBUX), Boeing (BA), Victoria's
Secret, McDonalds (MCD) and even the U.S. military. Prison laborers cost between 93 cents and
$4 a day and don't need to collect benefits, thus making them cheap employees.""
It is dangerous for Trump to demonize undocumented immigrants without holding the corporations
that attracted and hired them responsible and the system that allowed it.
Now that they are here and have settled with families, it is deplorable to speak of mass deportation.
As has been noted with the Walmart expample, those that massively profit from this abberation
should bear the major cost of public services required for a 'Shadow Workforce'.
And Hillary Clinton and her neocon crowd, whose policies have created chaos resulting in mass
immigration of refugees offers no apology but more of the same. Insanity doing the same thing
over and over for a different result?
I would argue that migration has both positive and negative impact on the receiving country.
But at some point I believe the 'self' is selfish and not necessarily selfless. In a world of
limited resources and opportunities it is normal for the 'self' to be highly selfish hence the
contradictory nature of the theory of free market economy under globalization.
I argue that the theory is self contradictory because it is normal human nature being selfish
hence anti competition. When threatened by the influx of seemingly hard working, creative and
passive immigrants, I tend to gravitate towards conservatism. I start taking necessary steps towards
protecting myself, my immediate family and hence my domestic market. These rules are typically
borrowed from nature. How to balance the impulsive theory of free market economics vs the reality
of limited resources and opportunities is a unique challenge to governments, policy and decision
makers worldwide hence globalization in the short run presents unique challenges (conflicts) sometimes.
Johnson supports private, for-profit prisons. As Governor of New Mexico he dealt with overcrowded
prisons (and approximately seven hundred prisoners held out-of-state due to a lack of available
space) by opening two private prisons, later arguing that "building two private prisons in
New Mexico solved some very serious problems – and saved the taxpayers a lot of money."
He could have saved the taxpayers even more money by releasing non-violent prisoners convicted
of minor crimes. But that would have offended some of his campaign donors.
Bernie's goal is to ban private prisons. Hillary has a similar goal, but takes money from
prison lobbyists. Does this make sense to you?
According to Lee Fang of The Intercept, Private Prison Lobbyists Are Raising Cash for Hillary
Clinton.
After pressure from civil rights groups, Vice News explains Hillary Clinton Shuns Private
Prison Cash, Activists Want Others to Follow Suit.
The Huffington Post writes "Lobbying firms that work for two major private prison giants,
GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America, gave $133,246 to the Ready for Hillary PAC,
according to Vice."
Do you trust Clinton?
I guess this means that we should vote for Sanders in the primary. Oh gosh, there's a minor
problem. The primaries are over, and Clinton is the nominee.
"I do think we can do a lot of privatizations, and private prisons it seems to work a lot
better," said Trump when asked how he planned to reform the country's prison system.
For more research on the topic – I found the following very readable, gave me a lot of insight
into the factors influencing whether or when immigration is good or bad from which point of view:
So the UK National Health system nurtured me through my early years, and the UK education
system gave me primary, secondary and degree level education. I have spent most of my working
life doing an R&D job in the US. The US has benefited from my work during my working life. If
I should choose to retire back to the UK, I will remit my pension income back there, and because
of the tax treaty, pay income taxes there, which I claim as a full credit against the US tax return.
So I'm "taking money out of the US, to the detriment of social cohesion and economic growth".
Question is, how much of the pension and/or social security and/or investment gains do I owe
to the US, and how much to the UK? I think I owe more there than I do here. Particularly in light
of the fact that the UK paid for my college education, but my nephews and nieces have to pay for
their own, so I have hitherto been a drain on the UKs social investment strategy.
I see it as much a moral question as an economic one that I should help support my family's
education directly, and the UK social system through future taxes paid from pension. I have after
all supported the US social and military-industrial systems through work done and taxes paid during
my working life.
1. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for welfare they can barely get emergency room
care.
2. H1-B visas tap larger, typically Asian populations than the U.S. for their best & brightest.
Could India actually make use of its intelligent people? Is it moral for the U.S. to, in effect,
bribe them to leave their native country? (A point made by Ralph Nader in answering a libertarian
at his Google talk )
3. Roughly 50% of the undocumented are from Asia. Yet 90% of the deportations are Hispanic.
Got a link on this? My experience is that the Asian population is either native or here
on student visas. The chinese student population is quite large in Los Angeles. Student visas
don't allow foreign students to work off-campus, so many of them are family-funded. So they're
not taking jobs, but do impact the housing/rental market. (The California colleges love them for
their out-of-state fees and strong study habits.)
I can only speak for Texas, but the nail salons, massage parlors, dry cleaners, restaurants,
fishing boats and electronics refurbishing can't ALL be H1-B visas. And that isn't even counting
all the people from India I see. Most of them are too old to be students.
Trump's statement that he will issue an executive order forcing employers to use E-Verify for
all new employees is a good start. While that program has a few flaws, the net effect would be
massive for favoring citizens over illegals.
To be fair, employers should still have the option of using illegals, however, they should
put their money where their mouths and labor savings are, by not being able to deduct the non
E-Verifiable wages from their income for taxation purposes.
"... traditional ways of life are dissolving as a new class of entrepreneur-warriors are wielding unprecedented power - and changing the global landscape. ..."
"... It's a huge psychological dent in people's faith in the system. I think what's going to happen in the next few years is huge unemployment in the middle class in America because a lot of their jobs will be outsourced or automated. ..."
Novelist Rana Dasgupta recently turned to nonfiction to explore the explosive
social and economic changes in Delhi starting in 1991, when India launched a
series of transformative economic reforms. In
Capital: The Eruption of Delhi, he describes a city where the epic hopes
of globalization have dimmed in the face of a sterner, more elitist world. In
Part 1 of an interview with the
Institute for New Economic
Thinking, Dasgupta traces a turbulent time in which traditional ways
of life are dissolving as a new class of entrepreneur-warriors are wielding
unprecedented power - and changing the global landscape.
Lynn Parramore: Why did you decide to move from New York to Delhi
in 2000, and then to write a book about the city?
Rana Dasgupta: I moved to be with my partner who lived in Delhi, and soon
realized it was a great place to have landed. I was trying write a novel and
there were a lot of people doing creative things. There was a fascinating intellectual
climate, all linked to changes in society and the economy. It was 10 years since
liberalization and a lot of the impact of that was just being felt and widely
sensed.
There was a sense of opportunity, not any more just on the part of business
people, but everyone. People felt that things were really going to change in
a deep way - in every part of the political spectrum and every class of society.
Products and technology spread, affecting even very poor people. Coke made ads
about the rickshaw drivers with their mobile phones -people who had never had
access to a landline. A lot of people sensed a new possibility for their own
lives.
Amongst the artists and intellectuals that I found myself with, there were
very big hopes for what kind of society Delhi could become and they were very
interested in being part of creating that. They were setting up institutions,
publications, publishing houses, and businesses. They were thinking new ideas.
When I arrived, I felt, this is where stuff is happening. The scale of conversations,
the philosophy of change was just amazing.
LP: You've interviewed many of the young tycoons who emerged during
Delhi's transformation. How would you describe this new figure? How do they
do business?
RD: Many of their fathers and grandfathers had run significant provincial
businesses. They were frugal in their habits and didn't like to advertise themselves,
and anyway their wealth remained local both in its magnitude and its reach.
They had business and political associates that they drank with and whose weddings
they went to, and so it was a tight-knit kind of wealth.
But the sons, who would probably be now between 35 and 45, had an entirely
different experience. Their adult life happened after globalization. Because
their fathers often didn't have the skills or qualifications to tap into the
forces of globalization, the sons were sent abroad, probably to do an MBA, so
they could walk into a meeting with a management consultancy firm or a bank
and give a presentation. When they came back they operated not from the local
hubs where their fathers ruled but from Delhi, where they could plug into federal
politics and global capital.
So you have these very powerful combinations of father/son businesses. The
sons revere the fathers, these muscular, huge masculine figures who have often
done much more risky and difficult work building their businesses and have cultivated
relationships across the political spectrum. They are very savvy, charismatic
people. They know who to give gifts to, how to do favors.
The sons often don't have that set of skills, but they have corporate skills.
They can talk finance in a kind of international language. Neither skill set
is enough on its own by early 2000's: they need each other. And what's interesting
about this package is that it's very powerful elsewhere, too. It's kind of a
world-beating combination. The son fits into an American style world of business
and finance, but the thing about American-style business is that there are lots
of things in the world that are closed to it. It's very difficult for an American
real estate company or food company to go to the president of an African country
and do a deal. They don't have the skills for it. But even if they did, they
are legally prevented from all the kinds of practices involved, the bribes and
everything.
This Indian business combination can go into places like Africa and Central
Asia and do all the things required. If they need to go to market and raise
money, they can do that. But if they need to sit around and drink with some
government guys and figure out who are the players that need to be kept happy,
they can do that, too. They see a lot of the world open to themselves.
LP: How do these figures compare to American tycoons during, say,
the Gilded Age?
RD: When American observers see these people they think, well, we had these
guys between 1890 and 1920, but then they all kind of went under because there
was a massive escalation of state power and state wealth and basically the state
declared a kind of protracted war on them.
Americans think this is a stage of development that will pass. But I think
it's not going to pass in our case. The Indian state is never going to have
the same power over private interests as the U.S. state because lots of things
have to happen. The Depression and the Second World War were very important
in creating a U.S. state that was that powerful and a rationale for defeating
these private interests. I think those private interests saw much more benefit
in consenting to, collaborating in, and producing a stronger U.S. state.
Over time, American business allied itself with the government, which did
a lot to open up other markets for it. In India, I think these private interests
will not for many years see a benefit in operating differently, precisely because
continents like Africa, with their particular set of attributes, have such a
bright future. It's not just about what India's like, but what other places
are like, and how there aren't that many people in the world that can do what
they can do.
LP: What has been lost and gained in a place like Delhi under global
capitalism?
RD: Undeniably there has been immense material gain in the city since 1991,
including the very poorest people, who are richer and have more access to information.
What my book tracks is a kind of spiritual and moral crisis that affects rich
and poor alike.
One kind of malaise is political and economic. Even though the poorest are
richer, they have less political influence. In a socialist system, everything
is done in the name of the poor, for good or for bad, and the poor occupy center
stage in political discourse. But since 1991 the poor have become much less
prominent in political and economic ideology. As the proportion of wealth held
by the richest few families of India has grown massively larger, the situation
is very much like the break-up of the Soviet Union, which leads to a much more
hierarchical economy where people closest to power have the best information,
contacts, and access to capital. They can just expand massively.
Suddenly there's a state infrastructure that's been built for 70 years or
60 years which is transferred to the private domain and that is hugely valuable.
People gain access to telecommunication systems, mines, land, and forests for
almost nothing. So ordinary people say, yes, we are richer, and we have all
these products and things, but those making the decisions about our society
are not elected and hugely wealthy.
Imagine the upper-middle-class guy who has been to Harvard, works for a management
consultancy firm or for an ad agency, and enjoys a kind of international-style
middle-class life. He thinks he deserves to make decisions about how the country
is run and how resources are used. He feels himself to be a significant figure
in his society. Then he realizes that he's not. There's another, infinitely
wealthier class of people who are involved in all kinds of backroom deals that
dramatically alter the landscape of his life. New private highways and new private
townships are being built all around him. They're sucking the water out of the
ground. There's a very rapid and seemingly reckless transformation of the landscape
that's being wrought and he has no part in it.
If he did have a say, he might ask, is this really the way that we want this
landscape to look? Isn't there enormous ecological damage? Have we not just
kicked 10,000 farmers off their land?
All these conversations that democracies have are not being had. People think,
this exactly what the socialists told us that capitalism was - it's pillage
and it creates a very wealthy elite exploiting the poor majority. To some extent,
I think that explains a lot of why capitalism is so turbulent in places like
India and China. No one ever expected capitalism to be tranquil. They had been
told for the better part of a century that capitalism was the imperialist curse.
So when it comes, and it's very violent, and everyone thinks, well that's what
we expected. One of the reasons that it still has a lot of ideological consensus
is that people are prepared for that. They go into it as an act of war, not
as an act of peace, and all they know is that the rewards for the people at
the top are very high, so you'd better be on the top.
The other kind of malaise is one of culture. Basically, America and Britain
invented capitalism and they also invented the philosophical and cultural furniture
to make it acceptable. Places where capitalism is going in anew do not have
200 years of cultural readiness. It's just a huge shock. Of course, Indians
are prepared for some aspects of it because many of them are trading communities
and they understand money and deals. But a lot of those trading communities
are actually incredibly conservative about culture - about what kind of lifestyle
their daughters will have, what kinds of careers their sons will have. They
don't think that their son goes to Brown to become a professor of literature,
but to come back and run the family business.
LP: What is changing between men and women?
RD: A lot of the fallout is about families. Will women work? If so, will
they still cook and be the kind of wife they're supposed to be? Will they be
out on the street with their boyfriends dressed in Western clothes and going
to movies and clearly advertising the fact that they are economically independent,
sexually independent, socially independent? How will we deal with the backlash
of violent crimes that have everything to do with all these changes?
This capitalist system has produced a new figure, which is the economically
successful and independent middle-class woman. She's extremely globalized in
the sense of what she should be able to do in her life. It's also created a
set of lower-middle-class men who had a much greater sense of stability both
in their gender and professional situation 30 years ago, when they could rely
on a family member or fellow caste member to keep them employed even if they
didn't have any marketable attributes. They had a wife who made sure that the
culture of the family was intact - religion, cuisine, that kind of stuff.
Thirty years later, those guys are not going to get jobs because that whole
caste value thing has no place in the very fast-moving market economy. Without
a high school diploma, they just have nothing to offer. Those guys in the streets
are thinking, I don't have a claim on the economy, or on women anymore because
I can't earn anything. Women across the middle classes - and it's not just across
India, it's across Asia -are trying to opt out of marriage for as long as they
can because they see only a downside. Remaining single allows all kinds of benefits
– social, romantic, professional. So those guys are pretty bitter and there's
a backlash that can become quite violent. We also have an upswing of Hindu fundamentalism
as a way of trying to preserve things. It's very appealing to people who think
society is falling apart.
LP: You've described India's experience of global capitalism as traumatic.
How is the trauma distinct in Delhi, and in what ways is it universal?
RD: Delhi suffers specifically from the trauma of Partition, which has created
a distinct society. When India became independent, it was divided into India
and Pakistan. Pakistan was essentially a Muslim state, and Hindis and Sikhs
left. The border was about 400 kilometers from Delhi, which was a tiny, empty
city, a British administrative town. Most of those Hindis and Sikhs settled
in Delhi where they were allocated housing as refugees. Muslims went in the
other direction to Pakistan, and as we know, something between 1 and 2 million
were killed in that event.
The people who arrived in Delhi arrived traumatized, having lost their businesses,
properties, friends, and communities, and having seen their family members murdered,
raped and abducted. Like the Jewish Holocaust, everyone can tell the stories
and everyone has experienced loss. When they all arrive in Delhi, they have
a fairly homogeneous reaction: they're never going to let this happen to them
again. They become fiercely concerned with security, physical and financial.
They're not interested in having nice neighbors and the lighter things of life.
They say, it was our neighbors that killed us, so we're going to trust only
our blood and run businesses with our brother and our sons. We're going to build
high walls around our houses.
When the grandchildren of these people grow up, it's a problem because none
of this has been exorcised. The families have not talked about it. The state
has not dealt with it and wants to remember only that India became independent
and that was a glorious moment. So the catastrophe actually becomes focused
within families rather than the reverse. A lot of grandchildren are more fearful
and hateful of Muslims than the grandparents, who remembered a time before when
they actually had very deep friendships with Muslims.
Parents of my generation grew up with immense silence in their households
and they knew that in that silence was Islam - a terrifying thing. When you're
one year old, you don't even know yet what Islam is, you just know that it's
something which is the greatest horror in the universe.
The Punjabi businessman is a very distinct species. They have treated business
as warfare, and they are still doing it like that 70 years later and they are
very good at it. They enter the global economy at a time when it's becoming
much less civilized as well. In many cases they succeed not because they have
a good idea, but because they know how to seize global assets and resources.
Punjabi businessmen are not inventing Facebook. They are about mines and oil
and water and food -things that everyone understands and needs.
In this moment of globalization, the world will have to realize that events
like the Partition of India are not local history anymore but global history.
Especially in this moment when the West no longer controls the whole system,
these traumas explode onto the world and affect all of us, like the Holocaust.
They introduce levels of turbulence into businesses and practices that we didn't
expect necessarily.
Then there's the trauma of capitalism itself, and here I think it's important
for us to re-remember the West's own history. Capitalism achieved a level of
consensus in the second half of the 20th century very accidentally, and by a
number of enormous forces, not all of which were intended. There's no guarantee
that such consensus will be achieved everywhere in the emerging world. India
and China don't have an empire to ship people off to as a safety valve when
suffering become immense. They just have to absorb all that stuff.
For a century or so, people in power in Paris and London and Washington felt
that they had to save the capitalist system from socialist revolution, so they
gave enormous concessions to their populations. Very quickly, people in the
West forgot that there was that level of dissent. They thought that everyone
loved capitalism. I think as we come into the next period where the kind of
consensus has already been dealt a huge blow in the West, we're going to have
to deal with some of those forces again.
LP: When you say that the consensus on capitalism has been dealt
a blow, are you talking about the financial crisis?
RD: Yes, the sense that the nation-state - I'm talking about the U.S. context
- can no longer control global capital, global processes, or, indeed, it's own
financial elite.
It's a huge psychological dent in people's faith in the system. I think
what's going to happen in the next few years is huge unemployment in the middle
class in America because a lot of their jobs will be outsourced or automated.
Then, if you have 30-40 percent unemployment in America, which has always
been the ideological leader in capitalism, America will start to re-theorize
capitalism very profoundly (and maybe the Institute of New Economic Thinking
is part of that). Meanwhile, I think the middle class in India would not have
these kinds of problems. It's precisely because American technology and finance
are so advanced that they're going to hit a lot of those problems. I think in
places like India there's so much work to be done that no one needs to leap
to the next stage of making the middle class obsolete. They're still useful.
Lynn Parramore is contributing editor at AlterNet. She is cofounder of Recessionwire,
founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of "Reading the Sphinx: Ancient
Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture." She received her Ph.D. in English
and cultural theory from NYU. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.
This set of principles in the core of "Trump_vs_deep_state" probably can be
improved, but still are interesting: "... If you listen closely to Trump, you'll hear a direct repudiation of the
system of globalization and identity politics that has defined the world order since
the Cold War. There are, in fact, six specific ideas that he has either blurted
out or thinly buried in his rhetoric: (1) borders matter; (2) immigration policy
matters; (3) national interests, not so-called universal interests, matter; (4)
entrepreneurship matters; (5) decentralization matters; (6) PC speech-without which
identity politics is inconceivable-must be repudiated. ..."
Notable quotes:
"... If you listen closely to Trump, you'll hear a direct repudiation of the system of globalization and identity politics that has defined the world order since the Cold War. There are, in fact, six specific ideas that he has either blurted out or thinly buried in his rhetoric: (1) borders matter; (2) immigration policy matters; (3) national interests, not so-called universal interests, matter; (4) entrepreneurship matters; (5) decentralization matters; (6) PC speech-without which identity politics is inconceivable-must be repudiated. ..."
"... These six ideas together point to an end to the unstable experiment with supra- and sub-national sovereignty that many of our elites have guided us toward, siren-like, since 1989. ..."
"... if anti-Trumpers convince themselves that that's all ..."
"... What is going on is that "globalization-and-identity-politics-speak" is being boldly challenged. Inside the Beltway, along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, there is scarcely any evidence of this challenge. There are people in those places who will vote for Trump, but they dare not say it, for fear of ostracism. ..."
"... Out beyond this hermetically sealed bicoastal consensus, there are Trump placards everywhere, not because citizens are racists or homophobes or some other vermin that needs to be eradicated, but because there is little evidence in their own lives that this vast post-1989 experiment with "globalization" and identity politics has done them much good. ..."
"... The most highly motivated voters in this election cycle seem to be insurgents pushing back against corrupt and incompetent elites and the Establishment. That does not bode well for Clinton. ..."
"... Another page in the annals of American elite incompetence, only five days after the ceasefire in Syria was negotiated, we broke it by bombing a well-known Syrian position. After Russia took us to the woodshed, Samantha Power responds by basically saying, "We messed up, but Russia is a moralistic hypocrite because they support Assad and he is, like, really bad and stuff." ..."
"... They seem to think that any attempt to stop mass 3rd world immigration, stop pc thought police, or up hold Christian-ish values are a direct threat to them. ..."
"... The enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders and Trump can only be understood as an overdue awakening of voters--finally recognizing that voting for more of the same tools of the plutocrats and oligarchs (which was represented by all candidates other than Trump and Sanders) will only serve the war profiteers, neocons, and other beltway bandits--at the expense of every other voter. ..."
"... Once the voters have awakened, they will not return to slumber or accept the establishment politics as usual. It is going to be a very interesting process to watch, and the political operatives who think we will return to the same old GOP and Democratic politics as usual should brace themselves for a rude awakening. ..."
"... Trump vs. Clinton = Nationalism vs. Globalism ..."
If you listen closely to Trump, you'll hear a direct repudiation
of the system of globalization and identity politics that has defined the
world order since the Cold War. There are, in fact, six specific ideas that
he has either blurted out or thinly buried in his rhetoric: (1) borders
matter; (2) immigration policy matters; (3) national interests, not so-called
universal interests, matter; (4) entrepreneurship matters; (5) decentralization
matters; (6) PC speech-without which identity politics is inconceivable-must
be repudiated.
These six ideas together point to an end to the unstable experiment
with supra- and sub-national sovereignty that many of our elites have guided
us toward, siren-like, since 1989.
That is what the Trump campaign, ghastly though it may at times be, leads
us toward: A future where states matter. A future where people are citizens,
working together toward (bourgeois) improvement of their lot. His ideas
do not yet fully cohere. They are a bit too much like mental dust that has
yet to come together. But they can come together. And Trump is the first
American candidate to bring some coherence to them, however raucous his
formulations have been.
Mitchell goes on to say that political elites call Trump "unprincipled,"
and perhaps they're right: that he only does what's good for Trump. On the other
hand, maybe Trump's principles are not ideological, but pragmatic. That is,
Trump might be a quintessential American political type: the leader who gets
into a situation and figures out how to muddle through. Or, as Mitchell puts
it:
This doesn't necessarily mean that he is unprincipled; it means rather
that he doesn't believe that yet another policy paper based on conservative
"principles" is going to save either America or the Republican Party.
Also, Mitchell says that there are no doubt voters in the Trump coalition
who are nothing but angry, provincial bigots. But if anti-Trumpers convince
themselves that that's all the Trump voters are, they will miss something
profoundly important about how Western politics are changing because of deep
instincts emerging from within the body politic:
What is going on is that "globalization-and-identity-politics-speak"
is being boldly challenged. Inside the Beltway, along the Atlantic
and Pacific coasts, there is scarcely any evidence of this challenge. There
are people in those places who will vote for Trump, but they dare not say
it, for fear of ostracism.
They think that identity politics has gone too
far, or that if it hasn't yet gone too far, there is no principled place
where it must stop. They believe that the state can't be our only large-scale
political unit, but they see that on the post-1989 model, there will, finally,
be no place for the state.
Out beyond this hermetically sealed bicoastal consensus, there are Trump
placards everywhere, not because citizens are racists or homophobes or some
other vermin that needs to be eradicated, but because there is little evidence
in their own lives that this vast post-1989 experiment with "globalization"
and identity politics has done them much good.
There's lots more here, including his prediction of what's going to happen
to the GOP.
Read the whole thing.
The most highly motivated voters in this election cycle seem to be
insurgents pushing back against corrupt and incompetent elites and the
Establishment. That does not bode well for Clinton.
Another page in the annals of American elite incompetence, only five
days after the ceasefire in Syria was negotiated, we broke it by
bombing a well-known Syrian position. After Russia took us to the woodshed,
Samantha Power responds by basically saying, "We messed up, but Russia is
a moralistic hypocrite because they support Assad and he is, like, really
bad and stuff."
Which not only makes it seem more likely that we were targeting
Assad's forces to anyone reasonably distrustful of American involvement
in the war, but also shows the moral reasoning ability of nothing greater
than a 6 year old.
Seriously, accusing Russia of moralism, and then moralistically trying
to hide responsibility by listing atrocities committed by Assad? It is self-parody.
Call it anti-Semitic if you want but all my Jewish cousins and the several
other Jewish business associates I know feel uncontrollable hate for Trump.
"thinly buried in his rhetoric:
borders matter;
immigration policy matters;
national interests, not so-called universal interests, matter;
entrepreneurship matters;
decentralization matters;
PC speech-without which identity politics is inconceivable-must
be repudiated."
They seem to think that any attempt to stop mass 3rd world immigration,
stop pc thought police, or up hold Christian-ish values are a direct threat
to them.
I cannot speak to what is best for conservative Christians, but change is
definitely in the air. Since the start of this election, I have had a clear
sense that we are seeing a beginning of a new political reality.
The enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders and Trump can only be understood
as an overdue awakening of voters--finally recognizing that voting for more
of the same tools of the plutocrats and oligarchs (which was represented
by all candidates other than Trump and Sanders) will only serve the war
profiteers, neocons, and other beltway bandits--at the expense of every
other voter.
Too many voters have finally come to recognize that neither party serves
them in any real way. This will forcibly result in a serious reform process
of one or both parties, a third party that actually represents working people,
or if neither reform or a new party is viable-–a new American revolution,
which I fear greatly.
Once the voters have awakened, they will not return to slumber or
accept the establishment politics as usual. It is going to be a very interesting
process to watch, and the political operatives who think we will return
to the same old GOP and Democratic politics as usual should brace themselves
for a rude awakening.
I'm certainly not
the first to say this, but perhaps the first to post it on this blog. RD,
perhaps rightfully, has steered this post toward the Benedict Option, but
what should be debated is the repudiation of globalization and identity
politics.
"Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will and
deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases
have to be changed."
Uh Oh -- We Christians are in Hillary Clinton's Basket of Deplorables.
"... Moscow did indeed support secessionist pro-Russia rebels in East Ukraine. But did not the U.S. launch a 78-day bombing campaign on tiny Serbia to effect a secession of its cradle province of Kosovo? ..."
"... Russia is reportedly hacking into our political institutions. If so, it ought to stop. But have not our own CIA, National Endowment for Democracy, and NGOs meddled in Russia's internal affairs for years? ..."
"... Scores of the world's 190-odd nations are today ruled by autocrats. How does it advance our interests or diplomacy to have congressional leaders yapping "thug" at the ruler of a nation with hundreds of nuclear warheads? ..."
"... Very good article indeed. Knee-jerk reaction of american politicians and journalists looks extremely strange. As a matter of fact they look like idiots or puppets. ..."
"... Rubio and Graham are reflexively ready to push US influence everywhere, all the time, with military force always on the agenda, and McCain seems to be in a state of constant agitation ..."
"... Very sensible article. And as the EU falls further into disarray and possible disintegration, due to migration and other catastrophically mishandled problems, a working partnership with Russia will become even more important. Right now, we treat Russia as an enemy and Saudi Arabia as a friend. That makes no sense at all. ..."
"... As I've stated many times, Obama the narcissist hates Putin because Putin doesn't play the sycophantic lapdog yapping about how good it is to interact with the "smartest person in the room". ..."
"... I'm serious. Obama craves sources of narcissistic supply and has visceral contempt for sources of narcissistic injury. I.e., people who may reveal the mediocrity that he actually is. Obama considers Putin a threat in that context. ..."
"... The downside for the U.S. is that Obama has extended hating Putin to hating Russia. And yes, Washington is flooded with sources of sycophantic narcissistic supply for Obama including the MSM. And they are happy to massage his twisted ego by enthusiastically playing along with the Putin/Russia fear-monger bashing. ..."
"... P.S. too bad Hillary is saturated with her own psychopathology that portends more Global Cop wreckage. ..."
"... Anyway, what Buchanan is saying is, "We have to deal with him," not "favor him." The two terms should not be confused. ..."
"... There are a lot of "allies" of questionable usefulness that the US should stop "favoring," and a lot of competitors (and potential allies in the true sense) out there the US should begin "dealing" with. ..."
"... Everything the Western elite does is about dollar hegemony and control of energy. ..."
"... As long as Russia is not a puppet of the globalist banking cartel they will be presented as an "enemy". Standing in the way of energy imperialism was the last straw for the all out hybrid war being launched on Russia now. ..."
"... If the Western public wasn't so lazy and stupid we would remove the globalists controlling us. Instead people, especially liberals, get in bed with the globalists plans against Russia bc they can't stand Russia is Christian and supports the family. ..."
"... Every word about Russia allowed in the Western establishment are lies funded and molded by people like Soros and warmongers. This is the reality. Nobody who will speak honestly or positively about Russia is allowed any voice. And scumbag neoliberal globalists like Kasperov are presented as "Russians" while real Russian people are given zero voice. ..."
"... What the Western elite is doing right now in Ukraine and Syria is reprehensible and its all our fault for letting these people control us. ..."
...Arriving on Capitol Hill to repair ties between Trump and party elites,
Gov. Mike Pence was taken straight to the woodshed.
John McCain told Pence that Putin was a "thug and a butcher," and Trump's
embrace of him intolerable.
Said Lindsey Graham: "Vladimir Putin is a thug, a dictator … who has
his opposition killed in the streets," and Trump's views bring to mind Munich.
Putin is an "authoritarian thug," added "Little Marco" Rubio.
What causes the Republican Party to lose it whenever the name of Vladimir
Putin is raised?
Putin is no Stalin, whom FDR and Harry Truman called "Good old Joe" and "Uncle
Joe." Unlike Nikita Khrushchev, he never drowned a Hungarian Revolution in blood.
He did crush the Chechen secession. But what did he do there that General Sherman
did not do to Atlanta when Georgia seceded from Mr. Lincoln's Union?
Putin supported the U.S. in Afghanistan, backed our nuclear deal with Iran,
and signed on to John Kerry's plan have us ensure a cease fire in Syria and
go hunting together for ISIS and al-Qaida terrorists.
Still, Putin committed "aggression" in Ukraine, we are told. But was that
really aggression, or reflexive strategic reaction? We helped dump over a pro-Putin
democratically elected regime in Kiev, and Putin acted to secure his Black Sea
naval base by re-annexing Crimea, a peninsula that has belonged to Russia from
Catherine the Great to Khrushchev. Great powers do such things.
When the Castros pulled Cuba out of America's orbit, we decided to keep Guantanamo,
and dismiss Havana's protests?
Moscow did indeed support secessionist pro-Russia rebels in East Ukraine.
But did not the U.S. launch a 78-day bombing campaign on tiny Serbia to effect
a secession of its cradle province of Kosovo?
... ... ...
Russia is reportedly hacking into our political institutions. If so,
it ought to stop. But have not our own CIA, National Endowment for Democracy,
and NGOs meddled in Russia's internal affairs for years?
... ... ...
Is Putin's Russia more repressive than Xi Jinping's China? Yet, Republicans
rarely use "thug" when speaking about Xi. During the Cold War, we partnered
with such autocrats as the Shah of Iran and General Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand
Marcos in Manila, and Park Chung-Hee of South Korea. Cold War necessity required
it.
Scores of the world's 190-odd nations are today ruled by autocrats. How
does it advance our interests or diplomacy to have congressional leaders yapping
"thug" at the ruler of a nation with hundreds of nuclear warheads?
>>During the Cold War, we partnered with such autocrats as the Shah
of Iran and General Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, and Park
Chung-Hee of South Korea
buttressed could be even more pertinent)
Very good article indeed. Knee-jerk reaction of american politicians
and journalists looks extremely strange. As a matter of fact they look like
idiots or puppets.
Rubio
and Graham are reflexively ready to push US influence everywhere, all the
time, with military force always on the agenda, and McCain seems to be in
a state of constant agitation whenever US forces are not actively engaged
in combat somewhere. They are loud voices, yes, but irrational voices, too.
Very sensible article. And as the EU falls further into disarray
and possible disintegration, due to migration and other catastrophically
mishandled problems, a working partnership with Russia will become even
more important. Right now, we treat Russia as an enemy and Saudi Arabia
as a friend. That makes no sense at all.
"Just" states the starvation of the Ukraine is a western lie. The Harvest
of Sorrow by Robert Conquest refutes this dangerous falsehood. Perhaps "Just"
believes The Great Leap Forward did not lead to starvation of tens of millions
in China. After all, this could be another "western lie". So to could be
the Armenian genocide in Turkey or slaughter of Communists in Indonesia.
As I've stated many times, Obama the narcissist hates Putin because
Putin doesn't play the sycophantic lapdog yapping about how good it is to
interact with the "smartest person in the room".
I'm serious. Obama craves sources of narcissistic supply and has
visceral contempt for sources of narcissistic injury. I.e., people who may
reveal the mediocrity that he actually is. Obama considers Putin a threat
in that context.
The downside for the U.S. is that Obama has extended hating Putin
to hating Russia. And yes, Washington is flooded with sources of sycophantic
narcissistic supply for Obama including the MSM. And they are happy to massage
his twisted ego by enthusiastically playing along with the Putin/Russia
fear-monger bashing.
And so the U.S. – Russia relationship is wrecked by the "smartest person
in the room".
P.S. too bad Hillary is saturated with her own psychopathology that
portends more Global Cop wreckage.
John asks, "We also have to deal with our current allies. Whom would
Mr. Buchanan like to favor?"
Well, we could redouble our commitment to our democracy and peace loving
friends in Saudi Arabia, we could deepen our ties to those gentle folk in
Egypt, and maybe for a change give some meaningful support to Israel. Oh,
and our defensive alliances will be becoming so much stronger with Montenegro
as a member, we will need to pour more resources into that country.
Anyway, what Buchanan is saying is, "We have to deal with him," not
"favor him." The two terms should not be confused.
There are a lot of "allies" of questionable usefulness that the US
should stop "favoring," and a lot of competitors (and potential allies in
the true sense) out there the US should begin "dealing" with.
"During the Cold War, we partnered with such autocrats as the Shah of
Iran and General Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, and Park
Chung-Hee of South Korea. Cold War necessity required it (funny, you failed
to mention Laos, South Vietnam, Nicaragua, Noriega/Panama, and everyone's
favorite 9/11 co-conspirator and WMD developer, Saddam Hussein). either
way how did these "alliances" work out for the US? really doesn't matter,
does it? it is early 21st century, not mid 20th century. there is a school
of thought in the worlds of counter-terrorism/intelligence operations, which
suggests if you want to be successful, you have to partner with some pretty
nasty folks. Trump is being "handled" by an experienced, ruthless (that's
a compliment), and focused "operator". unless, of course, Trump is actually
the superior operator, in which case, this would be the greatest black op
of all time.
"From Russia With Money - Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset and Cronyism,"
"Of the 28 US, European and Russian companies that participated in Skolkovo,
17 of them were Clinton Foundation donors" or sponsored speeches by former
President Bill Clinton, Schweizer told The Post.
Everything the Western elite does is about dollar hegemony and control
of energy. Once you understand that then the (evil)actions of the Western
elite make sense. Anyone who stands in the way of those things is an "enemy".
This is how they determine an "enemy".
As long as Russia is not a puppet of the globalist banking cartel
they will be presented as an "enemy". Standing in the way of energy imperialism
was the last straw for the all out hybrid war being launched on Russia now.
If the Western public wasn't so lazy and stupid we would remove the
globalists controlling us. Instead people, especially liberals, get in bed
with the globalists plans against Russia bc they can't stand Russia is Christian
and supports the family.
Every word about Russia allowed in the Western establishment are
lies funded and molded by people like Soros and warmongers. This is the
reality. Nobody who will speak honestly or positively about Russia is allowed
any voice. And scumbag neoliberal globalists like Kasperov are presented
as "Russians" while real Russian people are given zero voice.
What the Western elite is doing right now in Ukraine and Syria is
reprehensible and its all our fault for letting these people control us.
You need to substitute PIC (a.k.a., The Elites or Political Class)) for
neoliberal elite for the article to make more sense.
Notable quotes:
"... Our nation is in the grip of such poisonous thinking. The DNC with its "Super Delegates" already has a way to control who will be their candidate. In an irony to beat all ironies, the DNC's Super Delegates were able to stop Bernie Sanders... ..."
"... The reason Trump is still rising (and I believe will win handily) is he clearly represents the original image of America: a self made success story based on capitalism and the free market. ..."
This election cycle is so amazing one cannot help but think it has been scripted
by some invisible, all-powerful, hand. I mean, how could we have two completely
opposite candidates, perfectly reflecting the forces at play in this day and
age? It truly is a clash between The Elites and The Masses!
Main Street vs Wall & K Street.
The Political Industrial Complex (PIC – a.k.a., The Elites or Political Class)
is all up arms over the outsider barging in on their big con. The PIC is beside
itself trying to stop Donald Trump from gaining the Presidency, where he will
be able to clean out the People's House and the bureaucratic cesspool that has
shackled Main Street with political correctness, propaganda, impossibly expensive
health care, ridiculous taxes and a national debt that will take generations
to pay off.
The PIC has run amok long enough – illustrated perfectly by the defect ridden
democrat candidate: Hillary Clinton. I mean, how could you frame America's choices
this cycle
any better than this --
Back in July, Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton said, "there is
absolutely no connection between anything that I did as secretary of
state and the Clinton Foundation."
On Monday of this week,
ABC's Liz Kreutzer reminded people of that statement, as a new batch
of emails reveal that there was a connection, and
it was cash .
…
The Abedin emails reveal that the longtime Clinton aide apparently served
as a conduit between Clinton Foundation donors and Hillary Clinton while
Clinton served as secretary of state. In more than a dozen email exchanges,
Abedin provided expedited, direct access to Clinton for donors who had contributed
from $25,000 to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In many instances,
Clinton Foundation top executive Doug Band, who worked with the Foundation
throughout Hillary Clinton's tenure at State, coordinated closely with Abedin.
In Abedin's June deposition to Judicial Watch, she conceded that part of
her job at the State Department was taking care of "
Clinton family matters ."
This is what has Main Street so fed up with Wall & K street (big business,
big government). The Clinton foundation is a cash cow for Clinton, Inc. So while
our taxes go up, our debt sky rockets and our health care becomes too expensive
to afford, Clan Clinton has made 100's of millions of dollars selling access
(and obviously doing favors, because no one spends that kind of money without
results).
The PIC is circling the wagons with its news media arm shrilly screaming
anything and everything about Trump as if they could fool Main Street with their
worn out propaganda. I seriously doubt it will work. The Internet has broken
the information monopoly that allowed the PIC in the not too distant past to
control what people knew and thought.
Massachusetts has a long history of using the power of incumbency to
cripple political opponents. In fact, it's a leading state for such partisan
gamesmanship. Dating back to 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed into
law a redistricting plan for state Senate districts that favored his Democratic-Republican
Party, the era of Massachusetts rule rigging began. It has continued, unabated,
ever since.
Given the insider dealing and venality that epitomized the 2016 presidential
primary process, I'd hoped that politicians would think twice before abusing
the power of the state for political purposes. Galvin quickly diminished
any such prospect of moderation in the sketchy behavior of elected officials.
He hid his actions behind the thin veil of fiscal responsibility. He claimed
to be troubled by the additional $56,000 he was going to have to spend printing
ballots to accommodate Independent voters. He conveniently ignored the fact
that thousands of these UIP members have been paying taxes for decades to
support a primary process that excludes them.
…
In my home state of Kansas, where my 2014 candidacy threatened to take
a U.S. Senate seat from the Republicans, they responded predictably. Instead
of becoming more responsive to voters, our state's highly partisan secretary
of state, Kris Kobach, introduced legislation that would bring back one
of the great excesses of machine politics: straight party-line voting –
which is designed to discourage voters from considering an Independent candidacy
altogether. Kobach's rationale, like Galvin's, was laughable. He described
it as a "convenience" for voters.
The article goes on to note these acts by the PIC are an affront to the large
swath of the electorate who really choose who will win elections:
In a recent Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans said they do not feel
well-represented by the Democrats and Republicans and believe a third major
party is needed. Fully 42 percent of Americans now describe themselves
as politically independent .
That means the two main parties are each smaller in size than the independents
(68% divided by 2 equals 34%), which is why independents pick which side will
win. If the PIC attacks this group – guess what the response will look like?
I recently had a discussion with someone from Washington State who is pretty
much my opposite policy-wise. She is a deep blue democrat voter, whereas I am
a deep purple independent who is more small-government Tea Party than conservative-GOP.
She was lamenting the fact that her state has caucuses, which is one method
to blunt Main Street voters from having a say. It was interesting that we quickly
and strongly agreed on one thing above all else: open primaries. We both knew
that if the voters had the only say in who are leaders
would be, all sides could abide that decision easily. It is when PIC intervenes
that things get ugly.
Open primaries make the political parties accountable to the voters. Open
primaries make it harder for the PIC to control who gets into office, and reduces
the leverage of big donors. Open primaries reflect the will of the states and
the nation – not the vested interests (read bank accounts) of the PIC.
Without doubt, one of the most troublesome aspects of the current system
is its gross inefficiency. Whereas generations ago selecting a nominee
took relatively little time and money , today's process has resulted
in a near-permanent campaign. Because would-be nominees have to
win primaries and open caucuses in several states, they must put
together vast campaign apparatuses that spread across the nation, beginning
years in advance and raising tens of millions of dollars.
The length of the campaign alone keeps many potential candidates on the
sidelines. In particular, those in positions of leadership at various
levels of our government cannot easily put aside their duties and
shift into full-time campaign mode for such an extended period.
It is amazing how this kind of thinking can be considered legitimate. Note
how independent voters are evil in the mind of the PIC, and only government
leaders need apply. Not surprising, their answer is to control access to the
ballot:
During the week of Lincoln's birthday (February 12), the Republican Party
would hold a Republican Nomination Convention that would borrow from the
process by which the Constitution was ratified. Delegates to the
convention would be selected by rank-and-file Republicans in their local
communities , and those chosen delegates would meet, deliberate,
and ultimately nominate five people who, if willing, would each
be named as one of the party's officially sanctioned finalists for its presidential
nomination. Those five would subsequently debate one another a half-dozen
times.
Brexit became a political force because the European Union was not accountable
to the voters. The EU members are also selected by members of the European PIC
– not citizens of the EU. Without direct accountability to all citizens (a.k.a.
– voters) there is no democracy –
just a variant
of communism:
During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), the Bolsheviks nationalized
all productive property and imposed a policy named war communism,
which put factories and railroads under strict government control,
collected and rationed food, and introduced some bourgeois management of
industry . After three years of war and the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion,
Lenin declared the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, which was to give
a "limited place for a limited time to capitalism." The NEP lasted until
1928, when Joseph Stalin achieved party leadership, and the introduction
of the Five Year Plans spelled the end of it. Following the Russian Civil
War, the Bolsheviks, in 1922, formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR), or Soviet Union, from the former Russian Empire.
Following Lenin's democratic centralism, the Leninist parties
were organized on a hierarchical basis, with active cells of members as
the broad base; they were made up only of elite cadres approved by higher
members of the party as being reliable and completely subject to party discipline
.
Emphasis mine. Note how communism begins with government control of major
industries. The current con job about Global Warming is the cover-excuse for
a government grab of the energy sector. Obamacare is an attempt to grab the
healthcare sector. And Wall Street already controls the banking sector. See
a trend yet?
This is then followed by imposing a rigid hierarchy of "leaders" at all levels
of politics – so no opposing views can gain traction. Party discipline uber
alles!
Our nation is in the grip of such poisonous thinking. The DNC with its "Super
Delegates" already has a way to control who will be their candidate. In an irony
to beat all ironies, the DNC's Super Delegates were able to stop Bernie Sanders...
The reason Trump is still rising (and I believe will win handily) is he clearly
represents the original image of America: a self made success story based on
capitalism and the free market.
His opponent is the epitome of the Political Industrial Complex – a cancer
that has eaten away America's free market foundation and core strength. A person
who wants to impose government on the individual.
"... cultural nationalism is the only ideology capable of being a legitimising ideology under the prevailing global and national political economy. ..."
"... Neoliberalism cannot perform this role since its simplicities make it harsh not just towards the lower orders, but give it the potential for damaging politically important interests amongst capitalist classes themselves. ..."
"... In this form, cultural nationalism provides national ruling classes a sense of their identity and purpose, as well as a form of legitimation among thelower orders. ..."
"... As Gramsci said, these are the main functions of every ruling ideology. Cultural nationalism masks, and to a degree resolves, the intense competition between capitals over access to the state for support domestically and in the international arena – in various bilateral and multilateral fora – where it bargainsfor the most favoured national capitalist interests within the global and imperial hierarchy. ..."
This is where cultural nationalism comes in. Only it can serve to mask, and
bridge, the divides within the 'cartel of anxiety' in a neoliberal context.
Cultural nationalism is a nationalism shorn of its civic-egalitarian and developmentalist
thrust, one reduced to its cultural core. It is structured around the culture
of thee conomically dominant classes in every country, with higher or lower
positions accorded to other groups within the nation relative to it. These positions
correspond, on the whole, to the groups' economic positions, and as such it
organises the dominant classes, and concentric circles of their allies, into
a collective national force. It also gives coherence to, and legitimises, the
activities of the nation-state on behalf of capital, or sections thereof, in
the international sphere.
Indeed, cultural nationalism is the only ideology capable of being a legitimising
ideology under the prevailing global and national political economy.
Neoliberalism
cannot perform this role since its simplicities make it harsh not just towards
the lower orders, but give it the potential for damaging politically important
interests amongst capitalist classes themselves. The activities of the state
on behalf of this or that capitalist interest necessarily exceed the Spartan
limits that neoliberalism sets. Such activities can only be legitimised as being
'in the national interest.'
Second, however, the nationalism that articulates
these interests is necessarily different from, but can easily (and given its
function as a legitimising ideology, it must be said, performatively) be mis-recognised
as, nationalism as widely understood: as being in some real sense in the interests
of all members of the nation. In this form, cultural nationalism provides national
ruling classes a sense of their identity and purpose, as well as a form of legitimation
among thelower orders.
As Gramsci said, these are the main functions of every
ruling ideology. Cultural nationalism masks, and to a degree resolves, the intense
competition between capitals over access to the state for support domestically
and in the international arena – in various bilateral and multilateral fora
– where it bargainsfor the most favoured national capitalist interests within
the global and imperial hierarchy.
Except for a commitment to neoliberal policies, the economic policy content
of this nationalism cannot be consistent: within the country, and inter-nationally,
the capitalist system is volatile and the positions of the various elements
of capital in the national and international hierarchies shift constantly as
does the economic policy of cultural nationalist governments. It is this volatility
that also increases the need for corruption – since that is how competitive
access of individual capitals to the state is today organised.
Whatever its utility to the capitalist classes, however, cultural nationalism
can never have a settled or secure hold on those who are marginalised or sub-ordinated
by it. In neoliberal regimes the scope for offering genuine economic gains to
the people at large, however measured they might be, is small.
This is a problem for right politics since even the broadest coalition of
the propertied can never be an electoral majority, even a viable plurality.
This is only in the nature of capitalist private property. While the left remains
in retreat or disarray, elec-toral apathy is a useful political resource but
even where, as in most countries, political choices are minimal, the electorate
as a whole is volatile. Despite, orperhaps because of, being reduced to a competition
between parties of capital, electoral politics in the age of the New Right entails
very large electoral costs, theextensive and often vain use of the media in
elections and in politics generally, and political compromises which may clash
with the high and shrilly ambitiou sdemands of the primary social base in the propertied
classes. Instability, uncertainty ...
"... What is "Globalization" and "Free Trade" really?… Does it encompass the slave trade, trading in narcotics, deforestation and export of a nation's tropical hardwood forests, environmentally damaging transnational oil pipelines or coal ports, fisheries depletion, laying off millions of workers and replacing them and the products they make with workers and products made in a foreign country, trading with an enemy, investing capital in a foreign country through a subsidiary or supplier that abuses its workers to the point that some commit suicide, no limits on or regulation of financial derivatives and transnational financial intermediaries?… the list is endless. ..."
"... As always, the questions are "Cui bono?"… "Who benefits"?… How and Why they benefit?… Who selects the short-term "Winners" and "Losers"? And WRT those questions, the final sentence of this post hints at its purpose. ..."
"... Yeah, how is European colonialism - starting in, what, like the 15th century, or something - not "globalisation"? What about the Roman and Persian and Selucid empires? Wasn't that globalisation? I think we've pretty much always lived in a globalised world, one way or another (if "globalised world" even makes sense). ..."
"... Bring back the broader, and more meaningful conception of Political Economy and some actual understanding can be gained. The study of economics cannot be separated from the political dimension of society. Politics being defined as who gets what in social interactions. ..."
"... The neoliberal experiment has run its course. Milton Friedman and his tribe had their alternative plan ready to go and implemented it when they could- to their great success. The best looting system developed-ever. This system only works with the availability of abundant resources and the mental justifications to support that gross exploitation. Both of which are reaching limits. ..."
"... If only the Milton Friedman tribe had interested itself in sports instead of economics. They could have argued that referees and umpires should be removed from the game for greater efficiency of play, and that sports teams would follow game rules by self-regulation. ..."
"... Wouldn't the whole thing just work out more efficiently if you leave traffic lights and rules out of it? Just let everyone figure it out at each light, survival of the fittest. ..."
"... With increasingly free movement of people as tourists whose spending impacts nations GDP, where does it fit in to discussions on globalization and trade? ..."
What is "Globalization" and "Free Trade" really?… Does it encompass
the slave trade, trading in narcotics, deforestation and export of a nation's
tropical hardwood forests, environmentally damaging transnational oil pipelines
or coal ports, fisheries depletion, laying off millions of workers and replacing
them and the products they make with workers and products made in a foreign
country, trading with an enemy, investing capital in a foreign country through
a subsidiary or supplier that abuses its workers to the point that some
commit suicide, no limits on or regulation of financial derivatives and
transnational financial intermediaries?… the list is endless.
As always, the questions are "Cui bono?"… "Who benefits"?… How and
Why they benefit?… Who selects the short-term "Winners" and "Losers"? And
WRT those questions, the final sentence of this post hints at its purpose.
diptherio
Yeah, how is European colonialism - starting in, what, like the 15th
century, or something - not "globalisation"? What about the Roman and Persian
and Selucid empires? Wasn't that globalisation? I think we've pretty much
always lived in a globalised world, one way or another (if "globalised world"
even makes sense).
Norb
Bring back the broader, and more meaningful conception of Political
Economy and some actual understanding can be gained. The study of economics
cannot be separated from the political dimension of society. Politics being
defined as who gets what in social interactions.
What folly. All this complexity and strident study of minutia to bring
about what end? Human history on this planet has been about how societies
form, develop, then recede form prominence. This flow being determined by
how well the society provided for its members or could support their worldview.
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.
The neoliberal experiment has run its course. Milton Friedman and
his tribe had their alternative plan ready to go and implemented it when
they could- to their great success. The best looting system developed-ever.
This system only works with the availability of abundant resources and the
mental justifications to support that gross exploitation. Both of which
are reaching limits.
Only by thinking, and communicating in the broader terms of political
economy can we hope to understand our current conditions. Until then, change
will be difficult to enact. Hard landings for all indeed.
flora
If only the Milton Friedman tribe had interested itself in sports
instead of economics. They could have argued that referees and umpires should
be removed from the game for greater efficiency of play, and that sports
teams would follow game rules by self-regulation.
LA Mike September 17, 2016 at 8:15 pm
While in traffic, I was thinking about that today. For some time now,
I've viewed the traffic intersection as being a good example of the social
contract. We all agree on its benefits. But today, I thought about it in
terms of the Friedman Neoliberals.
Why should they have to stop at red lights. Wouldn't the whole thing
just work out more efficiently if you leave traffic lights and rules out
of it? Just let everyone figure it out at each light, survival of the fittest.
sd
Something I have wondered for some time, how does tourism fit into trade?
With increasingly free movement of people as tourists whose spending
impacts nations GDP, where does it fit in to discussions on globalization
and trade?
I Have Strange Dreams
Other things to consider:
– negative effects of immigration (skilled workers leave developing countries
where they are most needed)
– environmental pollution
– destruction of cultures/habitats
– importation of western diet leading to decreased health
– spread of disease (black death, hiv, ebola, bird flu)
– resource wars
– drugs
– happiness
How are these "externalities" calculated?
"... Mexican workers were in rural areas over thirty years ago doing the farm labor that was formerly done by blacks. Often they lived in barracks together on the farms they worked. The ownership class of those hose lily white conservatives were the first to use them to displace native born workers and drive down wages. This was being done in California all the way back to 1910. ..."
"... Part time immigrants displace resident workers at wages no family could survive on in the US. These workers either stay in barracks on the farm or they crowd into cheap rental dwellings meant for a fraction of the number of occupants that they group in. ..."
"... As to H1B types, meme chose as off-shoring; as well as a missed opportunity to increase the skills of native-borns. http://angrybearblog.com/2006/12/disappearing-americans-and-illegal.html ..."
"... "Caesar Chavez understood the effects the effects of illegal immigation". That he did. Governor Pete Wilson promoted this to keep wages down for this agribusiness buddies. But then Wilson flip flopped in a draconian way with Prop 197. Every Republican in California came to realize this destroyed their chances with not only the Hispanic vote but also the votes are non-racist Californians. ..."
"... I grew up in a beautiful beach town called San Juan Capistrano. That's a Spanish name, and there was a Spanish mission where the swallows fly back to. Los Angeles, San Francisco. Spanish names. In my school days I had many Mexican American friends. At university I had a Guatamalan and then a Chinese American room mate. You heard the term wetback sometimes, but to me they were just friends, and Americans. You spend 5 minutes with em and you can't think anything else. We are all, save Native Americans, immigrants. ..."
"... Attacking immigrants is not new. But America has managed to be above that for the most part. ..."
"... "If immigration isn't the problem, then what is? The real problems faced by workers are globalization, technological change, and lack of bargaining power in wage negotiations, problems for which Donald Trump has no effective solutions. Reducing international trade through tariffs and the trade wars that come with them will make us worse off in the long-run – we will end up with fewer jobs, not more, and there's no reason to think the average job will be any better. Trump has nothing to offer in the way of providing more support for workers who lose their jobs due to the adoption of digital, robotic, and other technology or to help workers gain a stronger hand when wages are negotiated." ..."
"... I disagree. The heart of the matter is that so long as economists and corporate enablers ensure that protecting against globalisation is off the table, the problems will never be solved. Free trade is their snake oil. And if your "free trade" partner happens to be an autocracy, which will use the $Trillions they siphon out of you to build up their military, use that military to alter the lines on the map, intimidate their neighbors, and ultimately maybe even destroy you, well, those events never show up in their glorious equations, so they must not exist. ..."
"... The paradigm is that the white working class has not been able to form a majority by itself since the pre-Civil War Jacksonian era. They must either make a coalition with other minorities (the New Deal) or with Wall Street and corporate power (the GOP's Southern Strategy). In the 1970s with racial quotas and increasing taxation they felt abandoned by the Democrats, and now that they realize that the GOP corporate paradise is killing them, they are adrift. They once again can either make an alliance with the minorities who live in the next poorer neighborhood who they fear will rob them of their wallets, or with Wall Street who will rob them of everything they own over a much longer period of time, and live in fabulous palaces far far away. ..."
Trump's Taco Truck Fear Campaign Diverts Attention From the Real Issues : Donald Trump would
like you to believe that immigration is largely responsible for the difficult economic conditions
the working class has experienced in recent decades. But immigration is not the problem. The real
culprits are globalization, technological change, and labor's dwindling bargaining power in wage
negotiations.
Mexican workers were in rural areas over thirty years ago doing the farm labor that was formerly
done by blacks. Often they lived in barracks together on the farms they worked. The ownership
class of those hose lily white conservatives were the first to use them to displace native born
workers and drive down wages. This was being done in California all the way back to 1910.
Lettuce Wars: Ten Years of Work and Struggle in the Fields of California
In 1971, Bruce Neuburger-young, out of work, and radicalized by the 60s counterculture in Berkeley-took
a job as a farmworker on a whim. He could have hardly anticipated that he would spend the next
decade laboring up and down the agricultural valleys of California, alongside the anonymous and
largely immigrant workforce that feeds the nation. This account of his journey begins at a remarkable
moment, after the birth of the United Farm Workers union and the ensuing uptick in worker militancy.
As a participant in organizing efforts, strikes, and boycotts, Neuburger saw first-hand the struggles
of farmworkers for better wages and working conditions, and the lengths the growers would go to
suppress worker unity...
Mexican migrants were in Ohio 60+ years ago, making the vegetable circuit. (The biggest Campbells
Soup plant is in Napoleon Ohio. The region has some of the best top soil on the planet). Some
of them settled and are on the third generation. They even hang out with the white working class,
who are their neighbors and co-workers. Some of them even marry Germans and Swedes.
Yeah, guest workers go way back at least 100 years in the US. And sure many stayed and, in that
case, I am totally fine with actual immigration when they become citizens and pay taxes and buy
or rent homes here as permanent residents. Green card workers and illegals are doing a lot of
the farm work in VA on the Northern Neck and Eastern Shore and have been for thirty years.
Part time immigrants displace resident workers at wages no family could survive on in the US.
These workers either stay in barracks on the farm or they crowd into cheap rental dwellings meant
for a fraction of the number of occupants that they group in.
I understand the effect of illegal immigration, Caesar Chavez understood the effects the effects
of illegal immigation, ...., in fact almost all working class Americans understand the effects
of illegal immigration.
"Caesar Chavez understood the effects the effects of illegal immigation". That he did. Governor
Pete Wilson promoted this to keep wages down for this agribusiness buddies. But then Wilson flip
flopped in a draconian way with Prop 197. Every Republican in California came to realize this
destroyed their chances with not only the Hispanic vote but also the votes are non-racist Californians.
Mark Thoma is suggesting a humane alternative to Wilson's two extremes.
If there was a basic income with a substantial residency requirement for immigrants - this would
be a non-issue, since qualified residents could live better than immigrants on the same wages.
I grew up in a beautiful beach town called San Juan Capistrano. That's a Spanish name, and
there was a Spanish mission where the swallows fly back to. Los Angeles, San Francisco. Spanish
names. In my school days I had many Mexican American friends. At university I had a Guatamalan
and then a Chinese American room mate. You heard the term wetback sometimes, but to me they were
just friends, and Americans. You spend 5 minutes with em and you can't think anything else. We
are all, save Native Americans, immigrants.
I remember those old World War 2 movies where the squad is made up of diverse immigrants. You
got the Italian, the Jew, the Irsh guy, etc. And they formed a team. E pluribus unim. Attacking
immigrants is not new. But America has managed to be above that for the most part. E
"Attacking immigrants is not new. But America has managed to be above that for the most"
Conservatives have been attacking immigrants for years. They hated JFK and Catholics. Being
a Catholic Jew is not new to me, but Cons hated Catholics and then they used us Jews for their
political gains. It never worked on us. Most Jews are too intelligent for conservatism. Take care.
Our excellent host gets to the heart of the matter:
"If immigration isn't the problem, then what is? The real problems faced by workers are
globalization, technological change, and lack of bargaining power in wage negotiations, problems
for which Donald Trump has no effective solutions. Reducing international trade through tariffs
and the trade wars that come with them will make us worse off in the long-run – we will end up
with fewer jobs, not more, and there's no reason to think the average job will be any better.
Trump has nothing to offer in the way of providing more support for workers who lose their jobs
due to the adoption of digital, robotic, and other technology or to help workers gain a stronger
hand when wages are negotiated."
Trump has nothing to offer except hate. Besides - who could object to more tacos. Oh wait -
I need to do a long run before eating Mexican food tonight.
I disagree. The heart of the matter is that so long as economists and corporate enablers ensure
that protecting against globalisation is off the table, the problems will never be solved. Free
trade is their snake oil. And if your "free trade" partner happens to be an autocracy, which will
use the $Trillions they siphon out of you to build up their military, use that military to alter
the lines on the map, intimidate their neighbors, and ultimately maybe even destroy you, well,
those events never show up in their glorious equations, so they must not exist.
The paradigm is that the white working class has not been able to form a majority by itself
since the pre-Civil War Jacksonian era. They must either make a coalition with other minorities
(the New Deal) or with Wall Street and corporate power (the GOP's Southern Strategy). In the 1970s
with racial quotas and increasing taxation they felt abandoned by the Democrats, and now that
they realize that the GOP corporate paradise is killing them, they are adrift. They once again
can either make an alliance with the minorities who live in the next poorer neighborhood who they
fear will rob them of their wallets, or with Wall Street who will rob them of everything they
own over a much longer period of time, and live in fabulous palaces far far away.
And if your "free trade" partner happens to be an autocracy, which will use the $Trillions they
siphon out of you to build up their military, use that military to alter the lines on the map,
intimidate their neighbors, and ultimately maybe even destroy you, well, those events never show
up in their glorious equations, so they must not exist....
[ Perfectly paraphrased from Dr. Strangelove. We are being siphoned, OMG. ]
Washington Post Presents an Overly Simplistic View of Trade
It is unfortunate that it now acceptable in polite circles to connect a view with Donald Trump
and then dismiss it. The result is that many fallacious arguments can now be accepted without
being seriously questioned. (Hey folks, I hear Donald Trump believes in evolution.)
The Post plays this game * in noting that the U.S. trade deficit with Germany is now larger
than its deficit with Mexico, putting Germany second only to China. It then asks why people aren't
upset about the trade deficit with Germany.
It partly answers this story itself. Germany's huge trade surplus stems in large part from
the fact that it is in the euro zone. The euro might be properly valued against the dollar, but
because Germany is the most competitive country in the euro zone, it effectively has an under-valued
currency relative to the dollar.
The answer to this problem would be to get Germany to have more inflationary policies to allow
other countries to regain competitiveness -- just as the other euro zone countries were generous
enough to run inflationary policies in the first half of the last decade to allow Germany to regain
competitiveness. However, the Germans refuse to return this favor because their great great great
great grandparents lived through the hyper-inflation in Weimar Germany. (Yes, they say this.)
Anyhow, this issue has actually gotten considerable attention from economists and other policy
types. Unfortunately it is very difficult to force a country in the euro zone -- especially the
largest country -- to run more expansionary countries. As a result, Germany is forcing depression
conditions on the countries of southern Europe and running a large trade surplus with the United
States.
The other part of the difference between Germany and China and Mexico is that Germany is a
rich country, while China and Mexico are developing countries. Folks that took intro econ courses
know that rich countries are expected to run trade surpluses.
The story is that rich countries are slow growing with a large amount of capital. By contrast,
developing countries are supposed to fast growing (okay, that doesn't apply to post-NAFTA Mexico),
with relatively little capital. Capital then flows from where it is relatively plentiful and getting
a low return to developing countries where it is scarce and can get a high return.
The outflow of capital from rich countries implies a trade surplus with developing countries.
Developing countries are in turn supposed to be borrowing capital to finance trade deficits. These
trade deficits allow them to build up their capital stocks even as they maintain the consumption
standards of their populations.
In the case of the large trade surpluses run by China and other developing countries, we are
seeing the opposite of the textbook story. We are seeing fast growing developing countries with
outflows of capital. This largely because they have had a policy of deliberately depressing the
value of their currencies by buying up large amounts of foreign reserves (mostly dollars.)
So the economics textbooks explain clearly why we should see the trade deficits that the U.S.
runs with China and Mexico as being different than the one it runs with Germany. And that happens
to be true regardless of what Donald Trump may or may not say.
By the way, this piece also asserts that "Germany on average has lower wages than Belgium or
Ireland." This is not true according to our friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
China is building its military at a huge rate. Double digit growth per yer over almost 20 years.
They are at $150 billion a year(if you believe their figures).
You have a point with China at $150B a year going to real engineering and not inept Lockheed
you need to worry. Those PLA re-education camps might make you another McCain.
US' Pentagon welfare trough: $500B "core" per year even with the sequestration.
Paying for DoD part of drones delivering collateral damage justified by its military utility*:
$80B in FY 16 (was $150B in FY 12).
CIA contracted drones and contractor (See the guys killed in Benghazi) run wars we can know
nothing about $XXB a year.
*If Germany had won WW II Bomber Harris would have been hanged.
Rusty - your usual confusion. Economists only advise. Lawyers make these decisions. And most lawyers
either do not listen to economists or if they do they get really confused. But will a lawyer ever
admit they are confused or not listening?
I don't see your call to take America back to the 60s and tube radios and TVs because they are
cheaper than semiconductor manufacturing because all the tube electronic factories already exist.
Nor do I see you extolling the virtue of $8 gasoline and heating oil thanks to the total ban
on fossil fuel imports.
I'd love someone to ask Trump if he would ban imports of oil and iPhones and Samsung electronics
in his first 100 days as president.
If he says yes and doesn't lose popularity, I'll make sure to buy all the electronics I'll
want for a few years. I've already sworn off gasoline.
Surely fuller then full employment
and a largest possible share of net income
going to primary producers isn't precluded by external trade restrictions
Economies of scale ?
Adequate competition between producing units ?
North America is plenty big for most optimal "plant sizes "
And at least three firms for each product
See Stiglitz on the second best real market firm structure
See Stiglitz on the second best real market firm structure
[ Of course, that will take reading through the last 30 years or so of work by Joseph Stiglitz
since I am not going to give a reader a clue as to how to find such a reference. No problem though,
just start reading. ]
There will be no relief until we "euthanize the rentiers". Raise top marginal rates to confiscatory
levels on income over $1 million, treat all income the same, prohibit corporations from deducting
executive compensate over $1 million, eliminate all tax breaks for individuals that do not widely
apply to those in the bottom half of the income distribution and all corporate tax subsidies.
Not even close, just a return to the 1950s, when the economy boomed. The idea that the wealthy
and large corporations will physically move to countries with more favorable tax regimes, most
of which are in the third world, is pure fantasy, which is why most of the super rich live in
New York, California, and other high tax states.
I understand the differences, but was merely addressing Rusty's nonsense implying this was somehow
outrageous and unprecedented. In addition to the trade advantages the US had, the emergence of
new industries in electronics, aviation, and petrochemicals, which all needed a lot of highly
skilled workers and paid very well, was vital as well. Nonetheless, the policies I mentioned would
go a long way to addressing our current problems, including reducing the incentives to offshore
production (contrary to Rusty).
You don't understand the point of tax dodges, do you? The tax dodges are rewards for paying workers
to build capital assets. But they need high marginal rates to justify paying workers.
Capital gains needs to return to the hold for five years or more to get the incentive. It isn't
really "capital" if not held because it's productive.
However, if inflation in the price of productive capital that barely retains its value is taxed
as income, you punish building productive capital. Asset basis price can be inflation adjusted
reasonably well these days thanks to computer technology making detailed calculations simple for
humans.
I'd have loved to pay workers to install solar and batteries to dodge 50-70% marginal tax rates
in the 90s. Much better than the best case 30% tax credit for paying workers these days. Of course,
given the penalty for paying workers due to low tax rates, I have no high wage income to be taxed
at high rates.
As Milton Friedman pointed out in the 60s and then later in the 80s as I recall, the 50-70-90%
tax rates never raised much revenue because the tax dodges rewarded paying worker to do wasteful
things, in his opinion, like production too much cheap energy, producing too much innovation which
ended up in too many new consumer products the wastefully overpaid workers bought.
This is an irrelevant aside. Friday was a minor bloodbath for investors inequities and bonds.
Thing is, I was like okay, I lost paper money, why.? I could not find a reason the market was
tanking other than Fed fears. Now I realize equities markets can behave like crack addicts or
lemmings. But 2.45 percent based on Fed fears of a rate hike?
Usually when the market is down I go to Calculated risk to see what must be some bad data.
Friday is a profit taking day. But as a small investor that was a really bad day.
Also, Los Lobos version of Hotel California via the Big Libowski is essential.
Final trading session before the 15th anniversary of 9-11 disaster! Would you guess that lot of
folks hedged with ultra-short-ETF earlier in the week? Lot of folks took profits before labour
day?
A day like that is why there needs to be a micro tax on trades. I get it if people sell based
on fundamentals. Everyone hedges, too, that's why you diversify. But the ultimate purpose of investing
is to provide companies with the capital to make productive investment.
A good part of the market is just short term bets. How is that socially useful. And the funny
thing, a lot of these guys don't make money for their clients, they just make money on the commission.
Like a casino owner. Like the con man running for prez.
Technological change is definitely not an issue. Productivity growth is slower now than in 1945-1973
when we had a large middle class. Cross nationally the arguments that robots are taking jobs doesn't
make any sense. If you traveled in both the non-industrial world (Africa, Haiti etc) and East
Asia, you will be aware of this. In the non-industrial world formal sector employment is only
10-20% of the labor force; 80% of the pop. is involved in "gig" jobs selling candy on the street
etc. In East Asia you have virtually no unemployment, but these are the places with by far the
largest deployment of robots, much, much higher than the US. The robots argument is convenient
politically, but doesn't make any sense to anyone whose traveled the world or knows anything about
economic history.
Before, auto plants hired 5,500 @ and produced X vehicles; after, they hired 1,200 @ and produced
1.4 vehicles. You don't get to have your own reality.
I bet that tamales truck is run by a Mexican. I hope so as it would likely mean you are enjoying
awesome tamales. Trump has no idea what good Mexican food is as it does not exist in Manhattan.
I think we need to change the compound growth capitalism we've had since forever. It will not
be sustainable much longer. We need 'de-globalization' not more globalization, in my opinion.
The efficiency bookkeeping model that promotes globalization is deeply flawed. What about the
pollution issues involved in global distribution of products that can easily be made at home?
Again, Keynes said it best. "The decadent international but individualistic capitalism, in the
hands of which we found ourselves after the war, is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is
not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous--and it doesn't deliver the goods. In short,
we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place,
we are extremely perplexed."
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/interwar/keynes.htm
After the Berlin Wall fell, and defense budgets got cut, the SoCal economy changed as income
and jobs drained out. Blacks occupied the lower end of support jobs and got underbid by Hispanics,
so they moved away from LA. The same trend impacted lower income whites, who largely moved out
of state. Middle and upper income whites adapted as the local economy transitioned to absorb the
laid-off engineering talent, often through new business ventures along the 101 corridor and in
the multi-media areas in Santa Monica and the south bay. What took a few decades in Pittsburgh
and other cities impacted by major industry changes took about a decade in LA.
In southern California overall, the combination of illegal immigration and a higher total fertility
rate among Hispanics has brought about significant population and employment changes, particularly
over the last 25 years. As well-documented by demographers, blacks suffered significantly through
those changes and were displaced from low end jobs by the burgeoning Hispanic population.
For example, south central LA has transitioned from majority black to majority Hispanic as
a result of job changes and influx. Blacks moved to San Bernardino, Victorville and other areas
where cheaper housing and potential employment were available.
Now the taco trucks are supplemented by grilled cheese trucks, crepe trucks, Korean taco trucks
and other variations designed to serve a more diverse population.
That is actually a decent description of LA. And the diversity of food is why some sing "I Love
LA". It has its issues but I do miss southern CAL .. especially during these harsh NYC winters.
Urbanites like Trump probably see
'taco trucks' frequently as their
limos whiz by. They appreciate
their visibility to likely
Trumpy supporters.
(Limos & trucks both?)
'Doing something about pesky
immigrants should garner a few votes!'
Except The Donald didn't start the tweet storm.
'Taco Trucks on Every Corner': Trump Supporter's
Anti-Immigration Warning http://nyti.ms/2bIeFyw
NYT - NIRAJ CHOKSHI - SEPT. 2, 2016
"My culture is a very dominant culture, and it's imposing and it's causing problems. If you
don't do something about it, you're going to have taco trucks on every corner."
That was Marco Gutierrez, founder of the group Latinos for Trump, issuing a dire warning to
the United States in an interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC on Thursday night.
Trump campaign manager repeatedly grilled about
candidate's false proclamations on Iraq War
position http://read.bi/2bZ6iyG
via @BusinessInsider - Sep 9
Donald Trump's campaign manager was repeatedly pressed Friday as she attempted to explain inconsistencies
in the Republican presidential nominee's statements on the Iraq War.
On two separate morning shows, Kellyanne Conway said Trump's declaration of support for the
war during a 2002 interview with radio host Howard Stern was not a reliable indication of how
he felt at the time.
On CNN, anchor Chris Cuomo pressed Conway on Trump's Iraq War flip-flops.
"He doesn't want to own that he wasn't against it before it started," Cuomo said. "Why not?
Why not just own it? And as you like to say, he was a private citizen."
Conway insisted that despite Trump responding "yeah, I guess so" when Stern asked if he supported
the invasion of Iraq, his statement wasn't equal to then Sen. Hillary Clinton's vote in favor
of the war. ...
(At least, 'Trump has acknowledged that
Clinton's vote (for the war - *) was a mistake.')
... "The point is, as you know, he constantly says 'I was always against the war,'" host Charlie
Rose said to Conway. "Here he says 'I guess' I would support it. That's a contradiction."
Conway pushed back, offering a similar defense to the one she gave CNN.
"Not really, Charlie," she said. "And here is why: He is giving - he is on a radio show. Hillary
Clinton went into the well of the United States Senate representing this state of New York and
case a vote in favor of the Iraq War."
Rose said that "this is not about Hillary Clinton."
"She has acknowledged that vote and acknowledged it was a mistake," Rose said. "He has not,
and he wants to have it both ways."
Conway said that Trump has acknowledged that Clinton's vote was a mistake, to which Rose replied,
"No, but he has not acknowledged that at one point he said he was for the war.
"Why can't he simply say that?" Rose asked. "'At one point I was, and then I changed my mind."
...
(When Trump criticized the Iraq War in 2004,
it was because we hadn't seized their oil
assets as spoils, ostensibly.)
*- Iraq Resolution (formally the Authorization
for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002)
"Kellyanne Conway said Trump's declaration of support for the war during a 2002 interview with
radio host Howard Stern was not a reliable indication of how he felt at the time."
Of course Kellyanne Conway lies even more than her client.
Hillary Clinton Calls Many Trump Backers 'Deplorables' ... http://nyti.ms/2c1UlbC
NYT - AMY CHOZICK - SEPT. 10
... Mrs. Clinton's comments Friday night, which were a variation of a sentiment she has expressed
in other settings recently, came at a fund-raiser in Manhattan.
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what
I call the basket of deplorables. Right?" she said to applause and laughter. "The racist, sexist,
homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic - you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that.
And he has lifted them up."
By Saturday morning, #BasketofDeplorables was trending on Twitter as Mr. Trump's campaign demanded
an apology. His supporters hoped to use the remark as as evidence that Mrs. Clinton cannot connect
to the voters she hopes to represent as president.
"Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working
people. I think it will cost her at the polls!" Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. ...
Immigration PLUS the "demobilization" of labor unions (the discontinuance of collective bargaining
with the concomitant dismemberment of middle class political punch) EQUALS the impoverishment
of low skilled workers ...
... equates to reducing what should be $800 jobs to $400 jobs ...
... which is the alpha and the omega of today's income inequality -- at least lowest income
inequality; the folks who work fast food and supermarkets (the wrong end of two-tier supermarket
contracts, gradually going low tier all the way). I'm not especially concerned that more low skilled
jobs add more higher skilled employment.
********************************
Why are 100,000 out of something like 200,000 Chicago gang-age, minority males in street gangs?
Where are the American raised taxi drivers? Could be $600 fast food jobs imm-sourced to Mexico
and India -- could be $800 taxi jobs imm-sourced to the whole world? $1000 construction jobs imm-sourced
to Eastern Europe and Mexico?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
The way it works is COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SETS THE PRICE OF LABOR BY THE MOST THE CONSUMER
WILL TOLERATE -- RACE TO THE BOTTOM WAGES ARE SET BY THE LEAST THE EMPLOYEE WILL TOLERATE.
*****************************
Even zero immigration would only (as in merely) keep American labor from hitting rock bottom --
or at least hoping to find non-criminal employment w/o collective bargaining.
Current union busting penalties carry about as much weight as the "FBI warning" you get when
you start a DVD. More actually: if you actually enter a movie theater to copy a new movie before
it goes to DVD you face a couple of years mandatory federal hospitality.
OTH if you fire an organizer the most you face is hiring the organizer back and maybe a little
back pay while she's waiting to fired again for "something else." The labor market is the only
market where you can break the law and face zero penalties at all.
New idea: an NLRB finding of illegally blocking union organization should be able to lead to
a mandate that a certification election must be taken. This may only be implementable at the federal
level.
Beyond that union busting should be a felony at state and federal levels -- backed by RICO
for persistent violators to keep employers from playing at the edges. Our most progressive/pro
labor states (WA, OR, CA, NV, IL, MN, NY, MD?) could do that right now if someone would just raise
the issue.
IF SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE WOULD JUST RAISE THE ISSUE!!!!!!!!!!
Wanna stop the shoot-em-ups in Chicago and elsewhere? To paraphrase a line from Superfly: It's
the American dream dog: flush toilet down the hall, AM radio, electric light in every room.
Let's call that $200/wk job level -- in today's money. And the year is ...
... 1916 ...
.. and today's gang members, not to mention my American raised taxi driver "gang" would be
willing to put in a hard week's work for it ...
... in 1916.
But today's "gangs" are not going to work for $400, 100 years later. Hell, about 50 years later
...
... 1968 ...
... the federal minimum wage was $440 in today's money -- at half today's per capita income!
I read James Julius Wilson's book When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor and
Sudhir Venkatesh's book American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto, at the same time
-- and the projects only descended into gang infested hell as the bottom dropped out of the minimum
wage.
Beautiful thing about collective bargaining is: you know you have squeezed the most practicable
out (of your fellow consumers -- not the boss) of the economy and technology of your era.
Just don't forget Centralized bargaining so the Walmarts of the world can't squeeze better
contracts elsewhere. Walmart closed 88 big boxes in Germany which has centralized bargaining.
Wal-Mart's "advantage" is not in low labor cost, but logistics and market dominance allowing it
to boss around suppliers.
German labor laws may have contributed to its "problems", but the primary issues were its US-centric
logistics operation and having to compete against local incumbents who were at least its equals,
and had the home turf advantage. And competition as well as labor relations in German retail are
at least as cutthroat as in the US. Most recent (few years ago) scandals involving treatment of
workers and systematic intimidation were in large chain retailers.
There were also stories about how they were trying to sell US bedware sizes which are different
from the German sizes, and similar market research goofs, which seems to indicate a certain arrogance,
and that they probably underestimated the effort and sunk cost that had to be invested to become
successful.
Some of these stories also had a background of a general anti-US sentiment as neoliberal safety
net "reforms" and (labor) market "flexibilization" were prominently justified with US comparisons
(by officials). But I doubt this had much practical impact on the decision to cut the experiment.
"A staggering 96 per cent of America's net job growth since 1990 has come from sectors known
to have low productivity (construction, retail, bars, restaurants, and other low-paying services
were responsible for 46 percentage points of total growth) and sectors where low productivity
is merely suspected in the absence of competition and proper measurement techniques (healthcare,
education, government, and finance explain the remaining 50 percentage points)".
So we are expanding jobs that produce services. With increased robotics and productivity, a
smaller and smaller % of the workforce will be needed to produce all the food and merchandise
people need (or can consume). So the future growth of the job market will have to be in producing
services. The challenge will be to make sure that those jobs are paying sufficiently high salaries
to ensure continuous robust growth in demand. Otherwise we will be entering a permanent period
of low growth in the economy.
ensure that workers have more bargaining power so that the growth in output is shared rather than
"
~~MT~
Workers need to get a handle on bargaining power, need to realize that uncontrolled reproduction
will inevitably bid down the price of labour. Look!
American family should find it cheaper to reduce child bearing to one child per female. The
one child can then inherit the entire estate of the couple with no expense for legal battles with
rival siblings. The one child will have more quality time with parents, grand parents, and aunts
for mentor-ing and help with school work, be on the fast track of career path that requires quality
education. Some jobs here require local folks with better language skills. Such jobs do not adapt
easily to recent immigrants. Reduction in our birth rate cannot be completely de-fang-ed by immigration.
Our birth control will remain a windfall to our workers in aggregate sprint as well as in separate
family's economics.
One child per 2 parents would be an economic disaster. Unless productivity per worker exploded
we would find that the total GDP would shrink rather than increase. The national debt per worker
would also increase even if we somehow managed to stop adding to it. The current problem of a
much smaller number of workers to help pay retirement and medical cost for the old people would
become extremely hard to solve (without exploding tax rates). Growing the population either by
birth or by allowing immigrants to come here is part of why US is doing better than Europe.
national debt per worker would also increase even if we somehow managed to stop adding to it.
The current problem of a much smaller number of workers to help pay retirement and medical cost
for the old people would become extremely hard to solve (without exploding tax rates). Growing
the population
"
Believe it! I just crunched approximate numbers to find that each child with only $2 in pocket
owes $57,000 to public debt, each retired pensioner, each billionaire and each millionaire owe
same thing, 57 K. But!
But 33% of Americans couldn't come up with $555 to handle an emergency. The answer to national
debt?
Endless exponential population expansion until natural resources run dry, no air to breath,
no water to drink, fug-get about food.
Population expansion is a social Ponzi scheme. Eventually it collapses -- we starve.
The remarkable instance of population control started when Deng Xiaoping crunched the numbers
and decided to opt for a draconian return to a rational World. The one child tradition began with
the most dramatic success at making folks rich enough to enjoy life and produce things for people
around the World to enjoy. Let the good times roll and thrill your soul. Got soul?
From my point of view as an employer, the Mexican and Caribbean immigrants have been good hires.
They are generally reliable and good cooperators. Other employers seem to think so as well, judging
by what I see when I go to the doctor or the dentist or the mechanic shop or just about anywhere
else that low to intermediate skill personnel are essential to running the shop.
I would not say that immigrants' effect on wages is trivial except in the macro sense. The
union tradesmen in our area are suffering badly due to having their wages undercut by low wage
immigrants. The wage-rate cuts are on the order of 50%, $32/hr down to $16/hr. Unlike the doctors,
where immigrant doctors don't seem to depress wages much, the scarcity value of trained tradesmen
is substantially reduced by an influx of immigrants with similar skills. Auto mechanics, auto
body men, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc are badly hurt by the competition. Perhaps because
their skills are more easily acquired than those of the doctors. We have a large number of asian
scientific and technical people in the area and they are also high wage folks and native born
scientists and technical personnel do not seem to have been adversely affected. There is next
to no mechanism for the doctors and scientists and engineers, who arguably have been helped by
immigration, to help out the tradesmen who have been hurt.
Higher taxes may not be the only answer. Private and religious efforts are underway, mostly
religious in my locale. There is a Cristo Rey school that has received a lot of support from businesses
in the area, particularly the science and technology-based businesses. The Catholics organized
it and run it, but it is open to all. The kids get a better education than they can get in the
corruptly run, disorganized, deteriorating public high schools nearby. They are matched with a
team of 4 and each kid works one day per week at his or her sponsoring business and the earnings
pay for the schooling. The kids meet and work with business and professional people they would
not otherwise meet.
Higher tax rates may take too long to occur to make a difference in the lives of today's young
people struggling to get some security or a future worth living out. Supporting and participating
in religious and community-based efforts is something we can all do today.
Back when, before the onslaught, when I was a young man; a young man out of high school could
work construction, learn how to do a day's work, get paid enough to get a car, court a girl, go
to college, ... join the union, maybe get married, buy a home, start a family; it was a path upward
for so many. These days, those jobs are held by $10-15/hr illegals working as contract labor while
our own young men out of high school have never held a job, don't how to do a day's work, ...
may be on heroin or meth. This is not win win, this is not working. Time to stop pretending.
Re: " The union tradesmen in our area are suffering badly due to having their wages undercut by
low wage immigrants. The wage-rate cuts are on the order of 50%, $32/hr down to $16/hr. "
The way it works is COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SETS THE PRICE OF LABOR BY THE MOST THE CONSUMER WILL
TOLERATE -- RACE TO THE BOTTOM WAGES (as you describe here) ARE SET BY THE LEAST THE EMPLOYEE
WILL TOLERATE.
What you describe would never happen with sufficient (high!) union density. See Germany.
******************
What to do:
Current union busting penalties carry about as much weight as the "FBI warning" you get when
you start a DVD. More actually: if you actually enter a movie theater to copy a new movie before
it goes to DVD you face a couple of years mandatory federal hospitality.
OTH if you fire an organizer the most you face is hiring the organizer back and maybe a little
back pay while she's waiting to fired again for "something else." The labor market is the only
market where you can break the law and face zero penalties at all.
New idea: an NLRB finding of illegally blocking union organization should be able to lead to
a mandate that a certification election must be taken. This may only be implementable at the federal
level.
Beyond that union busting should be a felony at state and federal levels -- backed by RICO
for persistent violators to keep employers from playing at the edges. Our most progressive/pro
labor states (WA, OR, CA, NV, IL, MN, NY, MD?) could do that right now if someone would just raise
the issue.
Like any other collective action, collective bargaining relies on cohesion among the collective.
The objective of any collective, whether a trade group or union, is collective action on behalf
of its members. Cohesion among the group members is absolutely necessary to successful collective
action. Weakness of union bargaining is due to the inability of the collective to maintain cohesion.
Your own cabdrivers' union has been undercut by Uber. My friends among the local tradesmen are
being undercut by men with comparable skills who are not eligible for union membership under current
rules, but are willing to do comparable work for half the union scale. My friends in industrial
unions have been undercut by foreign competitors. Technological advances have played a large role
in assisting circumstances to undercut cabbies, carpenters, and machinists all.
"We have a large number of asian scientific and technical people in the area and they are also
high wage folks and native born scientists and technical personnel do not seem to have been adversely
affected."
A significant part of age discrimination complaints in tech is actually about preferring young
*foreign* or foreign-origin labor to locals who started their careers in the 80's and 90's, and
who are now around 40-60 years old.
There has been the related observation that EE/CS and other tech-related majors have been majority
foreign-populated as the share of locals has declined due to lower job prospects and escalating
tuition and ancillary costs.
Almost all entry-level hiring in "established" industries has been either abroad, or bringing
in visa workes, which after temporary labor crunches in the Y2K/dotcom booms led to an oversupply
of experienced but older workers who would be hired at more senior levels as long as they had
related recent work credentials, or not quite senior levels but expected to have age-appropriate
experience and work contribution.
But that works only for a few years. Once you are out of the industry for a while or stuck
at level because there is no need for advancement, prospects decline a lot.
In parallel there has been a widely bemoaned innovation stagnation, and that goes together
with more people being needed for maintenance-type jobs and only few for advanced R&D (and even
advanced R&D has a lot of mundane legwork - consider Edison's quip "invention is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration").
That relatively few people were hired at the entry level "here" since about 2000 has also contributed
to perceived "talent shortages" - as companies got used to the idea you can just poach talent
or hire from the market, as some point the supply of *young* local workers dried up as the pipeline
wasn't refilled.
If nobody has hired and trained freshers locally let's say for 5-10 years, how can anybody
expect to find people in that range of experience (who haven't "peaked" yet and can still be motivated
for a while with promises of career advancement, or still have headroom for actual advancement)?
That's actually what age discrimination is about.
Be careful who you call a racist. BTW racists are deplorable and some polls indicate that 60%
of Trump's supporters are racists. So "half" could be seen as an underestimate.
"none of the Trump campaign pushback to Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comments have said
anything about the people Clinton was talking about not being racist, not being misogynist or
by whatever definition not being 'haters.' It's not referenced once. Check out the statements
after the jump."
They cannot refute what Clinton said because Trump's supporters are racists. Rusty may be uncomfortable
with this reality but it is true.
Sanders style welfare proposals are misplaced. Continuing to subsidize people to live in areas
that are not sustainable does not fix the problem. Money is taken from urban areas that is needed
for renewal and investments in urban residents in sustainable areas and used to subsidize unsustainable
middle class lifestyles in exurban and rural areas. A more permanent solution is some combination
of transformation & relocation. Sanders tossed out the same 50 year old SWP nonsense without much
thought to whether it would work in today's economy. He made vague proposals that people were
free to interpret as matching their own. It was never in any sense a plan.
The world is urbanizing. The future is urban. The sooner we start planning and building for
the future, the less problems we will have with these unsustainable areas and lifestyles. An integrated
urban planning sustainable approach is needed.
Bernie's solution were those of the 70s, like the broken clock, he stood and waited, then yelled
I have the answer when he hadn't a clue what was happening. Hillary's are of the 90s and shall
prove worthless going forward, though she's not quite as clueless; the question is: Is she smart
enough to change her mind?
P T Trump, like his predecessors in such times, is offering snake oil remedies. His advantage,
his medium is the media (the man can see and admire himself when he's performing on stage and
camera), and enough suckers have already been born.. . America's love of snake oil has been the
subject of writers like Twain, movies, theater, ... is world renowned.
Supporting and participating in religious and community-based efforts is something we can all
do today.
"
Try it! You'll love it! Look!
Our rulers are in business for themselves, their votes, their re-election, and their own t-bonds
but not our jobs and families. We got to support our own community. Our pioneers learned that
from the Indians and passed it on to us. It starts with a block party on 4th of July and grows
in all directions -- looking
The US has a trade deficit of 2-3 billion dollars a year. Our exports to Asia are mostly transfer
pricing attempts to avoid foreign taxes and smuggle profits back to the US. Trump is the first
presidential candidate in forty years to make correcting the trade deficit a centerpiece of his
campaign.
There is no country today, and never has been, nor will there be one that has no industry and
is also wealthy. The US was once a protectionist manufacturing heavy country. DJT wants to take
us back to pre-1970 protectionism; this is our only hope.
$2-3 billion a day. Imagine if we manufactured cellphones, computers, socks, etc. etc. the Delta,
Appalachia, and Michigan, New Haven CT etc. wouldn't be quickly becoming hell holes.
BenIsNotYoda : , -1
Thanks to Mark Thoma for highlighting some good effects of legal immigration. From the article:
Immigrants also own a larger share of small businesses than natives, are no more likely to
be unemployed, are no less likely to assimilate than in the past (no matter their country of origin),
and they have contributed greatly to technological development in the US. One study estimates
that "25.3 percent of the technology and engineering businesses launched in the United States
between 1995 to 2005 had a foreign-born founder. In California, this percentage was 38.8 percent.
In Silicon Valley, the center of the high-tech industry, 52.4 percent of the new tech start-ups
had a foreign-born owner."
Now only if the extreme liberals would stop bad mouthing H-1B program that brings in these
very people. To those who oppose H-1B: some abuse of the program to shut down the program is like
shutting down Medicare because there was a little fraud in Medicare. Obviously it is not a good
enough argument. Therefore I have to conclude it is pure discrimination disguised as something
else.
"...a full 95% of the cash that went to Greece ran a trip through Greece
and went straight back to creditors which in plain English is banks. So,
public taxpayers money was pushed through Greece to basically bail out banks...So
austerity becomes a side effect of a general policy of bank bailouts that
nobody wants to own. That's really what happened, ok?
Why are we peddling nonsense? Nobody wants to own up to a gigantic bailout
of the entire European banking system that took six years. Austerity was
a cover.
If the EU at the end of the day and the Euro is not actually improving
the lives of the majority of the people, what is it for? That's the question
that they've brought no answer to.
...the Hamptons is not a defensible position. The Hamptons is a very
rich area on Long Island that lies on low lying beaches. Very hard to defend
a low lying beach. Eventually people are going to come for you.
What's clear is that every social democratic party in Europe needs to
find a new reason to exist. Because as I said earlier over the past 20 years
they have sold their core constituency down the line for a bunch of floaters
in the middle who don't protect them or really don't particularly care for
them. Because the only offers on the agenda are basically austerity and
tax cuts for those who already have, versus austerity, apologies, and a
minimum wage."
Mark Blyth
Although I may not agree with every particular that Mark Blyth may say, directionally
he is exactly correct in diagnosing the problems in Europe.
And yes, I am aware that the subtitles are at times in error, and sometimes
outrageously so. Many of the errors were picked up and corrected in the comments.
No stimulus, no plans, no official actions, no monetary theories can be sustainably
effective in revitalizing an economy that is as bent as these have become without
serious reform at the first.
This was the lesson that was given by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. There
will be no lasting recovery without it; it is a sine qua non . One cannot
turn their economy around when the political and business structures are systemically
corrupt, and the elites are preoccupied with looting it, and hiding their spoils
offshore.
"But part of the answer lies in something Americans have a hard time
talking about: class. Trade is a class issue. The trade agreements we have
entered into over the past few decades have consistently harmed some
Americans (manufacturing workers) while just as consistently benefiting
others (owners and professionals). …
To understand "free trade" in such a way has made it difficult for people
in the bubble of the consensus to acknowledge the actual consequences of the
agreements we have negotiated over the years."
"... Despite the neoliberal obsession with wage suppression, history suggests that such a policy is self-destructive. Periods of high wages are associated with rapid technological change. ..."
"... On the ideological front, the South adopted a shallow, but rigid libertarian perspective which resembled modern neoliberalism. Samuel Johnson may have been the first person to see through the hypocrisy of the hollowness of southern libertarianism. ..."
"... the famous Powell Memo helped to spark a well-financed movement of well-finance right-wing political activism which morphed into right-wing political extremism both in economics and politics. ..."
"... In short, neoliberalism was surging ahead and the economy of high wages was now beyond the pale. These new conditions gave new force to the southern "yelps of liberty." The social safety net was taken down and reconstructed as the flag of neoliberalism. The one difference between the rhetoric of the slaveholders and that of the modern neoliberals was that entrepreneurial superiority replaced racial superiority as their battle cry. ..."
Despite the neoliberal obsession with wage suppression, history suggests
that such a policy is self-destructive. Periods of high wages are associated
with rapid technological change.
... ... ...
On the ideological front, the South adopted a shallow, but rigid libertarian
perspective which resembled modern neoliberalism. Samuel Johnson may have been
the first person to see through the hypocrisy of the hollowness of southern
libertarianism. Responding to the colonists' complaint that taxation by
the British was a form of tyranny, Samuel Johnson published his 1775 tract,
"Taxation No Tyranny: An answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American
Congress," asking the obvious question, "how is it that we hear the loudest
yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" In The Works of Samuel Johnson,
LL. D.: Political Tracts. Political Essays. Miscellaneous Essays (London: J.
Buckland, 1787): pp. 60-146, p. 142.
... ... ...
By the late 19th century, David A Wells, an industrial technician who later
became the chief economic expert in the federal government, by virtue of his
position of overseeing federal taxes. After a trip to Europe, Wells reconsidered
his strong support for protectionism. Rather than comparing the dynamism of
the northern states with the technological backward of their southern counterparts,
he was responding to the fear that American industry could not compete with
the cheap "pauper" labor of Europe. Instead, he insisted that the United States
had little to fear from, the competition from cheap labor, because the relatively
high cost of American labor would ensure rapid technological change, which,
indeed, was more rapid in the United States than anywhere else in the world,
with the possible exception of Germany. Both countries were about to rapidly
surpass England's industrial prowess.
The now-forgotten Wells was so highly regarded that the prize for the best
economics dissertation at Harvard is still known as the David A Wells prize.
His efforts gave rise to a very powerful idea in economic theory at the time,
known as "the economy of high wages," which insisted that high wages drove economic
prosperity. With his emphasis on technical change, driven by the strong competitive
pressures from high wages, Wells anticipated Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction,
except that for him, high wages rather than entrepreneurial genius drove this
process.
Although the economy of high wages remained highly influential through the
1920s, the extensive growth of government powers during World War I reignited
the antipathy for big government. Laissez-faire economics began come back into
vogue with the election of Calvin Coolidge, while the once-powerful progressive
movement was becoming excluded from the ranks of reputable economics.
... ... ...
With Barry Goldwater's humiliating defeat in his presidential campaign,
the famous Powell Memo helped to spark a well-financed movement of well-finance
right-wing political activism which morphed into right-wing political extremism
both in economics and politics. Symbolic of the narrowness of this new
mindset among economists, Milton Friedman's close associate, George Stigler,
said in 1976 that "one evidence of professional integrity of the economist is
the fact that it is not possible to enlist good economists to defend minimum
wage laws." Stigler, G. J. 1982. The Economist as Preacher and Other Essays
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press): p. 60.
In short, neoliberalism was surging ahead and the economy of high wages
was now beyond the pale. These new conditions gave new force to the southern
"yelps of liberty." The social safety net was taken down and reconstructed as
the flag of neoliberalism. The one difference between the rhetoric of the slaveholders
and that of the modern neoliberals was that entrepreneurial superiority replaced
racial superiority as their battle cry.
One final irony: evangelical Christians were at the forefront of the abolitionist
movement. Today, some of them are providing the firepower for the epidemic of
neoliberalism.
"... the US has been successful in dictating neoliberal policies, acting partly through the IMF and World Bank and partly through direct pressure. ..."
"... From roughly the mid 1930s to the mid 1970s a new "interventionist" approach replaced classical liberalism, and it became the accepted belief that capitalism requires significant state regulation in order to be viable. In the 1970s the Old Religion of classical liberalism made a rapid comeback, first in academic economics and then in the realm of public policy. ..."
"... Neoliberal theory claims that a largely unregulated capitalist system (a "free market economy" not only embodies the ideal of free individual choice but also achieves optimum economic performance with respect to efficiency, economic growth, technical progress, and distributional justice. ..."
"... The policy recommendations of neoliberalism are concerned mainly with dismantling what remains of the regulationist welfare state. ..."
"... This paper argues that the resurgence and tenacity of neoliberalism during the past two decades cannot be explained, in an instrumental fashion, by any favorable effects of neoliberal policies on capitalist economic performance. On the contrary, we will present a case that neoliberalism has been harmful for long-run capitalist economic performance, even judging economic performance from the perspective of the interests of capital. It will be argued that the resurgence and continuing dominance of neoliberalism can be explained, at least in part, by changes in the competitive structure of world capitalism, which have resulted in turn from the particular form of global economic integration that has developed in recent decades. The changed competitive structure of capitalism has altered the political posture of big business with regard to economic policy and the role of the state, turning big business from a supporter of state-regulated capitalism into an opponent of it. ..."
"... Second, the neoliberal model creates instability on the macroeconomic level by renouncing state counter-cyclical spending and taxation policies, by reducing the effectiveness of "automatic stabilizers" through shrinking social welfare programs,3 and by loosening public regulation of the financial sector. This renders the system more vulnerable to major financial crises and depressions. Third, the neoliberal model tends to intensify class conflict, which can potentially discourage capitalist investment.4 ..."
"... The evidence from GDP and labor productivity growth rates supports the claim that the neoliberal model is inferior to the state regulationist model for key dimensions of capitalist economic performance. There is ample evidence that the neoliberal model has shifted income and wealth in the direction of the already wealthy. However, the ability to shift income upward has limits in an economy that is not growing rapidly. Neoliberalism does not appear to be delivering the goods in the ways that matter the most for capitalism's long-run stability and survival. ..."
"... Once capitalism had become well established in the US after the Civil War, it entered a period of cutthroat competition and wild accumulation known as the Robber Baron era. In this period a coherent anti-interventionist liberal position emerged and became politically dominant. Despite the enormous inequalities, the severe business cycle, and the outrageous and often unlawful behavior of the Goulds and Rockefellers, the idea that government should not intervene in the economy held sway through the end of the 19th century. ..."
"... Small business has remained adamantly opposed to the big, interventionist state, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal down to the present. This division between big and small business is chronicled for the Progressive Era in Weinstein (1968). In the decades immediately following World War II one can observe this division in the divergent views of the Business Roundtable, a big business organization which often supported interventionist programs, and the US Chambers of Commerce, the premier small business organization, which hewed to an antigovernment stance. ..."
"... By contrast, the typical small business faces a daily battle for survival, which prevents attention to long-run considerations and which places a premium on avoiding the short-run costs of taxation and state regulation. This explains the radically different positions that big business and small business held regarding the proper state role in the economy for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. ..."
"... This long-standing division between big business and small business appeared to vanish in the US starting in the 1970s. Large corporations and banks which had formerly supported foundations that advocated an active government role in the economy, such as the Brookings Institution, became big donors to neoliberal foundations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. As a result, such right-wing foundations, which previously had to rely mainly on contributions from small business, became very wealthy and influential.10 It was big business=s desertion of the political coalition supporting state intervention and its shift to neoliberalism that rebuilt support for neoliberal theories and policies in the US, starting in the 1970s. With business now unified on economic policy, the shift was dramatic. Big grants became available for economics research having a neoliberal slant. The major media shifted their spin on political developments, and the phrase "government programs" now could not be printed except with the word "bloated" before it. ..."
"... Globalization is usually defined as an increase in the volume of cross-border economic interactions and resource flows, producing a qualitative shift in the relations between national economies and between nation-states (Baker et. al., 1998, p. 5; Kozul-Wright and Rowthorn, 1998, p. 1). Three kinds of economic interactions have increased substantially in past decades: merchandise trade flows, foreign direct investment, and cross-border financial investments. We will briefly examine each, with an eye on their effects on the competitive structure of contemporary capitalism. ..."
"... By the close of the twentieth century, capitalism had become significantly more globalized than it had been fifty years ago, and by some measures it is much more globalized than it had been at the previous peak of this process in 1913. The most important features of globalization today are greatly increased international trade, increased flows of capital across national boundaries (particularly speculative short-term capital), and a major role for large TNCs in manufacturing, extractive activities, and finance, operating worldwide yet retaining in nearly all cases a clear base in a single nation-state. ..."
"... Some analysts argue that globalization has produced a world of such economic interdependence that individual nation-states no longer have the power to regulate capital. However, while global interdependence does create difficulties for state regulation, this effect has been greatly exaggerated. Nation-states still retain a good deal of potential power vis-a-vis capitalist firms, provided that the political will is present to exercise such power. For example, even such a small country as Malaysia proved able to successfully impose capital controls following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, despite the opposition of the IMF and the US government. ..."
"... Globalization appears to be one factor that has transformed big business from a supporter to an opponent of the interventionist state. It has done so partly by producing TNCs whose tie to the domestic markets for goods and labor is limited. ..."
"... Globalization has produced a world capitalism that bears some resemblance to the Robber Baron Era in the US. Giant corporations battle one another in a system lacking well defined rules. Mergers and acquisitions abound, including some that cross national boundaries, but so far few world industries have evolved the kind of tight oligopolistic structure that would lay the basis for a more controlled form of market relations. Like the late 19th century US Robber Barons, today's large corporations and banks above all want freedom from political burdens and restraints as they confront one another in world markets.18 ..."
"... The existence of a powerful bloc of Communist-run states with an alternative "state socialist" socioeconomic system tended to push capitalism toward a state regulationist form. It reinforced the fear among capitalists that their own working classes might turn against capitalism. It also had an impact on relations among the leading capitalist states, promoting inter-state unity behind US leadership, which facilitated the creation and operation of a world-system of state-regulated capitalism.19 The demise of state socialism during 1989-91 removed one more factor that had reinforced the regulationist state. ..."
"... If state socialism re-emerged in one or more major countries, perhaps this might push the capitalist world back toward the regulationist state. However, such a development does not seem likely. Even if Russia or Ukraine at some point does head in that direction, it would be unlikely to produce a serious rival socioeconomic system to that of world capitalism. ..."
Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute Thompson Hall
University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 U.S.A. Telephone 413-545-1248
Fax 413-545-2921 Email [email protected] August, 2000 This paper was published
in Rethinking Marxism, Volume 12, Number 2, Summer 2002, pp. 64-79.
Research assistance was provided by Elizabeth Ramey and Deger Eryar. Research
funding was provided by the Political Economy Research Institute of the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst. Globalization and Neoliberalism 1 For some
two decades neoliberalism has dominated economic policymaking in the US and
the UK. Neoliberalism has strong advocates in continental Western Europe and
Japan, but substantial popular resistance there has limited its influence so
far, despite continuing US efforts to impose neoliberal policies on them. In
much of the Third World, and in the transition countries (except for China),
the US has been successful in dictating neoliberal policies, acting partly through
the IMF and World Bank and partly through direct pressure.
Neoliberalism is an updated version of the classical liberal economic thought
that was dominant in the US and UK prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
From roughly the mid 1930s to the mid 1970s a new "interventionist" approach
replaced classical liberalism, and it became the accepted belief that capitalism
requires significant state regulation in order to be viable. In the 1970s the
Old Religion of classical liberalism made a rapid comeback, first in academic
economics and then in the realm of public policy.
Neoliberalism is both a body of economic theory and a policy stance.
Neoliberal theory claims that a largely unregulated capitalist system (a "free
market economy" not only embodies the ideal of free individual choice but also
achieves optimum economic performance with respect to efficiency, economic growth,
technical progress, and distributional justice. The state is assigned a
very limited economic role: defining property rights, enforcing contracts, and
regulating the money supply.1 State intervention to correct market failures
is viewed with suspicion, on the ground that such intervention is likely to
create more problems than it solves.
The policy recommendations of neoliberalism are concerned mainly with
dismantling what remains of the regulationist welfare state. These recommendations
include deregulation of business; privatization of public activities and assets;
elimination of, or cutbacks in, social welfare programs; and reduction of taxes
on businesses and the investing class. In the international sphere, neoliberalism
calls for free movement of goods, services, capital, and money (but not people)
across national boundaries. That is, corporations, banks, and individual investors
should be free to move their property across national boundaries, and free to
acquire property across national boundaries, although free cross-border movement
by individuals is not part of the neoliberal program. How can the re-emergence
of a seemingly outdated and outmoded economic theory be explained? At first
many progressive economists viewed the 1970s lurch toward liberalism as a temporary
response to the economic instability of that decade. As corporate interests
decided that the Keynesian regulationist approach no longer worked to their
advantage, they looked for an alternative and found only the old liberal ideas,
which could at least serve as an ideological basis for cutting those state programs
viewed as obstacles to profit-making. However, neoliberalism has proved to be
more than just a temporary response. It has outlasted the late 1970s/early 1980s
right-wing political victories in the UK (Thatcher) and US (Reagan). Under a
Democratic Party administration in the US and a Labor Party government in the
UK in the 1990s, neoliberalism solidified its position of dominance.
This paper argues that the resurgence and tenacity of neoliberalism during
the past two decades cannot be explained, in an instrumental fashion, by any
favorable effects of neoliberal policies on capitalist economic performance.
On the contrary, we will present a case that neoliberalism has been harmful
for long-run capitalist economic performance, even judging economic performance
from the perspective of the interests of capital. It will be argued that the
resurgence and continuing dominance of neoliberalism can be explained, at least
in part, by changes in the competitive structure of world capitalism, which
have resulted in turn from the particular form of global economic integration
that has developed in recent decades. The changed competitive structure of capitalism
has altered the political posture of big business with regard to economic policy
and the role of the state, turning big business from a supporter of state-regulated
capitalism into an opponent of it.
The Problematic Character of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism appears to be problematic as a dominant theory for contemporary
capitalism. The stability and survival of the capitalist system depends on its
ability to bring vigorous capital accumulation, where the latter process is
understood to include not just economic expansion but also technological progress.
Vigorous capital accumulation permits rising profits to coexist with rising
living standards for a substantial part of the population over the long-run.2
However, it does not appear that neoliberalism promotes vigorous capital accumulation
in contemporary capitalism. There are a number of reasons why one would not
expect the neoliberal model to promote rapid accumulation. First, it gives rise
to a problem of insufficient aggregate demand over the long run, stemming from
the powerful tendency of the neoliberal regime to lower both real wages and
public spending. Second, the neoliberal model creates instability on the
macroeconomic level by renouncing state counter-cyclical spending and taxation
policies, by reducing the effectiveness of "automatic stabilizers" through shrinking
social welfare programs,3 and by loosening public regulation of the financial
sector. This renders the system more vulnerable to major financial crises and
depressions. Third, the neoliberal model tends to intensify class conflict,
which can potentially discourage capitalist investment.4
The historical evidence confirms doubts about the ability of the neoliberal
model to promote rapid capital accumulation. We will look at growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) and of labor productivity. The GDP growth rate
provides at least a rough approximation of the rate of capital accumulation,
while the labor productivity growth rate tells us something about the extent
to which capitalism is developing the forces of production via rising ratios
of means of production to direct labor, technological advance, and improved
labor skills.5 Table 1 shows average annual real GDP growth rates for six leading
developed capitalist countries over two periods, 1950-73 and 1973-99. The first
period was the heyday of state-regulated capitalism, both within those six countries
and in the capitalist world-system as a whole. The second period covers the
era of growing neoliberal dominance. All six countries had significantly faster
GDP growth in the earlier period than in the later one.
While Japan and the major Western European economies have been relatively
depressed in the 1990s, the US is often portrayed as rebounding to great prosperity
over the past decade. Neoliberals often claim that US adherence to neoliberal
policies finally paid off in the 1990s, while the more timid moves away from
state-interventionist policies in Europe and Japan kept them mired in stagnation.
Table 2 shows GDP and labor productivity growth rates for the US economy for
three subperiods during 1948-99.6 Column 1 of Table 2 shows that GDP growth
was significantly slower in 1973-90 B a period of transition from state-regulated
capitalism to the neoliberal model in the US B than in 1948-73. While GDP growth
improved slightly in 1990-99, it remained well below that of the era of state-regulated
capitalism. Some analysts cite the fact that GDP growth accelerated after 1995,
averaging 4.1% per year during 1995-99 (US Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2000).
However, it is not meaningful to compare a short fragment of the 1990s business
cycle expansion to the longrun performance of the economy during 1948-73.7
Column 2 of Table 1 shows that the high rate of labor productivity growth
recorded in 1948- 73 fell by more than half in 1973-90. While there was significant
improvement in productivity growth in the 1990s, it remained well below the
1948-73 rate, despite the rapid spread of what should be productivity-enhancing
communication and information-management technologies during the past decade.
The evidence from GDP and labor productivity growth rates supports the
claim that the neoliberal model is inferior to the state regulationist model
for key dimensions of capitalist economic performance. There is ample evidence
that the neoliberal model has shifted income and wealth in the direction of
the already wealthy. However, the ability to shift income upward has limits
in an economy that is not growing rapidly. Neoliberalism does not appear to
be delivering the goods in the ways that matter the most for capitalism's long-run
stability and survival.
The Structure of Competition and Economic Policy
The processes through which the dominant economic ideology and policies
are selected in a capitalist system are complex and many-sided. No general rule
operates to assure that those economic policies which would be most favorable
for capitalism are automatically adopted. History suggests that one important
determinant of the dominant economic ideology and policy stance is the competitive
structure of capitalism in a given era. Specifically, this paper argues that
periods of relatively unconstrained competition tend to produce the intellectual
and public policy dominance of liberalism, while periods of relatively constrained,
oligopolistic market relations tend to promote interventionist ideas and policies.
A relation in the opposite direction also exists, one which is often commented
upon. That is, one can argue that interventionist policies promote monopoly
power in markets, while liberal policies promote greater competition. This latter
relation is not being denied here. Rather, it will be argued that there is a
normally-overlooked direction of influence, having significant historical explanatory
power, which runs from competitive structure to public policy. In the period
when capitalism first became well established in the US, during 1800-1860, the
government played a relatively interventionist role. The federal government
placed high tariffs on competing manufactured goods from Europe, and federal,
state, and local levels of government all actively financed, and in some cases
built and operated, the new canal and rail system that created a large internal
market. There was no serious debate over the propriety of public financing of
transportation improvements in that era -- the only debate was over which regions
would get the key subsidized routes.
Once capitalism had become well established in the US after the Civil
War, it entered a period of cutthroat competition and wild accumulation known
as the Robber Baron era. In this period a coherent anti-interventionist liberal
position emerged and became politically dominant. Despite the enormous inequalities,
the severe business cycle, and the outrageous and often unlawful behavior of
the Goulds and Rockefellers, the idea that government should not intervene in
the economy held sway through the end of the 19th century.
From roughly 1890 to 1903 a huge merger wave transformed the competitive
structure of US capitalism. Out of that merger wave emerged giant corporations
possessing significant monopoly power in the manufacturing, mining, transportation,
and communication sectors. US industry settled down to a more restrained form
of oligopolistic rivalry. At the same time, many of the new monopoly capitalists
began to criticize the old Laissez Faire ideas and support a more interventionist
role for the state.8 The combination of big business support for state regulation
of business, together with similar demands arising from a popular anti-monopoly
movement based among small farmers and middle class professionals, ushered in
what is called the Progressive Era, from 1900-16. The building of a regulationist
state that was begun in the Progressive Era was completed during the New Deal
era a few decades later, when once again both big business leaders and a vigorous
popular movement (this time based among industrial workers) supported an interventionist
state. Both in the Progressive Era and the New Deal, big business and the popular
movement differed about what types of state intervention were needed. Big business
favored measures to increase the stability of the system and to improve conditions
for profit-making, while the popular movement sought to use the state to restrain
the power and privileges of big business and provide greater security for ordinary
people. The outcome in both cases was a political compromise, one weighted toward
the interests of big business, reflecting the relative power of the latter in
American capitalism.
Small business has remained adamantly opposed to the big, interventionist
state, from the Progressive Era through the New Deal down to the present. This
division between big and small business is chronicled for the Progressive Era
in Weinstein (1968). In the decades immediately following World War II one can
observe this division in the divergent views of the Business Roundtable, a big
business organization which often supported interventionist programs, and the
US Chambers of Commerce, the premier small business organization, which hewed
to an antigovernment stance.
What explains this political difference between large and small business?
When large corporations achieve significant market power and become freed from
fear concerning their immediate survival, they tend to develop a long time horizon
and pay attention to the requirements for assuring growing profits over time.9
They come to see the state as a potential ally. Having high and stable monopoly
profits, they tend to view the cost of government programs as something they
can afford, given their potential benefits. By contrast, the typical small
business faces a daily battle for survival, which prevents attention to long-run
considerations and which places a premium on avoiding the short-run costs of
taxation and state regulation. This explains the radically different positions
that big business and small business held regarding the proper state role in
the economy for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century.
This long-standing division between big business and small business appeared
to vanish in the US starting in the 1970s. Large corporations and banks which
had formerly supported foundations that advocated an active government role
in the economy, such as the Brookings Institution, became big donors to neoliberal
foundations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
As a result, such right-wing foundations, which previously had to rely mainly
on contributions from small business, became very wealthy and influential.10
It was big business=s desertion of the political coalition supporting state
intervention and its shift to neoliberalism that rebuilt support for neoliberal
theories and policies in the US, starting in the 1970s. With business now unified
on economic policy, the shift was dramatic. Big grants became available for
economics research having a neoliberal slant. The major media shifted their
spin on political developments, and the phrase "government programs" now could
not be printed except with the word "bloated" before it.
This switch in the dominant economic model first showed up in the mid 1970s
in academic economics, as the previously marginalized Chicago School spread
its influence far beyond the University of Chicago. This was soon followed by
a radical shift in the public policy arena. In 1978- 79 the previously interventionist
Carter Administration began sounding the very neoliberal themes B deregulation
of business, cutbacks in social programs, and general fiscal and monetary austerity
B that were to become the centerpiece of Reagan Administration policies in 1981.
What caused the radical change in the political posture of big business regarding
state intervention in the economy? This paper argues that a major part of the
explanation lies in the effects of the globalization of the world capitalist
economy in the post-World War II period.
Globalization and Competition
Globalization is usually defined as an increase in the volume of cross-border
economic interactions and resource flows, producing a qualitative shift in the
relations between national economies and between nation-states (Baker et. al.,
1998, p. 5; Kozul-Wright and Rowthorn, 1998, p. 1). Three kinds of economic
interactions have increased substantially in past decades: merchandise trade
flows, foreign direct investment, and cross-border financial investments. We
will briefly examine each, with an eye on their effects on the competitive structure
of contemporary capitalism.
Table 3 shows the ratio of merchandise exports to gross domestic product
for selected years from 1820 to 1992, for the world and also for Western Europe,
the US, and Japan. Capitalism brought a five-fold rise in world exports relative
to output from 1820-70, followed by another increase of nearly three-fourths
by 1913. After declining in the interwar period, world exports reached a new
peak of 11.2% of world output in 1973, rising further to 13.5% in 1992. The
1992 figure was over fifty per cent higher than the pre-World War I peak.
Merchandise exports include physical goods only, while GDP includes services,
many of which are not tradable, as well as goods. In the twentieth century the
proportion of services in GDP has risen significantly. Table 4 shows an estimate
of the ratio of world merchandise exports to the good-only portion of world
GDP. This ratio nearly tripled during 1950-92, with merchandise exports rising
to nearly one-third of total goods output in the latter year. The 1992 figure
was 2.6 times as high as that of 1913.
Western Europe, the US, and Japan all experienced significant increases in
exports relative to GDP during 1950-92, as Table 3 shows. All of them achieved
ratios of exports to GDP far in excess of the 1913 level. While exports were
only 8.2% of the total GDP of the US in 1992, exports amounted to 22.0% of the
non-service portion of GDP that year (Economic Report of the President,
1999, pp. 338, 444).
Many analysts view foreign direct investment as the most important form of
cross-border economic interchange. It is associated with the movement of technology
and organizational methods, not just goods. Table 5 shows two measures of foreign
direct investment. Column 1 gives the outstanding stock of foreign direct investment
in the world as a percentage of world output. This measure has more than doubled
since 1975, although it is not much greater today than it was in 1913. Column
2 shows the annual inflow of direct foreign investment as a percentage of gross
fixed capital formation. This measure increased rapidly during 1975-95. However,
it is still relatively low in absolute terms, with foreign direct investment
accounting for only 5.2 per cent of gross fixed capital formation in 1995.
Not all, or even most, international capital flows take the form of direct
investment. Financial flows (such as cross-border purchases of securities and
deposits in foreign bank accounts) are normally larger. One measure that takes
account of financial as well as direct investment is the total net movement
of capital into or out of a country. That measure indicates the extent to which
capital from one country finances development in other countries. Table 6 shows
the absolute value of current account surpluses or deficits as a percentage
of GDP for 12 major capitalist countries. Since net capital inflow or outflow
is approximately equal to the current account deficit or surplus (differing
only due to errors and omissions), this indicates the size of net cross-border
capital flows. The ratio nearly doubled from 1970-74 to 1990-96, although it
remained well below the figure for 1910-14.
Cross-border gross capital movements have grown much more rapidly
than cross-border net capital movements.11 In recent times a very large
and rapidly growing volume of capital has moved back and forth across national
boundaries. Much of this capital flow is speculative in nature, reflecting growing
amounts of short-term capital that are moved around the world in search of the
best temporary return. No data on such flows are available for the early part
of this century, but the data for recent decades are impressive. During 1980-95
cross-border transactions in bonds and equities as a percentage of GDP rose
from 9% to 136% for the US, from 8% to 168% for Germany, and from 8% to 66%
for Japan (Baker et. al., 1998, p. 10). The total volume of foreign exchange
transactions in the world rose from about $15 billion per day in 1973 to $80
billion per day in 1980 and $1260 billion per day in 1995. Trade in goods and
services accounted for 15% of foreign exchange transactions in 1973 but for
less than 2% of foreign exchange transactions in 1995 (Bhaduri, 1998, p. 152).
While cross-border flows of goods and capital are usually considered to be
the best indicators of possible globalization of capitalism, changes that have
occurred over time within capitalist enterprises are also relevant. That is,
the much-discussed rise of the transnational corporation (TNC) is relevant here,
where a TNC is a corporation which has a substantial proportion of its sales,
assets, and employees outside its home country.12 TNCs existed in the pre-World
War I era, primarily in the extractive sector. In the post-World War II period
many large manufacturing corporations in the US, Western Europe, and Japan became
TNCs.
The largest TNCs are very international measured by the location of their
activities. One study found that the 100 largest TNCs in the world (ranked by
assets) had 40.4% of their assets abroad, 50.0% of output abroad, and 47.9%
of employment abroad in 1996 (Sutcliffe and Glyn, 1999, p. 125). While this
shows that the largest TNCs are significantly international in their activities,
all but a handful have retained a single national base for top officials and
major stockholders.13 The top 200 TNCs ranked by output were estimated to produce
only about 10 per cent of world GDP in 1995 (Sutcliffe and Glyn, 1999, p. 122).
By the close of the twentieth century, capitalism had become significantly
more globalized than it had been fifty years ago, and by some measures it is
much more globalized than it had been at the previous peak of this process in
1913. The most important features of globalization today are greatly increased
international trade, increased flows of capital across national boundaries (particularly
speculative short-term capital), and a major role for large TNCs in manufacturing,
extractive activities, and finance, operating worldwide yet retaining in nearly
all cases a clear base in a single nation-state.
While the earlier wave of globalization before World War I did produce a
capitalism that was significantly international, two features of that earlier
international system differed from the current global capitalism in ways that
are relevant here. First, the pre-world War I globalization took place within
a world carved up into a few great colonial empires, which meant that much of
the so-called "cross-border" trade and investment of that earlier era actually
occurred within a space controlled by a single state. Second, the high level
of world trade reached before World War I occurred within a system based much
more on specialization and division of labor. That is, manufactured goods were
exported by the advanced capitalist countries in exchange for primary products,
unlike today when most trade is in manufactured goods. In 1913 62.5% of world
trade was in primary products (Bairoch and Kozul-Wright, 1998, p. 45). By contrast,
in 1970 60.9% of world exports were manufactured goods, rising to 74.7% in 1994
(Baker et. al., 1998, p. 7).
Some analysts argue that globalization has produced a world of such economic
interdependence that individual nation-states no longer have the power to regulate
capital. However, while global interdependence does create difficulties for
state regulation, this effect has been greatly exaggerated. Nation-states still
retain a good deal of potential power vis-a-vis capitalist firms, provided that
the political will is present to exercise such power. For example, even such
a small country as Malaysia proved able to successfully impose capital controls
following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, despite the opposition of the
IMF and the US government. A state that has the political will to exercise
some control over movements of goods and capital across its borders still retains
significant power to regulate business. The more important effect of globalization
has been on the political will to undertake state regulation, rather than on
the technical feasibility of doing so. Globalization has had this effect by
changing the competitive structure of capitalism. It appears that globalization
in this period has made capitalism significantly more competitive, in several
ways. First, the rapid growth of trade has changed the situation faced by large
corporations. Large corporations that had previously operated in relatively
controlled oligopolistic domestic markets now face competition from other large
corporations based abroad, both in domestic and foreign markets. In the US the
rate of import penetration of domestic manufacturing markets was only 2 per
cent in 1950; it rose to 8% in 1971 and 16% by 1993, an 8-fold increase since
1950 (Sutcliffe and Glyn, 1999, p. 116).
Second, the rapid increase in foreign direct investment has in many cases
placed TNCs production facilities in the home markets of their foreign rivals.
General Motors not only faces import competition from Toyota and Honda but has
to compete with US-produced Toyota and Honda vehicles. Third, the increasingly
integrated and open world financial system has thrown the major banks and other
financial institutions of the leading capitalist nations increasingly into competition
with one another.
Globalization appears to be one factor that has transformed big business
from a supporter to an opponent of the interventionist state. It has done so
partly by producing TNCs whose tie to the domestic markets for goods and labor
is limited. More importantly, globalization tends to turn big business
into small business. The process of globalization has increased the competitive
pressure faced by large corporations and banks, as competition has become a
world-wide relationship.17 Even if those who run large corporations and financial
institutions recognize the need for a strong nationstate in their home base,
the new competitive pressure they face shortens their time horizon. It pushes
them toward support for any means to reduce their tax burden and lift their
regulatory constraints, to free them to compete more effectively with their
global rivals. While a regulationist state may seem to be in the interests of
big business, in that it can more effectively promote capital accumulation in
the long run, in a highly competitive environment big business is drawn away
from supporting a regulationist state.
Globalization has produced a world capitalism that bears some resemblance
to the Robber Baron Era in the US. Giant corporations battle one another in
a system lacking well defined rules. Mergers and acquisitions abound, including
some that cross national boundaries, but so far few world industries have evolved
the kind of tight oligopolistic structure that would lay the basis for a more
controlled form of market relations. Like the late 19th century US Robber Barons,
today's large corporations and banks above all want freedom from political burdens
and restraints as they confront one another in world markets.18
The above interpretation of the rise and persistence of neoliberalism attributes
it, at least in part, to the changed competitive structure of world capitalism
resulting from the process of globalization. As neoliberalism gained influence
starting in the 1970s, it became a force propelling the globalization process
further. One reason for stressing the line of causation running from globalization
to neoliberalism is the time sequence of the developments. The process of globalization,
which had been reversed to some extent by political and economic events in the
interwar period, resumed right after World War II, producing a significantly
more globalized world economy and eroding the monopoly power of large corporations
well before neoliberalism began its second coming in the mid 1970s. The rapid
rise in merchandise exports began during the Bretton Woods period, as Table
3 showed. So too did the growing role for TNC's. These two aspects of the current
globalization had their roots in the postwar era of state-regulated capitalism.
This suggests that, to some extent, globalization reflects a long-run tendency
in the capital accumulation process rather than just being a result of the rising
influence of neoliberal policies. On the other hand, once neoliberalism became
dominant, it accelerated the process of globalization. This can be seen most
clearly in the data on cross-border flows of both real and financial capital,
which began to grow rapidly only after the 1960s.
Other Factors Promoting Neoliberalism
The changed competitive structure of capitalism provides part of the explanation
for the rise from the ashes of classical liberalism and its persistence in the
face of widespread evidence of its failure to deliver the goods. However, three
additional factors have played a role in promoting neoliberal dominance. These
are the weakening of socialist movements in the industrialized capitalist countries,
the demise of state socialism, and the long period that has elapsed since the
last major capitalist economic crisis. There is space here for only some brief
comments about these additional factors.
The socialist movements in the industrialized capitalist countries have declined
in strength significantly over the past few decades. While Social Democratic
parties have come to office in several European countries recently, they no
longer represent a threat of even significant modification of capitalism, much
less the specter of replacing capitalism with an alternative socialist system.
The regulationist state was always partly a response to the fear of socialism,
a point illustrated by the emergence of the first major regulationist state
of the era of mature capitalism in Germany in the late 19th century, in response
to the world=s first major socialist movement. As the threat coming from socialist
movements in the industrialized capitalist countries has receded, so too has
to incentive to retain the regulationist state.
The existence of a powerful bloc of Communist-run states with an alternative
"state socialist" socioeconomic system tended to push capitalism toward a state
regulationist form. It reinforced the fear among capitalists that their own
working classes might turn against capitalism. It also had an impact on relations
among the leading capitalist states, promoting inter-state unity behind US leadership,
which facilitated the creation and operation of a world-system of state-regulated
capitalism.19 The demise of state socialism during 1989-91 removed one more
factor that had reinforced the regulationist state.
The occurrence of a major economic crisis tends to promote an interventionist
state, since active state intervention is required to overcome a major crisis.
The memory of a recent major crisis tends to keep up support for a regulationist
state, which is correctly seen as a stabilizing force tending to head off major
crises. As the Great Depression of the 1930s has receded into the distant past,
the belief has taken hold that major economic crises have been banished forever.
This reduces the perceived need to retain the regulationist state.
Concluding Comments
If neoliberalism continues to reign as the dominant ideology and policy stance,
it can be argued that world capitalism faces a future of stagnation, instability,
and even eventual social breakdown.20 However, from the factors that have promoted
neoliberalism one can see possible sources of a move back toward state-regulated
capitalism at some point. One possibility would be the development of tight
oligopoly and regulated competition on a world scale. Perhaps the current merger
wave might continue until, as happened at the beginning of the 20th century
within the US and in other industrialized capitalist economies, oligopoly replaced
cutthroat competition, but this time on a world scale. Such a development might
revive big business support for an interventionist state. However, this does
not seem to be likely in the foreseeable future. The world is a big place, with
differing cultures, laws, and business practices in different countries, which
serve as obstacles to overcoming the competitive tendency in market relations.
Transforming an industry=s structure so that two to four companies produce the
bulk of the output is not sufficient in itself to achieve stable monopoly power,
if the rivals are unable to communicate effectively with one another and find
common ground for cooperation. Also, it would be difficult for international
monopolies to exercise effective regulation via national governments, and a
genuine world capitalist state is not a possibility for the foreseeable future.
If state socialism re-emerged in one or more major countries, perhaps
this might push the capitalist world back toward the regulationist state. However,
such a development does not seem likely. Even if Russia or Ukraine at some point
does head in that direction, it would be unlikely to produce a serious rival
socioeconomic system to that of world capitalism.
A more likely source of a new era of state interventionism might come from
one of the remaining two factors considered above. The macro-instability of
neoliberal global capitalism might produce a major economic crisis at some point,
one which spins out of the control of the weakened regulatory authorities. This
would almost certainly revive the politics of the regulationist state. Finally,
the increasing exploitation and other social problems generated by neoliberal
global capitalism might prod the socialist movement back to life at some point.
Should socialist movements revive and begin to seriously challenge capitalism
in one or more major capitalist countries, state regulationism might return
in response to it. Such a development would also revive the possibility of finally
superceding capitalism and replacing it with a system based on human need rather
than private profit.
"... Elites can continue on the current path of pursuing integration projects and defending existing
integration, hoping to win enough popular support that their efforts are not thwarted. On the evidence
of the U.S. presidential campaign and the Brexit debate, this strategy may have run its course. ...
..."
"... I think some fellows already had this idea: "Much more promising is this idea: The promotion
of global integration can become a bottom-up rather than a top-down project" -- "Workers of the World,
Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!" ~Marx/Engels, 1848 ..."
"... Krugman sort of said this when he saw that apparel multinationals were shifting jobs out of
China to Bangladesh. Like $3 an hour is just way too high for workers. ..."
"... The "populists" are raging against global trade which benefits the world poor. The Very Serious
economists know what is really going on and have to interests of the poor at heart. Plus they are smarter
than the "populists" who are just dumb hippies. ..."
"... And what about neocolonialism and debt slavery ? http://historum.com/blogs/solidaire/245-debt-slavery-neo-colonialism-neoliberalism.html
..."
"... International debtors are the modern colonialists, sucking the marrow of countries; no armies
are needed anymore to keep those countries subjugated. Debt is the modern instrument of enslavement,
the international banks, corporations and hedge funds the modern colonial powers, and its enforcers
are instruments like the Global Bank, the IMF, and the corrupt, collaborationist governments (and totalitarian
regimes) of those countries, supported and propped up by these neo-colonials. ..."
"... Cover your a$$ much Larry? No mention of mass immigration? No mention of the elites' conscious,
planned attack on homogeneous societies in Western Europe, the US, and now Japan? ..."
"... The US was 88% European as of 1960. As of 1800 it was like 90% English. So yes, it was basically
a homogeneous society prior to the immigration act of 1965. Today it is extremely hard for Europeans
to get into the US -- but easier for non-Europeans. Now why would that be? Hmm .... ..."
"... The only trade that is actually free is trade not covered by laws and/or treaties. All other
trade is regulated trade. ..."
"... Here's a good rule to follow. When someone calls something the exact opposite of what it is,
in all probability they are trying to hustle your wallet. ..."
"... ISIS was invented by Wall Street who financed them. ISIS is a scam, just like Bin Laden's group,
just like "COMMUNISM!!!!" to control people. To manipulate them. ..."
"... Guys, the bourgeois state is a protection racket and always has been. It makes you feel safe,
secure and "feel like man". So we can enjoy every indulgent individual lust the world has to offer.
Then comes in dialectics of what that protection racket should do. ..."
"... To me, the bourgeois state is nothing more than a protection racket for the rich, something
you should not forget. ..."
"... I find it rather precious that Summers pretends not to understand why people hate TPP. I do
not think there is any real widespread antipathy toward global integration, though it does pose some
rather substantial systemic dangers, as we saw in the global financial collapse. What people, including
me, oppose is how that integration is structured. These agreements are about is not "free trade", but
removing all restrictions on global capital and that is a big problem. ..."
"... TPP is not free trade. It is protectionism for the rich. ..."
"... All or most modern "free trade" agreements are like that. What people oppose is agreements
which impoverish them and enrich capital. ..."
"... More free trade arrangement are not always better trade arrangements. People have seen the
results of the labor race to the bottom caused by earlier free trade agreements; and now they are guessing
we're going to get the same kind of race to the bottom with TPP when we have to put all of our environmental
laws and other domestic regulations into capitalist competition with backward countries. ..."
"... progressive states (WA, OR, CA, NV, IL, NY, MD) could simply treat union busting the same way
any OTHER major muscling or manipulation of the free market is treated: make it a felony. ..."
"... Summers: "Pie in the Sky" So trade negotiations would have to be lead by labor advocates and
environmental groups -- sounds great to me, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the goods
and service producers (i.e. capital owners) would have any incentive to promote trade under such a negotiated
trade agreement... or that trade would actually occur. You'd have to eliminate private enterprise incentives
to profit I think.. not something the U.S.'s "individualism" god can't tolerate. ..."
"... Alas, the Kaiser, the Tsar, and the Emperor did not act in accord with its tenets. Either increased
global trade is irrelevant to war and peace, or World War I didn't happen. Your pick which to believe.
..."
What's behind the revolt against global integration? : Since the end of World War II, a broad
consensus in support of global economic integration as a force for peace and prosperity has been
a pillar of the international order. ...
This broad program of global integration has been more successful than could reasonably have
been hoped. ... Yet a revolt against global integration is underway in the West. ...
One substantial part of what is behind the resistance is a lack of knowledge. ...The core of
the revolt against global integration, though, is not ignorance. It is a sense - unfortunately
not wholly unwarranted - that it is a project being carried out by elites for elites, with little
consideration for the interests of ordinary people. ...
Elites can continue on the current path of pursuing integration projects and defending
existing integration, hoping to win enough popular support that their efforts are not thwarted.
On the evidence of the U.S. presidential campaign and the Brexit debate, this strategy may have
run its course. ...
Much more promising is this idea: The promotion of global integration can become a bottom-up
rather than a top-down project. The emphasis can shift from promoting integration to managing
its consequences. This would mean a shift from international trade agreements to international
harmonization agreements, whereby issues such as labor rights and environmental protection would
be central, while issues related to empowering foreign producers would be secondary. It would
also mean devoting as much political capital to the trillions of dollars that escape taxation
or evade regulation through cross-border capital flows as we now devote to trade agreements. And
it would mean an emphasis on the challenges of middle-class parents everywhere who doubt, but
still hope desperately, that their kids can have better lives than they did.
I think some fellows already had this idea: "Much more promising is this idea: The promotion
of global integration can become a bottom-up rather than a top-down project" -- "Workers of the
World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!" ~Marx/Engels, 1848
Krugman sort of said this when he saw that apparel multinationals were shifting jobs out of
China to Bangladesh. Like $3 an hour is just way too high for workers.
A large part of the concern over free trade comes from the weak economic performances around the
globe. Summers could have addressed this. Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker - both sensible economists
- for example recently called on the US to do its own currency manipulation so as to reverse the
US$ appreciation which is lowering our net exports quite a bit.
What they left out is the fact that both China and Japan have seen currency appreciations as
well. If we raise our net exports at their expense, that lowers their economic activity. Better
would be global fiscal stimulus. I wish Larry had raised this issue here.
The "populists" are raging against global trade which benefits the world poor. The Very Serious
economists know what is really going on and have to interests of the poor at heart. Plus they
are smarter than the "populists" who are just dumb hippies.
One of the most fundamental reasons for the poverty and underdevelopment of Africa (and of
almost all "third world" countries) is neo-colonialism, which in modern history takes the shape
of external debt.
When countries are forced to pay 40,50,60% of their government budgets just to pay the interests
of their enormous debts, there is little room for actual prosperity left.
International debtors are the modern colonialists, sucking the marrow of countries; no
armies are needed anymore to keep those countries subjugated. Debt is the modern instrument of
enslavement, the international banks, corporations and hedge funds the modern colonial powers,
and its enforcers are instruments like the Global Bank, the IMF, and the corrupt, collaborationist
governments (and totalitarian regimes) of those countries, supported and propped up by these neo-colonials.
In reality, not much has changed since the fall of the great colonial empires. In paper, countries
have gained their sovereignty, but in reality they are enslaved to the international credit system.
The only thing that has changed, is that now the very colonial powers of the past, are threatened
to become debt colonies themselves. You see, global capitalism and credit system has no country,
nationality, colour; it only recognises the colour of money, earned at all cost by the very few,
on the expense of the vast, unsuspected and lulled masses.
Debt had always been a very efficient way of control, either on a personal, or state level.
And while most of us are aware of the implementations of personal debt and the risks involved,
the corridors of government debt are poorly lit, albeit this kind of debt is affecting all citizens
of a country and in ways more profound and far reaching into the future than those of private
debt.
Global capitalism was flourishing after WW2, and reached an apex somewhere in the 70's.
The lower classes in the mature capitalist countries had gained a respectable portion of the
distributed wealth, rights and privileges inconceivable several decades before. The purchasing
power of the average American for example, was very satisfactory, fully justifying the American
dream. Similar phenomena were taking place all over the "developed" world.
Cover your a$$ much Larry? No mention of mass immigration? No mention of the elites' conscious,
planned attack on homogeneous societies in Western Europe, the US, and now Japan?
There is of course no reasonable answering to prejudice, since prejudice is always unreasonable,
but should there be a question, when was the last time that, say, the United States or the territory
that the US now covers was a homogeneous society?
Before the US engulfed Spanish peoples? Before the US engulfed African peoples? Before the
US engulfed Indian peoples? When did the Irish, just to think of a random nationality, ruin "our"
homogeneity?
I could continue, but how much of a point is there in being reasonable?
The US was 88% European as of 1960. As of 1800 it was like 90% English. So yes, it was basically
a homogeneous society prior to the immigration act of 1965. Today it is extremely hard for Europeans
to get into the US -- but easier for non-Europeans. Now why would that be? Hmm ....
ISIS was invented by Wall Street who financed them. ISIS is a scam, just like Bin Laden's
group, just like "COMMUNISM!!!!" to control people. To manipulate them.
It is like using the internet to think you are "edgy". Some dudes like psuedo-science scam
artist Mike Adams are uncovering secrets to this witty viewer............then you wonder why society
is degenerating. What should happen with Mike Adams is, he should be beaten up and castrated.
My guess he would talk then. Boy would his idiot followers get a surprise and that surprise would
have results other than "poor mikey, he was robbed".
This explains why guys like Trump get delegates. Not because he uses illegal immigrants in
his old businesses, not because of some flat real wages going over 40 years, not because he is
a conman marketer.........he makes them feel safe. That is purely it. I think its pathetic, but
that is what happens in a emasculated world. Safety becomes absolute concern. "Trump makes me
feel safe".
Guys, the bourgeois state is a protection racket and always has been. It makes you feel
safe, secure and "feel like man". So we can enjoy every indulgent individual lust the world has
to offer. Then comes in dialectics of what that protection racket should do.
To me, the bourgeois state is nothing more than a protection racket for the rich, something
you should not forget.
I find it rather precious that Summers pretends not to understand why people hate TPP. I do
not think there is any real widespread antipathy toward global integration, though it does pose
some rather substantial systemic dangers, as we saw in the global financial collapse. What people,
including me, oppose is how that integration is structured. These agreements are about is not
"free trade", but removing all restrictions on global capital and that is a big problem.
Actually, this is my first actual response to the post itself, but you were too busy being and
a*****e to notice. All or most modern "free trade" agreements are like that. What people oppose
is agreements which impoverish them and enrich capital.
This has become a popular line, and it's not exactly false. But so what if it were a "free trade"
agreement? More free trade arrangement are not always better trade arrangements. People have
seen the results of the labor race to the bottom caused by earlier free trade agreements; and
now they are guessing we're going to get the same kind of race to the bottom with TPP when we
have to put all of our environmental laws and other domestic regulations into capitalist competition
with backward countries.
" The promotion of global integration can become a bottom-up rather than a top-down project. "
" ... whereby issues such as labor rights and environmental protection would be central ...
"
+1
Now if we could just adopt that policy internally in the United States first we could then
(and only then) support it externally across the world.
Easy approach: (FOR THE TEN MILLIONTH TIME!) progressive states (WA, OR, CA, NV, IL, NY,
MD) could simply treat union busting the same way any OTHER major muscling or manipulation of
the free market is treated: make it a felony. FYI (for those who are not aware) states can
add to federal labor protections, just not subtract.
A completely renewed, re-constituted democracy would be born.
Biggest obstacle to this being done in my (crackpot?) view: human males. Being instinctive
pack hunters, before they check out any idea they, first, check in with the pack (all those other
boys who are also checking in with the pack) -- almost automatically infer impossibility to overcome
what they see (correctly?) as wheels within wheels of inertia.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: nothing (not the most obvious, SHOULD BE easiest possible to get
support for actions) ever gets done.
I'm not the only one seeking a new path forward on trade.
by Jared Bernstein
April 11th, 2016 at 9:20 am
"...
Here's Larry's view of the way forward:
"The promotion of global integration can become a bottom-up rather than a top-down project.
The emphasis can shift from promoting integration to managing its consequences. This would
mean a shift from international trade agreements to international harmonization agreements,
whereby issues such as labor rights and environmental protection would be central, while issues
related to empowering foreign producers would be secondary. It would also mean devoting as
much political capital to the trillions of dollars that escape taxation or evade regulation
through cross-border capital flows as we now devote to trade agreements. And it would mean
an emphasis on the challenges of middle-class parents everywhere who doubt, but still hope
desperately, that their kids can have better lives than they did.
Good points, all. "Bottom-up" means what I've been calling a more representative, inclusive
process. But what's this about "international harmonization?""
It's a way of saying that we need to reduce the "frictions" and thus costs between trading
partners at the level of pragmatic infrastructure, not corporate power. One way to think of
this is TFAs, not FTAs. TFAs are trade facilitation agreements, which are more about integrating
ports, rail, and paperwork than patents that protect big Pharma.
It's refreshing to see mainstreamers thinking creatively about the anger that's surfaced
around globalization. Waiting for the anger to dissipate and then reverting back to the old
trade regimes may be the preferred path for elites, but that path may well be blocked. We'd
best clear a new, wider path, one that better accommodates folks from all walks of life, both
here and abroad."
Summers: "Pie in the Sky" So trade negotiations would have to be lead by labor advocates and
environmental groups -- sounds great to me, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the
goods and service producers (i.e. capital owners) would have any incentive to promote trade under
such a negotiated trade agreement... or that trade would actually occur. You'd have to eliminate
private enterprise incentives to profit I think.. not something the U.S.'s "individualism" god
can't tolerate.
Imagine a trade deal negotiated by the AFL-CIO. Labor wins a lot and capital owners lose a little.
We can all then smile and say to the latter - go get your buddies in Congress more serious about
the compensation principle. Turn the table!
"consensus in support of global economic integration as a force for peace and prosperity " --
"The Great Illusion" (
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion
)
That increased trade is a bulwark against war rears its ugly head again. The above book which
so ironically delivered the message was published in 1910.
Alas, the Kaiser, the Tsar, and the Emperor did not act in accord with its tenets. Either
increased global trade is irrelevant to war and peace, or World War I didn't happen. Your pick
which to believe.
Our problems began back in the 1970s when we abandoned the Bretton Woods international capital
controls and then broke the unions, cut taxes on corporations and upper income groups, and deregulated
the financial system. This eventually led a stagnation of wages in the US and an increase in the
concentration of income at the top of the income distribution throughout the world:
http://www.rwEconomics.com/Ch_1.htm
When combined with tax cuts and financial deregulation it led to increasing debt relative to
income in the importing countries that caused the financial catastrophe we went through in 2008,
the economic stagnation that followed, and the social unrest we see throughout the world today.
This, in turn, created a situation in which the full utilization of our economic resources can
only be maintained through an unsustainable increase in debt relative to income:
http://www.rwEconomics.com/htm/WDCh3e.htm
This is what has to be overcome if we are to get out of the mess the world is in today, and
it's not going to be overcome by pretending that it's just going to go away if people can just
become educated about the benefits of trade. At least that's not the way it worked out in the
1930s: http://www.rwEconomics.com/LTLGAD.htm
"... From Tunis to Tel Aviv, Madrid to Oakland, a new generation of youth activists is challenging the neoliberal state that has dominated the world ever since the Cold War ended. ..."
"... young rebels are reacting to a single stunning worldwide development: the extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands thanks to neoliberal policies of deregulation and union busting. They have taken to the streets, parks, plazas and squares to protest against the resulting corruption, the way politicians can be bought and sold, and the impunity ..."
"... In the "glorious thirty years" after World War II, North America and Western Europe achieved remarkable rates of economic growth and relatively low levels of inequality for capitalist societies, while instituting a broad range of benefits for workers, students and retirees. From roughly 1980 on, however, the neoliberal movement, rooted in the laissez-faire economic theories of Milton Friedman, launched what became a full-scale assault on workers' power and an attempt, often remarkably successful, to eviscerate the social welfare state. ..."
"... "Washington consensus" meant that the urge to impose privatisation on stagnating, nepotistic postcolonial states would become the order of the day. ..."
"... While neoliberalism has produced more unequal societies throughout the world, nowhere else has the income of the poor declined quite so strikingly. The concentration of wealth in a few hands profoundly contradicts the founding principles of Israel's Labour Zionism, and results from decades of right-wing Likud policies punishing the poor and middle classes and shifting wealth to the top of society. ..."
"... Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. His latest book, ..."
"... Engaging the Muslim World , is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the Informed Comment website. ..."
"... A version of this article was first published on Tom Dispatch . ..."
"... The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. ..."
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN - From Tunis to Tel Aviv, Madrid to Oakland, a new
generation of youth activists is challenging the neoliberal state that has dominated
the world ever since the Cold War ended. The massive popular protests that
shook the globe this year have much in common, though most of the reporting
on them in the mainstream media has obscured the similarities.
Whether in Egypt or the United States, young rebels are reacting to a
single stunning worldwide development: the extreme concentration of wealth in
a few hands thanks to neoliberal policies of deregulation and union busting.
They have taken to the streets, parks, plazas and squares to protest against
the resulting corruption, the way politicians can be bought and sold, and the
impunity
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN - From Tunis to Tel Aviv, Madrid to
Oakland, a new generation of youth activists is challenging the neoliberal state
that has dominated the world ever since the Cold War ended. The massive popular
protests that shook the globe this year have much in common, though most of
the reporting on them in the mainstream media has obscured the similarities.
Whether in Egypt or the United States, young rebels are reacting to a single
stunning worldwide development: the extreme concentration of wealth in a few
hands thanks to neoliberal policies of deregulation and union busting. They
have taken to the streets, parks, plazas and squares to protest against the
resulting corruption, the way politicians can be bought and sold, and the impunity
of the white-collar criminals who have run riot in societies everywhere. They
are objecting to high rates of unemployment, reduced social services, blighted
futures and above all the substitution of the market for all other values as
the matrix of human ethics and life.
Pasha the Tiger
In the "glorious thirty years" after World War II, North America and
Western Europe achieved remarkable rates of economic growth and relatively low
levels of inequality for capitalist societies, while instituting a broad range
of benefits for workers, students and retirees. From roughly 1980 on, however,
the neoliberal movement, rooted in the laissez-faire economic theories of Milton
Friedman, launched what became a full-scale assault on workers' power and an
attempt, often remarkably successful, to eviscerate the social welfare state.
Neoliberals chanted the mantra that everyone would benefit if the public
sector were privatised, businesses deregulated and market mechanisms allowed
to distribute wealth. But as economist David Harvey
argues, from the beginning it was a doctrine that primarily benefited the
wealthy, its adoption allowing the top one per cent in any neoliberal society
to capture a disproportionate share of whatever wealth was generated.
In the global South, countries that gained their independence from European
colonialism after World War II tended to create large public sectors as part
of the process of industrialization. Often, living standards improved as a result,
but by the 1970s, such developing economies were generally experiencing a levelling-off
of growth. This happened just as neoliberalism became ascendant in Washington,
Paris and London as well as in Bretton Woods institutions like the International
Monetary Fund. This "Washington consensus" meant that the urge to impose
privatisation on stagnating, nepotistic postcolonial states would become the
order of the day.
Egypt and Tunisia, to take two countries in the spotlight for sparking the
Arab Spring, were successfully pressured in the 1990s to privatise their relatively
large public sectors. Moving public resources into the private sector created
an almost endless range of opportunities for staggering levels of corruption
on the part of the ruling families of autocrats
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis and
Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. International banks, central banks and emerging
local private banks aided and abetted their agenda.
It was not surprising then that one of the first targets of Tunisian crowds
in the course of the revolution they made last January was the
Zitouna bank, a branch of which they torched. Its owner? Sakher El Materi,
a son-in-law of President Ben Ali and the notorious owner of
Pasha, the well-fed pet tiger that prowled the grounds of one of his sumptuous
mansions. Not even the way his outfit sought legitimacy by practicing "Islamic
banking" could forestall popular rage. A 2006 State Department cable released
by WikiLeaks
observed, "One local financial expert blames the [Ben Ali] Family for chronic
banking sector woes due to the great percentage of non-performing loans issued
through crony connections, and has essentially paralysed banking authorities
from genuine recovery efforts." That is, the banks were used by the regime to
give away money to his cronies, with no expectation of repayment.
Tunisian activists similarly directed their ire at foreign banks and lenders
to which their country owes $14.4bn. Tunisians are still railing and rallying
against the repayment of all that money, some of which they believe was
borrowed profligately by the corrupt former regime and then squandered quite
privately.
Tunisians had their own one per cent, a thin commercial elite,
half of whom were related to or closely connected to President Ben Ali.
As a group, they were accused by young activists of mafia-like, predatory practices,
such as demanding pay-offs from legitimate businesses, and discouraging foreign
investment by tying it to a stupendous system of bribes. The closed, top-heavy
character of the Tunisian economic system was blamed for the bottom-heavy waves
of suffering that followed: cost of living increases that hit people on fixed
incomes or those like students and peddlers in the marginal economy especially
hard.
It was no happenstance that the young man who
immolated himself and so sparked the Tunisian rebellion was a hard-pressed
vegetable peddler. It's easy now to overlook what clearly ties the beginning
of the Arab Spring to the European Summer and the present American Fall: the
point of the Tunisian revolution was not just to gain political rights, but
to sweep away that one per cent, popularly imagined as a sort of dam against
economic opportunity.
Tahrir Square, Zuccotti Park, Rothschild Avenue
The success of the Tunisian revolution in removing the octopus-like Ben Ali
plutocracy inspired the dramatic events in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and even
Israel that are redrawing the political map of the Middle East. But the 2011
youth protest movement was hardly contained in the Middle East. Estonian-Canadian
activist Kalle Lasn and his anti-consumerist colleagues at the Vancouver-based
Adbusters Media Foundation
were inspired by the success of the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square in
deposing dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Their organisation specialises in combatting advertising culture through
spoofs and pranks. It was Adbusters magazine that sent out the call
on Twitter in the summer of 2011 for a rally at Wall Street on September 17,
with the now-famous hash tag #OccupyWallStreet. A thousand protesters gathered
on the designated date, commemorating the 2008 economic meltdown that had thrown
millions of Americans out of their jobs and their homes. Some camped out in
nearby Zuccotti Park, another unexpected global spark for protest.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has now spread throughout the United States,
sometimes in the face of serious acts of repression, as in
Oakland, California. It has followed in the spirit of the Arab and European
movements in demanding an end to special privileges for the richest one per
cent, including their ability to more or less buy the US government for purposes
of their choosing. What is often forgotten is that the Ben Alis, Mubaraks and
Gaddafis were not simply authoritarian tyrants. They were the one per
cent and the guardians of the one per cent, in their own societies - and loathed
for exactly that.
Last April, around the time that Lasn began imagining Wall Street protests,
progressive activists in Israel started planning their own movement. In July,
sales clerk and aspiring filmmaker Daphne Leef found herself
unable
to cover a sudden rent increase on her Tel Aviv apartment. So she started
a protest Facebook page similar to the ones that fuelled the Arab Spring and
moved into a tent on the posh Rothschild Avenue where she was soon joined by
hundreds of other protesting Israelis. Week by week, the demonstrations grew,
spreading to cities throughout the country and
culminating on September 3 in a massive rally, the largest in Israel's history.
Some 300,000 protesters came out in Tel Aviv, 50,000 in Jerusalem and 40,000
in Haifa. Their demands
included not just lower housing costs, but a rollback of neoliberal policies,
less regressive taxes and more progressive, direct taxation, a halt to the privatisation
of the economy, and the funding of a system of inexpensive education and child
care.
Many on the left in Israel are also
deeply troubled by the political and economic power of right-wing settlers
on the West Bank, but most decline to bring the Palestinian issue into the movement's
demands for fear of losing support among the middle class. For the same reason,
the way the Israeli movement was inspired by Tahrir Square and the Egyptian
revolution has been downplayed, although
"Walk like an Egyptian" signs - a reference both to the Cairo demonstrations
and the 1986 Bangles hit song - have been spotted on Rothschild Avenue.
Most of the Israeli activists in the coastal cities know that they are victims
of the same neoliberal order that displaces the Palestinians, punishes them
and keeps them stateless. Indeed, the Palestinians, altogether lacking a state
but at the complete mercy of various forms of international capital controlled
by elites elsewhere, are the ultimate victims of the neoliberal order. But in
order to avoid a split in the Israeli protest movement, a quiet agreement was
reached to focus on economic discontents and so avoid the divisive issue of
the much-despised West Bank settlements.
There has been little reporting in the Western press about a key source of
Israeli unease, which was palpable to me when I visited the country in May.
Even then, before the local protests had fully hit their stride, Israelis I
met were complaining about the rise to power of an Israeli one per cent. There
are now
16 billionaires in the country, who control $45bn in assets, and the current
crop of 10,153 millionaires is 20 per cent larger than it was in the previous
fiscal year. In terms of its distribution of wealth, Israel is now among the
most unequal of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development. Since the late 1980s, the average household income of families
in the bottom fifth of the population has been declining at an annual rate of
1.1 per cent. Over the same period, the average household income of families
among the richest 20 per cent went up at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent.
While neoliberalism has produced more unequal societies throughout the
world, nowhere else has the income of the poor declined quite so strikingly.
The concentration of wealth in a few hands profoundly contradicts the founding
principles of Israel's Labour Zionism, and results from decades of right-wing
Likud policies punishing the poor and middle classes and shifting wealth to
the top of society.
The indignant ones
European youth were also inspired by the Tunisians and Egyptians - and by
a similar flight of wealth. I was in Barcelona on May 27, when the police attacked
demonstrators camped out at the Placa de Catalunya, provoking widespread consternation.
The government of the region is currently led by the centrist Convergence and
Union Party, a moderate proponent of Catalan nationalism. It is relatively popular
locally, and so Catalans had not expected such heavy-handed police action to
be ordered. The crackdown, however, underlined the very point of the protesters,
that the neoliberal state, whatever its political makeup, is protecting the
same set of wealthy miscreants.
Spain's "indignados" (indignant ones) got
their start in mid-May with huge protests at Madrid's Puerta del Sol Plaza
against the country's persistent 21 per cent unemployment rate (and double that
among the young). Egyptian activists in Tahrir Square
immediately sent a statement of warm support to those in the Spanish capital
(as they would months later to New York's demonstrators). Again following the
same pattern, the Spanish movement does not restrict its objections to unemployment
(and the lack of benefits attending the few new temporary or contract jobs that
do arise). Its targets are the banks, bank bailouts, financial corruption and
cuts in education and other services.
Youth activists I met in Toledo and Madrid this summer
denounced
both of the country's major parties and, indeed, the very consumer society that
emphasised wealth accumulation over community and material acquisition over
personal enrichment. In the past two months Spain's young protesters have concentrated
on demonstrating against cuts to education, with crowds of 70,000 to 90,000
coming out more than once in Madrid and tens of thousands in other cities. For
marches in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement,
hundreds of thousands reportedly took to the streets of Madrid and Barcelona,
among other cities.
The global reach and connectedness of these movements has yet to be fully
appreciated. The Madrid education protesters, for example, cited for inspiration
Chilean students who, through persistent, innovative, and large-scale demonstrations
this summer and fall, have forced that country's neoliberal government, headed
by the increasingly unpopular billionaire president Sebastian Pinera, to inject
$1.6bn in new money into education. Neither the crowds of youth in Madrid nor
those in Santiago are likely to be mollified, however, by new dorms and laboratories.
Chilean students have
already moved on from insisting on an end to an ever more expensive class-based
education system to demands that the country's lucrative copper mines be nationalised
so as to generate revenues for investment in education. In every instance, the
underlying goal of specific protests by the youthful reformists is the neoliberal
order itself.
The word "union" was little uttered in American television news coverage
of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, even though factory workers and sympathy
strikes of all sorts played a
key role in them. The right-wing press in the US actually went out of its
way to contrast Egyptian demonstrations against Mubarak with the Wisconsin rallies
of government workers against Governor Scott Walker's measure to cripple the
bargaining power of their unions.
The Egyptians, Commentary typically
wrote,
were risking their lives, while Wisconsin's union activists were taking the
day off from cushy jobs to parade around with placards, immune from being fired
for joining the rallies. The implication: the Egyptian revolution was against
tyranny, whereas already spoiled American workers were demanding further coddling.
The American right has never been interested in recognising this reality:
that forbidding unions and strikes is a form of tyranny. In fact, it wasn't
just progressive bloggers who saw a connection between Tahrir Square and Madison.
The head of the newly formed independent union federation in Egypt dispatched
an
explicit expression of solidarity to the Wisconsin workers, centering on
worker's rights.
At least,Commentary did us one favour: it clarified
why the story has been told as it has in most of the American media. If the
revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were merely about individualistic political
rights - about the holding of elections and the guarantee of due process - then
they could be depicted as largely irrelevant to politics in the US and Europe,
where such norms already prevailed.
If, however, they centered on economic rights (as they certainly did), then
clearly the discontents of North African youth when it came to plutocracy, corruption,
the curbing of workers' rights, and persistent unemployment deeply resembled
those of their American counterparts.
The global protests of 2011 have been cast in the American media largely
as an "Arab Spring" challenging local dictatorships - as though Spain, Chile
and Israel do not exist. The constant speculation by pundits and television
news anchors in the US about whether "Islam" would benefit from the Arab Spring
functioned as an Orientalist way of marking events in North Africa as alien
and vaguely menacing, but also as not germane to the day to day concerns of
working Americans. The inhabitants of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan clearly
feel differently.
Facebook flash mobs
If we focus on economic trends, then the neoliberal state looks eerily similar,
whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship, whether the government is nominally
right of centre or left of centre. As a package, deregulation, the privatisation
of public resources and firms, corruption and forms of insider trading and interference
in the ability of workers to organise or engage in collective bargaining have
allowed the top one per cent in Israel, just as in Tunisia or the US, to capture
the lion's share of profits from the growth of the last decades.
Observers were puzzled by the huge crowds that turned out in both Tunis and
Tel Aviv in 2011, especially given that economic growth in those countries had
been running at a seemingly healthy five per cent per annum. "Growth", defined
generally and without regard to its distribution, is the answer to a neoliberal
question. The question of the 99 per cent, however, is: Who is getting the increased
wealth? In both of those countries, as in the US and other neoliberal lands,
the answer is: disproportionately the one per cent.
If you were wondering why outraged young people around the globe are chanting
such similar slogans and using such similar tactics (including Facebook "flash
mobs"), it is because they have seen more clearly than their elders through
the neoliberal shell game.
Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and
the director of the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.
His latest book,
Engaging the Muslim World, is just out in a revised paperback edition from
Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the
Informed Comment website.
A version of this article was first published on
Tom Dispatch.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and
do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Yet another response [ to globalization] is that I term 21stcentury fascism.The ultra-right is an insurgent force in many countries. In broad strokes,
this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational capital
and to organise a mass base among historically privileged sectors of the global
working class – such as white workers in the North and middle layers in the
South – that are now experiencing heightened insecurity and the specter of downward
mobility. It involves militarism, extreme masculinisation, homophobia, racism
and racist mobilisations, including the search for scapegoats, such as immigrant
workers and, in the West, Muslims. Twenty-first century fascism evokes mystifying
ideologies, often involving race/culture supremacy and xenophobia, embracing an
idealised and mythical past. Neo-fascist culture normalises and glamorises warfare
and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination with domination that is portrayed
even as heroic.
Notable quotes:
"... over-accumulation ..."
"... Cyclical crises ..."
"... . Structural crises ..."
"... systemic crisis ..."
"... social reproduction. ..."
"... crisis of humanity ..."
"... 1984 has arrived; ..."
"... The crisis has resulted in a rapid political polarisation in global society. ..."
"... In broad strokes, this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational capital and to organise a mass base among historically privileged sectors of the global working class ..."
"... It involves militarism, extreme masculinisation, homophobia, racism and racist mobilisations, including the search for scapegoats, such as immigrant workers and, in the West, Muslims. ..."
"... Neo-fascist culture normalises and glamorises warfare and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination with domination that is portrayed even as heroic. ..."
World capitalism is experiencing the worst crisis in its 500 year history.
Global capitalism is a qualitatively new stage in the open ended evolution of
capitalism characterised by the rise of transnational capital, a transnational
capitalist class, and a transnational state. Below, William I. Robinson argues
that the global crisis is structural and threatens to become systemic, raising
the specter of collapse and a global police state in the face of ecological
holocaust, concentration of the means of violence, displacement of billions,
limits to extensive expansion and crises of state legitimacy, and suggests that
a massive redistribution of wealth and power downward to the poor majority of
humanity is the only viable solution.
The New Global Capitalism and the 21st Century Crisis
The world capitalist system is arguably experiencing the worst crisis in
its 500 year history. World capitalism has experienced a profound restructuring
through globalisation over the past few decades and has been transformed in
ways that make it fundamentally distinct from its earlier incarnations. Similarly,
the current crisis exhibits features that set it apart from earlier crises of
the system and raise the stakes for humanity. If we are to avert disastrous
outcomes we must understand both the nature of the new global capitalism and
the nature of its crisis. Analysis of capitalist globalisation provides a template
for probing a wide range of social, political, cultural and ideological processes
in this 21st century. Following Marx, we want to focus on the internal dynamics
of capitalism to understand crisis. And following the global capitalism perspective,
we want to see how capitalism has qualitatively evolved in recent decades.
The system-wide crisis we face is not a repeat of earlier such episodes such
as that of the the 1930s or the 1970s precisely because capitalism is fundamentally
different in the 21st century. Globalisation constitutes a qualitatively new
epoch in the ongoing and open-ended evolution of world capitalism, marked by
a number of qualitative shifts in the capitalist system and by novel articulations
of social power. I highlight four aspects unique to this epoch.1
First is the rise of truly transnational capital and a new global production
and financial system into which all nations and much of humanity has been integrated,
either directly or indirectly. We have gone from a world economy, in
which countries and regions were linked to each other via trade and financial
flows in an integrated international market, to a global economy, in
which nations are linked to each more organically through the transnationalisation
of the production process, of finance, and of the circuits of capital accumulation.
No single nation-state can remain insulated from the global economy or prevent
the penetration of the social, political, and cultural superstructure of global
capitalism. Second is the rise of a Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC), a
class group that has drawn in contingents from most countries around the world,
North and South, and has attempted to position itself as a global ruling class.
This TCC is the hegemonic fraction of capital on a world scale. Third
is the rise of Transnational State (TNS) apparatuses. The TNS is constituted
as a loose network made up of trans-, and supranational organisations together
with national states. It functions to organise the conditions for transnational
accumulation. The TCC attempts to organise and institutionally exercise its
class power through TNS apparatuses. Fourth are novel relations of inequality,
domination and exploitation in global society, including an increasing importance
of transnational social and class inequalities relative to North-South inequalities.
Cyclical, Structural, and Systemic Crises
Most commentators on the contemporary crisis refer to the "Great Recession"
of 2008 and its aftermath. Yet the causal origins of global crisis are to be
found in over-accumulation and also in contradictions of state
power, or in what Marxists call the internal contradictions of the capitalist
system. Moreover, because the system is now global, crisis in any one place
tends to represent crisis for the system as a whole. The system cannot expand
because the marginalisation of a significant portion of humanity from direct
productive participation, the downward pressure on wages and popular consumption
worldwide, and the polarisation of income, has reduced the ability of the world
market to absorb world output. At the same time, given the particular configuration
of social and class forces and the correlation of these forces worldwide, national
states are hard-pressed to regulate transnational circuits of accumulation and
offset the explosive contradictions built into the system.
Is this crisis cyclical, structural, or systemic? Cyclical crises
are recurrent to capitalism about once every 10 years and involve recessions
that act as self-correcting mechanisms without any major restructuring of the
system. The recessions of the early 1980s, the early 1990s, and of 2001 were
cyclical crises. In contrast, the 2008 crisis signaled the slide into astructural
crisis. Structural crises reflect deeper contradictions that can only
be resolved by a major restructuring of the system. The structural crisis of
the 1970s was resolved through capitalist globalisation. Prior to that, the
structural crisis of the 1930s was resolved through the creation of a new model
of redistributive capitalism, and prior to that the structural crisis of the
1870s resulted in the development of corporate capitalism. A systemic crisis
involves the replacement of a system by an entirely new system or
by an outright collapse. A structural crisis opens up the possibility
for a systemic crisis. But if it actually snowballs into a systemic crisis –
in this case, if it gives way either to capitalism being superseded or to a
breakdown of global civilisation – is not predetermined and depends entirely
on the response of social and political forces to the crisis and on historical
contingencies that are not easy to forecast. This is an historic moment of extreme
uncertainty, in which collective responses from distinct social and class forces
to the crisis are in great flux.
Hence my concept of global crisis is broader than financial. There are multiple
and mutually constitutive dimensions – economic, social, political, cultural,
ideological and ecological, not to mention the existential crisis of our consciousness,
values and very being. There is a crisis of social polarisation, that is, of
social reproduction. The system cannot meet the needs or assure the
survival of millions of people, perhaps a majority of humanity. There are crises
of state legitimacy and political authority, or of hegemony and
domination. National states face spiraling crises of legitimacy as they
fail to meet the social grievances of local working and popular classes experiencing
downward mobility, unemployment, heightened insecurity and greater hardships.
The legitimacy of the system has increasingly been called into question by millions,
perhaps even billions, of people around the world, and is facing expanded counter-hegemonic
challenges. Global elites have been unable counter this erosion of the system's
authority in the face of worldwide pressures for a global moral economy. And
a canopy that envelops all these dimensions is a crisis of sustainability rooted
in an ecological holocaust that has already begun, expressed in climate change
and the impending collapse of centralised agricultural systems in several regions
of the world, among other indicators.
By a crisis of humanity I mean a crisis that is approaching systemic
proportions, threatening the ability of billions of people to survive, and raising
the specter of a collapse of world civilisation and degeneration into a new
"Dark Ages."2
Global capitalism now couples human and natural history in such a way
as to threaten to bring about what would be the sixth mass extinction in the
known history of life on earth.
This crisis of humanity shares a
number of aspects with earlier structural crises but there are also several
features unique to the present:
The system is fast reaching the ecological limits of its reproduction.
Global capitalism now couples human and natural history in such a way as
to threaten to bring about what would be the sixth mass extinction in the
known history of life on earth.3 This mass extinction would
be caused not by a natural catastrophe such as a meteor impact or by evolutionary
changes such as the end of an ice age but by purposive human activity. According
to leading environmental scientists there are nine "planetary boundaries"
crucial to maintaining an earth system environment in which humans can exist,
four of which are experiencing at this time the onset of irreversible environmental
degradation and three of which (climate change, the nitrogen cycle, and
biodiversity loss) are at "tipping points," meaning that these processes
have already crossed their planetary boundaries.
The magnitude of the means of violence and social control is unprecedented,
as is the concentration of the means of global communication and symbolic
production and circulation in the hands of a very few powerful groups.
Computerised wars, drones, bunker-buster bombs, star wars, and so forth,
have changed the face of warfare. Warfare has become normalised and sanitised
for those not directly at the receiving end of armed aggression. At the
same time we have arrived at the panoptical surveillance society and the
age of thought control by those who control global flows of communication,
images and symbolic production. The world of Edward Snowden is the world
of George Orwell; 1984 has arrived;
Capitalism is reaching apparent limits to its extensive
expansion. There are no longer any new territories of significance that
can be integrated into world capitalism, de-ruralisation is now well advanced,
and the commodification of the countryside and of pre- and non-capitalist
spaces has intensified, that is, converted in hot-house fashion into spaces
of capital, so that intensive expansion is reaching depths never
before seen. Capitalism must continually expand or collapse. How or where
will it now expand?
There is the rise of a vast surplus population inhabiting a "planet
of slums,"4 alienated from the productive economy, thrown
into the margins, and subject to sophisticated systems of social control
and to destruction – to a mortal cycle of dispossession-exploitation-exclusion.
This includes prison-industrial and immigrant-detention complexes, omnipresent
policing, militarised gentrification, and so on;
There is a disjuncture between a globalising economy and a nation-state
based system of political authority. Transnational state apparatuses
are incipient and have not been able to play the role of what social scientists
refer to as a "hegemon," or a leading nation-state that has enough power
and authority to organise and stabilise the system. The spread of weapons
of mass destruction and the unprecedented militarisation of social life
and conflict across the globe makes it hard to imagine that the system can
come under any stable political authority that assures its reproduction.
Global Police State
How have social and political forces worldwide responded to crisis? The
crisis has resulted in a rapid political polarisation in global society.
Both right and left-wing forces are ascendant. Three responses seem to be in
dispute.
One is what we could call "reformism from above." This elite reformism is
aimed at stabilising the system, at saving the system from itself and from more
radical responses from below. Nonetheless, in the years following the 2008 collapse
of the global financial system it seems these reformers are unable (or unwilling)
to prevail over the power of transnational financial capital. A second response
is popular, grassroots and leftist resistance from below. As social and political
conflict escalates around the world there appears to be a mounting global revolt.
While such resistance appears insurgent in the wake of 2008 it is spread very
unevenly across countries and regions and facing many problems and challenges.
Yet another response is that I term 21stcentury fascism.5
The ultra-right is an insurgent force in many countries. In broad
strokes, this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational
capital and to organise a mass base among historically privileged sectors of
the global working class – such as white workers in the North and middle
layers in the South – that are now experiencing heightened insecurity and the
specter of downward mobility. It involves militarism, extreme masculinisation,
homophobia, racism and racist mobilisations, including the search for scapegoats,
such as immigrant workers and, in the West, Muslims. Twenty-first century
fascism evokes mystifying ideologies, often involving race/culture supremacy
and xenophobia, embracing an idealised and mythical past. Neo-fascist culture
normalises and glamorises warfare and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination
with domination that is portrayed even as heroic.
The need for dominant groups around the world to secure widespread, organised
mass social control of the world's surplus population and rebellious forces
from below gives a powerful impulse to projects of 21st century fascism. Simply
put, the immense structural inequalities of the global political economy cannot
easily be contained through consensual mechanisms of social control. We have
been witnessing transitions from social welfare to social control states around
the world. We have entered a period of great upheavals, momentous changes and
uncertainties. The only viable solution to the crisis of global capitalism is
a massive redistribution of wealth and power downward towards the poor majority
of humanity along the lines of a 21st century democratic socialism, in which
humanity is no longer at war with itself and with nature.
About the Author
William I. Robinson is professor of sociology, global and
international studies, and Latin American studies, at the University of California-Santa
Barbara. Among his many books are Promoting Polyarchy (1996),
Transnational Conflicts (2003), A Theory of Global Capitalism
(2004), Latin America and Global Capitalism (2008),
and
Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (2014).
This
article outlines the main elements of
rupture and continuity in the global political economy since the global
economic crisis of
2008-2009. While the current calamity poses a more systemic challenge to
neoliberal
globalization than genetically similar turbulences in the
semi-periphery during the 1990s, we find that evidence for its
transformative significance remains mixed. Efforts to reform the distressed
capitalist models in the North encounter severe resistance, and the
broadened multilateralism of the G-20 is yet
to provide effective global economic governance. Overall,
neoliberal
globalization looks set to survive, but in more heterodox and
multipolar fashion. Without tighter coordination between old and emerging
powers, this new synthesis is unlikely to inspire lasting solutions to
pressing global problems such as an unsustainable international financial
architecture and the pending environmental catastrophe, and may even fail to
preserve some modest democratic and developmental gains
of the recent past.
According to evolving campaign lore, Donald Trump's son called failed Republican
candidate John Kasich ahead of Trump's VP pick in July and told him he could
be "the most powerful vice president" ever-in charge of foreign policy, and
domestic too-if he agreed to come on board.
While Trump's people have
denied such a lavish entreaty ever occurred, it has become a powerful political
meme: the Republican nominee's lack of experience would force him to default
to others, particularly on the international front, which is a never-ending
series of flash points dotting Europe, Asia, and the Middle East like a child's
Lite Brite.
On the Democratic side there is no such concern-Hillary Clinton has plenty
of experience as a senator and secretary of state, and was a "two-for-one" first
lady who not only took part (unsuccessfully) in the domestic health-care debate,
but
passionately advocated (successfully) for the bombing campaigns in Bosnia
and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
So what of Trump and Clinton's vice-presidential picks? For starters, they
are both hawkish.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was an apt pupil of Bush and Cheney during the neoconservative
years, voting for the Iraq War in 2002 and serving as one of David Petraeus's
cheerleaders in favor of the 2007 surge. He has since supported every intervention
his fellow Republicans did, even giving
early praise to Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for the 2011
intervention in Libya.
On the other side, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is as far from the Bernie Sanders
mold as they come: a centrist Democrat who supports a muscular, liberal-interventionist
foreign policy, and who has been pushing for greater intervention in Syria,
just like Hillary Clinton.
If veeps do matter-and as we saw with
Dick Cheney , in many ways they can, bigtime-the non-interventionists can
expect nothing but the status quo when it comes to war policy and the war machine
at home for the next four years. Under the right conditions, Pence would help
drag Trump to the right on war and defense, and Kaine would do nothing but bolster
Clinton's already hawkish views on a host of issues, including those involving
Syria, Russia, the Middle East, and China.
If anything, Pence could end up having more influence in the White House,
said Bonnie Kristian, a writer and
fellow at Defense
Priorities , in an interview with TAC . "With these two campaigns,
I would predict that Pence would have more of a chance of playing a bigger role
[in the presidency] than Tim Kaine does," she offered. Pence could bring to
bear a dozen years of experience as a pro-war congressman, including two years
on the foreign-affairs committee. "He's been a pretty typical Republican on
foreign policy and has a lot of neoconservative impulses. I don't think we could
expect anything different," she added.
For his part, Trump "has been all over the place" on foreign policy, she
said, and while his talk about restraint and Iraq being a failure appeals to
her and others who would like to see America's overseas operations scaled back,
his bench of close advisors is not encouraging.
Walid Phares ,
Gen. Michael Flynn ,
Chris Christie ,
Rudy Giuliani : along with Pence, all could fit like neat little pieces
into the Bush-administration puzzle circa 2003, and none has ever expressed
the same disregard for the Bush and Obama war policies as Trump has on the campaign
trail.
"On one hand, [Trump] has referred to the war in Iraq and regime change as
bad and nation-building as bad, but at the same time he has no ideological grounding,"
said Jack Hunter, politics editor at
Rare . If Trump leaves the policymaking up to others, including Pence, "that
doesn't bode well for those who think the last Republican administration was
too hawkish and did not exhibit restraint."
Pence,
Kristian reminds us , gave a speech just last year at the Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) in which he called for a massive increase in military
spending. "It is imperative that conservatives again embrace America's role
as leader of the free world and the arsenal of democracy," Pence said, predicting
then that 2016 would be a "foreign-policy election."
"He embraces wholeheartedly a future in which America polices the world-forever-refusing
to reorient our foreign policy away from nation-building and toward restraint,
diplomacy and free trade to ensure U.S. security," Kristian wrote in
The Hill back when Pence accepted his place on the Trump ticket
in July. Since then, he has muted his support for Iraq (Trump has said Pence's
2003 vote doesn't matter, even calling it
"a mistake" ). Clearly the two men prefer to meet on the issue of Islamic
threats and the promise of "rebuilding the military," areas where they have
been equally enthusiastic.
Meanwhile, former Bernie Sanders supporters should be rather underwhelmed
with Kaine on national-security policy. On one hand,
writers rush to point out that Kaine split with President Obama and Hillary
Clinton just a few years ago, arguing the administration could not continue
to use the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to fight ISIS
in Iraq and Syria. He also proposed legislation with Sen. John McCain to
update the War Powers Act; the bill would have required the president to
consult with Congress when starting a war, and Congress to vote on any war within
seven days of military action. That would tighten the constitutional responsibilities
of both branches, the senators said in 2013.
On the War Powers Act, Kaine gets points with constitutionalists like University
of Texas law professor Steven Vladeck, who said Kaine's effort "recognizes,
as we all should, the broader problems with the War Powers Resolution as currently
written-and with the contemporary separation of war powers between Congress
and the executive branch." But on the issue of the AUMF, Vladeck and others
have not been so keen on Kaine.
Kaine has made
two proposals relating to the AUMF, and both would leave the door open to
extended overseas military combat operations-including air strikes, raids, and
assassinations-without a specific declaration of war. The first directs the
president to modify or repeal the 2001 AUMF "by September 2017"; the second,
authored with Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, keeps the 2001 AUMF but updates the
2002 AUMF used to attack Iraq to include ISIS.
A revised AUMF is likely to do precisely what the Bush administration
sought to do in the run-up to the Iraq War: codify a dangerous unilateral
theory of preemptive war, and provide a veneer of legality for an open-ended
conflict against an endlessly expanding list of targets.
While he might be applauded for trying to strengthen "the rule of law on
foreign policy," said Kristian, it's not clear he wants to do it "to scale back
these interventions." As a member of both the armed-services and foreign-relations
committees, he has already argued for greater intervention in Syria, calling
for "humanitarian zones"-which, like "no-fly zones" and "no-bombing zones,"
mean the U.S. better be ready to tangle with the Syrian president and Russia
as well as ISIS.
Plus, when Kaine was running for his Senate seat in 2011, and Obama-with
Clinton's urging-was in the midst of a coalition bombing campaign in Libya,
Kaine
was much more noncommittal when it came to the War Powers Act, saying Obama
had a "good rationale" for going in. When asked if he believed the War Powers
Act legally bound the president to get congressional approval to continue operations
there, he said, "I'm not a lawyer on that."
If anything, Kaine will serve as a reliable backup to a president who is
perfectly willing to use military force to promote "democracy" overseas. He
neither softens Clinton's edges on military and war, nor is necessary to sharpen
them. "Does Tim Kaine change [any dynamic]? I don't think so," said Hunter,
adding, "I can't imagine he is as hawkish as her on foreign policy-she is the
worst of the worst."
So when it comes to veep picks, the value is in the eye of the beholder.
"If you are a conservative and you don't think Trump is hawkish enough, you
will like it that Pence is there," notes Hunter. On the other hand, if you like
Trump's attitude on the messes overseas-preferring diplomacy over destruction,
as he said in his
speech Wednesday -Pence might make you think twice, added Kristian. "I'm
not sure Pence is going to further those inclinations, if indeed they do exist."
To make it more complicated, the American public is unsure how it wants to
proceed overseas anyway. While a majority favor airstrikes and sending in special-operations
groups to fight ISIS in Syria, only a minority want to insert combat troops
or even fund anti-Assad groups, according to an
August poll . A slim majority-52 percent-want to establish no-fly zones.
Yet only 31 percent want to to see a deal that would keep Bashar Assad in power.
A tall order for any White House.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter.
"... I think Trump is afraid the imperial global order presided by the US is about to crash and thinks he will be able to steer the country into a soft landing by accepting that other world powers have interests, by disengaging from costly and humiliating military interventions, by re-negotiating trade deals, and by stopping the mass immigration of poor people. Plus a few well-placed bombs ..."
"... Much has been written about the internet revolution, about the impact of people having access to much more information than before. The elite does not recognize this and is still organizing political and media campaigns as if it were 1990, relying on elder statesmen like Blair, Bush, Mitterrand, Clinton, and Obama to influence public opinion. They are failing miserably, to the point of being counterproductive. ..."
"... I don't think something as parochial as racism is sustaining Trump, but rather the fear of the loss of empire by a population with several orders of magnitude more information and communication than in 2008, even 2012. ..."
"... No one has literally argued that people should be glad to lose employment: that part was hyperbole. But the basic argument is often made quite seriously. See e.g. outsource Brad DeLong . ..."
"... The same thing has happened in Mexico with neoliberal government after neoliberal government being elected. There are many democratically elected neoliberal governments around the world. ..."
"... In the case of Mexico, because Peña Nieto's wife is a telenovela star. How cool is that? It places Mexico in the same league as 1st world countries, such as France, with Carla Bruni. ..."
"... To the guy who asked- poor white people keep voting Republican even though it screws them because they genuinely believe that the country is best off when it encourages a culture of "by the bootstraps" self improvement, hard work, and personal responsibility. They view taxing people in order to give the money to the supposedly less fortunate as the anti thesis of this, because it gives people an easy out that let's them avoid having to engage in the hard work needed to live independently. ..."
"... The extent to which "poor white people" vote against their alleged economic interests is overblown. To a large extent, they do not vote at all nor is anyone or anything on the ballot to represent their interests. And, yes, they are misinformed systematically by elites out to screw them and they know this, but cannot do much to either clear up their own confusion or fight back. ..."
"... The mirror image problem - of elites manipulating the system to screw the poor and merely middle-class - is daily in the news. Both Presidential candidates have been implicated. So, who do you recommend they vote for? ..."
"... I think you're missing Patrick's point. These voters are switching from one Republican to another. They've jettisoned Bush et. al. for Trump. These guys despise Bush. ..."
"... They've figured out that the mainstream party is basically 30 years of affinity fraud. ..."
"... My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education level rather than income. ..."
"... Layman - Why are these voters switching from Bush et al to Trump? Once again, Corey's whole point is that there is very little difference between the racism of Trump and the mainstream party since Nixon. Is Trump just more racist? Or are the policies of Trump resonating differently than Bush for reasons other than race? ..."
"... Eric Berne, in The Structures and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, proposed that among the defining characteristics of a coherent group is an explicit boundary which determines whether an individual is a member of the group or not. (If there is no boundary, nothing binds the assemblage together; it is a crowd.) The boundary helps provide social cohesion and is so important that groups will create one if necessary. Clearly, boundaries exclude as well as include, and someone must play the role of outsider. ..."
"... For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community, but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations. ..."
I think Trump is afraid the imperial global order presided by the US is about to crash
and thinks he will be able to steer the country into a soft landing by accepting that other world
powers have interests, by disengaging from costly and humiliating military interventions, by re-negotiating
trade deals, and by stopping the mass immigration of poor people. Plus a few well-placed bombs
.
Much has been written about the internet revolution, about the impact of people having
access to much more information than before. The elite does not recognize this and is still organizing
political and media campaigns as if it were 1990, relying on elder statesmen like Blair, Bush,
Mitterrand, Clinton, and Obama to influence public opinion. They are failing miserably, to the
point of being counterproductive.
I don't think something as parochial as racism is sustaining Trump, but rather the fear
of the loss of empire by a population with several orders of magnitude more information and communication
than in 2008, even 2012.
Layman 08.04.16 at 11:59 am
Rich P: "Neoliberals often argue that people should be glad to lose employment at 50 so
that people from other countries can have higher incomes "
I doubt this most sincerely. While this may be the effect of some neoliberal policies, I can't
recall any particular instance where someone made this argument.
Rich Puchalsky 08.04.16 at 12:03 pm
"I can't recall any particular instance where someone made this argument."
No one has literally argued that people should be glad to lose employment: that part was
hyperbole. But the basic argument is often made quite seriously. See e.g.
outsource
Brad DeLong .
engels 08.04.16 at 12:25 pm
While this may be the effect of some neoliberal policies, I can't recall any particular instance
where someone made this argument
Maybe this kind of thing rom Henry Farrell? (There may well be better examples.)
Is some dilution of the traditional European welfare state acceptable, if it substantially
increases the wellbeing of current outsiders (i.e. for example, by bringing Turkey into the club).
My answer is yes, if European leftwingers are to stick to their core principles on justice, fairness,
egalitarianism etc
Large numbers of low-income white southern Americans consistently vote against their
own economic interests. They vote to award tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations, to
cut unemployment benefits, to bust unions, to reward companies for outsourcing jobs, to resist
wage increases, to cut funding for health care for the poor, to cut Social Security and Medicare,
etc.
The same thing has happened in Mexico with neoliberal government after neoliberal government
being elected. There are many democratically elected neoliberal governments around the world.
Why might this be?
In the case of Mexico, because Peña Nieto's wife is a telenovela star. How cool is that?
It places Mexico in the same league as 1st world countries, such as France, with Carla Bruni.
Patrick 08.04.16 at 4:32 pm
To the guy who asked- poor white people keep voting Republican even though it screws them
because they genuinely believe that the country is best off when it encourages a culture of "by
the bootstraps" self improvement, hard work, and personal responsibility. They view taxing people
in order to give the money to the supposedly less fortunate as the anti thesis of this, because
it gives people an easy out that let's them avoid having to engage in the hard work needed to
live independently.
They see it as little different from letting your kid move back on after college and smoke
weed in your basement. They don't generally mind people being on unemployment transitionally,
but they're supposed to be a little embarrassed about it and get it over with as soon as possible.
They not only worry that increased government social spending will incentivize bad behavior, they
worry it will destroy the cultural values they see as vital to Americas past prosperity. They
tend to view claims about historic or systemic injustice necessitating collective remedy because
they view the world as one in which the vagaries of fate decree that some are born rich or poor,
and that success is in improving ones station relative to where one starts. Attempts at repairing
historical racial inequity read as cheating in that paradigm, and even as hostile since they can
easily observe white people who are just as poor or poorer than those who racial politics focuses
upon. Left wing insistence on borrowing the nastiest rhetoric of libertarians ("this guy is poor
because his ancestors couldn't get ahead because of historical racial injustice so we must help
him; your family couldn't get ahead either but that must have been your fault so you deserve it")
comes across as both antithetical to their values and as downright hostile within the values they
see around them.
All of this can be easily learned by just talking to them.
It's not a great world view. It fails to explain quite a lot. For example, they have literally
no way of explaining increased unemployment without positing either that everyone is getting too
lazy to work, or that the government screwed up the system somehow, possibly by making it too
expensive to do business in the US relative to other countries. and given their faith in the power
of hard work, they don't even blame sweatshops- they blame taxes and foreign subsidies.
I don't know exactly how to reach out to them, except that I can point to some things people
do that repulse them and say "stop doing that."
bruce wilder 08.04.16 at 5:50 pm
The extent to which "poor white people" vote against their alleged economic interests is
overblown. To a large extent, they do not vote at all nor is anyone or anything on the ballot
to represent their interests. And, yes, they are misinformed systematically by elites out to screw
them and they know this, but cannot do much to either clear up their own confusion or fight back.
The mirror image problem - of elites manipulating the system to screw the poor and merely
middle-class - is daily in the news. Both Presidential candidates have been implicated. So, who
do you recommend they vote for?
There is serious deficit of both trust and information among the poor. Poor whites hardly have
a monopoly; black misleadership is epidemic in our era of Cory Booker socialism.
bruce wilder 08.04.16 at 7:05 pm
Politics is founded on the complex social psychology of humans as social animals. We elevate
it from its irrational base in emotion to rationalized calculation or philosophy at our peril.
T 08.04.16 at 9:17 pm
@Layman
I think you're missing Patrick's point. These voters are switching from one Republican
to another. They've jettisoned Bush et. al. for Trump. These guys despise Bush.
They've figured out that the mainstream party is basically 30 years of affinity fraud.
So, is your argument is that Trump even more racist? That kind of goes against the whole point
of the OP. Not saying that race doesn't matter. Of course it does. But Trump has a 34% advantage
in non-college educated white men. It just isn't the South. Why does it have to be just race or
just class?
Ronan(rf) 08.04.16 at 10:35 pm
"I generally don't give a shit about polls so I have no "data" to evidence this claim, but
my guess is the majority of Trump's support comes from this broad middle"
My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning
classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved
in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education
level rather than income.
This would make some sense as they are generally in economically unstable jobs, they tend to
be hostile to both big govt (regulations, freeloaders) and big business (unfair competition),
and while they (rhetorically at least) tend to value personal autonomy and self sufficiency ,
they generally sell into smaller, local markets, and so are particularly affected by local demographic
and cultural change , and decline. That's my speculation anyway.
T 08.05.16 at 3:12 pm
@patrick @layman
Patrick, you're right about the Trump demographic. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/
Layman - Why are these voters switching from Bush et al to Trump? Once again, Corey's whole
point is that there is very little difference between the racism of Trump and the mainstream party
since Nixon. Is Trump just more racist? Or are the policies of Trump resonating differently than
Bush for reasons other than race?
Are the folks that voted for the other candidates in the primary less racist so Trump supporters
are just the most racist among Republicans? Cruz less racist? You have to explain the shift within
the Republican party because that's what happened.
Anarcissie 08.06.16 at 3:00 pm
Faustusnotes 08.06.16 at 1:50 pm @ 270 -
Eric Berne, in The Structures and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, proposed that among
the defining characteristics of a coherent group is an explicit boundary which determines whether
an individual is a member of the group or not. (If there is no boundary, nothing binds the assemblage
together; it is a crowd.) The boundary helps provide social cohesion and is so important that
groups will create one if necessary. Clearly, boundaries exclude as well as include, and someone
must play the role of outsider. While Berne's theories are a bit too nifty for me to love
them, I have observed a lot of the behaviors he predicts. If one wanted to be sociobiological,
it is not hard to hypothesize evolutionary pressures which could lead to this sort of behavior
being genetically programmed. If a group of humans, a notably combative primate, does not have
strong social cohesion, the war of all against all ensues and everybody dies. Common affections
alone do not seem to provide enough cohesion.
In an earlier but related theory, in the United States, immigrants from diverse European communities
which fought each other for centuries in Europe arrived and managed to now get along because they
had a major Other, the Negro, against whom to define themselves (as the White Race) and thus to
cohere sufficiently to get on with business. The Negro had the additional advantage of being at
first a powerless slave and later, although theoretically freed, was legally, politically, and
economically disabled - an outsider who could not fight back very effectively, nor run away. Even
so, the US almost split apart and there continue to be important class, ethnic, religious, and
regional conflicts. You can see how these two theories resonate.
It may be that we can't have communities without this dark side, although we might be able
to mitigate some of its destructive effects.
bruce wilde r 08.06.16 at 4:28 pm
I am somewhat suspicious of leaving dominating elites out of these stories of racism as an
organizing principle for political economy or (cultural) community.
Racism served the purposes of a slaveholding elite that organized political communities to
serve their own interests. (Or, vis a vis the Indians a land-grab or genocide.)
Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying hierarchy
like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with ersatz
status. The ugly prejudices and resentful arrogance of working class whites is thus a component
of how racism works to organize a political community to serve a hegemonic master class. The business
end of racism, though, is the autarkic poverty imposed on the working communities: slaves, sharecroppers,
poor blacks, poor whites - bad schools, bad roads, politically disabled communities, predatory
institutions and authoritarian governments.
For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity
was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community,
but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of
social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations.
engels 08.07.16 at 1:02 am
But how did that slavery happen
Possible short answer: the level of technological development made slavery an efficient way
of exploiting labour. At a certain point those conditions changed and slavery became a drag on
further development and it was abolished, along with much of the racist ideology that legitimated
it.
Lupita 08.07.16 at 3:40 am
But how did that slavery happen
In Mesoamerica, all the natives were enslaved because they were conquered by the Spaniards.
Then, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas successfully argued before the Crown that the natives had souls
and, therefore, should be Christianized rather than enslaved. As Bruce Wilder states, this did
not serve the interests of the slaveholding elite, so the African slave trade began and there
was no Fray Bartolomé to argue their case.
It is interesting that while natives were enslaved, the Aztec aristocracy was shipped to Spain
to be presented in court and study Latin. This would not have happened if the Mesoamericans were
considered inferior (soulless) as a race. Furthermore, the Spaniards needed the local elite to
help them out with their empire and the Aztecs were used to slavery and worse. This whole story
can be understood without recurring to racism. The logic of empire suffices.
"... Not only are "[v]ulnerable Senate Republicans are starting to side with Donald Trump (and Democrats) by opposing President Obama's signature trade deal," as the Washington Post ..."
As the White House prepares for its final "
all-out push " to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the upcoming
lame-duck session of Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle
are being made vulnerable due to growing opposition to the controversial, corporate-friendly
trade deal.
"[I]n 2016," the Guardian
reported on Saturday, "America's faltering faith in free trade has become
the most sensitive controversy in D.C."
Yet President Barack Obama "has refused to give up," wrote Guardian
journalists Dan Roberts and Ryan Felton, despite the fact that the 12-nation
TPP "suddenly faces a wall of political opposition among lawmakers who had,
not long ago, nearly set the giant deal in stone."
... ... ...
Not only are "[v]ulnerable Senate Republicans are starting to side with
Donald Trump (and Democrats) by opposing President Obama's signature trade deal,"
as the Washington Post
reported Thursday, but once-supportive Dems are also poised to jump ship.
To that end, in a column this week, Campaign for America's Future blogger
Dave Johnson
listed for readers "28 House Democrat targets...who-in spite of opposition
from most Democrats and hundreds of labor, consumer, LGBT, health, human rights,
faith, democracy and other civil organizations-voted for the 'fast-track' trade
promotion authority (TPA) bill that 'greased the skids' for the TPP by setting
up rigged rules that will help TPP pass."
Of the list that includes Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), Jared Polis
(Colo.), and Ron Kind (Wis.), Johnson wrote: "Let's get them on the record before
the election about whether they will vote for TPP after the election."
"You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed.
What the hell do you have to lose" by voting for Trump? the candidate asked. "At the end of four
years, I guarantee I will get over 95% of the African American vote."
The statement – highly unlikely given how poorly Republicans fare among black voters – continues
a theme the GOP presidential nominee has pounded this week as he courted African American voters.
He said Democrats take black voters for granted and have ignored their needs while governing cities
with large African American populations.
"America must reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, who sees communities of color only as votes,
not as human beings worthy of a better future," he said of his Democratic opponent.
... ... ...
Trump argued that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's policies on issues such as
immigration and refugee resettlement harm African Americans.
=== quote ===
It has recently become commonplace to argue that globalization can leave people behind, and that
this can have severe political consequences. Since 23 June, this has even become conventional
wisdom. While I welcome this belated acceptance of the blindingly obvious, I can't but help feeling
a little frustrated, since this has been self-evident for many years now. What we are seeing,
in part, is what happens to conventional wisdom when, all of a sudden, it finds that it can no
longer dismiss as irrelevant something that had been staring it in the face for a long time.
=== end of quote ==
This is not about "conventional wisdom". This is about the power of neoliberal propaganda,
the power of brainwashing and indoctrination of population via MSM, schools and universities.
And "all of a sudden, it finds that it can no longer dismiss as irrelevant something that had
been staring it in the face for a long time." also has nothing to do with conventional wisdom.
This is about the crisis of neoliberal ideology and especially Trotskyism part of it (neoliberalism
can be viewed as Trotskyism for the rich). The following integral elements of this ideology no
longer work well and are starting to cause the backlash:
1. High level of inequality as the explicit, desirable goal (which raises the productivity).
"Greed is good" or "Trickle down economics" -- redistribution of wealth up will create (via higher
productivity) enough scrapes for the lower classes, lifting all boats.
2. "Neoliberal rationality" when everything is a commodity that should be traded at specific
market. Human beings also are viewed as market actors with every field of activity seen as a specialized
market. Every entity (public or private, person, business, state) should be governed as a firm.
"Neoliberalism construes even non-wealth generating spheres-such as learning, dating, or exercising-in
market terms, submits them to market metrics, and governs them with market techniques and practices."
People are just " human capital" who must constantly tend to their own present and future market
value.
3. Extreme financialization or converting the economy into "casino capitalism" (under neoliberalism
everything is a marketable good, that is traded on explicit or implicit exchanges.
4. The idea of the global, USA dominated neoliberal empire and related "Permanent war for permanent
peace" -- wars for enlarging global neoliberal empire via crushing non-compliant regimes either
via color revolutions or via open military intervention.
5. Downgrading ordinary people to the role of commodity and creating three classes of citizens
(moochers, or Untermensch, "creative class" and top 0.1%), with the upper class (0.1% or "Masters
of the Universe") being above the law like the top level of "nomenklatura" was in the USSR.
6. "Downsizing" sovereignty of nations via international treaties like TPP, and making transnational
corporations the key political players, "the deciders" as W aptly said. Who decide about level
of immigration flows, minimal wages, tariffs, and other matters that previously were prerogative
of the state.
So after 36 (or more) years of dominance (which started with triumphal march of neoliberalism
in early 90th) the ideology entered "zombie state". That does not make it less dangerous but its
power over minds of the population started to evaporate. Far right ideologies now are filling
the vacuum, as with the discreditation of socialist ideology and decimation of "enlightened corporatism"
of the New Deal in the USA there is no other viable alternatives.
The same happened in late 1960th with the Communist ideology. It took 20 years for the USSR
to crash after that with the resulting splash of nationalism (which was the force that blow up
the USSR) and far right ideologies.
It remains to be seen whether the neoliberal US elite will fare better then Soviet nomenklatura
as challenges facing the USA are now far greater then challenges which the USSR faced at the time.
Among them is oil depletion which might be the final nail into the coffin of neoliberalism and,
specifically, the neoliberal globalization.
"... As the de facto test subjects for the inexorable media-fueled march of this ubiquitous global model, disparate groups worldwide have become the unwitting faces of revolt against inevitability. Anonymized behind the august facades of global financial institutions, neoliberal capitalism under TINA has produced political rage, confusion, panic and a worldwide search for scapegoats and alternatives across the political spectrum. ..."
"... McWorld cuts its destructive path under a self-promoting presumption of historic inevitability, because after more than four decades of the TINA narrative, the underlying rationale of market predestination is no longer economic. It is theological. ..."
"... Descriptions such as "free-market fundamentalism" and "market orthodoxy" are not mere figures of speech. They point to a deeper, technologically powered religious metamorphosis of capitalism that needs to be understood before a meaningful political response can be mounted. One does not have to be Christian, nor Catholic, to appreciate Pope Francis' warnings against the danger to Christian values from "a deified market" with its "globalization of indifference." The pope is explicitly acknowledging a new theology of capital whose core ethos runs counter to the values of both classical and religious humanism. ..."
"... Under the radically altered metaphysics of theologized capitalism, market outcomes are sacred and inevitable. Conversely, humanity and the natural world have been desacralized and defined as malleable forms of expendable and theoretically inexhaustible capital. Even life-sustaining ecosystems and individual human subjectivity are subsumed under a market rubric touted as historically preordained. ..."
"... Economic historian Karl Polanyi warned in 1944 that a false utopian belief in the ability of unfettered markets to produce naturally balanced outcomes would produce instead a dystopian "stark utopia." Today's political chaos represents a spontaneous and uncoordinated eruption of resistance against this encroaching sense of inevitable dystopianism. As Barber noted, what he refers to as "Jihad" is not a strictly Islamic phenomenon. It is localism, tribalism, particularism or sometimes classical republicanism taking a stand, often violently, acting as de facto social and political antibodies against the viral contagions of McWorld. ..."
"... The historically ordained march of theologized neoliberal capitalism depends for its continuation on a belief by individuals that they are powerless against putatively inevitable forces of market-driven globalization. ..."
"... One lesson nonetheless seems clear. The "power of the powerless" has been awakened globally. Whether this awakening will spark a movement towards equitable, ecologically sustainable democratic self-governance is an open question. ..."
In the wake of the June 23 Brexit vote, global media have bristled with headlines
declaring the Leave victory to be the latest sign of a historic
rejection of "globalization" by working-class voters on both sides of the
Atlantic. While there is an element of truth in this analysis, it misses the
deeper historical currents coursing beneath the dramatic headlines. If our politics
seem disordered at the moment, the blame lies not with globalization alone but
with the "There Is No Alternative" (TINA) philosophy of neoliberal market inevitability
that has driven it for nearly four decades.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher introduced the TINA acronym to the
world in a 1980 policy speech that proclaimed
"There Is No Alternative" to a global neoliberal capitalist order. Thatcher's
vision for this new order was predicated on the market-as-god economic philosophy
she had distilled from the work of
Austrian School economists such as Friedrich Hayek and her own fundamentalist
Christian worldview. Western political life today has devolved into a series
of increasingly desperate and inchoate reactions against a sense of fatal historical
entrapment originally encoded in Thatcher's TINA credo of capitalist inevitability.
If this historical undercurrent is ignored, populist revolt will not produce
much-needed democratic reform. It will instead be exploited by fascistic nationalist
demagogues and turned into a dangerous search for political scapegoats.
The Rebellion Against Inevitability
Thatcher's formulation of neoliberal inevitability manifested itself in a
de facto policy cocktail of public sector budget cuts, privatization, financial
deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, globalization of capital flows and militarization
that were the hallmarks of her administration and a
template for the future of the world's developed economies. After the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union, whose coercive state socialism represented capitalism's
last great power alternative, the underlying philosophy of economic inevitability
that informed TINA seemed like a prescient divination of cosmic design, with
giddy neoconservatives declaring the "end of history" and the triumph of
putatively democratic capitalism over all other historical alternatives.
Nearly four decades later, with neoliberalism having swept the globe in triumph
through a mix of technological innovation, exploitative financial engineering
and brute force, eclipsing its tenuous democratic underpinnings in the process,
disgraced British Prime Minister David Cameron maintained his devotion to TINA
right up to the moment of Brexit. In a 2013 speech delivered as his government
was preparing a
budget that proposed 40 percent cuts in social welfare spending , sweeping
privatization, wider war in Central Asia and continued austerity, he lamented
that "If there was another way, I would take it.
But there
is no alternative." Although they may want a change of makeup or clothes,
every G7 head of state heeds TINA's siren song of market inevitability.
As the de facto test subjects for the inexorable media-fueled march of
this ubiquitous global model, disparate groups worldwide have become the unwitting
faces of revolt against inevitability. Anonymized behind the august facades
of global financial institutions, neoliberal capitalism under TINA has produced
political rage, confusion, panic and a worldwide search for scapegoats and alternatives
across the political spectrum.
The members of ISIS have rejected the highest ideals of Islam in their search
for an alternative. Environmental activists attempt to counter the end-of-history
narrative at the heart of TINA with the scientific inevitability of global climate-induced
ecological catastrophe. Donald Trump offers a racial or foreign scapegoat for
every social and economic malady created by TINA, much like the far-right nationalist
parties emerging across Europe, while Bernie Sanders focuses on billionaires
and Wall Street. Leftist movements such as Podemos in Spain or Syriza in Greece
also embody attempted declarations of revolt against the narrative of inevitability,
as do the angry votes for Brexit in England and Wales.
Without judging or implying equality in the value of these varied expressions
of resistance, except to denounce the murderous ethos of ISIS and any other
call to violence or racism, it is clear that each offers seeming alternatives
to TINA's suffocating inevitability, and each attracts its own angry audience.
"Jihad" vs. "McWorld" and the New Theology of Capital
Benjamin Barber's 1992 essay and subsequent book, Jihad vs. McWorld
, is a better guide to the current politics of rage than the daily news
media. Barber describes a historic post-Soviet clash between the identity politics
of tribalism ("Jihad") and the forced financial and cultural integration of
corporate globalism ("McWorld").
McWorld is the financially integrated and omnipresent transnational order
of wired capitalism that has anointed itself the historic guardian of Western
civilization. It is viciously undemocratic in its pursuit of unrestricted profits
and violently punitive in response to any hint of economic apostasy. (See
Greece .) This new economic order offers the illusion of modernity with
its globally wired infrastructure and endless stream of consumerist spectacles,
but beneath the high-tech sheen, it is
spiritually empty , predicated on
permanent war ,
global poverty and is
destroying the biosphere .
McWorld cuts its destructive path under a self-promoting presumption
of historic inevitability, because after more than four decades of the TINA
narrative, the underlying rationale of market predestination is no longer economic.
It is theological. A historic transformation of market-based economic ideology
into theology underpins modern capitalism's instrumentalized view of human nature
and nature itself.
Descriptions such as
"free-market fundamentalism" and "market orthodoxy" are not mere figures
of speech. They point to a deeper, technologically powered religious metamorphosis
of capitalism that needs to be understood before a meaningful political response
can be mounted. One does not have to be Christian, nor Catholic, to appreciate
Pope Francis' warnings against the danger to Christian values from "a deified
market" with its "globalization of indifference." The pope is explicitly acknowledging
a new theology of capital whose core ethos runs counter to the values of both
classical and religious humanism.
Under the radically altered metaphysics of theologized capitalism, market
outcomes are sacred and inevitable. Conversely, humanity and the natural world
have been desacralized and defined as malleable forms of expendable and theoretically
inexhaustible capital. Even life-sustaining ecosystems and individual human
subjectivity are subsumed under a market rubric touted as historically preordained.
This is a crucial difference between capitalism today and capitalism even
50 years ago that is not only theological but apocalyptic in its refusal to
acknowledge limits. It has produced a global, social and economic order that
is increasingly feudal, while also connected via digital technologies.
Economic historian
Karl Polanyi warned in 1944 that a false utopian belief in the ability of
unfettered markets to produce naturally balanced outcomes would produce instead
a dystopian "stark utopia." Today's political chaos represents a spontaneous
and uncoordinated eruption of resistance against this encroaching sense of inevitable
dystopianism. As Barber noted, what he refers to as "Jihad" is not a strictly
Islamic phenomenon. It is localism, tribalism, particularism or sometimes classical
republicanism taking a stand, often violently, acting as de facto social and
political antibodies against the viral contagions of McWorld.
Pessimistic Optimism
The historically ordained march of theologized neoliberal capitalism
depends for its continuation on a belief by individuals that they are powerless
against putatively inevitable forces of market-driven globalization. It
is too early to know where the widely divergent outbreaks of resistance on display
in 2016 will lead, not least because they are uncoordinated, often self-contradictory
or profoundly undemocratic, and are arising in a maelstrom of confusion about
core causation.
One lesson nonetheless seems clear. The
"power of the powerless" has been awakened globally. Whether this awakening
will spark a movement towards equitable, ecologically sustainable democratic
self-governance is an open question. Many of today's leading political
theorists caution against an
outdated Enlightenment belief in progress and extol the
virtues of philosophic pessimism as a hedge against historically groundless
optimism. Amid today's fevered populist excitements triggered by a failure of
utopian faith in market inevitability, such cautionary thinking seems like sound
political advice. Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without
permission .
Michael Meurer is the founder of Meurer Education, a project offering classes
on the US political system in Latin American universities while partnering with
local education micro-projects to assist them with publicity and funding. Michael
is also president of Meurer Group & Associates, a strategic consultancy with
offices in Los Angeles and Denver.
"... It is fascinating that younger US neoliberals (e.g. Matthew Yglesias) are totally sold on the the positives of 'metrics', statistics, testing, etc, to the point where they ignore all the negatives of those approaches, but absolutely and utterly loathe being tracked, having the performance of their preferred policies and predictions analyzed, and called out on the failures thereof. Is sure seems to me that the campaign to quash the use of the US, Charles Peters version of neoliberal is part of the effort to avoid accountability for their actions. ..."
"... If "conservative" is to be a third way to the opposition of "reactionary" and "revolutionary", the "liberals" are a species of conservative - like all conservatives, seeking to preserve the existing order as far as this is possible, but appealing to reason, reason's high principles, and a practical politics of incremental reform and "inevitable" progress. The liberals disguise their affection for social and political hierarchy as a preference for "meritocracy" and place their faith in the powers of Reason and Science to discover Truth. ..."
"... Liberalism adopts nationalism as a vehicle for popular mobilization which conservatives can share and as an ideal of governance, the self-governing democratic nation-state with a liberal constitution. ..."
"... It wasn't Liberalism Triumphant that faced a challenge from fascism; it was the abject failures of Liberalism that created fascism. ..."
"... he Liberal projects to create liberal democratic nation-states ran aground in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia between 1870 and 1910 and instead of gradual reform of the old order, Europe experienced catastrophic collapse, and Liberalism was ill-prepared to devise working governments and politics in the crisis that followed. ..."
"... What is called neoliberalism in American politics has a lot to do with New Deal liberalism running out of steam and simply not having a program after 1970. Some of that is circumstantial in a way - the first Oil Crisis, the breakup of Bretton Woods - but even those circumstances were arguably results of the earlier program's success. ..."
= = = I am actually honestly suggesting an intellectual exercise which, I think, might
be worth your (extremely valuable) time. I propose you rewrite this post without using the
word "neoliberalism" (or a synonym). = = =
It is fascinating that younger US neoliberals (e.g. Matthew Yglesias) are totally sold
on the the positives of 'metrics', statistics, testing, etc, to the point where they ignore all
the negatives of those approaches, but absolutely and utterly loathe being tracked, having the
performance of their preferred policies and predictions analyzed, and called out on the failures
thereof. Is sure seems to me that the campaign to quash the use of the US, Charles Peters version
of neoliberal is part of the effort to avoid accountability for their actions.
bruce wilder 09.03.16 at 7:47 pm
In the politics of antonyms, I suppose we are always going get ourselves confused.
Perhaps because of American usage of the root, liberal, to mean the mildly social democratic
New Deal liberal Democrat, with its traces of American Populism and American Progressivism, we
seem to want "liberal" to designate an ideology of the left, or at least, the centre-left. Maybe,
it is the tendency of historical liberals to embrace idealistic high principles in their contest
with reactionary claims for hereditary aristocracy and arbitrary authority.
If "conservative" is to be a third way to the opposition of "reactionary" and "revolutionary",
the "liberals" are a species of conservative - like all conservatives, seeking to preserve the
existing order as far as this is possible, but appealing to reason, reason's high principles,
and a practical politics of incremental reform and "inevitable" progress. The liberals disguise
their affection for social and political hierarchy as a preference for "meritocracy" and place
their faith in the powers of Reason and Science to discover Truth.
All of that is by way of preface to a thumbnail history of modern political ideology different
from the one presented by Will G-R.
Modern political ideology is a by-product of the Enlightenment and the resulting imperative
to find a basis and purpose for political Authority in Reason, and apply Reason to the design
of political and social institutions.
Liberalism doesn't so much defeat conservatism as invent conservatism as an alternative to
purely reactionary politics. The notion of an "inevitable progress" allows liberals to reconcile
both themselves and their reactionary opponents to practical reality with incremental reform.
Political paranoia and rhetoric are turned toward thinking about constitutional design.
Mobilizing mass support and channeling popular discontents is a source of deep ambivalence
and risk for liberals and liberalism. Popular democracy can quickly become noisy and vulgar, the
proliferation of ideas and conflicting interests paralyzing. Inventing a conservatism that competes
with the liberals, but also mobilizes mass support and channels popular discontent, puts bounds
on "normal" politics.
Liberalism adopts nationalism as a vehicle for popular mobilization which conservatives
can share and as an ideal of governance, the self-governing democratic nation-state with a liberal
constitution.
I would put the challenges to liberalism from the left and right well behind in precedence
the critical failures and near-failures of liberalism in actual governance.
Liberalism failed abjectly to bring about a constitutional monarchy in France during the first
decade of the French Revolution, or a functioning deliberative assembly or religious toleration
or even to resolve the problems of state finance and legal administration that destroyed the ancient
regime. In the end, the solution was found in Napoleon Bonaparte, a precedent that would arguably
inspire the fascism of dictators and vulgar nationalism, beginning with Napoleon's nephew fifty
years later.
It wasn't Liberalism Triumphant that faced a challenge from fascism; it was the abject
failures of Liberalism that created fascism. And, this was especially true in the wake of
World War I, which many have argued persuasively was Liberalism's greatest and most catastrophic
failure. T he Liberal projects to create liberal democratic nation-states ran aground in Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Russia between 1870 and 1910 and instead of gradual reform of the old order,
Europe experienced catastrophic collapse, and Liberalism was ill-prepared to devise working governments
and politics in the crisis that followed.
If liberals invented conservatism, it seems to me that would-be socialists were at pains to
re-invent liberalism, and they did it several times going in radically different directions, but
always from a base in the basic liberal idea of rationalizing authority. A significant thread
in socialism adopted incremental progress and socialist ideas became liberal and conservative
means for taming popular discontent in an increasingly urban society.
Where and when liberalism actually was triumphant, both the range of liberal views and the
range of interests presenting a liberal front became too broad for a stable politics. Think about
the Liberal Party landslide of 1906, which eventually gave rise to the Labour Party in its role
of Left Party in the British two-party system. Or FDR's landslide in 1936, which played a pivotal
role in the march of the Southern Democrats to the Right. Or the emergence of the Liberal Consensus
in American politics in the late 1950s.
What is called neoliberalism in American politics has a lot to do with New Deal liberalism
running out of steam and simply not having a program after 1970. Some of that is circumstantial
in a way - the first Oil Crisis, the breakup of Bretton Woods - but even those circumstances were
arguably results of the earlier program's success.
It is almost a rote reaction to talk about the Republican's Southern Strategy, but they didn't
invent the crime wave that enveloped the country in the late 1960s or the riots that followed
the enactment of Civil Rights legislation.
Will G-R's "As soon [as] liberalism feels it can plausibly claim to have . . .overcome the
socialist and fascist challenges [liberals] are empowered to act as if liberalism's adaptive response
to the socialist and fascist challenges was never necessary in the first place - bye bye welfare
state, hello neoliberalism" doesn't seem to me to concede enough to Clinton and Blair entrepreneurially
inventing a popular politics in response to Reagan and Thatcher, after the actual failures
of an older model of social democratic programs and populist politics on its behalf.
I write more about this
over at
my blog (in a somewhat different context).
John Quiggin 09.04.16 at 6:57 am
RW @113 I wrote a whole book using "market liberalism" instead of "neoliberalism", since I wanted
a term more neutral and less pejorative. So, going back to "neoliberalism" was something I did
advisedly. You say
The word is abstract and has completely different meanings west and east of the Atlantic. In
the USA it refers to weak tea center leftisms. In Europe to hard core liberalism.
Well, yes. That's precisely why I've used the term, introduced the hard/soft distinction and explained
the history. The core point is that, despite their differences soft (US meaning) and hard (European
meaning) neoliberalism share crucial aspects of their history, theoretical foundations and policy
implications.
=== quote ===
Neoliberalism is an ideology of market fundamentalism based on deception that promotes "markets"
as a universal solution for all human problems in order to hide establishment of neo-fascist regime
(pioneered by Pinochet in Chile), where militarized government functions are limited to external
aggression and suppression of population within the country (often via establishing National Security
State using "terrorists" threat) and corporations are the only "first class" political players.
Like in classic corporatism, corporations are above the law and can rule the country as they see
fit, using political parties for the legitimatization of the regime.
The key difference with classic fascism is that instead of political dominance of the corporations
of particular nation, those corporations are now transnational and states, including the USA are
just enforcers of the will of transnational corporations on the population. Economic or "soft"
methods of enforcement such as debt slavery and control of employment are preferred to brute force
enforcement. At the same time police is militarized and due to technological achievements the
level of surveillance surpasses the level achieved in Eastern Germany.
Like with bolshevism in the USSR before, high, almost always hysterical, level of neoliberal
propaganda and scapegoating of "enemies" as well as the concept of "permanent war for permanent
peace" are used to suppress the protest against the wealth redistribution up (which is the key
principle of neoliberalism) and to decimate organized labor.
Multiple definitions of neoliberalism were proposed. Three major attempts to define this social
system were made:
Definitions stemming from the concept of "casino capitalism"
Definitions stemming from the concept of Washington consensus
Definitions stemming from the idea that Neoliberalism is Trotskyism for the rich. This
idea has two major variations:
Definitions stemming from Professor Wendy Brown's concept of Neoliberal rationality
which developed the concept of Inverted Totalitarism of Sheldon Wolin
Definitions stemming Professor Sheldon Wolin's older concept of Inverted Totalitarism
- "the heavy statism forging the novel fusions of economic with political power that he
took to be poisoning democracy at its root." (Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism
Common Dreams )
The first two are the most popular.
likbez 09.04.16 at 5:03 pm
bruce,
@117
Thanks for your post. It contains several important ideas:
"It wasn't Liberalism Triumphant that faced a challenge from fascism; it was the abject failures
of Liberalism that created fascism."
"What is called neoliberalism in American politics has a lot to do with New Deal liberalism
running out of steam and simply not having a program after 1970. Some of that is circumstantial
in a way - the first Oil Crisis, the breakup of Bretton Woods - but even those circumstances were
arguably results of the earlier program's success."
Moreover as Will G-R noted:
"neoliberalism will be every bit the wellspring of fascism that old-school liberalism was."
Failure of neoliberalism revives neofascist, far right movements. That's what the rise of far
right movements in Europe now demonstrates pretty vividly.
"... As you note, its not clear that we in the US need ANY immigration; it's hard to claim that 300 million people is not enough. If we choose to allow immigration, it should be few and strongly selective, i.e. the cream of the crop and selected to benefit the US. ..."
"... But it benefits the Mandarin class, so opposition or even debate been defined by them as heresy. It appears that the non-Mandarin class, who has to live with the downsides, is staring to reject this orthodoxy. ..."
"... We import, legally, 50,000 people (plus families IIRC) via a random visa lottery. This verges on insanity. ..."
"... H1-B applicants require a BA or equivalent, but are then selected by lottery. Hardly selected specifically for the needs of the country. In 2015, 6 of the top 10 firms by number of applications approved were Indian IT firms (i.e. outsourcing. I'm sure you are aware of the long term and recent complaints concerning direct replacement of US citizens by these workers. ..."
"... I find the system you describe which relies, by design, on perpetually importing new waves of a helot underclass to be both immoral and unsustainable. ..."
It's remarkable how rarely the immigration debate is prefaced with an explicit
prior that we should give absolute priority to what is best for the receiving
county and their citizens.
As you note, its not clear that we in the US need ANY immigration;
it's hard to claim that 300 million people is not enough. If we choose to
allow immigration, it should be few and strongly selective, i.e. the cream
of the crop and selected to benefit the US.
Its not credible to complain about low employment/population ratios,
limited wage pressures, high poverty rates, overburdened social safety nets,
limited prospects for those on the left side of the bell curve, and inequality,
and simultaneously support more immigration of the poor, unskilled, or difficult
to assimilate.
But it benefits the Mandarin class, so opposition or even debate
been defined by them as heresy. It appears that the non-Mandarin class,
who has to live with the downsides, is staring to reject this orthodoxy.
We import, legally, 50,000 people (plus families IIRC) via a random
visa lottery. This verges on insanity.
H1-B applicants require a BA or equivalent, but are then selected
by lottery. Hardly selected specifically for the needs of the country. In
2015, 6 of the top 10 firms by number of applications approved were Indian
IT firms (i.e. outsourcing. I'm sure you are aware of the long term and
recent complaints concerning direct replacement of US citizens by these
workers.
I'm in favor of significant penalties for employing illegal workers.
Yes lets debate who is going to take care of washing and changing adult
diapers on 80 million baby boomers as they deteriorate towards their final
resting place, and who is going to dig the holes if we have deported all
those who know which end of a shovel is the business end.
"... Neoliberals use the term "alt-right" as shorthand for those who don't drink the Clinton neocon Kool-Aid. ..."
"... The bigotry of warmongering neoliberals against anyone who disagrees. ..."
"... The alt.* hierarchy is a major class of newsgroups in Usenet, containing all newsgroups whose name begins with "alt.", organized hierarchically. The alt.* hierarchy is not confined to newsgroups of any specific subject or type, although in practice more formally organized groups tend not to occur in alt.*. ... (Wikipedia) ..."
"... It basically was like snorting a line of Cocaine. We keep on going back and it is getting less and less pleasurable. ..."
"... The final stage will probably be the stripping of all national function with the economy. Much like the free market intellectuals want. This will finally expose it. White's will know. The government they were taught to hate, liquidated, instead a new market state replaced. Their democracy decayed and Capitalists running international slave states instead pushing less product for their indentured servitude. Then we are right back to Bismark and Wells. ..."
The burgeoning neolib dog whistle "alt-right" is short for "a$$hole
who thinks Clinton should go to jail for 1000 times the misconduct that
would get that a$$hole 10 years hard time".
Neoliberals use the term "alt-right" as shorthand for those who don't
drink the Clinton neocon Kool-Aid.
The bigotry of warmongering neoliberals against anyone who disagrees.
Fred C. Dobbs -> anne...
(So-called 'alt groups' have been around
since the earliest days of the internet.)
The alt.* hierarchy is a major class of newsgroups in Usenet, containing
all newsgroups whose name begins with "alt.", organized hierarchically.
The alt.* hierarchy is not confined to newsgroups of any specific subject
or type, although in practice more formally organized groups tend not to
occur in alt.*. ... (Wikipedia)
Ben Groves :
There are a lot of Jews in the "Alt-Right"(aka, a Spencer invented term,
that they need to at least admit). Most have ties to neo-conservatism in
their past outside the desperate paleo types hanging on. To me, they are
"racist", but lets face it, the gentile left can just be as racist and historically,
more dangerous. Trying to be reactionary is just not a neo-liberal thing.
Fabians were quite racist as HG Wells outright said he was. Their vision
of globalism was a Eurocentric world of socialism and those 3rd world "brownies"
were setting socialism back and needed it to be enforced on them. The Nazi's
took Fabian economics and that dream to the nadir.
The problem is, the 'Alt-Right' is so upfront about it with a typical
neo-liberal economic plan. Even their "nationalism" has a * by it. Economic
Nationalism isn't just about trade deals, but a organic, cohesive flow to
the nation. Being in business isn't about stuffing your pockets, it is about
serving your country and indeed, stuff like the Epi-pen price hikes would
be considered treason. You would lower your prices or off with your head.
This, is a area where the "Alt-Right" doesn't want to do. They are not true
connies in the Bismark-ian sense. They want a nominal judeo-christianity
inside a classically liberal mindset of market expansion where white's pull
the strings. That is simply dialectical conflict. Who invented capitalism?
It was Sephardic Jews(say, unlike Communism which attracted Ashkenazi much
to Herr Weitling chagrin). Modern materialism is all things like Trump really
care about. So do his handlers like Spencer. Without the Jews, there is
no capitalism period. They financed it through several different methods
since the 1600's. Even the American Revolution was financed by them and
the founders absolutely knew where the bread was buttered. The Great Depression
was really the death rattle of the House of Rothschild and its British Empire(with
the Federal Reserve pushing on the string to completely destroy them, but
that is another post for another time). Capitalism as a system does not
work and never has worked.
It basically was like snorting a line of Cocaine. We keep on going
back and it is getting less and less pleasurable.
The final stage will probably be the stripping of all national function
with the economy. Much like the free market intellectuals want. This will
finally expose it. White's will know. The government they were taught to
hate, liquidated, instead a new market state replaced. Their democracy decayed
and Capitalists running international slave states instead pushing less
product for their indentured servitude. Then we are right back to Bismark
and Wells.
ilsm -> Ben Groves, -1
"gentile left" bigotry is founded against po' white folk who are not as
educated in the logical fallacies the limo libruls use to continue plundering
them.
Everyone is so busy calling out Trumpistas they do not see their own
"inclusive frailty".
The immigration issue is the democrats' effort to distract Donald Trump's
outreach to the black community . . .
Mr. Trump has provided enough information on immigration. He has to put
the press and everyone else on notice: "He said enough for now!!!" The "flip-flop"
issue is minor at this point.
What's important is the "black vote" as his only logical road to the
White House. Mr. Trump must make it clear to the black community that he
needs their help.
He has little time and should immediately apologize for the Republican
Party's mistake of accepting the democrats' decades of influence over the
black community.
He must confront the Democratic Party's decades of neglect of minorities
(and the poor). What's "historical" about Donald Trump" campaign is he actually
represents "racial unity."
Those supporting Trump have the common bond of "poverty." Like President
Johnson he needs to use "poverty" to overcome a preceding president's popularity.
He has as his political base "poor whites." His efforts now must focus on
"winning" the support of "poor blacks."
He has "ONE JOB" as this point if he wants to be president . . . He must
make the black community understand "the opportunity presented."
Mr. Trump must go directly to the black community (not the black establishment
political brokers) and make things "clear" that a "VOTE" for Trump is the
black community's only available opportunity for racial equality.
Likewise, Mr. Trump needs to have his "poor white" political base understand
the importance of "moving past" those things that have separated us. Mr.
Trump needs "racial unity" rallies from this point forward.
The immigration issue is how he won the primaries and it is the issue that
has made him popular with his fans. It is typically the focus of his speeches.
How can you suggest that the democrats are attempting to distract anyone
on immigration? Trump is the one who talks about it constantly.
"... Your article fails to make a clear enough distinction between legal and illegal immigration. It suggests Trump is anti-immigration and anti-immigrants - which is not the case. This is a common error in the debate. ..."
"... You are so silly. How many times has Hillary changed her mind on immigration? In fact, I am sure all of you recall a time when she suggested a fence and deportation. ..."
"... Here's Hillary in favor of a wall and deportations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DckY2dRFtxc ..."
"... Hungary and Norway way are building walls..Israel has several ..Mexico put up one for the Guatemalen exodus..in the mean time Hillarys plan for improving Jobs for Black youth is importing tens of thousand more ..."
"... One of the prime reasons for the increase in illegal immigration from Mexico was NAFTA, which ended up displacing hundreds of thousands of farm owners and millions of farm workers due to NAFTA regulations. ..."
The immigration issue is the democrats' effort to distract Donald Trump's
outreach to the black community . . .
Mr. Trump has provided enough information on immigration. He has to put
the press and everyone else on notice: "He said enough for now!!!" The "flip-flop"
issue is minor at this point.
What's important is the "black vote" as his only logical road to the
White House. Mr. Trump must make it clear to the black community that he
needs their help.
He has little time and should immediately apologize for the Republican
Party's mistake of accepting the democrats' decades of influence over the
black community.
He must confront the Democratic Party's decades of neglect of minorities
(and the poor). What's "historical" about Donald Trump" campaign is he actually
represents "racial unity."
Those supporting Trump have the common bond of "poverty." Like President
Johnson he needs to use "poverty" to overcome a preceding president's popularity.
He has as his political base "poor whites." His efforts now must focus on
"winning" the support of "poor blacks."
He has "ONE JOB" as this point if he wants to be president . . . He must
make the black community understand "the opportunity presented."
Mr. Trump must go directly to the black community (not the black establishment
political brokers) and make things "clear" that a "VOTE" for Trump is the
black community's only available opportunity for racial equality.
Likewise, Mr. Trump needs to have his "poor white" political base understand
the importance of "moving past" those things that have separated us. Mr.
Trump needs "racial unity" rallies from this point forward.
Your article fails to make a clear enough distinction between legal
and illegal immigration. It suggests Trump is anti-immigration and
anti-immigrants - which is not the case. This is a common error in the
debate.
You are so silly.
How many times has Hillary changed her mind on immigration? In fact, I am sure all of you recall a time when she suggested a fence
and deportation.
Hungary and Norway way are building walls..Israel has several ..Mexico put
up one for the Guatemalen exodus..in the mean time Hillarys plan for improving
Jobs for Black youth is importing tens of thousand more .
If they are so good why doesn't Europe take them for us..
What gets lost in all of this how the USA allowed Mexico to spiral into
the corrupt, poor country they currently are.
It's time for the US to get firm with Mexico and help them get on their
feet - which their corrupt leaders will hate, but tough shit. There is no
excuse to border the United States of America and have such poor living
standards for their people.
Although not ideal, a wall is a very direct message to Mexico's govt
that the US will not tolerate their corrupt government and drug cartels.
What's wrong with Trump changing his stance? He listened to his supporters
(most of whom think some type of amnesty is appropriate) and tweaked his
immigration plan.. *gasp*
It seems like a mature, reasonable move from an intelligent strong leader
- which Trump is.
He will be an excellent President.
One of the prime reasons for the increase in illegal immigration from Mexico
was NAFTA, which ended up displacing hundreds of thousands of farm owners
and millions of farm workers due to NAFTA regulations.
The trouble with both candidates is the Believability Factor. No mater
what they may say, it's doubtful they will do what they say. There needs
to be election laws that make ignoring campaign 'promises' once in office
impeachable.
Trump's original platform of deporting 11 million illegals isn't doable.
That would involve round-ups and incarcerations last seen in Nazi Germany.
I don't think the American people at large would stand for that.
So the spiel has been morphing into something more palatable to Joe Average.
He keeps trying to placate his base by having his surrogates assure them
that nothing has changed but it obviously has.
"... the one thing about intelligence is we should stand for truth to power-meaning we should always say what we believe, and lay the facts out, lay the tough right facts out and then you let the policymakers make the decisions that they have to make. What has happened in the last 10 years, frankly in the last 8 years, is we have seen a level of dishonesty coming out of both the policy and the decision making structure with the American people." ..."
"... Because of the President's and the Secretary of State's-among other officials in the Obama administration-unwillingness to hear all the facts, including ones they needed to but didn't want to hear, Flynn says the President has presented a narrative to the American people about the war on terrorism and radical Islamism that is simply inaccurate. ..."
"... The intelligence process starts really at the ground level, but the priorities-the priorities, Matt, for an intelligence system and the intelligence community in our country and that's the President of the United States. ..."
"... "That means infiltrating into refugee populations, that means conducting of smart information operations," Flynn said. "Most people don't know but these guys have very sophisticated information operations going on, with publications of magazines and websites. They have leaders in their groups that have thousands and thousands-I'm talking tens of thousands of followers on social media and Instagram and Twitter. ..."
"... Then I call for in the book a new 21st century alliance. This is where we really come to how we take the Arab community to task on how they plan to fix this cancerous disease inside of their own body that has metastasized and grown exponentially over the last five or six years and certainly actually over the last eight to 10 years. So it's one thing to go after the ideology, just like we went after Communism for 40 years ..."
"... He is a street savvy strategic leader type person who has a vision for this country, and he's turned it into this phrase of 'Make America Great Again.'" ..."
NEW YORK CITY, New York - Retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who served for more than two years as
the director of President Barack Obama's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), leveled explosive charges
against the President and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an exclusive hour-long
interview with Breitbart News Daily on Friday.
Specifically, during an exclusive interview about his book
The Field of Fight , Flynn said that Obama and Clinton were not interested in hearing
intelligence that did not fit their "happy talk" narrative about the Middle East. In fact, he alleged
the administration actively scrubbed training manuals and purged from the military ranks any thinking
about the concept of radical Islamism. Flynn argued that this effort by Obama, Clinton and others
to reduce the intelligence community to gathering only facts that the senior administration officials
wanted to hear-rather than what they needed to hear-helped the enemy fester and grow, while weakening
the United States on the world stage.
"The administration has basically denied the fact that we have this problem with 'Radical Islamists,'"
Flynn said during the interview. "And this is a very vicious, barbaric enemy and I recognize in the
book that there is an alliance of countries that are dedicated basically against our way of life
and they support different groups in the Islamic movement, principally the Islamic State and formerly
Al Qaeda-although Al Qaeda still exists. The administration denied the fact that this even existed
and then told those of us in the government to basically excise the phrase 'radical Islamism' out
of our entire culture, out of our training manuals, everything. That was a big argument I had internally
and I talked a little bit about it in the Senate testimony that I gave two years back."
Later in the interview, Flynn was even more specific, calling out Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
for not wanting to hear all the facts about what was happening in the Middle East-only some of them.
"There's a narrative that the President and his team, including Hillary Clinton, wanted to
hear-instead of having the tough news or the bad news if you will that they needed to hear," Flynn
said. "Now, there's a big difference. And the one thing about intelligence is we should stand
for truth to power-meaning we should always say what we believe, and lay the facts out, lay the
tough right facts out and then you let the policymakers make the decisions that they have to make.
What has happened in the last 10 years, frankly in the last 8 years, is we have seen a level of
dishonesty coming out of both the policy and the decision making structure with the American people."
Because of the President's and the Secretary of State's-among other officials in the Obama
administration-unwillingness to hear all the facts, including ones they needed to but didn't want
to hear, Flynn says the President has presented a narrative to the American people about the war
on terrorism and radical Islamism that is simply inaccurate.
"The President has said they're jayvee, they're on the run, they're not that strong, what difference
does it make what we call-that's being totally dishonest with the American public," Flynn said.
"There's one thing that Americans are, and we're tough, resilient people but we have to be told
the truth. I think what a lot of this is, in fact what I know a lot of it is. It's a lot of happy
talk from a President who did not meet the narrative of his political ideology or his political
decision-making process to take our country in a completely different direction and frankly that's
why I'm sitting here talking to you here today, Matt. The intelligence process starts really
at the ground level, but the priorities-the priorities, Matt, for an intelligence system and the
intelligence community in our country and that's the President of the United States. "
The Obama administration's refusal to take these threats seriously and his, Flynn said, "has allowed
an enemy that is using very smart, savvy means to impact our way of life."
"That means infiltrating into refugee populations, that means conducting of smart information
operations," Flynn said. "Most people don't know but these guys have very sophisticated information
operations going on, with publications of magazines and websites. They have leaders in their groups
that have thousands and thousands-I'm talking tens of thousands of followers on social media and
Instagram and Twitter. So we are not even allowed to go after these kinds of things right
now. This is the problem-it's a big problem. In fact, if we don't change this we're going to see
this strengthening in our homeland."
Flynn also laid out how to defeat radical Islamism, a plan he has stated repeatedly that the Obama
Administration has ignored.
"The very first thing is we have to clearly define the enemy and we have to get our own house
in order, which this administration has not done," Flynn said. "We have to figure out how are
we going to organize ourselves. Then I call for in the book a new 21st century alliance. This
is where we really come to how we take the Arab community to task on how they plan to fix this
cancerous disease inside of their own body that has metastasized and grown exponentially over
the last five or six years and certainly actually over the last eight to 10 years. So it's one
thing to go after the ideology, just like we went after Communism for 40 years , but I also
say in the book we have to crush this enemy wherever they exist. We cannot allow them to have
any safe haven. We are dancing around the sort of head of a pin, when we know these guys are in
certain places around the world and our military is not allowed to go in there and get them. The
'mother may I' has to go all the way back up to the White House."
He said the fight has to be very similar to how the United States, over decades, thoroughly degraded
Communism on the world stage.
"There's no enemy that's unbeatable," Flynn said. "We can beat any enemy. We put our minds
to it, we decide to do that, we can beat any enemy. And there's no ideology in the world that's
better than the American ideology. We should not allow, because they mask themselves behind the
religion of Islam, we should not allow our ideology, our way of life, our system of principles,
our values that are based on a Judeo-Christian set that comes right out of our Constitution-we
should not fear that. In fact, we should fight those that try to impose a different way of life
on us. That's what we did against the Nazis, that's what we did against the Communists for the
better part of a half a century-in fact, more than half a century. Now we are dealing with another
Ism, and that's radical Islamism, and we're going to have to fight it-and we're going to be fighting
it for some time. But tactically we can defeat this enemy quickly. Then what we have to do is
we have to fight the ideology, and we can do that diplomatically, politically, informationally
and we can do that in very, very smart ways much greater than we're doing right now."
Flynn is a lifelong Democrat, and again served in this senior Obama administration position for
more than two years, but is now publicly supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump for president.
He spoke at the Republican National Convention in support of Trump, and has been publicly speaking
out in favor of the GOP nominee for some time now.
"My role as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency-that's almost a 20,000 person organization
in 140 plus countries around the world," Flynn said. "I was also the senior military and intelligence
officer not only for the Defense Department but for the country. So I mean I was basically told
'hey, you know what, what you're saying we don't like. So you're out.' To Donald Trump, though,
and I haven't known him that long but I met him a year ago-in fact a year ago this month. The
conversation that we had, which was an amazing conversation, I found a guy that like I to say,
'he gets it.' He gets it. He is a street savvy strategic leader type person who has a vision
for this country, and he's turned it into this phrase of 'Make America Great Again.'"
... ... ...
LISTEN TO LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN ON BREITBART NEWS DAILY ON SIRIUSXM 125 THE PATRIOT CHANNEL:
It is unclear to what extent Trump represents a threat to Washington establishment and how easily
or difficult it would be to co-opt him. In any case "deep state" will stay in place, so the capabilities
of POTUS are limited by the fact of its existence. But comments to the article are great !
Notable quotes:
"... It goes all the way back to the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the elder Bush's historically foolish decision to invade the Persian Gulf in February 1991. The latter stopped dead in its tracks the first genuine opportunity for peace the people of the world had been afforded since August 1914. ..."
"... Instead, it reprieved the fading remnants of the military-industrial-congressional complex, the neocon interventionist camp and Washington's legions of cold war apparatchiks. All of the foregoing would have been otherwise consigned to the dust bin of history. ..."
"... And most certainly, this lamentable turn to the War Party's disastrous reign had nothing to do with oil security or economic prosperity in America. The cure for high oil is always and everywhere high oil prices, not the Fifth Fleet. ..."
"... It is the bombs, drones, cruise missiles and brutal occupations of Muslim lands unleashed by the War Party that has actually fostered the massive blowback and radical jidhadism rampant today in the middle east and beyond. ..."
"... Indeed, prior to 1991 Bin Laden and his mujahedeen, who had been trained and armed by the CIA and heralded in the west for their help in defeating purportedly godless communism in Afghanistan, had not declaimed against American liberty, opulence and decadence. They did not come to attack our way of life as the neocon propagandists have so speciously claimed. Misguided and despicable as their attack was, it was motivated by revenge and religious fanaticism that had never previously been directed against the American people. That is, not until the Washington War Party decided to intervene in the Persian Gulf in 1991. ..."
"... Not long thereafter in 1996, these same neocon warmongers produced for newly elected Israeli prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, the infamous document called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing The Realm". ..."
"... There were several crucial moments along the way-–the first being the sacking of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill by the White House praetorian guard led by Karl Rove. His sin was having the audacity to say that the Afghan and Iraqi wars were going to cost trillions, and that stiff tax increases and painful entitlements cuts were the only way to make ends meet. ..."
"... The great Dwight Eisenhower left office at the height of the cold war in 1961, warning the American public about the insatiable appetites for budgets and war of the military industrial complex. At the same time, however, his final budget attested to his conviction that $450 billion in today's purchasing power (2015 $) was enough to fund the Pentagon, foreign aid and security assistance and the needs of veterans of past wars. ..."
"... Thanks to the GOP War Party and neocons we are spending more than double that amount-upwards of $900 billion-–for those same purposes today. Yet unlike the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union at the peak of its industrial vigor, we no longer have any industrial state enemy left on the planet; we have appropriately been fired as the world's policeman and have no need for Washington's far flung imperium of bases and naval and air power projection; and would not even be confronted with the domestic policing challenges posed by highly limited and episodic homeland terrorist tempests had Washington not turned Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and others into failed states and economic rubble. ..."
"... But here's the thing. While spending a lifetime as a real estate speculator and self-created celebrity, The Donald apparently did not have time to get mis-educated by the Council On Foreign Relations or to hob knob with the GOP inner circle in Washington and the special interest group racketeers they coddle. ..."
"... But a nation tumbling into financial and fiscal crisis will welcome the War Party purge that Trump would surely undertake. He didn't allow the self-serving busy-bodies and fools who inhabit the Council on Foreign Relations to dupe him into believing that Putin is a horrible threat; or that the real estate on the eastern edge of the non-state of the Ukraine, which has always been either a de jure or de facto part of Russia, was any of our business. Likewise, he has gotten it totally right with respect to the sectarian and tribal wars of Syria and Iraq and Hillary's feckless destruction of a stable regime in Libya. ..."
"... Besides, unlike the boy Senator from Florida who wants to be President so he can play with guns, tanks, ships and bombs, The Donald has indicated no intention of tearing up the agreement on day one in office. ..."
"... Most importantly, The Donald has essentially proclaimed the obvious. Namely, that the cold war is over and that the American taxpayers have no business subsidizing obsolete relics like NATO and ground forces in South Korea and Japan. ..."
"... At the end of the day, the reason that the neocons are apoplectic is that Trump would restore the 1991 status quo ante. The nation's self-proclaimed greatest deal-maker might even take a leaf out of Warren G. Harding's playbook and negotiate sweeping disarmament agreements in a world where governments everywhere are on the verge of fiscal bankruptcy. ..."
"... Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.... A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill. H. L. Mencken ..."
"... Great read Mr. Stockman, and I can only hope you are right, that Super Tuesday really triggers the demise of the Military Industrial Complex, although I seriously doubt it can be removed, replaced or dismantled that easily. ..."
"... The roots of the neocons and neolibs go so deep - multi-generational, multi-faceted, and removing their control will require Open Regime Surgery, something I don't see anyone capable of performing quite yet. Surely they are going to want their shot at being the first rulers to control the entire earth - just before the energy runs out and the planet collapses in on itself due to being hollowed out :) ..."
"... David, you are missing some fairly strong evidence that 911 was an inside job. ..."
"... As an engineer, I find it impossible to fathom that building 7, not hit by any planes and only suffering minor fires, would fall straight into its own footprint at FREEFALL SPEED. This is exactly the sort of thing you would expect ONLY from a controlled demolition. ..."
"... I think that the neocons, in their meetings regarding the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC), needed 911 to foment, foster and facilitate a push of patriotic pathos of the American people to go to war. ..."
"... So so true. Of course this is an abridged version of history. You speak the truth to power. This never makes the news or any of the debate tables with any of the mainstream media. Why...because the media is owned by the corporations that profit from war. ..."
"... There is no more liberal media unless you watch the Young Turks. With regards to Iran. There is more to their history than...CIA's coup of 1953. From my memory the British controlled the Iranian oilfields up until 1951 when they were nationalized. Why...because the British BP oil company was cheating Iran on the profit sharing deal. So the British are out. It is 1953 and the Americans want in. 1953 the Anglo-American Coup happened and the the profit sharing began again with American oil companies with the Shaw (Shell-mobil-Exxon..I can't remember which one) Of course the American oil companies breached the deal and shorted the POS Shah who then shorted his nation. Rulers forget, poor people are pissed off people. So all this "it was the CIA" crap is baloney...They were tools for corporate America. Don't kid yourself, it was about the oil. IMO ..."
"... As Stockman points out, it seems that Washington was set on then neocon automatic pilot. The policy of the Democrats was basically a continuation of a policy started prior to Reagan presidency. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton are involved in regime change plans when we thought that Neo-cons has been shown to be a band of idiots that worked for the military industrial complex. ..."
"... In the seventies, Brzezinski advocated support for the Islamic belt with fundamentalist regimes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. These Islamo-fascist were supposed to control the perceived enemies of Capitalism. ..."
"... Thank you Mr. Stockman for fearlessly stating the facts. As to the 1st Iraq War, and the lies on which it was based, the only other significant detail I would have mentioned is that Saddam was suckered into invading Kuwait by the bitch, April Gillespie who, at the time, was serving as his special envoy to the middle east. ..."
"... @lloydholiday Billionaire "businessman" Glen Taylor owns the influential Minneapolis newspaper. He and his idiotic neocon editorial board ENDORSED RUBIO just before the Minnesota caucuses. Rubio may have made secret promises to Taylor, whose cannot possibly separate his many business interests from Minnesota and national politics. This explanation is as likely any, how the Little Napoleon won the ONLY state he is going to win, unless Floridians are somehow swayed to raise up a man toward the Presidency who isn't qualified to be dog catcher. ..."
"... As usual concise, accurate. Bush and Shrub were phonies in thrall to the Carlyle Group and their buddies the 'Kingdom' (source and supporter of al-Quaeda) plus the pro-Israeli neocons who wanted US boots on the ground to protect Israel. The Bush duumvirate played along in this duplicitous game, which Trump called them on. Enron also played a role: Shrub let them set policy in the Stans as their consortium sought pipeline rights from the Taliban. Crooks at play in the garden of evil. ..."
"... It is the bombs, drones, cruise missiles and brutal occupations of Muslim lands unleashed by the War Party that has actually fostered the massive blowback and radical jidhadism rampant today in the middle east and beyond. ..."
"... Mr Stockman apparently has the bad manners to speak the truth. Washington is going to be PO'd at the blatant disrespect for their BS. ..."
"... @FreeOregon It will shocked me beyond words if he survives the primaries. Far too much is at stake. In fact, 100 years of lying, cheating, and thieving, and the wealth it has produced is at stake. The Rothschild Establishment, centered in London and Tel Aviv, will not sit idly by and watch as their lucrative racket is dismantled by an up-start politician that cannot be purchased and put under their control. ..."
"... All true....finally the politicians that have run our country into the ground are exposed for the puppets of oligarchs they are...it is obvious....both parties, phony conservatives and liberals alike, are waging war on Trump because he truly threatens the status quo......it's going to get real ugly now that the powers that be are threatened.....I wouldn't fly to much if I was Trump from here on in! ..."
Wow. Super Tuesday was an earthquake, and not just because Donald Trump ran the tables. The best
thing was the complete drubbing and humiliation that voters all over America handed to the little
Napoleon from Florida, Marco Rubio.
So doing, the voters began the process of ridding the nation of the GOP War Party and its neocon
claque of rabid interventionists. They have held sway for nearly three decades in the Imperial City
and the consequences have been deplorable.
It goes all the way back to the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the elder Bush's historically
foolish decision to invade the Persian Gulf in February 1991. The latter stopped dead in its tracks
the first genuine opportunity for peace the people of the world had been afforded since August 1914.
Instead, it reprieved the fading remnants of the military-industrial-congressional complex, the
neocon interventionist camp and Washington's legions of cold war apparatchiks. All of the foregoing
would have been otherwise consigned to the dust bin of history.
Yet at that crucial inflection point there was absolutely nothing at stake with respect to the
safety and security of the American people in the petty quarrel between Saddam Hussein and the Emir
of Kuwait.
The spate, in fact, was over directional drilling rights in the Rumaila oilfield which straddled
their respective borders. Yet these disputed borders had no historical legitimacy whatsoever. Kuwait
was a just a bank account with a seat in the UN, which had been created by the British only in 1899
for obscure reasons of imperial maneuver. Likewise, the boundaries of Iraq had been drawn with a
straight ruler in 1916 by British and French diplomats in the process of splitting up the loot from
the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
As it happened, Saddam claimed that the Emir of Kuwait, who could never stop stuffing his unspeakably
opulent royal domain with more petro dollars, had stolen $10 billion worth of oil from Iraq's side
of the field while Saddam was savaging the Iranians during his unprovoked but Washington supported
1980s invasion. At the same time, Hussein had borrowed upwards of $50 billion from Kuwait, the Saudis
and the UAE to fund his barbaric attacks on the Iranians and now the sheiks wanted it back.
At the end of the day, Washington sent 500,000 US troops to the Gulf in order to function as bad
debt collectors for three regimes that are the very embodiment of tyranny, corruption, greed and
religious fanaticism.
They have been the fount and exporter of Wahhabi fanaticism and have thereby fostered the scourge
of jihadi violence throughout the region. And it was the monumental stupidity of putting American
(crusader) boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia that actually gave rise to Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, the
tragedy of 9/11, the invasion and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Patriot Act and domestic
surveillance state and all the rest of the War Party follies which have followed.
Worse still, George H.W. Bush's stupid little war corrupted the very political soul and modus
operandi of Washington. What should have been a political contest over which party and prospective
leader could best lead a revived 1920s style campaign for world disarmament was mutated into a wave
of exceptionalist jingoism about how best to impose American hegemony on any nation or force on the
planet that refused compliance with Washington's designs and dictates.
And most certainly, this lamentable turn to the War Party's disastrous reign had nothing to do
with oil security or economic prosperity in America. The cure for high oil is always and everywhere
high oil prices, not the Fifth Fleet.
Indeed, as the so-called OPEC cartel crumbles into pitiful impotence and cacophony and as the
world oil glut drives prices eventually back into the teens, there can no longer be any dispute.
The blazing oilfields of Kuwait in 1991 had nothing to do with domestic oil security and prosperity,
and everything to do with the rise of a virulent militarism and imperialism that has drastically
undermined national security.
It is the bombs, drones, cruise missiles and brutal occupations of Muslim lands unleashed by the
War Party that has actually fostered the massive blowback and radical jidhadism rampant today in
the middle east and beyond.
Indeed, prior to 1991 Bin Laden and his mujahedeen, who had been trained and armed by the CIA
and heralded in the west for their help in defeating purportedly godless communism in Afghanistan,
had not declaimed against American liberty, opulence and decadence. They did not come to attack our
way of life as the neocon propagandists have so speciously claimed. Misguided and despicable as their
attack was, it was motivated by revenge and religious fanaticism that had never previously been directed
against the American people. That is, not until the Washington War Party decided to intervene in
the Persian Gulf in 1991.
Yes, the wholly different Shiite branch of Islam centered in Iran had a grievance, too. But that
wasn't about America's liberties and libertine ways of life, either. It was about the left over liability
from Washington's misguided cold war interventions and, specifically, the 1953 CIA coup that installed
the brutal and larcenous Shah on the Peacock Throne.
The whole Persian nation had deep grievances about that colossal injustice--a grievance that was
wantonly amplified in the 1980s by Washington's overt assistance to Saddam Hussein. Via the CIA's
satellite reconnaissance, Washington had actually helped him unleash heinous chemical warfare attacks
on Iranian forces, including essentially unarmed young boys who had been sent to the battle front
as cannon fodder.
Still, with the election of Rafsanjani in 1989 there was every opportunity to repair this historical
transgression and normalize relations with Tehran. In fact, in the early days the Bush state department
was well on the way to exactly that. But once the CNN war games in the gulf put the neocons back
in the saddle the door was slammed shut by Washington, not the Iranians.
Indeed at that very time, the re-ascendant neocons explicitly choose to demonize the Iranian regime
as a surrogate enemy to replace the defunct Kremlin commissars. Two of the most despicable actors
in the post-1991 neocon takeover of the GOP--Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz--actually penned a secret
document outlining the spurious anti-Iranian campaign which soon congealed into a full-blown war
myth.
To wit, that the Iranian's were hell bent on obtaining nuclear weapons and had become an implacable
foe of America and fountain of state sponsored terrorism.
Not long thereafter in 1996, these same neocon warmongers produced for newly elected Israeli prime
minister, Bibi Netanyahu, the infamous document called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing
The Realm".
Whether he immediately signed off an all of its sweeping plans for junking the Oslo Accords and
launching regime change initiatives against the Baathist regimes in Iraq and Syria is a matter of
historical debate. But there can be no doubt that shortly thereafter this manifesto became the operative
policy of the Netanyahu government and especially its virulent campaign to demonize Iran as an existential
threat to Israel. And that when the younger Bush took office and brought the whole posse of neocons
back into power, it became Washington's official policy, as well.
After 9/11 the dual War Party of Washington and Tel Aviv was off to the races and the US government
began its tumble toward $19 trillion of national debt and an eventual fiscal calamity. That's because
the neocon War Party sucked the old time religion of fiscal rectitude and monetary orthodoxy right
out of the GOP in the name of funding what has in truth become a trillion dollar per year Warfare
State.
There were several crucial moments along the way-–the first being the sacking of Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill by the White House praetorian guard led by Karl Rove. His sin was having the audacity
to say that the Afghan and Iraqi wars were going to cost trillions, and that stiff tax increases
and painful entitlements cuts were the only way to make ends meet.
Right then and there the GOP was stripped of any fiscal virginity that had survived the Reagan
era of triple digit deficits. Right on cue the contemptible Dick Cheney was quick to claim that Reagan
proved "deficits don't matter", meaning from that point forward whatever it took to fund the war
machine trumped any flickering Republican folk memories of fiscal prudence.
The great Dwight Eisenhower left office at the height of the cold war in 1961, warning the
American public about the insatiable appetites for budgets and war of the military industrial complex.
At the same time, however, his final budget attested to his conviction that $450 billion in today's
purchasing power (2015 $) was enough to fund the Pentagon, foreign aid and security assistance and
the needs of veterans of past wars.
Thanks to the GOP War Party and neocons we are spending more than double that amount-upwards
of $900 billion-–for those same purposes today. Yet unlike the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet
Union at the peak of its industrial vigor, we no longer have any industrial state enemy left on the
planet; we have appropriately been fired as the world's policeman and have no need for Washington's
far flung imperium of bases and naval and air power projection; and would not even be confronted
with the domestic policing challenges posed by highly limited and episodic homeland terrorist tempests
had Washington not turned Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and others into failed
states and economic rubble.
The Bush era War Party also committed an even more lamentable error in the midst of all of its
foreign policy triumphalism and its utter neglect of the GOP's actual purpose to function as an advocate
for sound money and free markets in the governance process of our two party democracy. Namely, it
appointed Ben Bernanke, an avowed Keynesian and big government statist who had loudly proclaimed
in favor of "helicopter money", to a Federal Reserve system that was already on the verge of an economic
coup d'état led by the unfaithful Alan Greenspan.
That coup was made complete by the loathsome bailout of Wall Street during the 2008 financial
crisis. And the latter had, in turn, been a consequence of the massive speculation and debt build-up
that had been enabled by the Fed's own policies during the prior decade and one-half.
Now after $3.5 trillion of heedless money printing and 86 months of ZIRP, Wall Street has been
transformed into an unstable, dangerous casino. Honest price discovery in the capital and money markets
no longer exists, nor has productive capital been flowing into real investments in efficiency and
growth.
Instead, the C-suites of corporate America have been transformed into stock trading rooms where
business balance sheets have been hocked to the tune of trillions in cheap debt in order to fund
stock buybacks, LBOs and M&A deals designed to goose stock prices and the value of top executive
options.
Indeed, the Fed's unconscionable inflation of the third massive financial bubble of this century
has showered speculators and the 1% with unspeakable financial windfalls that are fast creating not
only an inevitable thundering financial meltdown, but, also, a virulent populist backlash. The Eccles
Building was where the "Bern" that is roiling the electorate was actually midwifed.
And probably even the far greater political tremblor represented by The Donald, as well.
Yes, as a libertarian I shudder at the prospect of a man on a white horse heading for the White
House, as Donald Trump surely is. His rank demoguery and poisonous rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims,
refugees, women, domestic victims of police repression and the spy state and countless more are flat-out
contemptible. And the idea of building a horizontal version of Trump Towers on the Rio Grande is
just plain nuts.
But here's the thing. While spending a lifetime as a real estate speculator and self-created
celebrity, The Donald apparently did not have time to get mis-educated by the Council On Foreign
Relations or to hob knob with the GOP inner circle in Washington and the special interest group racketeers
they coddle.
So even as The Donald's election would bring on a thundering financial crash on Wall Street and
political upheaval in Washington-–the truth is that's going to happen anyway. Look at the hideous
mess that US policy has created in Syria or the incendiary corner into which the Fed has backed itself
or the fiscal projections that show we will be back into trillion dollar annual deficits as the recession
already underway reaches full force. The jig is well and truly up.
But a nation tumbling into financial and fiscal crisis will welcome the War Party purge that
Trump would surely undertake. He didn't allow the self-serving busy-bodies and fools who inhabit
the Council on Foreign Relations to dupe him into believing that Putin is a horrible threat; or that
the real estate on the eastern edge of the non-state of the Ukraine, which has always been either
a de jure or de facto part of Russia, was any of our business. Likewise, he has gotten it totally
right with respect to the sectarian and tribal wars of Syria and Iraq and Hillary's feckless destruction
of a stable regime in Libya.
Even his bombast about Obama's bad deal with Iran doesn't go much beyond Trump's ridiculous claim
that they are getting a $150 billion reward. In fact, it was their money; we stole it, and by the
time of the next election they will have it released anyway.
Besides, unlike the boy Senator from Florida who wants to be President so he can play with
guns, tanks, ships and bombs, The Donald has indicated no intention of tearing up the agreement on
day one in office.
Most importantly, The Donald has essentially proclaimed the obvious. Namely, that the cold
war is over and that the American taxpayers have no business subsidizing obsolete relics like NATO
and ground forces in South Korea and Japan.
At the end of the day, the reason that the neocons are apoplectic is that Trump would restore
the 1991 status quo ante. The nation's self-proclaimed greatest deal-maker might even take a leaf
out of Warren G. Harding's playbook and negotiate sweeping disarmament agreements in a world where
governments everywhere are on the verge of fiscal bankruptcy.
He might also come down with wrathful indignation on the Fed if its dares push toward the criminal
zone of negative interest rates. As far as I know, The Donald was never mis-educated by the Keynesian
swells at Brookings, either. No plain old businessman would ever fall for the sophistry and crank
monetary theories that are now ascendant in the Eccles Building.
When it comes to the nation's current economy wreckers-in-chief, Janet Yellen and Stanley Fischer,
he might even dust off on day one the skills he honed during 10-years on the Apprentice.
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable....
A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic
thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill. H. L. Mencken
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect
that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone.
... There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect
than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly. ... No, there is nothing
notably dignified about religious ideas. They run, rather, to a peculiarly puerile and tedious
kind of nonsense. At their best, they are borrowed from metaphysicians, which is to say, from
men who devote their lives to proving that twice two is not always or necessarily four. At their
worst, they smell of spiritualism and fortune telling. Nor is there any visible virtue in the
men who merchant them professionally. Few theologians know anything that is worth knowing, even
about theology, and not many of them are honest. ... But the average theologian is a hearty, red-faced,
well-fed fellow with no discernible excuse in pathology. He disseminates his blather, not innocently,
like a philosopher, but maliciously, like a politician. In a well-organized world he would be
on the stone-pile. But in the world as it exists we are asked to listen to him, not only politely,
but even reverently, and with our mouths open. H. L. Mencken
Great read Mr. Stockman, and I can only hope you are right, that Super Tuesday really triggers
the demise of the Military Industrial Complex, although I seriously doubt it can be removed, replaced
or dismantled that easily.
The roots of the neocons and neolibs go so deep - multi-generational, multi-faceted, and
removing their control will require Open Regime Surgery, something I don't see anyone capable
of performing quite yet. Surely they are going to want their shot at being the first rulers to
control the entire earth - just before the energy runs out and the planet collapses in on itself
due to being hollowed out :)
As an engineer, I find it impossible to fathom that building 7, not hit by any planes and
only suffering minor fires, would fall straight into its own footprint at FREEFALL SPEED. This
is exactly the sort of thing you would expect ONLY from a controlled demolition.
I think that the neocons, in their meetings regarding the "Project for a New American Century"
(PNAC), needed 911 to foment, foster and facilitate a push of patriotic pathos of the American
people to go to war.
So so true. Of course this is an abridged version of history. You speak the truth to power.
This never makes the news or any of the debate tables with any of the mainstream media. Why...because
the media is owned by the corporations that profit from war.
There is no more liberal media unless you watch the Young Turks. With regards to Iran.
There is more to their history than...CIA's coup of 1953. From my memory the British controlled
the Iranian oilfields up until 1951 when they were nationalized. Why...because the British BP
oil company was cheating Iran on the profit sharing deal. So the British are out. It is 1953 and
the Americans want in. 1953 the Anglo-American Coup happened and the the profit sharing began
again with American oil companies with the Shaw (Shell-mobil-Exxon..I can't remember which one)
Of course the American oil companies breached the deal and shorted the POS Shah who then shorted
his nation. Rulers forget, poor people are pissed off people. So all this "it was the CIA" crap
is baloney...They were tools for corporate America. Don't kid yourself, it was about the oil.
IMO
BTW the Kuwaiti Royalty were friends of the Bushes.
We also did Israel a favor as Saddam was funding suicide bombers in Palestine ($20,000.00 to
the family for every suicide bomber) Arab mothers were happy to have their kids blown up for that
Saddam "reward." Ever notice how the suicide bombs ended/slowed in Israel after Saddam was deposed.
I did. Also Saddam was amassing his military on the Saudi's border at that time (Saddam wanted
Saudi oil to pay off his war debt) and so as a favor the the Saudi King (Bush's buddy) we ended
that threat. Yipee for us. This is never brought out in serious debate or news coverage. So if
someone says it was not about the oil...It was about the oil and always has been. It is all about
the oil. Oil is short for corporate cash cow money.
SD is right, Osama hated the fact that Bush's infidels were in the land of Mecca, and that
was one of the major instigators for the 9/11 attacks. Efing arrogant, ignorant Bush keeping "Merica"
safe. Clinton could have done a much better job cleaning up those King George the 1st's foreign
policy blunders, so I fault him to a degree too.
There are some good web sites that talk about this..I don't have them handy.
You are absolutely right. As Chas Freeman, who was our ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the
1991 Gulf War, has recounted, the stationing of American troops on Saudi soil in response to Saddam's
invasion of Kuwait presented a serious issue given that "[m]any Saudis interpret their religious
tradition as banning the presence of non-Muslims, especially the armed forces of nonbelievers,
on the Kingdom's soil." Shortly after the invasion, Freeman was present at a meeting between King
Fahd and Vice-President Cheney at which the King, overruling most of the Saudi royal family, agreed
to allow U.S. troops to be stationed in his country. This decision was premised on the clear understanding,
stressed by Cheney, that the American forces would be removed from Saudi Arabia once the immediate
threat from Saddam was over.
When that did not happen, Fahd faced serious domestic problems. Several prominent Muslim clerics
who objected to his policies were sent into exile, further inflaming the religious community.
More significantly for us, Osama Bin Laden began to call for the overthrow of the monarchy and
elevated his jihadist fight against the U.S. His Saudi passport was revoked for his anti-government
rhetoric, and in April 1991, threatened with arrest, he secretly departed Saudi Arabia for the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, never to return. The result, ten years later, was 9-11.
As Stockman points out, it seems that Washington was set on then neocon automatic pilot.
The policy of the Democrats was basically a continuation of a policy started prior to Reagan presidency.
Both Obama and Hillary Clinton are involved in regime change plans when we thought that Neo-cons
has been shown to be a band of idiots that worked for the military industrial complex.
In the seventies, Brzezinski advocated support for the Islamic belt with fundamentalist
regimes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. These Islamo-fascist were supposed to control
the perceived enemies of Capitalism.
Now, we talk 24/7 about the Islamic threat, while the Islamists are being supported by our
closest allies and elements in the deep state in Washington.
We rarely hear about the Shah of Iran and OUR CIA back in 1953. Nor about OBL and his stated reason's
for 9/11. Including the vengeful and childish bombardment of highlands behind Beirut by our terribly
expensive recommissioned Battle Ship -- Imagine the thinking behind taking that 'thing' out of
mothballs to Scare the A - rabs. Invading Grenada was Ollie North's idea to save face.
Thank you Mr. Stockman for fearlessly stating the facts. As to the 1st Iraq War, and the lies
on which it was based, the only other significant detail I would have mentioned is that Saddam
was suckered into invading Kuwait by the bitch, April Gillespie who, at the time, was serving
as his special envoy to the middle east.
@lloydholiday I lived
in MPLS. You would be amazed at how sacrificially 'liberal' they are, much like Merkel and the
deluded Germans. Minn let in thousands of Ethiopians and other Muslims who are now giving natives
a major headache, much like Europe.
The women over 30 are nearly fanatic over Black oppression, voted for Obama in droves, and
appear to be willing to sacrifice the interests of their own children in favor of aliens and minorities
(my own niece raised in Minn is a fanatic in this regard). Rubbero is a loser with a wind up tongue.
They are easily impressed by patter however inarticulate.
@lloydholiday
Billionaire "businessman" Glen Taylor owns the influential Minneapolis newspaper. He and his
idiotic neocon editorial board ENDORSED RUBIO just before the Minnesota caucuses. Rubio may
have made secret promises to Taylor, whose cannot possibly separate his many business interests
from Minnesota and national politics. This explanation is as likely any, how the Little Napoleon
won the ONLY state he is going to win, unless Floridians are somehow swayed to raise up a man
toward the Presidency who isn't qualified to be dog catcher.
As usual concise, accurate. Bush and Shrub were phonies in thrall to the Carlyle Group and
their buddies the 'Kingdom' (source and supporter of al-Quaeda) plus the pro-Israeli neocons who
wanted US boots on the ground to protect Israel. The Bush duumvirate played along in this duplicitous
game, which Trump called them on. Enron also played a role: Shrub let them set policy in the Stans
as their consortium sought pipeline rights from the Taliban. Crooks at play in the garden of evil.
It is the bombs, drones, cruise missiles and brutal occupations of Muslim lands unleashed
by the War Party that has actually fostered the massive blowback and radical jidhadism rampant
today in the middle east and beyond.
Mr Stockman apparently has the bad manners to speak the truth. Washington is going to be
PO'd at the blatant disrespect for their BS.
If the GOP disappears, there's always the brain dead Democrats. What we need is an end to both
parties. The best way to accomplish that is to cancel the entirety of the Fed Gov. Just get rid
of all of it. Let the states become countries and compete on the world stage. Let all those holding
Federal paper (the national debt) use it in their bathroom as toilet paper. Cancel the debt -
ignore it - lets start fresh with no central bank and real money based on something that the politicians
can't conjure into existence. I suggest gold and silver as history has shown that they work well.
@bill5 What I never
hear anyone state is that if we had let the Russians alone in Afghanistan this whole mess would
have never happened. Isn't that what originally allowed the Taliban and Obama bin Laden rise to
power? I though Reagan was a great president but made a catastrophic error in aligning with the
islamic insurgents against Russia . The Russians knew a radical Islamic state on their border
would be a problem and the existing Afghan government, an ally of Russia, asked them to help quell
the islamist civil war. The Russians would have ruthlessly eliminated the islamists without worrying
about causing any greenhouse gas emissions or hurting anyones feelings.
@FreeOregon It will
shocked me beyond words if he survives the primaries. Far too much is at stake. In fact, 100 years
of lying, cheating, and thieving, and the wealth it has produced is at stake. The Rothschild Establishment,
centered in London and Tel Aviv, will not sit idly by and watch as their lucrative racket is dismantled
by an up-start politician that cannot be purchased and put under their control.
All true....finally the politicians that have run our country into the ground are exposed
for the puppets of oligarchs they are...it is obvious....both parties, phony conservatives and
liberals alike, are waging war on Trump because he truly threatens the status quo......it's going
to get real ugly now that the powers that be are threatened.....I wouldn't fly to much if I was
Trump from here on in!
"... I know it is a bit picky of me, but I am getting really tired of Democrats trying to take the high road on immigration. It ignores that our current Democratic President has deported more 'illegal' immigrants than any previous President before him. ..."
"... With all their concern, couldn't the Democrats have made some token stab at immigration reform? Instead there has been a huge gift to the for profit prison operators who now count their immigration detention centers as their biggest profit centers. ..."
"... The Dems want to have their cake and eat it too. They want cheap labor and they want virtue. They sell out my friends and neighbors and think themselves noble for empowering foreign nationals. ..."
I know it is a bit picky of me, but I am getting really tired of Democrats
trying to take the high road on immigration. It ignores that our current
Democratic President has deported more 'illegal' immigrants than any previous
President before him.
In 2014 he deported nine times more people than had
been deported twenty years earlier. Some years it was nearly double the
numbers under George W. Bush. And yes, I know it was not strict fillibuster
proof majority in the Senate for his first two years, but damn close and
the only thing we got was a half assed stimulus made up largely of tax stimulus
AND that gift to for profit medicine and insurance, the ACA.
With all their
concern, couldn't the Democrats have made some token stab at immigration
reform? Instead there has been a huge gift to the for profit prison operators
who now count their immigration detention centers as their biggest profit
centers.
Trump says mean things, but the Democrats, well once again actions should
speak louder than words but it isn't happening.
The Dems want to have their cake and eat it too. They want cheap labor
and they want virtue. They sell out my friends and neighbors and think themselves
noble for empowering foreign nationals.
I guess this is one way for a supposedly pro-labor party to liquidate
its working class elements.
"... This needs more play. I am a blue-collar refugee, and most of my circle are same. They all seem to be captive to the messaging of the business press, and Trump, that we have lost some "competition" with China, India, etc. for the manufacturing business. The corporations and their minions in gov. are guilty of the real "un-patriotic" acts. ..."
"... The entire logic of how great globalization is is flawed at its heart. A. We have a much higher standard of living than other countries; so B. Let's "level the playing field" with those other countries. So A + B = a reversion of our country's standard of living to the global mean. ..."
"... Cue globalists who insist the citizens benefit anyway because they get to buy cheap stuff…now that they're unemployed. Oops ..."
"…the administration is absolutely right that America needs tools to counter China's growing
influence in Asia and around the world…"
So US industry with tacit blessing of US industrial policy spends 2 decades transferring our
manufacturing capabilities to a communist state…so…now we need "tools" to cage the dragon we created?
Not saying I would ever vote for Trump but this circular bullshit boggles the mind and sends me
screaming into the night.
This needs more play. I am a blue-collar refugee, and most of my circle are same. They
all seem to be captive to the messaging of the business press, and Trump, that we have lost some
"competition" with China, India, etc. for the manufacturing business. The corporations and their
minions in gov. are guilty of the real "un-patriotic" acts.
I don't know that "communist" really is a qualifier, though. If an ostensibly "commie" country
is "winning" at capitalism, what does that say about capitalism as a belief system? If a person
thinks that a free market sorts all these issues, they would have to be willing to just not buy
the goods produced in the cheap labor/dirty environment country, in order to make "losers" out
of them…how feasible is this?
The entire logic of how great globalization is is flawed at its heart.
A. We have a much higher standard of living than other countries; so
B. Let's "level the playing field" with those other countries.
So A + B = a reversion of our country's standard of living to the global mean.
Quick question: who thinks that is a good idea (pick one):
1. The owners of the means of production since they get to dramatically lower their costs;
or
2. The citizens of the country.
(Cue globalists who insist the citizens benefit anyway because they get to buy cheap stuff…now
that they're unemployed. Oops.)
From the Financial Times article 8/14/16, "during the first decade of this century" Trump worked
with Bayrock. That was a shift away from his Real Estate business, the last? being his Trump Soho
that failed. The point being that he hasn't been active in real estate for nearly a decade and
his 'Trump labeling" may be enhancing his wealth, but it certainly isn't a sign of good business
acumen.
He is relying on people forgetting when he got out of the business that made him wealthy. Relying
on him, IMO is risky business.
We need China more than they need us? Why? For what purpose? We are the customer. They are
a provider of labor. We have unutilized labor here. ???
I really am curious as to why you said that.
"China National Chemical Corp. received approval from U.S. national security officials for
its takeover of Swiss agrochemical and seeds company Syngenta AG, seen as the biggest regulatory
hurdle that the $43 billion acquisition faces.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has cleared the transaction, the companies
said in a statement Monday. The deal, expected to be completed by the end of the year, is still
subject to antitrust review by regulators worldwide, according to the statement."
"... Trump is right to accuse the Bush administration of creating the mess, and also right to blame Obama for withdrawing American forces in 2011. Once the mess was made, the worst possible response was to do nothing about it (except, of course, to covertly arm "moderate Syrian rebels" with weapons from Libyan stockpiles, most of which found their way to al-Qaeda or ISIS). ..."
The first step to finding a solution is to know that there's a problem. Donald Trump
understands that the Washington foreign-policy establishment caused the whole Middle Eastern
mess. I will review the problem and speculate about what a Trump administration might do about it.
For the thousand years before 2007, when the Bush administration hand-picked Nouri al-Maliki to
head Iraq's first Shia-dominated government, Sunni Muslims had ruled Iraq. Maliki was vetted both
by the CIA and by the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
With Iraq in the hands of an Iranian ally, the Sunnis–disarmed and marginalized by the dismissal
of the Iraqi army–were caught between pro-Iranian regimes in both Iraq and Syria. Maliki, as Ken
Silverstein reports in the
New Republic, ran one of history's most corrupt regimes, demanding among other things a 45% cut
in foreign investment in Iraq. The Sunnis had no state to protect them, and it was a matter of simple
logic that a Sunni leader eventually would propose a new state including the Sunni regions of Syria
as well as Iraq. Sadly, the mantle of Sunni statehood fell on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who projected
not only an Islamic State but a new Caliphate as well. America had a dozen opportunities to preempt
this but failed to do so.
From a fascinating defector's account in the
Foreign Policy
website, we learn that the region's jihadists debated the merits of remaining non-state actors on
the al-Qaeda model versus attempting to form a state prior to the launch of ISIS. The defector reports
a 2013 meeting in which al-Baghdadi demanded the allegiance of al-Qaeda (that is, al-Nusra Front)
fighters in Syria:
Baghdadi also spoke about the creation of an Islamic state in Syria. It was important, he said,
because Muslims needed to have a dawla, or state. Baghdadi wanted Muslims to have their
own territory, from where they could work and eventually conquer the world….The participants differed
greatly about the idea of creating a state in Syria. Throughout its existence, al-Qaeda had worked
in the shadows as a non-state actor. It did not openly control any territory, instead committed
acts of violence from undisclosed locations. Remaining a clandestine organization had a huge advantage:
It was very difficult for the enemy to find, attack, or destroy them. But by creating a state,
the jihadi leaders argued during the meeting, it would be extremely easy for the enemy to find
and attack them….
Despite the hesitation of many, Baghdadi persisted. Creating and running a state was of paramount
importance to him. Up to this point, jihadis ran around without controlling their own territory.
Baghdadi argued for borders, a citizenry, institutions, and a functioning bureaucracy. Abu Ahmad
summed up Baghdadi's pitch: "If such an Islamic state could survive its initial phase, it was
there to stay forever."
Baghdadi prevailed, however, not only because he persuaded the al-Qaeda ragtag of his project,
but because he won over a
large number of officers from Saddam Hussein's disbanded army. America had the opportunity to
"de-Ba'athify" the Sunni-dominated Iraqi Army after the 2003 invasion, the way it de-Nazified the
German Army after World War II. Instead, it hung them out to dry. Gen. Petraeus' "surge" policy of
2007-2008 bought the Sunni's temporary forbearance with hundreds of millions of dollars in handouts,
but set the stage for a future Sunni insurgency, as I
warned in 2010.
Trump is right to accuse the Bush administration of creating the mess, and also right to blame
Obama for withdrawing American forces in 2011. Once the mess was made, the worst possible response
was to do nothing about it (except, of course, to covertly arm "moderate Syrian rebels" with weapons
from Libyan stockpiles, most of which found their way to al-Qaeda or ISIS).
Now the region is a self-perpetuating war of each against all. Iraq's Shia militias, which replaced
the feckless Iraqi army in fighting ISIS, are in reorganization under Iranian command on the model
of
Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The Kurds are fighting both ISIS and the Syrian government. ISIS
is attacking both the Kurds, who field the most effective force opposing them in Syria, as well as
the Turks, who are trying to limit the power of the Kurds. Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue to support
the Sunnis of Iraq and Syria, which means in effect funding either ISIS or the al-Nusra Front.
Russia, meanwhile, is flying bombing missions in Syria from Iranian air bases. Apart from its
inclination to bedevil the floundering United States, Russia has a dog in the fight: as a number
of foreign officials who have spoken with the Russian president have told me, Putin has told anyone
who asks that he backs the Iranian Shi'ites because all of Russia's Muslims are Sunni. Russia fears
that a jihadist regime in Iraq or Syria would metastasize into a strategic threat to Russia. That
is just what al-Baghdadi had in mind, as the Foreign Policy defector story made clear:
Baghdadi had another persuasive argument: A state would offer a home to Muslims from all over
the world. Because al-Qaeda had always lurked in the shadows, it was difficult for ordinary Muslims
to sign up. But an Islamic state, Baghdadi argued, could attract thousands, even millions, of
like-minded jihadis. It would be a magnet.
What Trump might do
What's needed is a deal, and a deal-maker. I have no information about Trump's thinking other
than news reports, but here is a rough sketch of what he might do:
Iraq's Sunnis require the right combination of incentives and disincentives. The disincentive
is just what Trump has proposed, an "extreme" and "vicious" campaign against the terrorist gang.
The United States and whoever wants to join it (perhaps the French Foreign Legion?) should exterminate
ISIS. That requires a combination of ruthless employment of air power with less squeamishness about
collateral damage as well as a division or two on the ground. America doesn't necessarily need to
deploy the kind of soldier who joined the National Guard to get a subsidy for college tuition. As
Erik Prince has suggested, private contractors could do the job cheaper, along with judicious
use of special forces.
While the US grinds up ISIS, it should find a former Iraqi general to lead a Sunni zone in Iraq,
and enlist former Iraqi army officers to join the war against ISIS. Gen. Petraeus no doubt still
has the payroll list for the "Sunni Awakening" and "Sons of Iraq." The Sunnis would get the incentive
of an eventual Sunni state, provided that they help crush the terrorists.
The US would give quiet support to the Kurds' aspirations for their own state, and encourage them
to take control of northern Syria along the Turkish border. If the US doesn't stand godfather to
a Kurdish state, the Russians will. The Turks won't like that, and it must be explained to them that
it is in their own best interests: the Kurds have twice as many children as ethnic Turks, and by
2045 will have more military-age men than do the Turks.
Possibly the US should propose a UN-supervised referendum to allow the Kurdish-majority provinces
of southeastern Turkey to secede and join the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds in a new state. That would be
good for Turkey. Those who vote "yes" are better off outside Turkey, and those who vote to stay in
Turkey have no excuse to support separatists in the future. There are several million Iranian Kurds,
and the US should encourage them to break away as well.
'Look, Vladimir, here's the deal'
The next conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin might go something like this: "Look,
Vladimir, you say you're worried about Sunni terrorists destabilizing Russia. We're going to kill
all the terrorists or hire people to kill them for us. We're not going to arm jihadists to make trouble
for you like we did in Afghanistan during the Cold War. We leave you alone, and you get out of our
hair. You get to keep your naval station in Syria, and the Alawites get to have their own state in
the northwest. Give Basher Assad a villa in Crimea and put in someone else to replace him–anyone
you like. The Sunni areas of Syria will become a separate enclave, along with enclaves for
the Druze."
And Trump might add: "We're taking care of the Sunni terrorists. Now you help us take care of
the Iranians, or we'll do it ourselves, and you won't like that. You can either work together with
us and we tell the Iranians to shut down their centrifuges and their ballistic missile program, or
we'll bomb it. You don't want us to make the S-300 missiles you sold Iran look like junk–that's bad
for your arms business.
"As for Ukraine: let them vote on partition. If the eastern half votes to join Russia, you got
it. If not, you stay the hell out of it."
As Trump knows, everyone in a deal doesn't have to walk away happy. Only the biggest stakeholders
have to walk away happy. Everyone else can go suck eggs.
Russia can walk away with its Syrian naval station and some assurance that the Middle East jihad
won't spill over into its own territory. Syria's Alawites and Sunnis both can declare victory. The
Kurds, who provide the region's most effective boots on the ground, will be big winners. Iraq's Shi'ites
will be able to rule themselves but not over the Sunnis and Kurds, which is a better situation than
they had during the thousand years when the Sunnis ruled over them. Turkey won't like the prospect
of losing a chunk of its territory, even though it will be better off for it. Iran will lose its
aspirations to a regional empire, and won't like it at all, but no-one else will care.
Rebuilding America's military, one of Trump's campaign planks, is a sine qua non for
success. Russia as well as China should fear America's technological prowess today as much as Gorbachev
feared Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s. Russia and China are closing the
technology gap with the United States, and if the United States does not reverse that, not much else
it does will matter.
"... You know, the light bulb over my head went on when Hillary said she was against the TPP "as currently written." Political speak for: she'll fiddle with some words, pronounce it fixed, and pass it ..."
"... her surrogates extol her penchant for "free trade" and are sure she will support it. ..."
You know, the light bulb over my head went on when Hillary said she was against the TPP
"as currently written." Political speak for: she'll fiddle with some words, pronounce it fixed,
and pass it.
And while she and Kaine claim now to be against the TPP, her surrogates extol her penchant
for "free trade" and are sure she will support it.
Obama is a neocon and is fully dedicated to expansion and maintenance of the US global neoliberal
empire, at any cost for the US population. Racism card play against Trump, who opposes neoliberal interventionism,
is a variant of the classic " Divide et impera" strategy
Notable quotes:
"... Incidentally, historical amnesia also includes forgetting Barack Obama was the boss when Clinton was secretary and forgetting Barack Obama is still president pursuing insane war-mongering policies long after Clinton is gone ..."
"... Historical amnesia means forgetting the Democratic Party isn't socialist or leftist ..."
"... Historical amnesia means forgetting all foundations are ways for the wealthy to shelter money and exercise influence, Koch's, Rockefeller's, Carnegie's, Ford's, Soros', not just Clintons'. Historical amnesia means forgetting this government has always conducted foreign policy at the behest of special interests. ..."
"... Vilifying millions of people in preference to even asking if Trump hasn't got massive elite support is deeply, profoundly reactionary. Divide et impera has been the rulers' game for centuries. ..."
Incidentally, historical amnesia also includes forgetting Barack Obama was the boss when Clinton
was secretary and forgetting Barack Obama is still president pursuing insane war-mongering policies
long after Clinton is gone and forgetting Barack Obama is still president, and won't even
be a lame duck till November.
Historical amnesia means forgetting the Democratic Party isn't
socialist or leftist, despite Bernie Sanders' long career as a sort of socialist (only informally
a Democrat.)
Historical amnesia means forgetting to even ask what "Watergate" was, and if or how it mattered
(or didn't.)
Historical amnesia means forgetting all foundations are ways for the wealthy to shelter
money and exercise influence, Koch's, Rockefeller's, Carnegie's, Ford's, Soros', not just Clintons'.
Historical amnesia means forgetting this government has always conducted foreign policy at the
behest of special interests.
(Yes, Lupita believes that imperialism actually pays off for the whole country, which
presumably is why when her preferred rich people try to get their own she'll be for that. Nonetheless,
the idea is bullshit. At this point, I can only imagine people don't call her out on that because
they actually agree that "we" are all in it together with our owners.)
Historical amnesia includes forgetting Trump has run for president before, with the same personality
and the same tactics and the same party base. It is unclear how the essentially racist nature
of the vile masses has changed so much in four years.
Vilifying millions of people in preference to even asking if Trump hasn't got massive elite
support is deeply, profoundly reactionary. Divide et impera has been the rulers' game for centuries.
"... The 90's represent a time of relative economic prosperity and geopolitical dominance in the collective American imagination. Race relations, though briefly inflamed during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, remained relatively placid by the standards of U.S. history, and with the fall of the USSR, the United States became an unquestioned Global Hegemon. ..."
"... In this sense at least, the 90's were high times for the Clintons and their Neo-Liberal fellow travelers. Who had convinced themselves, along with much of the populace of the United States, that they had finally entered Francis Fukuyama's prophesied "End of History." ..."
"... Though Donald Trump promises to "Make America Great Again," his rhetoric recalls, not the beloved 1990s of the Clintons, but rather the decade from 1953 to 1963, the time between the Korean war and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. An era of middle-class flourishing and industrial expansion, when good paying factory work allowed unskilled laborers to achieve the "American Dream" of Suburban tranquility and economic comfort. An era of low crime and common purpose. An era when a beloved President first dreamt of landing a man on the moon and the covers of magazines like "Popular Mechanics" showcased grand visions of a future dominated by the wonders and comforts of American technology. Though of course profoundly philistine and materialist in nature (and thus genuinely American), it is a vision which remains quite distinct from violent, pathological visions dreamt of by the Clintons and their associates. ..."
"... This universal, imperialist programme of exploitation and domination is the explicit goal of the ideology of Neo-Liberalism, whose cause will seem all the more urgent to a newly elected and empowered Hillary Clinton. She will then have to face the reality of both a divided country at home and a rapidly decaying Neoliberal world order abroad. As Russia, China, Iran, and others begin to push back against the reign of U.S. led cultural Imperialism. ..."
"... A more cautious Trump presidency would likely approach the situation with a good deal of pragmatism by letting the United State's moment of unipolar hegemony naturally fade away as the world slowly drifts into the more organic and sustainable state of Multipolarity. ..."
"... Though derided by her detractors as a dangerous, ideologically driven hawk on foreign policy and praised by her devotees as a steady, experienced hand, possessing considerable analytic acumen. The truth is that, in reality, both assessments are correct. It is important to note, however, that for Hillary Clinton, the latter merely acts as a veneer for the former. Her strategic acumen, however potent it may be, remains merely the servant of the powerful chthonic forces which drive her damaged psyche. Despite any appearances to the contrary, in her purest essence, she remains a genuine fanatic. ..."
"... Regardless of these rumors, it is entirely fair to assert that Clinton, whether or not she is a practicing lesbian, is at least a functional one. Her projected persona, from the androgynous pantsuits to her open contempt for the Traditional female roles of wife and mother coupled with a fanatical devotion to the cause of universal LGBT "human rights," is an almost exact emulation of a butch lesbian aesthetic and sensibility. It is a direct mimicry of Western conceptions of corporate masculinity reconceptualized through the funhouse mirror of 1970's feminist ideology. It is this barely cryptic Lesbianism, which serves as the primary ideological scaffolding for Clinton's thought and action. An ideology that is driven almost purely by a profound ressentiment of all those who do not affirm its tenets. ..."
"... The very first action to be taken by a future Clinton administration will be an immediate reset of the U.S. policy on Syria. This intention has already been explicitly articulated and publicized in the international press and will mark a stark break with the Obama administration's previously more pragmatic approach. Syria was a war Obama was never particularly interested in and which he involved himself in only after intense pressure from his advisors (such as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland). Although Obama would, of course, have favored a solution that resulted in the replacement of Assad with a malleable puppet regime which was friendly to both American and Zionist ambitions in the Region. His better instincts led him to avoid the more extreme Anti-Assad approach favored by the most hawkish members of his cabinet. ..."
"... Clinton's stratagem will be the direct inverse of Obama's more tolerant approach to Assad. For Clinton, destroying Assad, and by extension, the millions of innocents which his government protects from Jihadi terror represents a triple opportunity. Enabling her to strike a direct blow simultaneously against Iranian and Russian interests in the region while also appeasing her Zionist backers. Thus, it will become an immediate priority for her administration. ..."
"... The full weight of U.S. power will be used to reignite a conflict in the Donbass region, which will be justified under the pretense of restoring the "territorial integrity" of the Ukrainian Junta. This will enable the U.S. to continue its encirclement of Russia while also bleeding it of resources. This will make it, it is hoped by the U.S., more vulnerable, over the long term, to a hostile, U.S. funded, regime change which will be carried out by Atlanticist Fifth Columnist inside Russia. ..."
"... Clinton's domestic policies will be similarly reckless and aggressive. These will focus primarily upon stamping out any dissent, whether on the Left or the Right, to her rule. This should not be a difficult task, as the vast majority of Media elites in the United States are open supporters of her ideology. These elites will be in a particularly foul mood after the Election, as they have come to view Trump, and especially his supporters, as a mortal threat to their continued hegemony. A Clinton victory would then give them the leverage and pretext they need to begin punishing and marginalizing the Trump electorate that they so deeply despise. ..."
"... Needless to say, dissenters will suffer greatly under a Clinton regime. Those who oppose further aggressive U.S. actions across the globe will be dealt with as borderline traitors. Others who oppose the normalization of Sodomy and other related deviancies, such as Transgenderism, will be labeled bigots and suffer economic consequences as they are forced out of their jobs under the pretext of creating "safe work environmen ..."
The Summer of 2016 is proving to be a decisive one in both the United States and the
rest of the world. The long shadows currently being thrown against the wall by history will soon
morph into their full forms come November when the presidential contest is finally decided. With
the longest and most ominous being the potential ascension of Hillary Rodham Clinton to the office
of President of the United States of America.
Most Americans are instinctively aware of this, and it is this instinct which has seen
Hillary Clinton's unfavorable ratings rise to
historic levels.
This anti-Clinton aversion is born as much from experience as it is from intuition,
as Americans vividly recall her Husband's presidency and assume, correctly, that a second Clinton
presidency would repeat all of the vices of the first but without any of its virtues.
Indeed, the 1990's still loom large in the imagination of most Clintonites.
The 90's
represent a time of relative economic prosperity and geopolitical dominance in the collective American
imagination. Race relations, though briefly inflamed during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, remained
relatively placid by the standards of U.S. history, and with the fall of the USSR, the United States
became an unquestioned Global Hegemon.
A Hegemon which possessed the perfect freedom to strike its
enemies, both real and perceived, with near impunity across the Globe. As the people of Serbia and
Iraq learned, only too well, through horrible experience.
In this sense at least, the 90's were high
times for the Clintons and their Neo-Liberal fellow travelers. Who had convinced themselves, along
with much of the populace of the United States, that they had finally entered Francis Fukuyama's
prophesied "End of History."
Though Donald Trump promises to "Make America Great Again," his rhetoric recalls, not
the beloved 1990s of the Clintons, but rather the decade from 1953 to 1963, the time between the
Korean war and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. An era of middle-class flourishing and industrial
expansion, when good paying factory work allowed unskilled laborers to achieve the "American Dream"
of Suburban tranquility and economic comfort. An era of low crime and common purpose. An era when
a beloved President first dreamt of landing a man on the moon and the covers of magazines like "Popular
Mechanics" showcased grand visions of a future dominated by the wonders and comforts of American
technology. Though of course profoundly philistine and materialist in nature (and thus genuinely
American), it is a vision which remains quite distinct from violent, pathological visions dreamt
of by the Clintons and their associates.
In contrast, to Trump's inward looking, Populist-Nationalist synthesis, Clinton offers
Americans what is perhaps the most thoroughly pure version of Neo-Liberalism yet put forward on a
national political stage. Consisting of both unapologetic support for international capitalist exploitation
of labor as well as a virulent dedication to the continued unipolar geopolitical dominance of the
United State's burgeoning Imperium. Its explicit goal is not merely to enable its own citizens to
live the good life of uninhibited, rootless hedonism (the American Dream) but also to impose this
concept of "the good life" upon the rest of the world.
This universal, imperialist programme of exploitation and domination is the explicit
goal of the ideology of Neo-Liberalism, whose cause will seem all the more urgent to a newly elected
and empowered Hillary Clinton. She will then have to face the reality of both a divided country at
home and a rapidly decaying Neoliberal world order abroad. As Russia, China, Iran, and others begin
to push back against the reign of U.S. led cultural Imperialism.
A more cautious Trump presidency would likely approach the situation with a good deal
of pragmatism by letting the United State's moment of unipolar hegemony naturally fade away as the
world slowly drifts into the more organic and sustainable state of Multipolarity.
The same cannot be said, of course, for the path a potential Clinton administration
would take, however. Clinton will have no choice but to throw all of her energies behind a shrill,
last-ditch defense of the American Imperium, in both its physical, cultural and psychological manifestations.
Though derided by her detractors as a dangerous, ideologically driven hawk on foreign
policy and praised by her devotees as a steady, experienced hand, possessing considerable analytic
acumen. The truth is that, in reality, both assessments are correct. It is important to note, however,
that for Hillary Clinton, the latter merely acts as a veneer for the former. Her strategic acumen,
however potent it may be, remains merely the servant of the powerful chthonic forces which drive
her damaged psyche. Despite any appearances to the contrary, in her purest essence, she remains a
genuine fanatic.
When one looks back on the trajectory of her political career, it is not difficult to
perceive it as a series of carefully calculated moves which served only to move her continually closer
to capturing the presidency and the ultimate power it offers. While this is not exactly original
analysis, it is still startling and instructive to contemplate the truly bizarre length and breadth
of the ambition which has propelled her this far. Her husband's philandering, which has become the
stuff of legend in the United States and has resulted in at least one serious claim of sexual assault,
was obviously known to her from the beginning of their relationship. Her apparent ambivalence (if
not open approval) regarding her husband's behavior is likewise an open secret and has, at least
in part, contributed to the constant rumors regarding her potential homosexuality.
Regardless of these rumors, it is entirely fair to assert that Clinton, whether or not
she is a practicing lesbian, is at least a functional one. Her projected persona, from the androgynous
pantsuits to her open contempt for the Traditional female roles of wife and mother coupled with a
fanatical devotion to the cause of universal LGBT "human rights," is an almost exact emulation
of a butch lesbian aesthetic and sensibility. It is a direct mimicry of Western conceptions of corporate
masculinity reconceptualized through the funhouse mirror of 1970's feminist ideology. It is this
barely cryptic Lesbianism, which serves as the primary ideological scaffolding for Clinton's thought
and action. An ideology that is driven almost purely by a profound ressentiment of all those who
do not affirm its tenets.
It is this ressentiment which serves as the motivator for all of her endeavors, both
of the past and of the future. Once Clinton secures the full powers of the U.S. presidency, she will
then have the ultimate tool with which to wage war upon her perceived tormentors, i.e. all those
who do not willingly affirm her particularly deviant ideological proclivities.
This campaign of revenge will be waged on two separate fronts, one foreign and one domestic
and will seek an utter subjugation or eradication of her perceived enemies.
On the foreign front Clinton will immediately seek to reestablish U.S. dominance over
the three primary regions of Modern Geopolitical Conflict: The Greater Middle East, the South China
Sea, and Europe with a special focus on subduing the Russian Federation
The very first action to be taken by a future Clinton administration will be an immediate
reset of the U.S. policy on Syria. This intention has already been explicitly articulated and publicized
in the international press
and will mark a stark break with the Obama administration's previously
more pragmatic approach. Syria was a war Obama was never particularly interested in and which he
involved himself in only after intense pressure from his advisors (such as then-Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland). Although Obama would, of course, have favored a solution that
resulted in the replacement of Assad with a malleable puppet regime which was friendly to both American
and Zionist ambitions in the Region. His better instincts led him to avoid the more extreme Anti-Assad
approach favored by the most hawkish members of his cabinet.
Clinton's stratagem will be the direct inverse of Obama's more tolerant approach to
Assad. For Clinton, destroying Assad, and by extension, the millions of innocents which his government
protects from Jihadi terror represents a triple opportunity. Enabling her to strike a direct blow
simultaneously against Iranian and Russian interests in the region while also appeasing her Zionist
backers. Thus, it will become an immediate priority for her administration.
The policy will most likely take the form of a deluge of advanced armaments to the Syrian
Islamists currently at war with the Assad government, potentially including Jabhat Al Nusra whose
recent split with Al-Qaeda proper will make it a tempting potential ally in the new crusade against
Assad.
In addition to this new flow of arms, an attempt to establish a "no-fly zone" over Syria
will be made with the expressed purpose of denigrating the Syrian government's ability to defend
its people from Islamist terrorists. How this will be accomplished is still unclear, with the presence
of the Russian military posing an especially difficult challenge. However, a U.S. provocation to
open war is not entirely out of the question. Especially since a Clinton administration may view
Syria as a theatre which, given U.S. superiority in power projection, would potentially enable a
seemingly easy victory over Russian and Syrian forces.
Everything will depend on the actions of the Russian government, whether it decides
to double down on its ally or surrender to U.S. intimidation, as well as the disposition of Turkey.
In this sense, the recent Coup attempt may serve as a blessing in disguise, as it is well known that,
if not explicitly planned by the CIA, the Coup attempt was at the very least tacitly endorsed by
the Obama administration. These facts will weigh heavily on President Erdogan's mind if and when
a request is made to use Turkish airbases to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria.
The second theatre, which will serve as the medium-term priority, will be a renewed
attempt to further isolate and weaken the Russian Federation. This will involve both new deployments
of American Military forces and equipment to both the Baltic states and Eastern Ukraine.
The full
weight of U.S. power will be used to reignite a conflict in the Donbass region, which will be justified
under the pretense of restoring the "territorial integrity" of the Ukrainian Junta. This will enable
the U.S. to continue its encirclement of Russia while also bleeding it of resources. This will make
it, it is hoped by the U.S., more vulnerable, over the long term, to a hostile, U.S. funded,
regime change which will be carried out by Atlanticist Fifth Columnist inside Russia.
The third theatre, which will serve as the long-term priority, will be attempting to
contain China from asserting its sovereignty in the South China Sea and the island of Taiwan. This
will be by far the most difficult task facing a potential Clinton administration. China will possess
a distinct military advantage over U.S. forces in the region owing to its advanced area-denial capabilities
which will enable it effectively to neutralize the main tool of U.S. power projection: the aircraft
carrier. The exact course a Clinton administration would take in a potential showdown with China
is still unclear but given her past proclivities; it would not be a stretch to assume a choice for
confrontation over compromise would be made.
Clinton's domestic policies will be similarly reckless and aggressive. These will focus
primarily upon stamping out any dissent, whether on the Left or the Right, to her rule. This should
not be a difficult task, as the vast majority of Media elites in the United States are open supporters
of her ideology. These elites will be in a particularly foul mood after the Election, as they have
come to view Trump, and especially his supporters, as a mortal threat to their continued hegemony.
A Clinton victory would then give them the leverage and pretext they need to begin punishing and
marginalizing the Trump electorate that they so deeply despise.
This will involve not only formal purges of journalists and academics (which has already
become a regular occurrence in the U.S.) but also a renewed push to further hollow out what remains
of the American Middle class, as well as continuing to push an intrinsically violent LGBT ideology
further upon America's children.
Needless to say, dissenters will suffer greatly under a Clinton regime. Those who oppose
further aggressive U.S. actions across the globe will be dealt with as borderline traitors. Others
who oppose the normalization of Sodomy and other related deviancies, such as Transgenderism, will
be labeled bigots and suffer economic consequences as they are forced out of their jobs under the
pretext of creating "safe work environmen
ts".
Tax exemption for religiously affiliated schools and nonprofit organizations will be
revoked unless they agree to adhere to anti-discrimination laws which will require the affirmation
of LGBT ideology.
"... BTW Pat Buchanan says that if the R establishment tries to coalesce around Rubio or Cruz then
Trump will simply choose one of them as his running mate and end of story. That's assuming Trump does
in fact maintain his poll lead with actual votes. ..."
"... It's our foreign policy that is fubar and it's been fubar for awhile. This idea that Clinton
somehow was the worst Secretary of State is revisionism. Was she bad? Yes. Was she worse than Condeleeza
"I ignored a memo that said AQ was determined to attack" Rice? That is incredibly debatable. ..."
"... I'm less for her being the fall guy for ME policies that have been a disaster for at least
as long as I've been alive(and let's face it installing the Shah, trading hostages for arms, etc, etc
there's been ALOT of mistakes there) ..."
"... As soon as one subordinates themselves, they become the agent to a principal, whether that
principal be a natural person, a class, an identity group, or an old piece of paper with happy horse
dung written all over it. Given the choice between downward mobility and schizophrenia, most choose
compartmentalization as an imperfect but effective coping mechanism to help workers stay sane and maintain
their identity in the ever more grueling workplace. ..."
"... Hmm. You're saying that split consciousness screws up principal-agent relationships, not metaphoricallly,
but literally? That's a really interesting argument, a new way to think about elites ("know your enemy").
..."
"... Does anybody really believe that the Clinton who takes off the Secretary of State hat and puts
on the Clinton Foundation hat, or who takes off the Clinton Foundation hat and puts on the Campaign
hat, is not the same Hillary Clinton? She'd have to be a sociopath to keep her mind and heart that compartmentalized,
no? But if we accept the Clinton Dynasty's "attitude toward public service," as we put it, that's what
we'd have to believe. I don't believe it. ..."
"... So, either Clinton is a sociopath (the "compartmentalization") or deeply corrupt. Which is
it to be? ..."
"... If you're saying that split consciousness makes for split loyalties, I'd agree. It's part of
what makes that compartmentalized "workaday me" role slightly corrosive to community and citizenship.
..."
"... According to people who were there it was Clinton who pushed for regime change in Libya while
Obama was reluctant. The French were pushing for it as well but within the administration she was the
advocate. She also favored regime change in Syria although US actions there are murkier. ..."
"... So Trump and Cruz were quite justified in what they said. She also favored the surge in Afghanistan
while Biden opposed. She has compared Putin to Hitler and presumably fully supports the confrontation
with Russia. ..."
"... Condi on the other hand was just a functionary for policies being made by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld
and the neocons. It was a very different situation. ..."
"... Whatever one thinks of Trump it's quite possible he'd be a less dangerous choice than Hillary
when it comes to foreign policy. The Dems don't see it this way because so many of them agree with her–particularly
the Democrats' wealthy backers. ..."
Cruz–Trump's mini-me–has apparently also been claiming lately that Hillary was a foreign policy
disaster who killed thousands. This is what Sanders hasn't been saying forever. Libertarian
Raimondo gives his take on the debate and says Rand Paul had a big night.
BTW Pat Buchanan says that if the R establishment tries to coalesce around Rubio or Cruz
then Trump will simply choose one of them as his running mate and end of story. That's assuming
Trump does in fact maintain his poll lead with actual votes.
cwaltz
Sanders doesn't mention Hillary by name (probably because she isn't the primary problem. It
wasn't like Condeleeza Rice was a stellar Secretary of State or there weren't indictments under
the Reagan Secretary of State.) However, he has been saying that our foreign policy is part of
the problem which is the REAL problem. Clinton is just a symptom.
Steven D.
I thought you were going pin the blame on Barry O since he was Hillary's boss. The system doesn't
cut it as a target. It excuses the actors. Nobody has agency? Clinton had and has a lot of power.
She has had options. She has chosen her path.
cwaltz
Clinton's behavior was similar to her predecessors which was similar to her predecessors and
so on and so on.
It's our foreign policy that is fubar and it's been fubar for awhile. This idea that Clinton
somehow was the worst Secretary of State is revisionism. Was she bad? Yes. Was she worse than
Condeleeza "I ignored a memo that said AQ was determined to attack" Rice? That is incredibly debatable.
I'm all for Hillary being held accountable.
I'm less for her being the fall guy for ME policies that have been a disaster for at least
as long as I've been alive(and let's face it installing the Shah, trading hostages for arms, etc,
etc there's been ALOT of mistakes there)
Steven D.
Who makes foreign policy? People do. There are institutional prerogatives but she didn't have
to be so damned good at being so bad.
hunkerdown
As soon as one subordinates themselves, they become the agent to a principal, whether that
principal be a natural person, a class, an identity group, or an old piece of paper with happy
horse dung written all over it. Given the choice between downward mobility and schizophrenia,
most choose compartmentalization as an imperfect but effective coping mechanism to help workers
stay sane and maintain their identity in the ever more grueling workplace.
Hmm. You're saying that split consciousness screws up principal-agent relationships, not
metaphoricallly, but literally? That's a really interesting argument, a new way to think about
elites ("know your enemy").
I said something similar - OK, "interesting" could mean confirming my priors -
here:
Does anybody really believe that the Clinton who takes off the Secretary of State hat
and puts on the Clinton Foundation hat, or who takes off the Clinton Foundation hat and puts
on the Campaign hat, is not the same Hillary Clinton? She'd have to be a sociopath to keep
her mind and heart that compartmentalized, no? But if we accept the Clinton Dynasty's "attitude
toward public service," as we put it, that's what we'd have to believe. I don't believe it.
So, either Clinton is a sociopath (the "compartmentalization") or deeply corrupt. Which
is it to be?
Nose- or rather brain-bleeds at the commanding heights….
different clue
Sociocorruptopath.
hunkerdown
Split attribution enables screwed-up principal-agent relationships. Think sex workers,
used-car salesmen, fresh-out-of-Harvard Democratic strategists, other agents who loyally if resignedly
carry out what the mainstream deems inhospitable and/or dirty work to the benefit of their principals,
yet share no interest apart from the engaged work.
Cultivating a straw self-identity or group-identity, or maybe role, for the purpose of attribution
is an effective though problematic way to keep the evil from sticking to one's self-definition.
If you're saying that split consciousness makes for split loyalties, I'd agree. It's part
of what makes that compartmentalized "workaday me" role slightly corrosive to community and citizenship.
Carolinian
According to people who were there it was Clinton who pushed for regime change in Libya
while Obama was reluctant. The French were pushing for it as well but within the administration
she was the advocate. She also favored regime change in Syria although US actions there are murkier.
So Trump and Cruz were quite justified in what they said. She also favored the surge in
Afghanistan while Biden opposed. She has compared Putin to Hitler and presumably fully supports
the confrontation with Russia.
In Honduras she covertly supported the coup government at the urging of her crony Lanny Davis
and the Honduran children who are fleeing to the United States can be chalked up as another of
HIllary's little missteps. Whether or not she was the worst Sec State ever she's up there.
Condi on the other hand was just a functionary for policies being made by Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld and the neocons. It was a very different situation.
Whatever one thinks of Trump it's quite possible he'd be a less dangerous choice than Hillary
when it comes to foreign policy. The Dems don't see it this way because so many of them agree
with her–particularly the Democrats' wealthy backers.
Clinton really believes that stuff. She's not pandering. Well, I mean, she's pandering too,
of course, but from a base of conviction, not political posturing.
Steven D.
You give her too much credit. Like Lyndon Johnson, she's afraid of the Republicans getting
too much to her right on foreign policy. It's purely reactive. If she believes anything, it's
probably that Democrats need to be hawkish to avoid being portrayed as pansies. A fruit of her
McGovern experience in 1972.
different clue
Then she may be misreading that experience. My brain keeps circling back to Hunter S. Thompson's
argument that McGovern didn't start falling badly until he was seen visibly seeking to appease
the Establishment Democrats that his campaign had just beaten. If Thompson't analysis is correct,
McGovern betrayed his own campaign and everyone who worked in it.
But of course the Clintons just saw "evil workers supporting Nixon against our beloved McGovern".
I still wonder how much of Clinton's support for NAFTA was driven by a desire for revenge against
the working class which voted against his beloved McGovern? Revenge being a dish best served cold,
and so forth.
Carolinian
You are probably right, which just makes it worse. No dissuading a fanatic.Hillary doesn't
seem like the type who is inclined to admit to mistakes.
Ted Rall says that for once Trump's "s-bombs" are justified.
"... By Kevin O'Rourke, Chichele Professor of Economic History, All Souls College, University of Oxford; and Programme Director, CEPR. Originally published at VoxEU . ..."
"... I completely agree that the backlash has been a long time coming. We are decades into a slow motion train wreck at this point. The evidence is there for any who wish to see it. ..."
Aug 12, 2016 |
By Kevin O'Rourke, Chichele Professor of Economic History, All Souls College,
University of Oxford; and Programme Director, CEPR.
Originally published at VoxEU.
After the Brexit vote, it is obvious to many that globalisation in general, and European integration
in particular, can leave people behind – and that ignoring this for long enough can have severe political
consequences. This column argues that this fact has long been obvious. As the historical record demonstrates
plainly and repeatedly, too much market and too little state invites a backlash. Markets and states
are political complements, not substitutes.
The main point of my 1999 book with Jeff Williamson was that globalisation produces both winners
and losers, and that this can lead to an anti-globalisation backlash (O'Rourke and Williamson 1999).
We argued this based on late-19th century evidence. Then, the main losers from trade were European
landowners, who found themselves competing with an elastic supply of cheap New World land. The
result was that in Germany and France, Italy and Sweden, the move towards ever-freer trade that had
been ongoing for several years was halted, and replaced by a shift towards protection that benefited
not only agricultural interests, but industrial ones as well. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic,
immigration restrictions were gradually tightened, as workers found themselves competing with
European migrants coming from ever-poorer source countries.
...
The globalisation experience of the Atlantic economy prior to the Great War
speaks directly and eloquently to globalisation debates today – and the
political lessons from this are sobering.
"Politicians, journalists, and
market analysts have a tendency to extrapolate the immediate past into the
indefinite future, and such thinking suggests that the world is irreversibly
headed toward ever greater levels of economic integration. The historical
record suggests the contrary."
"Unless politicians worry about who gains and who loses,î we continued,
ìthey may be forced by the electorate to stop efforts to strengthen global
economy links, and perhaps even to dismantle them … We hope that this book will
help them to avoid that mistake – or remedy it."
...If the English want continued Single Market access, they will have to swallow continued labour
mobility. There are complementary domestic policies that could help in making that politically
feasible. We will have to wait and see what the English decide. But there are also lessons for the
27 remaining EU states (28 if, as I hope, Scotland remains a member). Too much market and too little
state invites a backlash. Take the politics into account, and it becomes clear (as Dani Rodrik has
often argued) that markets and states are complements, not substitutes.
UK Toryism today is not so much a political party espousing an ideology as
it is an ideology that has taken over a political party. It is the ideolgy of
exploitation of a tiny clique over an entire society and has become, through
extensive and relentless propoganda, embedded the fabric of UK society. It is a
class ideology that requires a middle classes and poorer apirants to the middle
classes to accept cuts to their influence and hence wealth by creating an
demonising a constructed underclass. The underclass serves as:
1. a frightening lesson to those who do not conform
2. scapegoats for every kind of social and cultural ill
3. a fungible source of wandering labour who can be compelled to exploitation
and discarded at will
It demands the destruction of the state that supports people and replaces it
with a state that supports business interests only. Everything must become a
commodity – especially humans. It is an ideology that decries income
distribution to the less wealthy but in every instance creates laws that ensure
distribution of vast majority of wealth to the wealthiest. It is the insurance
company for the wealthy as well. The taxpayer is the insurer.
The greatest single example of wealth redistribution from the politically
weak is the student loan wheeze. The mob in their greatest exploits could not
have contrived a more elaborate form of extortion. As Tory idoeology
'crapifies' every job in the UK, they goad the young into what have become
school factories, turning out people with certificates but often very little
relevant qualification for a shrinking economy. Meanwhile the governement sells
the loans to "investors" (themselves and their friends) for pence on the pound.
Create the law that create the conditions that create the cash flow, and
never lift a finger to do a real days work.
What's not to like?
Given the over population of the island, that oil is running out, and that
they have gutted any social and cultural cohesive factor, and even if Brexit
evaporates, the long term bodes ill anyway.
paul
So if the EU was completely different in action and intent, we would not
have had brexit?
Is labour mobility a really an expression of individual freedom, or coercive
displacement in the face of the internal devaluation insisted upon by the
technocrats?
Its the former for JC Juncker and the latter for the workers at the
sports direct gulags.
Globalisation is a mechanism to strengthen corporations and the elites that
own them, we would never had heard of the term otherwise.
The europroject has steadfastly committed itself to this end and nothing
will be allowed to interfere with it.
A highly coupled,regionally constrained 'free trade' area is the only way to
achieve this end.
Why is brexit going to be painful? The same reason a chinese finger trap is
difficult to get out of, it's designed that way.
The eurogroup cannot admit that it now only serves as an iron lung for the
financial sector.
Popular reaction against it is to be welcomed, It's the only thing that will
work.
windsock
"It is astonishing in retrospect how few people argued strongly for more
services rather than fewer people."
Well, Jeremy Corbyn did…
"Learning abroad and working abroad, increases the opportunities and skills
of British people and migration brings benefits as well as challenges at home.
But it's only if there is government action to train enough skilled workers
to stop the exploitation of migrant labour to undercut wages and invest in
local services and housing in areas of rapid population growth that they will
be felt across the country.'
And this Government has done nothing of the sort. Instead, its failure to
train enough skilled workers means we have become reliant on migration to keep
our economy functioning."
and
"It is sometimes easier to blame the EU, or worse to blame foreigners, than
to face up to our own problems. At the head of which right now is a
Conservative Government that is failing the people of Britain."
…but the Tories couldn't – they have been demonising the service users as
"scroungers" and "skivers" since Osborne introduced his austerity policies in
2010. Why on earth would he and Cameron – leading the Remain campaign, take the
opinions of such people (like me) into account?
Art Eclectic
I don't believe the lack of skilled workers is the problem. The problem
is the wages that professionals WANT to pay for skills do match up with what
labor needs/wants to make. Tech workers are a perfect example. US tech
companies want more HB1 visas, claiming there is not enough skilled labor.
The part they leave out is the skilled labor wages. A US citizen carrying
six figures in student load dept demands a higher wage than an Indian
immigrant on an HB1.
The professional class and corporations want to pay lower wages for
everything from child care to roofers to junior managers, so of course they
are all in favor of globalization and worker movement. There's bit of
classism there as well. The senior manager is pissed that some random coder
is making almost as much as he is. The professional is offended that a child
care worker can afford their own home and drive a middle class car. Keeping
wages low allows the professionals to maintain distinction of rank and
value.
You can see that impact in every discussion about minimum wages and
people complaining about fast food workers getting $15 a hour for
"low-skill" work.
Ancaeus
Lambert,
The subtext of this article is a fawning acceptance of the desirability of
globalization. Many of us reject globalization outright. We don't believe that
it can, or ever will, be "tamed". Nor do we desire to live in a world where its
pernicious effects must be forever mitigated. We do not want to be the
recipients of such long-term mitigation, with the consequent loss of dignity.
Instead, let us return to local products and services, produced by our
neighbors. The money we spend will stay in our community. What's more, the
social benefits of such local trade and the resulting thriving local economy go
well beyond economic ones.
The destruction of social cohesion is the primary externality that results
from "free trade". And, in my opinion, no amount of money can adequately
compensate for it. Returning to Brexit question, it is not clear to me that
these non-economic costs of free trade are made worthwhile by the supposed
non-economic benefits of the European project. From this side of the Atlantic,
it seems doubtful.
Agreed. I come at it from the other side: I think the (reasonably
controlled) exchange of people, ideas, goods, and services across national
borders is a good thing; however, I respect the right of those who dislike
globalization to do so. This post instead treats them with a thinly veiled
heaping of scorn on top of an implicit claim of calling people both stupid
and racist.
The notion at the end of the article that Brexit specifically, or
opposition to globalization more generally, is about market vs. the state is
nonsensical bordering on purposeful obtuseness. Western society today is not
characterized by too little state. The problem is what the state does.
Sound of the Suburbs
The BoE has taken more action that won't help and its been a long time since
2008.
More and more people have read Richard Koo's book and know fiscal stimulus
is required.
Ben Bernake and Janet Yellen had read Richard Koo's book and ensured the US
didn't impose austerity and go over the fiscal cliff.
Mario hasn't read Richard Koo's book and pushed the Club-Med nations over
the fiscal cliff.
The harsh austerity on Greece, killed the Greek economy altogether.
Reading Richard Koo's book is important, if only Mario would get a copy
before he wipes out the Club-Med economies and banking systems.
Mark Carney is from the Goldman stable and is naturally slow on the uptake
and is set in his old-fashioned banker ways.
Before you make a complete fool of yourself like Mario, here is an essential
video:
The IMF and World Bank spent 50 years imposing austerity, selling off
previously public companies and insisting on lower Government spending. The
trail of wreckage is spread across the world, South America, Africa, Asia and
finally Greece.
Bankers don't take responsibility for anything and so never learn from their
mistakes.
Well, The IMF, after 50 years, has finally realised this doesn't work.
At 15.30 mins. into the video you can see the UK situation.
There are massive bank reserves, adding to them will make no difference.
Comparing the charts, the UK's borrowing has gone down more since 2008 than
the US and the Euro-zone.
We are doing all the wrong things, like austerity.
If we had done the right things straight away the UK might still be
in the EU
(The Euro-zone figures look OK because the strong Northern nations aren't
doing too badly, looking at the Club-Med nations and Greece, it's a very
different story. The chart of Greece shows a nation being run into the ground.)
hotairmail
I voted Brexit not for the 'immigration issue' but for democracy. The EU
bureaucracy has too much power and leverages its Central Bank to keep wayward
states in line such as Greece, deliberately causing deflationary depressions
and mass unemployment in their wake. The disdain with which democratic leaders
are treated is typified by a rather famous video where a drunk Juncker greets
various heads of democratic governments and proceeds to treat them
disgracefully (search "Juncker bitch slap" on Youtube). That is not simply a
video of a drunk man being inappropriate – it shows you where the power lies
and what the bureaucracy routinely believes it can get away with.
Britain decided not to join the Euro bloc. It is well documented that its
design is not sustainable. It will either blow up and the thing will fall
apart, or they will need to implement new fiscal transfers from the rich parts
of the bloc to the less well off, as with an ordinary country. The Euro bloc
will need to make big changes to ensure the Euro stays together which involves
large costs to the richer nations such as Germany and Holland. But as most of
the EU decision making at inter governmental level is majority voting, it is
likely the UK would be outvoted to implement this via the EU – NOT the Euro
bloc. They will want to pick the pockets of the UK even though the reasons for
the transfers is nothing to do with the UK.
Turning to the immigartion issue itself, it seems to me this is just as much
about tax and benefits policy and its effects, as it is for free movement. As
an EU citizen when you come to the UK, you are automatically treated the same
as a UK citizen. This means you instantly have access to free health, free
schools, housing benefit and in work tax credits. These sums really add up. The
effect of these supports is to make labour very cheap to employers in the UK –
people can do very low value work and still make their way. The expansion of
the EU to the east made a vast pool of relatively poor labour available to
employers and we have witnessed an explosion of low value added work from "hand
car washes" to picking fruit (whilst fruit lays unpicked in their home
countries). People wring ther hands about why productivity and tax revenue
isn't growing despite rising employment coupled with an exploding housing
benefit and tax credit bill, pressure on schools and healthcare. Put quite
simply the UK cannot afford the services it has become used to with low value
added work, so something has to give. At the end of the day, a decent welfare
state in fact is NOT compatible with open borders. This is something the left
wing have yet to face properly. And ordinary people, far from being simply
'racist' and xenophobic, are simply exercising their choice at the ballot box
and they basically don't want to to see their lives get worse with lower wages,
fewer opportunities, poorer housing and reduced welfare and services.
A word of warning though about whether Brexit or the EU is protectionist or
left wing etc – there are actually quite well argued opinions on both sides.
For many Brexiteers, the EU actually represents a protectionist bloc that
hinders free trade with the world. Many on the left, coming from the pure
"international socialism" of the proper left wing also believe in fighting for
protections of workers on the international stage such as the EU and therefore
are not necessarily in step with their less well off followers, wondering who
stole their cheese. A free trading nation but with a controlled immigration
policy is actually quite appealing and may help to squeeze out the explosion of
low value added work.
On the democratic front, our politicians for decades have blamed the EU for
why they can't do x or y. Add in that for the ordinary Brit we've only ever
read articles about rules to implement "straight bananas" and the like, whilst
our media spends far more time covering the anglophone American election, you
can see there is no proper functioning "demos". And at the end of the day
although "status quo" was always the position of the Remain side of things,
this was never on the table. First we have the Euro issue and then we always
have the Rome Treaty we signed up to which clearly states "Ever closer union".
One final point about the vote split from the Ashcroft poll. You should note
that only 2 parties voters supported Leave – UKIP (96%) and the Tories (56%).
Labour and SNP were about the same at 62/63% to Remain. The idea that those who
voted Leave are council house dwelling northerners is far from the mark. If you
discount the fact that nationalist issues dominated proceedings in Scotland and
Northern Ireland, the vote was more decisive than at first glance – hence why
the Tories are treating this seemingly marginal result as so decisive – both
amongst their own voters and the prize of the UKIP support in the future.
Sorry for the rambling comment but there are lots of different angles to the
EU issue – I'd just like to leave you with how I feel the split amongst the
electorate occurs. Imagine a 4 box matrix, 2×2, with 'left' and 'right' on the
top and 'nightmare' and 'dream' along the left. Left wingers who voted to
remain have an international socialist dream. Right wingers who voted to Remain
see it as a rampant free trade dream. Those who voted to leave on the right saw
it as a socialist, protectionist nightmare. Those who voted leave on the left
saw it as a neo liberal nightmare. So, you can see the split isn't just about
whether you are left or right, free trade or protectionist – it has to be
overlaid with whether the EU better represents your hopes or is a threat. The
motivations for the vote are even more confusing than the coverage of those
supposed reasons.
sd
Shorter version: the only way
to keep capitalism in check is to pair it with a strong dose of socialism which
the greed of those in power rarely allows. Outcome is always the same: the
peasants revolt and management wonders why.
lyman alpha blob
The only reason globalization works for the meritorious technocrat class
that supports it is because they are able to take advantage of differences in
local currency values.
Funny how you hear all this talk about global trade being necessary and
unavoidable but never a global currency.
And now in France, a so-called Socialist government has weakened labor
protections. A situation where a proletariat forced to swallow this, along with
an easy immigration program, would spell trouble to anyone who has a knowledge
of history and human nature.
Plus, an even more immediate concern is that it appears globalization is an
environmental disaster that we may very well have precious little time to
correct.
dw
globalization isnt even all that popular among professionals since even
their jobs are at risk now. but its extremely popular among executives because
it makes their job easier. until their jobs end up being subject to it too. but
among the among 1% its very popular, at least until it becomes very hard to
make a profit or grow their business, since they all loose customers , and cant
raise prices
Mary Wehrheim
The reason why popular opinion turns toward solutions involving immigration
restriction rather than expansion of services is because….deficits. Watching
the GOP primary ads in the hermetically sealed conservative bubble that passes
for Kansas one would think that was the most pressing problem facing the US …
course they throw in the usual memes of terrorist and Obama care dangers with a
short sop about "more jobs" as rather an aside. The Powell memo propaganda
machine has been very successful in redirecting the popular world view through
the gaze of the 1%. Taxes = theft, just work harder (that one is finally
wearing a bit thin though after the wives got into the work force and people
got into deep debt over the past 40 years in a vain attempt to try and rise
above stagnant salaries), safety net = dependency, poverty = lazy habits,
privatization= efficiency, government and regulation = serfdom, and unions
interfere with the celestial harmony of the spheres that is markets.
Pookah Harvey
These same arguments can be made for the replacement of low skilled jobs by
robots, Closing borders will not help in this situation. Governments need to
start planning for a world where there will be less of what we now consider"
jobs" More services provided by government and lowering hours in the work week
soon have to be on the agenda for forward looking politicians or Dune's
Butlerian Jihad may come sooner than we think.
A guy named Karl Marx had an interesting little theory of value in
capitalism which explains that the more hours a person works = more profit
for the company. As automation deepens and spreads, companies will lay
people off, but they will never willingly reduce the hours worked for the
remaining employees.
Unless capitalism willingly adopts socialistic measures (and it never
will), it will keep herding workers – and eventually, itself – off a cliff.
Ché Pasa
These stories and the studies they're grounded in have been told over and
over again for decades now. They're true, and in some cases they are so
complete and compelling as to demolish once and for all the consensus ideology
of Neo-LibCon rule, and yet…
Our rulers do not listen. Our rulers do not care. They are lost in a
post-modern decoupling of truth and fact from anything they need concern
themselves with.
It's pure religion tangled with power.
The more stories and studies showing just how wrong they and their
ideology/religion are, the more they don't listen, the more they don't care.
Ulysses
"Our rulers do not listen. Our rulers do not care. They are lost in a
post-modern decoupling of truth and fact from anything they need concern
themselves with.
It's pure religion tangled with power.
The more stories and studies showing just how wrong they and their
ideology/religion are, the more they don't listen, the more they don't
care."
Very well said! Here in the U.S. we have enshrined in our fundamental law
the right: "to petition the government for a redress of grievances." This
first right amongst the bill of rights was only granted to us after Shay's
Rebellion showed the elites that the people wouldn't simply roll over and
subject themselves to an authoritarian government.
When this petitioning failed, in the 1770s, to produce satisfactory
results our independent nation was born amidst great tumult. Now we face a
similar crossroads: move forward into a potentially better life, after
toppling the transnational kleptocracy, or guarantee the further degradation
of humanity by failing to do more than meekly petition the kleptocrats to
throw us a few more crumbs.
We need to stop trying to persuade those who benefit from exploiting us
to stop through constructing ever more convincing arguments. The kleptocrats
need to suffer tangible consequences for their crimes, through massive
non-compliance with their wishes and monkey-wrenching of their systems.
Indigenous peoples in Brazil have just shown us how to proceed by halting
the dam.
Zvi Namenwirth. He did a pioneering early study measuring the rhetoric of
wealth transfer in American party platforms. I noticed twenty years ago that
the swings tacked according to Kondratieff curves, which measure shifts between
growth in manufacturing vs. agriculture. That's likely what you're seeing now
with the balance shifting from labor to capital (the 1%) since the early '70s.
It's not as important to look at general inflation as it is to measure the
relative changes in prices among different sectors. Given that parties
represent different interest groups, it's likely these stresses show up in
political speech.
But then that would mean politics drives economics and no economist wants to
admit that.
washunate
I completely agree that the backlash has been a long time coming. We are
decades into a slow motion train wreck at this point. The evidence is there for
any who wish to see it.
I completely disagree, though, with the conclusion. What is going on is not
about an insufficiently large state. Rather, it's that the state has been
entrenching inequality rather than addressing it. Our contemporary experience
with excessive concentration of wealth and power is not an outcome of markets.
It's an outcome of public policy. Implying that Brexit voters specifically, or
anti-globalization advocates more generally, are stupid and racist says a lot
more about the biases and blind spots in our intellectual class than it does
about the victims of globalization as western governments have implemented it
over the past few decades.
Stiglitz: AUG 5, 2016 8
Globalization and its New Discontents
NEW YORK – Fifteen years ago, I wrote a little book, entitled Globalization
and its Discontents, describing growing opposition in the developing world
to globalizing reforms. It seemed a mystery: people in developing countries
had been told that globalization would increase overall wellbeing. So why
had so many people become so hostile to it?
Now, globalization's opponents in the emerging markets and developing
countries have been joined by tens of millions in the advanced countries.
Opinion polls, including a careful study by Stanley Greenberg and his associates
for the Roosevelt Institute, show that trade is among the major sources
of discontent for a large share of Americans. Similar views are apparent
in Europe.
How can something that our political leaders – and many an economist
– said would make everyone better off be so reviled?
One answer occasionally heard from the neoliberal economists who advocated
for these policies is that people are better off. They just don't know it.
Their discontent is a matter for psychiatrists, not economists.
But income data suggest that it is the neoliberals who may benefit from
therapy. Large segments of the population in advanced countries have not
been doing well: in the US, the bottom 90% has endured income stagnation
for a third of a century. Median income for full-time male workers is actually
lower in real (inflation-adjusted) terms than it was 42 years ago. At the
bottom, real wages are comparable to their level 60 years ago.
The effects of the economic pain and dislocation that many Americans
are experiencing are even showing up in health statistics. For example,
the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, this year's Nobel laureate, have
shown that life expectancy among segments of white Americans is declining.
Things are a little better in Europe – but only a little better.
Branko Milanovic's new book Global Inequality: A New Approach for the
Age of Globalization provides some vital insights, looking at the big winners
and losers in terms of income over the two decades from 1988 to 2008. Among
the big winners were the global 1%, the world's plutocrats, but also the
middle class in newly emerging economies. Among the big losers – those who
gained little or nothing – were those at the bottom and the middle and working
classes in the advanced countries. Globalization is not the only reason,
but it is one of the reasons.
Under the assumption of perfect markets (which underlies most neoliberal
economic analyses) free trade equalizes the wages of unskilled workers around
the world. Trade in goods is a substitute for the movement of people. Importing
goods from China – goods that require a lot of unskilled workers to produce
– reduces the demand for unskilled workers in Europe and the US.
This force is so strong that if there were no transportation costs, and
if the US and Europe had no other source of competitive advantage, such
as in technology, eventually it would be as if Chinese workers continued
to migrate to the US and Europe until wage differences had been eliminated
entirely. Not surprisingly, the neoliberals never advertised this consequence
of trade liberalization, as they claimed – one could say lied – that all
would benefit.
The failure of globalization to deliver on the promises of mainstream
politicians has surely undermined trust and confidence in the "establishment."
And governments' offers of generous bailouts for the banks that had brought
on the 2008 financial crisis, while leaving ordinary citizens largely to
fend for themselves, reinforced the view that this failure was not merely
a matter of economic misjudgments.
In the US, Congressional Republicans even opposed assistance to those
who were directly hurt by globalization. More generally, neoliberals, apparently
worried about adverse incentive effects, have opposed welfare measures that
would have protected the losers.
But they can't have it both ways: if globalization is to benefit most
members of society, strong social-protection measures must be in place.
The Scandinavians figured this out long ago; it was part of the social contract
that maintained an open society – open to globalization and changes in technology.
Neoliberals elsewhere have not – and now, in elections in the US and Europe,
they are having their comeuppance.
Globalization is, of course, only one part of what is going on; technological
innovation is another part. But all of this openness and disruption were
supposed to make us richer, and the advanced countries could have introduced
policies to ensure that the gains were widely shared.
Instead, they pushed for policies that restructured markets in ways that
increased inequality and undermined overall economic performance; growth
actually slowed as the rules of the game were rewritten to advance the interests
of banks and corporations – the rich and powerful – at the expense of everyone
else. Workers' bargaining power was weakened; in the US, at least, competition
laws didn't keep up with the times; and existing laws were inadequately
enforced. Financialization continued apace and corporate governance worsened.
Now, as I point out in my recent book Rewriting the Rules of the American
Economy, the rules of the game need to be changed again – and this must
include measures to tame globalization. The two new large agreements that
President Barack Obama has been pushing – the Trans-Pacific Partnership
between the US and 11 Pacific Rim countries, and the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership between the EU and the US – are moves in the
wrong direction.
The main message of Globalization and its Discontents was that the problem
was not globalization, but how the process was being managed. Unfortunately,
the management didn't change. Fifteen years later, the new discontents have
brought that message home to the advanced economies.
Monessen, Pennsylvania (CNN)Donald Trump on Tuesday trashed U.S. trade policies that he
said have encouraged globalization and wiped out American manufacturing jobs in a speech in which
he promised to herald a U.S. economic resurgence.
Speaking before a colorful backdrop of crushed aluminum cans, Trump pitched himself at a factory
in Rust Belt Pennsylvania as a change agent who would bring back manufacturing jobs and end the "rigged
system," which he argued presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton represents.
Trump promised sweeping changes if elected -- including killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership
trade deal and renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement -- and urged voters to be wary
of a "campaign of fear and intimidation" aimed at swaying them away from his populist message.
"Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization -- moving our jobs, our wealth
and our factories to Mexico and overseas," he said, reading from prepared remarks and using teleprompters.
"Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very, very wealthy. I used
to be one of them. Hate to say it, but I used to be one of them."
Trump repeatedly slammed Clinton for supporting free trade agreements and argued that under a
Clinton presidency "nothing is going to change."
"The inner cities will remain poor. the factories will remain closed," Trump said at Alumisource,
a raw material producer for the aluminum and steel industries in Monessen, Pennsylvania, an hour
south of Pittsburgh. "The special interests will remain firmly in control."
Echoing Clinton's chief
rival for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Trump also argued that Clinton
has "voted for virtually every trade agreement" and accused her of supporting trade deals that have
hurt U.S. workers.
Trump's speech drew a swift rebuke Tuesday from opposing ends of the political spectrum.
The Chamber of Commerce, the big business lobby that traditionally backs Republicans, issued a
swift statement warning that Trump's proposed policies would herald another U.S. recession.
"Under Trump's trade plans, we would see higher prices, fewer jobs, and a weaker economy," the
group tweeted, linking to a lengthier article
warning that a recession would hit the U.S. "within the first year" of a Trump presidency.
"I'd love for him to explain how all of that fits with his talk about 'America First,'" Clinton
said in a speech last week.
Trump moved quickly on Tuesday to insulate himself from the criticism from his rival's campaign
and others opposed to his vision of radically changing U.S. economic policies.
Trump repeatedly warned Americans to gird themselves against a "campaign of fear" he argued Clinton
and others are running against him -- a notable criticism given the accusations that several of his
policies, including a ban on Muslims and a plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, have
played to voters' fears.
The de facto GOP nominee promised to instruct his treasury secretary to "label China a currency
manipulator" and to order the U.S. trade representative to bring lawsuits against China at the World
Trade Organization and in U.S. courts to combat what he characterized as unfair trade policies.
And he also warned of potentially levying tariffs on imports from China and other countries, reviving
a common theme of his campaign.
Trump has frequently argued on the stump that the U.S. is getting "killed" by other countries on
trade and threatened to raise certain tariffs on China and Mexico up to 35%.
Early on in his yearlong campaign, Trump singled out specific American companies -- notably Ford
and Nabisco -- for plans to move some of their manufacturing plants abroad.
Slamming Nabisco for building a factory in Mexico, Trump has vowed he's "not eating Oreos anymore."
A senior Trump aide told CNN earlier on Tuesday the speech would be "the most detailed economic address
he has given so far."
Trump has frequently lamented the economic slowdown working-class communities in America have faced
as a result of a drop in American manufacturing, particularly in the last decade.
As Scott Adams noted: "Clinton's campaign has such strong persuasion going right now that she is
successfully equating her actual misdeeds of the past with Trump's imaginary mental issues and
imaginary future misdeeds".
They use a Rovian strategy: Assault the enemy's strength. You've got to admire the
Chutzpah: Killing your parents, then complaining you're an orphan. The candidate who didn't raise a
voice against the Iraq War and pushed the administration in favor of war with Libya (which we're now
bombing again) paints their opponent as a lunatic warmonger.
Notable quotes:
"... it's hard not to applaud when he pisses off the stuff shirts at the Washington Post. ..."
"... the frustration with Obama's foreign policy - the continuation of wars, the expansion of drone attacks, the failure to reduce nuclear weapons - has prompted some to piece through Donald Trump's sayings in a desperate search for something, anything, that could possibly represent an alternative. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I'm talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal…. I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, "Congratulations, you will be defending yourself. ..."
"... We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem. And we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel. The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely, totally unbreakable. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has traditionally adopted foreign policy positions to the right of Barack Obama. As president, she will likely tack in a more hawkish direction. ..."
"... John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus. ..."
Trump's foreign policy isn't an alternative to U.S. empire. It's just a cruder rendition of
it. ;
Donald Trump may be a bigot and a bully, but it's hard not to applaud when he pisses off the
stuff shirts at the Washington Post.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has staked out a foreign policy position quite
distinct from his opponent, Hillary Clinton. It is not, however, "isolationist" (contra
Jeb Bush and many others) or "less aggressively militaristic" (economist Mark Weisbrot
in The Hill ) or "a jolt of realpolitik " (journalist Simon Jenkins
in The Guardian ).
With all due respect to these sources, they're all wrong. Ditto John Pilger's
claim that Clinton represents the greater threat to the world, John Walsh's
argument that Trump is "the relative peace candidate," and Justin Raimondo's
assertion
that if Trump wins then "the military-industrial complex is finished, along with the globalists
who dominate foreign policy circles in Washington."
...His comments on foreign policy have frequently been incoherent, inconsistent, and just plain
ignorant. He hasn't exactly rolled out a detailed blueprint of what he would do to the world if elected
(though that old David Levine
cartoon of Henry Kissinger beneath the sheets comes to mind)...
However, over the last year Trump has said enough to pull together a pretty good picture of what
he'd do if suddenly in a position of
nearly unchecked power (thanks to the expansion of executive authority under both Bush and Obama).
President Trump would offer an updated version of Teddy Roosevelt's old dictum: speak loudly and
carry the biggest stick possible.
It's not an alternative to U.S. empire - just a cruder rendition of it.
The Enemy of My Enemy
Both liberals and conservatives in the United States,
as I've written , have embraced
economic policies that have left tens of millions of working people in desperate straits. The desperation
of the "left behind" faction is so acute, in fact, that many of its members are willing to ignore
Donald Trump's obvious disqualifications - his personal wealth, his disdain for "losers," his support
of tax cuts for the rich - in order to back the Republican candidate and stick it to the elite.
A similar story prevails in the foreign policy realm. On the left, the frustration with Obama's
foreign policy - the continuation of wars, the expansion of drone attacks, the failure to reduce
nuclear weapons - has prompted some to piece through Donald Trump's sayings in a desperate search
for something, anything, that could possibly represent an alternative. ... ... ...
Examined more carefully, his positions on war and peace, alliance systems, and human rights break
no new ground. He is old white whine in a new, cracked bottle.
Trump on War
... ... ...
True, Trump has criticized the neoconservative espousal of the use of military force to promote
democracy and build states. But that doesn't mean he has backed off from the use of military force
in general. Trump has
pledged to use the military "if there's a problem going on in the world and you can solve the
problem," a rather open-ended approach to the deployment of U.S. forces. He agreed, for instance,
that the Clinton administration was right to intervene in the Balkans to prevent ethnic cleansing
in Kosovo.
In terms of current conflicts, Trump
has promised to "knock the hell out of ISIS" with airpower and
20,000-30,000 U.S. troops on the ground. He even
reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against the would-be caliphate. By suggesting to allies
and adversaries alike that he is possibly unhinged, Trump has resurrected one of the most terrifying
presidential strategies of all time, Richard Nixon's
"madman" approach to bombing North Vietnam.
This is not isolationism. It's not even discriminate deterrence. As in the business world, Trump
believes in full-spectrum dominance in global affairs. As Zack Beauchamp
points out in Vox , Trump is an ardent believer in colonial wars of conquest to seize oil fields
and pipelines.
About the only place in the world that Trump has apparently ruled out war is with Russia. Yes,
it's a good thing that he's against the new cold war that has descended on U.S.-Russian relations...
... ... ...
Trump on Alliances
Trump has made few friends in Washington with his criticisms of veterans and their families and
his "joke" encouraging Russia to release any emails from Hillary Clinton's account that it might
have acquired in its hacking. Yet it's Trump's statements about NATO that have most unsettled the
U.S. foreign policy elite.
In an interview with The New York Times , Trump said:
If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting
other countries, and in many cases the countries I'm talking about are extremely rich. Then if
we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able
to, but if we cannot make a deal…. I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, "Congratulations,
you will be defending yourself.
... ... ...
Again, I doubt Trump actually believes in abandoning NATO. Rather, he believes that threats enhance
one's bargaining position. In the Trump worldview, there are no allies. There are only competitors
from whom one extracts concessions.
We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.
And we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable
ally, the state of Israel. The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between
the United States and Israel is absolutely, totally unbreakable.
Ultimately President Trump would extend the same reassurances to other allies once he is briefed
on exactly how much they contribute to maintaining U.S. hegemony in the world.
Trump on Pentagon Spending
Critics like Jean Bricmont
rave about Trump's willingness to take on the U.S. military-industrial complex: "He not only
denounces the trillions of dollars spent in wars, deplores the dead and wounded American soldiers,
but also speaks of the Iraqi victims of a war launched by a Republican president."
But Donald Trump, as president, would be the military-industrial complex's best friend. He has
stated on numerous occasions
his intention to "rebuild" the U.S. military: "We're going to make our military so big, so strong
and so great, so powerful that we're never going to have to use it."
More recently, in an interview with conservative
columnist Cal Thomas , he said, "Our military has been so badly depleted. Who would think the
United States is raiding plane graveyards to pick up parts and equipment? That means they're being
held together by a shoestring. Other countries have brand-new stuff they have bought from us." That
the United States already has the most powerful military in the world by every conceivable measure
seems to have escaped Trump. And our allies never get any military hardware that U.S. forces don't
already have.
Well, perhaps Trump will somehow strengthen the U.S. military by cutting waste and investing that
money more effectively. But Trump has promised to
increase
general military spending as well as the resources devoted to fighting the Islamic State. It's
part of an overall incoherent plan that includes large tax cuts and a promise to balance the budget.
An Exceptional Ruler
Let me be clear: Hillary Clinton has traditionally adopted foreign policy positions to the
right of Barack Obama. As president, she will likely tack in a more hawkish direction.
... ... ...
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.
It's heresy in the GOP to question the neoconservative paradigm – just ask Rand Paul. It's
assumed, as an article of faith, that America is the moral leader of the world; that we must not
only defend our values across the world, we must also use force to remake it in our image. This
is the thinking that gave us the Iraq War. It's the prism through which most of the GOP still
views international politics. Trump – and Bernie Sanders – represents a departure from this
paradigm.
Although it's unlikely to happen, a Trump-Sanders general election would have been refreshing for
at least one reason: it would have constituted a total rejection of neoconservatism.
Most Americans understand, intuitively, that the differences between the major parties are often
rhetorical, not substantive. That's not to say substantive differences don't exist – surely they
do, especially on social issues. But the policies from administration to administration overlap
more often than not, regardless of the party in charge. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Much of the stability is due to money and the structure of our system, which tends toward dynamic
equilibrium. And there are limits to what the president can do on issues like the economy and
health care.
But one area in which the president does have enormous flexibility is foreign policy. Which is
why, as Politico reported this week, the GOP's national security establishment is "bitterly
digging in against" Trump. Indeed, more than any other wing of the Republican Party, the
neoconservatives are terrified at the prospect of a Trump nomination.
"Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin," said Eliot Cohen, a former Bush official with
neoconservative ties. Trump would be "an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy."
Another neocon, Max Boot, says he'd vote for Clinton over Trump: "She would be vastly preferable
to Trump." Even Bill Kristol, the great champion of the Iraq War, a man who refuses to consider
the hypothesis that he was wrong about anything, is threatening to recruit a third party
candidate to derail Trump for similar reasons.
Just this week, moreover, a group of conservative foreign policy intellectuals, several of whom
are neocons, published an open letter stating that they're "united in our opposition to a Donald
Trump presidency." They offer a host of reasons for their objections, but the bottom line is they
don't trust Trump to continue America's current policy of policing the world on ethical grounds.
Trump isn't constrained by the same ideological conventions as other candidates, and so he
occasionally stumbles upon unpopular truths. His comments about the Iraq War are an obvious
example. But even on an issue like the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Trump says what any
reasonable observer should: we ought to maintain neutrality and work to solve the dispute with an
eyes towards our national interest. Now, Trump couldn't explain the concept of "realism" to save
his life, but this position is perfectly consistent with that tradition. And if Republicans
weren't blinkered by religious fanaticism, they'd acknowledge it as well. The same is true of
Trump's nebulous critiques of America's soft imperialism, which again are sacrilege in Republican
politics.
Diplomacy & respect crucial to our relationship with Russia
Q: This week we're going to see a lot of world leaders come to Manhattan. Might you have a
meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin?
TRUMP: Well, I had heard that he wanted to meet
with me. And certainly I am open to it. I don't know that it's going to take place, but I know
that people have been talking. We'll see what happens. But certainly, if he wanted to meet, I
would love to do that. You know, I've been saying relationship is so important in business, that
it's so important in deals, and so important in the country. And if President Obama got along
with Putin, that would be a fabulous thing. But they do not get along. Putin does not respect our
president. And I'm sure that our president does not like him very much.
Putin has no respect for America; I will get along with him
Q: What would you do right now if you were president, to get the Russians out of Syria?
TRUMP:
Number one, they have to respect you. He has absolutely no respect for President Obama. Zero. I
would talk to him. I would get along with him. I believe I would get along with a lot of the
world leaders that this country is not getting along with. I think I will get along with Putin,
and I will get along with others, and we will have a much more stable world.
We must deal with the maniac in North Korea with nukes
[With regards to the Iranian nuclear deal]: Nobody ever mentions North Korea where you have this
maniac sitting there and he actually has nuclear weapons and somebody better start thinking about
North Korea and perhaps a couple of other places. You have somebody right now in North Korea who
has got nuclear weapons and who is saying almost every other week, "I'm ready to use them." And
we don't even mention it.
China is our enemy; they're bilking us for billions
China is bilking us for hundreds of billions of dollars by manipulating and devaluing its
currency. Despite all the happy talk in Washington, the Chinese leaders are not our friends. I've
been criticized for calling them our enemy. But what else do you call the people who are
destroying your children's and grandchildren's future? What name would you prefer me to use for
the people who are hell bent on bankrupting our nation, stealing our jobs, who spy on us to steal
our technology, who are undermining our currency, and who are ruining our way of life? To my
mind, that's an enemy. If we're going to make America number one again, we've got to have a
president who knows how to get tough with China, how to out-negotiate the Chinese, and how to
keep them from screwing us at every turn.
When you love America, you protect it with no apologies
I love America. And when you love something, you protect it passionately--fiercely, even. We are
the greatest country the world has ever known. I make no apologies for this country, my pride in
it, or my desire to see us become strong and rich again. After all, wealth funds our freedom. But
for too long we've been pushed around, used by other countries, and ill-served by politicians in
Washington who measure their success by how rapidly they can expand the federal debt, and your
tax burden, with their favorite government programs.
American can do better. I think we deserve
the best. That's why I decided to write this book. The decisions we face are too monumental, too
consequential, to just let slide. I have answers for the problems that confront us. I know how to
make American rich again.
By 2027, tsunami as China overtakes US as largest economy
There is a lot that Obama and his globalist pals don't want you to know about China's strength.
But no one who knows the truth can sit back and ignore how dangerous this economic powerhouse
will be if our so-called leaders in Washington don't get their acts together and start standing
up for American jobs and stop outsourcing them to China. It's been predicted that by 2027, China
will overtake the United States as the world's biggest economy--much sooner if the Obama
economy's disastrous trends continue. That means in a handful of years, America will be engulfed
by the economic tsunami that is the People's Republic of China--my guess is by 2016 if we don't
act fast.
For the past thirty years, China's economy has grown an average 9 to 10 percent each
year. In the first quarter of 2011 alone, China's economy grew a robust 9.7 percent. America's
first quarter growth rate? An embarrassing and humiliating 1.9 percent. It's a national disgrace.
A lot of life is about survival of the fittest and adaption, as Darwin pointed out. It's not all
there is, but it's an indication of how the world has evolved in historical terms. We've seen
many empires come and go -- the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire -- there have always been surges
of power. Sometimes they last for centuries. Even so, some of us have never learned of them as of
today. In other words, things change. We have to keep up with the changes and move forward.
Source: Think Like a Champion, by Donald Trump, p. 23-4 , Apr 27,
2010
Criticized Buchanan's view on Hitler as appeasement
In Buchanan's book, he actually said the Western allies were wrong to stop Hitler. He
argued that we should have let Hitler take all of the territories to his east. What of the
systematic annihilation of Jews, Catholics, and Gypsies in those countries? You don't have to be
a genius to know that we were next, that once Hitler seized control of the countries to his east
he would focus on world domination.
Pat Buchanan was actually preaching the same policy of appeasement that had failed for Neville
Chamberlain at Munich. If we used Buchanan's theory on Hitler as a foreign policy strategy, we
would have appeased every world dictator with a screw loose and we'd have a brainwashed
population ready to go postal on command.
After I [wrote an article on this for] Face the Nation, Buchanan accused me of
⌠ignorance." Buchanan, who believes himself an expert, has also called Hitler ⌠a political
organizer of the first rank." Buchanan is a fan.
Post-Cold War: switch from chess player to dealmaker
In the modern world you can't very easily draw up a simple, general foreign policy. I was busy
making deals during the last decade of the cold war. Now the game has changed. The day of the
chess player is over. Foreign policy has to be put in the hands of a dealmaker.
Two dealmakers have served as president-one was Franklin Roosevelt, who got us through WWII,
and the other was Richard Nixon, who forced the Russians to the bargaining table to achieve the
first meaningful reductions in nuclear arms.
A dealmaker can keep many balls in the air, weigh the competing interests of other nations,
and above all, constantly put America's best interests first. The dealmaker knows when to be
tough and when to back off. He knows when to bluff and he knows when to threaten, understanding
that you threaten only when prepared to carry out the threat. The dealmaker is cunning,
secretive, focused, and never settles for less than he wants. It's been a long time since America
had a president like that.
I don't understand why American policymakers are always so timid in dealing with Russia on issues
that directly involve our survival. Kosovo was a perfect case in point: Russia was holding out
its hand for billions of dollars in IMF loans (to go along with billions in aid the U.S. has
given) the same week it was issuing threats and warnings regarding our conduct in the Balkans. We
need to tell Russia and other recipients that if they want our dime they had better do our dance,
at least in matters regarding our national security. These people need us much more than we need
them. We have leverage, and we are crazy not to use it to better advantage.
Few respect
weakness. Ultimately we have to deal with hostile nations in the only language they know:
unshrinking conviction and the military power to back it up if need be. There and in that order
are America's two greatest assets in foreign affairs.
China: lack of human rights prevents consumer development
Why am I concerned with political rights? I'm a good businessman and I can be amazingly
unsentimental when I need to be. I also recognize that when it comes down to it, we can't do much
to change a nation's internal policies. But I'm unwilling to shrug off the mistreatment of
China's citizens by their own government. My reason is simple: These oppressive policies make it
clear that China's current government has contempt for our way of life.
We want to trade with China because of the size of its consumer market. But if the regime
continues to repress individual freedoms, how many consumers will there really be? Isn't it
inconsistent to compromise our principles by negotiating trade with a country that may not want
and cannot afford our goods?
We have to make it absolutely clear that we're willing to trade with China, but not to trade
away our principles, and that under no circumstances will we keep our markets open to countries
that steal from us.
Our biggest long-term challenge will be China. The Chinese people still have few political rights
to speak of. Chinese government leaders, though they concede little, desperately want us to
invest in their country. Though we have the upper hand, we're way to eager to please. We see them
as a potential market and we curry favor with them at the expense of our national interests. Our
China policy under Presidents Clinton and Bush has been aimed at changing the Chinese regime by
incentives both economic and political. The intention has been good, but it's clear that the
Chinese have been getting far too easy a ride.
Despite the opportunity, I think we need to take
a much harder look at China. There are major problems that too many at the highest reaches of
business want to overlook, [primarily] the human-rights situation.
Q: Would you block Syrian refugees from entering the US?
RUBIO: The problem is we can't background check them. You can't pick up the phone and call
Syria. And that's one of the reasons why I said we won't be able to take more refugees. It's not
that we don't want to. The bottom line is that this is not just a threat coming from abroad. What
we need to open up to and realize is that we have a threat here at home, homegrown violent
extremists, individuals who perhaps have not even traveled abroad, who have been radicalized
online. This has become a multi-faceted threat. In the case of what's happening in Europe, this
is a swarm of refugees. And as I've said repeatedly over the last few months, you can have 1,000
people come in and 999 of them are just poor people fleeing oppression and violence but one of
them is an ISIS fighter.
Q: Russia has invaded Ukraine, and has put troops in Syria. You have said you will have a good
relationship with Mr. Putin. So, what does President Trump do in response to Russia's aggression?
TRUMP: As far as Syria, if Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it,
100%, and I can't understand how anybody would be against it.
Q: They're not doing that.
TRUMP: They blew up a Russian airplane. He cannot be in love with these people. He's going in,
and we can go in, and everybody should go in. As far as the Ukraine is concerned, we have a group
of people, and a group of countries, including Germany--why are we always doing the work? I'm all
for protecting Ukraine--but, we have countries that are surrounding the Ukraine that aren't doing
anything. They say, "Keep going, keep going, you dummies, keep going. Protect us." And we have to
get smart. We can't continue to be the policeman of the world.
Provide economic assistance to create a safe zone in Syria
Q: Where you are on the question of a safe zone or a no-fly zone in Syria?
TRUMP: I love a safe
zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people coming. What they should
do is, the countries should all get together, including the Gulf states, who have nothing but
money, they should all get together and they should take a big swath of land in Syria and they do
a safe zone for people, where they could to live, and then ultimately go back to their country,
go back to where they came from.
Q: Does the U.S. get involved in making that safe zone?
TRUMP: I would help them economically, even though we owe $19 trillion.
US should not train rebels it does not know or control
Q: The Russians are hitting Assad as well as people we've trained.
TRUMP: Where they're hitting
people, we're talking about people that we don't even know. I was talking to a general two days
ago. He said, "We have no idea who these people are. We're training people. We don't know who
they are. We're giving them billions of dollars to fight Assad." And you know what? I'm not
saying Assad's a good guy, because he's probably a bad guy. But I've watched him interviewed many
times. And you can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there-- it's a mess--
if you look at Saddam Hussein with Iraq, look what we did there-- it's a mess-- it's going be
same thing.
Q: You came across to me as if you welcomed Putin's involvement in Syria. You said you saw very
little downside. Why?
TRUMP: I want our military to be beyond anything, no contest, and
technologically, most importantly. But we are going to get bogged down in Syria. If you look at
what happened with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, that's when they went bankrupt.
Q: So, you think Putin's going to get suckered into--
TRUMP: They're going to get bogged down. Everybody that's touched the Middle East, they've
gotten bogged down. Now, Putin wants to go in and I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of
ISIS. Putin has to get rid of ISIS because Putin doesn't want ISIS coming into Russia.
Q: Why do you trust him and nobody else does?
TRUMP: I don't trust him. But the truth is, it's not a question of trust. I don't want to see
the United States get bogged down. We've spent now $2 trillion in Iraq, probably a trillion in
Afghanistan. We're destroying our country.
What does Donald Trump believe? Iran and Israel: Walk away from nuclear talks. Increase
sanctions.
Trump has said that the U.S. is mishandling current Iran negotiations and should
have walked away from the table once Tehran reportedly rejected the idea of sending enriched
uranium to Russia. He would increase sanctions on Iran. Trump has been sharply critical of the
Obama administration's handling of relations with Israel and has called for a closer alliance
with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Source: PBS News Hour "2016 Candidate Stands" series , Jun 16, 2015
Iran deal was signed when Hillary was not the Secretary of state (her last month was Feb 2013).
Is Trump delusional or stupid ?
Notable quotes:
"... whatever the 'ransom', both Clinton and Trump are hellbent on undermining the Iranian deal. idiots. ..."
"... The more I think about it, US deserve to have Trump as president. He will screw up the US so royally that may shock American people to start thinking straight. ..."
"... Trump would certainly screw up the US, but if 8 years of Bush couldn't get them to start thinking straight, I am not sure what would. ..."
"... Hillary hates Iran more than Trump does... she's just extremely good in deceiving.. Remember when Sanders said to reach out to Iran about the Syrian conflict? Her reply was exactly this; "asking Iran for cooperation in Syria is like asking a pyromaniac to extinguish a fire" .. when president, I fear she will not only avoid cooperation but will be playing real hardball with Iran, where Trump, as someone who seems to be sympathetic to the Russian regime, might get more friendly with Iran (the friends of your friends...) ..."
"... It's a mess anyways... trump changes like how the wind blows, and Hillary is a snake (understatement of the year) ..."
"... The US has not held up to the term of the nuclear agreement! The banks are still afraid of US to deal with Iran. Congress has stopped the beoing deal, etc. The US congress is acting as bully! Actually not holding itself with the very deal the US signed is very bad! I can see Iran reluctant to negotiate any deal with a bunch of liars ..."
"... There were no bank relations between the US and Iran, so cash was the only option. It was conducted in secret because who's going to announce that a plane full of cash is in route to, well, anywhere? ..."
"... The US owed that money to Iran. The transfer was kept secret for the reason mentioned by bob. ..."
"... Ultimately, Mr. Trump's outrage over the $ (true or not) is yet another dodge avoiding the real question that he needs to be asked: "Do you want a war with Iran?" ..."
"... Course, I think everybody probably already knows the answer. It'd just be nice to have it print (or a tweet as the case may be). ..."
"... If the reports about Trump asking his foreign policy advisers about the utility of using nuclear weapons are accurate, there are probably several nations, including Iran, who'd be wise to acquire nuclear weapons as soon as possible to let him know why they shouldn't be used. ..."
It was Iran's money that Washington froze . Besides, if I recall, the great Republican hero
Ronnie Reagan traded weapons to Iran for hostages.
Joel Marcuson
It probably hasn't dawned on him that Hillary has not been a member of the current Gov't
for about 4 yrs now. How could she possibly be responsible for that decision, the type our
Gov't has made all along for as long as I can remember? What a screwball.
onu labu
whatever the 'ransom', both Clinton and Trump are hellbent on undermining the Iranian
deal. idiots.
trucmat
The gist of reality here is that the US confiscated a bunch of Iranian money and are
decades later starting to give it back. Scandalous!
ViktorZK
They should be attacking Clinton over the DNC resignations and a whole bunch more. But the
entire week has been taken up damping down fires Trump and his surrogates keep lighting. Even
this story (which is a non-event really) will struggle for oxygen. The biggest headline today
is GOP ELDERS PLAN INTERVENTION TO REHABILITATE FAILING CAMPAIGN. Hard to top that.
macmarco 1h
One must remember that Obama early and often said Reagan was his political hero. The same
Reagan who bought hostages freedom with a cake, a bible and a bunch of weapons.
ClearItUp
The more I think about it, US deserve to have Trump as president. He will screw up the
US so royally that may shock American people to start thinking straight.
rberger -> ClearItUp
Trump would certainly screw up the US, but if 8 years of Bush couldn't get them to
start thinking straight, I am not sure what would.
ChangeIranNow
At this point, with tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets already on their way to
Iran and a virtual Tehran gold rush in which Western firms are seeking to profit from the
collapse of sanctions going on, revisiting the way the Iran deal was sold to the nation seems
beside the point. But with Iran already signaling that it will demand even more Western
appeasement to keep complying with the terms of the nuclear pact, an examination into the
cash-for-hostages' aspect of the story is important. Let us hope our next president is willing
to harden its stance on the Iran regime and support an era of domestically-fostered peace and
stability.
doublreed legalimmigrant
DryBack, Voilà: Wikileaks recently released documents proving that Hillary Clinton took
$100,000 of cash from a company she ran (and worked for in the 80's and 90's) that also funded
ISIS in Syria. French industrial giant, Lafarge, gave money to the Islamic state to operate
their (Lafarge's) cement plant in Syria, and purchased oil from ISIS. Lafarge are also large
donators to Clinton's election and the Clinton Foundation. More is here: http://yournewswire.com/clinton-was-director-of-company-that-donated-money-to-isis/
Lafarge is a regular donor to the Clinton Foundation – the firm's up to $100,000 donation was
listed in its annual donor list for 2015.
Zepp
Who on Earth would consider Tom Cotton and the Wall Street Journal to be credible sources?
They took the (true, verified) story of the Bush administration flying pallets of $100
bills into Baghdad where they promptly vanished, filed the numbers of, and resurrected it for
this story. The WSJ is a Murdoch organ, and Cotton is a crackpot.
itsmeLucas
Hillary hates Iran more than Trump does... she's just extremely good in deceiving..
Remember when Sanders said to reach out to Iran about the Syrian conflict? Her reply was
exactly this; "asking Iran for cooperation in Syria is like asking a pyromaniac to extinguish
a fire" .. when president, I fear she will not only avoid cooperation but will be playing real
hardball with Iran, where Trump, as someone who seems to be sympathetic to the Russian regime,
might get more friendly with Iran (the friends of your friends...)
It's a mess anyways... trump changes like how the wind blows, and Hillary is a snake
(understatement of the year)
coffeeclutch
Donald Trump and Tom Cotton are the verifying sources for this information? Tom Cotton, who
claimed that Iran needed to be stopped because "[they] already control Tehran?"
The circus act of American politics is really beyond belief. I'm still in awe the Republicans
faced no consequences for issuing a warning letter to a foreign government in the midst of
diplomatic negotiations with the President and the State Department. All while running around
Obama's back and inviting Israel's Prime Minister to address them directly in suggesting how
Americans should approach their foreign policy.
WorkingEU
To shift focus to an Iranian deal seems a good line of attack. But from a historical
perspective it may be a little guileless. The Iranian Revolution was a populist revolt against
globalization, elitism, corruption, foreign treachery and all the other abundant evils.
The clergy promised the earth, and delivered heaven. I confess this is a somewhat superficial
analysis when compared to the profound depth of the Trump campaign.
coffeeclutch -> WorkingEU
If I recall correctly the religious sphere was also one of the areas of social life not
micromanaged and controlled by the Shah (secular authority at that time was rather hands-off
on its approach to the clergy), so the clergy were in a unique position to manipulate a lot of
desperate people by presenting themselves as an "open and freer" alternative to the grossly
exploitative, corrupt, and often violent rule of the secular regime.
Of course once the were able to wrest enough power to shunt aside the various leftist and
student protest groups rising up at the same time, all that concern about anti-corruption and
public welfare was immediately tossed into the bin. Pretty much a Scylla and Charybdis
situation.
jokaz
The US has not held up to the term of the nuclear agreement! The banks are still afraid
of US to deal with Iran. Congress has stopped the beoing deal, etc. The US congress is acting
as bully! Actually not holding itself with the very deal the US signed is very bad! I can see
Iran reluctant to negotiate any deal with a bunch of liars
DBakes
I would like to understand more details about the cash payment and the reason. Was it
really a secret payment? That being said I will never vote for Trump who to me is an imminent
threat to national security.
bobj1156 -> DBakes
There were no bank relations between the US and Iran, so cash was the only option. It
was conducted in secret because who's going to announce that a plane full of cash is in route
to, well, anywhere?
MtnClimber -> DBakes
The US owed that money to Iran. The transfer was kept secret for the reason mentioned
by bob.
MiltonWiltmellow
The US state department has denied this.
The WSJ quoted Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, as accusing the Obama
administration of ...
Does the accusation even matter?
A Murdoch rag prints an unsubstantiated political accusation made a Murdoch political
sympathizer and somehow it becomes credible enough for the Guardian to repeat the smear?
Here's what those of us who live in the Real World™ say.
Where's your fucking proof??
williamdonovan
However, although the cash payment to Iran coincided with the release of a group of Iranian
American prisoners, there is no evidence to suggest any link between the two events.
Evidence maybe not but the read could draw easily make a "inference"
Blacks Law 4th Edition
INFERENCE. In the law of evidence. A truth or proposition drawn from another which is
sup- posed or admitted to be true. A process of reasoning by which a fact or proposition
sought to be established is deduced as a logical consequence from other facts, or a state
of facts, already proved or admitted. Whitehouse v. Bolster, 95 Me. 458, 50 A. 240; Joske
v. Irvine, 91 Tex. 574, 44 S.W. 1059.
A deduction which the reason of the jury makes from the facts proved, without an express
direction of law to that effect. Puget Sound Electric Ry. v. Benson, C.C.A. Wash., 253 F.
710, 714.
A "presumption" and an "inference" are not the same thing, a presumption being a deduction
which the law requires a trier of facts to make, an inference being a deduction which the
trier may or may not make, according to his own conclusions; a presumption is mandatory, an
INFERENCE
eyeinlurk -> williamdonovan
Kind of like the Reagan arms for hostages deal with...uh...Iran. Back in the 80's.
I'm starting to miss the 80's, and I never thought I'd say that.
Ranger4 -> eyeinlurk
And they used the cash to .............fund an insurrection
williamdonovan -> eyeinlurk
I was working at the Pentagon then and found myself having inside knowledge of Iran-Contra
before it unfolded to the rest of the world. Given that the information was highly classified
Top Secret/SRA access. I had been given access to what I thought at the time was two
completely unrelated events moving of the missiles and the training and arming of the contras.
The information was compartmented meaning few people knew about either program and even far
fewer people new both programs where related (it wasn't called Iran-Contra until after much
later) Just weeks before the public new. I was given access to the complete picture. Even then
I couldn't figure how could something like this be legal. Because as we know now it was not.
You could easily draw inference between the these two events.
As I already have!
jrcdmc6670
Ultimately, Mr. Trump's outrage over the $ (true or not) is yet another dodge avoiding
the real question that he needs to be asked: "Do you want a war with Iran?"
Course, I think everybody probably already knows the answer. It'd just be nice to have it
print (or a tweet as the case may be).
jrcdmc6670
If the reports about Trump asking his foreign policy advisers about the utility of
using nuclear weapons are accurate, there are probably several nations, including Iran, who'd
be wise to acquire nuclear weapons as soon as possible to let him know why they shouldn't be
used.
Donald J. Trump unabashedly trumpeted his support for warmer relations with Russia
at a campaign rally here on Monday night, acidly mocking opponents who say he is too
friendly to Vladimir V. Putin, the country's
strongman president. Mr. Trump,
who has been under fire from Democrats and some conservative national security
leaders for his accommodating stance toward Mr. Putin, cast his supportive remarks as
a matter of practical necessity. By aligning itself with Russia, he said, the United
States could more easily take on the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. "If we
could get Russia to help us get rid of ISIS -- if we could actually be friendly with
Russia -- wouldn't that be a good thing?" Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential
nominee, said. Repeating the question moments later, he won loud applause
from the crowd: "If we could get along with Russia, wouldn't that be a good
thing, instead of a bad thing?"
"... The Neoconservatives and the Neoliberals have created madness and mayhem in the world today. Real change will happen only if resources are available for all in a co-operative capitalistic way that raises the standard of living for all rather than the few. We now have socialism of the rich and low productivity with the standard of living becoming more about quantity rather than quality. ..."
Liberals ,conservatives and progressives need to put ideologies behind and form a coalition to
demand change. Just exercising our right to vote will change nothing.
We will continue to get
blow back in the form of terrorism as long as we do not change the foreign policy in the Middle
East which goes back to Sykes -Picot and the aftermath of World War One.
The Neoconservatives and the Neoliberals have created madness and mayhem in the world today.
Real change will happen only if resources are available for all in a co-operative capitalistic
way that raises the standard of living for all rather than the few. We now have socialism of the
rich and low productivity with the standard of living becoming more about quantity rather than
quality.
The people will stop this, dirt-bag:
Obama predicts TPP 'trade' deal will be ratified after election | 02 Aug 2016 | President
Barack Obama
dismissed Hillary Clinton's [phony] opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement
corporate takeover Tuesday and suggested that her disapproval of the deal may be politically
motivated. [*Duh.*] "Right now, I'm president, and I'm for it," he said
at a news conference with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong...While Obama and Lee were speaking,
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was addressing supporters at a rally in Ashburn, Virginia,
just miles from the capital. In a statement, Trump said a victory by him in November is the only
way to stop a "TPP catastrophe."
The Us intervention were dictate by needs of global corporation that control the US foreigh
policy. And they need to open market, press geopolitical rivals (Ukraine, Georgia) and grab
resources (Iraq, Libya). The American people are now hostages in their own country and can do
nothing against the establishement militaristic stance. They will fight and die in unnecessary wars
of neoliberal globalization.
Notable quotes:
"... With Democrats howling that Vladimir Putin hacked into and leaked those 19,000 DNC emails to help Trump, the Donald had a brainstorm: Maybe the Russians can retrieve Hillary Clinton's lost emails. Not funny, and close to "treasonous," came the shocked cry. Trump then told the New York Times that a Russian incursion into Estonia need not trigger a U.S. military response ..."
"... Behind the war guarantees America has issued to scores of nations in Europe, the Mideast and Asia since 1949, the bedrock of public support that existed during the Cold War has crumbled. We got a hint of this in 2013. Barack Obama, claiming his "red line" against any use of poison gas in Syria had been crossed, found he had no public backing for air and missile strikes on the Assad regime. The country rose up as one and told him to forget it. He did. We have been at war since 2001. And as one looks on the ruins of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and adds up the thousands dead and wounded and trillions sunk and lost, can anyone say our War Party has served us well? ..."
"... The first NATO supreme commander, General Eisenhower, said that if U.S. troops were still in Europe in 10 years, NATO would be a failure. In 1961, he urged JFK to start pulling U.S. troops out, lest Europeans become military dependencies of the United States. Was Ike not right? Even Barack Obama today riffs about the "free riders" on America's defense. Is it really so outrageous for Trump to ask how long the U.S. is to be responsible for defending rich Europeans who refuse to conscript the soldiers or pay the cost of their own defense, when Eisenhower was asking that same question 55 years ago? ..."
"... In 1997, geostrategist George Kennan warned that moving NATO into Eastern Europe "would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post-Cold War era." He predicted a fierce nationalistic Russian response. Was Kennan not right? ..."
With Democrats howling that Vladimir Putin hacked into and leaked those 19,000 DNC emails
to help Trump, the Donald had a brainstorm: Maybe the Russians can retrieve Hillary Clinton's lost
emails. Not funny, and close to "treasonous," came the shocked cry. Trump then told the New York
Times that a Russian incursion into Estonia need not trigger a U.S. military response.
Even more shocking. By suggesting the U.S. might not honor its NATO commitment, under Article
5, to fight Russia for Estonia, our foreign policy elites declaimed, Trump has undermined the security
architecture that has kept the peace for 65 years. More interesting, however, was the reaction of
Middle America. Or, to be more exact, the nonreaction. Americans seem neither shocked nor horrified.
What does this suggest?
Behind the war guarantees America has issued to scores of nations in Europe, the Mideast and
Asia since 1949, the bedrock of public support that existed during the Cold War has crumbled. We
got a hint of this in 2013. Barack Obama, claiming his "red line" against any use of poison gas in
Syria had been crossed, found he had no public backing for air and missile strikes on the Assad regime.
The country rose up as one and told him to forget it. He did. We have been at war since 2001. And
as one looks on the ruins of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and adds up the thousands
dead and wounded and trillions sunk and lost, can anyone say our War Party has served us well?
On bringing Estonia into NATO, no Cold War president would have dreamed of issuing so insane a
war guarantee. Eisenhower refused to intervene to save the Hungarian rebels. JFK refused to halt
the building of the Berlin Wall. LBJ did nothing to impede the Warsaw Pact's crushing of the Prague
Spring. Reagan never considered moving militarily to halt the smashing of Solidarity.
Were all these presidents cringing isolationists? Rather, they were realists who recognized that,
though we prayed the captive nations would one day be free, we were not going to risk a world war,
or a nuclear war, to achieve it. Period. In 1991, President Bush told Ukrainians that any declaration
of independence from Moscow would be an act of "suicidal nationalism."
Today, Beltway hawks want to bring Ukraine into NATO. This would mean that America would go to
war with Russia, if necessary, to preserve an independence Bush I regarded as "suicidal."
Have we lost our minds?
The first NATO supreme commander, General Eisenhower, said that if U.S. troops were still
in Europe in 10 years, NATO would be a failure. In 1961, he urged JFK to start pulling U.S. troops
out, lest Europeans become military dependencies of the United States. Was Ike not right? Even Barack
Obama today riffs about the "free riders" on America's defense. Is it really so outrageous for Trump
to ask how long the U.S. is to be responsible for defending rich Europeans who refuse to conscript
the soldiers or pay the cost of their own defense, when Eisenhower was asking that same question
55 years ago?
In 1997, geostrategist George Kennan warned that moving NATO into Eastern Europe "would be
the most fateful error of American policy in the post-Cold War era." He predicted a fierce nationalistic
Russian response. Was Kennan not right? NATO and Russia are today building up forces in the
eastern Baltic where no vital U.S. interests exist, and where we have never fought before - for that
very reason. There is no evidence Russia intends to march into Estonia, and no reason for her to
do so. But if she did, how would NATO expel Russian troops without air and missile strikes that would
devastate that tiny country? And if we killed Russians inside Russia, are we confident Moscow would
not resort to tactical atomic weapons to prevail? After all, Russia cannot back up any further. We
are right in her face.
On this issue Trump seems to be speaking for the silent majority and certainly raising issues
that need to be debated.
How long are we to be committed to go to war to defend the tiny Baltic republics against a
Russia that could overrun them in 72 hours?
When, if ever, does our obligation end? If it is eternal, is not a clash with a revanchist
and anti-American Russia inevitable?
Are U.S. war guarantees in the Baltic republics even credible?
If the Cold War generations of Americans were unwilling to go to war with a nuclear-armed
Soviet Union over Hungary and Czechoslovakia, are the millennials ready to fight a war with Russia
over Estonia?
Needed now is diplomacy. The trade-off: Russia ensures the independence of the Baltic republics
that she let go. And NATO gets out of Russia's face. Should Russia dishonor its commitment, economic
sanctions are the answer, not another European war.
"... What cannot be ignored is that Hilary Clinton has supported a war machine that has resulted in the death of millions, while also supporting a neoliberal economy that has produced massive amounts of suffering and created a mass incarceration state. ..."
"... It is crucial to note that Clinton hides her crimes in the discourse of freedom and appeals to democracy ..."
What cannot be ignored is that Hilary Clinton has supported a war machine that has resulted in
the death of millions, while also supporting a neoliberal economy that has produced massive amounts
of suffering and created a mass incarceration state. Yet, all of that is forgotten as the mainstream
press focuses on stories about Clinton's emails and the details of her electoral run for the presidency.
It is crucial to note that Clinton hides her crimes in the discourse of freedom and appeals to democracy
while Trump overtly disdains such a discourse. In the end, state and domestic violence saturate American
society and the only time this fact gets noticed is when the beatings and murders of Black men are
caught on camera and spread through social media.
Who cares what foreigners think about our election?
Only people with financial ties to the outcome of the election can be expected to really care.
Goldman Sach's tentacles are worldwide.
I love those old cartoons from the 1890s that show the reformers smashing the monopolists.
Envision Trump with an axe, chopping off the tentacles of the vampire squid which screams in agony
and bleeds to death.
I'm reminded of the buttinsky old woman from Austria who is always lecturing me on how we treat
our "Africa-Americans."
I respond with , "So, how do you treat the gypsies in Austria?"
" Oh, that's different!" she shrieks.
"... Really? Do I trust Trump to give the keys to 6970 nukes, 10 carrier strike groups, and a $1Trillion/yr military-industrial complex to a bigoted, sociopathic liar. NOT. I still do remember what it was like the first time I gave my car keys to my 16-year old son. Give the nuclear keys to Trump – ABSOLUTELY. NEVER. ..."
"... Why can't the choice be that noone should have the keys to the nukes? That's assuming anyone does single handedly which is almost certainly false anyway. You think senile old Reagan did? Really you really truly believe that do you? ..."
"... "Should the president decide to order the launch of nuclear weapons, they would be taken aside by the "carrier" of the nuclear football and the briefcase opened. Once opened, the president would decide which "Attack Options", specific orders for attacks on specific targets, to use. The Attack Options are preset war plans developed under OPLAN 8010, and include Major Attack Options (MAOs), Selected Attack Options (SAOs), and Limited Attack Options (LAOs). The chosen attack option and the Gold Codes would then be transmitted to the NMCC via a special, secure channel. As commander-in-chief, the president is the only individual with the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons;however, the two-man rule still applies. ..."
Really? Do I trust Trump to give the keys to 6970 nukes, 10 carrier strike groups, and a $1Trillion/yr
military-industrial complex to a bigoted, sociopathic liar. NOT. I still do remember what it was
like the first time I gave my car keys to my 16-year old son. Give the nuclear keys to Trump –
ABSOLUTELY. NEVER.
Which is not to say that I am totally thrilled with neocon hawk Hillary. Number 1 on my list
of the 9 reasons why I voted for Bernie rather than her in our Primary is that she voted for Bush's
Iraq War and my son did six tours.
"The solution is not to save the Democratic Party, but to replace it."
True enough, but that will not happen between now and 08 November.
We have a binary choice on 08 Nov – I do not think a replay Nader in FL in 2000 is a particularly
smart option.
Why can't the choice be that noone should have the keys to the nukes? That's assuming anyone
does single handedly which is almost certainly false anyway. You think senile old Reagan did?
Really you really truly believe that do you?
"Should the president decide to order the launch of nuclear weapons, they would be taken aside
by the "carrier" of the nuclear football and the briefcase opened. Once opened, the president
would decide which "Attack Options", specific orders for attacks on specific targets, to use.
The Attack Options are preset war plans developed under OPLAN 8010, and include Major Attack Options
(MAOs), Selected Attack Options (SAOs), and Limited Attack Options (LAOs). The chosen attack option
and the Gold Codes would then be transmitted to the NMCC via a special, secure channel. As commander-in-chief,
the president is the only individual with the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons;however,
the two-man rule still applies.
The National Command Authority comprising the president and Secretary
of Defense must jointly authenticate the order to use nuclear weapons to the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. The order would then be transmitted over a tan-yellow phone, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Alerting Network, otherwise known as the "Gold Phone", that directly links the NMCC with
United States Strategic Command Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska."
So there are some checks to prevent Donald Trump or HRC launching a nuclear strike in a fit
of temper..
Donald Trump Calls Comments About Russia and Clinton Emails 'Sarcastic' | 28 July 2016
| Facing a torrent of criticism over his comments seeming to condone the hacking of Hillary Clinton's
emails by Russian intelligence services, Donald J. Trump and his allies on Thursday sought to tamp
down his remarks, with Mr. Trump saying he was simply being "sarcastic." In public interviews and
private conversations on Thursday, Mr. Trump; his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana; and campaign
staff members contended that Mr. Trump was being facetious when, during a news conference on Wednesday,
he said he hoped Russia would be able to find Mrs. Clinton's missing emails. "Of course I'm being
sarcastic," Mr. Trump told "Fox and Friends" Thursday morning as his aides accused the news media
of misconstruing his remarks.
"... If he just avoids a major world war, that will be enough for me. Because I believe the American elite would be quite happy for that to happen – it badly wants Russia taken off the board, and China too if they will not cooperate and learn their place, and such a war would be fought in Europe – again – while America is insulated by distance. Of course Russia would ensure America paid a price, but in the plan, their missiles would not reach their targets owing to the USA's brilliant missile defense. ..."
"... If this is not America's plan, then the last 5 years' amped-up hatred and deliberate alienation of Russia from the United States, for a generation at least, looks awfully stupid. ..."
"... For the moment, at least, Trump has pulled into the lead . It remains to be seen if Sanders democrats will forgive Clinton for her unconscionable maneuvering, self-promotion and subordination of the DNC to her cause alone, not to mention what must now be complete disillusionment with the latter organization. The democrats, amazingly, are making the republicans look clean by comparison. ..."
"... Don't underestimate how stupid they can be. They trashed Afghanistan and Iraq, and were then surprised that Iran became the dominating power in the region (after destroying Iran's two most formidable foes). ..."
"... The US government can do stupidity, I don't think they plan so well. ..."
If you should happen to like to see our Fern's excellent comment on here turned into a 'Letter
to the Editor', look no further than here: http://www.ukipdaily.com/letters-editor-26th-july-2016/
Hers is the second of three – the last one by an American friend about the Hillary convention
is a hoot!
It looks even more visionary in a newspaper format. And the third comment is indeed a cracker.
I don't understand why there is not a general revolt in the United States – are Americans seriously
going to put up with this complete and brazen hijacking of what was not even a democratic process
to begin with? And what next? Will Hillary simply rewrite the Presidential term in office to 'forever'?
I don't think Hilary is going to get in.
In the first place, the now nearly daily muslim terrorist acts in Europe add another 5% each to
Trump's vote.
In the second place, more and more dirt will come out on Hilary and Bill, and more and more people
are aware of the underhand dealings in vote counting. It was one thing to keep quiet four years
ago when most people couldn't give a toss about Romney, so squeals of voting fraud were not widely
reported.
Now they know, now they are aware, and now, unlike Romney, there's one candidate who's not afraid
of saying what most people think.
I belive Trump will do it.
What happens after he's in – well, it's gotta be better than Hilary.
If he just avoids a major world war, that will be enough for me. Because I believe the American
elite would be quite happy for that to happen – it badly wants Russia taken off the board, and
China too if they will not cooperate and learn their place, and such a war would be fought in
Europe – again – while America is insulated by distance. Of course Russia would ensure America
paid a price, but in the plan, their missiles would not reach their targets owing to the USA's
brilliant missile defense.
If this is not America's plan, then the last 5 years' amped-up hatred and deliberate alienation
of Russia from the United States, for a generation at least, looks awfully stupid.
For the moment, at least,
Trump has pulled into the lead . It remains to be seen if Sanders democrats will forgive Clinton
for her unconscionable maneuvering, self-promotion and subordination of the DNC to her cause alone,
not to mention what must now be complete disillusionment with the latter organization. The democrats,
amazingly, are making the republicans look clean by comparison.
"Of course Russia would ensure America paid a price, but in the plan, their missiles would not
reach their targets owing to the USA's brilliant missile defense."
Don't underestimate how stupid they can be. They trashed Afghanistan and Iraq, and were then surprised
that Iran became the dominating power in the region (after destroying Iran's two most formidable
foes).
The US government can do stupidity, I don't think they plan so well.
"... Trump, unlike most politicians, isn't a pitiful, cowardly liar who'd sell his soul, his mother and his best friend for a fistful of cash. You're probably confusing him with Tony Bliar, Bush II and 'Mr Magoo without the good intentions' - John W Howard, a creepy sell-out with no presence, personality or moral compass. ..."
But don't expect anything much in the way of 'keeping promises' post-election. "What, those
were promises? I was just putting on a show, and you _loved_ it." Posted by: fairleft | Jul 25, 2016 12:28:47 PM | 42
You wish...
Trump, unlike most politicians, isn't a pitiful, cowardly liar who'd sell his soul, his mother and
his best friend for a fistful of cash. You're probably confusing him with Tony Bliar, Bush II and
'Mr Magoo without the good intentions' - John W Howard, a creepy sell-out with no presence, personality
or moral compass.
After one of his early promise-laden election victories, he had the gall to dismiss a press query
about several of his broken promises thus:
"Uhh, they were non-core promises."
Trump's too smart and proud to box himself in with false promises. If he's flogging a vague idea
it'll be vague BEFORE the election, not afterwards.
Remember Obama railed against "stupid wars". I assumed that he was referring to the destruction
of Iraq. Since then, Obama has engaged the USA in more stupid wars than any president in history.
Now we have Trump - America First. Also opposed to stupid wars. But his favorite Foreign Policy guy is Zionist for Yinon Plan for Greater Israel John Bolton.
That can't be good.
BUT Trump is not saber rattling straight out of the box like the Hell Bitch is doing.
"... According to recent figures, the BASF PAC has distributed $399,000 in donations. The lion's share of this money, a good 72 percent, flowed to the Republicans. This is not surprising, writes Die Welt. In previous election years, BASF, Allianz and Bayer had supported the Republicans. ..."
In a guest editorial reprinted from the Los Angeles Times, the FAZ writes of a possible
military coup in the oldest democracy in the world. Under the headline, "If Trump wins, a coup
isn't impossible here in the US," journalist James Kirchick develops a scenario in which
President Trump gives the military an illegal command, which it refuses to carry it out.
The article ends with the following: "Trump is not only patently unfit to be president, but a
danger to America and the world. Voters must stop him before the military has to."
German corporations with operations in the US reacted somewhat differently. As Die Welt
reports, notable large concerns from Germany gave more than two-thirds of their election
donations to the Republicans, and thus to Trump; above all BASF, Allianz, Siemens and Deutsche
Bank.
Since US law prevents American or foreign companies from making direct donations to
candidates, campaign funding takes place via so-called Political Action Committees (PACs). This
is a legal construct allowing the circumvention of both the strict limit on donations as well as
the ban on corporate donations. Via so-called super PACs, hundreds of millions of dollars flow
into campaign advertising.
According to recent figures, the BASF PAC has distributed $399,000 in donations. The
lion's share of this money, a good 72 percent, flowed to the Republicans. This is not surprising,
writes Die Welt. In previous election years, BASF, Allianz and Bayer had supported the
Republicans.
According to Die Welt, in this election campaign the chemical and pharmaceutical
group Bayer sent 80 percent of its donations to benefit the Republicans. At financial services
company Allianz it was 72 percent.
Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, changed political camps. The paper writes: "While Deutsche
Bank donated comparatively little, only $37,000, it is remarkable that 86 percent of this money
was distributed to the Republican camp." Such a clear tendency could not be seen in any other
German company.
That Deutsche Bank sympathies with the Republicans is new. In 2006 and 2008, the bank had
clearly tended toward the Democrats. The change of side was not surprising, "since Deutsche Bank
is the largest lender to Donald Trump." For the renovation of a hotel in Washington, Trump
borrowed $170 million from Deutsche Bank.
@37 jfl If you think Trump is a liar, then everything he says is bullshit. But I see his remarks over a long time are consistent.
And in sequel on #32 William Engdahl has to explain a lot. In his "A Century of War" he describes how the US industry was crippled in the 50's and 60's. And how the protestors were demonised.
p. 119 Riots were deliberately incited in industrial cities like Newark, Boston, Oakland and Philadelphia
by government-backed 'insurgents', such as Tom Hayden. The goal of this operation was to break the
power of established industrial trade unions in the northern cities by labeling them racist.
p. 120 The newly created U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity weakened the political voice of traditional
American labor and the influential urban constituency machines. The targeted white blue-collar industrial
operatives, only a decade earlier hailed as the lifeblood of American industry, were suddenly labeled
'reactionary' and 'racist' by the powerful liberal media. These workers were mostly fearful and confused
as they saw their entire social fabric collapsing in the wake of the disinvestment policy of the
powerful banks.
Hey William, did you read about Trump's ideas to bring back jobs to the USA? (and do you recognize something?)
And William, did you understand his remarks about that Mexican Wall (on American Soil). (preventing illegal immigration, ALSO because he wants higher minimum wages (impossible with illegal
immigrants))
In a YouTube video about the lawsuit, Jason Beck said there were six claims to the case. The
first is fraud against the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, stating that they broke legally
binding agreements by strategizing for Clinton.
The second is negligent misrepresentation.
The third is deceptive conduct by claiming they were remaining neutral when they were not. The
fourth is is retribution for monetary donations to Sanders' campaign.
The fifth is that the DNC broke its fiduciary duties during the primaries by not holding a
fair process. And the sixth is for negligence, claiming that the DNC did not protect donor
information from hackers.
"... But finally came Trump's speech, and this was for the first time, policy was there. And he's making a left run around Hillary. He appealed twice to Bernie Sanders supporters, and the two major policies that he outlined in the speech broke radically from the Republican traditional right-wing stance. And that is called destroying the party by the right wing, and Trump said he's not destroying the party, he's building it up and appealing to labor, and appealing to the rational interest that otherwise had been backing Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... So in terms of national security, he wanted to roll back NATO spending. And he made it clear, roll back military spending. We can spend it on infrastructure, we can spend it on employing American labor. And in the speech, he said, look, we don't need foreign military bases and foreign spending to defend our allies. We can defend them from the United States, because in today's world, the only kind of war we're going to have is atomic war. Nobody's going to invade another country. We're not going to send American troops to invade Russia, if it were to attack. So nobody's even talking about that. So let's be realistic. ..."
PERIES: So let's take a look at this article by Paul Krugman. Where is he going with this analysis
about the Siberian candidate?
HUDSON: Well, Krugman has joined the ranks of the neocons, as well as the neoliberals, and they're
terrified that they're losing control of the Republican Party. For the last half-century the Republican
Party has been pro-Cold War, corporatist. And Trump has actually, is reversing that. Reversing the
whole traditional platform. And that really worries the neocons.
Until his speech, the whole Republican Convention, every speaker had avoided dealing with economic
policy issues. No one referred to the party platform, which isn't very good. And it was mostly an
attack on Hillary. Chants of "lock her up." And Trump children, aimed to try to humanize him and
make him look like a loving man.
But finally came Trump's speech, and this was for the first time, policy was there. And he's
making a left run around Hillary. He appealed twice to Bernie Sanders supporters, and the two major
policies that he outlined in the speech broke radically from the Republican traditional right-wing
stance. And that is called destroying the party by the right wing, and Trump said he's not destroying
the party, he's building it up and appealing to labor, and appealing to the rational interest that
otherwise had been backing Bernie Sanders.
So in terms of national security, he wanted to roll back NATO spending. And he made it clear,
roll back military spending. We can spend it on infrastructure, we can spend it on employing American
labor. And in the speech, he said, look, we don't need foreign military bases and foreign spending
to defend our allies. We can defend them from the United States, because in today's world, the only
kind of war we're going to have is atomic war. Nobody's going to invade another country. We're not
going to send American troops to invade Russia, if it were to attack. So nobody's even talking about
that. So let's be realistic.
Well, being realistic has driven other people crazy.
"... The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponents, is that our plan will put America First. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America with respect. This will all change in 2017. ..."
"... The American People will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America. ..."
"... Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. ..."
"... That is why Hillary Clinton's message is that things will never change. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now. Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned. ..."
"... I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice. ..."
"... I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens. ..."
"... And when a Secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can't see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level like never before. ..."
"... When the FBI Director says that the Secretary of State was "extremely careless" and "negligent," in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did. They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible crimes. ..."
"... In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting away with it – especially when others have paid so dearly. When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers I know the time for action has come. ..."
"... We must have the best intelligence gathering operation in the world. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping out Islamic terror. ..."
"... We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America's Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful immigration system. ..."
"... On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone. ..."
"... But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens. My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Communities want relief. ..."
"... Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country. ..."
"... My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization – another one of her husband's colossal mistakes. ..."
"... She supported the job killing trade deal with South Korea. She has supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of foreign governments. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence. Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries. ..."
"... My opponent would rather protect education bureaucrats than serve American children. We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again. And we will fix TSA at the airports! We will completely rebuild our depleted military, and the countries that we protect, at a massive loss, will be asked to pay their fair share. We will take care of our great Veterans like they have never been taken care of before. My opponent dismissed the VA scandal as being not widespread – one more sign of how out of touch she really is. We are going to ask every Department Head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about it, I'm going to do it. We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our laws and our Constitution. ..."
Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they have lived through one international
humiliation after another. We all remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees
by their Iranian captors at gunpoint.
This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back to Iran $150 billion and
gave us nothing – it will go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made. Another humiliation
came when president Obama drew a red line in Syria – and the whole world knew it meant nothing.
In Libya, our consulate – the symbol of American prestige around the globe – was brought down
in flames. America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the
decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy.
I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets. Her bad instincts and her bad judgment – something
pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what caused the disasters unfolding today. Let's review the record.
In 2009, pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.
Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being
choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have?
ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and our Ambassador and his staff
were left helpless to die at the hands of savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim
brotherhood, forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.
Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil war and a refugee crisis
that now threatens the West. After fifteen years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars
spent and thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been before.
This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.
But Hillary Clinton's legacy does not have to be America's legacy. The problems we face now –
poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue
relying on the same politicians who created them. A change in leadership is required to change these
outcomes. Tonight, I will share with you my plan of action for America.
The most important difference between our plan and that of our opponents, is that our plan will
put America First. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians
who will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations will not treat America
with respect. This will all change in 2017.
The American People will come first once again. My plan will begin with safety at home – which
means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity
without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions
in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.
A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation's
most powerful special interests. That is because these interests have rigged our political and economic
system for their exclusive benefit.
Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because
they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have
total control over everything she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.
That is why Hillary Clinton's message is that things will never change. My message is that things
have to change – and they have to change right now. Every day I wake up determined to deliver for
the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.
I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair
trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer
have a voice.
I AM YOUR VOICE.
I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their
personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government
incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.
When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the will, or the courage, or the
basic decency to enforce our laws – or worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash
– I am not able to look the other way.
And when a Secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a private server, deletes 33,000
of them so the authorities can't see her crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every
different form and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level like never before.
When the FBI Director says that the Secretary of State was "extremely careless" and "negligent,"
in handling our classified secrets, I also know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually
did. They were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible crimes.
In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an egregious crime and getting
away with it – especially when others have paid so dearly. When that same Secretary of State rakes
in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers I know the
time for action has come.
I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people that cannot
defend themselves. Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have
seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie
Sanders – he never had a chance.
But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade. Millions
of Democrats will join our movement because we are going to fix the system so it works for all Americans.
In this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next Vice President of the United States: Governor
Mike Pence of Indiana.
We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought to Indiana. He is a man of
character and accomplishment. He is the right man for the job. The first task for our new Administration
will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their
communities.
... ... ...
We must have the best intelligence gathering operation in the world. We must abandon the failed
policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and
Syria. Instead, we must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS and stamping
out Islamic terror.
This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State of Israel. Lastly, we must
immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such
time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place.
My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive
refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that
there's no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from.
I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people.
Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will
be.
Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens,
especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that
works, but one that works for the American people.
On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants Mary Ann
Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw. They are just three brave representatives of many thousands.
Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more deeply than the time I have spent
with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our border.
These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protest
on their behalf. My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain. Instead, my opponent
wants Sanctuary Cities. But where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was Sanctuary for the children
of Mary Ann, Sabine and Jamiel? Where was sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so
brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?
These wounded American families have been alone. But they are alone no longer. Tonight, this candidate
and this whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love, and to pledge
in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering the same awful fate.
We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the
violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive
the endorsement of America's Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly with them to protect the
integrity of our lawful immigration system.
By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence.
Illegal border crossings will go down. Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for the millions
who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they deserve.
Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied – and every
politician who has denied them – to listen very closely to the words I am about to say.
On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake
up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate
and compassionate to everyone.
But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens. My plan is the exact opposite
of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled
immigration. Communities want relief.
Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness. Her plan
will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder
for recent immigrants to escape from poverty.
I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair trade policy that protects
our jobs and stands up to countries that cheat. It's been a signature message of my campaign from
day one, and it will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the oath of office.
I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I'm going to make our country rich
again. I am going to turn our bad trade agreements into great ones. America has lost nearly-one third
of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported
by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our
country.
Never again.
I am going to bring our jobs back to Ohio and to America – and I am not going to let companies
move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequences.
My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade agreement that has been destroying
our middle class. She supported NAFTA, and she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization
– another one of her husband's colossal mistakes.
She supported the job killing trade deal with South Korea. She has supported the Trans-Pacific
Partnership. The TPP will not only destroy our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to
the rulings of foreign governments. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers,
or that diminishes our freedom and independence. Instead, I will make individual deals with individual
countries.
No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many countries, that are thousands of pages
long – and which no one from our country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade
violations, including through the use of taxes and tariffs, against any country that cheats.
This includes stopping China's outrageous theft of intellectual property, along with their illegal
product dumping, and their devastating currency manipulation. Our horrible trade agreements with
China and many others, will be totally renegotiated. That includes renegotiating NAFTA to get a much
better deal for America – and we'll walk away if we don't get the deal that we want. We are going
to start building and making things again.
Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules. While Hillary Clinton plans
a massive tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has declared
for the presidential race this year – Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans will experience
profound relief, and taxes will be simplified for everyone.
America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies
and new jobs to come roaring back into our country. Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation,
one of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is costing our country as much
as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it. We are going to lift the restrictions on the production
of American energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job creating economic activity over
the next four decades.
My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and steel workers of our country
out of work – that will never happen when I am President. With these new economic policies, trillions
of dollars will start flowing into our country.
This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans – We will build the roads,
highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions
more jobs. We will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them to a safe
school of their choice.
My opponent would rather protect education bureaucrats than serve American children. We will repeal
and replace disastrous Obamacare. You will be able to choose your own doctor again. And we will fix
TSA at the airports! We will completely rebuild our depleted military, and the countries that we
protect, at a massive loss, will be asked to pay their fair share.
We will take care of our great Veterans like they have never been taken care of before. My opponent
dismissed the VA scandal as being not widespread – one more sign of how out of touch she really is.
We are going to ask every Department Head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending projects
that we can eliminate in my first 100 days. The politicians have talked about it, I'm going to do
it. We are also going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will uphold our
laws and our Constitution.
The replacement for Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views and principles. This will
be one of the most important issues decided by this election. My opponent wants to essentially abolish
the 2nd amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong endorsement of the National
Rifle Association and will protect the right of all Americans to keep their families safe.
"... Krugman has joined the ranks of the neocons, as well as the neoliberals, and they're terrified that they're losing control of the Republican Party. For the last half-century the Republican Party has been pro-Cold War, corporatist. And Trump has actually, is reversing that. Reversing the whole traditional platform. And that really worries the neocons. ..."
"... But finally came Trump's speech, and this was for the first time, policy was there. And he's making a left run around Hillary. He appealed twice to Bernie Sanders supporters, and the two major policies that he outlined in the speech broke radically from the Republican traditional right-wing stance. And that is called destroying the party by the right wing, and Trump said he's not destroying the party, he's building it up and appealing to labor, and appealing to the rational interest that otherwise had been backing Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... So in terms of national security, he wanted to roll back NATO spending. And he made it clear, roll back military spending. ..."
"... Well, being realistic has driven other people crazy. Not only did Krugman say that Trump would, quote, actually follow a pro-Putin foreign policy at the expense of America's allies, and he's referring to the Ukraine, basically, and it's at–he's become a lobbyist for the military-industrial complex. But also, at the Washington Post you had Anne Applebaum call him explicitly the Manchurian candidate, referring to the 1962 movie, and rejecting the neocon craziness. This has just driven them nutty because they're worried of losing the Republican Party under Trump. ..."
"... In economic policy, Trump also opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the TTIP trade and corporate power grab [inaud.] with Europe to block public regulation. And this was also a major plank of Bernie Sanders' campaign against Hillary, which Trump knows. ..."
"... And this may be for show, simply to brand Hillary as Wall Street's candidate. But it also seems to actually be an attack on Wall Street. And Trump's genius was to turn around all the attacks on him as being a shady businessman. He said, look, nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. Now, what that means, basically, as a businessman, he knows the fine print by which they've been screwing the people. So only someone like him knows how to fight against Wall Street. After all, he's been screwing the Wall Street banks for years [inaud.]. And he can now fight for the population fighting against Wall Street, just as he's been able to stiff the banks. ..."
"... When it comes–he also in that sense appealed to, as you said, the Bernie Sanders people when he talked about the trade deals. You know, he's been talking about NAFTA, TTIP, TTP, and these are areas that really is traditionally been the left of the left issues. And now there's this, that he's anti-these trade deals, and he's going to bring jobs home. What does that mean? ..."
"... I think that the most, the biggest contradiction, was you can look at how the convention began with Governor Christie. Accusing Hillary of being pro-Russian when she's actually threatening war, and criticizing her for not helping the Ukrainians when it was she who brought Victorian Nuland in to push the coup d'etat with the neo-nazis, and gave them $5 billion. And Trump reversed the whole thing and said no, no, no. I'm not anti-Russian, I'm pro-Russian. I'm not going to defend Ukrainians. Just the opposite. ..."
"... All of that–you've had the Koch brothers say we're not going to give money to Trump, the Republicans, now. We're backing Hillary. You've got the Chamber of Commerce saying because Trump isn't for the corporate takeover of foreign trade, we're now supporting the Democrats, not the Reepublicans. ..."
"... So this is really the class war. And it's the class war of Wall Street and the corporate sector of the Democratic side against Trump on the populist side. And who knows whether he really means what he says when he says he's for the workers and he wants to rebuild the cities, put labor back to work. And when he says he's for the blacks and Hispanics have to get jobs just like white people, maybe he's telling the truth, because that certainly is the way that the country can be rebuilt in a positive way. ..."
Trump's divergence from the conventional Republican platform is generating indignant punditry
from neocons and neoliberals alike
SHARMINI PERIES, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, TRNN: It's the Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries coming
to you from Baltimore.
On Friday, just after the Republican National Congress wrapped up with its presidential candidate,
Donald Trump, Paul Krugman of the New York Times penned an article titled "Donald Trump: The Siberian
Candidate." He said in it, if elected, would Donald Trump be Vladimir Putin's man in the White House?
Krugman himself is worried as ludicrous and outrageous as the question sounds, the Trump campaign's
recent behavior has quite a few foreign policy experts wondering, he says, just what kind of hold
Mr. Putin has over the Republican nominee, and whether that influence will continue if he wins.
Well, let's unravel that statement with Michael Hudson. He's joining us from New York. Michael
is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri Kansas City. His
latest book is Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroyed the Global Economy.
Thank you so much for joining us, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON:
It's good to be here, Sharmini. It's been an exciting week.
PERIES:
So let's take a look at this article by Paul Krugman. Where is he going with this analysis
about the Siberian candidate?
HUDSON:
Well,
Krugman has joined the ranks of the neocons, as well as the neoliberals, and
they're terrified that they're losing control of the Republican Party. For the last half-century
the Republican Party has been pro-Cold War, corporatist. And Trump has actually, is reversing that.
Reversing the whole traditional platform. And that really worries the neocons.
Until his speech, the whole Republican Convention, every speaker had avoided dealing with economic
policy issues. No one referred to the party platform, which isn't very good. And it was mostly an
attack on Hillary. Chants of "lock her up." And Trump children, aimed to try to humanize him and
make him look like a loving man.
But finally came Trump's speech, and this was for the first time, policy was there. And he's
making a left run around Hillary. He appealed twice to Bernie Sanders supporters, and the two major
policies that he outlined in the speech broke radically from the Republican traditional right-wing
stance. And that is called destroying the party by the right wing, and Trump said he's not destroying
the party, he's building it up and appealing to labor, and appealing to the rational interest that
otherwise had been backing Bernie Sanders.
So in terms of national security, he wanted to roll back NATO spending. And he made it clear,
roll back military spending.
We can spend it on infrastructure, we can spend it on employing
American labor. And in the speech, he said, look, we don't need foreign military bases and foreign
spending to defend our allies. We can defend them from the United States, because in today's world,
the only kind of war we're going to have is atomic war. Nobody's going to invade another country.
We're not going to send American troops to invade Russia, if it were to attack. So nobody's even
talking about that. So let's be realistic.
Well, being realistic has driven other people crazy. Not only did Krugman say that Trump would,
quote, actually follow a pro-Putin foreign policy at the expense of America's allies, and he's referring
to the Ukraine, basically, and it's at–he's become a lobbyist for the military-industrial complex.
But also, at the Washington Post you had Anne Applebaum call him explicitly the Manchurian candidate,
referring to the 1962 movie, and rejecting the neocon craziness. This has just driven them nutty
because they're worried of losing the Republican Party under Trump.
In economic policy, Trump also opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the TTIP trade and
corporate power grab [inaud.] with Europe to block public regulation. And this was also a major plank
of Bernie Sanders' campaign against Hillary, which Trump knows.
The corporatist wings of both
the Republican and the Democratic Parties fear that Trump's opposition to NAFTA and TPP will lead
the Republicans not to push through in the lame duck session after November. The whole plan has been
that once the election's over, Obama will then get all the Republicans together and will pass the
Republican platform that he's been pushing for the last eight years. The Trans-Pacific Partnership
trade agreement with Europe, and the other neoliberal policies.
And now that Trump is trying to rebuild the Republican Party, all of that is threatened. And so
on the Republican side of the New York Times page you had David Brooks writing "The death of the
Republican Party." So what Trump calls the rebirth of the Republican Party, it means the death of
the reactionary, conservative, corporatist, anti-labor Republican Party.
And when he wrote this, quote, Trump is decimating the things Republicans stood for: NATO, entitlement
reform, in other words winding back Social Security, and support of the corporatist Trans-Pacific
Partnership. So it's almost hilarious to see what happens. And Trump also has reversed the traditional
Republican fiscal responsibility austerity policy, that not a word about balanced budgets anymore.
And he said he was going to run at policy to employ American labor and put it back to work on infrastructure.
Again, he's made a left runaround Hillary. He says he wants to reinstate Glass-Steagall, whereas
the Clintons were the people that got rid of it.
And this may be for show, simply to brand Hillary as Wall Street's candidate. But it also seems
to actually be an attack on Wall Street. And Trump's genius was to turn around all the attacks on
him as being a shady businessman. He said, look, nobody knows the system better than me, which is
why I alone can fix it. Now, what that means, basically, as a businessman, he knows the fine print
by which they've been screwing the people. So only someone like him knows how to fight against Wall
Street. After all, he's been screwing the Wall Street banks for years [inaud.]. And he can now fight
for the population fighting against Wall Street, just as he's been able to stiff the banks.
So it's sort of hilarious. On the one hand, leading up to him you had Republicans saying throw
Hillary in jail. And Hillary saying throw Trump in the [inaud.]. And so you have the whole election
coming up with-.
PERIES:
Maybe we should take the lead and lock them all up. Michael, what is becoming very clear
is that there's a great deal of inconsistencies on the part of the Republican Party. Various people
are talking different things, like if you hear Mike Pence, the vice presidential candidate, speak,
and then you heard Donald Trump, and then you heard Ivanka Trump speak yesterday, they're all saying
different things. It's like different strokes for different folks. And I guess in marketing and marketeering,
which Trump is the master of, that makes perfect sense. Just tap on everybody's shoulder so they
feel like they're the ones being represented as spoken about, and they're going to have their issues
addressed in some way.
When it comes–he also in that sense appealed to, as you said, the Bernie Sanders people when he
talked about the trade deals. You know, he's been talking about NAFTA, TTIP, TTP, and these are areas
that really is traditionally been the left of the left issues. And now there's this, that he's anti-these
trade deals, and he's going to bring jobs home. What does that mean?
HUDSON:
Well, you're right when you say there's a policy confusion within the Republican Party.
And I guess if this were marketing, it's the idea that everybody hears what they want to hear. And
if they can hear right-wing gay bashing from the Indiana governor, and they can hear Trump talking
about hte LGBTQ, everybody will sort of be on the side.
But I listened to what Governor Pence said about defending Trump's views on NATO. And he's so
smooth. So slick, that he translated what Trump said in a way that no Republican conservative could
really disagree with it. I think he was a very good pick for vice president, because he can, obviously
he's agreed to follow what Trump's saying, and he's so smooth, being a lawyer, that he can make it
all appear much more reasonable than it would.
I think that the most, the biggest contradiction, was you can look at how the convention began
with Governor Christie. Accusing Hillary of being pro-Russian when she's actually threatening war,
and criticizing her for not helping the Ukrainians when it was she who brought Victorian Nuland in
to push the coup d'etat with the neo-nazis, and gave them $5 billion. And Trump reversed the whole
thing and said no, no, no. I'm not anti-Russian, I'm pro-Russian. I'm not going to defend Ukrainians.
Just the opposite.
And it's obvious that the Republicans have fallen into line behind them. And no wonder the Democrats
want them to lose.
All of that–you've had the Koch brothers say we're not going to give money to
Trump, the Republicans, now. We're backing Hillary. You've got the Chamber of Commerce saying because
Trump isn't for the corporate takeover of foreign trade, we're now supporting the Democrats, not
the Reepublicans.
So this is really the class war. And it's the class war of Wall Street and the corporate sector
of the Democratic side against Trump on the populist side. And who knows whether he really means
what he says when he says he's for the workers and he wants to rebuild the cities, put labor back
to work. And when he says he's for the blacks and Hispanics have to get jobs just like white people,
maybe he's telling the truth, because that certainly is the way that the country can be rebuilt in
a positive way.
And the interesting thing is that all he gets from the Democrats is denunciations. So I can't
wait to see how Bernie Sanders is going to handle all this at the Democratic Convention next week.
"... "On the one hand he says something that sounds good to non-interventionists…On the other hand he says something like 'Obama went in there and bombed Libya and just walked away.'" ..."
Following Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's exploratory foreign policy
speech on Wednesday, political analyst Daniel McAdams speaks with Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear to
discuss what, exactly, the candidate's worldview encompasses.
"It is clear that in Washington he has aligned himself with foreign policy advisors that are not
the usual neocons. So that's good news, to a degree. That's why you have so much gnashing of the
teeth in Washington," McAdams, of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, tells
Loud & Clear,
referring to billionaire Donald Trump.
"On the other hand, the people that he does have around him are realists, to a degree, but that
is not super satisfying to a non-interventionist and an anti-war person because realists…lack the
philosophy…of avoiding war and avoiding entangling alliance."
"…The specific plans that he outlined a) were not very well hashed out, and b) they don't make
a lot of sense," says McAdams.
While Trump does recognize the failure of Washington's insistence on pursuing a Cold War-era strategy,
the candidate does not see American imperialism as part of the problem.
One example is his opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement.
"This groveling to Israel, this blind condemnation of the Iran nuclear deal…I don't get his beef
and I don't think he gets his beef. It just makes him sound good, it makes him sound tough."
On the issue of the Iraq and Syria, the Republican frontrunner seemed to offer contradictory positions.
"This is where I think he's either very clever or fairly goofy," McAdams says.
"On the one hand he says something that sounds good to non-interventionists…On the other hand
he says something like 'Obama went in there and bombed Libya and just walked away.'"
"That's the whole point," states McAdams. "Not walking away means staying in and doing nation
building. So he doesn't understand what caused the problem. He also promises to use military force
to contain radical Islam, and he talks about 'Why are we not bombing Libya right now?'"
Trump also spoke of restoring the military superiority of America, the country with the largest
military budget in the world, shortly after stating that he would pursue peace.
"Rebuild our military from what? We spend more than most of the rest of the world combined. We
have an enormous military, we're involved in over 120 countries," McAdams says.
"What he means by 'rebuild' the military is keep Washington and its environs extraordinarily rich,"
he adds, describing the military-industrial complex, which Trump appears to support.
He did, however, offer a surprisingly insightful take on US-Russia relations.
"Here's what he said exactly. 'We should seek common ground based on shared interest with Russia.'
He said he'd, 'Make a deal that's good for us and good for Russia.' That sounds terrific. If he follows
through with that I think we should be very optimistic."
"... Trump has done much to trigger the scorn of neocon pundits. He denounced the Iraq War as a mistake based on Bush administration lies, just prior to scoring a sizable victory in the South Carolina GOP primary. In last week's contentious GOP presidential debate, he defended the concept of neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is utterly taboo on the neocon right. ..."
"... "It serves no purpose to say you have a good guy and a bad guy," he said , pledging to take a neutral position in negotiating peace. ..."
"... This set off his rival Marco Rubio, who replied, "The position you've taken is an anti-Israel position. … Because you cannot be an honest broker in a dispute between two sides in which one of the sides is constantly acting in bad faith." The Jerusalem Post suggested that Rubio's assault on Trump's views on the Middle East was designed to win Florida . If that's the case, it's apparently not working - in the Real Clear Politics ..."
"... In his quest to take up George W. Bush's mantle, Rubio has arrayed a fleet of neoconservative funders, ranging from pro-Israel billionaire Paul Singer to Norman Braman , a billionaire auto dealer who funds Israeli settlements in the West Bank. His list of advisers is like a rolodex of Iraq War backers, ranging from Bush administration alumni Elliot Abrams and Stephen Hadley, to Kagan and serial war propagandist Bill Kristol. ..."
"... Kristol also sits on the board of the Emergency Committee for Israel - a dark money group that assails candidates it perceives as insufficiently pro-Israel. The group started airing an ad this weekend against Trump portraying him as an ally to despots like Bashar Assad, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Qaddafi - mostly because he argued that military invasions of Libya and Iraq left those countries worse off. ..."
"... The guy who accelerated the process of reducing the middle east to chaos ran on a platform of a 'humbler' foreign policy, condemning nation-building. How'd that work out for us? ..."
"... The pain and anguish of the neo cons is highly entertaining, and so damn warranted, but let's not get taken in. ..."
"... isn't robert kagan the husband of state diplomat and cheney/h.clinton appointee victoria nuland? hillary is already as neocon as it gets. ..."
"... If Trump can survive the nomination process, in spite of what the MSN can muster-up against him, it will represent first time in the past 60 years that the Establishment did not choose and own the candidates of both parties. ..."
"... TRUMP's opponents offer nothing but their arrogant condescending attitudes towards the voting population. Their use of scare tactics on voters will no longer work. These cookie-cutter politicians and their obsolete powerful old-boy establishment handlers are wrong for today's challenges and tomorrows solutions. Stop wasting voter's time and energy trying to make this election about personalities, gender, race, minorities, religion, fear and hatred. TRUMP has faith and trust in the voters; TRUMP is the only candidate who doesn't insult, scare or lie to voters; TRUMP offers voters hope and a future ALL Americans can believe in and deserve. ..."
"... All of Trump's establishment opponents are begging for just one more chance. These opponent candidates squandered thousands of opportunities, for the past fifty years, at the expense of All Americans in America and abroad. Powerful corrupt insiders', of every party affiliation, who discredit TRUMP, or any candidate, are also discrediting American voters', the American voting process and the freedoms of democracies and republics everywhere. These discrediting efforts, to take down any candidate, will fail because this is America and in America the peoples' choice for their next president must and will always prevail. American voters' rights and choices must always be protected, respected and never ignored. Because America is not a dictatorship voters' choices' still count. We are lucky to live in a country where we can agree to disagree. This is the essence of freedom. Every American and every candidate should be upset when this kind of corruption goes on. Thank you, Donald Trump, and every candidate, for running for President and offering informed voters an opportunity out of this nightmare and a path to a better America for ALL Americans! ..."
"... The debates heading into Super Tuesday continues to show voters TRUMP's presidential qualities. Eminent Domain didn't stick to TRUMP, neither will groundless tax allegations nor outrageous innuendos. TRUMPS opponents are doing themselves a disservice attacking TRUMP. TRUMP offers voters hope and a future ALL Americans can believe in. TRUMP will own Super Tuesday. ..."
"... This explains the virulent dislike of Trump by the lamestream media. Hillary, an unindicted war criminal based on her central role in instituting the Khaddafi overthrow and her role in starting the Syrian war, is without a doubt the greater evil in comparison with Trump. Since Trump in the fall campaign won't hesitate to highlight the fact that the jihadis in Libya put in as largely as a result of Hillary's initiative liquidated tens or hundreds of thousands of black Africans who had settled in Khaddafi's Libya as hostile to Jihadi elements, this will likely dampen Afro-American ardour for Hillary's campaign. Hopefully this will be a torpedo which sinks her campaign. ..."
"... Truth is the enemy of the Zionist serial liars. ..."
"... I've been saying for awhile that Trump is probably the least bad of the Republican candidates. He's definitely not as bad as Rubio or Cruz would be. For one thing, he's opposed to the TPP and similar crap. Now this. ..."
"... Make no mistake, the only candidate left who wouldn't continue the same awfulness would be Sanders, who doesn't stand a chance (for those who don't understand how the 15% super delegates rigs the election for Clinton and other establishment candidates, do the math, not to even mention the money and power behind Clinton). ..."
"... Bernie and Donald are simply two-fisted middle fingers enthusiastically directed at the paid enforcers of the oligarchy's desired status quo, the Republican and Democrat political machines. ..."
"... And who did HRC appoint as SecState? Marc Grossman, Bush inner circle guy and Bush family relative; Victoria Nuland, former defense policy advisor to Dick Cheney, and her husband, Robert Kagan. This has to be a WTF moment for anyone with a brain? ..."
"... I believe the neoconservatives may have had some self-esteem issues and perhaps tended to overcompensate by splurging on vanity wars. Trump will return the Republican party to its conservative roots of fiscal responsibility and insist on getting good value for his wars. A Trump campaign will completely dispense with 'shock and awe'. Instead, he'll cut straight to the chase: "Where are the oilfields and how long will it take to pump them dry?" The neoconservatives could benefit from that sort of discipline. ..."
"... It be fitting for the neocons who were originally leftist followers of Trotsky to go back home to the Democratic party. Maybe then the old non-interventionist anti-war right can rise again in amongst the Republicans. ..."
"... Perhaps worth noting that the Neocons originally found influence with interventionist Democrats like Dan Moynihan, they went on to develop alliances with fiercely nationalistic Reaganites (like Cheney and Rumsfeld), but only truly came to the fore as policy-makers within the GW Bush presidency. ..."
"... The Neocons are like parasites that jump from host to host. When they've killed one host they move on to the next. I'm reminded of the old Sci-Fi movie, "The Hidden". ..."
"... … just in case y'all are not aware, the view from outside the walls of Empire U$A, when we see the audience holding up placards declaring "MAKE AMERICA'S MILITARY GREAT AGAIN" we're all thinking – 'you guys are truly the most manipulated, compromised and fucked up people on the planet'. ..."
"... "And what about Russia? Washington's talking like the west bank of the Dnieper is our east coast.", Surrounding and dismantling Russia has been the goal since the collapse of the USSR. And Killary and the neocons (including the large contingent she and Obama installed at State) are definitely crazy enough to push it. ..."
"... In the short tem it means replacing Putin by another Eltsin-like stooge. In the middle term, it meant dismantling the USSR. In the long term it means defending Capital against the threat of Socialism. ..."
"... The chaos Trump will bring to the neocon's imperialist project is probably the only good thing that might come out of a Trump presidency. ..."
"... You mean US "corporate" interest and Israel's interest don't you? For the past 30 years, both parties have pursued policies that are in direct conflict with the interest of the American people. ..."
"... Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan - one of the prime intellectual backers of the Iraq war and an advocate for Syrian intervention - announced in the Washington Post last week that if Trump secures the nomination "the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.", Truly, this tells you all you need to know about Hillary Clinton… ..."
"... Fascinating that Trump has the warmongers nervous. Heading Hillary's way where they know their rearrangement of the middle east (PNAC, JINSA) no matter how many thousands are killed or refugees are displace is safe with Hillary. She has demonstrated her commitment to the death and destruction in the middle east. ..."
"... Good to see that all those neoconservative prayer breakfasts Sen. Hillary Clinton attended at the Geo. W. Bush White House aren't going to waste. Of course, the neocons embrace "Wall Street Hillary" as they always have, regardless of all the silly political theater to the contrary. ..."
"... It's good to see that Hillary is finally being openly welcomed into the fold of neo-conservatives. Also, pardon my lack of modesty for a certain pride in having been proven right about her. She is not a progressive, not liberal, but rather a fascist in the true sense of representing the corporatists. ..."
"... Good call on the timing of the NYT series, Jeff. And kudos on having recognized her early on for the fascist she has always been. ..."
"... Kagan was hand picked to be on Hillary Clinton's defense policy board while at the State Dept and for those who don't know who Kagan is, he's the husband of the assistant secretary of state for eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland. ..."
Donald Trump's runaway success in the GOP primaries so far is setting off alarm bells among neoconservatives
who are worried he will not pursue the same bellicose foreign policy that has dominated Republican
thinking for decades.
Max Boot, an
unrepentant supporter of the Iraq War, wrote
in
the Weekly Standard that a "Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America
as a great power," citing, among other things, Trump's objection to a large American troop presence
in South Korea.
Trump has done much to trigger the scorn of neocon pundits. He
denounced the
Iraq War as a mistake based on Bush administration lies, just prior to scoring a
sizable victory in the South Carolina GOP primary. In last week's contentious GOP presidential
debate, he defended the concept of neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is utterly
taboo on the neocon right.
"It serves no purpose to say you have a good guy and a bad guy,"
he said, pledging to take a neutral position in negotiating peace.
This set off his rival Marco Rubio, who replied, "The position you've taken is an anti-Israel
position. … Because you cannot be an honest broker in a dispute between two sides in which one of
the sides is constantly acting in bad faith." The Jerusalem Post suggested that Rubio's assault
on Trump's views on the Middle East was
designed to win Florida. If that's the case, it's apparently not working - in the Real Clear
Politics averaging of GOP primary polls in the state, Trump is
polling higher than he ever has.
In his quest to take up George W. Bush's mantle, Rubio has arrayed a fleet of neoconservative
funders, ranging from
pro-Israel billionaire
Paul Singer to
Norman Braman, a billionaire auto dealer who funds Israeli settlements in the West Bank. His
list of advisers
is like a rolodex of Iraq War backers, ranging from Bush administration alumni Elliot Abrams and
Stephen Hadley, to Kagan and serial war propagandist Bill Kristol.
Kristol also sits on the board of the Emergency Committee for Israel - a dark money group
that assails candidates it perceives as insufficiently pro-Israel. The group started airing an ad
this weekend against Trump portraying him as an ally to despots like Bashar Assad, Saddam Hussein,
and Muammar Qaddafi - mostly because he argued that military invasions of Libya and Iraq left those
countries worse off.
John D, Mar. 3 2016, 6:31 a.m.
I love what Trump's saying from time to time and don't believe it for a second. How short are
our memories? The guy who accelerated the process of reducing the middle east to chaos ran
on a platform of a 'humbler' foreign policy, condemning nation-building. How'd that work out for
us? Trump is a demagogue, and this is what they do: say whatever gets them support, just
like other politicians, but on steroids. Huey Long is an example of this, and he also took some
positions that we would all have supported over that of the two major parties of the time.
The pain and anguish of the neo cons is highly entertaining, and so damn warranted, but
let's not get taken in. The man's a monster, and the only good that might come of his election
would be his impeachment. I know, that leaves us with horrible choices, and what else is new.
But don't be suckered by Trump. The degree really is worthless.
vidimi, Mar. 2 2016, 8:55 a.m.
isn't robert kagan the husband of state diplomat and cheney/h.clinton appointee victoria
nuland? hillary is already as neocon as it gets.
M Hobbs -> vidimi, Mar. 3 2016, 2:25 p.m.
Robert Kagan told the NYT last June that he "feels comfortable" with Hillary on foreign policy–and
that she's a neocon. "If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue," he added, "it's
something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call
it that; they are going to call it something else."
The people behind this ad don't get it- this video could easily have been issued and approved
by the Trump campaign. To a lot of people, what this video accuses Trump of saying is the absolute,
utter truth. The world would be a far, far better place, Iraq would be better off, Libya would
be better off, and the United States would have a lot more money, and a lot less dead soldiers,
if Saddam and Khadaffi were still alive.
They should have focus grouped this. Because it likely increases Trump's numbers.
Joe F -> Duglarri, Mar. 1 2016, 1:53 p.m.
If Khadaffi were still alive Ambassdor Stevens and several more Americans would still be alive
also. But then the press would have one less thing to whinge about and the MIC would have one
less hotzone to expliot.
Carroll Price, Mar. 1 2016, 11:10 a.m.
If Trump can survive the nomination process, in spite of what the MSN can muster-up against
him, it will represent first time in the past 60 years that the Establishment did not choose and
own the candidates of both parties.
Which leads me to believe that if history serves as a guide, and I think it does, the Establishment
will have him assassinated, while the resources are still available and in place to cover it up
and have it white-washed by an official inquiry similar to the fake 9/11 Commission & Warren Commission
Report.
Clark, Mar. 1 2016, 10:28 a.m.
Trump worries/offends the neo-cons in his perversity, but the neo-cons know they can rely on
Hillary Clinton.
M Hobbs -> Clark, Mar. 3 2016, 2:30 p.m.
So if HRC gets the nomination, all the neocon Rs will vote for her and lots of the lefty Ds
and independents will vote for Trump. This is getting confusing.
Gene Poole -> M Hobbs, Mar. 4 2016, 4:32 a.m.
Yep. And ain't it sweet!?
SeniorsForTrump, Mar. 1 2016, 9:57 a.m.
TRUMP's opponents offer nothing but their arrogant condescending attitudes towards the
voting population. Their use of scare tactics on voters will no longer work. These cookie-cutter
politicians and their obsolete powerful old-boy establishment handlers are wrong for today's challenges
and tomorrows solutions. Stop wasting voter's time and energy trying to make this election about
personalities, gender, race, minorities, religion, fear and hatred. TRUMP has faith and trust
in the voters; TRUMP is the only candidate who doesn't insult, scare or lie to voters; TRUMP offers
voters hope and a future ALL Americans can believe in and deserve.
All of Trump's establishment opponents are begging for just one more chance. These opponent
candidates squandered thousands of opportunities, for the past fifty years, at the expense of
All Americans in America and abroad. Powerful corrupt insiders', of every party affiliation, who
discredit TRUMP, or any candidate, are also discrediting American voters', the American voting
process and the freedoms of democracies and republics everywhere. These discrediting efforts,
to take down any candidate, will fail because this is America and in America the peoples' choice
for their next president must and will always prevail. American voters' rights and choices must
always be protected, respected and never ignored. Because America is not a dictatorship voters'
choices' still count. We are lucky to live in a country where we can agree to disagree. This is
the essence of freedom. Every American and every candidate should be upset when this kind of corruption
goes on. Thank you, Donald Trump, and every candidate, for running for President and offering
informed voters an opportunity out of this nightmare and a path to a better America for ALL Americans!
The debates heading into Super Tuesday continues to show voters TRUMP's presidential qualities.
Eminent Domain didn't stick to TRUMP, neither will groundless tax allegations nor outrageous innuendos.
TRUMPS opponents are doing themselves a disservice attacking TRUMP. TRUMP offers voters hope and
a future ALL Americans can believe in. TRUMP will own Super Tuesday.
Carroll Price -> SeniorsForTrump, Mar. 1 2016, 11:15 a.m.
Very well stated. I agree whole-heartedly.
john p. Teschke, Mar. 1 2016, 2:28 a.m.
This explains the virulent dislike of Trump by the lamestream media. Hillary, an unindicted
war criminal based on her central role in instituting the Khaddafi overthrow and her role in starting
the Syrian war, is without a doubt the greater evil in comparison with Trump. Since Trump in the
fall campaign won't hesitate to highlight the fact that the jihadis in Libya put in as largely
as a result of Hillary's initiative liquidated tens or hundreds of thousands of black Africans
who had settled in Khaddafi's Libya as hostile to Jihadi elements, this will likely dampen Afro-American
ardour for Hillary's campaign. Hopefully this will be a torpedo which sinks her campaign.
dahoit -> john p. Teschke, Mar. 1 2016, 8:22 a.m.
Truth is the enemy of the Zionist serial liars.
Jeff, Mar. 1 2016, 2:05 a.m.
I've been saying for awhile that Trump is probably the least bad of the Republican candidates.
He's definitely not as bad as Rubio or Cruz would be. For one thing, he's opposed to the TPP and
similar crap. Now this.
Make no mistake, the only candidate left who wouldn't continue the same awfulness would
be Sanders, who doesn't stand a chance (for those who don't understand how the 15% super delegates
rigs the election for Clinton and other establishment candidates, do the math, not to even mention
the money and power behind Clinton). I don't support Trump in any way, but I also find it
laughable how some so-called progressives are wetting their pants over him. Yes he's racist, but
so are the Republicans in general. At least Trump has a few good positions, making him about the
same as Clinton.
Winston, Feb 29, 2016, 7:48 p.m.
Bernie and Donald are simply two-fisted middle fingers enthusiastically directed at the paid
enforcers of the oligarchy's desired status quo, the Republican and Democrat political machines.
Donald, unlike poor Bernie, has the advantage of being able to avoid the oligarchy's mega-cash-fueled
vetting process intended to weed out true boat rockers by funding his own campaign.
When Reps threaten to vote for Dems and I see headlines like "Democratic National Committee
Vice Chair Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her post on Sunday to endorse Democratic presidential candidate
Bernie Sanders, following months of rising tensions within the group," I have hope that both party
machines will, deservedly, become increasingly irrelevant. The facade has come off and we finally
see the truth, which is there is no loyalty within the establishment of either political party
to anything but the continued power of the oligarchy they BOTH defend.
Election 2016 is turning out to be a rare popcorn worthy event because voters are now TOTALLY
fed up with THIS:, From the 2014 Princeton University study:, Testing Theories of American Politics:
Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, Excerpts:, A great deal of empirical research speaks
to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible
to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical
model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the
key variables for 1,779 policy issues.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business
interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens
and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial
support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not
for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule-at least not in the
causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with
economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong
status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans
favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
…the preferences of economic elites (as measured by our proxy, the preferences of "affluent"
citizens) have far more independent impact upon policy change than the preferences of average
citizens do. To be sure, this does not mean that ordinary citizens always lose out; they fairly
often get the policies they favor, but only because those policies happen also to be preferred
by the economically-elite citizens who wield the actual influence.
-–, From "Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-America Century" by Dmitry Orlov, someone who experienced
the collapse of the Soviet Union and the various effects of that collapse on life there:, People
in the United States have a broadly similar attitude toward politics with people of the Soviet
Union. In the U.S. this is often referred to as "voter apathy", but it might be more accurately
described as non-voter indifference. The Soviet Union had a single, entrenched, systemically corrupt
political party, which held a monopoly on power. The U.S. has two entrenched, systemically corrupt
political parties, whose positions are often indistinguishable, and which together hold a monopoly
on power. In either case, there is, or was, a single governing elite, but in the United States
it organized itself into opposing teams to make its stranglehold on power seem more sportsmanlike.
Although people often bemoan political apathy as if it were a grave social ill, it seems to
me that this is just as it should be. Why should essentially powerless people want to engage in
a humiliating farce designed to demonstrate the legitimacy of those who wield the power? In Soviet-era
Russia, intelligent people did their best to ignore the Communists: paying attention to them,
whether through criticism or praise, would only serve to give them comfort and encouragement,
making them feel as if they mattered. Why should Americans want to act any differently with regard
to the Republicans and the Democrats? For love of donkeys and elephants?, -–, "Now [the United
States is] just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the
nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and
U.S. senators and congress members. So now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political
system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves
after the election's over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited
money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody's who's already in Congress has a lot more to
sell to an avid contributor than somebody who's just a challenger. – - Jimmy Carter, former president,
in 2015.
sgt_doom, Feb 29, 2016, 6:58 p.m.
So one of the principal founding members of PNAC, or the Project for a New American Century (and
Victoria Nuland's husband), R. Kagan, says vote for Hillary?
And this just weeks after Hillary is bragging about receiving complements from Henry Kissinger,
mass murderer?
Are there still fools in America who believe HRC is some kind of liberal?
And who did HRC appoint as SecState? Marc Grossman, Bush inner circle guy and Bush family
relative; Victoria Nuland, former defense policy advisor to Dick Cheney, and her husband, Robert
Kagan. This has to be a WTF moment for anyone with a brain?
Benito Mussolini, Feb 29, 2016, 6:46 p.m.
I don't think the neoconservatives should purchase a one way ticket into the Hillary camp. Trump
could be quite amenable to the 'Ledeen Doctrine' that: "Every ten years or so, the United States
needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show
the world we mean business". My understanding is that Trump has no objections in principle, but
as a prudent businessman, questions whether it's worth shelling out 1 trillion dollars just to
show you mean business.
I believe the neoconservatives may have had some self-esteem issues and perhaps tended
to overcompensate by splurging on vanity wars. Trump will return the Republican party to its conservative
roots of fiscal responsibility and insist on getting good value for his wars. A Trump campaign
will completely dispense with 'shock and awe'. Instead, he'll cut straight to the chase: "Where
are the oilfields and how long will it take to pump them dry?" The neoconservatives could benefit
from that sort of discipline.
However, if the neoconservatives decide to return to the party they abandoned in the 1960s,
then I wish them well. They had a good run with the Republicans and certainly left their mark
on foreign policy. Sometimes a change of scenery is good; it may be all they need to rekindle
their enthusiasm for the third (or is the fourth?) Iraq war.
Lawrence, Feb 29, 2016, 6:05 p.m.
It be fitting for the neocons who were originally leftist followers of Trotsky to go back
home to the Democratic party. Maybe then the old non-interventionist anti-war right can rise again
in amongst the Republicans.
eddie-g, Feb 29, 2016, 5:21 p.m.
Perhaps worth noting that the Neocons originally found influence with interventionist Democrats
like Dan Moynihan, they went on to develop alliances with fiercely nationalistic Reaganites (like
Cheney and Rumsfeld), but only truly came to the fore as policy-makers within the GW Bush presidency.
So they've never exactly had a set ideological compass, they're happy to back anyone who'll
do their bidding on Israel and the Middle East. With Trump, I can't imagine they (or anyone else)
knows what they're getting; Hillary meanwhile is a known quantity, and hawkish enough for their
tastes.
craigsummers -> eddie-g, Feb 29, 2016, 6:47 p.m.
"……..Perhaps worth noting that the Neocons originally found influence with interventionist Democrats
like Dan Moynihan, they went on to develop alliances with fiercely nationalistic Reaganites (like
Cheney and Rumsfeld), but only truly came to the fore as policy-makers within the GW Bush presidency….."
True, but they lost favor in the Bush White House after the invasion of Iraq turned south.
dahoit -> craigsummers, Mar. 1 2016, 8:38 a.m.
Somewhat true, but how does that explain the demoncrats embracing them in Obombas administration?
Craigsummers -> dahoit, Mar. 1 2016, 7:21 p.m.
I don't believe that Obama has embraced the neocons.. Obama has alienated our allies in the ME
including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. His large disagreements with Netanyahu flag Obama as
anything but a neocon.
Duglarri -> eddie-g, Mar. 1 2016, 11:37 a.m.
The Neocons are like parasites that jump from host to host. When they've killed one host they
move on to the next. I'm reminded of the old Sci-Fi movie, "The Hidden".
owen, Feb 29, 2016, 4:53 p.m.
… just in case y'all are not aware, the view from outside the walls of Empire U$A, when we
see the audience holding up placards declaring "MAKE AMERICA'S MILITARY GREAT AGAIN" we're all
thinking – 'you guys are truly the most manipulated, compromised and fucked up people on the planet'.
Dave Fisher, Feb 29, 2016, 4:38 p.m.
"Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan announced that if Trump secures the nomination "the only
choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.", i hope Sanders runs with that, uses it in his ads,
cites that quote during the debates, makes the electorate aware of the fox (weasel?) in the chicken
coop…
Balthazar, Feb 29, 2016, 3:58 p.m.
The US has become the laughing stock of the world. Oh wait, we've been that for decades.
star, Feb 29, 2016, 3:52 p.m.
"worried he will not pursue the same bellicose foreign policy"
No, he will pursue a different
bellicose foreign policy relying on banning Muslims from the US, torture, filling up Guantanamo,
threatening Mexico and 'hitting' the families of 'terrorists'. The Intercept is actually starting
to scare me.
Robert -> star, Feb 29, 2016, 6:01 p.m.
So drone warfare killing thousand+ innocent people isn't "starting to scare" you? Overthrowing
governments in Iraq, Libya, and Syria isn't "starting to scare" you? ISIS forming out of those
overthrows isn't "starting to scare" you?
dahoit -> star, Mar. 1 2016, 8:42 a.m.
Wow, the only guy to critique the Iraq war, Libya, trade steals, getting along with Russia and
stop being the policeman of the world gets critiqued by alleged liberals as the bad choice in
a world of crazy Ziomonsters.
Hang it up children, you've lost your minds.
nfjtakfa -> Roy David, Feb 29, 2016, 5:49 p.m.
Um, I think Vivek Jain's assertion is the destruction of Iraq and destabalization of the region
was 100% intentional, i.e. "wasn't a mistake."
Roy David -> nfjtakfa, Mar. 1 2016, 5:25 p.m.
Thanks nfjtakfa. Sometimes the written word can be misinterpreted.
Christopher -> Vivek Jain, Feb 29, 2016, 5:47 p.m.
Remind me just where and when we found the nukes Iraq was supposed to have, then. Or the mobile
bioweapons labs. Or Hussein's al-Qaeda collaborators.
coram nobis -> Christopher, Feb 29, 2016, 6:13 p.m.
As you see, the Iraq war wasn't a mistake, but a deliberate fake.
reflections, Feb 29, 2016, 3:40 p.m.
They created Donald Trump and thanks to the Supreme Court any rich ass-- can run for office they
don't need to fund a particular political republican bigot.
Bob, Feb 29, 2016, 3:25 p.m.
Trump is a professional actor as are all the cons but he is better at it. Read his book, TAoTD
and you may change your mind a lot on him as POTUS. He certainly is no conbot and IMHO would make
a much better POTUS than any of the dwarf wall st. sucking varlets competing against him. I'm
still hoping Senator Bernie Sanders will take the gloves off and start attacking the war mongering,
wall st. courtier Clinton before it's too late but, if my choice was Clinton vs. Trump I would
hold my nose and vote Trump. Rubio is so hollow he is unqualified for his present job. Good luck
USA.
coram nobis, Feb 29, 2016, 2:31 p.m.
It's an interesting shift of perspective in this crazy year, although the question with the Donald
is (1) whether he has a coherent ideology from one speech to the next and (2) whether the GOP
would become more dovish (or less neocon) under a Trump administration, or whether the GOP would
simply abandon him.
As for Hillary, sir, your coda begs another article: " … and Clinton moving the Democrats towards
greater support for war.", With whom?, Okay, Iran is a definite possibility, given her pro-Israel
stance. But what about China? That situation in the South China Sea is ratcheting up. And what
about Russia? Washington's talking like the west bank of the Dnieper is our east coast.
Doug Salzmann -> coram nobis, Feb 29, 2016, 3:19 p.m.
"And what about Russia? Washington's talking like the west bank of the Dnieper is our east
coast.", Surrounding and dismantling Russia has been the goal since the collapse of the USSR.
And Killary and the neocons (including the large contingent she and Obama installed at State)
are definitely crazy enough to push it.
On the list of Big Dumb Mistakes, this would be very close to the top.
Dave Fisher -> Doug Salzmann, Feb 29, 2016, 4:26 p.m.
"dismantling Russia", what exactly does that mean?
Si1ver1ock -> Dave Fisher, Feb 29, 2016, 5:26 p.m.
Ask the Syrians or the the Libyans, or the Iraqis or the Sundanese, or the Yemenis or … or ….
Doug Salzmann -> Dave Fisher, Feb 29, 2016, 8:18 p.m.
"dismantling Russia", what exactly does that mean?, It means exactly what I said, Dave. Surrounding,
weakening and (ultimately, hopefully) dismantling and absorbing the pieces of the Russian Federation
has been at the core of American foreign policy aims since the collapse of the USSR.
See, for instance, the pre-revised version of the 2/18/1992 Wolfowitz (and Scooter Libby) Memo:
Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory
of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly
by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy
and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources
would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.
And then, refer to Zbigniew Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard:
Given the enormous size and diversity of the country, a decentralized political system, based
on the free market, would be more likely to unleash the creative potential of both the Russian
people and the country's vast natural resources. In turn, such a more decentralized Russia
would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization.
. . . and . . .
A loosely confederated Russia-composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far
Eastern Republic-would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with Europe,
with the new states of Central Asia, and with the Orient, which would thereby accelerate Russia's
own development. Each of the three confederated entities would also be more able to tap local
creative potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow's heavy bureaucratic hand.
Hope this helps. ;^)
Gene Poole -> Dave Fisher, Mar. 4 2016, 5:13 a.m.
In the short tem it means replacing Putin by another Eltsin-like stooge. In the middle term,
it meant dismantling the USSR. In the long term it means defending Capital against the threat
of Socialism.
Patricia Baeten, Feb 29, 2016, 2:30 p.m.
Great article. I wrote something similar in my blog post last week titled, NATO, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia's Worst Nightmare President Donald Trump.
Excerpt:, The beneficiaries of Bush and Obama's Evil American Empire invading and destroying
nations throughout the world have been Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Along with their NATO allies,
America has spent trillions of dollars on the military industrial complex while our roads and
bridges fail and jobs have been shipped to third world countries.
The unparalleled destruction of Syria as well as all of the Middle East, Eurasia and Africa
will come to an end under President Donald Trump and the world is taking note.
My greatest fear is that a full hot war against Russia and China will commence before the election.
Love your writing, thanks.
Patricia
Bob -> Patricia Baeten, Feb 29, 2016, 3:29 p.m.
I hope you meant NOT commence. I really don't want to die and these things have a habit of escalating.
dahoit -> Bob, Mar. 1 2016, 9:00 a.m.
She is intimating the Zionists will start war with Russia before Trump takes office, a quite possible
scenario when dealing with the insane Zionists.
Jose -> Patricia Baeten, Feb 29, 2016, 3:32 p.m.
The chaos Trump will bring to the neocon's imperialist project is probably the only good thing
that might come out of a Trump presidency.
The Shame Chamber -> Patricia Baeten, Feb 29, 2016, 7:19 p.m.
Trump said he would declassify the 28 pages on foreign government ties to 9/11. Why hasn't that
happened yet?, http://28pages.org/
dahoit -> The Shame Chamber, Mar. 1 2016, 9:02 a.m.
Uh, he's not in government? sheesh.
dahoit -> Patricia Baeten, Mar. 1 2016, 8:58 a.m.
Good comment, don't mind the idiots stuck in their false narrative.
craigsummers, Feb 29, 2016, 2:22 p.m.
Mr. Jilani, "……Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan - one of the prime intellectual backers
of the Iraq war and an advocate for Syrian intervention - announced in the Washington Post last
week that if Trump secures the nomination "the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton."…..",
The Intercept is clearly confused on quite a few issues. First, the Republican Party generally
supports a strong leadership role for the US in foreign policy (as do the Democrats). Both parties
will ensure that the US pursues our geopolitical interests. Of course, this is not limited just
to the Neocons. Second, the entire Republican establishment opposes Trump for obvious reasons.
Again, this is not limited to the Neocons, and it is not too surprising that Republicans may cross
party lines to vote for Hillary who more closely mirrors some of their foreign policies. She is
a hawk. Third, the Republican and Democratic Parties are strong supporters of Israel – not just
the Neocons. In general, Republicans support Israel even to a greater degree than the Democrats
– and again, this is not limited to the Neoconservatives.
Finally, how important is the Israel-Palestinian conflict to the Intercept? Obviously very
important since the Intercept seems willing to forget that Trump has been called a xenophobe and
an anti-Muslim bigot by many on the left. Have you ever heard the saying: the enemy of my enemy
is my friend?
sgt_doom -> craigsummers, Feb 29, 2016, 4:20 p.m.
I fully agree with Jilani and this Summers is an obvious neocon sycophant of Wall Street.
craigsummers -> sgt_doom, Feb 29, 2016, 5:03 p.m.
sgt_doom, What is extraordinary to me is that Jilani seems to value the Israel-neutral stance
of Trump over Hillary (and her obvious support for Israel) despite Trump (initially) not even
being able to disavow support from the KKK. Maybe that is not so remarkable considering that Jilani
tweeted the term "Israel firsters".
Christopher -> craigsummers, Feb 29, 2016, 5:50 p.m.
"Both parties will ensure that the US pursues our geopolitical interests.", Jesus. Have you been
in a coma since 2003? Or I guess maybe since the 1980's, cough Iran-Contra cough cough.
craigsummers -> Christopher, Feb 29, 2016, 6:44 p.m.
I'm not saying there aren't differences, but generally speaking both the Democrats and the Republicans
have maintained strong policies which favor US interests. Obama had some confusing policies which
alienated long term allies like Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.
Carroll Price -> craigsummers, Mar. 1 2016, 8:30 p.m.
You mean US "corporate" interest and Israel's interest don't you? For the past 30 years, both
parties have pursued policies that are in direct conflict with the interest of the American people.
Gene Poole -> Carroll Price, Mar. 4 2016, 5:31 a.m.
Bravo. I was going to reply to his first post, in which he said " Both parties will ensure that
the US pursues our geopolitical interests", and ask just who "we" are.
Boaz Bismuth: Mr. Trump, yesterday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tried to question your support
for Israel. How is his commitment to Israel stronger than yours?, Donald Trump: "My friendship
with Israel is stronger than any other candidate's. I want to make one thing clear: I want
to strike a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. It is what I aspire to
do. Peace is possible, even if it is the most difficult agreement to achieve. As far as
I understand, Israel is also interested in a peace deal. I'm not saying I'll succeed, or
even that an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is within reach, but I want to
try. But in order for an agreement to happen, the Palestinians need to show interest. It's
a little difficult to reach an agreement when the other side doesn't really want to talk
to you.
"Don't get confused there in Israel: I am currently your biggest friend. My daughter
is married to a Jew who is an enthusiastic Israel supporter, and I have taken part in many
Israel Day Parades. My friendship with Israel is very strong."
Yes, an especially bitter sop to those who harbor the manufactured illusion that trump is concerned
with the sovereign rights of the individual.
avelna2001, Feb 29, 2016, 1:45 p.m.
Neoconservative historian Robert Kagan - one of the prime intellectual backers of the Iraq
war and an advocate for Syrian intervention - announced in the Washington Post last week that
if Trump secures the nomination "the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton.", Truly,
this tells you all you need to know about Hillary Clinton…
Doug Salzmann -> avelna2001, Feb 29, 2016, 3:24 p.m.
"Truly, this tells you all you need to know about Hillary Clinton…", Well, that and the fact that
Killary and Obama named Kagan's wife, Victoria Jane "Cookie" Nuland to the post of Assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, where she led the sponsorship and underwriting of
a coup against the elected leadership of Ukraine.
avelna2001 -> Doug Salzmann, Feb 29, 2016, 3:51 p.m.
Well yeah, true enough.
Kathleen, Feb 29, 2016, 1:43 p.m.
Fascinating that Trump has the warmongers nervous. Heading Hillary's way where they know their
rearrangement of the middle east (PNAC, JINSA) no matter how many thousands are killed or refugees
are displace is safe with Hillary. She has demonstrated her commitment to the death and destruction
in the middle east.
This is no bs…know some multi millionaire Republicans here in Colorado who are going with
Hillary if Trump gets nomination. They know their capital gains are safe with her. Yes indeed...
sgt_doom, Feb 29, 2016, 1:33 p.m.
Good to see that all those neoconservative prayer breakfasts Sen. Hillary Clinton attended
at the Geo. W. Bush White House aren't going to waste. Of course, the neocons embrace "Wall Street
Hillary" as they always have, regardless of all the silly political theater to the contrary.
BTW, isn't Robert Kagan the hubby of Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European
and Eurasian Affairs appointed by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton?, I believe so
. . .
Of course, we haven't had a legitimate government in the USA since the Coup of 1963 (the JFK
assassination, reinforced by the murders of Rev. King and Bobby Kennedy), so evidently Trump represents
the first break in a long line of illegitimate administrations.
Trump really appears to be giving the nervous willies to the oligarchs – – – glad to see those
swine who gave us - and profited from - the global economic meltdown being shaken up for a change!,
With Hillary they have nothing to fear, she's the perfect Wall Street running dog lackey, but
with Trump they could end up in jail - or worse . . . .
24b4Jeff, Feb 29, 2016, 1:20 p.m.
It's good to see that Hillary is finally being openly welcomed into the fold of neo-conservatives.
Also, pardon my lack of modesty for a certain pride in having been proven right about her. She
is not a progressive, not liberal, but rather a fascist in the true sense of representing the
corporatists.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the New York Times has chosen now to start a series on
her role in the overthrow of Qaddafi and the subsequent conversion of Libya into a failed state?
Had the articles started appearing a couple of weeks ago, it might have helped Sanders in Iowa
and Nevada. No, it would not have helped Sanders in South Carolina, and he is foredoomed in the
rest of the deep south as well, not only because of his being a social democrat (on domestic issues)
but also because he is a Jew.
Doug Salzmann -> 24b4Jeff, Feb 29, 2016, 4:15 p.m.
Good call on the timing of the NYT series, Jeff. And kudos on having recognized her early
on for the fascist she has always been. I've not caught up with the Times series; does each
installment open with this video clip?
ghostyghost, Feb 29, 2016, 1:16 p.m.
"With Trump's ascendancy, it's possible that the parties will re-orient their views on war and
peace, with Trump moving the GOP to a more dovish direction and Clinton moving the Democrats towards
greater support for war."
Right because "bomb the shit out of them" is a well known rallying
cry of pacifists.
coram nobis -> ghostyghost, Feb 29, 2016, 2:37 p.m.
You've got a point; the Donald isn't exactly another Gandhi. The diff between him and Hillary
is that she would act according to longstanding neocon policy, concerted war. The Donald would
attack impulsively. Picture him as the Groucho Marx character in "Duck Soup" and there's a possible
simile, but not funny.
ghostyghost -> coram nobis, Feb 29, 2016, 2:49 p.m.
What scares me the most about President Trump is him taking a look at the nuclear arsenal and
thinking "we have these awesome weapons and they are just sitting here collecting dust. Well lets
show everyone that a real leader isn't afraid to use his best tools!" and then wiping Mosul and
and Raqqa off the map.
coram nobis -> ghostyghost, Feb 29, 2016, 4:36 p.m.
Glad Robert Kagan's neoconservative re-branding attempts have started to garner headlines.
Kagan was hand picked to be on Hillary Clinton's defense policy board while at the State
Dept and for those who don't know who Kagan is, he's the husband of the assistant secretary of
state for eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland.
Or, Victoria "let's spend $5 billion to overthrow the democratically elected administration in
the Urkaine" Nuland.
Lin Ming, Feb 29, 2016, 1:13 p.m.
These people will do anything to further their cause – just as they always have – up to and including
eliminating an opponent in the most forceful permanent manner…
"... Leaping from this incident to the Iranian nuclear agreement that has essentially decreased the likelihood of Iran ever building nuclear weapons, Trump continued his litany of lies by portraying the agreement as virtual surrender to unnamed dark forces. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's campaign promises more of the same corporatist politics in the service of the Goldman-Sachs of the nation. The primary difference may be found in her social stances, which are more liberal and tolerant than those expressed by Trump's ticket. ..."
"... In short, we are witnessing a serious split in the US ruling class. Both elements recognize capitalism is in crisis and has been for decades. The two main solutions to this crisis as represented by the campaigns will not solve this crisis, because it is essentially unsolvable. ..."
"... Militarily, there is also a split between the rulers. Neither Trump's combination of fear-ridden America First bluster nor the corporate world order represented by Clinton's campaign will prevent war or terrorism. Both will guarantee the continued waste of monies that the permanent war economy is. Both will also guarantee the continued domination of the US economy by the war industry. Donald Trump knows this and so does Hilary Clinton. ..."
More importantly, however, was his take on history, which went no further back
then 2008, at best. By pretending that history began when Barack Obama was
elected president, all the decades of jobs being sent overseas because
corporations want cheap labor became the fault of more recent free trade
agreements. While these agreements certainly expedited the desire/need of the
capitalist overlords to go for the cheap labor, this process was taking place
before such agreements were passed. Furthermore, Trump and his businesses
benefited from them and he did nothing to oppose them then. In short, it is how
monopoly capitalism works: capital goes to where it can accumulate greater
profits, utilizing the military and "free" trade to cajole and force its will
on nations and peoples around the world.
Continuing his litany of America
wronged, Trump referred to the Iran nuclear agreement. He related the FoxNews
version of some US sailors being held by Iranian military after their ship
sailed into Iranian waters. According to this version, the sailors were
humiliated hostages who were wrongly held. In actuality, the sailors were
treated well and were in the wrong. Their captain surely knew this when he
sailed where he sailed. Leaping from this incident to the Iranian nuclear
agreement that has essentially decreased the likelihood of Iran ever building
nuclear weapons, Trump continued his litany of lies by portraying the agreement
as virtual surrender to unnamed dark forces.
Of course, the presence of "dark" forces and the threat they represent to
Trump and his followers are essential to understanding his appeal. Indeed, the
local Gannett broadsheet here in Vermont, introduced Trump's acceptance speech
in the next day's paper with this quote from the speech "safety will be
restored." I first noted this emphasis on safety while listening to an argument
between a young anti-Trump protester and an even younger Trump supporter at the
end of a Vermont anti-Trump action. Besides the obvious fact that his proposed
policies based on fear, hate, and US triumphalism are no more likely to restore
safety than Clinton's policies of brinksmanship and subterfuge, this statement
begs the question about whose safety Mr. Trump is referring to.
... ... ...
While Trump pretends that his millennialist rhetoric will bring the US back to a time my
father grew up in-when father knew best and was whiter than Ivory Snow soap, Hillary
Clinton's campaign promises more of the same corporatist politics in the service of the
Goldman-Sachs of the nation. The primary difference may be found in her social stances, which are
more liberal and tolerant than those expressed by Trump's ticket.
In short, we are witnessing a serious split in the US ruling class. Both elements recognize
capitalism is in crisis and has been for decades. The two main solutions to this crisis as
represented by the campaigns will not solve this crisis, because it is essentially unsolvable.
Trump's approach hopes to move the capitalist economy back to a time before World War One,
when production of goods was almost as important as the financial manipulation of monies for
profit and national economies were the primary and dominant macro economy. Clinton's approach
would continue the trend of the last few decades that has seen capital move beyond national
boundaries to create what Lenin called "the formation of international monopolist capitalist
associations which share the world among themselves." This latter phenomenon is what the
so-called free trade agreements are about. Trump's belief that he can buck this trend runs
counter to history, although he seems to think that he is beyond history, except for that which
he makes.
Militarily, there is also a split between the rulers. Neither Trump's combination of
fear-ridden America First bluster nor the corporate world order represented by Clinton's campaign
will prevent war or terrorism. Both will guarantee the continued waste of monies that the
permanent war economy is. Both will also guarantee the continued domination of the US economy by
the war industry. Donald Trump knows this and so does Hilary Clinton.
"... While many neocons and fellow travelers may be anxious to demonstrate their power and influence, it would seem, based on Trump's
electoral performance, that the Republican Party electorate is not very interested in what they have to offer. ..."
"... The neocons best bet to have a seat at the table in 2017 is Hillary Clinton. ..."
2016It is now official: the neoconservatives are united against Donald Trump. A new open letter organized by Project for the New
American Century (PNAC) co-founder Eliot Cohen states the signatories
oppose
a Trump presidency and have committed to "working energetically" to see that he is not elected.
PNAC was, notoriously, the neoconservative
group that called for increased US imperialism in the Middle East, especially Iraq. Many of those who signed PNAC's statement of
principles and various letters went on to serve in the Bush Administration.
The letter comes after Trump's ferocious attacks on neocon policies and narratives, such as the Iraq War and the idea
that President George W. Bush kept the country safe despite being in office on 9/11. Those attacks were most pronounced just prior
to the South Carolina primary when former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Bush Administration was the focus of Trump's fire.
Trumps' foreign policy has long been in the neocon cross-hairs. It already appeared as though
many of the neocons were
against Trump; now it's impossible to deny.
Journalist Josh Rogin, after talking to Trump advisors,
lamented that "The practical
application of that doctrine plays out in several ways. Trump's narrow definition of 'national interest' does not include things
like democracy promotion, humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect people from atrocities or the advocacy of human
rights abroad. Trump believes that economic engagement will lead to political opening in the long run. He doesn't think the U.S.
government should spend blood or treasure on trying to change other countries' systems."
The other co-founder of PNAC, Robert Kagan,
went even further, comparing Trump to a monster and
claiming that, "For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The
party cannot be saved, but the country still can be."
Military historian Max Boot, also a signatory to the letter, has denounced Trump,
saying, "A Trump presidency threatens
the post-World War II liberal international order that American presidents of both parties have so laboriously built up." He claimed
that "A Trump presidency would represent the death knell of America as a great power."
Many of those who signed the latest letter were also among those that signed PNAC communications including; Kagan, Boot, Cohen,
Robert Zoellick, Daniel Blumenthal, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Thomas Donnelly, Aaron Friedberg, Randy Scheunemann, Jeffrey Gedmin, Gary
Schmitt, and Dov Zakheim.
While many neocons and fellow travelers may be anxious to demonstrate their power and influence, it would seem, based on Trump's
electoral performance, that the Republican Party electorate is not very interested in what they have to offer.
The neocons best bet to have a seat at the table in 2017
is Hillary Clinton.
"... Other neoconservatives say Trump's foreign policy stances, such as his opposition to the Iraq war and the U.S. intervention in Libya, are inconsistent and represent "completely mindless" boasting. "It's not, 'Oh I really feel that the neoconservatism has come to a bad end and we need to hearken back to the realism of the Nixon administration,' " said Danielle Pletka, senior vice president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute. ..."
"... Despite the opposition he faces in some corners of the GOP, polls indicate that Trump's message is in line with the public mood. ..."
"... Experts say the isolationist sentiment is prevalent in the Democratic Party as well. ..."
"... "The [Bernie] Sanders supporters charge Hillary Clinton Hillary with never seeing a quagmire she did not wish to enter, and basically with not just complicity, but a leading role in contriving some of the worst disasters of American foreign policy in this century," said Amb. Chas Freeman, a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, and a former Nixon and George H.W. Bush official. ..."
"... Some experts say neoconservatives are fighting hard because they have the most to lose. "They're losing influence inside the foreign policy establishment in general, and they have definitely lost influence inside the Republican party, which was their home base," Mearsheimer said. ..."
"... Some neoconservatives are even throwing in their lot with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, most prominently Kagan and Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ..."
"... Julian Hattem contributed to this story. ..."
The rise of
Donald Trump
is threatening the power of neoconservatives, who find themselves at risk of being marginalized
in the Republican Party. Neoconservatism was at its height during the presidency of George W. Bush, helping to shape
the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But now the ideology is under attack, with Trump systematically rejecting each of its core
principles. Whereas neoconservatism advocates spreading American ideals through the use of military force,
Trump has made the case for nationalism and a smaller U.S. military footprint. In what Trump calls an "America First" approach, he proposes rejecting alliances that don't
work, trade deals that don't deliver, and military interventionism that costs too much. He has said he would get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sit down with North
Korean dictator Kim Jong Un - a throwback to the "realist" foreign policy of President Nixon.
As if to underscore that point, the presumptive GOP nominee met with Nixon's Secretary of
State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, earlier this week, and delivered his first
major foreign policy speech at an event last month hosted by the Center for National Interest,
which Nixon founded.
Leading neoconservative figures like Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan have assailed Trump's
foreign policy views. Kagan even called Trump a "fascist" in a recent Washington Post
op-ed. "This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have
been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a
textbook egomaniac 'tapping into' popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire
national political party - out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear -
falling into line behind him," wrote Kagan, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Other neoconservatives say Trump's foreign policy stances, such as his opposition to the Iraq
war and the U.S. intervention in Libya, are inconsistent and represent "completely mindless"
boasting. "It's not, 'Oh I really feel that the neoconservatism has come to a bad end and we need to
hearken back to the realism of the Nixon administration,' " said Danielle Pletka, senior vice
president for foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
... ... ...
"[Neoconservatives] are concerned for good reason," said O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense hawk
"These people don't think that Trump is prepared intellectually to be president." "It's not just that their stance of foreign policy would be losing .. .all foreign policy
schools would be losing influence under Trump with very unpredictable consequences," he added.
Despite the opposition he faces in some corners of the GOP, polls indicate that Trump's
message is in line with the public mood. A
recent Pew poll found that nearly six in 10 Americans said the U.S. should "deal with its own
problems and let other countries deal with their own problems as best they can," a more
isolationist approach at odds with neoconservative thought.
John Mearsheimer, a preeminent scholar in realist theory, says there's a parallel in history
to the way America turned inward after the Vietnam War. "There's no question that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger went a considerable ways to pursue
a less ambitious foreign policy, and they talked about allies doing more to help themselves, and
they began to pursue detente with the Soviet Union." "And this was all a reaction to Vietnam. Vietnam of course was a colossal failure. The body
politic here in the United States was deeply disenchanted with American foreign policy,
especially in its most ambitious forms and the end result is we ended up backing off for awhile,"
he said. "We have a similar situation here."
Experts say the isolationist sentiment is prevalent in the Democratic Party as well.
"The [Bernie] Sanders supporters charge
Hillary ClintonHillary with
never seeing a quagmire she did not wish to enter, and basically with not just complicity, but a
leading role in contriving some of the worst disasters of American foreign policy in this
century," said Amb. Chas Freeman, a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs, and a former Nixon and George H.W. Bush official.
"This is the principle reason that Hillary Clinton is having so much trouble putting
Bernie Sanders away," said Mearsheimer, who supports the Vermont senator. "Sanders is
capitalizing on all that disenchantment in the public, and Hillary Clinton represents the old
order."
But the ideological battle over foreign policy is playing out more forcefully in the GOP. While some members of the Republican foreign policy establishment are coming to terms with
Trump becoming their party's nominee, including lawmakers like Sens.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) and
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), neoconservatives remain staunch holdouts.
Some experts say neoconservatives are fighting hard because they have the most to
lose. "They're losing influence inside the foreign policy establishment in general, and they have
definitely lost influence inside the Republican party, which was their home base," Mearsheimer
said.
Some neoconservatives are even throwing in their lot with likely Democratic nominee
Hillary Clinton, most
prominently Kagan and Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
With Republican foreign policy figures split, influential Republican donors such as
Charles and David Koch are trying to shape the GOP's new direction.
The Charles Koch Institute recently launched a daylong conference that featured Mearsheimer
and another prominent realist Stephen Walt that questioned U.S. foreign policy since the end of
the Cold War.
"This has meant the frequent use of force, a military budget the size of the next seven to
eight countries combined, and an active policy of spreading American power and values," said
William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute.
"After a quarter century of this approach, it's time to ask: Has our foreign policy been
working? Is it making America safe? Should we continue on this path? And if not, what do
alternative approaches look like?"
"... Theodore Roosevelt, whom Max and his neocon buddies love, issued a whopping 1,006 executive orders (when his immediate predecessors had issued a handful) and treated Congress contemptuously. He said that he, after all, was the unique representative of the American people, so it was his job to implement their will, regardless of what any other body had to say about it. ..."
"... We can only imagine their response if Trump had said such a thing. In fact, Trump says that executive orders are terrible and that the president should govern by consensus. ..."
"... Trump is boorish. Oh, sure. Too bad we can't have more refined candidates like John McCain, who sing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." ..."
"... Trump betrays conservative values. This supposedly disqualifies him. To the contrary, hasn't it been the role of the GOP nominee to betray conservative values? In 1996, Bill Kristol - who's just so overcome with concern about the betrayal of conservative values, remember - enthusiastically endorsed Colin Powell for president. ..."
"... And by the way, just what are these "conservative values"? The leftist project of bringing democracy to faraway lands - the exact opposite of what Edmund Burke (who knew a little something about conservatism) would have recommended? Creating Medicare Part D? No Child Left Behind? Auto bailouts? Bank bailouts? Keynesian stimulus? ..."
"... Had George W. Bush been eligible for a third term, would the same people who demand Trump debase himself in sackcloth and ashes for his betrayals of conservatism have done anything remotely similar to Bush? ..."
"... The alleged reasons for disliking Trump do not match the neocons' actions. Therefore, they are not the real reasons. ..."
"... They don't trust him on foreign policy. He makes fun of their interventions and says the world would be much better off, and we'd be a lot richer if none of it had been done. ..."
"... They can't control him. He isn't owned by anyone. He can't be bought. The neocons, along with the GOP establishment they pretend to oppose, are control freaks. They can't deal with someone who may be independent of them. ..."
"... If you want to oppose Trump, knock yourself out. But at least, be honest about it. The neocons have repeatedly endorsed candidates whose deviations from orthodoxy are much more severe than Trump's. So they're lying. ..."
Now before I tell you how I figured that out - apart from the fact that their
lips are moving - I need to begin by parrying any manifestations of Trump
Derangement Syndrome.
I do not support or endorse Donald Trump, who is not a libertarian and who
appears to have no clear philosophy of any kind. He would no doubt do countless
things that I would deplore.
Just like all the other candidates, in other words.
My point is not to cheer for him. My point is that the neocons' stated reasons
for opposing him so hysterically don't add up.
(1) Max Boot worries that Trump will rule like a "strongman." Right - quite
unlike the restrained, humble executors of the law whom Max has endorsed over the
years. In fact, Max has spent his career calling for a strong executive. Now he's
worried about a "strongman." I'd say that horse has already left the stable, Max.
You might want to look in the mirror to figure out how that happened.
Theodore Roosevelt, whom Max and his neocon buddies love, issued a whopping
1,006 executive orders (when his immediate predecessors had issued a handful) and
treated Congress contemptuously. He said that he, after all, was the unique
representative of the American people, so it was his job to implement their will,
regardless of what any other body had to say about it.
We can only imagine their response if Trump had said such a thing. In fact,
Trump says that executive orders are terrible and that the president should govern
by consensus.
Now maybe he doesn't mean that, and maybe he'd use executive orders
anyway. But what if he'd said what their hero Teddy said?
Remember the last time Max, or any neocon, or anyone in the GOP establishment,
warned us that Teddy wasn't a good role model?
Me neither.
(2) Trump is boorish. Oh, sure. Too bad we can't have more refined
candidates like John McCain, who sing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."
(3) Trump betrays conservative values. This supposedly disqualifies him. To
the contrary, hasn't it been the role of the GOP nominee to betray conservative
values? In 1996, Bill Kristol - who's just so overcome with concern about the
betrayal of conservative values, remember - enthusiastically endorsed Colin Powell
for president.
(4) And by the way, just what are these "conservative values"? The leftist
project of bringing democracy to faraway lands - the exact opposite of what Edmund
Burke (who knew a little something about conservatism) would have recommended?
Creating Medicare Part D? No Child Left Behind? Auto bailouts? Bank bailouts?
Keynesian stimulus?
Had George W. Bush been eligible for a third term, would the same people
who demand Trump debase himself in sackcloth and ashes for his betrayals of
conservatism have done anything remotely similar to Bush?
Sure, we'd get the wringing of hands and the occasional anguished newspaper
column, but then we'd get the stern lecture that if we don't vote for Bush,
civilization comes to an end.
See what I mean? Something is fishy here. The alleged reasons for disliking
Trump do not match the neocons' actions. Therefore, they are not the real reasons.
Know what I think the real reasons are?
(a) They don't trust him on foreign policy. He makes fun of their
interventions and says the world would be much better off, and we'd be a lot
richer if none of it had been done.
Now it's true, here as elsewhere, that Trump is not consistent. He's now
calling for ground troops against ISIS, for instance. But his primary message is:
we have too many problems at home to be traipsing around the world destroying
countries. This is not music to a neocon ear.
(b) They can't control him. He isn't owned by anyone. He can't be bought.
The neocons, along with the GOP establishment they pretend to oppose, are control
freaks. They can't deal with someone who may be independent of them.
If you want to oppose Trump, knock yourself out. But at least, be honest
about it. The neocons have repeatedly endorsed candidates whose deviations from
orthodoxy are much more severe than Trump's. So they're lying.
As usual.
Tom Woods, Jr. [send him mail; visit his website], hosts the Tom Woods Show, a libertarian
podcast, Monday through Friday, and co-hosts Contra Krugman every week. He is the New York Times
bestselling author of 12 books, a course creator for the Ron Paul homeschool curriculum, and
founder of Liberty Classroom, a libertarian education site for adult enrichment.
"... The fact however remains that Trump has challenged the ideological foundations upon which US foreign policy is built whilst offering an alternative that has elicited a powerful response from the US public. ..."
"... The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik. ..."
Donald Trump's recent speech on foreign policy
has been roundly condemned by the US foreign establishment.
It has also been ridiculed as confusing and contradictory.
This is a
misrepresentation. Whilst Trump did not provide a detailed programme - to have done so in the
middle of
an election would have been unwise - his underlying message is clear enough.
Instead of a foreign policy based on an ideology centered on US world hegemony, "exceptionalism"
and "democracy promotion" Trump promises a foreign policy straightforwardly based on the pursuit
of US national interests.
To understand what that would mean in practice consider the contrast between what the US public
wants and what the US has actually done under successive US administrations.
Whereas the US public since 9/11 has been overwhelmingly focused on jihadi terrorism as the greatest
threat to the US, the US foreign policy establishment is only minimally interested in that question.
Its priority is to secure US world hegemony by reshaping the world geopolitical map.
First and foremost that has meant confronting the two great powers -
Russia and China - the US sees as the primary obstacle to its hegemony. It has also meant
a series of geopolitical adventures in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, a protracted
confrontation with Iran, and head on collisions with Russia and China in Ukraine and the South China
Sea. The US public for its part has shown little or no enthusiasm for any of these projects. By contrast
the US foreign policy establishment has show little enthusiasm for confronting the Islamic State/Daesh.
The military campaign it is purporting to wage against the Islamic State is essentially a "going
through the motions" public relations exercise. The real fight against the Islamic State is being
fought by Iran and Russia. Elsewhere - in Chechnya, Libya and Syria - the US has willingly collaborated
with jihadi terrorists to achieve its geopolitical goals.
Trump threatens to turn all this on its head. In place of confrontation with Russia and China
he says he wants to cut deals with them calculating - rightly - that they are no threat to the US.
In place of collaboration with jihadi terrorism he promises a single-minded focus on its destruction.
Other pillars of current US foreign policy are also challenged.
Whereas the ideologues
currently in charge of US foreign policy treat US allies as ideological soulmates in a quest to spread
"Western values" (ie. US hegemony), Trump sees the US's relationship with its allies as transactional:
the US will help them if they help themselves, with no sense of this being part of some ideological
common cause.
Having dumped the ideology and the foreign policy that goes with it Trump,
promises to focus on sorting out the US's internal problems, which is where the US public's priorities
also lie. Trump expresses himself in often crude language eg. threatening to "carpet
bomb" the Islamic State. He is not coherent. He continues to talk of Iran as an enemy - ignoring the fact that it is as
much a potential partner of the US as Russia and China are. Some of the things Trump says - for example his talk of embracing torture
- are frankly disturbing. It remains to be seen whether a President
Trump if elected would be either willing or able - as he promises - to change the entire foreign
policy direction of the US.
The fact however remains that Trump has challenged the ideological foundations upon which US foreign
policy is built whilst offering an alternative that has elicited a powerful response from the US
public.
That is why the US political establishment is so alarmed by him.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect
the official position of Sputnik.
Trump seems less willing than his opponent to engage in adventurous missions abroad under
neoconservative "world domination" banner
Notable quotes:
"... As Donald Trump is splitting off blue-collar Democrats on issues like America's broken borders and Bill Clinton's trade debacles like NAFTA, Hillary Clinton is trying to peel off independents and Republicans by painting Trump as "temperamentally unfit" to be commander in chief. ..."
"... In portraying Trump as an intolerable alternative, Clinton will find echoes in the GOP establishment and among the Kristol-Kagan neocons, many of whom have already signed an open letter rejecting Trump. ..."
"Clinton to Paint Trump as a Risk to World Order." Thus did page one of Thursday's New
York Times tee up Hillary Clinton's big San Diego speech on foreign policy.
Inside the Times, the headline was edited to underline the point: "Clinton to Portray Trump as
Risk to the World." The Times promoted the speech as "scorching," a "sweeping and fearsome
portrayal of Mr. Trump, one that the Clinton campaign will deliver like a drumbeat to voters in
the coming months."
What is happening here?
As Donald Trump is splitting off blue-collar Democrats on issues like America's broken
borders and Bill Clinton's trade debacles like NAFTA, Hillary Clinton is trying to peel off
independents and Republicans by painting Trump as "temperamentally unfit" to be commander in
chief.
Clinton contends that a Trump presidency would be a national embarrassment, that his ideas are
outside the bipartisan mainstream of U.S. foreign policy, and that he is as contemptuous of our
democratic allies as he is solicitous of our antidemocratic adversaries.
In portraying Trump as an intolerable alternative, Clinton will find echoes in the GOP
establishment and among the Kristol-Kagan neocons, many of whom have already signed an open
letter rejecting Trump.
William Kristol has recruited one David French to run on a National Review-Weekly Standard line
to siphon off just enough votes from the GOP nominee to tip a couple of swing states to Clinton.
Robert Kagan contributed an op-ed to a welcoming Washington Post saying the Trump campaign is
"how fascism comes to America."
Yet, if Clinton means to engage on foreign policy, this is not a battle Trump should avoid.
For the lady has an abysmal record on foreign policy and a report card replete with failures. As
senator, Clinton voted to authorize President Bush to attack and invade a nation, Iraq, that had
not attacked us and did not want war with us. Clinton calls it her biggest mistake, another
way of saying that the most important vote she ever cast proved disastrous for her country,
costing 4,500 U.S. dead and a trillion dollars.
That invasion was the worst blunder in U.S. history and a contributing factor to the deepening
disaster of the Middle East, from which, it appears, we will not soon be able to extricate
ourselves.
As secretary of state, Clinton supported the unprovoked U.S.-NATO attack on Libya and joked of
the lynching of Moammar Gadhafi, "We came. We saw. He died." Yet, even Barack Obama now agrees
the Libyan war was started without advance planning for what would happen when Gadhafi fell. And
that lack of planning, that failure in which Clinton was directly involved, Obama now calls the
worst mistake of his presidency.
Is Clinton's role in pushing for two wars, both of which resulted in disasters for her country
and the entire Middle East, something to commend her for the presidency of the United States? Is
the slogan to be, "Let Hillary clean up the mess she helped to make?"
Whether or not Clinton was complicit in the debacle in Benghazi, can anyone defend her
deceiving the families of the fallen by talking about finding the evildoer who supposedly made
the videotape that caused it all? Even then, she knew better. How many other secretaries of state
have been condemned by their own inspector general for violating the rules for handling state
secrets, for deceiving investigators, and for engaging, along with that cabal she brought into
her secretary's office, in a systematic stonewall to keep the department from learning the truth?
Where in all of this is there the slightest qualification, other than a honed instinct for
political survival, for Clinton to lead America out of the morass into which she, and the failed
foreign policy elite nesting around her, plunged the United States?
If Trump will stay true to his message, he can win the foreign policy debate, and the election,
because what he is arguing for is what Americans want.
They do not want any more Middle East wars. They do not want to fight Russians in the Baltic or
Ukraine, or the Chinese over some rocks in the South China Sea.
They understand that, as Truman had to deal with Stalin, and Ike with Khrushchev, and Nixon with
Brezhnev, and Reagan with Gorbachev, a U.S. president should sit down with a Vladimir Putin to
avoid a clash neither country wants, and from which neither country would benefit.
The coming Clinton-neocon nuptials have long been predicted in this space. They have so much in
common. They belong with each other.
But this country will not survive as the last superpower if we do not shed this self-anointed
role as the "indispensable nation" that makes and enforces the rules for the "rules-based world
order," and that acts as first responder in every major firefight on earth. What Trump has
hit upon, what the country wants, is a foreign policy designed to protect the vital interests of
the United States, and a president who will - ever and always - put America first.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon
Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority." To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read
features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com.
This is one of the few articles when you can see anger at neocons from rank-and-file
republicans. Especially in comments.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's steadfast support from paleoconservative icon and Kristol arch-nemesis Pat Buchanan clearly terrified the neoconservative wing of the party, which still remembers how Buchanan drummed up three million votes against George Bush in the 1992 Republican primary by blasting globalist trade policy. ..."
"... The people are speaking and Hillary will not win. Every single tactic employed to derail Trump has backfired and only made him more popular. ..."
"... The Neo-Cons like Kristol are addicted to power and donor skims. He is why we are now on the verge of rebellion. Vote Trump. ..."
"... CIA Operation Mockingbird....to infiltrate and control all news reporting, see.... "New Think Progress and the Ozzard of Wiz".... Multilevel Information Racketeering.... ..."
"... The establishment media is showing their RINO-ness. They are being exposed in the light. ..."
"... The National Review and Weekly Standard have become bird-cage liner as a result of Messrs. Kristol, Wills, etc. ..."
"... Bill Kristol ... GO AWAY ... Republicans have REJECTED you ... ..."
"... "Let me hasten to admit: I underestimated your skills as a demagogue and the credulity of some of the American public." Let me translate: "Hey, America, you're too stupid to vote. I'm an elite and know better than you!" ..."
"... Donald --- deny his access and take his room card. I imagine he'll be more pissed about that then selling out. Fat slob. He reminds me of the corrupt Monks under the Medici, stuffing gold under their tunics while the poor died in the streets. ..."
"... Latter Day Republicans.. LOL ..."
"... fine use of words... as in latter day saints, Glenn Beck, Romney etc. ..."
"... Neocons have always been Trotskyites and are conservative in name only. It is because of this that I believe that we the people should hold state conventions to enact several amendments to curtail the donor class, removing of political parties, enacting Vigilance Committees, and enforcing Article I Section XI Clause VIII of the Constitution of the United States. ..."
"... Campaign donations and raising money for PACs is unconstitutional and is treason as defined by the Constitution. An emolument is a fee or payment for services rendered. By removing the donor class and the lobbyists we can return the government back to the people. ..."
"... One can only conclude that the neocons want to splinter the vote, and they want the Democrats to win. No other conclusion seems possible. This is a betrayal that should be taken quite seriously. ..."
Kristol recently met with #NeverTrump champion
Mitt Romney to discuss a third-party campaign, but Kristol has hinted that Romney will not be
the independent "White Knight." Kristol
tweeted Saturday,
"If Mitt decides he can't, someone will step forward to run" then quoted William Gladstone to declare,
"The resources of civilization are not yet exhausted."
This is not the first time Trump and Kristol
have sparred on Twitter. When Trump asked last week why networks continue to employ Kristol's punditry
services, Kristol admitted that he had been wrong to have underestimated Trump's political appeal:
Kristol's neoconservative inner circle has reason to fear the threat posed by a populist outsider,
especially one who could gain anti-Establishment traction by attacking the legacy of the Kristol-supported
Iraq War. Kristol's "Weekly Standard" magazine and his son-in-law Matt Continetti's blog "Free Beacon"
hammered Trump throughout the Republican primaries to little avail. The "Beacon" blog's writers and
editors flogged the "small hands" insult that infamously made it into Marco Rubio's campaign stump
speech in Rubio's desperate final days.
Trump's
steadfast support from paleoconservative icon and Kristol arch-nemesis Pat Buchanan clearly terrified
the neoconservative wing of the party, which still remembers how Buchanan drummed up three million
votes against George Bush in the 1992 Republican primary by blasting globalist trade policy.
Tryle N Error
It's time for an intervention. Get him into rehab and off the Kristol Meth, or whatever
that deluded lunatic is injecting.
dtom2 > Tryle N Error
Kristol has become unhinged faced with the reality that he has lost what little influence
he had on the republic electorate. His all out promotion of Jeb Bush failed and this is
nothing more than sour grapes. So, instead of conceding defeat, he launches all out war on our
nominee. My question is this... if he wants Hillary instead of Trump, which will be the
eventual outcome if he follows through with his plan, why not just come out of the closet and
support her. La Raza and the Chamber of Commerce both get their wish, more hordes of criminal
illegals to undermine American workers, and an increased democrat parasitic voter
base...see...so much simpler than a third candidate launch...same outcome. America slides
closer to the third world cesspool of their dreams. Trump 2016!
Ann > dtom2
The people are speaking and Hillary will not win. Every single tactic employed to
derail Trump has backfired and only made him more popular.
bucketnutz > Tryle N Error
The Neo-Cons like Kristol are addicted to power and donor skims. He is why we are now
on the verge of rebellion. Vote Trump.
FauxScienceSlayer
CIA Operation Mockingbird....to infiltrate and control all news reporting, see.... "New
Think Progress and the Ozzard of Wiz".... Multilevel Information Racketeering....
Be Still
The establishment media is showing their RINO-ness. They are being exposed in the
light.
Bill the Cat > Robert Tulloch
The National Review and Weekly Standard have become bird-cage liner as a result of
Messrs. Kristol, Wills, etc. Their next stop is the HuffPo and motherjones.
Patriot
Kristol needs to be brought down from his perch. He thinks he is smarter than the voters.
If he pushes this nonsense and the GOP does not censor him, it will be the time for the
millions of sane Americans to join the GOP and then destroy it from within. It is time for
average Americans to control their destiny as opposed to the elites.
darwin
Kristol is an anti-American traitor. He's actively engaged in fighting the will of the
people to keep himself and the people he works for in power and wealth.
Archimedes
Bill Kristol is destroying the Republican party ... he is a globalist who believes in
spending trillions while deploying AMERICANs in the Middle East ... he believes in open
borders ... he believes in unfettered "free trade" ...
Bill Kristol ... GO AWAY ... Republicans have REJECTED you ...
#NeverHillary
ljm4
Billy, work on your Cruise ship offerings. As you are failing in journalism are you also
trying to take down the GOP party yourself?
Doctor Evil
"Let me hasten to admit: I underestimated your skills as a demagogue and the credulity
of some of the American public." Let me translate: "Hey, America, you're too stupid to vote.
I'm an elite and know better than you!"
Lee Ashton > Doctor Evil
On the other hand...
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. -
George Carlin US comedian and actor (1937 - 2008)
Douglas Rowland > Lee Ashton
Those would be the ones voting for Hillary.
WaylonII
Splitting the Republican vote would be a sure way to get Hillary elected. What is wrong with these people?
Avatar
timdb > WaylonII
Maybe Kristol expects President Hillary Clinton will appoint him as ambassador to Israel.
Lee Ashton > TheLastPlainsman
Neocon - deficit spending via the warfare state
Leftist - deficit spending via the welfare state.
The right and left wings of the same vulture.
MrnPol725
... Donald --- deny his access and take his room card. I imagine he'll be more pissed about that then selling out. Fat slob. He reminds me of the corrupt Monks under the Medici, stuffing gold under their tunics while the poor died in the streets.
SPQR_US
Another turd exposed...Kristol Meth...time to arrest and jail the neocons...
Pitbulls LiL Brother
Kristol has been wrong so many times for so many years how does he get a voice in the
process?
Amberteka > Pitbulls LiL Brother
MONEY. His relatives Own USA Media.
Roadchaser
Latter Day Republicans.. LOL
James > Roadchaser
fine use of words... as in latter day saints, Glenn Beck, Romney etc.
gladzkravtz
The founding publisher of the Weekly Standard is News Corp!! Just found it on wiki! I
didn't know that and now it makes sense that Kristol gets to mug on FNC so much. I have stock
in News Corp, bought it back long before there was a Megyn Kelly, but now it's time to go
ahead, sell and take the loss.
Those creeps.
PreacherPatriot1776
Neocons have always been Trotskyites and are conservative in name only. It is because
of this that I believe that we the people should hold state conventions to enact several
amendments to curtail the donor class, removing of political parties, enacting Vigilance
Committees, and enforcing Article I Section XI Clause VIII of the Constitution of the United
States.
That clause states, "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person
holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress,
accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King,
Prince, or foreign State."
Campaign donations and raising money for PACs is unconstitutional and is treason as
defined by the Constitution. An emolument is a fee or payment for services rendered. By
removing the donor class and the lobbyists we can return the government back to the people.
Since the government is not self-policing itself like it should then it's time for the Fourth
Branch of the government to step up and exercise their power to hold these individuals
accountable. A Vigilance Committee would be comprised of citizens of a single state and
oversee everything their elected/appointed representatives adhere to their oaths of office.
Failure to adhere to the oath would be an automatic charge of treason and a trial of said
individual for violating their oath. Once enough of these traitors are executed the rest of
them will behave and follow their oaths plus the Constitution of the United States.
Another amendment could be the requirement that every child must learn the Declaration of
Independence, Constitution of the United States, Bill of Rights, and their state
constitutions. This way we as a people can stop dangerous ideologies that are antithetical to
liberty, like Marxism and communism, can never be used in the United States.
jackschil
Its about time the real conservative Republicans took a stand. They could start by ignoring
the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party and start paying attention to the
Goldwater/Reagan wing. The Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal, Bill Kristol, Carl
Rove, George Will, and Charles Krauthammer do not represent conservative values, but pretend
establishment values. They would be better served joining with the Democrats. Trump has these
establishment jackals, along with the K Street lobbyists, scared to death. For the first time
since 1984, the people aren't stuck voting for a Republicrat candidate.
SpeedMaster
The Globalists have been exposed for what they really are. Thank You Mr. Trump.
Ohiolad
One can only conclude that the neocons want to splinter the vote, and they want the
Democrats to win. No other conclusion seems possible. This is a betrayal that should be taken
quite seriously.
Gene Schwimmer
If Kristol does, indeed, produce an independent candidate and if "President Hillary" is a
real problem for Trumpists, we of #NeverTrump invite them to abandon Trump and join us in
supporting the independent candidate. If you choose not to, blame yourselves if Trump loses. #NeverTrump
warned you well before you voted for Trump that we would never vote for him and it's still not
too late to nominate someone else at the convention. Not our problem if you thought you could
win without us and nominated Trump, anyway.
PrinceLH > Gene Schwimmer
Are you for real? Why would we turn our backs on the candidate that has garnered the most
votes, in Republican Primary history? You people don't get it! It's not the Republicans vs the
Democrats. It's the people vs the Establishment. We don't want any more of your ruling class
garbage. We don't want any more of stagnant wages and job loses to other countries, so you can
expand your Globalist agenda. You people need to be stopped. Bill Kristol, George Will, Glenn
Beck, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, George Soros, the Bush family, the Koch Brothers and
the list goes on, are our enemies.
You will be soundly defeated, this fall, and you can hand in your membership to the Human
Race, on the way out the door to your European Liberal Utopia.
Zolt
No more THIRD-WORLD IMMIGRATION
No more GLOBAL TRADE
No more ENDLESS WARS FOR ISRAEL AND THE NWO
God bless ASSAD, protector of Syrian Christians!
Get on board with the #PALEOCONS!
billsv
You just don't get it. Middle class jobs have been given to foreigners through H2B
programs, globalist policies, etc. why is this conservatism? Why do illegal aliens get more
benefits than US citizens? Is this conservatism? We just don't like Bill Kristol's view of
conservatism that de stories the Middle Class, let' s those in the bottom percentiles languish
and caves to the wishes of the Chamber of Commerce.
Please back off and give what many if
Americans want. We have suffered enough.
"... A year ago, Trump was a joke. A media circus. A novelty. We assumed – I assumed – he was in it for the giggles. I thought he'd drop out like he'd down twice before. I thought his total lack of experience, his profanity and his recklessness would count against him in a primary among conservatives. But the very nature of conservatism has changed. ..."
"... Trump didn't just defy the establishment. He defied what we thought for years were the outsiders: the ideological conservatives who hitherto cast themselves as the rebels. By beating Ted Cruz, Trump actually ran an insurgency against the insurgent. He demonstrated that what people wanted wasn't something more ideologically pure – as Cruz assumed – but something that was totally different. ..."
"... That is one big positive we can take from this campaign. If Trump can win when challenging the Republican position on trade and war, maybe someone in the future can win while challenging their positions on other things. ..."
"... Donald Trump did, in fact, beat the hell out of the GOP Establishment. But let's also note here that the GOP Establishment beat itself. If you haven't yet, check out conservative writer Matthew Sheffield's evisceration of the Republican Industrial Complex. It was e-mailed to me by a Republican friend who until fairly recently was part of that world, and knows about it intimately. ..."
"... Consider the conservative nonprofit establishment, which seems to employ most right-of-center adults in Washington. Over the past 40 years, how much donated money have all those think tanks and foundations consumed? Billions, certainly. (Someone better at math and less prone to melancholy should probably figure out the precise number.) Has America become more conservative over that same period? Come on. Most of that cash went to self-perpetuation: Salaries, bonuses, retirement funds, medical, dental, lunches, car services, leases on high-end office space, retreats in Mexico, more fundraising. Unless you were the direct beneficiary of any of that, you'd have to consider it wasted. ..."
"... Pretty embarrassing. And yet they're not embarrassed. Many of those same overpaid, underperforming tax-exempt sinecure-holders are now demanding that Trump be stopped. Why? Because, as his critics have noted in a rising chorus of hysteria, Trump represents "an existential threat to conservatism." ..."
"... It turns out the GOP wasn't simply out of touch with its voters; the party had no idea who its voters were or what they believed. For decades, party leaders and intellectuals imagined that most Republicans were broadly libertarian on economics and basically neoconservative on foreign policy. That may sound absurd now, after Trump has attacked nearly the entire Republican catechism (he savaged the Iraq War and hedge fund managers in the same debate) and been greatly rewarded for it, but that was the assumption the GOP brain trust operated under. They had no way of knowing otherwise. The only Republicans they talked to read the Wall Street Journal too. ..."
"... On immigration policy, party elders were caught completely by surprise. Even canny operators like Ted Cruz didn't appreciate the depth of voter anger on the subject. And why would they? If you live in an affluent ZIP code, it's hard to see a downside to mass low-wage immigration. Your kids don't go to public school. You don't take the bus or use the emergency room for health care. No immigrant is competing for your job. (The day Hondurans start getting hired as green energy lobbyists is the day my neighbors become nativists.) Plus, you get cheap servants, and get to feel welcoming and virtuous while paying them less per hour than your kids make at a summer job on Nantucket. It's all good. ..."
"... Trump hasn't said anything especially shocking about immigration. Control the border, deport lawbreakers, try not to admit violent criminals - these are the ravings of a Nazi? ..."
"... This year, and this week, in Republican Party politics and in American conservatism has been about nothing but moral, intellectual, and institutional decadence. It did not happen because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump emerged because the institutions were rotten. It is an almost Shakespearean twist that Roger Ailes is being defenestrated from atop the Fox News empire even as Trump receives his crown in Cleveland. ..."
It's mostly how I feel, though the one consolation I take from this debacle is that genuine creativity
may emerge out of Trump's destruction of the old GOP. It's a small bit of comfort, but I'll take
what I can. If Marco Rubio or any other of the GOP bunch were being nominated now, I would not be
excited at all, or even interested. I prefer that to being freaked out by the prospect of a Trump
presidency, but I would prefer to have someone to vote for , instead of against.
But then, I've wanted that for years.
Because I'm feeling contrarian, I want to give Donald Trump his due in this, his hour of triumph.
He pulled off something that nobody imagined he would do. I remember watching him give a political
speech for the first time - my first time watching him, I mean. He was addressing a big crowd in
Mobile. I watched the thing nearly gape-mouthed. I could not believe the crudeness, the chaos, and
the idiocy of the speech. This won't go anywhere, I thought, but it's going to be fun
watching him implode.
I laughed a lot at Donald Trump back then. Who's laughing now?
A year ago, Trump was a joke. A media circus. A novelty. We assumed – I assumed – he was in
it for the giggles. I thought he'd drop out like he'd down twice before. I thought his total lack
of experience, his profanity and his recklessness would count against him in a primary among conservatives.
But the very nature of conservatism has changed.
It was likely the rise of Sarah Palin in 2008 that made this possible – a candidate who suggested
there was a choice to be made between intellectualism and common sense, and who inspired deep
devotion among those who identified with her. Folks don't identify with Trump in the same, personal
way as they did with the hockey mom from Alaska. How can they? He flies everywhere in a private
jet and has a model as a wife. But his issues did strike a chord. The Wall cut through.
Trump didn't just defy the establishment. He defied what we thought for years were the outsiders:
the ideological conservatives who hitherto cast themselves as the rebels. By beating Ted Cruz,
Trump actually ran an insurgency against the insurgent. He demonstrated that what people wanted
wasn't something more ideologically pure – as Cruz assumed – but something that was totally different.
That is one big positive we can take from this campaign. If Trump can win when challenging
the Republican position on trade and war, maybe someone in the future can win while challenging
their positions on other things.
American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat
Bush, who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump. In the case of Trump,
though, the GOP shares the blame, and not just because his fellow Republicans misdirected their
ad buys or waited so long to criticize him. Trump is in part a reaction to the intellectual corruption
of the Republican Party. That ought to be obvious to his critics, yet somehow it isn't.
Consider the conservative nonprofit establishment, which seems to employ most right-of-center
adults in Washington. Over the past 40 years, how much donated money have all those think tanks
and foundations consumed? Billions, certainly. (Someone better at math and less prone to melancholy
should probably figure out the precise number.) Has America become more conservative over that
same period? Come on. Most of that cash went to self-perpetuation: Salaries, bonuses, retirement
funds, medical, dental, lunches, car services, leases on high-end office space, retreats in Mexico,
more fundraising. Unless you were the direct beneficiary of any of that, you'd have to consider
it wasted.
Pretty embarrassing. And yet they're not embarrassed. Many of those same overpaid, underperforming
tax-exempt sinecure-holders are now demanding that Trump be stopped. Why? Because, as his critics
have noted in a rising chorus of hysteria, Trump represents "an existential threat to conservatism."
Let that sink in. Conservative voters are being scolded for supporting a candidate they consider
conservative because it would be bad for conservatism? And by the way, the people doing the scolding?
They're the ones who've been advocating for open borders, and nation-building in countries whose
populations hate us, and trade deals that eliminated jobs while enriching their donors, all while
implicitly mocking the base for its worries about abortion and gay marriage and the pace of demographic
change. Now they're telling their voters to shut up and obey, and if they don't, they're liberal.
It turns out the GOP wasn't simply out of touch with its voters; the party had no idea who
its voters were or what they believed. For decades, party leaders and intellectuals imagined that
most Republicans were broadly libertarian on economics and basically neoconservative on foreign
policy. That may sound absurd now, after Trump has attacked nearly the entire Republican catechism
(he savaged the Iraq War and hedge fund managers in the same debate) and been greatly rewarded
for it, but that was the assumption the GOP brain trust operated under. They had no way of knowing
otherwise. The only Republicans they talked to read the Wall Street Journal too.
On immigration policy, party elders were caught completely by surprise. Even canny operators
like Ted Cruz didn't appreciate the depth of voter anger on the subject. And why would they? If
you live in an affluent ZIP code, it's hard to see a downside to mass low-wage immigration. Your
kids don't go to public school. You don't take the bus or use the emergency room for health care.
No immigrant is competing for your job. (The day Hondurans start getting hired as green energy
lobbyists is the day my neighbors become nativists.) Plus, you get cheap servants, and get to
feel welcoming and virtuous while paying them less per hour than your kids make at a summer job
on Nantucket. It's all good.
Apart from his line about Mexican rapists early in the campaign, Trump hasn't said anything
especially shocking about immigration. Control the border, deport lawbreakers, try not to admit
violent criminals - these are the ravings of a Nazi? This is the "ghost of George Wallace" that
a Politico piece described last August? A lot of Republican leaders think so. No wonder their
voters are rebelling.
Read the whole thing. Let it sink in that Carlson wrote this before a single vote had been cast
in the GOP primaries.
This year, and this week, in Republican Party politics and in American conservatism has been about
nothing but moral, intellectual, and institutional decadence. It did not happen because of Donald
Trump. Donald Trump emerged because the institutions were rotten. It is an almost Shakespearean twist
that Roger Ailes is being defenestrated from atop the Fox News empire even as Trump receives his
crown in Cleveland.
Trump didn't steal the Republican Party. It was his for the taking, because the people who run
it and the institutions surrounding it failed.
When Trump loses in November, maybe, just maybe, some new blood and new ideas will rebuild the
party.
And if he wins? We will have far bigger things to worry about than the fate of the Republican
Party. We will be forced to contemplate the fate of the Republic itself.
"... Shell-shocked, his foes, unwilling to admit their politically correct system has tanked, failed to understand that political incorrectness is to Trump what spinach is to Popeye. ..."
"... "So many 'politically correct' fools in our country," Trump tweeted. "We have to all get back to work and stop wasting time and energy on nonsense!" ..."
"... Trump's candidacy is about so much more than personality. Once the media are forced to report Trump's positions, instead of his persona, even more Americans will see that Trump is the sole Republican who rejects a "free trade" that gives away the keys to the store and opposed the ill-fated Iraq war. He is the type of candidate Americans always wanted but the party establishments are too afraid to provide. ..."
"... The last time America saw a strong paleo-conservative was Pat Buchanan in 1996. An early win in Louisiana caused Buchanan to place second in Iowa and first in New Hampshire. Lacking money, Buchanan was steamrolled by the establishment in Arizona and, in terms of paleo-conservatism, many thought he was the Last of the Mohicans. Trump's campaign is Buchananesque with one difference: Trump has money, and loads of it. He can fend off any attack and self-finance his campaign. He is establishment kryptonite. ..."
"... This reality is what makes him the new face of paleo-conservativism. It might also make him president. ..."
Political incorrectness is to Trump what spinach is to Popeye: Columnist. When the term paleo-conservative
is floated in conversation, most folks imagine a creature out of Jurassic World. But paleo-conservatism
- a near extinct brand of conservatism that heralds limited government, nonintervention, economic
nationalism and Western traditions - is finding a comeback in an unlikely spokesperson.
The history-making campaign of
Donald Trump is turning the clock of U.S. politics back to a time when hubris was heroic and
the truth, no matter how blunt, was king. It is resurrecting a political thought that does not play
by the rules of modern politics.
And as the nation saw the top-tier
GOP candidates take the stage for the first time, they saw Trump, unapologetic and confident,
alongside eight candidates clueless on how to contain him and a tongue-lashed Rand Paul.
The debate itself highlighted the fear a Trump candidacy is creating throughout the political
establishment. The very first question asked the candidates to pledge unconditional support to the
eventual GOP nominee and refrain from a third-party run. Trump refused.
Those in the Beltway resumed drafting Trump's political obituary. But while they were busy scribbling,
post-debate polls showed Trump jumped in the polls. Republicans are ignoring their orders from headquarters
and deflecting to the Donald.
Shell-shocked, his foes, unwilling to admit their politically correct system has tanked, failed
to understand that political incorrectness is to Trump what spinach is to Popeye.
"So many 'politically correct' fools in our country," Trump tweeted. "We have to all get back
to work and stop wasting time and energy on nonsense!"
Is he not correct? Days before the nation started debating Kelly's metaphorical blood, an unauthorized
immigrant in New Jersey pleaded guilty to actually spilling the blood of 30-year-old Sviatlana Dranko
and setting her body on fire. In the media, Dranko's blood is second fiddle. This contrast is not
lost on the silent majority flocking to Trump.
Trump's candidacy is about so much more than personality. Once the media are forced to report
Trump's positions, instead of his persona, even more Americans will see that Trump is the sole Republican
who rejects a "free trade" that gives away the keys to the store and opposed the ill-fated Iraq war.
He is the type of candidate Americans always wanted but the party establishments are too afraid to
provide.
The last time America saw a strong paleo-conservative was
Pat Buchanan in 1996. An early win in Louisiana caused Buchanan to place second in Iowa and first
in New Hampshire. Lacking money, Buchanan was steamrolled by the establishment in Arizona and, in
terms of paleo-conservatism, many thought he was the Last of the Mohicans. Trump's campaign is Buchananesque
with one difference: Trump has money, and loads of it. He can fend off any attack and self-finance
his campaign. He is establishment kryptonite.
This reality is what makes him the new face of paleo-conservativism. It might also make him
president.
Joseph R. Murray II is a civil-rights attorney, a conservative commentator and a former official
with Pat Buchanan's 2000 campaign.
"... Donald Trump has raised three issues of real concern to paleoconservatives and traditional conservatives like myself." ..."
"... These three stances that Trump hits on to Buchanan's contentment are border security, economic nationalism, and being "skeptical of these endless wars and interventions." ..."
"... "I think many folks who agree with me have welcomed Trump into the race," Buchanan said. He added while laughing, "the very fact that the neocons seem so disconsolate is the icing on the cake." ..."
"... "Neocons offer nothing more than more wars," he said, before adding that their support for free trade is "almost a religious belief." ..."
"... The person who will lead America to its end is Hillary Clinton. I don't know how to say it any clearer - Bill and Hillary are pure evil. All the stories about them while in Arkansas are true - murders, cocaine smuggling, money laundering and they continued their evil activities when Bill got into the White House. ..."
"... They continue today with their Foundation which is nothing but a front for money laundering. It is not right wing conspiracies which Hillary continues to imply and the people whose deaths are connected to the Clinton's will never have justice. ..."
Buchanan ran in 1992 for the Republican party nomination on a platform opposing globalization,
unfettered immigration, and the move away from social conservatism. He has been harping on these
views ever since.
"What we've gotten is proof that we were right," Buchanan told The Daily Caller Tuesday. While
he said, "I would not say that Donald Trump is a paleoconservative," and, "I don't think [Trump's]
a social conservative."
Buchanan told TheDC, "I was just astonished to see him raise the precise issues on which we ran
in the 1990s… Donald Trump has raised three issues of real concern to paleoconservatives and
traditional conservatives like myself."
These three stances that Trump hits on to Buchanan's contentment are border security, economic
nationalism, and being "skeptical of these endless wars and interventions."
"I think many folks who agree with me have welcomed Trump into the race," Buchanan said. He
added while laughing, "the very fact that the neocons seem so disconsolate is the icing on the cake."
Buchanan is not only opposed to immigration and trade, he is also a staunch social conservative.
Trump has had two divorces and has previously held pro-choice views, making it tough for some to
support him. Buchanan though said, "I think Trump respects the position of the social conservatives."
"I do think he would appoint the type of justices that would unite the Republican Party," he said.
The conservative commentator continued on to say, "I think the great emperor Constantine converted
to Christianity but he may have killed one of his sons as well."
Buchanan told TheDC, "we don't have any perfect candidates," but the other options besides Trump
are more frightening.
"Neocons offer nothing more than more wars," he said, before adding that their support for
free trade is "almost a religious belief."
Richard
The person who will lead America to its end is Hillary Clinton. I don't know how to say
it any clearer - Bill and Hillary are pure evil. All the stories about them while in Arkansas
are true - murders, cocaine smuggling, money laundering and they continued their evil activities
when Bill got into the White House.
They continue today with their Foundation which is nothing but a front for money laundering.
It is not right wing conspiracies which Hillary continues to imply and the people whose deaths
are connected to the Clinton's will never have justice.
Why is it that every time a Grand Jury was to be convened and people were subpoenaed to testify
against the Clinton's, it never happened and some of those people ended up in prison, dead or
disappeared. Anyone who has ever had files implicating the Clinton's of illegal activities either
commits suicide or was murdered, and the files have disappeared. People if your voting for or
have voted for Hillary - do your homework and learn about who you vote for?
"... Though he has been a hugely successful builder-businessman, far more successful than, say, Carly Fiorina, who has been received respectfully, our resident elites resolutely refuse to take Trump seriously. ..."
"... Trump's success comes from the issues he has seized upon - illegal immigration and trade deals that deindustrialized America - and brazen defiance of Republican elites and a media establishment. ..."
"... The reaction of Trump's Republican rivals has been even more instructive. Initially, it was muted. But when major media began to demand that GOP candidates either denounce Trump or come under suspicion or racism themselves, the panic and pile-on began. ..."
"... What Trump has done, and [Ted] Cruz sees it, is to have elevated the illegal immigration issue, taken a tough line, and is now attacking GOP rivals who have dithered or done nothing to deal with it. ..."
"... Trump intends to exploit the illegal immigration issue, and the trade issue, where majorities of middle-class Americans oppose the elites. And he is going to ride them as far as he can in the Republican primaries. ..."
Since Trump's presidential
announcement last month including controversial comments about illegal immigrants from Mexico,
Buchanan has written two editorials on his website lauding Trump's efforts.
Though he has been a hugely successful builder-businessman, far more successful than, say,
Carly Fiorina, who has been received respectfully, our resident elites resolutely refuse to take
Trump seriously.
They should. Not because he will be nominated, but because the Trump constituency will represent
a vote of no confidence in the Beltway ruling class of politicians and press.
Votes for Trump will be votes to repudiate that class, whole and entire, and dump it onto the
ash heap of history.
Votes for Trump will be votes to reject a regime run by Bushes and Clintons that plunged us
into unnecessary wars, cannot secure our borders, and negotiates trade deals that produced the
largest trade deficits known to man and gutted a manufacturing base that was once "the great arsenal
of democracy" and envy of mankind.
A vote for Trump is a vote to say that both parties have failed America and none of the current
crop of candidates offers real hope of a better future.
Trump's success comes from the issues he has seized upon - illegal immigration and trade
deals that deindustrialized America - and brazen defiance of Republican elites and a media establishment.
By now the whole world has heard Trump's declaration:
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. … They're sending people that
have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us. They're bringing drugs. They're
bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Politically incorrect? You betcha.
Yet, is Trump not raising a valid issue? Is there not truth in what he said? Is not illegal
immigration, and criminals crossing our Southern border, an issue of national import, indeed,
of national security?
. . .
The reaction to Trump's comments has been instructive. NBC and Univision dropped his Miss USA
and Miss Universe contests.
Macy's has dropped the Trump clothing line. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is talking of terminating
city contracts with Trump.
The reaction of Trump's Republican rivals has been even more instructive. Initially, it
was muted. But when major media began to demand that GOP candidates either denounce Trump or come
under suspicion or racism themselves, the panic and pile-on began.
. . .
What Trump has done, and [Ted] Cruz sees it, is to have elevated the illegal immigration
issue, taken a tough line, and is now attacking GOP rivals who have dithered or done nothing to
deal with it.
Trump intends to exploit the illegal immigration issue, and the trade issue, where majorities
of middle-class Americans oppose the elites. And he is going to ride them as far as he can in
the Republican primaries.
In the coming debates, look for Trump to take the populist and popular side of them both. And
for Cruz to stand by him on illegal immigration.
Americans are fed up with words; they want action. Trump is moving in the polls because, whatever
else he may be, he is a man of action.
Trump later
retweeted
and thanked a follower who cited to Buchanan's labeling of Trump as "a man of action."
"... From a Paleo-Conservative perspective what is there to lose with Trump as POTUS? In the absence of a Trumpian paradigm shift in American politics, the status quo will indeed change, quite dramatically, but not in the direction favorable to the principles of 1776 and 1861. At least with a President Trump there is a chance, possible but not necessarily probable, for change in the right direction. As the presidential campaigning heats up, Middle America is bound to rise up. The collective wisdom of Middle America seems to understand that Trump is not the perfect candidate, but they also seem to realize (to paraphrase M. E. Bradford) "that all of us who will not take half a loaf will get a stone." ..."
There are several attributes of Donald Trump's bid for the U.S. Presidency that this Paleo-Conservative
finds to be interesting. To follow is an adumbration of the more salient.
His campaign style is refreshing. The absence of teleprompters, which results in spontaneity,
which in turn reveals the unvarnished candidate in contradistinction to the coached, stale, and
unconvincing political hacks, is refreshing. Trump's campaign speeches and debate performance
have actually juiced up political discourse, making politics interesting not simply for the political
class but also for Middle American.
The engagement of Middle American into this presidential election cycle have the political
class spooked. It is this same political class responsible for the removal of all things Confederate
from the public square, not Middle American. It is Middle America that has catapulted Trump into
the lead. In other words, Middle America may actually have some meaningful input into the election
of the next POTUS.
The spooking of the political class has exposed what it thinks of Middle America. Its
charge against Trump is that the bulk of his support rests upon the inherent racism, national
jingoism and stupidity of average Americans. Some have even claimed that Trump is a closet fascist
and that his supporters are inherently supportive of fascism. This is nonsense. Middle America's
detestation of ruling elites is not fascist, but it is an acknowledgment that it will take a strongman,
statesman if you prefer, to knock out the ruling elites.
Trump's detractors may be his best campaign weapon. Without knowing much about Trump's
policy positions, immigration notwithstanding, there is logic in supporting Trump based upon knowing
who his political enemies are. This may be the best voting cue Middle America has. The enemy (Trump)
of my enemy (the ruling class) is my friend. In other words, the more Trump agitates the ruling
class the more he endears himself to Middle America.
Trump appears to be more the pragmatist than ideologue, and that's a good thing. The
American federative republic's original blueprint is nomocratic (a Southern characteristic), but
has been replaced with a teleocratic (New England Puritanism) one. It is the latter that has resulted
in the unitary US of A, nation-building abroad and the welfare state domestically.
For any Southern patriot the status quo in American politics is totally unacceptable.
One thing is fairly certain; if Trump were to be the next POTUS, the status quo would be in for
quite a shock. At this point it matters little how the status quo might be changed. Middle America
wants change and it wants it now. Moreover, if Trump were to succeed in his bid to be the next
POTUS, he would be much more likely to expose the fraud and corruption inside the beltway than
any of his presidential campaign competitors. Unlike the latter, he would not be held captive
to the interests that funnel money and votes to sustain the status quo, but to the average American
voter, i.e., Middle America.
The disruptions, if not chaos, Trump might affect in Washington may result in preoccupying
the ruling class to the extent that the focus on things Southern, e.g., the Battle Flag, may dissipate.
This might just provide Southern patriots with the space to regroup and be better prepared for
the next assault on their culture.
Trump's campaign slogan is Make America Great Again. As an intelligent man he must know that to
achieve that goal he must remove the government shackles, e.g., taxation, regulations, and centralization,
holding Americans and America down, both domestically and internationally.
From a Paleo-Conservative perspective what is there to lose with Trump as POTUS? In the absence
of a Trumpian paradigm shift in American politics, the status quo will indeed change, quite dramatically,
but not in the direction favorable to the principles of 1776 and 1861. At least with a President
Trump there is a chance, possible but not necessarily probable, for change in the right direction.
As the presidential campaigning heats up, Middle America is bound to rise up. The collective wisdom
of Middle America seems to understand that Trump is not the perfect candidate, but they also seem
to realize (to paraphrase M. E. Bradford) "that all of us who will not take half a loaf will get
a stone."
Marshall DeRosa received his Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Houston and his B. A. from
West Virginia University, Magna Cum Laude. He has taught at Davis and Elkins College (1985-1988),
Louisiana State University (1988-1990), and Florida Atlantic University (1990-Present). He is a Salvatori
Fellow with the Heritage Foundation and full professor in the Department of Political Science. He
has published articles and reviews in professional journals, book chapters, and three books. He resides
in Wellington, FL, with his wife and four children. More from Marshall DeRosa
"... "In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered." ..."
"... "They're now requiring not only the proper acknowledgment of freedom of conscience, political views and private life, but also the mandatory acknowledgment of the equality of good and evil." ..."
"... President Reagan once called the old Soviet Empire "the focus of evil in the modern world." President Putin is implying that Barack Obama's America may deserve the title in the 21st century. ..."
"... Nor is he without an argument when we reflect on America's embrace of abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, pornography, promiscuity, and the whole panoply of Hollywood values. ..."
"... Unelected justices declared abortion and homosexual acts to be constitutionally protected rights. Judges have been the driving force behind the imposition of same-sex marriage. Attorney General Eric Holder refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. ..."
"... America was de-Christianized in the second half of the 20th century by court orders, over the vehement objections of a huge majority of a country that was overwhelmingly Christian. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of " Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? " Copyright 2013 Creators.com . ..."
Is Vladimir Putin a paleoconservative? In the culture war for mankind's future, is he one of us?
While such a question may be blasphemous in Western circles, consider the content of the Russian
president's state of the nation address.
With America clearly in mind, Putin declared, "In
many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered."
"They're now requiring not only the proper acknowledgment of freedom of conscience, political
views and private life, but also the mandatory acknowledgment of the equality of good and evil."
Translation: While privacy and freedom of thought, religion and speech are cherished rights, to
equate traditional marriage and same-sex marriage is to equate good with evil.
No moral confusion here, this is moral clarity, agree or disagree.
President Reagan once called the old Soviet Empire "the focus of evil in the modern world."
President Putin is implying that Barack Obama's America may deserve the title in the 21st century.
Nor is he without an argument when we reflect on America's embrace of abortion on demand,
homosexual marriage, pornography, promiscuity, and the whole panoply of Hollywood values.
Our grandparents would not recognize the America in which we live.
Moreover, Putin asserts, the new immorality has been imposed undemocratically.
The "destruction of traditional values" in these countries, he said, comes "from the top" and
is "inherently undemocratic because it is based on abstract ideas and runs counter to the will of
the majority of people."
Does he not have a point?
Unelected justices declared abortion and homosexual acts to be constitutionally protected
rights. Judges have been the driving force behind the imposition of same-sex marriage. Attorney General
Eric Holder refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.
America was de-Christianized in the second half of the 20th century by court orders, over
the vehement objections of a huge majority of a country that was overwhelmingly Christian.
And same-sex marriage is indeed an "abstract" idea unrooted in the history or tradition of the
West. Where did it come from?
Peoples all over the world, claims Putin, are supporting Russia's "defense of traditional values"
against a "so-called tolerance" that is "genderless and infertile."
While his stance as a defender of traditional values has drawn the mockery of Western media and
cultural elites, Putin is not wrong in saying that he can speak for much of mankind.
Same-sex marriage is supported by America's young, but most states still resist it, with black
pastors visible in the vanguard of the counterrevolution. In France, a million people took to the
streets of Paris to denounce the Socialists' imposition of homosexual marriage.
Only 15 nations out of more than 190 have recognized it.
In India, the world's largest democracy, the Supreme Court has struck down a lower court ruling
that made same-sex marriage a right. And the parliament in this socially conservative nation of more
than a billion people is unlikely soon to reverse the high court.
In the four dozen nations that are predominantly Muslim, which make up a fourth of the U.N. General
Assembly and a fifth of mankind, same-sex marriage is not even on the table. And Pope Francis has
reaffirmed Catholic doctrine on the issue for over a billion Catholics.
While much of American and Western media dismiss him as an authoritarian and reactionary, a throwback,
Putin may be seeing the future with more clarity than Americans still caught up in a Cold War paradigm.
As the decisive struggle in the second half of the 20th century was vertical, East vs. West, the
21st century struggle may be horizontal, with conservatives and traditionalists in every country
arrayed against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.
And though America's elite may be found at the epicenter of anti-conservatism and anti-traditionalism,
the American people have never been more alienated or more divided culturally, socially and morally.
We are two countries now.
Putin says his mother had him secretly baptized as a baby and professes to be a Christian. And
what he is talking about here is ambitious, even audacious.
He is seeking to redefine the "Us vs. Them" world conflict of the future as one in which conservatives,
traditionalists, and nationalists of all continents and countries stand up against the cultural and
ideological imperialism of what he sees as a decadent west.
"We do not infringe on anyone's interests," said Putin, "or try to teach anyone how to live."
The adversary he has identified is not the America we grew up in, but the America we live in, which
Putin sees as pagan and wildly progressive.
Without naming any country, Putin attacked "attempts to enforce more progressive development models"
on other nations, which have led to "decline, barbarity, and big blood," a straight shot at the U.S.
interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt.
In his speech, Putin cited Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev whom Solzhenitsyn had hailed
for his courage in defying his Bolshevik inquisitors. Though no household word, Berdyaev is favorably
known at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal.
Which raises this question: Who is writing Putin's stuff?
"... "The U.S., as paleos have claimed for decades, was only meant to be a constitutional republic, not an empire-as Buchanan's 1999 foreign policy tome A Republic, Not an Empire nostalgically states," Scotchie explains. "Republics mind their own business. Their governments have very limited powers, and their people are too busy practicing self-government to worry about problems in other countries. Empires not only bully smaller, defenseless nations, they also can't leave their own, hapless subjects alone…. Empires and the tenth amendment aren't friends…. Empires and small government aren't compatible, either." ..."
"... If anti-interventionism and a commitment to the Old Republic defined by strict-construction constitutionalism and highly localized and independent social and political institutions defined one major dimension of paleoconservatism, its antipathy to the mass immigration that began to flood the country in the 1980s defined another. Indeed, it was ostensibly and mainly Chronicles' declaration of opposition to immigration that incited the neoconservative attack on Rockford and its subsequent defunding. Scotchie devotes a special but short chapter to paleoconservative thought on immigration and makes clear that to paleos, America was an extension of Western civilization. It was intended by the Founding Fathers to be an Anglo-Saxon-Celtic nation also influenced by Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. Large-scale immigration from non-Western nations would, as Fleming (and most other paleos) maintained, forever spoil a distinct American civilization. ..."
"... The implication of this passage is that paleoconservatives, unlike libertarians, most neoconservatives, and many contemporary mainstream conservatives, do not consider America to be an "idea," a "proposition," or a "creed." It is instead a concrete and particular culture, rooted in a particular historical experience, a set of particular institutions as well as particular beliefs and values, and a particular ethnic-racial identity, and, cut off from those roots, it cannot survive. Indeed, it is not surviving now, for all the glint and glitter of empire. ..."
Joseph Scotchie's Revolt from the Heartland is not, as some readers might guess from the title,
about the terrorism of right-wing militias in the Midwestern United States, although some readers
might also say that guess was close enough. In fact, Revolt from the Heartland deals with the emergence
of "paleoconservatism," a species of conservative thought that despite its name ("paleo" is a Greek
prefix meaning "old") is a fairly recent twist in the cunningly knotted mind of the American Right.
While paleos sometimes like to characterize their beliefs as merely the continuation of the conservative
thought of the 1950s and '60s, and while in fact many of them do have their personal and intellectual
roots in the conservatism of that era, the truth is that what is now called paleoconservatism is
at least as new as the neoconservatism at which many paleos like to sniff as a newcomer.
Paleoconservatism is largely the invention of a single magazine, the Rockford Institute's Chronicles,
as it has been edited since the mid-1980s by Thomas Fleming, and Scotchie's book is essentially an
account of what Fleming and his major colleagues at Chronicles mainly, historian Paul Gottfried,
book review editor Chilton Williamson Jr., professor Clyde Wilson, and I believe, and what the differences
are between our brand of conservatism and others.
Scotchie's first three chapters are a survey of the history of American conservatism up until
the advent of Chronicles, including an account of the "Old Right" of the pre-World-War-II, pre-Depression
eras (for once, an account not confined to the libertarian "isolationists" but encompassing also
the Southern Agrarians), as well as the emergence of the "Cold War conservatism" of National Review
and the neoconservatism of the Reagan era and after. Scotchie's overview of these different shades
of the Right is useful in itself and necessary to clarify the differences between these colorations
and the paleos who constitute his main subject, though he may underestimate the differentiation between
the current, paleo "Old Right" and earlier "Old Rights."
Although Scotchie does not put it quite this way, contemporary paleoconservatism developed as
a reaction against three trends in the American Right during the Reagan administration. First, it
reacted against the bid for dominance by the neoconservatives, former liberals who insisted not only
that their version of conservative ideology and rhetoric prevail over those of older conservatives,
but also that their team should get the rewards of office and patronage and that the other team of
the older Right receive virtually nothing.
... ... ...
Paleos and those who soon identified with them almost spontaneously rejected U.S. military intervention
against Iraq. It was a moment, falling only a year after the neoconservative onslaught on the Rockford
Institute, that solidified the paleoconservative identity.
"The U.S., as paleos have claimed for decades, was only meant to be a constitutional republic,
not an empire-as Buchanan's 1999 foreign policy tome A Republic, Not an Empire nostalgically states,"
Scotchie explains. "Republics mind their own business. Their governments have very limited powers,
and their people are too busy practicing self-government to worry about problems in other countries.
Empires not only bully smaller, defenseless nations, they also can't leave their own, hapless subjects
alone…. Empires and the tenth amendment aren't friends…. Empires and small government aren't compatible,
either."
If anti-interventionism and a commitment to the Old Republic defined by strict-construction
constitutionalism and highly localized and independent social and political institutions defined
one major dimension of paleoconservatism, its antipathy to the mass immigration that began to flood
the country in the 1980s defined another. Indeed, it was ostensibly and mainly Chronicles' declaration
of opposition to immigration that incited the neoconservative attack on Rockford and its subsequent
defunding. Scotchie devotes a special but short chapter to paleoconservative thought on immigration
and makes clear that to paleos, America was an extension of Western civilization. It was intended
by the Founding Fathers to be an Anglo-Saxon-Celtic nation also influenced by Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem.
Large-scale immigration from non-Western nations would, as Fleming (and most other paleos) maintained,
forever spoil a distinct American civilization.
The implication of this passage is that paleoconservatives, unlike libertarians, most neoconservatives,
and many contemporary mainstream conservatives, do not consider America to be an "idea," a "proposition,"
or a "creed." It is instead a concrete and particular culture, rooted in a particular historical
experience, a set of particular institutions as well as particular beliefs and values, and a particular
ethnic-racial identity, and, cut off from those roots, it cannot survive. Indeed, it is not surviving
now, for all the glint and glitter of empire.
Trump is essentially a paleoconservative and as such is hostile to neocons that dominate
Washington establishment. That's' why they hate him so much and blackmail him so much.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is millions of Republican voters' judgment against a party that failed them, and the fact that Trump is thoroughly unqualified for the office he seeks makes that judgment all the more damning. ..."
Trump officially
secured the Republican nomination last night:
Mr. Trump tallied 1,725 delegates, easily surpassing the 1,237 delegate threshold needed to
clinch the nomination. The delegate tally from his home state of New York, announced by Mr. Trump's
son Donald Jr., put him over the top.
Like
Rod Dreher, I see Trump's success as proof that "the people who run [the GOP] and the institutions
surrounding it failed." They not only failed in their immediate task of preventing the nomination
of a candidate that party leaders loathed, but failed repeatedly over at least the last fifteen years
to govern well or even to represent the interests and concerns of most Republican voters.
Had the Bush administration not presided over multiple disasters, most of them of their own making,
there would have been no opening or occasion for the repudiation of the party's leaders that we have
seen this year. Had the party served the interests of most of its voters instead of catering to the
preferences of their donors and corporations, there would have been much less support for someone
like Trump. Party leaders spent decades conning Republican voters with promises they knew they wouldn't
or couldn't fulfill, and then were shocked when most of those voters turned against them.
Trump is millions of Republican voters' judgment against a party that failed them, and the
fact that Trump is thoroughly unqualified for the office he seeks makes that judgment all the more
damning.
"... the best explanation of Trump's surprising success is that the constituency he has mobilized has existed for decades but the right champion never came along. ..."
"... Trump's platform combines positions that are shared by many populists but are anathema to movement conservatives-a defense of Social Security, a guarantee of universal health care, economic nationalist trade policies. "We have expanded the Republican Party," Trump claimed the night of his Super Tuesday victories. ..."
"... Buchanan, in a recent interview , characterized Trump as his populist heir. "What Trump has today is conclusive evidence to prove that what some of us warned about in the 1990s has come to pass," he said. But the evidence is that Trump doesn't see it that way. Trump even competed briefly with Buchanan for the presidential nomination. T he year was 2000 , and Trump, encouraged by his friend Jesse Ventura, then governor of Minnesota, was considering a run for the presidential nomination of Perot's Reform Party, on the grounds that the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Karl Rove had "moved too far toward the extreme far right." Trump and Ventura hoped to rescue the Reform Party from the conservative allies of Buchanan, of whom Trump said: "He's a Hitler lover; I guess he's an anti-Semite. He doesn't like the blacks, he doesn't like the gays." Trump floated the idea of Oprah Winfrey as his running mate . In his 2000 manifesto The America We Deserve , Trump proposed a platform that included universal employer- based health insurance, gays in the military and a one-time 14.5 percent tax on the rich that would reduce the federal deficit and help eliminate the shortfall in Social Security. ..."
"... Compared to Trump, Buchanan was a flawed vehicle for the Jacksonian populism of the ex-Democratic white working class. So was another Pat, the Reverend Pat Robertson, television evangelist, founder of the Christian Coalition, and, like Buchanan, a failed candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. But while the mainstream conservative movement marginalized Buchanan, it embraced Robertson and other evangelical Protestant leaders like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson of Focus on the Family. ..."
"... On social issues like abortion and gay rights, Buchanan shared the agenda of the religious right. But his advocacy of tariffs to protect American industry and immigration restriction threatened the mainstream right's consensus in favor of free trade and increased legal immigration. And his neo-isolationism threatened the post-Cold War American right's support of high military spending and an assertive global foreign policy. ..."
"... Many of the rank-and-file members of the religious right shared the traditional populist suspicion of bankers and big business ..."
"... But even before the unexpected success of Trump in the Republican primary race beginning in 2015, there were signs that this generation-old bargain was coming undone. Hostility to both illegal immigration and high levels of legal immigration, a position which free-market conservatives had fought to marginalize, has moved very quickly from heresy to orthodoxy in the GOP. ..."
"... There were other signs of populist discontent with establishment conservative orthodoxy, for those who paid attention. No project is dearer to the hearts of mainstream movement conservatives than the goal of privatizing Social Security, a hated symbol of the dependency-inducing "statism" of the allegedly tyrannical Franklin D. Roosevelt. But George W. Bush's plan to partly privatize Social Security was so unpopular, even among Republican voters, that a Republican-controlled Congress did not even bother to vote on it in 2005. ..."
Trump, in fact, has more appeal to the center than the conservative populists of the last half century.
Before Trump's rise in this year's Republican primary elections, the best-known populist presidential
candidates were Alabama Governor Wallace and tycoon Ross Perot, along with Buchanan. Yet none of
these past figures had broad enough appeal to hope to win the White House. Despite his folksy demeanor,
Perot was more of a technocrat than a populist and did poorly in traditionally populist areas of
the South and Midwest, where Trump is doing well. Wallace was an outspoken white supremacist, while
Trump tends to speak in a kind of code, starting with his "birther" campaign against President Obama,
and his criticism of illegal immigrants and proposed ban on Muslims may appeal to fringe white nationalists
even if it has offended many if not most Latinos. Nor has Trump alienated large sections of the electorate
by casting his lot with Old Right isolationism, as Buchanan did, or by adopting the religious right
social agenda of Robertson.
Indeed, the best explanation of Trump's surprising success is that the constituency he has
mobilized has existed for decades but the right champion never came along. What conservative
apparatchiks hate about Trump-his insufficient conservatism-may be his greatest strength in the general
election. His populism cuts across party lines like few others before him. Like his fans, Trump is
indifferent to the issues of sexual orientation that animate the declining religious right, even
to the point of defending Planned Parenthood. Trump's platform combines positions that are shared
by many populists but are anathema to movement conservatives-a defense of Social Security, a guarantee
of universal health care, economic nationalist trade policies. "We have expanded the Republican Party,"
Trump claimed the night of his Super Tuesday victories.
He may well be right, though it's not clear what that Republican Party will look like in the end.
... ... ...
Buchanan, a former Nixon aide and conservative journalist, ran unsuccessfully for
the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and was awarded with a prime-time speech at the Republican
National Convention that nominated George Herbert Walker Bush for a second term in the White House.
Buchanan's speech focused almost entirely on the "religious war" and "culture war" to save America
from feminism, legal abortion, gay rights, and "the raw sewage of pornography."
In his 1996 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, and in his 2000 campaign as the
Reform Party nominee, Buchanan emphasized populist themes of economic nationalism and immigration
restriction. But he was too much of a member of the Old Right that despised FDR and sought a return
to the isolationism of Robert Taft and Charles Lindbergh to have much appeal to former New Deal Democrats.
Buchanan's history of borderline anti-Semitic remarks led William F. Buckley Jr. to criticize him
in "In Search of Anti-Semitism," (1992) and some of his associates like Samuel Francis were overt
white racial nationalists.
For Reagan Democrats and their children and grandchildren, World War II showed America at its
best. But Buchanan concluded a long career of eccentric World War II revisionism in 2009 with "Churchill,
Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost its Empire and the West Lost the World," arguing
that Hitler should have been appeased by Britain and the U.S.
Buchanan,
in a recent interview, characterized Trump as his populist heir. "What Trump has today is conclusive
evidence to prove that what some of us warned about in the 1990s has come to pass," he said. But
the evidence is that Trump doesn't see it that way. Trump even competed briefly with Buchanan for
the presidential nomination. The
year was 2000, and Trump, encouraged by his friend Jesse Ventura, then governor of Minnesota,
was considering a run for the presidential nomination of Perot's Reform Party, on the grounds that
the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Karl Rove had "moved too far toward the extreme far right."
Trump and Ventura hoped to rescue the Reform Party from the conservative allies of Buchanan, of whom
Trump said: "He's a Hitler lover; I guess he's an anti-Semite. He doesn't like the blacks, he doesn't
like the gays." Trump floated the idea of Oprah Winfrey as his running mate . In his 2000 manifesto
The America We Deserve, Trump proposed a platform that included universal employer- based
health insurance, gays in the military and a one-time 14.5 percent
tax on the rich
that would reduce the federal deficit and help eliminate the shortfall in Social Security.
In his press release announcing
his withdrawal from the race for the presidential nomination of the Reform Party, Trump wrote: "Now
I understand that David Duke has decided to join the Reform Party to support the candidacy of Pat
Buchanan. So the Reform Party now includes a Klansman-Mr. Duke, a Neo-Nazi-Mr. Buchanan, and a Communist-Ms.
[Lenora] Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep."
Compared to Trump, Buchanan was a flawed vehicle for the Jacksonian populism of the ex-Democratic
white working class. So was another Pat, the Reverend Pat Robertson, television evangelist, founder
of the Christian Coalition, and, like Buchanan, a failed candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination. But while the mainstream conservative movement marginalized Buchanan, it embraced Robertson
and other evangelical Protestant leaders like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson of Focus on the Family.
On social issues like abortion and gay rights, Buchanan shared the agenda of the religious
right. But his advocacy of tariffs to protect American industry and immigration restriction threatened
the mainstream right's consensus in favor of free trade and increased legal immigration. And his
neo-isolationism threatened the post-Cold War American right's support of high military spending
and an assertive global foreign policy.
Unlike Buchanan, Robertson and other religious right leaders did not deviate from the Republican
Party line on trade, immigration, or tax cuts for the rich. Many of the rank-and-file members
of the religious right shared the traditional populist suspicion of bankers and big business.
But in the 1990s there was a tacit understanding that religious right activists would focus on issues
of sex and reproduction and school prayer, leaving economics to free-marketers. In foreign policy,
the Christian Zionism of many Protestant evangelicals made them reliable allies of neoconservatives
with close ties to Israel and supportive of the Iraq War and other U.S. interventions in the Middle
East.
From the 1980s until this decade, the religious right was the toothless, domesticated "designated
populist" wing of the Republican coalition, and mainstream conservative politicians took it for granted
that as long as they said they opposed abortion and gay marriage, evangelical voters would support
free-market conservative economics and interventionist neoconservative foreign policy.
But even before the unexpected success of Trump in the Republican primary race beginning in
2015, there were signs that this generation-old bargain was coming undone. Hostility to both illegal
immigration and high levels of legal immigration, a position which free-market conservatives had
fought to marginalize, has moved very quickly from heresy to orthodoxy in the GOP. The opposition
of populist conservatives killed comprehensive immigration reform under George W. Bush in 2007 and
also killed the Gang of Eight immigration reform effort led in part by Senator Marco Rubio in 2013.
The defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 Republican primary for the 7th District
of Virginia by an unknown conservative academic, David Brat, was attributed largely to Cantor's support
for the immigration reform effort.
There were other signs of populist discontent with establishment conservative orthodoxy, for
those who paid attention. No project is dearer to the hearts of mainstream movement conservatives
than the goal of privatizing Social Security, a hated symbol of the dependency-inducing "statism"
of the allegedly tyrannical Franklin D. Roosevelt. But George W. Bush's plan to partly privatize
Social Security was so unpopular, even among Republican voters, that a Republican-controlled Congress
did not even bother to vote on it in 2005. And a Republican-controlled Congress passed Medicare
Part D in 2003-the biggest expansion of a universal middle-class entitlement between the creation
of Medicare in 1965 and the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Blue collar Republican voters
applauded, as libertarian think-tankers raged.
Conservative populists cannot be accused of inconsistency. Like New Deal Democrats before them,
they tend to favor universal benefits for which the middle class is eligible like Social Security,
Medicare and Medicare Part D, and to oppose welfare programs like Medicaid and the ACA which feature
means tests that make the working class and middle class ineligible. The true inconsistency is on
the part of the mainstream conservative movement, which has yoked together left-inspired crusades
for global democratic revolution abroad with minimal-state libertarianism at home.
It remains to be seen whether Trump can win the Republican nomination, much less the White House.
But whatever becomes of his candidacy, it seems likely that his campaign will prove to be just one
of many episodes in the gradual replacement of Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan conservatism by something
more like European national populist movements, such as the National Front in France and the United
Kingdom Independence Party in Britain. Unlike Goldwater, who spearheaded an already-existing alliance
consisting of National Review, Modern Age, and Young Americans for Freedom, Trump has followers but
no supportive structure of policy experts and journalists. But it seems likely that some Republican
experts and editors, seeking to appeal to his voters in the future, will promote a Trump-like national
populist synthesis of middle-class social insurance plus immigration restriction and foreign policy
realpolitik,through conventional policy papers and op-eds rather than blustering speeches and tweets.
That's looking ahead. Glancing backward, it is unclear that there has ever been any significant
number of voters who share the worldview of the policy elites in conservative think tanks and journals.
In hindsight, the various right-wing movements-the fusionist conservatism of Buckley, Goldwater and
Reagan, neoconservatism, libertarianism, the religious right-appear to have been so many barnacles
hitching free rides on the whale of the Jacksonian populist electorate. The whale is awakening beneath
them, and now the barnacles don't know what to do.
"... Trump advances core paleoconservative positions laid out in "The Next Conservatism" - rebuilding infrastructure, protective tariffs, securing borders and stopping immigration, neutralizing designated internal enemies and isolationism. ..."
"... I don't like what I see happening to America. The infrastructure of our country is a laughingstock all over the world. Our airports, our bridges, our roadways - it's falling apart. It's terrible thing to see. Our politicians are all talk, no action. Millions of people are flowing across our Southern border. We've got to build a real wall… Let's make America great again. ..."
"... He says Republicans (along with Democrats) have aided the deindustrialization of America and the dispossession of the middle class, wasted the national treasure on idiotic wars (such as in Iraq) and enabled the dramatic expansion of repressive federal power. ..."
"... As far as Trump's campaign platform goes, he appears to be capitalizing on the ideas of some of America's most astute right-wing thinkers, Weyrich and Lind, who have crafted a new breed of conservatism with far broader populist appeal than the increasingly discredited trickle-down economics, big government, interventionist, corporate capitalism-beholden style of conservatism that's become dominant in the years since Reagan. Think of the power of the platform. Prior to the election, it was taken for granted that funding from plutocratic billionaires - the Kochs, Adelson, and so on - would shape the GOP primary outcome. Now, Trump has unique talents that set him apart, sure - but without the paleocon program, Trump would be just another Republican in the pack. ..."
The corporate media haven't been able to make much sense of Donald Trump. One thing they've said
is that he's non-ideological, or at least at odds with "true conservatives." But you've pointed he
has strong affinities for paleoconservative ideas, particularly as laid out in the 2009 book, "The
Next Conservatism" by Paul Weyrich and William Lind - a copy of which Lind recently gave to
Trump. You wrote, "Trump could have derived most of his 2016 primary positions from a two-hour session
with Lind's and Weyrich's book." Could you elaborate?
Trump advances core paleoconservative
positions laid out in "The Next Conservatism" - rebuilding infrastructure, protective tariffs, securing
borders and stopping immigration, neutralizing designated internal enemies and isolationism.
For example, an eleven-minute pro-Trump infomercial from August 2015, "'On
Point' With Sarah Palin and Donald Trump" - which now has over 3,800,000 views - begins with
a mini-Trump speech that could have been ghostwritten by William Lind:
I don't like what I see happening to America. The infrastructure of our country is a laughingstock
all over the world. Our airports, our bridges, our roadways - it's falling apart. It's terrible
thing to see. Our politicians are all talk, no action. Millions of people are flowing across our
Southern border. We've got to build a real wall… Let's make America great again.
... ... ...
Lind says they're intellectually vacuous, and that the current conservatism is "rubbish" and filled
with "'I've got mine' smugness." He says Republicans (along with Democrats) have aided the deindustrialization
of America and the dispossession of the middle class, wasted the national treasure on idiotic wars
(such as in Iraq) and enabled the dramatic expansion of repressive federal power.
... ... ...
As far as Trump's campaign platform goes, he appears to be capitalizing on the ideas of some
of America's most astute right-wing thinkers, Weyrich and Lind, who have crafted a new breed of conservatism
with far broader populist appeal than the increasingly discredited trickle-down economics, big government,
interventionist, corporate capitalism-beholden style of conservatism that's become dominant in the
years since Reagan. Think of the power of the platform. Prior to the election, it was taken for granted
that funding from plutocratic billionaires - the Kochs, Adelson, and so on - would shape the GOP
primary outcome. Now, Trump has unique talents that set him apart, sure - but without the paleocon
program, Trump would be just another Republican in the pack.
Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News,
and a columnist for Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg.
"... The term "paleoconservatism" is a retronym coined in the 1980s to characterize a brand of conservatism that was by then going extinct, a brand exemplified by Robert Taft, the Ohio senator and legendary isolationist who lost the 1952 Republican nomination to Dwight Eisenhower. In its day it was often referred to as the "Old Right." ..."
"... Republican isolationists prevented the US from participating in the League of Nations, led a largely non-interventionist foreign policy in the '20s, and were skeptical of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine in the early years of the Cold War. ..."
"... The increasing interest of American business in trade abroad made the anti-internationalism of the Old Right increasingly unviable in the party of capital. ..."
"... The losses kept coming. In the 1980s, the rise of neoconservatism both threatened the anti-internationalist, America-first mentality of the paleocons and enraged them due to the prominence of Jewish writers in the neoconservative movement. ..."
"... They nearly universally opposed the war in Iraq and war on terror more broadly, and were deeply skeptical of Bill Clinton's humanitarian interventions in the Balkans. ..."
"... "We are getting out of the nation-building business, and instead focusing on creating stability in the world," he declares. "Our moments of greatest strength came when politics ended at the water's edge." That's pure paleocon. ..."
"... Whether the establishment likes it or not, and it evidently does not, there is a revolution going on in America. The old order in this capital city is on the way out, America is crossing a great divide, and there is no going back. Donald Trump's triumphant march to the nomination in Cleveland, virtually assured by his five-state sweep Tuesday, confirms it, as does his foreign policy address of Wednesday. ..."
"... Donald Trump has raised three issues of real concern to paleoconservatives and traditional conservatives like myself." ..."
"... Trump is an imperfect paleocon. He's unrefined, a recent convert, and not as socially conservative as they may like. But on the important stuff, the term fits him better than any other. ..."
One of the strangest allegations leveled against Donald Trump by his Republican critics is that
he's not a conservative - or even, in the most extreme version of this critique, that he's actually
a liberal.
"People can support Donald Trump, but they cannot support him on conservative grounds," former
George W. Bush aide
Peter Wehner writes at Commentary. "The case for constitutional limited government is the case
against Donald Trump," declares Federalist founder
Ben Domenech. "Instead of converting voters to conservatism, Trump is succeeding at converting
conservatives to statism on everything from health care and entitlements to trade," complained
National Review's Jonah Goldberg.
Insofar as these commentators are criticizing the recency of Trump's conservative convictions,
well, fair enough. In an earlier life he was indeed a big fan of
universal
health care,
wealth taxation,
and legal
abortion - and if his general election
pivoting on taxes and the minimum wage is any indication, conservative fears that he would return
to his more liberal roots in the general election may yet be vindicated.
But the ideological vision Trump put forward during the Republican primary campaign was deeply
conservative, and, more specifically, deeply paleoconservative.
The paleoconservatives were a major voice in the Republican Party for many years, with Pat Buchanan
as their most recent leader, and pushed a line that is very reminiscent of Trump_vs_deep_state.
They adhere to the normal conservative triad of nationalism, free markets, and moral traditionalism,
but they put greater weight on the nationalist leg of the stool - leading to a more strident form
of anti-immigrant politics that often veers into racism, an isolationist foreign policy rather than
a hawkish or dovish one, and a deep skepticism of economic globalization that puts them at odds with
an important element of the business agenda.
Trump is an odd standard-bearer for paleocons, many of whom are conservative Catholics and whose
passionate social conservatism doesn't jibe well with Trump's philandering. His foreign policy ideas
are also more interventionist than those of most paleocons. But the ideas that have made him such
a controversial candidate aren't ones he got from liberals. They have a serious conservative pedigree.
A brief history of paleoconservatism
The term "paleoconservatism" is a retronym coined in the 1980s to characterize a brand of
conservatism that was by then going extinct, a brand exemplified by Robert Taft, the Ohio senator
and legendary isolationist who lost the 1952 Republican nomination to Dwight Eisenhower. In its day
it was often referred to as the "Old Right."
There was a time when these positions were normal for the Republican party. Leaders like William
McKinley supported tariffs as a way of supporting domestic industries and raising revenue outside
of an income tax. Smoot and Hawley, of the infamous Great Depression tariff, were both Republicans.
Republican isolationists prevented the US from participating in the League of Nations, led a largely
non-interventionist foreign policy in the '20s, and were skeptical of the Marshall Plan and the Truman
Doctrine in the early years of the Cold War.
But starting in the first decade of the 1900s and continuing gradually through the '50s, this
balance began to be upset, especially on trade but also on issues of war and peace. Progressives
within the Republican Party began to challenge support for trade protection and argue for a more
hawkish approach to foreign affairs. The increasing interest of American business in trade abroad
made the anti-internationalism of the Old Right increasingly unviable in the party of capital.
The two defining moments that led to paleocon decline were Taft's defeat and the suppressing of
the John Birch Society by William F. Buckley and National Review in the early 1960s. The Birch Society
differed strongly from the most isolationist of paleocons on foreign affairs; it was named after
an American missionary killed by Chinese communists in 1945, whom the group claimed as the first
casualty of the Cold War.
The organization advocated an aggressive, paranoid approach to the Soviet Union. But on other
issues they were right in sync: extremely anti-immigration, hostile to foreign trade, supportive
of limited government (except where trade, immigration, and anti-communism are concerned).
Buckley, along with Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and others, issued a series of attacks on the
society, which were successful in marginalizing it, and establishing Buckley and National Review's
brand of conservatism as the ideology's public face in America. "The attack established them as the
'responsible Right,'" according to
Buckley biographer John Judis, "and moved them out of the crackpot far Right and toward the great
center of American politics." It was a key victory for the New Right, and a key loss for the Old
Right.
The losses kept coming. In the 1980s, the rise of neoconservatism both threatened the anti-internationalist,
America-first mentality of the paleocons and enraged them due to the prominence of Jewish writers
in the neoconservative movement. While not everyone in the paleoconservative movement was an
anti-Semite, it certainly had an anti-Semitism problem, which its attacks on the neocons revealed
frequently.
From the Sobran purge to Pat Buchanan
The saga of Joseph Sobran is a case in point. A longtime columnist at National Review, he was
fired by William F. Buckley in 1993 following years of open clashes about his attitude toward Israel
and Jewish people in general. In 1991, Buckley had dedicated an entire issue of the magazine to a
40,000-word essay he wrote,
"In Search of Anti-Semitism," in which he condemned Buchanan (then challenging President George
H.W. Bush in the GOP primaries) and his employee Sobran for anti-Jewish prejudice.
Buckley had a point. Sobran really was a world-class anti-Semite, writing in one National Review
column, "If Christians were sometimes hostile to Jews, that worked two ways. Some rabbinical authorities
held that it was permissible to cheat and even kill Gentiles."
After leaving NR, Sobran's writing, in the words of fellow paleocon and
American Conservative editor Scott McConnell, "deteriorated into the indefensible." He started
speaking at conferences organized by famed Holocaust denier David Irving and the denial group
Institute for Historical Review,
asking at the latter, "Why on earth is it 'anti-Jewish' to conclude from the evidence that the standard
numbers of Jews murdered are inaccurate, or that the Hitler regime, bad as it was in many ways, was
not, in fact, intent on racial extermination?"
While Sobran was purged, Buchanan continued his rise. His ability to distinguish himself from
the non-paleoconservatives was enhanced by the end of the Cold War. Many paleocons made an exception
to their isolationism for the unique evil of the Soviet Union. With that boogeyman gone, they retreated
to a stricter non-interventionism. They nearly universally opposed the war in Iraq and war on
terror more broadly, and were deeply skeptical of Bill Clinton's humanitarian interventions in the
Balkans.
The '90s anti-immigrant panic, and the era's high-profile trade deals, made Buchanan and the paleocons'
views on those issues appealing to base Republicans tired of pro-trade, pro-migration GOPers.
... ... ...
Paleocons love Trump
Trump fits into this tradition quite well. He's less stridently anti–welfare state, and less socially
conservative than most paleoconservatives. But he is a great exemplar of the movement's core belief:
America should come first, and trade and migration from abroad are direct threats to its way of life.
"We are getting out of the nation-building business, and instead focusing on creating stability
in the world," he declares. "Our moments of greatest strength came when politics ended at the water's
edge." That's pure paleocon.
Whether the establishment likes it or not, and it evidently does not, there is a revolution
going on in America. The old order in this capital city is on the way out, America is crossing
a great divide, and there is no going back. Donald Trump's triumphant march to the nomination
in Cleveland, virtually assured by his five-state sweep Tuesday, confirms it, as does his foreign
policy address of Wednesday.
…Whether the issue is trade, immigration or foreign policy, says Trump, "we are putting the
American people first again." U.S. policy will be dictated by U.S. national interests.
"I would not say that Donald Trump is a paleoconservative. … I don't think [Trump's] a social
conservative,"
he elaborated in an interview with the Daily Caller. But he added, "I was just astonished to
see him raise the precise issues on which we ran in the 1990s. … Donald Trump has raised three
issues of real concern to paleoconservatives and traditional conservatives like myself."
It's not just Buchanan, either.
Derbyshire
has said that Trump is "doing the Lord's work shaking up the GOP side of the 2016 campaign," and
in another column
volunteered
his services as a speechwriter.
Virgil Goode, a former Congress member who was the paleocon Constitution Party's 2012 nominee,
has endorsed Trump as the only candidate serious about immigration. Taki has featured reams of pro-Trump
coverage, like
this piece praising his economic nationalism.
Trump is an imperfect paleocon. He's unrefined, a recent convert, and not as socially conservative
as they may like. But on the important stuff, the term fits him better than any other.
"... Trump is a paleoconservative who preaches the reduction of the U.S. presence and engagement throughout the world. His precursors were active in the America First movement, which wanted American neutrality during World War II. He can identify with Robert Taft, a Republican senator who was against NATO and the expedition to North Korea at the beginning of the Cold War. He also shares Pat Buchanan's nationalism, who was a candidate before him. ..."
"... Although Trump's political philosophy is not entirely insubstantial, his campaign stances do not have the same ideological coherence. He accuses President Bush of having lied to invade Iraq, but wants to confiscate Iranian oil to compensate the war's American victims. He has expressed his admiration for Vladimir Putin, but wants to build a wall at the Mexican border and close military bases in ally countries. He intends to ally with Russia to bomb the Islamic State group, but is contemplating a tariff war against China to protect jobs. He adheres to the Iran deal and dismisses a change of regime in Syria, but is suggesting killing North Korea's leader and the families of terrorist leaders. ..."
Published in Le Devoir (Canada) on 14 March 2016 by Charles Benjamin
[link to original]
After having shaken up the American establishment, Donald Trump's unexpected success is sowing
panic in the neoconservative camp. Known for the failed crusade they led against Iraq, the neoconservatives
are looking for a new icon to bring their ideals back to life. The announced defeat of their favorite,
Marco Rubio, has not convinced them to join forces with the lead candidate, whose populism goes against
their political convictions.
The controversial candidate's nomination could thus lead to a neoconservative exodus to the Hillary
Clinton clan, who is embodying their ideological stance more and more. This break-off would reveal
the cleavage that separates the presidential candidates. Besides the personalities, the primary elections
are the setting for a showdown between the deeply engrained political traditions of American history.
Marco Rubio: The Neoconservative Hope
Neoconservatives stem from former Democrats who were opposed to the nomination of George McGovern,
who advocated détente with the Soviet Union during the 1972 primary election. They were seduced by
the ideological zeal with which Ronald Reagan was fighting "the evil empire." The Sept. 11 attacks
sealed their grip on George W. Bush's presidency. Taken over by the missionary spirit bequeathed
by Woodrow Wilson, they wanted to free the Middle East at gunpoint and export democracy there as
a remedy to terrorism. They had a nearly blind faith in the moral superiority and military capabilities
of their country. Iraq was like a laboratory for them, where they played wizards-in-training without
accepting defeat.
In a hurry to undo Barack Obama's legacy, neoconservatives are advising Marco Rubio in regaining
the White House. They are thrilled with the belligerent speech by the candidate, who is reminiscent
of Reagan. Settled on re-affirming the dominance of the U.S., Rubio has committed to increasing the
defense budget, toughening the sanctions against Moscow, providing weapons to Ukraine, and expanding
NATO to the Russian border. He intends to increase troops to fight the Islamic State group, revive
the alliance with Israel, and end the nuclear disarmament deal with Iran. The son of Cuban immigrants,
he also promises to end all dialogue with the Castro regime and to tighten the embargo against the
island.
Donald Trump: The Paleoconservative
Donald Trump's detractors describe him as an impostor who has a serious lack of understanding
of international affairs. Yet, he has set himself apart by cultivating a noninterventionist tradition
that goes back to the interwar period. Trump is a paleoconservative who preaches the reduction
of the U.S. presence and engagement throughout the world. His precursors were active in the America
First movement, which wanted American neutrality during World War II. He can identify with Robert
Taft, a Republican senator who was against NATO and the expedition to North Korea at the beginning
of the Cold War. He also shares Pat Buchanan's nationalism, who was a candidate before him.
Although Trump's political philosophy is not entirely insubstantial, his campaign stances
do not have the same ideological coherence. He accuses President Bush of having lied to invade Iraq,
but wants to confiscate Iranian oil to compensate the war's American victims. He has expressed his
admiration for Vladimir Putin, but wants to build a wall at the Mexican border and close military
bases in ally countries. He intends to ally with Russia to bomb the Islamic State group, but is contemplating
a tariff war against China to protect jobs. He adheres to the Iran deal and dismisses a change of
regime in Syria, but is suggesting killing North Korea's leader and the families of terrorist leaders.
Hillary Clinton: The Democratic Hawk
Will Donald Trump's noninterventionist temptation and unpredictable character lead the neoconservatives
to make up with their former political group? Two figures of the movement have already repudiated
the Republican lead and announced their future support of Hillary Clinton.
The Democratic candidate boasts a much more robust and interventionist position than Obama. Annoyed
with her boss's caution while she was secretary of state, Clinton was pleading early on to send massive
reinforcements in Afghanistan. She believes in U.S. humanitarian imperialism and persuaded the president
to use force against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Her call to help Syrian rebels at the dawn of the
Arab Spring was ignored. Now, she is giving faint support to the agreement negotiated with Iran and
supports the creation of a military exclusion zone over Syria. Her platform offers a new base for
neoconservatives, who will have to decide if they will stay loyal to their ideals or to their party.
"... Trump has been a vocal opponent of bad trade deals, while Cruz is a supporter of "free trade," even vocally backing Trade Promotion Authority for months before opportunistically voting against it when it no longer mattered ..."
"... Trump is opposed to raising the retirement age for Social Security while Cruz supports it ..."
"... Trump has famously promised he'd get along with Vladimir Putin, praised Putin's actions in Syria and has received compliments from the Russian leader; Cruz sticks to the usual anti-Russian rhetoric of the conservative movement calling Putin a "KGB thug" and saying America should undertake more intervention in the Middle East to confront Russia ..."
"... Ted Cruz notoriously called a group of Middle Eastern Christians "consumed with hate" for being insufficiently pro-Israeli while Trump has defended Middle Eastern Christians as a group that is "under assault" from Islamic terrorism ..."
But Donald Trump has changed everything. He has created the potential for a different movement
altogether. Not only is immigration at the center of his campaign, it's part of a larger agenda
that is genuinely different from the "movement conservatism" of Ted Cruz:
Trade.Trump has been a vocal opponent of bad trade deals, while Cruz is a supporter
of "free trade," even vocally backing Trade Promotion Authority for months before opportunistically
voting against it when it no longer mattered [Cruz reverses support for TPA trade bill,
blasts GOP leaders, by Manu Raju, Politico, June 23, 2015]
Safety Net. Trump is opposed to raising the retirement age for Social Security
while Cruz supports it [Where the presidential candidates stand on Social Security, by
Steve Vernon, MoneyWatch, November 23, 2015] Trump is also placing the protection of Medicare
at the center of his campaign, defying conservative movement dogma [Debate over Medicare, Social
Security, other federal benefits divides GOP, by Robert Costa and Ed O'Keefe,Washington Post,
November 4, 2015]
Russia.Trump has famously promised he'd get along with Vladimir Putin, praised
Putin's actions in Syria and has received compliments from the Russian leader; Cruz sticks
to the usual anti-Russian rhetoric of the conservative movement calling Putin a "KGB thug"
and saying America should undertake more intervention in the Middle East to confront Russia
[Ted Cruz: Russia-US tensions increasing over weak foreign policy, by Sandy Fitzgerald,Newsmax,
October 7, 2015]
Christianity. Ted Cruz notoriously called a group of Middle Eastern Christians
"consumed with hate" for being insufficiently pro-Israeli while Trump has defended Middle Eastern
Christians as a group that is "under assault" from Islamic terrorism [Trump: Absolutely
An Assault on Christianity, by Joe Kovacs, WND, August 25, 2015]. At the same time, while Trump
has been quick to defend American Christians from cultural assaults, he is also probably the
Republican "most friendly" to gay rights, as homosexual columnist Mark Stern has mischievously
noted [Of course Donald Trump is the Most Pro-Gay Republican Presidential Candidate, Slate,
December 18, 2015]
http://www.unz.com/article/whither-the-american-right/
Military coup sounds awfully good to me right about now!
xxx
Christianity. Ted Cruz notoriously called a group of Middle Eastern Christians "consumed with
hate" for being insufficiently pro-Israeli while Trump has defended Middle Eastern Christians
as a group that is "under assault" from Islamic terrorism
Maybe, I'm misunderstanding something; maybe I'm just not sure what "insufficiently pro-Israeli"
means, but Ted Cruz didn't condemn the group of Middle Eastern Christians for being "pro-Israel".
He condemned them for being anti-Israel, and said he wouldn't stand with them if they didn't stand
with Israel.
Neoliberalism is self-defeating social system, which creates the mechanism of redistribution of
wealth up, that takes that whole system down.
Notable quotes:
"... The Republicans weren't interested in inequality-but inequality was interested in them. The
conservative elite told us that we were a center-right country, that we didn't do class warfare, that
envy was un-American. But the voters, invertebrates that they are, disagreed. In fact, they thought
Obama was on to something when he said that secretaries shouldn't have to pay a higher tax rate than
their billionaire bosses. ..."
In Kennedy's day, Republicans worried more about budget deficits than economic growth and therefore
opposed his tax cuts. When the legislation came up for a final vote in the House of Representatives,
only 48 Republicans supported it and 126 voted against it, and it passed only because 223 liberal
Democrats voted for it. Remember, we are talking about a top marginal rate of 91 percent, which the
bill reduced to a still very high 65 percent.
... Trump, while he is not the poster child of inclusiveness when it comes to immigrants, has
nonetheless revived the old Reagan coalition by bringing formerly Democratic voters to the voting
booths to support him. They have left a Democratic Party whose leaders think them ignorant rednecks
who cling to their guns and religion, and they're not made to feel especially welcome when Cruz supporters
call them invertebrates and bigots: that's a good way to win an election, said no one ever.
... ... ...
What Obama had spoken to were the classically liberal themes of equality and mobility, of the
promise of a better future. The Republicans weren't interested in inequality-but inequality was
interested in them. The conservative elite told us that we were a center-right country, that we didn't
do class warfare, that envy was un-American. But the voters, invertebrates that they are, disagreed.
In fact, they thought Obama was on to something when he said that secretaries shouldn't have to pay
a higher tax rate than their billionaire bosses.
... ... ...
Our mobility problem results from departures from and not our adherence to capitalism. Rising
inequality in America has been blamed on the "1 percent," the people in the top income centile making
more than $400,000 a year. They alone don't explain American income immobility, however. Rather,
it's the risk-averse New Class-the 1, 2, or 3 percent, the professionals, academics, opinion leaders,
and politically connected executives who float above the storm and constitute an American aristocracy.
They oppose reforms that would make America mobile and have become the enemies of promise.
The New Class is apt to think it has earned its privileges through its merits, that America is
still the kind of meritocracy that it was in Ragged Dick's day, where anyone could rise from the
very bottom through his talents and efforts. Today's meritocracy is very different, however. Meritocratic
parents raise meritocratic children in a highly immobile country, and the Ragged Dicks are going
to stay where they are. We are meritocratic in name only. What we've become is Legacy Nation, a society
of inherited privilege and frozen classes, and in The Way Back I explain how we got here and what
we can do about it.
If Trump is the price we have to pay to defeat Clintonian neoliberalism – so be it.
-- Mumia Abu-Jamal
With these words the revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal offers a bold challenge to those
who circulate the fear of a Trump presidency to drum up a mandate for voting for Clinton.
Mumia's words were shared with me just a month ago in a prison visit with him. They are a timely
challenge to Bernie Sanders' endorsement this week of Hillary Clinton's drive for the presidency.
Sanders mantra is anchored in the fear of Trump: "I will do everything possible to help defeat Trump."
But it is not just a Trump presidency that needs defeating. It is just as important to defeat
the very "Clintonian neoliberalism" whose party Sanders now joins.
"... Just as George W. Bush was "wholly ill-suited" so is Mrs. Clinton. It was her policy which is mostly responsible for the refugee flood into Europe from both Libya and Syria. She treats foreign policy like it's a board game. She gets ideologically convinced that overthrowing Assad or Quadifi is a grand idea and starts the process. Neither she nor her advisers ever ask, basic questions about the mechanics of the "process." For example, as part of this "process" the population of Allepo (just Allepo without respect to all the other towns, villages and hamlets) will be reduced from a population of 1.1 million to less than 100,000 with the difference being refugees conscripts or dead. What do we plan to do with the 750,000 plus refugees? Talk about "wholly ill-suited." ..."
"... I don't want to see Trump as President, however, the Dems have picked the one candidate who might actually lose to him. Clinton is not only demonstrably inept and widely recognized as dishonest, she has also contributed a great deal to the mess in the Middle East. ..."
"... The only people currently doing the heavy lifting with cogent and perceptive commentary on serious issues and the systemic inability of political and economic institutions to embrace reality are professional comedians. John Oliver, Jim Jeffries et al are continuing the George Carlin tradition of pointing out the abject lunacy of our "leaders", whose words are reported by the mainstream media (corporate media that is, let's not forget to "follow the money") as if they were something other than delusional drivel. ..."
George W Bush showed himself wholly ill-suited to the presidency within nine months of his
inauguration. Those of us who covered his campaign should have seen that moment coming, even if
we had no idea about Osama bin Laden's plotting.
On board his campaign plane, all Candidate Bush wanted to talk about was baseball statistics. If
he talked about the world, it revolved around his vacations. Perhaps we should have realized he
would find it hard to distinguish Afghanistan from Iraq, and Sunni from Shia.
A charming cut-up as Texas governor, Bush's superficial grasp of policy didn't matter nearly as
much as the fact that he seemed more entertaining than that earnest, wonkish Al Gore. At least
that was the tenor of much of what passed for news analysis of the 2000 campaign.
Bush projected the notion that he understood leadership; that his guts were greater than the
facts. As Tony Blair discovered within a year of 9/11, Bush's leadership was reckless playacting,
and the facts on the ground in Iraq were far more formidable than his gut instincts.
FugitiveColors
Another,be afraid of Donald Trump article. Lets settle this crap right here. Donald trump
is a horrible SOB, even his supporters agree.
Which matters not one iota. Much of America wants crap to change, even if it means using a
wrecking ball.
Bogdanich
Just as George W. Bush was "wholly ill-suited" so is Mrs. Clinton. It was her policy
which is mostly responsible for the refugee flood into Europe from both Libya and Syria. She
treats foreign policy like it's a board game. She gets ideologically convinced that
overthrowing Assad or Quadifi is a grand idea and starts the process. Neither she nor her
advisers ever ask, basic questions about the mechanics of the "process." For example, as part
of this "process" the population of Allepo (just Allepo without respect to all the other
towns, villages and hamlets) will be reduced from a population of 1.1 million to less than
100,000 with the difference being refugees conscripts or dead. What do we plan to do with the
750,000 plus refugees? Talk about "wholly ill-suited."
legalimmigrant
Message to Richard Wolffe - you may enjoy sounding off in your echo chamber but that's all
you're doing. The elites have had their day. The people demand something "different" and if
that "different" is orange colored with a strange folicular arrangement then so be it. You can
get back to frenziedly typing about what a devil DJT is now.
Benjohn6379 -> legalimmigrant
"People in this country have had enough of experts" - Brexit campaigner/propagandist and
huge liar Michael Gove
The anti-establishment movement is real and healthy and global. I can totally understand, as
I'm also sick and tired of being lied to and told that the status quo is the only way. But
don't kid yourself, Trump is one of these elites.
He may seem "different" as you say, but that's only because he's a piece of shit openly as
opposed to trying to hide it, like Hillary.
Neither candidate has any desire to help the middle class.
Confess -> Benjohn6379
Open is good. Americans are sick and tired of being lied and having facts hidden from us.
How can we progress when everything is covered up? Just give us the facts or a real god damn
opinion. All the double talk and cover ups are tearing the country apart. Soon BLM will have
the same amount of power as Muslims, no one can say anything bad about them, even when it's
true. That is what's dangerous.
Obelisk1
I don't want to see Trump as President, however, the Dems have picked the one candidate
who might actually lose to him. Clinton is not only demonstrably inept and widely recognized
as dishonest, she has also contributed a great deal to the mess in the Middle East.
Moreover, her refusal to speak about the ideological basis for so many of the terrorist
atrocities in recent years should be enough to bar her from office.
The US, and the world, is in danger as a result of the failures of both parties to pick
reasonable candidates.
Benjohn6379 -> ohyesHedid
The "war-hawk" meme
It's not a meme, it's reality. Her neo-conservative record speaks for itself. There is a
very real fear that she will take us to war in Syria, as a no fly zone would require tens of
thousands of ground troops in direct opposition to Russia, Assad and numerous terrorist cells.
ISIS has to be stopped, absolutely, but war in Syria will be just another tragic foreign
policy mistake.
I think all this "Hillary hate" is disproportional, possibly sexist.
Some of the "Hillary hate" is sexist, sure, but don't use this excuse as a blanket
statement that covers people that have intelligent and well thought out criticisms of her
policies and voting record.
There are legitimate concerns with both candidates, come at it rationally and intelligently.
Tom Jones
Not a Trump fan. But he called out Bush in the debates.
He wouldn't have invaded Iraq or Libya. War has caused most of these problems. The real scary
part is that he is less of a war monger then Clinton!
Gaurdian applogist pieces are almost as vile as the bigotry from Trump. In fact the bias in th
MSM has led to a Trump.
gunnison 5h ago
Perhaps the voters are confused about how to rate these candidates because there is
almost no coverage of national security and foreign policy. Nobody – except for rarities
like NBC's Andrea Mitchell – wants to produce a block of TV on something that sounds as
complicated as how to fight Isis in Syria.
The only people currently doing the heavy lifting with cogent and perceptive commentary
on serious issues and the systemic inability of political and economic institutions to embrace
reality are professional comedians. John Oliver, Jim Jeffries et al are continuing the George
Carlin tradition of pointing out the abject lunacy of our "leaders", whose words are reported
by the mainstream media (corporate media that is, let's not forget to "follow the money") as
if they were something other than delusional drivel.
Our much-vaunted "free press" has degenerated into becoming a transcription service for power
and privilege, with "journalists" now blatantly finessing the truth for fear of losing the
"access" without which they would be consigned to the outer reaches of internet blogworld.
Hell, if one sifts through the comment threads here or on other "reputable" news sites to
eliminate the usual dross, there's one hell of a lot more accurate and thoughtful commentary
happening down here in the cheap seats than in most of the articles to which those thread are
appended.
Trump is a showman and a conman and a buffoon, and Mike Pence is a rabid ideologue driven by
religious zealotry and a profound misogyny and sexual squeamishness. Neither is the sort of
person who should ever be placed in a position of authority. (None of this should be taken as
covert support for Hillary Clinton. My comment history here exculpates me from any accusations
of being a Clinton shill.)
That's the reality. Presenting the evidence for that, and there is mountains of it, is the
true function of a media which serves the public interest.
Benjohn6379 -> gunnison
Hell, if one sifts through the comment threads here or on other "reputable" news sites to
eliminate the usual dross, there's one hell of a lot more accurate and thoughtful commentary
happening down here in the cheap seats than in most of the articles to which those thread are
appended.
Your whole comment being a prime example of this, very well said.
John Wilson
And so what are you saying here Wolfe. That the alternative is Clinton? She'll be even
faster to push the red button.
"That empowerment must be both economic and political. Workers deserve
to be compensated fairly for their work, and have generous social support
programs to rely upon when economic changes that are out of their control
throw them out of work or force them to accept lower paying jobs.
We should not hesitate to ask those who have gained so much from
globalization and technological change to give something back to those
who have paid the costs of their success."
All this would have been especially great, say, forty or even thirty
years ago.
"... Much of this has to do with Peronism's founder, and his ability to bring in broad sectors of Argentine society into his political program, broadly against imperialism and for nationalist workers rights and political sovereignty. ..."
"... It is an idea founded on Christian social values that has three basic principles: social justice, political sovereignty and economic independence. ..."
"... It was under Peron that a version of nationalized state capitalism, and an elimination of foreign investors was initiated in Argentina. He used nationalism, unlike his European counterparts, as a weapon of anti-imperialism. Peronism under Peron was Bonapartist in its manipulation of the social classes on behalf of industrializing an underdeveloped country and challenging dominant American imperialism. His style of leadership was one of a leader who took power in a power vacuum when no single class is in the position do so, and using reformist measures to win the radical support of the more populous class. ..."
"... Peron and Peronism also has to be viewed as a stage in the battle of Latin America for economic independence which is still yet to be achieved with at home the oligarchical structures still intact, and foreign manipulation in the country. ..."
Juan Peron is the most important political figure in Argentina, with reams of paper dedicated to
himself and his followers, but surprising little ink has been spilled over his, and the movement
named after him, Peronism's ideology. Perhaps because of its near undefinable nature, that it neither
sits comfortably on the left, right nor center or because of the number of ideological disperse groups
and politicians that call themselves Peronist.
Much of this has to do with Peronism's founder, and his ability to bring in broad sectors
of Argentine society into his political program, broadly against imperialism and for nationalist
workers rights and political sovereignty.
However there are a few key points behind the ideology of Peron himself and Argentina's most political
movement Peronism that can be gleaned.
Peron called his movement "Justicialism", a blending of the Spanish words for social justice and
this is also the name of the party of Argentina's current president Cristina Fernandez.
It is an idea founded on Christian social values that has three basic principles: social justice,
political sovereignty and economic independence. To do this Peron said his movement was in a
"third position" which counterposed itself equally to capitalism and communism. He also aimed to
create a social model of an organized community with direct state intervention to mediate between
labor and capital. Although not the same as a traditional Scandinavian welfare state, the model has
similarities in its mixed economy and a central role for Unions.
In a speech in the Congress in 1948, Peron himself said, "Peronism is humanism in action; Peronism
is a new political doctrine, which rejects all the ills of the politics of previous times; in the
social sphere it is a theory which establishes a little equality among men… capitalist exploitation
should be replaced by a doctrine of social economy under which the distribution of our wealth, which
we force the earth to yield up to us and which furthermore we are elaborating, may be shared out
fairly among all those who have contributed by their efforts to amass it."
The populist program of higher wages and better working conditions, which was actually developed
by the Public Works minister Juan Pistarini could well be the classic ideological core of Peronism,
but it was always dependent on the structural circumstance of Argentina. For example, in the late
1940s, Peronism was more concerned with the women's vote and the export market, and in the 1990s
attempting to rebuild Argentina under a neo-liberal pro market guide.
Indeed, over time it has been an odd mix of socialism, liberalism and populism Peron himself,
and therefore the movement became a symbol of and a champion of what he called the "shirtless ones,"
(descamisados) appealing to the dispossessed, labor, youth and the poor.
Peronism accepts that the state should coordinate society for the common good and that it can
do this without serving class interests.
Peron, and Peronism is hostile to many of the tenets of classic liberalism, although at times
concedes such as considering that democratic and republican institutions are the only ones that can
guarantee freedom and happiness for the people, and a political opposition is admitted as necessary.
But Peron was also hostile to Marxism, thinking that "forced collectivism" robs individuals of
their personality, even though he garnered many supporters from the communist left during the seventies
thinking that he, and his ideology would be the only way for Argentina to implement a communist state.
Yet Peron thought that class conflict could be transcended by a social collaboration mediated by
the state.
It was mostly through this ideological and structural blend that Peron was able to split every
party and political formation from the extreme Catholic Right to the Communist Left and line up the
dissidents behind his banner. As Carleton Beals wrote, his leading opponents had nothing to offer
except to complain of the lack of civil liberties. Their cry for freedom was somewhat suspect, however,
as they had never respected it when in office.
It was under Peron that a version of nationalized state capitalism, and an elimination of
foreign investors was initiated in Argentina. He used nationalism, unlike his European counterparts,
as a weapon of anti-imperialism. Peronism under Peron was Bonapartist in its manipulation of the
social classes on behalf of industrializing an underdeveloped country and challenging dominant American
imperialism. His style of leadership was one of a leader who took power in a power vacuum when no
single class is in the position do so, and using reformist measures to win the radical support of
the more populous class.
Peron and Peronism also has to be viewed as a stage in the battle of Latin America for economic
independence which is still yet to be achieved with at home the oligarchical structures still intact,
and foreign manipulation in the country.
"... The new regime sought to implement a change in the country's social and economic structures, based on strong State intervention, where the long-term goals of the workers coincided with the nation's need for economic development. Perón's work from the Labour Secretariat helped organise the workers' movement (until then divided into Communist, Socialist, and Revolutionary factions) into strong, centralised unions that cooperated with the government in solving labour disputes and establishing collective bargaining agreements, and whose leadership was under government influence. ..."
"... It was during this time that Perón would establish a strong alliance with the unions, who would later become the backbone of peronism. Workers started seeing that many of their historic demands were finally being attended to, including severance pay, retirement benefits, and regulation for rural labour. ..."
"... This new economic paradigm was based around the development of labour-intensive, light industry to create jobs and produce domestic goods for the internal market. The State played an important role in channelling income from agricultural exports to industry, raising import tariffs, and nationalising foreign-owned companies such as the railways, gas, phone and electricity. ..."
"... The political model that accompanied these economic changes was based on a class alliance between the workers, industrial employers, the Armed Forces and the Catholic Church. However, this alliance excluded the old landowners -"the oligarchy" -- who would become the number one enemy of the new government. ..."
"... In political terms, the heterogeneous support base of peronism started to disintegrate. Without Evita, the more combative unionists and political leaders were ousted by the conservative, bureaucratic sectors of the movement. ..."
The coup d'etat that brought the so-called "Década Infame" to an end in 1943, was headed by a
group of Army officials known as GOU (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos). General Pedro Ramírez became president
after the coup, but was removed in 1944 and replaced by General Edelmiro Farrell. During Farrell's
presidency, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón -- who was a member of the GOU -- became vicepresident, Minister
for War and Labour Secretary (simultaneously).
The new regime sought to implement a change in the country's social and economic structures, based
on strong State intervention, where the long-term goals of the workers coincided with the nation's
need for economic development. Perón's work from the Labour Secretariat helped organise the workers'
movement (until then divided into Communist, Socialist, and Revolutionary factions) into strong,
centralised unions that cooperated with the government in solving labour disputes and establishing
collective bargaining agreements, and whose leadership was under government influence.
It was during this time that Perón would establish a strong alliance with the unions, who would
later become the backbone of peronism. Workers started seeing that many of their historic demands
were finally being attended to, including severance pay, retirement benefits, and regulation for
rural labour.
These measures earned him the loyalty and support of the working masses, but strong opposition
from the local bourgeoisie and existing political parties, whose core voters were largely middle
class. The political opposition organised itself around the figure of US Ambassador Spruille Braden
and found enough support from dissident groups within the Armed Forces to pressure Farrell into removing
Perón. Eventually, Perón lost Farrell's support, resigned from all his positions on the 9th October
1945 and was jailed at the Martín García Island, then famous for hosting deposed politicians.
The Federal Workers Confederation (CGT) had called for a strike for the 18th October to support
Perón. However hundreds of thousands of workers spontaneously decided to gather at Plaza de Mayo
a day earlier. On a symbolic level, the images of the workers taking over the heart and soul of Argentine
political life -Plaza de Mayo-, making it their own, washing their feet in the fountains, became
the expression of a new era in the country's social and political history. The relegated masses had
made a triumphal entry into Argentina's political life, leaving behind decades of political isolation.
The images of 17th October 1945 continue to depict the deeper historical meaning of peronism:
the inclusion of the working class in the country's social, political and economic life.
Due to popular pressure, Perón was released that same day and addressed the people from the balconies
of the Casa Rosada in the evening, launching his presidential candidacy for the forthcoming elections.
Perón's First Government (1946-1951)
Perón was elected president in February 1946, winning 56% of the vote. He had the support of the
Labour Party (which was formed by the unions after the 17th October) and a faction of the Radical
party called UCR Junta Renovadora (Perón's eventual vicepresident, Hortensio Quijano, was from this
breakaway). He'd run the presidential campaign around the slogan "Braden or Perón" -where Braden
and the opposition parties centred around the Unión Democrática represented imperialism, while Perón
maintained a nationalist stance.
The period 1946-1955 marked a turning point in the economic development of the country. Up until
that point, the economy had been characterised by a model based around agricultural exports, dominated
by large landowners and a strong intervention of foreign companies-British, and increasingly from
the US. This model had started to weaken during the 1930's, but it was not until the mid-1940s that
it was replaced by what became known as "import substitution industrialisation" (ISI).
This new economic paradigm was based around the development of labour-intensive, light industry
to create jobs and produce domestic goods for the internal market. The State played an important
role in channelling income from agricultural exports to industry, raising import tariffs, and nationalising
foreign-owned companies such as the railways, gas, phone and electricity.
The political model that accompanied these economic changes was based on a class alliance between
the workers, industrial employers, the Armed Forces and the Catholic Church. However, this alliance
excluded the old landowners -"the oligarchy" -- who would become the number one enemy of the new government.
During this period, Perón's charismatic wife, Eva Perón (or "Evita" as her followers called her)
played a prominent role, and it is widely acknowledged that she was the main link between the president
and the workers' movement. Evita also had an active role in the development of womens' rights, such
as the right to vote (1947) and the equality of men and women in marriage and in the care of children
-- even fighting internal opposition to achieve these goals. The Eva Perón Foundation channelled the
social policies of the government, emphasising the concept of social justice as opposed to charity.
Evita was loved and admired by the people as much as she was derided by the opposition and by the
more conservative factions within the peronist movement, whose power and influence in government
were being diminished by her growing profile.
The new role of the State and the rights acquired during this period were articulated in a new
Constitution, adopted in 1949, which put social justice and the "general interest" at the centre
of all political and economic activities. The new constitutional text included a range of "social
rights" (the so-called second generation rights), related to workers, families, the elderly, education
and culture.
Perón's Second Government (1951-1955)
Perón was re-elected in 1951, obtaining a massive 62% of the vote (which, for the first time,
included the female voters). His second term, however, proved to be much more complicated than the
first. The day he took office, 4th June 1952, was the last public appearance of Evita, who died of
cancer the following month. The economic situation worsened, with a drop in the international price
of agricultural products and severe droughts between 1949 and 1952 affecting domestic production.
This prompted Perón to embrace austerity measures, putting the brakes on consumption and wealth
redistribution, and improving the relationship with foreign companies -- such as the Standard Oil,
which was awarded new contracts. All these measures contradicted the model that Perón himself had
implemented, and divided opinion among his followers.
In political terms, the heterogeneous support base of peronism started to disintegrate. Without
Evita, the more combative unionists and political leaders were ousted by the conservative, bureaucratic
sectors of the movement. At the same time, the relationship with the Church became increasingly frosty,
before turning into an open conflict in 1954. In addition, some members of the industrial bourgeoisie,
less favoured by the new economic reality, also started to abandon this alliance and join the ranks
of the opposition, which now included some hardline sectors in the military. All these groups united
against what was perceived as the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the government, which
had by this point closed down several media outlets and utilised public radio, television and print
media for its own propaganda.
On the 16th June 1955, the political opposition (conservative, radicals and socialists) together
with the Navy and with the support of the Church, carried out a botched coup d'etat against Perón.
Navy planes bombed Plaza de Mayo, where a rally was taking place, killing more than 300 people. Perón's
attempt to appease the crowd failed and that very same night groups of peronist activists took to
the streets of Buenos Aires and burnt several churches.
After the failed coup, Perón tried to keep the situation under control and called for a truce
with the opposition. However on 31st August, after talks with the opposition failed, the president
hardened his position when, during a public speech, he pronounced the now famous phrase: "for each
one of us who fall, five of them will follow". Seventeen days later, on the 16th September, a new
military uprising -- led again by the Navy -- succeeded in deposing Perón, who asked for political refuge
in Paraguay and left the country on the 20th of September. It would be 17 years until he stepped
on Argentine soil again.
Contradictions and Resistance: Peronism Without Perón (1955 – 1960's)
By this time, the peronist movement was made up of a mixture of factions from different backgrounds:
socialists, catholic nationalists, anarchists, yrigoyenist radicals, and conservatives, among others.
From the beginning they co-existed in constant tension -a tension that could only be overcome by
the dominant and unifying figure of Perón.
With Perón in exile, the contradictions between all these factions bubbled to the surface. In
a country now deeply divided by the peronism/anti-peronism dichotomy, new divisions started to emerge
within the peronist side. These would not only mark the evolution of the peronist movement, but would
also play a major role in Argentina's political life to this day. Perón's legendary pragmatism and
political ability became very evident during these years, as even in exile he managed to mantain
an important level of control over the situation, playing the different factions to his advantage.
Two months after the coup, the liberal faction of the self-proclaimed "Liberating Revolution"
took over the government and started a process of "de-peronisation". This involved dissolving the
peronist party and banning any of its members from running for public office, banning the display
of all the peronist symbols and any mention of the names of Perón or Evita, intervening in the CGT,
and proscribing the unions' old leadership. The persecution of the CGT leaders and the weakening
of the peronist unions left many workers once again unprotected and exposed to the abuses of some
employers.
It was in this context that the Peronist Resistance was born-an inorganic protest movement that
carried out clandestine actions of sabotage (ranging from breaking machinery at the workplace to
placing home-made bombs). The Resistance was an expression of the grassroots of the peronism: the
workers who wanted their leader back and were fighting to protect the legacy of his government.
One of the main organisers of the Resistance was John William Cooke, a left-wing peronist deputy
who had been named by Perón as his personal representative whilst in exile. In 1956, peronist General
Juan José Valle led an unsuccessful uprising against the government, which ended up with 30 people
-- many of them civilians -- executed. The violent suppression of the uprising caused Perón and the Resistance
to abandon the idea of armed struggle and focus on reorganising the unions.
If Trump secures the Republican nomination, now an increasingly imaginable prospect, the party
is likely to implode. Whatever rump organization survives will have forfeited any remaining claim
to represent principled conservatism.
None of this will matter to Trump, however. He is no conservative and Trump_vs_deep_state requires no party.
Even if some new institutional alternative to conventional liberalism eventually emerges, the two-party
system that has long defined the landscape of American politics will be gone for good.
Should Trump or a Trump mini-me ultimately succeed in capturing the presidency, a possibility
that can no longer be dismissed out of hand, the effects will be even more profound. In all but name,
the United States will cease to be a constitutional republic. Once President Trump inevitably declares
that he alone expresses the popular will, Americans will find that they have traded the rule of law
for a version of caudillismo. Trump's Washington could come to resemble Buenos Aires in
the days of Juan Perón, with Melania a suitably glamorous stand-in for Evita, and plebiscites suitably
glamorous stand-ins for elections.
That a considerable number of Americans appear to welcome this prospect may seem inexplicable.
Yet reason enough exists for their disenchantment. American democracy has been decaying for decades.
The people know that they are no longer truly sovereign. They know that the apparatus of power, both
public and private, does not promote the common good, itself a concept that has become obsolete.
They have had their fill of irresponsibility, lack of accountability, incompetence, and the bad times
that increasingly seem to go with them.
So in disturbingly large numbers they have turned to Trump to strip bare the body politic, willing
to take a chance that he will come up with something that, if not better, will at least be more entertaining.
As Argentines and others who have trusted their fate to demagogues have discovered, such expectations
are doomed to disappointment.
In the meantime, just imagine how the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, no doubt taller than
all the others put together, might one day glitter and glisten -- perhaps with casino attached.
"... That assumption, he says, may stem from the sense of status that comes from being in academe. The idea that "if you're in this room, you're an elite - so you're not going to respond to things like trade policy and illegal immigration because these things largely don't affect you." ..."
"... The academics who support Mr. Trump acknowledge that many of his ideas are dangerous. Outweighing that concern is the conviction that something has to change, and that there's no better alternative than a Trump presidency. ..."
"... Compounding their support for the billionaire is a lack of other options. Mr. Van Horn says he would be open to voting for a Democrat, but he thinks the proposals of the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders are unrealistic. As for Hillary Clinton, he neither likes her nor trusts her. (When confronted with the fact that he also says he neither likes nor trusts Mr. Trump, Mr. Van Horn says the former secretary of state is more likely to be beholden to a "very narrow set of society.") ..."
"... But two and a half years into the program, he has found that some academics can be even more closed-minded than people he grew up with. "I was this very liberal person where I was from, and then I come out here and they're all very, very liberal, and they're all very, very rigid." ..."
"... And in political science, where this year's election is particularly relevant, the popular treatment of the Trump candidacy as a joke has made Mr. Van Horn wonder about the costs to scholarship: "How can you do objective scholarly research? You don't even treat American voters as people who are qualified to cast a ballot." ..."
"... Mr. Van Horn still loves studying political science, and he still wants to be a professor. But he watches what he says, and he's more cynical about higher education. "It's a very closed community," he says. "It's like the smallest town in the world." ..."
Conventional wisdom says poorly educated voters have fueled Mr. Trump's improbable rise. "I love
the poorly educated,"
he proclaimed after winning Nevada's primary last month (though he also boasted of winning the
votes of the well educated). "The single best predictor of Trump support in the GOP primary is the
absence of a college degree,"
wrote Derek Thompson in
The Atlantic this month.
In academe - where professionals can have three, four, five degrees - Trump supporters may be
hard to find. But they're out there.
Like many people, Joseph Van Horn first treated Mr. Trump's candidacy as a joke. But as more-traditional
candidates failed to outpace the billionaire, Mr. Van Horn, a Ph.D. student in political science
at the University of California at Los Angeles, listened more closely.
What he heard excited him - among other things, that Mr. Trump was willing to talk about narrow
policy proposals rather than harp on conservative social issues. That willingness, coupled with his
lack of attachment to the political establishment, made Mr. Van Horn think, "When's the last time
I heard a candidate and thought, 'That could really happen'?"
Mr. Van Horn doesn't like Donald Trump personally. And he doesn't find him all that trustworthy.
"I wouldn't give him the key to my apartment," he says. But he's excited about the Trump movement,
particularly how it has spurred higher turnout and more engagement with the election.
When he brings up that sense of excitement in an academic setting, however, he gets shut down,
he says. "I was kind of shocked at how staunchly anti-Trump people are," he says. Many of his peers
are willing to issue a blanket condemnation of Mr. Trump's candidacy as racist and nativist, Mr.
Van Horn says, but "shouting 'racists' and 'bigots' and 'he's Hitler' is just not productive."
"The reaction of everyone in the audience was, you know, chuckling, the implication being that no
one in this room could possibly take Trump seriously."
It's not as if those terms are not warranted at times. Mr. Trump has been shocking and crass,
suggesting, for example, that Mexican immigrants are responsible for widespread rape. "He's certainly
playing to people's prejudices," Mr. Van Horn says, adding that he doesn't share those prejudices.
He hates the proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country ("I think it's really shameful that
we have Muslims in the armed forces that have to listen to this stuff") but thinks such extreme proposals
are unlikely to become policy.
Sharp rhetoric aside, he says, shouldn't a political-science department be willing to take seriously
the merits of a formidable political movement? Mr. Van Horn says the popular dismissal of the Trump
campaign has been disheartening and reflective of a broader bias against right-leaning ideas.
Linda Grochowalski, a Trump supporter who teaches English part time at Assumption College and
Quinsigamond Community College, in Worcester, Mass., encountered that bias once upon moving into
a new office. A previous occupant's poster still hung on the back of the door.
"It essentially said, You have to be pretty stupid to vote for a Republican," she says. "I guess
the writing's on the wall, or the door."
That bias manifests itself in large groups, too. Mr. Calautti recalls attending a colloquium on
civility in public discourse at which the speaker used as an example of uncivil discourse - surprise!
- Mr. Trump's performance in the Republican debates. "The reaction of everyone in the audience was,
you know, chuckling," he says, "the implication being that no one in this room could possibly take
Trump seriously."
That assumption, he says, may stem from the sense of status that comes from being in academe.
The idea that "if you're in this room, you're an elite - so you're not going to respond to things
like trade policy and illegal immigration because these things largely don't affect you."
Gina Marcello, an assistant professor of communication at Georgian Court University, in New Jersey,
says she hasn't often heard the election come up as a topic of conversation on her campus. "If it
does come up," she says, "it's dismissive of Donald Trump." The subtext, which helps prevent her
from talking politics with her colleagues, comes through loud and clear: "You'd have to be out of
your mind to support a Trump candidacy."
Why Trump?
The academics who support Mr. Trump acknowledge that many of his ideas are dangerous. Outweighing
that concern is the conviction that something has to change, and that there's no better alternative
than a Trump presidency.
Ms. Grochowalski says eight years of the Obama administration left her with $8,000 in medical
bills. The Affordable Care Act, she says, forced her and her husband off their preferred health-insurance
plan. And she's been disturbed by President Obama's use of executive orders to bypass Congress.
Ms. Grochowalski, who worked as a marketing and communications director in the private sector,
acknowledges that Mr. Trump lacks experience in public office. But she trusts that he would surround
himself with smart people because of his business experience.
His lack of political experience could be an asset, Ms. Marcello says, enabling him to appoint
the "very best people" to advise him instead of bestowing political patronage.
Compounding their support for the billionaire is a lack of other options. Mr. Van Horn says he
would be open to voting for a Democrat, but he thinks the proposals of the Vermont senator Bernie
Sanders are unrealistic. As for Hillary Clinton, he neither likes her nor trusts her. (When confronted
with the fact that he also says he neither likes nor trusts Mr. Trump, Mr. Van Horn says the former
secretary of state is more likely to be beholden to a "very narrow set of society.")
As for those of Mr. Trump's ideas that Ms. Grochowalski calls "pretty outrageous," legal and constitutional
checks are there to stymie any truly devastating plans, she says. "He probably can't do 30 percent
of them, even if he wanted to."
'The Smallest Town'
For Mr. Van Horn, academe's reaction to the Trump candidacy has been a particularly disappointing
sign of a larger problem. The 29-year-old grew up in Louisville, Ky., which he calls a "small city in the South." He enrolled
in the University of Kentucky when he was 18, but struggled and dropped out after two years. He then became an electrician, but after a few years of doing that, he wasn't satisfied. "You
can always make a lot of money as an electrician, but learning about the world is something different,"
he says.
"I was this very liberal person where I was from, and then I come out here and they're all very,
very liberal, and they're all very, very rigid."
So he returned to school, finishing his undergraduate education at Indiana University-Southeast.
He then applied to the political-science program at UCLA. He was over the moon about getting to follow
his passion for a living - and to broaden his horizons beyond what his upbringing had restricted
him to.
But two and a half years into the program, he has found that some academics can be even more closed-minded
than people he grew up with. "I was this very liberal person where I was from, and then I come out
here and they're all very, very liberal, and they're all very, very rigid."
And in political science, where this year's election is particularly relevant, the popular treatment
of the Trump candidacy as a joke has made Mr. Van Horn wonder about the costs to scholarship: "How
can you do objective scholarly research? You don't even treat American voters as people who are qualified
to cast a ballot."
Mr. Van Horn still loves studying political science, and he still wants to be a professor. But
he watches what he says, and he's more cynical about higher education. "It's a very closed community," he says. "It's like the smallest town in the world."
"... "Sanders is not just a 'lesser evil'. His proposals and policies are good In addition, Sanders seeks to change the current electoral process based on money coming from corporations, political action committees and wealthy individuals. Changing this system is the first step...." ..."
"... The November election will be a referendum on the neolibcon establishment in the U.S. as much as the Brexit vote was for the EU. The Brexit vote showed that people are so fed up that they aren't listening to establishment fear-mongering. ..."
"... No matter how Democratic Party loyalists try to spin it, the blame for a Trump win will fall on the corrupt Democratic Party establishment. It is no accident that the vast majority of Super-delegates have steadfastly stood by Hillary, warts and all. ..."
"... Bernie the sheepdog has failed his movement but the Greens and true progressives will continue. ..."
"... It says a great deal about both Warren and the Democratic Party, in which she is the most high-profile "left" politician, that she never endorsed Bernie and has now enthusiastically endorsed Hillary. It would not be a stretch to say that had Warren endorsed and campaigned for Sanders, it could well have been the difference needed to defeat Clinton in the primary. But she did not. ..."
"... Because of course the problem is much larger than just Warren, Clinton, or Debbie Wasserman Schultz. At the heart of the matter is a political party that is thoroughly undemocratic and corrupt to its very core – one that answers to Wall Street, not working people. It's the second most pro-capitalist party in the world, after the Republican Party. ..."
"... Yes it is the Washington Post, but the point stands: it is a strange place for a 'revolutionary' to deliver his message. Unless that message is one of capitulation (it is) . ..."
Seems you mean the Washington Post, not the WSJ.
Alternet seems to like it.
"What do we want? We want to end the rapid movement that we are currently experiencing toward
oligarchic control of our economic and political life," Sanders concluded. "As Lincoln put it
at Gettysburg, we want a government of the people, by the people and for the people. That is what
we want, and that is what we will continue fighting for."
rufus magister | Jun 24, 2016 8:02:34 AM |
86 rufus magister | Jun 25, 2016 9:11:21 AM |
94
This post at
Countepunch takes on the "dog" analogy, arguing that "Sanders is not just a 'lesser evil'.
His proposals and policies are good In addition, Sanders seeks to change the current electoral
process based on money coming from corporations, political action committees and wealthy individuals.
Changing this system is the first step...."
There are any number of arguments that Sanders has changed and will continue to change the
political dyanmics. More and in a different direction might be nice. But after decades of neo-liberal
assaults on the working class, let's not have the best be the enemy of the good.
Sanders' meteoric rise is evidence that unabashed progressive politics is an effective antidote
to the far-right xenophobia on the rise across the developed world. "Every time we have a spasm
of capitalism, whether this is the 1930s or now, the seeds of vulgar ultra-right-wingness sprout
into a very ugly tree," Varoufakis said....
"I am very impressed by his capacity to rise from almost complete marginality to the center
of the debate," Varoufakis continued. "And if you look at the discussion he has invigorated,
or reinvigorated, in the Democratic Party, that just goes to show that it is perfectly possible
to excite young people....
Yeah, he botched with Syriza in Greece. But he was principled enough to resign and move on
politically. I don't know with what sort of success his proposed organization met.
Alternet offers a handy list of things Sanders has already changed about American politics.
I particulary note points 5 and 6, on princples and issues, but the author notes he has brought
progressives together, shown popularly-funded campaigns to be viable, and made socialism respectable.
"Not too shabby."
Politics isn't for the meek, but it doesn't have to be all mud all the time like the GOP's
nominating contest, and Sanders has shown that in state after state....
The passion and public purpose of his campaign has struck deep and wide notes precisely
because of that. More than anything, Sanders has reminded vast swaths of the country that his
democratic socialist agenda is exactly what they want America to be-a fairer and more dignified,
tolerant, responsible and conscientious country.
I have previously noted, the consensus amongst the pundit class is that Sanders is a principled
politician. The conduct of his campaign reflects these principles. I do not agree with them, but
I respect that he has been consistent in their application throughout his political career.
Ah, but "what is to be done" with all of the passion aroused? Sanders clearly intends to keep
the pressure on within the Democratic Party. Though doubtless, it will not all remain there.
I keep hearing that "things" are different, post-Occupy, etc., and that some sort of Green/Libertarian/Trump
miracle is possible. It is also possible, and historically conditioned, that these pressures will
in fact push the Democrats to the left.
This would be good, in and for the short-term. Revolutionary change takes patient work,
especially in early stages. We're quite a "Long March" away, and these are useful baby-steps.
So this whole notion that but the hopes of the masses and left wing of the Democratic Party,
we'd have our Utopia by now, us a cheap alibi as to why the divided left
(as "b" very accurately describes) can't make any headway, even after the economy nearly repeated
the Great Depression.
The nerve of those damn proles, hoping for short-term improvement! What about the intersectionality?
You know, I don't think "Suck it up and butch it out 'til after The Revolution, you ignorant,
evil, unenlightened over-privileged sell-outs" is really that attractive as politics. Maybe that
overstates this argument, but probably not too much. "The Greens know that someone is in the
buff but the Sanders gang has yet to catch on that their emperor has no clothes" does strike a
rather condescending tone, sure to win friends and influence people.
Somewhat at odds with the next paragraph, though. But is topic is the "Green Machine."
Second, and more importantly, Marsh has left out a key point in his analysis. The Greens just
passed a major benchmark to gain federal funding.
Your dismissing of 'collusion' for lack of a smoking gun ignores much circumstantial evidence:
> Sanders has been a Democrat for many years in all but name;
- he has an arrangement with the Democratic Party whereby he runs in Vermont Democratic
Primaries but will not accept the Democratic nomination and the Democratic Party will not
fund candidates that oppose him;
- Obama campaigned for him, Schumer and Reid endorsed him, he calls Hillary "a friend",
etc.
> He pulled punches in his campaign - refusing to attack Hillary or Obama on issues that
could've made a big difference for his campaign, like:
- when Hillary defended taking money by pointing to Obama who has clearly been pro-Wall
Street;
- Obama's record on the economy and black issues (Obama's support has helped Hillary
to win over blacks) ;
- his slowness to criticize Hillary-DNC collusion;
- on Hillary's emails after the State Dept IG report;
- he all but endorsed Hillary from the start.
The November election will be a referendum on the neolibcon establishment in the U.S. as much
as the Brexit vote was for the EU. The Brexit vote showed that people are so fed up that they
aren't listening to establishment fear-mongering.
No matter how Democratic Party loyalists try to spin it, the blame for a Trump win will
fall on the corrupt Democratic Party establishment. It is no accident that the vast majority of
Super-delegates have steadfastly stood by Hillary, warts and all.
If Bernie refuses to break from the Democratic Party, our movement should back Jill Stein
as the strongest left alternative in the presidential election ... Stein deserves the strongest
possible support from Sandernistas .... With Bernie stepping out of the race, and likely
endorsing Clinton, it will be up to us to continue the political revolution and to stand up
against both Clintonism and Trump_vs_deep_state.
And drives home the point with:
It says a great deal about both Warren and the Democratic Party, in which she is the most
high-profile "left" politician, that she never endorsed Bernie and has now enthusiastically
endorsed Hillary. It would not be a stretch to say that had Warren endorsed and campaigned
for Sanders, it could well have been the difference needed to defeat Clinton in the primary.
But she did not.
It says a great deal about the whole of the Democratic Party leadership – which claims that
its key priority is to defeat Trump – that it has fiercely backed Clinton in spite of the fact
that the polls have shown Sanders to be the far stronger candidate in every matchup.
Because of course the problem is much larger than just Warren, Clinton, or Debbie Wasserman
Schultz. At the heart of the matter is a political party that is thoroughly undemocratic and
corrupt to its very core – one that answers to Wall Street, not working people. It's the second
most pro-capitalist party in the world, after the Republican Party.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
@86 Yes it is the Washington Post, but the point stands: it is a strange place for a 'revolutionary'
to deliver his message. Unless that message is one of capitulation (it is) .
While Trump's proposed blanket ban on Muslim travelers is both constitutionally and ethically
wrongheaded and, in my opinion, potentially damaging to broader U.S. interests, his related
demand to temporarily stop travel or immigration from some core countries that have serious
problems with militancy is actually quite sensible. This is because the United States has only a
limited ability to vet people from those countries. The Obama administration claims it is
rigorously screening travelers and immigrants-but it has provided little to no evidence that its
procedures are effective.
The first step in travel limitation is to define the problem. While it is popular in Congress and
the media to focus on countries like Iran, nationals of such countries do not constitute a
serious threat. Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iranians, have characteristically not staged
suicide attacks, nor do they as a group directly threaten American or Western interests. The
Salafist organizations with international appeal and global reach are all Sunni Muslim. In fact,
al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, and al-Nusra all self-define as Sunni Muslim and regard Shi'as as
heretics. Most of the foot soldiers who do the fighting and dying for the terrorist groups and
their affiliates are Sunnis who come from Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and
Somalia, and even the homegrown Europeans and Americans who join their ranks are Sunni.
It is no coincidence that the handful of Muslim countries that harbor active insurgencies have
also been on the receiving end of U.S. military interventions, which generate demands for revenge
against the West and the U.S. in particular. They would be the countries to monitor most closely
for militants seeking to travel. All of them represent launching pads for potential attacks, and
it should be assumed that groups like ISIS would be delighted to infiltrate refugee and immigrant
groups.
U.S. embassies and consulates overseas are the choke points for those potential terrorists.
Having myself worked the visa lines in consulates overseas, I understand just how difficult it is
to be fair to honest travelers while weeding out those whose intentions are less honorable. At
the consulate, an initial screening based on name and birth date determines whether an applicant
is on any no-fly or terrorism-associate lists. Anyone coming up is automatically denied, but the
lists include a great deal of inaccurate information, so they probably "catch" more innocent
people than they do actual would-be terrorists. Individuals who have traveled to Iran, Iraq,
Sudan, or Syria since 2011, or who are citizens of those countries, are also selected out for
additional review.
For visitors who pass the initial screening and who do not come from one of the 38 "visa waiver"
countries, mostly in Europe, the next step is the visitor's visa, called a B-2. At that point,
the consulate's objective is to determine whether the potential traveler has a good reason to
visit the U.S., has the resources to pay for the trip, and is likely to return home before the
visa expires. The process seeks to establish that the applicant has sufficient equity in his or
her home country to guarantee returning to it, a recognition of the fact that most visa fraud
relates to overstaying one's visit to disappear into the unregistered labor market in the U.S.
The process is document-driven, with the applicants presenting evidence of bank accounts,
employment, family ties, and equity like homeownership. Sometimes letters of recommendation from
local business leaders or politicians might also become elements in the decision.
"... "It's either you stick with the establishment or you go for change. People want change. A guy like Donald Trump, he's pushing for change." ..."
"... The blue-collar counties of western Pennsylvania have largely swung Republican as unions have grown weaker and evangelical churches stronger. Despite overwhelmingly endorsing Hillary Clinton, labor unions face a big challenge with frustrated workers like Mr. Haines. That many white male union members are embracing Mr. Trump doesn't necessarily mean overall union membership is moving right, however. In recent years, as unions have organized more government employees and low-wage workers, the percentage of union members who are black, Hispanic or female has risen - and those groups are solidly anti-Trump. ..."
"... The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, calling her "an unstoppable champion for working families" while dismissing Mr. Trump as "an unstable charlatan who made his fortune scamming them." ..."
"... On Tuesday, Mr. Trump spoke to applauding workers at a scrap-metal plant in Westmoreland County. He denounced "failed trade policies," saying he would renegotiate Nafta and scrap the proposed Trans-Pacific trade deal. He also borrowed Mr. Sanders's arguments to attack Mrs. Clinton from the left, saying she "voted for virtually every trade agreement." He added that she has betrayed American workers in favor of "Wall Street throughout her career." ..."
"... Mike Podhorzer, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s political director, estimated that around one-third of union members back Mr. Trump. ..."
"... ...some voters are reluctantly backing Mr. Trump simply out of frustration with the status quo. "We need someone who will say things are wrong and will push hard to fix them," said Paul Myers, a 50-year-old steelworker. "Trump might be lying about bringing jobs back, but at least he'll try to." ..."
Greensburg, Pa. - THIS faded mining town east of Pittsburgh seems right out of "The Deer
Hunter," one of many blue-collar, gun-loving communities that dot western Pennsylvania. For
Donald J. Trump, such largely white, working-class towns are crucial to his hopes in the
presidential campaign - and that's one reason he campaigned in this region on Tuesday. By rolling
up large enough margins in former industrial strongholds like Greensburg - not just in
Pennsylvania, but also in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin - he might offset expected losses in
cities like Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland, enabling him to capture those pivotal states.
Mr. Trump's "Make America Great Again" message resonates with many of this region's workers,
whose wages - and hopes - have been tugged downward by the abandoned steel mills and coal mines.
Take Dennis Haines, 57, thrown out of work in January when the printing plant where he worked for
30 years closed. Mr. Haines, a member of the machinists union, said: "It's either you stick
with the establishment or you go for change. People want change. A guy like Donald Trump, he's
pushing for change."
... ... ...
The blue-collar counties of western Pennsylvania have largely swung Republican as unions
have grown weaker and evangelical churches stronger. Despite overwhelmingly endorsing Hillary
Clinton, labor unions face a big challenge with frustrated workers like Mr. Haines.
That many white male union members are embracing Mr. Trump doesn't necessarily mean overall union
membership is moving right, however. In recent years, as unions have organized more government
employees and low-wage workers, the percentage of union members who are black, Hispanic or female
has risen - and those groups are solidly anti-Trump.
... ... ...
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, calling her "an unstoppable champion for
working families" while dismissing Mr. Trump as "an unstable charlatan who made his fortune
scamming them."
... ... ...
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump spoke to applauding workers at a scrap-metal plant in Westmoreland
County. He denounced "failed trade policies," saying he would renegotiate Nafta and scrap the
proposed Trans-Pacific trade deal. He also borrowed Mr. Sanders's arguments to attack Mrs.
Clinton from the left, saying she "voted for virtually every trade agreement." He added that she
has betrayed American workers in favor of "Wall Street throughout her career."
Late this
summer, unions will mobilize a nationwide campaign to knock on doors, mail out pro-Clinton
literature and speak to members at their workplaces.
Tim
Waters, the political director of the United Steelworkers, said his Pittsburgh-based union will
warn its members that Mr. Trump isn't pro-worker: "He's a wolf in sheep's clothing."
Unions
have compiled a long list of objections to Mr. Trump. In one debate, he said wages were too high.
Many workers have sued his companies for cheating them on wages. His Las Vegas hotel is battling
unionization.
"Every
opportunity he's had to help American workers or American jobs, he did the opposite," Mr. Waters
said. "He has had Trump-brand suits, shirts and ties made in Bangladesh, China and Honduras,
everywhere but the U.S. He has imported workers to work at his facilities in Florida."
Mike
Podhorzer, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s political director, estimated that around one-third of union
members back Mr. Trump.
...
... ...
...some voters are reluctantly backing Mr. Trump simply out of frustration with the status quo.
"We need someone who will say things are wrong and will push hard to fix them," said Paul Myers,
a 50-year-old steelworker. "Trump might be lying about bringing jobs back, but at least he'll try
to."
John Quiggin (
previously ) delivers some of the most salient commentary on the Brexit
vote and how it fits in with Syriza, Podemos, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders
(etc) as well as Trump, French neo-fascists, and other hypernationalist
movements.
The core of this analysis is that while neoliberalism(s) (Quiggin argues
that US and non-US neoliberalism are different things) has failed the majority
of the world, and while things were falling apart after the financial crisis,
the left failed to offer real alternatives. The "tribalist" movements --
Trump, Leave, Golden Dawn, etc -- are anti-neoliberal, but in the absence
of any analysis, have lashed out at immigrants (rather than bankers and
financial elites) as the responsible parties for their suffering.
The US political system gives us a choice between neoliberals who hate
brown people, women, and gay people; and neoliberals who don't. Trump offers
an anti-neoliberal choice (and so did the Leave campaign). Bernie also offered
an anti-neoliberal platform (one that didn't hate brown people, women, and
lgtbq people), but didn't carry the day -- meaning that the upcoming US
election is going to be a choice between neoliberalism (but tolerance) and
anti-neoliberalism (and bigotry). This is a dangerous situation, as the
UK has discovered.
The vote for Britain as a whole was quite close. But a closer look
reveals an even bigger win for tribalism than the aggregate results
suggest. The version of tribalism offered in the Leave campaign was
specifically English. Unsurprisingly, it did not appeal to Scottish
or Irish voters who rejected it out of hand. Looking at England alone,
however, Leave won comfortably with 53 per cent of the vote and was
supported almost everywhere outside London, a city more dependent than
any other in the world on the global financial system.
Given the framing of the campaign, the choice for the left was, even
more than usually, to pick the lesser of very different evils. Voting
for Remain involved acquiescence in austerity and an overgrown and bloated
financial system, both in the UK and Europe. The Leave campaign relied
more and more on coded, and then overt, appeals to racism and bigotry,
symbolised by the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, stabbed to death by a
neo-Nazi with ties to extreme tribalist organizations in both the UK
and US. The result was a tepid endorsement of Remain, which secured
the support of around 70 per cent of Labour voters, but did little to
shift the sentiment of the broader public.
The big problem for the tribalists is that, although their program
has now been endorsed by the voters, it does not offer a solution to
the economic decline against which most of their supporters were protesting.
Indeed, while the catastrophic scenarios pushed by the Remain campaign
are probably overblown, the process of renegotiating economic relationships
with the rest of the world will almost certainly involve a substantial
period of economic stagnation.
The terms offered by the EU for the maintenance of anything like
existing market access will almost certainly include maintenance of
the status quo on immigration. In the absence of a humiliating capitulation
by the new pro-Brexit government, that will mean that Britain (or England)
will face a long and painful process of adjustment.
Britain has voted to leave the EU. The reason? A large section of the working class, concentrated in towns and cities that have
been quietly devastated by free-market economics, decided they'd had enough.
Enough bleakness, enough ruined high streets, enough minimum wage jobs, and enough lies and fearmongering from the political class.
The issue that catalysed the vote for Brexit was the massive, unplanned migration from Europe that began after the accession of
the A8 countries and then surged again after 2008 once the Eurozone stagnated while Britain enjoyed a limp recovery.
It is no surprise to anybody who's lived their life at the street end of politics and journalism that a minority of the white
working class are racists and xenophobes. But anyone who thinks half the British population fits that description is dead
wrong.
Tens of thousands of black and Asian people will have voted for Brexit, and similar numbers of politically educated, left-leaning
workers too. Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield and Coventry - multi-ethnic university cities - they too went for Leave.
Neither the political centre or the pro-remain left was able to explain how to offset the negative economic impact of low-skilled
migration in conditions of (a) guaranteed free movement (b) permanent stagnation in Europe and (c) austerity in Britain.
Told by the government they could never control migration while inside the EU, just over 50% of the population decided controlling
migration was more important than EU membership.
So the problem for Labour is not, yet, large numbers of its own voters "deserting the party". They may still do so if Labour plays
this wrong - but even as late as the May council elections Labour's core vote held up.
Instead Labour's heartland voters simply decided to change the party's policy on migration from below, and forever, by
leaving the EU.
The party's front bench tried, late and in a muddled way, to come up with micro-economic solutions - more funds for areas where
the NHS and schools come under strain; a new directive to prevent employers shipping entire workforces from East Europe on poor terms
and conditions. And a promise to renegotiate the free movement pillar of the Lisbon Treaty in the future.
Because it was made late, and half-heartedly, this offer was barely heard. And clearly to some it did not seem plausible - given
the insistence of the Labour centre and the liberal bourgeoisie that migration is unmitigatedly good and "there's nothing you can
do about it". And also given the insistence of Jean Claude Juncker that there could be no renegotiation at all.
Ultimately, as I've written before, there is
a
strong case for "Lexit" on grounds of democracy and economic justice. But this won't be Lexit. Unless Labour can win an early
election it will be a fast-track process of Thatcherisation and the breakup of the UK.
Unlike me, however, many people who believe in Lexit were prepared to vote alongside right wing Tories to get to first base.
The task for the left in Britain now is to adapt to the new reality, and fast. The Labour right is already trying to pin the blame
on Corbyn; UKIP will make a play for Labour's voters. Most likely there'll be a second independence referendum in Scotland.
Corbyn was right to try and fight on "remain and reform" but his proposed reforms were never radical enough. He was also right
to devote energy to other issues - making the point that in or out of the EU, social justice and public services are under threat.
But the right and centre of Labour then confused voters by parading along with the Tory centrists who Corbyn had promised never to
stand on a platform with.
The Blairite Progress group is deluded if it thinks it can use this moment to launch a coup against Corbyn. The neoliberal wing
of the Labour Party needs to realise - it may take them a few days - that their time is over.
Ultimately it looks like Labour still managed to get 2/3 of its voters to voter Remain [I'll check this but that's what YouGov
said earlier]. So the major failure is Cameron's. It looks like the Tory vote broke 60/40 to Brexit.
It's possible Cameron will resign quickly. But that's not the issue. The issue is the election and what to fight for.
Labour has to start, right now, a big political reorientation. Here is my 10 point suggestion for how we on the left of Labour
go forward.
1. Accept the result. Labour will lead Britain out of EU if it wins the election.
2. Demand an election within 6–9 months: Cameron has no mandate to negotiate Brexit. The parties must be allowed to put their
respective Brexit plans to the electorate and thereafter run the negotiations. In that Labour should:
3. Fight for Britain to stay in the EEA and apply an "emergency brake" to migration under the rules of the EEA. That should be
a Labour goverment's negotiating position.
4. Labour should fight to keep all the EU's progressive laws (employment, environment, consumer protection etc) but scrap restrictions
on state aid, trade union action and nationalisation. If the EU won't allow that, then the fallback is a complete break and a bilateral
trade deal.
5. Adopt a new, progressive long-term migration policy: design a points based system designed to respond annually to demand from
employers and predicted GDP growth; make parliament responsible for setting the immigration target annually on the basis of an independent
expert report; the needs of the economy - plus the absolute duty to accept refugees fleeing war and torture - is what should set
the target, not some arbitrary ceiling. And devote massively more resources than before to meeting the stresses migration places
on local services.
6. Continue to demand Britain honours its duty to refugees to the tune of tens of thousands. Reassure existing migrant communities
in Britain that they are safe, welcome and cannot be expelled as a result of Brexit. Offer all those who've come here from Europe
under free movement rules the inalienable right to stay.
7. Relentlessly prioritise and attack the combined problems of low wages, in-work poverty and dead-beat towns.
8. Offer Scotland a radical Home Rule package, and create a federalised Labour Party structure. If, in a second referendum, Scotland
votes to leave the UK, Labour should offer a no-penalty exit process that facilitates Scotland rejoining the EU if its people wish.
In the meantime Labour should seek a formal coalition with the SNP to block a right wing Tory/UKIP government emerging from the next
election.
9. Offer the Republic of Ireland an immediate enhanced bilateral deal to keep the border open for movement and trade.
10. The strategic problem for Labour remains as before. Across Britain there have crystallised two clear kinds of radicalism:
that of the urban salariat and that of the low-paid manual working class. In Scotland those groups are aligned around left cultural
nationalism. In England and Wales, Labour can only win an election if it can attract both groups: it cannot and should not retreat
to becoming a party of the public sector workforce, the graduate and the university town. The only way Labour can unite these culturally
different groups (and geographic areas) - so clearly dramatised by the local-level results - is economic radicalism. Redistribution,
well-funded public services, a revived private sector and vibrant local democracy is a common interest across both groups.
11. If Labour in England and Wales cannot quickly rekindle its ties to the low-paid manual working class - cultural and visceral,
not just political - the situation is ripe for that group to swing to the right. This can easily be prevented but it means a clean
break with Blairism and an end to the paralysis inside the shadow cabinet.
From my social media feed it's clear a lot of young radical left people and anti-racists are despondent. It seems they equated
the EU with internationalism; they knew about and sympathised with the totally disempowered poor communities but maybe assumed it
was someone else's job to connect with them.
I am glad I voted to Remain, even though I had to grit my teeth. But I underestimated the sheer frustration: I'd heard it clearly
in the Welsh valleys, but not spotted it clearly enough in places like Barking, Kettering, Newport.
I am not despondent though. The Brexit result makes a radical left government in Britain harder to get - because it's likely Scotland
will leave, and the UK will disingegrate, and the Blairites will go off and found some kind of tribute band to neoliberalism with
the Libdems.
But if you trace this event to its root cause, it is clear: neoliberalism is broken.
There's no consent for the stagnation and austerity it has inflicted on people; there's nothing but hostility to the political
class and its fearmongering - whether that be Juncker, Cameron or the Blairites. As with Scotland, given the chance to disrupt the
institutions of neoliberal rule, people will do so and ignore the warnings of experts and the political class.
I predicted in Postcapitalism that the crackup of neoliberalism would take geo-strategic form first, economic second. This is
the first big crack.
It is, geopolitically, a victory for Putin and will weaken the West. For the centre in Europe it poses the question point blank:
will you scrap Lisbon, scrap austerity and boost economic growth or let the whole project collapse amid stagnation? I predict they
will not, and that the entire project will then collapse.
All we can do, as the left, is go on fighting for the interests of the poor, the workforce, the youth, refugees and migrants.
We have to find better institutions and better language to do it with. As in 1932, Britain has become the first country to break
with the institutional form of the global order.
If we do have a rerun of the 1930s now in Europe, we need a better left. The generation that tolerated Blairism and revelled in
meaningless centrist technocracy needs to wake up. That era is over.
"... Class, nationalist, and ethnic elements are all involved in the Brexit vote in a complex integration of protest. ..."
"... Press and media emphasize the nationalist and ethnic (immigrant-anti-immigrant) themes but generally avoid discussing or analyzing
the event from a class perspective. But that perspective is fundamental. What Brexit represents is a proxy vote against the economic
effects of Free Trade, the customs union called the European Union. Free trade deals always benefit corporations and investors. ..."
"... Free trade is not just about goods and services flows between member countries; it is even more about money and capital flows
and what is called direct investment. UK corporations benefit from the opportunity to move capital and invest in cheap labor elsewhere
in Europe, mostly the newly added members to the EU since 2000, in eastern europe. Free trade also means the unrestricted flow of labor.
Once these east european countries were added to the EU treaty, massive inflows of labor to the UK resulted. Just from Poland, more
than a million migrated to the UK alone. ..."
Class, nationalist, and ethnic elements are all involved in the Brexit vote in a complex integration of protest.
Press and media emphasize the nationalist and ethnic (immigrant-anti-immigrant) themes but generally avoid discussing or analyzing
the event from a class perspective. But that perspective is fundamental. What Brexit represents is a proxy vote against the economic
effects of Free Trade, the customs union called the European Union. Free trade deals always benefit corporations and investors.
Free trade is not just about goods and services flows between member countries; it is even more about money and capital flows
and what is called direct investment. UK corporations benefit from the opportunity to move capital and invest in cheap labor elsewhere
in Europe, mostly the newly added members to the EU since 2000, in eastern europe. Free trade also means the unrestricted flow of
labor. Once these east european countries were added to the EU treaty, massive inflows of labor to the UK resulted. Just from Poland,
more than a million migrated to the UK alone.
In the pre-2008, when economic conditions were strong and economic growth and job creation the rule, the immigration's effect
on jobs and wages of native UK workers was not a major concern. But with the crash of 2008, and, more importantly, the UK austerity
measures that followed, cutting benefits and reducing jobs and wages, the immigration effect created the perception (and some reality)
that immigrants were responsible for the reduced jobs, stagnant wages, and declining social services. Immigrant labor, of course,
is supported by business since it means availability of lower wages. But working class UK see it as directly impacting wages, jobs,
and social service benefits. THis is partly true, and partly not.
So Brexit becomes a proxy vote for all the discontent with the UK austerity, benefit cuts, poor quality job creation and wage
stagnation. But that economic condition and discontent is not just a consequence of the austerity policies of the elites. It is also
a consequence of the Free Trade effects that permit the accelerated immigration that contributes to the economic effects, and the
Free Trade that shifts UK investment and better paying manufacturing jobs elsewhere in the EU.
So Free Trade is behind the immigration and job and wage deterioration which is behind the Brexit proxy vote. The anti-immigration
sentiment and the anti-Free Trade sentiment are two sides of the same coin. That is true in the USA with the Trump candidacy, as
well as in the UK with the Brexit vote. Trump is vehemently anti-immigrant and simultaneously says he's against the US free trade
deals. This is a powerful political message that Hillary ignores at her peril. She cannot tip-toe around this issue, but she will,
required by her big corporation campaign contributors.
Another 'lesson' of the UK Brexit vote is that the discontent seething within the populations of Europe, US and Japan today is
not accurately registered by traditional polls. This is true in the US today as it was in the UK yesterday.
The Brexit vote cannot be understood without understanding its origins in three elements: the combined effects of Free Trade (the
EU), the economic crash of 2008-09, which Europe has not really recovered from having fallen into a double dip recession 2011-13
and a nearly stagnant recovery after, and the austerity measures imposed by UK elites (and in Europe) since 2013.
These developments have combined to create the economic discontent for which Brexit is the proxy. Free Trade plus Austerity plus
economic recovery only for investors, bankers, and big corporations is the formula for Brexit.
Where the Brexit vote was strongest was clearly in the midlands and central England-Wales section of the country, its working
class and industrial base. Where the vote preferred staying in the EU, was the non-working class areas of London and south England,
as well as Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland is dependent on oil exports to the EU and thus tightly linked to the trade. Northern
Ireland's economy is tied largely to Scotland and to the other EU economy, Ireland. So their vote was not surprising. Also the immigration
effects were far less in these regions than in the English industrial heartland.
Some would argue that the UK has recovered better than most economies since 2013. But a closer look at the elements of that recovery
shows it has been centered largely in southern England and in the London metro area. It has been based on a construction-housing
boom and the inflow of money capital from abroad, including from China investment in UK infrastructure in London and elsewhere. The
UK also struck a major deal with China to have London as the financial center for trading the Yuan currency globally. Money capital
and investment concentrated on housing-construction produced a property asset boom, which was weakening before the Brexit. It will
now collapse, I predict, by at least 20% or more. The UK's tentative recovery is thus now over, and was slipping even before the
vote.
Also frequently reported is that wages had been rising in the UK. This is an 'average' indicator, which is true. But the average
has been pulled up by the rising salaries and wages of the middle class professionals and other elements of the work force in the
London-South who had benefited by the property-construction boom of recent years. Working class areas just east of London voted strongly
for Brexit.
Another theme worth a comment is the Labor Party's leadership vote for remaining in the EU. What this represents is the further
decline of traditional social democratic parties throughout Europe. These parties in recent decades have increasingly aligned themselves
with the Neoliberal corporate offensive. That's true whether the SPD in Germany, the Socialist parties in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal,
and Greece, or elsewhere. As these parties have abdicated their traditional support for working class interests, it has opened opportunities
for other parties–both right and left–to speak to those interests. Thus we find right wing parties growing in Austria, France (which
will likely win next year's national election in France), Italy, Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Hungary and Poland's right turn should
also be viewed from this perspective. So should Podemos in Spain, Five Star movement in Italy, and the pre-August 2015 Syriza in
Greece.
Farther left more marxist-oriented socialist parties are meanwhile in disarray. In general they fail to understand the working
class rebellion against free trade element at the core of the recent Brexit vote. They are led by the capitalist media to view the
vote as an anti-immigrant, xenophobic, nationalist, right wing dominated development. So they in a number of instances recommended
staying in the EU. The justification was to protect the better EU mandated social regulations. Or they argue, incredulously, that
remaining in the free trade regime of the EU would centralize the influence of capitalist elements but that would eventually mean
a stronger working class movement as a consequence as well. It amounts to an argument to support free trade and neoliberalism in
the short run because it theoretically might lead to a stronger working class challenge to neoliberalism in the longer run. That
is intellectual and illogical nonsense, of course. Wherever the resistance to free trade exists it should be supported, since Free
Trade is a core element of Neoliberalism and its policies that have been devastating working class interests for decades now. One
cannot be 'for' Free Trade (i.e. remain in the EU) and not be for Neoliberalism at the same time–which means against working class
interests.
The bottom line is that right wing forces in both the EU and the US have locked onto the connection between free trade discontent,
immigration, and the austerity and lack of economic recovery for all since 2009. They have developed an ideological formulation that
argues immigration is the cause of the economic conditions. Mainstream capitalist parties, like the Republicans and Democrats in
the US are unable to confront this formulation which has great appeal to working class elements. They cannot confront it without
abandoning their capitalist campaign contributors or a center-piece (free trade) of their neoliberal policies. Social-Democratic
parties, aligning with their erstwhile traditional capitalist party opponents, offer no alternative. And too many farther left traditional
Marxist parties support Free Trade by hiding behind the absurd notion that a stronger, more centralized capitalist system will eventually
lead to a stronger, more centralized working class opposition.
Whatever political party formations come out of the growing rebellion against free trade, endless austerity policies, and declining
economic conditions for working class elements, they will have to reformulate the connections between immigration, free trade, and
those conditions.
Free Trade benefits corporations, investors and bankers on both sides of the 'trade' exchange. The benefits of free trade accrue
to them. For working classes, free trade means a 'leveling' of wages, jobs and benefits. It thus means workers from lower paid regions
experience a rise in wages and benefits, but those in the formerly higher paid regions experience a decline. That's what's been happening
in the UK, as well as the US and north America.
Free Trade is the 'holy grail' of mainstream economics. It assumes that free trade raises all boats. Both countries benefit. But
what that economic ideology does not go on to explain is that how does that benefit get distributed within each of the countries
involved in the free trade? Who benefits in terms of class incomes and interests? As the history of the EU and UK since 1992 shows,
bankers and big corporate exporters benefit. Workers from the poor areas get to migrate to the wealthier (US and UK) and thus benefit.
But the indigent workers in the former wealthier areas suffer a decline, a leveling. These effects have been exacerbated by the elite
policies of austerity and the free money for bankers and investors central bank policies since 2009.
So workers see their wages stagnant or decline, their social benefits cut, their jobs or higher paid jobs leave, while they see
immigrants entering and increasing competition for jobs. They hear (and often believe) that the immigrants are responsible for the
reduction of benefits and social services that are in fact caused by the associated austerity policies. They see investors, bankers,
professionals and a few fortunate 10% of their work force doing well, with incomes accelerating, while their incomes decline. In
the UK, the focus and solution is seen as exiting the EU free trade zone. In the US, however, it's not possible for a given 'state'
to leave the USA, as it is for a 'state' like the UK to leave the EU. And there are no national referenda possible constitutionally
in the US.
The solution in the US is not to build a wall to keep immigrants out, but to tear down the Free Trade wall that has been erected
by US neoliberal policies in order to keep US jobs in. Trump_vs_deep_state has come up with a reactionary solution to the free trade-immigration-economic
nexus that has significant political appeal. He proposes stopping labor flows, but proposes nothing concrete about stopping the cross-country
flows of money, capital and investment that are at the heart of free trade.
One of the most best stories so far, both from the perspective of the granularity of the reporting and the caliber of the writing,
is the Guardian's
'If you've got money, you vote in … if you haven't got money, you vote out' (hat tip PlutoniumKun). It gives a vivid, painful
picture of the England that has been left behind with the march of Thatcherism and neoliberalism.
From the article :
And now here we are, with that terrifying decision to leave. Most things in the political foreground are finished, aren't
they? Cameron and Osborne. The Labour party as we know it, now revealed once again as a walking ghost, whose writ no longer
reaches its supposed heartlands. Scotland – which at the time of writing had voted to stay in the EU by 62% to 38% – is already
independent in most essential political and cultural terms, and will presumably soon be decisively on its way…
Because, of course, this is about so much more than the European Union. It is about class, and inequality, and a politics
now so professionalised that it has left most people staring at the rituals of Westminster with a mixture of anger and bafflement.
Tangled up in the moment are howling political failures that only compounded that problem: Iraq, the MPs' expenses scandal,
the way that Cameron's flip from big society niceness to hard-faced austerity compounded all the cliches about people you cannot
trust, answerable only to themselves (something that applied equally to the first victims of our new politics, the Liberal
Democrats).
Most of all, Brexit is the consequence of the economic bargain struck in the early 1980s, whereby we waved goodbye to the
security and certainties of the postwar settlement, and were given instead an economic model that has just about served the
most populous parts of the country, while leaving too much of the rest to anxiously decline. Look at the map of those results,
and that huge island of "in" voting in London and the south-east; or those jaw-dropping vote-shares for remain in the centre
of the capital: 69% in Tory Kensington and Chelsea; 75% in Camden; 78% in Hackney, contrasted with comparable shares for leave
in such places as Great Yarmouth (71%), Castle Point in Essex (73%), and Redcar and Cleveland (66%). Here is a country so imbalanced
it has effectively fallen over….
What defines these furies is often clear enough: a terrible shortage of homes, an impossibly precarious job market, a too-often
overlooked sense that men (and men are particularly relevant here) who would once have been certain in their identity as miners,
or steelworkers, now feel demeaned and ignored. The attempts of mainstream politics to still the anger have probably only made
it worse: oily tributes to "hardworking families", or the the fingers-down-a-blackboard trope of "social mobility", with its
suggestion that the only thing Westminster can offer working-class people is a specious chance of not being working class anymore.
This much-watch segment with Mark Blyth (hat tip
Gabriel U) also focuses on the class warfare as a driver of the Brexit vote and how that plays into the broader EU political and
economic context:
Our Richard Smith echoed these themes from his own observations:
In (for instance) North Lincolnshire, manufacturing is most likely to be the biggest EU export. That might get nuked a bit
if the terms of trade with EU countries get stiffer.
But the locals upcountry clearly feel they have been ignored, and now have nothing to lose. M and I bumbled through Wisbech
and Boston a few years ago, expecting cute East Anglian port towns, and found instead murderously tense run-down ghettoes.
You get this kind of story:
Unless, improbably, around 700,000 such stories turn up, which would imply they swung the vote, this is another portrayal
of the "Leave" voters as idiots.
Brexit's lesson for the US - and other democracies - is that fear mongering is not enough. Western elites must build a positive
case for reforming a system that is no longer perceived to be fair. The British may well repent at leisure for a vote they
took in haste. Others can learn from its blunder.
But even this is weak tea. Luce isn't advocating a Sanders-style economic regime change. Indeed, his call for action is making
a case for reform, implying that the more realistic members of the elites need to take on the reactionary forces. As we've said,
the Clintons are modern day Bourbons: they've learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Luce's warning to Hillary Clinton, firmly
ensconced in her bubble of self-regard, deeply loyal to powerful, monied interests and technocrats, is destined to fall on deaf
ears.
Because coverage for Trump, as with Sanders, has been vile piece of
jobbery by our Acela-rising
press
scorps, I'm going to quote great slabs from Trump's remarks. I'll briefly compare
and contrast what the press said to what Trump's words were. I may add brief commentary
of my own. I'm not going to quote the whole speech. Instead, I'm going to quote
three topic areas[2] from his
prepared remarks. (The transcript of the speech
as delivered, sadly in ALL CAPS,
is here). The topics:
Diversity and Multiculturalism
Blowback
War and Peace
So let's look at what Trump has to say;
1. Diversity and Multiculturalism
After calling for a moment of silence, Trump says[3] this:
TRUMP: Our nation stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlando's
LGBT Community.
This is a very dark moment in America's history.
A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub not only because he wanted
to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens because
of their sexual orientation.
It is a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation.
It is an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love
who they want and express their identity.
It is an attack on the right of every single American to live in peace and
safety in their own country.
We need to respond to this attack on America as one united people – with
force, purpose and determination.
Let's put aside the question of sincerity: that would require us to treat whatever
Manafort and Stone have cooked up, versus whatever Clinton's focus groups have
emitted, as commensurate; but that's not possible. Let's focus on the fact that
Trump, remarkably for a Conservative Republican, puts "solidarity" (!!!) with "the
members of Orlando's LGBT Community" up front, and treats the ability of people
to "love who they want" at "the heart and soul of who we are as a nation." That's
what we used to call, back in the day at Kos,
performative speech; it changes who the Republicans are as a party by virtue
of having been said.[4] Now, politically I'd guess that Trump won't be winning
a lot of votes in the LGBT community over this any time soon, let alone turning
around
his unfavorables. I'd also guess there will be real, and more subtle, effects:
Trump is disempowering certain Republican factions (especially the "Christian"
right, proven losers), and empowering his own base not to act hatefully
toward gays (and if you believe that Trump voters are authoritarian followers,
that's important)[5].
That said, it's quite remarkable to hear the presumptive nominee of the Republican
Party say that he "stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlando's
LGBT Community." I'd even go so far as to say it's newsworthy.
WaPo did;
Bloomberg did; the conservative hive mind managed to emit
a "viral" pro-Trump letter by an anonymous gay person; but Times stenographers
Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, in an Op-Ed somehow misfiled as reporting,
omit to mention this portion of the speech altogether. Sad!
More seriously,
Dylann Matthews of Vox does real reporting, connecting Trump ideologically
to the European right, starting with the Netherlands' Pim Fortuyn, gay himself,
who combined support for LGBT rights with a blanket ban on Muslim immigration,
and moving on through Marine LePen, concluding that Trump's support is "a smokescreen
through which to advocate anti-Muslim policies."
But Fortuyn was open about his support of gay rights; and open about banning
Muslim immigration, so isn't "smokescreen" itself a smokescreen, begging the question?
What Matthews really seems to mean is that Fortuyn's support for LGBT
rights is incompatible with Fortuyn's support for banning Muslim immigration. Empirically,
that doesn't seem to be the case; Matthews certainly doesn't document any decrease
in LGBT rights after Fortuyn's rise. So where is the incompatibility? At this point,
we note that Trump shares, with Clinton's liberals, and apparently with Fortuyn,
although not with the left, the idea that to "express identity" is the essence
of a "free people." Speculating freely, we might imagine that Matthews believes
that Muslims, like LGBT people, must also to be free to express their
identities, and that to prevent them from doing so is "Islamophobia," along the
lines of homophobia.
Here identity politics founders on its own contradictions, as identities clash
on both values and interests; identities cannot all be silo-ed in their own "safe
spaces." For example, immigration, like globalization, creates public goods but
has economic costs that some classes disportionately bear, and economic benefits
that some classes disproportionately accrue, as blue collar workers know but professional
economists are only belatedly discovering. Does the expression of identity trump
those costs? Why? And whose identity? One does not sense, for example, that liberals
are fired with concern for heartlanders who identify as Christians (unless Christians
serve a geopolitical purpose in faraway Syria), or with men who identify as gunowners.
So if what liberals (and conservatives) mean by identity politics is really just
power politics and the upward distribution of wealth, straight up, that's fine
and clarifying, but wasn't the alpha and omega supposed to be justice? Even love?
Of course, by now we are far afield from Trump; but as far as accepting LGBT
people as fully human, can't liberals take yes for an answer?
2. Blowback
Trump says:
America must do more – much more – to protect its citizens, especially people
who are potential victims of crimes based on their backgrounds or sexual orientations.
It also means we must change our foreign policy.
The decision to overthrow the regime in Libya, then pushing for the overthrow
of the regime in Syria, among other things, without plans for the day after,
have created space for ISIS to expand and grow.
These actions, along with our disastrous Iran deal, have also reduced our
ability to work in partnership with our Muslim allies in the region.
For instance, the last major NATO mission was Hillary Clinton's war in Libya.
That mission helped unleash ISIS on a new continent.
(I think the Iran deal is one of the few good things that Obama has done.) Trump
is describing what
Chalmers Johnson called "blowback." Isn't it remarkable the Trump is the only
candidate - including, AFAIK, Sanders - who's even mentioning it? (See here for
Clinton's pivotal role in promoting the LIbya debacle in the Obama administration.)
And if you want a good view into the heart of the foreign policy establishment,
try the Foreign Policy podcast.
They think Obama was weak because
he didn't put "boots on the ground" in Syria; they love Clinton because they think
she'll be "muscular"; and they hate Trump, and think hes's a lunatic. Well, what's
more lunatic then setting the Mediterranean littoral on fire, and provoking a refugee
crisis in the European Union? Moar blowback, anyone?
3. War and Peace
With respect to a military response to "radical Islamism," the difference between
Trump and Clinton can be summed up most effectively in the form of a table. (I've
taken
Clinton's words from this transcript.)
Figure 1: Recommended Military Action Against "Radical Islam"
Trump
Clinton
The attack in Orlando makes it even more clear: we cannot contain
this threat – we must defeat it.
The good news is that the coalition
effort in Syria and Iraq has made real gains in recent months.
So we should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign,
accelerating support for
our friends fighting to take and hold ground, and pushing our partners
in the region to do even more.
(Clinton's speech was
delivered at a Cleveland company that makes military helmets. Military Keynesianism,
anyone?)
AP [***cough***] labels Trump's speech as "aggressive," by contrast to Clinton's,
without mentioning (a) that Trump is conscious of blowback and (b) only Clinton
recommends airstrikes and an "accelerated" ground war; ditto
Politico; ditto
The Economist.
WaPo, omitting the same two points, labels Clinton as "sober." I guess a couple
three more
Friedman Units should do it…
Conclusion
Just as a troll prophylactic, let me say that this post is not an endorsement
of any candidate (not even
Sanders, who snagged an F-35 base for Vermont). I'm not sure how to balance
charges of racism, fascism, and corruption in the context of identity politics,
when clearly all three are systemic, interact with each other, and must be owned
by all (both) candidates. (Do the bodies of people of color char differently because
they are far away? Doesn't a
"disposition matrix" sound like something
Adolf Eichmann might devise?)
Rather, this post is a plea for citizens to "do their own research"[6] and listen
to what the candidates actually say, put that in context, and try to understand.
The press, with a few honorable exceptions, seems to be gripped by the same "madness
of crowds" that gripped them in 2008 (except for Obama, against Clinton) or in
2002-2003 (for WMDs, and for the Iraq War). Only in that way can we hope to hold
candidates accountable.
APPENDIX I
Some brief remarks on Trump's advance work:
1) Trump still needs practice with his teleprompter;
2) The mike was picking up Trump's breathing;
3) The staging looks like Dukakis (that is, provincial). It should look like
Reagan (national);
4) Trump's website is simple and easy to use and looks like it was designed
for a normal person, not a laid-off
site developer. However, it looks low budget. Hmm.
APPENDIX II
Here's why I skipped Trump on guns and the NRA. To frame this in partisan terms:
From Democrats, what I consider to be a rational policy on guns -
taxing gun owners for the externalities of gun ownership combined with Darwin
Awards over time, and ridicule - is not on offer, so it's foolish to waste time
with whatever ineffective palliative they propose, especially while they continue
to take money from private equity firms that own gun manufacturers, and arrange
overseas contracts for those same manufacturers. As for Republicans, it's impossible
to see how the country could be more awash in guns than it already is. So if you
want to argue about guns, don't do it here. There's plenty of opportunity in both
Links and Water Cooler.
[2] Except for Section 3, "War and Peace," I'm not going to compare Clinton's
foreign policy speech today to this speech by Trump, because I've analyzed several
Clinton speeches already, and presumably NC readers already know how to parse her.
[3] I'm not going to analyze Trump's rhetoric in in this post, but note the
anaphora: "It is… It is.. It is…." Notice also
the simple, declarative sentences, which Trump uses very effectively as hammer
blows; the most complicated sentence we get in this passage is the parallel construction
of "not only because… not because." And note the sound patterning from the sentence
containing that phrase, gutturals like gunfire: "A radical Islamic
terrorist targeted the nightclub not only because
he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute
gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation."
Whoever Trump hired to write his speeches, they're doing an excellent, and unobtrusive,
job.
[4] That's not to give the parties, let alone Trump, credit; they follow and
don't lead. LGBT people led, in particular the now almost erased ACT-UP, with its
non-violent direct action.
[5] And if you're extremely cynical, you might see Trump as posthumously rehabilitating
Roy Cohn. But today is my day to be kind.
[6] See
PBS,
CBS, and *** cough ***
AP on fact-checking. Sometimes, of course, facts are "facts"; more importantly:
WANTED: CEO
Must be detail oriented
Said no search firm ever.
Which is better: The candidate who gets the big picture right, and details wrong,
or the candidate who's great with detail, and bounces from one clstrfck to another?
You tell me.
The third-party nominee Gary Johnson believes former Republican candidates for president, Jeb
Bush and Lindsey Graham among them, will defect at the polls this November rather than vote for
Donald Trump. He expects they'll vote Libertarian instead.
"When it's all said and done, they'll pull the Johnson-Weld lever because it's a real choice,"
the former governor of New Mexico told the Guardian in a wide-ranging interview this week.
Johnson said he founded his prediction "on instinct", but that he was confident that he had
high-profile Republican votes – "whether they say so or not is another story".
Johnson may already have at least one Republican leader knocking on his door. Mitt Romney, the
party's 2012 nominee, told CNN on Friday that he was considering casting his lot with the
Libertarians.
"If Bill Weld were at the top of the ticket, it would be very easy for me to vote for Bill Weld
for president," he said. Weld is Johnson's running mate and preceded Romney as governor of
Massachusetts.
Johnson, who is at 12% in a recent national poll, hopes that by winning voters disaffected by
Trump and Hillary Clinton, he can establish his party as a political force to be reckoned with.
In particular, Johnson insisted that he is a fit for supporters of a Democrat – the Vermont
senator Bernie Sanders – who may be less than enthused about Clinton's nomination for the party.
He cited an online quiz in which he sided with the Vermont senator 73% of the time, adding:
"We're on the same page when it comes to people and their choices."
"Legalizing marijuana, military intervention and that crony capitalism is alive and well," he
said, rattling off issues of concern that he and the progressive Sanders share. "People with
money are able to pay for privilege, and they buy it."
"... The position Trump is now taking on Libya is not that different from the one that liberal hawks took when the Iraq war started to go badly. They wanted "credit" for supporting regime change and war, but also wanted to be able to second-guess how Bush managed the war. So once things started going wrong, they said they favored invading but disagreed with the way Bush had gone about it. Ritual paeans to the importance of multilateralism usually followed. That put them in the rather absurd spot of attacking Bush for mishandling the illegal, unnecessary war that he started, as if it would have been all right if it had just been managed more competently. ..."
"... This sort of criticism, like Trump's complaint about Libya, takes for granted that there was nothing inherently destabilizing and dangerous in overthrowing a foreign government that better management couldn't have fixed. That misses the crucial point that forcible regime change and its consequences can't be "managed" successfully because so many of its effects are out of the control of the intervening government(s) and some can't be anticipated in advance. ..."
comments on Trump's latest position on the Libyan war:
I'm sure the Libya hawks in the Hillary camp would also prefer a timeline
where their war went off without any bad bits. But if Trump has any ideas
about how the Pentagon could have "take[n] out Qaddafi and his group" without
creating a situation where Libya is "not even a country anymore," he didn't
share them. Instead he's basically saying I'm for a Libya war that worked
out better, without Benghazi and all that. Which is a bit like saying The
Iraq war was a great idea, except for the insurgency or Going into Vietnam
was wise, as long as we could've had a quick victory.
The position Trump is now taking on Libya is not that different from the
one that liberal hawks took when the Iraq war started to go badly. They wanted
"credit" for supporting regime change and war, but also wanted to be able to
second-guess how Bush managed the war. So once things started going wrong, they
said they favored invading but disagreed with the way Bush had gone about it.
Ritual paeans to the importance of multilateralism usually followed. That put
them in the rather absurd spot of attacking Bush for mishandling the illegal,
unnecessary war that he started, as if it would have been all right if it had
just been managed more competently.
This sort of criticism, like Trump's complaint about Libya, takes for granted
that there was nothing inherently destabilizing and dangerous in overthrowing
a foreign government that better management couldn't have fixed. That misses
the crucial point that forcible regime change and its consequences can't be
"managed" successfully because so many of its effects are out of the control
of the intervening government(s) and some can't be anticipated in advance. If
Trump was fine with removing Gaddafi from power by force, and he admits that
he was, he
can't credibly complain about the chaos that followed when the U.S. did
exactly that. Trump has the same problem on Libya that Romney and all other
hawkish candidates have had, which is that he cannot challenge Clinton on the
decision to intervene because he ultimately agreed with that decision and supported
joining the conflict at the time.
Goldwater girl was virtually on a par with John Kasich among big Republican donors
Notable quotes:
"... The thing about the Clintons is that they are, as politicians, honest. When bought, they stay bought. Hence their popularity with businesses. Trump is far too much of a wheeler dealer to stay bought, this is what seems to worry the oligarchy. ..."
"... Later, I developed an alternate theory for why Obama and Clinton were pushed front. As President, either could be trusted to betray their base and lose badly, divide their base (and give them no motive to energize them) setting the stage for zombie resurrection of the Republicans in 2010 - and also, continue the Republican militaristic anti-civll-liberties, shadow-bank friendly, torture-friendly Bush policies. I have no idea if either theory was correct. ..."
"... 2016: A year ago, we had the media pushing Clinton hard, as this implacable juggernaut, with opponents portrayed as annoying gnats at her heels. Sanders came up and got coverage, perhaps because of his major fundraising, perhaps because he was another candidate they could trust. Other candidates got minimal coverage. ..."
"... So: are they being set up for the Fall again? Or is Clinton being engineered as our next President? ..."
"... Does anyone *really* believe that Clinton will break up the huge shadow banking system? Prosecute the fraudclosers, prosecute the banksters, prosecute the torturers, stop the "humanitarian bombing" and so forth? ..."
"... Does anyone *really* believe that Clinton will break up the huge shadow banking system? Prosecute the fraudclosers, prosecute the banksters, prosecute the torturers, stop the "humanitarian bombing" and so forth? ..."
"... The only people who believe that are the people who also believe that is what Obama will do. ..."
Politico reported in early May, when Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee,
that the Clinton campaign started calling major Republican donors almost immediately , pitching
her as the natural candidate for them. Many of the recipients were cool to the appear, reasoning
that Clinton would probably prevail regardless. But that was before the polls showed that Trump becoming
the virtually official Republican nominee meant he quickly moved in national polls to score a mere
few points behind Clinton, when the widespread assumption had been that he would top out at a much
lower level.
And it's not as if Clinton didn't already have real pull among big Republican givers.
This chart from Time Magazine shows as of late 2015 where 2012 Romney donors were sending their
Presidential bucks in this cycle. You can see that Clinton was virtually on a par with John Kasich
The Financial Times surveyed major US business groups and found
they greatly prefer Clinton . Mind you, "greatly prefer" translates as "loathes Trump, deems
her to be less obviously terrible." Clinton is a status quo candidate, and as much as she would probably
shake her finger at businessmen more than they'd like, she won't break any big rice bowls.
From the Financial Times :
In the most comprehensive survey to date of business views on the US election, half of the
trade groups who responded to the FT said they would break from the traditional party of business
to back Mrs Clinton - despite reservations about the Democratic front-runner's candidacy.
Only a quarter of respondents preferred Mr Trump, who has run a caustic campaign marked by
populist attacks on business. But support for Mrs Clinton was often lukewarm, sparked more by
alarm over the presumptive Republican nominee than enthusiasm for her..
The FT polled 53 Washington-based trade associations and received responses from 16 of them
that lobby for nearly 100,000 businesses with combined annual revenues of more than $3.5tn. A
quarter of respondents said they could not decide which candidate would be best for business because
it was too early to judge their policy platforms, or replied "none of the above".
Several trade groups expressed dismay that for the first time in living memory they faced a
presidential race without a clear pro-business candidate, dashing their hopes of a new dawn after
nearly eight years of what they see as over-regulation by the Obama administration.
Mr [Bill] Reinsch, speaking shortly before retiring from his trade group [companies ranging
from Cisco to General Electric to Procter & Gamble ] this month, added: "The other thing [companies]
want is predictability, which is the antithesis of Trump, who brags about being unpredictable."…
The business groups that said they would prefer Mrs Clinton tended to represent more internationally-minded
members in fast-moving or technology-dependent sectors. The smaller core of Trump support came
from more domestic-oriented sectors and those hurt by the Democratic causes of environmentalism
and trade unions.
The thing about the Clintons is that they are, as politicians, honest. When bought, they stay
bought. Hence their popularity with businesses. Trump is far too much of a wheeler dealer to stay
bought, this is what seems to worry the oligarchy.
I've been wondering… What will really happen in the Fall? All I know is that things will be
interesting, as in cursed. Past history, as I remember: In 2000, the media was quite nice to Candidate
Bush - someone they could sit down and have a beer with. He was the front-runner before a single
primary or caucus was held. Contrast with the serial lying about Candidate Gore, accompanied by
serious coverage of third-party Candidate Nader's campaign.
2008: on the Democratic side, Obama and Clinton were front-runners before a single primary
or caucus was held. My idea back then was that whoever would win would be set up for the Fall
(note the pun). Clinton was subject to the Clinton Rules. Obama had the worst post-9/11 name possible
for a Presidential candidate, not to mention being black.
Of course, economic reality intervened. Later, I developed an alternate theory for why
Obama and Clinton were pushed front. As President, either could be trusted to betray their base
and lose badly, divide their base (and give them no motive to energize them) setting the stage
for zombie resurrection of the Republicans in 2010 - and also, continue the Republican militaristic
anti-civll-liberties, shadow-bank friendly, torture-friendly Bush policies. I have no idea if
either theory was correct.
In 2012, we had minimal coverage of primarying Obama, or of third-party candidates.
2016: A year ago, we had the media pushing Clinton hard, as this implacable juggernaut,
with opponents portrayed as annoying gnats at her heels. Sanders came up and got coverage, perhaps
because of his major fundraising, perhaps because he was another candidate they could trust. Other
candidates got minimal coverage.
So: are they being set up for the Fall again? Or is Clinton being engineered as our next
President?
Does anyone *really* believe that Clinton will break up the huge shadow banking system?
Prosecute the fraudclosers, prosecute the banksters, prosecute the torturers, stop the "humanitarian
bombing" and so forth?
Does anyone *really* believe that Clinton will break up the huge shadow banking system?
Prosecute the fraudclosers, prosecute the banksters, prosecute the torturers, stop the "humanitarian
bombing" and so forth?
The only people who believe that are the people who also believe that is what Obama will do.
What is important that Hillary past provides so many powerful and easy
avenues of attack on her (and she in not a Democrat; she is a neocon, warmonger neoliberal, hell bent
on US world domination) that it is easy to be distracted by this excessive menu :-)
Notable quotes:
"... Then there's that Sanders factor. The Vermont senator has presented an unexpected challenge to Mrs Clinton. His attacks on her past support for trade deals and her ties to the current political establishment have drawn blood. ..."
"... It seems the Republican was already testing lines of attack in his victory speech on Tuesday night. He brought up Mrs Clinton's support for coal regulations that have caused unemployment in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio. He mentioned that Bill Clinton backed the North America Trade Agreement, which he called "the single worst trade deal". ..."
"... If Mr Trump can put the Midwest in play, that previously mentioned electoral tilt may not be so imposing after all. ..."
"... Facing off against Mr Trump is going to take a nimble, creative campaign and candidate. That hasn't always been a strength for the instinctively controlled and cautious Mrs Clinton. ..."
Mr Trump is going to present an unpredictable adversary for the former secretary of state. As
the Republican primary has shown, no topic is off the table for him and no possible line of attack
out of bounds.
"Her past is really the thing, rather than what she plans to do in the future," Mr Trump told the
Washington Post on Tuesday. "Her past has a lot of problems, to put it bluntly."
The day before making those comments, Mr Trump had lunch with Edward Klein, a journalist who has
made a career of writing inflammatory books about the Clintons and their sometimes chequered history.
Chances are, Mr Trump was taking notes.
That Bernie Sanders factor
Then there's that Sanders factor. The Vermont senator has presented an unexpected challenge to
Mrs Clinton. His attacks on her past support for trade deals and her ties to the current political
establishment have drawn blood.
Could some of his true loyalists stay home or vote for a third party? Could some of his working-class
supporters in the industrial mid-west cross over to Mr Trump?
It seems the Republican was already testing lines of attack in his victory speech on Tuesday
night. He brought up Mrs Clinton's support for coal regulations that have caused unemployment in
places like Pennsylvania and Ohio. He mentioned that Bill Clinton backed the North America Trade
Agreement, which he called "the single worst trade deal".
If Mr Trump can put the Midwest in play, that previously mentioned electoral tilt may not be
so imposing after all.
There's no playbook for how a Democrat can run against a Republican like Mr Trump. In some places,
such as immigration, he will be well to her right. In other areas, like foreign policy and trade,
he could come at her from the left.
Can abortion or the social safety net be wedge issues? Probably not against a man who defended Planned
Parenthood and Social Security on a Republican debate stage.
Facing off against Mr Trump is going to take a nimble, creative campaign and candidate. That
hasn't always been a strength for the instinctively controlled and cautious Mrs Clinton.
You know you've come to the end of a fireworks show when the shells start bursting all at once.
I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference
to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive
view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party
generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest
passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less
stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest
rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural
to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities,
is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and
repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing
faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes
of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely
out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make
it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It
agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of
one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign
influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the
channels of party passions.
Priority A in this letter is cyber and jihad strategy? Puh-lease. WTAF, another clueless ideologue.
Here's my list:
1. End American Empire. We have 800 bases in 140 countries. Close them and send the personnel
back to the US, give them shovels and backhoes and make them start rebuilding our Third World
infrastructure.
2. Prosecute financial crime. No more "fines", we need perp walks by senior executives. That's
the only thing that will work.
3. Close the DHS. We already have the FBI and CIA Roll back the Patriot Act spying provisions.
4. Audit the Fed. Full transparency of what they own, what their market activities are, who
owns them. Fed chair to be appointed by the Executive branch, not just selected from a list of
"approved" candidates submitted by the Fed.
5. Remove capital gains taxation on physical gold and silver bullion. Americans need to build
more wealth, not more paper.
6. Remove corporate tax exemption for issuing dividends.
7. Tax all unearned income at the same rate as earned income.
8. Fire the entire staff of the FASB and start over. Plain vanilla GAAP accounting including
mark-to-market.
9. End pre-crime drone assasination policy effective immediately.
10. New Marshall Plan for the MidEast. Take 1/2 of the budget we spend blowing the place up
and put it in a fund for development of ME countries. Announce the end of the drone/invasion/occupation
policy and the new investment fund with huge fanfare. We get peace and prosperity and great new
markets full of people who like us again.
11. Putin, Xi and US pres to hold tri-lateral peace talks. End Cold War II. Invite the Eurozone
lapdogs if you must (but no Frenchmen
The pitiful part of that is, we created the jihad is, we support them, arm them, feed them.
They're our mercenaries. So we create a BOOGIEMAN, tell the country that we must do everything
possible to defend against them, send them into other nations to do our dirty work for us, thereby
increasing the fear and terror back home, as they follow orders and chop off heads on television?
Talk about "wagging the dog"? Then they say in order to protect the "HOMELANDS" from these monsters,
we'll, you'll have to sacrifice some rights? You'll have to sacrifice some security? You'll have
to accept some invasion of your privacy. You'll have to allow the government to spend hundreds
of billions of dollars on spying, making war, building killing machines, and you the American
public will have to accept austerity, so we can get through this together? BULLSHIT!
" The very nature of government - monopoly power - makes it the number 1 destination of the
psychosociopaths. "
Only in 'Murika, the government doesn't hold the monopoly power, private corporations do. They
have even bought your governement lock, stock and barrel. Obama is no more than a mouthpiece for
private companies. See how he is travelling salesman for the TTIP, NAFTA and such treaties that
are bad for the USA's population and all other countries' populations too.
Which means you don't have a government at all . You are ruled by a transnational private sector
through political puppets, banana republic style.
"...4. Our problems are huge right now, but one of the most obvious is that we've not passed
along the meaning of America to the next generation..."
Yes you did, Senator Sasse. America, American government and American politics means systemic
psychopathy. Sick, power-seeking and power-hoarding individuals. What you failed to pass on was
your fantasy of what you would like America to be. The next generation can't ignore the reality
of what they see and believe in your fantasy - if anything, they're realists. The meaning of America
to them is a tax-farming organization run for the benefit of the MIC, big ag,
big pharma, big oil, etc. They recognize that they are cattle, not snowflakes.
"...If we don't get them to re-engage..."
Holy crap... seriously? You sound like the MSM trying to figure out some marketing trick to
sell themselves to 'the next generation' - a generation that has already thrown the MSM on the
scrap-heap of history as a useless tool of the rich and powerful. The next generation has ABANDONED
dreams of your fantasy America. They just want to minimize the oppression and pain America causes
them. They want to be left the fuck alone and don't want to fix YOUR mess - it's unfixable to
them. They're not buying the bullshit of 'fixability' any more - that was your generation's weakness.
"...-- thinking about how we defend a free society in the face of global jihadis,.."
Jihadis the CIA created for their latest Middle East clownfuckery? The jihadi 'threat' as manufactured
by the FBI or MSM? Hey, guess what Senator: that's your fucking problem, not theirs. They're afraid
of cops and gangs of immigrants, not fake jihadis .
"...or how we balance our budgets after baby boomers have dishonestly over-promised for decades,..."
Why would they give a fuck? They know they are already 100% screwed - things will never be
as good for them as it was for their parents. They are going to suffer the consequences of shitty
fiscal policy for the next fifty years, and you expect them to somehow be interested in making
the government behave NOW? Fuck that... are you stupid or something? They didn't break it - YOU
did.
"...or how we protect First Amendment values in the face of the safe-space movement..."
Er... their First Amendment rights have already been whored out by your employer, Senator:
the U.S. Congress. And typical of your employer, you 'see' a problem were none exists: a few hundred,
maybe thousand whiney college students DOES NOT equate to a Constitutional problem for the other
five million or so members of that generation. If you want to debate safe spaces while Rome burns,
go ahead. They're not interested.
"...– then all will indeed have been lost..."
Yes, I agree. Congress and the rest of the U.S. government have been throwing away the American
dream for thirty-plus years. Yes, it's lost. That's what happens when you throw something away.
Don't expect them to go on a scavenger hunt for its decayed corpse now. It's worth saving to YOU,
not THEM. You fucked it up so bad that they have no illusions about 'finding' anything useable
again. They're not looking and not interested in being convinced to look, Senator. It's not there
for them any more.
"...One of the bright spots with the rising generation, though, is that they really would like
to rethink the often knee-jerk partisanship of their parents and grandparents. We should encourage
this rethinking..."
No, they are simply rejecting the failed mechanism of a usurped voting process and a failed
constitutional republic. That doesn't mean they're looking for replacement parts to fix that one
thing, because the rest of the republic is completely fucked up . They're not interested in band-aids
on a stinking, rotting corpse. They don't want to have anything to do with it.
A member of Congress trying to 'market' America to the next generation is exactly like the
MSM trying to market themselves to the next generation: it's pathetic and futile. 'America' is
just the name of their current prison and owner. They simply tolerate it. When it becomes intolerable,
they'll leave (if they're allowed to).
I know that's the meme being pushed, but I don't see it in reality. The two parties, supposedly
so polarized, offer minute differences in actual policy. The differences over which they'd claim
to take us to Civil War really boil down to which constituent and contributor group gets greased.
In dictionary definitions, every politician in America is a liberal. In terms of their dedication
to unifying corporate and State power, they're all Fascists. Some are smilier Fascists than others,
but they're all Fascists.
Wrong. America is not a Liberal nation. In a Liberal nation working class would have a say.
As inequality grows, their taxes would go up. Education and healthcare would be free. Labor wouldn't
be taxed.
Corporativism is to the right and not left. Its labor is to the left.
The excerpt below should help clarify the confusion between Democrats and Republicans:
….(Bakunin) predicted that there would be two forms of modern intellectuals, what he called
the 'Red Bureaucracy', who would use popular struggles to try to take control of state power and
institute the most vicious and ruthless dictatorships in history, and the other group, who would
see that there isn't going to be an access to power that way and would therefore become the servants
of private power and the state capitalist democracy, where they would, as Bakunin put it, 'beat
the people with the people's stick,' talk about democracy but beat the people with it. That's
actually one of the few predictions in the social sciences that's come true, to my knowledge,
and a pretty perceptive one." Chomsky On Democracy and Education, page 248.
"... The following is a preview of a chapter by Claudia von Werlhof in "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century." (2009) ..."
"... To read more, order the book online. Help us spread the word: "like" the book on Facebook and share with your friends -- ..."
No one asks these questions because they seem absurd. Yet, no one can escape
them either. Until the onslaught of the global economic crisis, the motto of
so-called "neoliberalism" was TINA: "There Is No Alternative!"
No alternative to "neoliberal globalization"?
No alternative to the unfettered "free market" economy?
What Is "Neoliberal Globalization"?
Let us first clarify what globalization and neoliberalism are, where they
come from, who they are directed by, what they claim, what they do, why their
effects are so fatal, why they will fail and why people nonetheless cling to
them. Then, let us look at the responses of those who are not – or will not
– be able to live with the consequences they cause.
This is where the difficulties begin. For a good twenty years now we have
been told that there is no alternative to neoliberal globalization, and that,
in fact, no such alternative is needed either. Over and over again, we have
been confronted with the TINA-concept: "There Is No Alternative!" The "iron
lady", Margaret Thatcher, was one of those who reiterated this belief without
end.
The TINA-concept prohibits all thought. It follows the rationale that there
is no point in analyzing and discussing neoliberalism and so-called globalization
because they are inevitable. Whether we condone what is happening or not does
not matter, it is happening anyway. There is no point in trying to understand.
Hence: Go with it! Kill or be killed!
Some go as far as suggesting that globalization – meaning, an economic system
which developed under specific social and historical conditions – is nothing
less but a law of nature. In turn, "human nature" is supposedly reflected by
the character of the system's economic subjects: egotistical, ruthless, greedy
and cold. This, we are told, works towards everyone's benefit.
The question remains: why has Adam Smith's "invisible hand" become a "visible
fist"? While a tiny minority reaps enormous benefits from today's neoliberalism
(none of which will remain, of course), the vast majority of the earth's population
suffers hardship to the extent that their very survival is at stake. The damage
done seems irreversible.
All over the world media outlets – especially television stations – avoid
addressing the problem. A common excuse is that it cannot be explained.[1] The
true reason is, of course, the media's corporate control.
What Is Neoliberalism?
Neoliberalism as an economic policy agenda which began in Chile in 1973.
Its inauguration consisted of a U.S.-organized coup against a democratically
elected socialist president and the installment of a bloody military dictatorship
notorious for systematic torture. This was the only way to turn the neoliberal
model of the so-called "Chicago Boys" under the leadership of Milton Friedman
– a student of Friedrich von Hayek – into reality.
The predecessor of the neoliberal model is the economic liberalism of the
18th and 19th centuries and its notion of "free trade". Goethe's assessment
at the time was: "Free trade, piracy, war – an inseparable three!"[2]
At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies:
Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic
affairs, in other words: a process of 'de-bedding' economy from society; economic
rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition
as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the
replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade ('comparative
cost advantage'); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market
forces.[3]
Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim.
Today's economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all
parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence,
the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political
power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea
of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to
altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.[4]
This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the
uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of
transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy
– which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists
of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society.
The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible
time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It
must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh
not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since
corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.[5] A "level
playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions.
This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national
"barriers".[6] As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that
is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless
they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The
corporations' interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete
priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being
of small enterprises and workshops as well.
The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first
be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series
of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the
crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state
tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective
of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are
now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main
reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is
gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and
the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation.
Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which
contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which
causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling
the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.[7]
The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation
is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic
liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative
ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a
democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the
freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new
market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market
hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others
who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers
and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither
anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world's population fall
into this group today, and the percentage is rising.[8]
Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations
set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism
or "invisible hand" – that determine today's rules of trade, for example prices
and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation
with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who
become "unprofitable".[9] Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable,
long-term projects,
or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead
"travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more
what the markets are and do.[10] By delinking the dollar from the price of gold,
money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".[11] Moreover,
these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial
capital that has all the money – we have none.[12]
Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market,
forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances
are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins.
The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit
economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems")
handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that
are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses
– which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided
normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The
alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false.
When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.[13]
If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only
available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make
a living.[14] This means that the working conditions in the North become akin
to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women
– a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations
now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor
without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in
the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"),
where most of the world's computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods
are produced.[15] The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist
and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap
labor.[16] The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to
armaments is a particularly troubling development.[17]
It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the
EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third
Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication
technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also
in administrative fields.[18] The combination of the principles of "high tech"
and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees
a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to
"Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen
as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European,
Chinese or Indian.
The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially
since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever
more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through
the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public
and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector.
This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded
from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal.
New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today's total commercialization
of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons",
and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity
or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.[19] As far as
the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic
efforts to bring these under private control as well.[20]
All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more
or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation
of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally,
in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"[21]
Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so
the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the
welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community
to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private,
i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less
reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes
the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by
the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into
the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the
South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system
of underdevelopment.[22] Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.[23]
This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon.
It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment
through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result,
the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid
work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.[24] Yet,
commercialization does not stop in front of the home's doors either. Even housework
becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial
benefits for the women who do the work.[25]
Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution,
one of today's biggest global industries.[26] This illustrates two things: a)
how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with
men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom"
in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.[27] If the
latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism
once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely.
Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist
in the "world system."[28] The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing
Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution
of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom
to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The
middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing.
It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but,
to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the
world"[29] points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the
"long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation
and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.[30]
The so-called "children's diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in
old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity's latest stage. They
are expanding instead of disappearing.
Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery,
there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western"
– civilization.[31]
Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate
colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it
from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.[32]
Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned
and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still
have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects
of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence.
If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there
is no reason not to cut them.[33] Neither the public nor the state interferes,
despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining
rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth's climate – not to mention
the many other negative effects of such actions.[34] Climate, animal, plants,
human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests
of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource
and that the entire earth's ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism
with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological
trait, we would have never even reached this day.
The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked
that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last
great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more
rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in
order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo's natural resources
that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one
needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones.
Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes
an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the
transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not
enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably
"wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and
everything into commodities, including life itself.[35] We are racing blindly
towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely
total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".[36]
We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing
what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market
as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen
without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract
wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market
for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according
to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of
such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities
where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China.
One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation
implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole
in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated
machinery and money without value.[37] However, once all concrete wealth (which
today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract
wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx's words, "evaporate". The fact
that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the
answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created.
In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually
or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority.
Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive.
And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production
nor money?
The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed
into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What
no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities,
money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying
all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources
of wealth",[38] are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they
create.[39]
The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism
and its "monetary totalitarianism".[40]
The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties
have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate
interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community
control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata,
or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin
meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights.
They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to
the "license to kill".[41] Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights"
are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists"
or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually
implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future.
U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear
strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.[42]
The European Union did not object.[43]
Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.[44] Free trade, piracy
and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War
is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be
understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".[45] War and economy
have become almost indistinguishable.[46] Wars about resources – especially
oil and water – have already begun.[47] The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples.
Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially
everywhere and enduringly.[48]
Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people,
communities and governments to corporations.[49] The notion of the people as
a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of
sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees
for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world
system are increasingly dissolving.[50] Nation states are developing into "periphery
states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New
World Order".[51] Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".[52]
The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer
distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South.
An according International Law is established which effectively functions from
top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights.
And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively
and for the future.[53]
The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is
that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production,
all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations
only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"[54] One
might add: "Now!"
The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get.
Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them
to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk
since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The
times of social contracts are gone.[55] In fact, pointing out the crisis alone
has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted
as such.[56]
IMF Economic Medicine
Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of
the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These
programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted
due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help
to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install
neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which
are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business
of reconstruction.[57]
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism
in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated.
It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through
"deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo
and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true
for the corporations only – not for anybody else.
In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between
Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the
permanent U.S. presence in the world's most contested oil region.
In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia
caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the
IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil
war over its last remaining resources.[58] Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans
are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.[59] The
region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the
Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed
to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.[60]
The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations.
All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There
is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its
history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world.
Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
NOTES
[1] Maria Mies and Claudia von Werlhof (Hg), Lizenz zum Plündern. Das Multilaterale
Abkommen über Investitionen MAI. Globalisierung der Konzernherrschaft – und
was wir dagegen tun können, Hamburg, EVA, 2003 (1998), p. 23, 36.
[2] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: Part Two, New York, Oxford University
Press, 1999.
[3] Maria Mies, Krieg ohne Grenzen. Die neue Kolonisierung der Welt, Köln,
PapyRossa, 2005, p. 34.
[4] Arno Gruen, Der Verlust des Mitgefühls. Über die Politik der Gleichgültigkeit,
München, 1997, dtv.
[5] Sassen Saskia, "Wohin führt die Globalisierung?," Machtbeben, 2000, Stuttgart-München,
DVA.
[6] Maria Mies and Claudia von Werlhof (Hg), Lizenz zum Plündern. Das Multilaterale
Abkommen über Investitionen MAI. Globalisierung der Konzernherrschaft – und
was wir dagegen tun können, Hamburg, EVA, 2003 (1998), p. 24.
[7] Immanuel Wallerstein, Aufstieg und künftiger Niedergang des kapitalistischen
Weltsystems, in Senghaas, Dieter: Kapitalistische Weltökonomie. Kontroversen
über ihren Ursprung und ihre Entwicklungsdynamik, Frankfurt, 1979, Suhrkamp;
Immanuel Wallerstein (Hg), The Modern World-System in the Longue Durée, Boulder/
London; Paradigm Publishers, 2004.
[8] Susan George, im Vortrag, Treffen von Gegnern und Befürwortern der Globalisierung
im Rahmen der Tagung des WEF (World Economic Forum), Salzburg, 2001.
[9] Elmar Altvater, Das Ende des Kapitalismus, wie wir ihn kennen, Münster,
Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2005.
[10] Elmar Altvater and Birgit Mahnkopf, Grenzen der Globalisierung. Ökonomie,
Ökologie und Politik in der Weltgesellschaft, Münster, Westfälisches Dampfboot,
1996.
[11] Bernard Lietaer, Jenseits von Gier und Knappheit, Interview mit Sarah
van Gelder, 2006,
www.transaction.net/press/interviews/Lietaer 0497.html; Margrit Kennedy,
Geld ohne Zinsen und Inflation, Steyerberg, Permakultur, 1990.
[12] Helmut Creutz, Das Geldsyndrom. Wege zur krisenfreien Marktwirtschaft,
Frankfurt, Ullstein, 1995.
[13] Maria Mies and Claudia von Werlhof (Hg), Lizenz zum Plündern. Das Multilaterale
Abkommen über Investitionen MAI. Globalisierung der Konzernherrschaft – und
was wir dagegen tun können, Hamburg, EVA, 2003 (1998), p. 7.
[14] Barbara Ehrenreich, Arbeit poor. Unterwegs in der Dienstleistungsgesellschaft,
München, Kunstmann, 2001.
[15] Folker Fröbel, Jürgen Heinrichs, and Otto Kreye, Die neue internationale
Arbeitsteilung. Strukturelle Arbeitslosigkeit in den Industrieländern und die
Industrialisierung der Entwicklungsländer, Reinbek, Rowohlt, 1977.
[16] Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Maria Mies, and Claudia von Werlhof, Women,
The Last Colony, London/ New Delhi, Zed Books, 1988.
[17] Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization. The Truth Behind September
11th, Oro, Ontario, Global Outlook, 2003.
[18] Folker Fröbel, Jürgen Heinrichs, and Otto Kreye, Die neue internationale
Arbeitsteilung. Strukturelle Arbeitslosigkeit in den Industrieländern und die
Industrialisierung der Entwicklungsländer, Reinbek, Rowohlt, 1977.
[19] Ana Isla, The Tragedy of the Enclosures: An Eco-Feminist Perspective
on Selling Oxygen and Prostitution in Costa Rica, Man., Brock Univ., Sociology
Dpt., St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada, 2005.
[20] John Hepburn, Die Rückeroberung von Allmenden – von alten und von neuen,
übers. Vortrag bei, Other Worlds Conference; Univ. of Pennsylvania; 28./29.4,
2005.
[21] Claudia von Werlhof, Was haben die Hühner mit dem Dollar zu tun? Frauen
und Ökonomie, München, Frauenoffensive, 1991; Claudia von Werlhof, MAInopoly:
Aus Spiel wird Ernst, in Mies/Werlhof, 2003, p. 148-192.
[22] Andre Gunder Frank, Die Entwicklung der Unterentwicklung, in ders. u.a.,
Kritik des bürgerlichen Antiimperialismus, Berlin, Wagenbach, 1969.
[23] Maria Mies, Krieg ohne Grenzen, Die neue Kolonisierung der Welt, Köln,
PapyRossa, 2005.
[24] Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Maria Mies, and Claudia von Werlhof, Women,
the Last Colony, London/New Delhi, Zed Books, 1988.
[25] Claudia von Werlhof, Frauen und Ökonomie. Reden, Vorträge 2002-2004,
Themen GATS, Globalisierung, Mechernich, Gerda-Weiler-Stiftung, 2004.
[26] Ana Isla, "Women and Biodiversity as Capital Accumulation: An Eco-Feminist
View," Socialist Bulletin, Vol. 69, Winter, 2003, p. 21-34; Ana Isla, The Tragedy
of the Enclosures: An Eco-Feminist Perspective on Selling Oxygen and Prostitution
in Costa Rica, Man., Brock Univ., Sociology Department, St. Catherines, Ontario,
Canada, 2005.
[27] Immanuel Wallerstein, Aufstieg und künftiger Niedergang des kapitalistischen
Weltsystems, in Senghaas, Dieter: Kapitalistische Weltökonomie. Kontroversen
über ihren Ursprung und ihre Entwicklungsdynamik, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1979.
[28] Kevin Bales, Die neue Sklaverei, München, Kunstmann, 2001.
[29] Maria Mies, Krieg ohne Grenzen, Die neue Kolonisierung der Welt, Köln,
PapyRossa, 2005.
[30] Immanuel Wallerstein, Aufstieg und künftiger Niedergang des kapitalistischen
Weltsystems, in Senghaas, Dieter: Kapitalistische Weltökonomie. Kontroversen
über ihren Ursprung und ihre Entwicklungsdynamik, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1979;
Andre Gunder Frank, Orientierung im Weltsystem, Von der Neuen Welt zum Reich
der Mitte, Wien, Promedia, 2005; Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on
a World Scale, Women in the International Division of Labour, London, Zed Books,
1986.
[31] Claudia von Werlhof, "Questions to Ramona," in Corinne Kumar (Ed.),
Asking, We Walk. The South as New Political Imaginary, Vol. 2, Bangalore, Streelekha,
2007, p. 214-268
[32] Hannes Hofbauer, Osterweiterung. Vom Drang nach Osten zur peripheren
EU-Integration, Wien, Promedia, 2003; Andrea Salzburger, Zurück in die Zukunft
des Kapitalismus, Kommerz und Verelendung in Polen, Frankfurt – New York, Peter
Lang Verlag, 2006.
[34] August Raggam, Klimawandel, Biomasse als Chance gegen Klimakollaps und
globale Erwärmung, Graz, Gerhard Erker, 2004.
[35] Immanuel Wallerstein, Aufstieg und künftiger Niedergang des kapitalistischen
Weltsystems, in Senghaas, Dieter: Kapitalistische Weltökonomie. Kontroversen
über ihren Ursprung und ihre Entwicklungsdynamik, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1979.
[36] Renate Genth, Die Bedrohung der Demokratie durch die Ökonomisierung
der Politik, feature für den Saarländischen Rundfunk am 4.3., 2006.
[37] Johan Galtung, Eurotopia, Die Zukunft eines Kontinents, Wien, Promedia,
1993.
[38] Karl Marx, Capital, New York, Vintage, 1976.
[39] Claudia von Werlhof, Loosing Faith in Progress: Capitalist Patriarchy
as an "Alchemical System," in Bennholdt-Thomsen et.al.(Eds.), There is an Alternative,
2001, p. 15-40.
[40] Renate Genth, Die Bedrohung der Demokratie durch die Ökonomisierung
der Politik, feature für den Saarländischen Rundfunk am 4.3., 2006.
[41] Maria Mies and Claudia von Werlhof (Hg), Lizenz zum Plündern. Das Multilaterale
Abkommen über Investitionen MAI. Globalisierung der Konzernherrschaft – und
was wir dagegen tun können, Hamburg, EVA, 2003 (1998), p. 7; Maria Mies, Krieg
ohne Grenzen, Die neue Kolonisierung der Welt, Köln, PapyRossa, 2005.
[42] Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism," Montreal, Global
Research, 2005.
[43] Michel Chossudovsky, "Nuclear War Against Iran," Global Research, Center
for Research on Globalization, Ottawa 13.1, 2006.
[44] Altvater, Chossudovsky, Roy, Serfati, Globalisierung und Krieg, Sand
im Getriebe 17, Internationaler deutschsprachiger Rundbrief der ATTAC – Bewegung,
Sonderausgabe zu den Anti-Kriegs-Demonstrationen am 15.2., 2003; Maria Mies,
Krieg ohne Grenzen, Die neue Kolonisierung der Welt, Köln, PapyRossa, 2005.
[45] Hazel Hendersen, Building a Win-Win World. Life Beyond Global Economic
Warfare, San Francisco, 1996.
[46] Claudia von Werlhof, Vom Wirtschaftskrieg zur Kriegswirtschaft. Die
Waffen der, Neuen-Welt-Ordnung, in Mies 2005, p. 40-48.
[47] Michael T. Klare, Resource Wars. The New Landscape of Global Conflict,
New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2001.
[48] Rosa Luxemburg, Die Akkumulation des Kapitals, Frankfurt, 1970.
[49] Tony Clarke, Der Angriff auf demokratische Rechte und Freiheiten, in
Mies/Werlhof, 2003, p. 80-94.
[50] Sassen Saskia, Machtbeben. Wohin führt die Globalisierung?, Stuttgart-München,
DVA, 2000.
[51] Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press,
2001; Noam Chomsky, Hybris. Die endgültige Sicherstellung der globalen –Vormachtstellung
der USA, Hamburg-Wien, Europaverlag, 2003.
[52] Claudia von Werlhof, Speed Kills!, in Dimmel/Schmee, 2005, p. 284-292
[53] See the "roll back" and "stand still" clauses in the WTO agreements
in Maria Mies and Claudia von Werlhof (Hg), Lizenz zum Plündern. Das Multilaterale
Abkommen über Investitionen MAI. Globalisierung der Konzernherrschaft – und
was wir dagegen tun können, Hamburg, EVA, 2003.
[54] Richard Sennett, zit. "In Einladung zu den Wiener Vorlesungen," 21.11.2005:
Alternativen zur neoliberalen Globalisierung, 2005.
[55] Claudia von Werlhof, MAInopoly: Aus Spiel wird Ernst, in Mies/Werlhof,
2003, p. 148-192.
[56] Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism," Montreal, Global
Research, 2005.
[57] Michel Chossudovsky, Global Brutal. Der entfesselte Welthandel, die
Armut, der Krieg, Frankfurt, Zweitausendeins, 2002; Maria Mies, Krieg ohne Grenzen.
Die neue Kolonisierung der Welt, Köln, PapyRossa, 2005; Bennholdt-Thomsen/Faraclas/Werlhof
2001.
[58] Michel Chossudovsky, Global Brutal. Der entfesselte Welthandel, die
Armut, der Krieg, Frankfurt, Zweitausendeins, 2002.
[59] Wolfgang Richter, Elmar Schmähling, and Eckart Spoo (Hg), Die Wahrheit
über den NATO-Krieg gegen Jugoslawien, Schkeuditz, Schkeuditzer Buchverlag,
2000; Wolfgang Richter, Elmar Schmähling, and Eckart Spoo (Hg), Die deutsche
Verantwortung für den NATO-Krieg gegen Jugoslawien, Schkeuditz, Schkeuditzer
Buchverlag, 2000.
"... If we are talking about foreign policy, she is definitely unqualified. Her tenure at State
Department was a disaster. No diplomatic skills, whatsoever. She was trying to imitate Madeleine Albright
not noticing that times changed. ..."
"... In case she is elected, she will be a real threat to world peace. It is just unclear what country
she will decide to invade next. But she will definitely invade. ..."
"... Hillary is running around imposing a neocon purity test on the US foreign policy agenda. ..."
"... A vote for Hillary is a vote for mediocrity; especially in the mid-terms. ..."
"... Its a long campaign. They are not suppose to be friends. Stuff gets said, gets misreported
..."
"... Hillary went negative and dragged the primary into the gutter. She said Sanders should apologize
for Sandy Hook. I don't really blame Sanders for getting angry. ..."
Bernie's remark that Hillary is unqualified to be president is immature and sexist.
If we are talking about foreign policy, she is definitely unqualified. Her tenure at State
Department was a disaster. No diplomatic skills, whatsoever. She was trying to imitate Madeleine
Albright not noticing that times changed.
Her appointment of Dick Cheney close associate Victoria Nuland first as State Department Spokesperson
and then Assistant Secretary of State was an act of betrayal of everything Democratic Party should
stand for. It was actually return to Bush II/Cheney (or should it be Cheney/Bush II) foreign policy.
In case she is elected, she will be a real threat to world peace. It is just unclear what
country she will decide to invade next. But she will definitely invade.
likbez said in reply to MIB...
they're not running around imposing some socialist purity test
Hillary is running around imposing a neocon purity test on the US foreign policy agenda.
Rune Lagman said in reply to MIB...
Without Bernie's revolution the mid-terms is just going to be even more dismal. The Democratic
establishment fail in the mid-terms because they don't run on a national program. They believe
it's about the competency of the individual candidate.
Elections should be about issues that voters care about; the Democratic establishment still
don't get that concept.
A vote for Hillary is a vote for mediocrity; especially in the mid-terms.
dd said in reply to MIB...
Hillary is no FDR although a comparison to JFK's father's wall street shenanigans is probably
apt. I particularly admire the tax-free donations to a tax-free entity with of course wall street
as a major donor. I'm sure under her leadership we will begin to explore even more innovative
tax avoidance to help the needy.
sherparick said in reply to jh...
Its a long campaign. They are not suppose to be friends. Stuff gets said, gets misreported
(in this case a WaPo headline that said something that Clinton did not say. The WaPo by the way
has been far more vicious about Bernie then Clinton and her surrogates on her worse day.)
Sanders is a remarkable politician and always has been. I am not in the end voting for him,
I still admire his campaign as one of the great achievements of the American Left in my lifetime.
Actually, Bernie and Jeff Weaver did Clinton a favor by taking the troll bait. She is at her
best counter-punching and fighting from the underdog position. You can say a lot of things about
Hillary, (I worry about her judgement and group think tendencies), but she is tough and courageous
and seems to actually enjoy a good knock down drag out political fight.
Peter said in reply to sherparick...
Hillary went negative and dragged the primary into the gutter. She said Sanders should
apologize for Sandy Hook. I don't really blame Sanders for getting angry.
Obama was much better at staying focused and on message. But then he made some policy mistakes
as President which I don't believe Sanders would have done.
"... Were it not for the DNC's Machiavellian planning of this primary and, had the states been ordered differently, we wouldn't be at roughly the halfway point with such skewed results. Were it not for the horrendous media bias shown Sanders, across mainstream corporate media, voters probably wouldn't be quite so disgusted and angry with the DNC's decision making. ..."
"... This is fundamentally the problem in our system. Each person enters the voting booth in November with two principal choices: Stinks and Stinks-Even-More. ..."
"... Instead, Bernie's chances are slim (#StillSanders), especially thanks to the major establishment outlets. Even if Clinton wins the nomination a lot of us aren't voting for her. She's hardly distinguishable from a Kissinger fangirl. ..."
"... To paraphrase Franklin, we choose not to have our vote manipulated by the fear of the lesser of two evils. We choose not to give up our "essential Liberty" to purchase a little safety because those that give that up deserve neither safety nor Liberty. ..."
"... We can hope that Sanders can come back and win the nomination because if we have Hillary for the Dem nominee Donald Trump will be a very unkind opponent. Sanders could handle the Donald in a debate. At this very moment the Trump campaign is doing their research on the Clintons. ..."
"... The Clintons define "corrupt." Bill Clinton: "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is." Hillary Clinton, who never traded commodities, made hundreds of thousands of dollars trading commodities with only several trades. Yet she claims she wasn't tipped. They leased the Lincoln Bedroom like it was their AirBNB. If someone can tell me where Clinton money ends and Clinton Foundation money begins, please let me know. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton refuses to release transcripts of her expensive speeches to Wall Street executives. I, a lifelong Democrat from a family of lifelong FDR Democrats, won't vote for Clinton until I know what she said in her speeches. The Clintons and I have come to the end of the road. ..."
"... I am a 76 year old life-long Democrat, and I would never vote for anyone who voted for the invasion of Iraq, or who supported NAFTA. These two issues have been the undoing of America - - along with Citizens United. ..."
I'm going for the longshot. In fact, I just donated to Bernie again yesterday. Even if he doesn't
win, we need him to have as many delegates as possible going into the convention so that we have
a strong voice against interventionist policies and pay to play government as the party platform
is crafted. We need to send a loud message to the Democratic establishment: Enough is enough!
#feelthebern
America needs him. A guy who stands up for everyone. A guy with no baggage. A honest politician
who wants to swim against the established norms and bring change. People are still living in recession.
Big corporation are still making big money. Why can't young people afford to go to college?, why
can't old people retired in peace?, why can't people not afford healthcare?, Why we need to bomb
n kill innocent people abroad? Change is hard to bring. Bernie has a vision, I hope everyone can
see it. Peace!
Rima Regas. is a trusted commenter Mission Viejo, CA
12 hours ago
Well, well...
That's exactly what the Sanders people have been saying will be the case.
Were it not for the DNC's Machiavellian planning of this primary and, had the states been
ordered differently, we wouldn't be at roughly the halfway point with such skewed results. Were
it not for the horrendous media bias shown Sanders, across mainstream corporate media, voters
probably wouldn't be quite so disgusted and angry with the DNC's decision making.
But here we are... Yes, we do have the other half of the primary to get through and it gets
Bernie-friendly from here on out.
Meanwhile, Democratic voter turn out is very low. When is the mainstream media going to stop
promoting Donald Trump and turn its attention to that? For all the talk about how scary a President
Trump would be, nothing much is being said to voters about the low turn out. Reading most papers,
one might be led to think everything is hunky dory in that respect. It isn't.
This is fundamentally the problem in our system. Each person enters the voting booth in
November with two principal choices: Stinks and Stinks-Even-More. By voting for Stinks, we
compromise our own passion only to send the wrong message that we somehow support the policies
and approach of the lesser-evil. This then just continues our decline, and encourages the press
to continue to ignore folks like Bernie who stand for truly profound, positive change. We can
collectively talk ourselves blue about income inequality, but failing to give Bernie his due time
and press coverage is a travesty.
Shameful. What good does it do for Kristof, Blow, Friedman and the Editorial Board to opine
about gross income inequality, only to turn around and deny Bernie his share of the press coverage.
The press has truly let America down. This includes the 24-hour news cycle, low-quality CNN types
and the presumably more deliberate and thoughtful NY Times. All of them have (for reasons that
the average citizen could probably guess) have decided Bernie wasn't worth the air time and print
space.
"Why? These states aren't as bad for him as those in the South, but they force him to confront
his two weaknesses: diversity and affluence."
These weaknesses could have been mitigated over time had the Times and the mainstream press
actually told its more diverse readers how Sanders' policies would in fact help them, and its
affluent readers that, by the way, their neighbors are starving.
Instead, Bernie's chances are slim (#StillSanders), especially thanks to the major establishment
outlets. Even if Clinton wins the nomination a lot of us aren't voting for her. She's hardly distinguishable
from a Kissinger fangirl. (Kissinger, as a reminder, had no trouble authorizing the murder
and systematic starvation of hundreds of thousands of East Timorese going into the 80s, which,
surprise, the Times didn't mention *at all* for at least a few years.) She disgusts me, and I
will never support her. I suspect it's the same for other Berniebros (as you would mockingly call
us). You've created a fascist beast, American press. Do your job.
Our family loves Bernie. We have waited so long for someone who we truly knew was leveling
with us. God help us if it comes to the disastrous consequences of 2000 when Bush won as some
people abandoned the Dems for an alternate choice but we must vote with our conscience and will
write his name in if that is what it comes to. We just hope the 'great beast' we see within the
hearts of so many Americans will not awaken yet again as it did in 2003 leading us into the obsenity
known as Iraq or worse .
To paraphrase Franklin, we choose not to have our vote manipulated by the fear of the lesser
of two evils. We choose not to give up our "essential Liberty" to purchase a little safety because
those that give that up deserve neither safety nor Liberty.
We stand or fall with Bernie and if the latter be true, it is with the hope that the next generation
finds its way into the light. It appears, from what I am seeing, that they may be better suited
to run this country than my generation has. My apologies to the Greatest Generation for failing
to deliver on their gift born of such great sacrifice.
We can hope that Sanders can come back and win the nomination because if we have Hillary
for the Dem nominee Donald Trump will be a very unkind opponent. Sanders could handle the Donald
in a debate. At this very moment the Trump campaign is doing their research on the Clintons.
If it ends up being a contest between Trump and Clinton the vulnerabilities of the Clintons will
be on full display. And Trump is not known for his kindness or restraint. It would not be pretty.
If Hillary is the candidate then Trump's path to the White House will be much easier. She's got
too many flaws.
The Clintons define "corrupt." Bill Clinton: "It depends on what the definition of
'is' is." Hillary Clinton, who never traded commodities, made hundreds of thousands of dollars
trading commodities with only several trades. Yet she claims she wasn't tipped. They leased the
Lincoln Bedroom like it was their AirBNB. If someone can tell me where Clinton money ends and
Clinton Foundation money begins, please let me know.
Hillary Clinton's brothers were influence peddlers. Hugh Clinton accepted a large amount of
money to influence Pres. Clinton to offer a pardon. Tony Clinton sells his connections to the
highest bidders.
Hillary Clinton refuses to release transcripts of her expensive speeches to Wall Street
executives. I, a lifelong Democrat from a family of lifelong FDR Democrats, won't vote for Clinton
until I know what she said in her speeches. The Clintons and I have come to the end of the road.
I will never understand why black voters would choose Hillary over Bernie when Bernie is the
one who actual has a tracjk record of fighting for civil rights.
The Democratic Party and its corporate affiliates' support for HRC has blinded them to a large
problem, viz. that HRC is very likely to be beaten in the general election. Whether earned or
not, there exists a very high level of antipathy for HRC, among Independents, and yes, Democrats.
Senator Sanders is widely regarded as honest and straightforward. If he is not nominated, the
legions of young Democrats and the large numbers of Independents that support the Senator, will
stay home on election day and/or the extremely disaffected will vote for Trump if he is nominated...very,
very few will vote for HRC (this is my anecdotal observation from many conversations with the
Senator's supporters). It is also well-known, but often suppressed information that Senator Sanders
does better against Trump than HRC in most national polls. The reality is that Senator Sanders
is by far the best choice for Democrats to beat Trump or any other Republican crazy.
I am a 76 year old life-long Democrat, and I would never vote for anyone who voted for
the invasion of Iraq, or who supported NAFTA. These two issues have been the undoing of America
- - along with Citizens United.
Yes, Sanders is down. Yes, his task is a daunting one, but less daunting than Kasich's path
to the Republican nomination, which is getting more media coverage than the 2.8 million votes
that Sanders drew on Tuesday. Sanders "revolution" is revolutionary only to those who accept the
current Republican view of government as our collective nightmare - an us vs. them fight to the
death over guns, immigration, abortion, deteriorating air and water, income inequality, student
debt, access to health care - funded by sacred and unlimited corporate and PAC dollars.
Sanders
proposes nothing that has not been done before, here or abroad, by representative governments
promoting the health, education, and welfare of all their people. I like to imagine Roosevelt,
Truman, and Eisenhower looking down on Sanders' proposals of what America should be able to do
for its people. Maybe the Ides of March got Sanders. Maybe not?
I keep reading in "The New York Times" that it's over. As I recall, a legendary figure, associated
with two legendary New York baseball teams, used to say that "It aren't over 'til it's over. .
. ."
Why "The New York Times" is so anxious to call the Election of 2016 seems to be a question
fit for an investigation. Where is "Woodstein" when we need them!?
Months before Sanders made any noise about running, I only hoped that we would have someone
besides a Bush or a Clinton as a candidate. In a country this big, don't we have any other qualified
candidates, I wondered. Politics aside, I just didn't think the idea of sending another Bush or
Clinton to the White House was good for (the appearance of) democracy.
Fast forward to today: Bush is out and Sanders is struggling to stay in. Look what happened
to the other democrats (and we won't even talk about third party candidates). They didn't have
a chance. It's an absolute miracle that Sanders has come this far given the toxic role of money
in American politics and the corporate control and neutralizing of American media.
Trump pushed Bush out of the race, but this was hardly a victory over the "establishment".
Trump's money and fame gave him instant access -- and he was quickly able to compete with establishment
candidates.
For me, Sanders is a glimmer of hope. I have no illusions about his chances of securing the
democratic nomination. But I find solace in the idea that, despite everything and everyone working
to get him out, he's still there and his campaign in resonating with young people. He has started
a movement, and that is what can lead to real change.
Rima Regas, is a trusted commenter Mission Viejo, CA
12 hours ago
I have to disagree with Cohn on his assessment of the Black vote. While it is true enough that
Clinton had a lock on the South, her narrow win in Illinois and a close look at the Black vote
there gives us a glimpse of what's to come and there are good ideological and factual reasons
for it as I explain in my essay. Mrs. Clinton, in her campaign, has shown a disdain for the new
civil rights movement. While it may not have swayed older voters, younger ones are not pleased.
Their power, as voters will be felt more in the coming primaries and caucuses:
A few more ways Bernie can win- 1)
the FBI or leaks show Hillary used classified server for emails that she didn't want seen by voters
or the press because they are damning to her election. 2) a larger stronger Yuan devaluation sets
off Wall Street volatility, exposing weaknesses in her economic policcies 3) transcripts of her
Wall Street talks are leaked exposing high level corruption 4) a book is written on how the global
leaders did not take her seriously as Secretary of State 5) polls show that independents don't
like or trust her and will not toe the DNC party line ) etc
Bernie Sanders has a better chance of beating Trump, as several polls show. Trump supporters
want an "outsider" who is not "owned" by either party. He has the advantage over Clinton and Trump
in that he is not corrupt. The Times has been biased through the campaign. They endorsed Clinton
a long time ago, and give her the benefit of coverage. But the REAL story is how Sanders has raised
money from small donors. Why aren't they interviewing those donors on a daily basis? Who are they?
Democrats? Republicans? Independents? The Times is not doing their job, such as conducting investigative
reporting on the Clinton Foundation, and asking will the Clintons close down the Clinton Foundation
if Hillary is elected? Will Bill Clinton continue to give $million dollar speeches when married
to the President? Will he be a co-president, back in the oval office that he disgraced? The Times
should be pushing for Hillary to not only publish the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street,
but also her and Bill's speeches to Chinese billionaires, and others listed on Clinton Foundation
web site). The Times might also ask how the Clintons turned a nonprofit foundation into an engine
of personal wealth after leaving the White House claiming poverty. Do your job, NYT!!
It is tragic that what is oft referred to as 'the black vote' may well usher in a Donald J.
Trump Presidency. And It is ironic that votes for H. Clinton, as polling suggests, serves to do
a few things a.) it decreases Sen. Sanders chances to be POTUS, which is obvious, but it also
b.) will galvanize Republican voter turnout and may even c.) shift Independents and even some
Democrats to the Right during the generals. I hold accountable the media and its collusion with
DNC establishment and, honestly, the low-information voter.
H. Clinton offers very little, in stated policy goals, for the poor and middle-class, which is
in stark contrast to Sen. Sander's historical record and future policy goals. Sen. Sanders, even
if I were not a fan, is offering positions (e.g. education w/ out debt, single-payer health care,
combating crony capitalism, defeating citizens united, breaking up the largest banks) that have
clearly promoted equality in many other developed nations. There is a direct correlation between
these policy positions and bettering the lives of others. Piketty, Galbraith, Saez, Stiglitz,
and countless other elite economic minds all agree these measures level the playing field.
It is disheartening to witness, yet again, so many people voting against their own best interests
by responding to dog whistle appeals to the color of one's skin and not the truest needs of the
poor and middle-class. I am resigned to 8 more years of "hope and change" that does nothing for
equality.
Bernie Sanders gives the impression that he will achieve major changes soon. He'll bring about
single-payer health care (with everyone saving money). He'll end super PACs and huge corporate/billionaire
contributions in political campaigns. He'll redo our foreign trade agreements to protect American
jobs and bring manufacturing jobs back. He'll do away with income inequality and make labor unions
strong again. If he expressed these goals as dreams in the manner of Martin Luther King's "I have
a dream" speech, I'd say fine and good. Let's work towards these ends. But leading his followers
astray by claiming that a revolution is taking place now and that these things can be achieved
soon is just outright disgraceful. I'm not sure why African American don't support Senator Sanders,
but they definitely know better than anyone the difference between dreams and reality. They know,
as Dr. King did, that change takes hard work and a lot of time. The political pendulum may be
starting to swing leftwards again (I hope so). But a revolution? No way.
I have worked on too many campaigns to count, before I quit my addiction to pain and got a
real job. His was an odd campaign.
He expected the media to be a partner in helping him get elected. No candidate ever expects
help from the media. Sander got the third best media coverage of all who ran--and arguable the
most favorable given most of Clinton's coverage was the email scandal. At best you can get from
the media is benign neglect. But the minute you are winning expect a scrubbing that would make
a Brillo pad look gentle.
He assumed he would have inroads to groups without courting them believing success with one
group meant everyone would like him.
He never seem to understand Clinton's strengths. He then seemed surprised by them. You always
understand your oppotrengths at the very least to mitigate the damage.
He fought with the establishment despite running in the establishment. Not only are they voters
--they have business intelligence on local operatives and state level politics. He hit a brick
wall in Nevada and got his clocked cleaned in South Carolina despite outspending Clinton because
the apparatus that existed preferred Clinton.
And lastly, where everyone in this business pours over data--their relationship with data seems
foreign. There are several instances where you get the sense they made something up on the fly--and
honestly surprised at the result.
Oh dear. Another white person telling all those ungrateful and ignorant people of color, the African
Americans, the Hispanics, that they're doing this voting thing all wrong. Makes right thinking Bernsters
wonder why we even bother to let them vote, if they're just going to mis-use it so.
Sanders was involved, 60 years ago, in some civil rights activities. Since then, he's been the
elected official of some of the whitest sections of the country and has not depended on the black
or Hispanic vote to ge re-elected. If you want to tar Clinton with the '95 crime bill, even though
she wasn't a senator then, it ricochets to hit Sanders, who voted for it.
Clinton worked to develop connections and a reputation in the African American and Hispanic sectors.
Bernie Sanders, though a good man, did not. Nor did he work with the existing Democratic party to
support down-ticket elections or democratic events. He always ran as an outsider. Now, he wants to
be in the party and benefit from what the DNC has to offer. Funny that his supporters cry foul when
he, a non-Democrat, doesn't get the full breadth of support from the party he shunned.
So to all those Bernsters out there - please calm down. Everyone deals with favorite politicians
getting rejected, it's life. and the millennial vote is no more or less important than any other
group.
Now that the press and the political actuaries have crowned Clinton the presumptive nominee,
some of the passion that has sustained Sanders will ebb, and we'll see him do less well. Progressives
will slowly accept Clinton and either sit out the primary or curb their enthusiasm for the Bern.
Clinton has, from the beginning, garnered votes by presenting herself as inevitable, not inspirational.
Not so much "Yes We Can" but "Yes I Will."
It's a shame, because a transformational FDR-style Democrat is desperately needed at this point
in our history.
Here's the thing - general elections are part of the democratic process, but the nomination
process is controlled by the parties, who make the rules and call the shots. For 40 years or so,
Ms. Clinton has been involved in fund raising and campaigning for senators, congressmen, and governors.
She has been involved in the DNC and has been supported in return.
Sanders runs as a pure outsider. He shunned the party until he decided to join in order to
run. He has few supporters in the Senate, and little good will among down-ticket Democrats.
Clinton isn't winning on superdelegates, but on pledged delegates from the states. She has
earned a plurality of votes. Claiming otherwise demeans the millions who have already cast their
votes in her favor, and assumes that they are ignorant, stupid, or insane. Their decisions were
other than what you would want. That's democracy. Get over it.
The DNC has stacked the deck in Clinton's favor with its Superdelegate apparatchiks clogging
the arteries of a fair nominating process with 465 clots of greasy fat. Where is the Democracy
in the Democratic party when viable contenders are forced to run the race in hobbles? Not even
the Republicans have come up with Tammany Hall tactic - yet.
So yes, Hillary will most likely be the nominee of the Democratic Party. As an independent
I will not be voting for her or any members of the Republican Insane Clown Posse. More than likely
I will be writing in for the /bernie_sanders.Warren ticket as a protest to rigged elections.
While otherwise quite good, this article contains a factual error that continues to play into
the false Clinton narrative about racialized voting and the Sanders campaign.
According to exit polling, Oklahoma's Democratic Primary was only 74% white. Sanders won the
vote in that state by 10.5% points. This means that the following statement is false: "Mr. Sanders's
best showing in a state where less than 75 percent of voters were white was his two-point win
in Michigan."
And, while we do not have exit polling data from Colorado, the electorate there was almost
certainly less than 75% white. Sanders won by 18.5%. Take for instance Denver County. Denver County
is just 53% white only per United States Census's Quick Facts. 31% of Denver is Latina or Latino,
10% is African American, 2% is Native American, and 4% is Asian. Sanders won Denver County by
9.4%.
To pretend, as this article does, that Arizona (31% Latino) or even Washington State (70% white
only per US Census data) are "whiter" states than Tennessee (75%) and Arkansas (73%) is to betray
exactly the kind of anti-Sanders bias that Margaret Sullivan had to call out in another context
this morning.
At the very least, the Times owes it to its readers to correct the factual error here in a
prominent way.
It's actually shameful that black voters in SC refused to listen or engage with the second
candidate in two candidate race, even when he came to their church:
And can we please stop referring to a state where 60% of the primary voters were black as "diverse."
In a country with a 13% black population, it's more accurately described as "extremely unrepresentative"
"Diverse" does not mean "minorities overrepresented by a factor of 4." New Hampshire is far
closer to the racial mix in America than the electorate in any Democratic Primary in the south.
Bernie never said this would be easy. He has lost a few battles, but he will win the war. We
have to stay the course & get his message out to the people.
Democrats must realize that we can not win the presidency with only the support of southern blacks
& senior citizens. The way this election has been run by the DNC & media has totally alienated
Bernie supporters to the point that a great majority will go green or vote Rep. rather than back
Clinton & the DNC. This is becoming a reality more & more every day. I hope that the super delegates
figure this out by the time we reach the convention or all is lost.
The establishment media favoring the establishment candidate paints a rosy picture for HRC.
We get it. The Bernie Blackout marches along in lock-step with the Trump Trumpet. This scenario
is far more than mere perception. Empirical data will be mined for years to come to show the glaring
disparity. Future journalism majors will compose graduate theses using this fodder. Should we
end up, as currently appears likely, with President Trump, the "golly-how-did-that-happen?" crowd
will have it all explained later by some kid who is now in junior high school because today's
print news editors and broadcast news producers suffered from the "if-it-bleeds-it-leads" school.
Even the vaunted NY Times betrays its "all the news that's fit to print" motto and remains mesmerized
by the Trump con act. Hey fellas, how about a new motto? "Covering Carnival Barkers Since 2016"?
I have to be honest here; I don't see much hope for Bernie to get the nomination. I do hope
he wins my state, and yes, I'll be caucusing for him next weekend, but the numbers don't look
good and I'm feeling depressed.
I intend to vote in November for all races on the ballot. If my state is not in play--if we're
safely blue, like we usually are--I'm writing in Bernie. If there's a chance we might go red,
I'll hold my nose and vote for Hillary.
I didn't like her in 2008 and I don't like her in 2016. She's a neoliberal hawk and I don't
want her getting the US entangled in more wars we'll never get out of. I don't want her starting
negotiations with the Republicans already close to the center so we'll end up all the way to the
right. I don't think she's trustworthy and I think her only guiding principle is ambition.
Needless to say, I'm depressed, and frankly tuning out of the race at this point. The Republicans
are making the US a laughingstock around the world and the Dems appear to be saddled with a candidate
we don't particularly want. Any way you slice it this is going to be an ugly election, and while
I've been a political junkie all my life, I just don't have the enthusiasm to care about it. I
don't see a winning solution in this any way I look at it.
*This* is Hillary's big problem. People like me, who will grudgingly vote for her if we have
to, but who have absolutely no enthusiasm for it. How many of us will just stay home instead of
voting for the lesser evil?
If electability is your main criteria, you should be voting for Sanders.
Sanders does better against every Republican opponent, in every poll in the last month, because
he gets 3-1 support from independents (40% of the electorate), even if he doesn't get a majority
of democrats (30% of the electorate).
Sanders got 71% of the independent voters in Illinois, 72% of the independent voters in New
Hampshire, and 73% of the independent voters in Michigan (exit poll data)
Clinton has high favorability within the Democratic Party, but among all Americans, she has
a 55% NEGATIVE rating (versus only 42% positive), rivaling Trump. Nothing is red meat to Republicans
like Clinton, and she has no appeal to Independents (see above)
It's why in every poll for the last month among REGISTERED VOTERS, Sanders does better against
every Republican opponent than Clinton.
Bernie's most likely winning opportunity is the self-destruction of his opponent, whose high
unfavorability ratings could prove decisive if her email controversy or any number of other vulnerabilities
gains public attention.
There is much talk of a disqualifying event that will knock Hillary out of the race and allow
Bernie to receive the nomination. Talk of indictments, the content of the Wall Street speeches,
e-mail servers, Benghazi, and so on. The talk on both sides often seems to miss the mark. I agree
with those, generally Clinton supporters, who doubt she said or did anything appalling in any
of these regards. However, I agree with the Sanders supporters that she is not giving adequate
answers on these questions. There is really an element of "I'm not going to address such a ridiculous
question". The problem that I see is that Bernie Sanders, who for the most part is on the same
side as Hillary Clinton and her supporters, has been not forcing the issue- nor would it be appropriate
for him to do so. The Republican nominee will certainly do so, to great affect with the many people
who are not currently strong supporters of Clinton. I don't refer to the people who intensely
dislike her, or would never vote for Democrat/woman/centrist/non-conserative anyway. I mean the
people who when Trump/Cruz raises the question about her speeches or lack of e-mail security will
wonder whether there might be something to it. It is clear that there are many voters looking
for a fresh start away from the usual politics. The Clinton campaign needs to address these questions
with coherent and substantive answers now.
Bernie is the future of Democratic policy; Hillary the past.
Among voters younger than 45 Bernie wins big; by 40 points among millenials.
In 2008 Obama offered a new future of justice but most of his program was broken on the shoals
of mindless GOP hostility. Bernie is more of a fighter.
And now the Dem establishment wants to choke off the voices of the young, those paying the biggest
price for plutocracy and Wall Street government.
Bernie is offering a very limited version of the social democracy that has worked so well in minimizing
poverty and maximizing personal opportunity across Europe, Canada, Australia.
Mass grotesque life-killing poverty is destroying the American 100 million underclass as a parasitic
plutocracy is more and more engorged.
There is an alternative. Continue the Clinton-Sanders debates to the floor of the convention.
Should Hillary win, Bernie is committed to uniting the party behind her for he has actually made
her a better, more progressive candidate, shedding off the muck of triangulation.
Bernie is the hope and change candidate. And he also consistently does better than Hillary matched
up against Cruz/Trump in polling.
As one of those 69 year old millennials, I think I know how the system works. The political
parties put up candidates who take money from huge special interests, they get elected, nothing
is accomplished other than more Corporate control of our country: AKA the buying and selling of
elections and a commitment to becoming a total oligarchy. I recently read that some of the DNC's
super delegates are actually lobbyists. The Democrats and Republicans are running our country
into the ground: polluting the planet, killing our kids in wars for profit; jailing minorities
and thereby disenfranchising them from voting, dumbing down the education system, forcing families
into bankruptcy over medical bills, more rights taken away from citizens (out of fear that people
(like me)are going to take to the streets with their pitchforks). If I may quote Laurel and Hardy
(who this campaign often resembles) This is a fine mess you got me into. I'd like to remind the
Clintons and the DNC of how foolish G W Bush looked after standing under that MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
banner at the beginning of the Iraq War. When more than half the country has not yet voted I am
enraged by the arrogance.
The elephant in the room is the potential for an email indictment. Against Trump, Hillary would
be damaged beyond repair if the FBI investigation goes against her. The Clinton campaign is way
too sanguine about this and nobody in the commentariat is talking about it ... but the whole campaign
could turn on it. The FBI is said to be out for blood because Petraeus got off lightly ... and
lesser players getting immunity can't be a good sign.
Bernie needs to keep going if for no other reason than we need another option.
To the Clinton supporters who drone on about HRC's "experience" and track record of getting
things done, please provide citations/links to support your assertions.
The facts show that the bulk of her experience lies in her amazing talents of fabrication and
obfuscation of facts. As First Lady--her longest "political" role, she successfully covered up
and lied for her serially philandering husband, destroying the reputations of his victims in the
process.
During her stint as Senator of her adopted state, backed by Wall Street, big pharma and other
corporate interests, she succeeded in endorsing the disastrous and ongoing war in Iraq and the
repeal of Glass-Steagall, among other dubious votes.
Her time as Secretary of State can be characterized as inconsequential at best and disastrous
at worst, resulting in an FBI investigation and possible indictment.
Her private life, as an obscenely compensated speaker to the Wall Street firms directly responsible
for the financial meltdown, comprise the bulk of her actual accomplishments.
And her refusal to release transcripts of those speeches and the convenient wiping of her unauthorized
email server suggest major character, trust and honesty issues.
Again, citations of what practical experience at running the country she possesses would be
illuminating.
I am ready for a change. I am ready to elect Senator Sanders to be the next President. Let
us leave the establishment behind and make the necessary change for the better. Unlike those who
have been characterized as his mainstay supporters (the young), I am 68 and have waited my entire
grown up adult life for a leader of our country who was not a bought and paid for apparatchik
of the moneyed elite. Never before have I contributed to any political cause or candidate before
Bernie. Now I find someone worth nominating and electing!
The strength of Sanders candidacy has been less in "revelations" about Clinton, and more about
the recognition by voters that there is an alternative to Clinton. This is especially true for
younger voters who don't tend to see the 1990s through rose-colored glasses.
As more people have gotten to know Sanders, his numbers have gone up. The problem for Sanders
has been a question of time and the sequencing of the primary calendar.
Clinton has done exceptionally well with older party regulars, especially in the south. She
lost the 45 and under vote to Sanders 70-30 in Illinois; she is not growing the party.
If Clinton wins in November, she can thank Trump and/or Cruz for doing the work for her. She
can also thank Sanders for getting younger voters engaged in the process and for providing her
with her platform. Al Gore and John Kerry also dominated the primary process. That didn't mean
they were strong general election candidates.
I am a female, late baby boomer. I've voted a straight Democratic ticket my entire life. It
will be a real battle with my conscience to vote for Ms. Clinton. So, if there's any hope for
Bernie Sanders, I will be sending him more funds.
I think college should be provided for everyone who can't afford it. I think medical care should
be provided for everyone who can't afford it. In total, I think everyone should have a substantial
safety net, a floor beneath which no one should fall.
We think of food and shelter in the same way -- as liberals we believe in providing ample food
stamps and decent shelters for those who can't afford it. In our service economy, a formal education
is no longer a luxury but a necessity. As circumstances change, so should our thinking. That's
what true liberalism is all about.
Taxes should be raised on extreme wealth because inequality has already gotten way out of hand.
Joseph in Misoula
"I'm a liberal democrat. But I don't think college should be free for everyone. I do not want
my taxes to go up even more. I do not think Wall Street is an evil entity that should be dismantled.
In fact, I don't think we should try and force a far-left version of America on the large portion
of the population that clearly does not want it."
So who has a right to education? Who should reign in the excesses of the Wall Street casino,
which nearly destroyed the entire world economy? Who should pay more taxes - the broken middle
class, working class, the decimated unions, and the poor, who already all subsidize the exploitation
that fills the coffers of corporations and billionaires? The Democrats once vigorously and almost
universally supported these groups and the ideas that helped them succeed.
You're right. You should absolutely not support Bernie. Because you're not a liberal democrat,
and you're certainly not a progressive. But you are a great representative of Hillary Clinton's
voice, and the Republican lite that now calls itself the Democratic Party. And she's counting
on you.
It's disappointing that no enterprising investigative journalist has found somebody ready to
spill the beans and provide a pirated copy of the now almost legendary Wall Street speeches. But
it may well be that there is such a source, one insisting on substantial compensation, and most
journalists are forbidden from paying for information
It would not be surprising if Trump already has a source picked out, one who, if not subject
to the threat of exposure of some hidden misdeed or under direct obligation to The Donald, is
susceptible to outright bribery, and that Trump is holding that ammunition, waiting to fire after
Clinton has achieved the nomination and is his opponent in the general election.
If that should be the case: Look forward to a President Trump.
Matt Von Ahmad Silverstein Chong, Mill Valley, CA
9 hours ago
Sanders vs Kasich. Only sane choices on both sides.
Otherwise:
Clinton: liar, opportunistic, risk of indictment after nomination risking defeat
Cruz: liar, extremist, not accomplished anything other than shutting the government
Trump: liar, polarizing, risk of defeat as unable to unify party
Not that Sanders and Kasich don't have their own thorns, but in my opinion they are the most
fit to be elected.
Ms. Regas, you write: "Were it not for the DNC's Machiavellian planning of this primary and,
had the states been ordered differently, we wouldn't be at roughly the halfway point with such
skewed results."
The DNC approved and announced the 2016 primary schedule back in August 2014:
Senator Sanders announced his candidacy eight months later on April 30, 2015.
So the Senator and his inner circle of advisors went into this race with eyes wide open knowing
full well what the primary schedule would be and what they would face.
Perhaps you might consider dropping this complaint from your litany.
John S., is a trusted commenter Washington
4 hours ago
I ran the delegate numbers through 15 March excluding Missouri, which is basically a tie like
Illinois was and there will probably be one delegate difference between the winner and loser,
and if the win-to-lose ration stayed the same, then Mrs. Hillary Clinton would still be short
over 200 pledged delegates after all the voting is done.
But the win-to-lose ratio will not remain constant. It will move in favor of Senator Bernard
"Bernie" Sanders and against Mrs. Clinton. Consequently, her shortfall in pledged delegates could
rise to 300-500 pledged delegates.
Keep on running Bernie! I will continue to support your campaign right through Democratic Party
convention.
If Bernie Sanders wins, he would become president. If Hillary Clinton wins , in the White House
will enter Trump.For the success of cause of the change, which wants many Americans, and Bernie
Sanders, must become president ... Trump.
Only one single-minded Republican could exacerbate problems to burst the boil.
There are no simple answers to the very real issues this country faces on every level. Unfortunately,
the individual developed psychologies of voters combined with the natural desire to embrace the
easiest idea that promises to bring a comfortable conclusion to the problems has blinded voters
to the very flawed candidates they have to choose from. I am a Sanders supporter but not because
he can achieve any of his ideas. I support him because he is a brake on the current business as
usual. His qualms about why the two parties cannot get anything done is truth and before we can
fix anything we have to acknowledge what is broken and remove it from any solution we might strive
for. I don't care if the Sanders car breaks down the moment we get off the road. First thing is
first we need to get off the road.
The DNC and RNC are corrupt and liabilities. The Media is covering up their most important
flaws for the sake of business as usual. Too many people have much to lose if this 2 party gravy
train is derailed and that isn't just the billionaires and multi-national corps. An entire system
has compromised the Republic and it need to be cleansed over a period of a decade to just get
rid of the nepotism, corruption, and pay to play shenanigans.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the poster children for this system. I do not favor Ted
Cruz but he is right when he says the former sells influence and the latter buys it. If those
are options, next time won't be so polite.
Every one should vote according to their convictions ignoring what the media has to say or
does not say. It is also important not to pay attention who is going to win in the general election.
I believe the economy is rigged. The political establishment and corporate America as well as
Banks and Wall Street are all in the same bed. They will have a long happy honeymoon until ordinary
folks cannot support their honeymoon expenses. That gives rise to people like Sanders and Trump,
who will disturb the political order. My vote is for Sanders. Here why? I believe free college
is an economic necessity that we cannot afford not have. I believe the economy is rigged and Main
street should regulate the Wall Street and not the other way around. I believe health care to
all is necessary pre-condition to define a human society. I believe we can afford and we must.
Vote what you believe in and the nation will in the right direction.
Sanders hasn't been allowed to debate, and has gotten little to no media coverage. Our society
picks it's leaders based on 2 things. 1) the candidate with the most royal blood connection to
King John (this is a real theory, may not be true, but 98% of U.S. Presidents are the great-great-great-great-great-great
grand children of Charlemagne and King John,) and 2) which candidate they see in the media the
most. If Bernie loses this nomination, Donald Trump will become our next (and possibly final)
commander in chief.
Your tone is absurdly condescending, as if many Sanders supporters aren't graduate school educated
professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants, social workers, educators, etc…) In fact, educated
people in pro-social occupations make up one of his stronger demographics.
The differences between the leftists who left their hippie-dropout lifestyles disillusioned
and moved on to professional careers later, and the more youthful Sanders supporters a couple
generations younger are myriad. Foremost, very few of them are cultural dropouts; they didn't
take the "burn out or sell out" brat route of the Boomers. Most are educated, and many are saddled
with student debt loads difficult for older people to understand (the mechanisms that force students
into debt are especially difficult for affluent Boomers to grasp). They compete for jobs with
all those disillusioned brats who settled down to professional practices - and are still working!
Not to mention the fact that your bitter ones - those who never learned the folly of egalitarianism
- are presumably the same ones who never got graduate degrees and cushy jobs; they're still waiting
for representation, for a pro-labor, pro-working-class candidate who never comes.
Nobody has pulled the wool over anyone's eyes, except perhaps the Clinton, the DNC, and the
media outlets that prop them up by appealing to low information voters while engaging only with
policy that benefits affluent ex-leftists in high aging professional positions.
In past elections, I have admittedly voted for the "lesser of two evils." Now, I realize that
just perpetuated a system which is corrupt. If people got truly educated about the issues and
the candidates, there would be only one choice, Senator Bernie Sanders. Alas, as Senator Adlai
Stevenson once said, getting the vote of every right thinking American was not enough. He needed
a majority. Sadly, this is only more true today.
> "These weaknesses could have been mitigated over time had the Times and the mainstream press
actually told its more diverse readers how Sanders' policies would in fact help them"
ANYBODY who wanted to be consumers of Mr. Sanders' talking points had more than enough sources
for that.
Sadly, your complaint is exactly the same one that conservatives have be putting on the NYT since
the mid-70s
What an intelligent person 'might' complain about in relation to your concerns is that the
MSM spends far too little effort accurately 'telling the voters' how delusional Mr. Sanders' proposals
are, and how there is less than a 1% chance they could EVER be implemented under any imaginable
configuration of the Congress
Related to this, I remember sadly, who NYT, WaPo, and others pointed out the lunacy of GWB's
campaign proposals were in 2000
IMPACT: almost zero
The naked agenda of GWB was to take a roaring economy, running in surplus, and open it up for
the private gain of the highest bidder
The GWB/Cheney agenda was very similar to Mitt Romney's LBO scheme to - take control of organizations
- strip them of as many of their valuable assets as they could efficiently do in as short a time
frame as possible
- load them up with debt, that went back into their own pockets so that they had none of their
own assets at risk
- dump the operation as quick as possible so that they wouldn't be holding-the-bag when the feces-hit-the-fan
- look for the next target
I disagree. There has been a very disproportionate coverage of candidates by the media. In
fact, I would argue that the biggest story of this election cycle is the media's own influence
of the election. I find it quite disturbing. This in not my opinion. It's a conclusion based on
studies I've read in the past several days, one of which was published by the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth...
The mainstream media and its corporate owners are deeply troubled over the issue of Campaign
Finance Reform, which has been the most obvious point of Bernie Sanders' campaign--he has financed
his campaign through small donations from individual citizens, instead of SuperPacs like Hillary
has done, and this has been no small feat.
Corrupt campaign finance is a powerful tool the corporate elite uses to manipulate American voters
into voting against their own interests.
This is why the MSM has treated Sanders so shabbily. A glaring example of this problem was the
first Democratic debate put on by CNN. As it turns out, CNN is a subsidiary of Time-Warner, which
is a big donor to Hillary's campaign. Let that sink in.
So, sure enough, Anderson Cooper asked the candidates Zero questions about campaign finance reform,
Bernie Sanders' main issue, and Bernie had to stick the issue into an answer of his to a question
on a different topic near the end of the program. If not for that, the issue would not have been
raised at all.
The same syndrome has been evident, albeit in milder form, in most of the media, including the
NYT, the WaPo, MSNBC, and so on.
Corporate forces, including the corporate media, are loathe to have someone like Bernie Sanders
come along and take their corrupt financing of American politicians away from them.
Of course this latest interesting development must be giving Hillary palpitations; Can a felon
become President of the United States ??
See Business Insider and Link:
"The FBI is widening its investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's
use of a private email account while she was U.S. secretary of state to determine whether any
public corruption laws were violated, Fox News reported on Monday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether classified material was mishandled
during Clinton's tenure at the State Department from 2009-2013.
It will expand its probe by examining possible overlap of the Clinton Foundation charity with
State Department business, Fox reported, citing three unidentified intelligence officials.
"The [FBI] agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations,
the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed," Fox
quoted one of its unidentified sources as saying."
In my mind, the fact that the Clintons have in the past taken money from Donald Trump disqualifies
Hillary from the presidency. I'm on the Bernie train, and if he's railroaded away from the nomination
by anyone, including President Obama, I'm not going to vote in November. I can't vote for either
Trump or Hillary, as they are in cahoots to fleece the average American and criminalize for life,
those whom they don't like, and that is mostly those in economic distress or poor substance abusers
in our country.
Obama's backing of Hillary is a disappointment. The self claimed most transparent administration
in history we were to get, never materialized, rather just the opposite happened, the least transparent
administration in history. His is an administration that went after whistleblowers exposing crimes
against the public, embraced perpetual warfare and mass incarceration, supports the surveillance
state, and his Justice Department and FBI stood by while unarmed American men and children had
their human rights and lives taken away from them by municipalities in Ohio, Illinois, California,
Florida, Texas, etc. etc. ad nauseam, this includes Tamir Rice and the kids drinking leaded water
in Flint. The list of human and civil rights violations under his watch is a long one that goes
on and on and no better than Dubya's. By supporting Hillary over Bernie, the President has proven
that he too, got into politics for the money. How cynical are leaders are today excluding Sanders.
Note that Donald Trump has won 48% of the GOP delegates so far. He would have to win about
54% of the remain delegates to get a majority, and the pundits consider that to be pretty likely.
Bernie has won 42% of the Democratic delegates so far (not counting superdelegates) and would
need to win about 58% of the remaining delegates to win. The pundits seem to consider it to be
pretty unlikely.
Maybe, but I think the pundits might be wrong on this one.
This nonsense about Ralph Nader has been repeated so often that almost seems plausible (…not
unlike many another myth). The historical truth is as follows.
The 2000 election came down to Florida. Running as "independents" were Nader (progressive)
and Pat Buchanan (conservative). Each of them received almost exactly the same number of votes
-- i.e. they cancelled each other out, Buchanan taking as many votes from Bush as Nader did from
Gore.
The one who who gave Bush the election was his brother Jeb. Through his Florida Secretary of
State, he ordered the recount ended -- the excuse proffered was the fear of violence: precinct
stations where poll workers were counting the votes had been attacked by squads of goons (paid
for, as was later revealed) by Karl Rove. The issue of the recount was then thrown to the Supreme
Court, which issued one of the most partisan rulings in its history.
Gore's loss had absolutely nothing to do with Ralph Nader. And those who claim it did are either
woefully uninformed, or are deliberately (and cynically!) distorting history to push some different
agenda of their own.
As I see things, Sanders is a better bet for the fall and the future . Mrs. Clinton was a "Goldwater
Girl" back in her younger days and was/is actually proud of that. I have to wonder if the African
American population realizes what that meant and now means. It hard to believe that she is not
owned by big business. Her possible indictment and the Republican reaction to no indictment. I
do not trust her for so many reasons. Since the polls seem to show that Sanders could defeat the
Republicans it might just be a safer move. Our nation does not want (or should not want) another
mess with another 'Clinton'. Nor should our country have to endure the problems that may well
accompany Mrs. Clinton into office. And hey, does anyone know why Mrs. Clinton discontinued the
use of her maiden name altogether? Has she any identity on her own that is of real value in her
thinking or does she just have to try to ride on a wave created by her hubby----not a very sharp
move for a true feminist. Shame on Mr. Obama for his comments in her favor. I am with Sanders
and probably not bothering to vote for her in the fall if she get the Democratic nomination---just
too hard to justify. The voters
who send her into the fall election just deserve 4 four years of the likes of Mr. Trump. This
might not be the year for Sanders and his approach, but the future lies ahead as an college Professor
always said.
Nate you are delusional if you don't think Bernie will win big in the Bay Area, the days of
smoke filled back rooms with Willie Brown and Diane Feinstein carving up the spoils are thankfully
over. The Bay Area has a very diverse, intelligent populace who can spot a phony when they see
it, Hillary doesn't stand a chance.
Say what you will, Bernie Sanders has breathed life into the Democrat campaign with sound ideas.
He has resurrected some of the old labor friendly ways of a party drifted too far to the right.
His call for a "revolution" of participation in government and civic lifr will resonate past the
election.
I'm glad he's staying in the race. I'd like my chance to vote for him, even if it proves only
symbolicc.
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC
8 hours ago
Still waiting for the release of Hillary's transcripts of speeches she gave to special interest
who lathered her with millions. If you support Hillary and you don't care about seeing what she
told special interests you either work for one, or have your head in the sand.
Hillary's favorability ratings are below 50% in every poll taken. She is considered trustworthy
by a much lower percentage than Bernie.
But she is the best candidate for the Dems because she supports big money in politics. No way
to avoid the FACT the Dem party loves big donors and has absolutely no interest in having it any
other way. They are competing with Repubs for big donors.
A vote for Hillary is a vote for continuing pay to play, which has ruined this country for
the past 3 decades. Another bought and paid for candidate.
If it's Clinton v. Trump (of whoever v. Trump), and we the citizenry choose Trump, I must say
that humankind has really not come very far. In our country, the wealthiest in the world, where
by all reasonable measures, we live in significantly better conditions than most (but not all)
of the world population, we will have proven ourselves not so different from the typical ups-and-downs
that third-world countries and banana republics experience. For all our riches and our advancements,
we, as humans, must be somehow consigned, as a collective, to make the same stupid mistakes. I
hope we prove ourselves better than that.
There are quite a few more ways Bernie can win: leaks expose Hilary's Wall Street speeches,
; FBI charges; a strong yuan devaluation causes significant stock market volatility; etc
It's sad that educated "affluent" voters will support Clinton ostensibly to try to hold onto
as much of their wealth as possible even when it's worse for the nation at large. It's the exact
confluence of money and politics that Clinton stands for and Sanders rejects. This race is about
one candidate who is well-liked, genuine, and looking to honestly help people versus another who
pretends to be working for the people, but who's track record is a virtual Frank Underwood guide
book of self-serving political maneuvers for wealth and power.
Sanders ideas to give power back to the people instead of back to the wealthy isn't as radical
as the media portrays him. It's the basic tenets of democracy most of us learned back in grade
school. Hopefully whatever magic spell Clinton has over the black vote will be broken and voters
will wake up to realize there is only one candidate fighting on their behalf.
Actually, public colleges USED to be free for every in-state student. In the flower of my mature
years, I can still remember that.
I also remember making a livable living as a woman with only a HS diploma, serving as an executive
secretary for the high-powered and well-connected.
Many of them were identical to the snarling Democratic women who serve as Hillary*s henchpeople.
Even as they worked for the *better good* in the non-profit and socially advanced universe, they
were more than happy to trample on people like me.
And *me* are, like, legion...
I will never vote for Hillary. I will write in Sanders* name if I have to, and sleep soundly
on Election Night, regardless of what happens, because I will have acted according to my own principles
and ethics. If we all do so Sanders can win. If others do the usual craven Democratic fold--you*ll
get what you deserve.
It is time for the NYTimes and the rest of the corporate media to recognize the very real and
terrifying possibility that Donald Trump will be our next president. It is time to drop their
mindless support of Hillary and to face the facts. Bernie defeats Trump in every poll by wider
margins than Hillary. Bernie has no baggage. He has never faced indictment. He is not owned by
Wall St. and super pacs. He has not been a cheerleader for endless war in the Middle East.
Hillary is vulnerable in a general election; Bernie is not. I don't think the Times bothered to
report it, but Bernie actually earned more votes in North Carolina than Trump did. Many Bernie
supporters will not vote for Hillary. Bernie, however, has higher positive ratings than any other
candidate this year. He won his home state by 87% because he is beloved by Republicans and Independents
as well as Democrats. It is time to explain to African-Americans, Latinos, etc. WHY he is so beloved.
There is no reason on earth for African-Americans not to support him except for the fact that
they know nothing about him. That is your fault, corporate media, and nobody else's.
The truth is that Sanders performs way better against Trump in general election and state-by-state
match-ups than Clinton. He has great appeal for Independents, and even garners 25% of the Republican
vote in his home state of Vermont. One can say that Sanders hasn't yet been "tested" against the
Republican spin machine in a general election, but honestly, the worst they can throw at him is
"socialist," a term that is actually very friendly to those who come to understand the meaning
of "Democratic socialism." Clinton has so many lies (think, for just one, of "landing under sniper
fire in Bosnia), flip-flops and evolutions in her history that the Republicans will have a field
day with her. Independents don't like her, millennials are apathetic to her, and her only real
appeal is with strong Democrats, most of whom she doesn't inspire. What I fear the most is a Trump
presidency, and that Clinton will end up being another John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale.
Cannot fathom why anyone would vote for Hillary
unless you want the "Same Old - Same Old":
The Rich get Richer and Poor get Poorer.
Do you really think someone who took $ 675,000 for making
3 speeches to Goldman Sachs is going to tame the Wall Street Wolves ?
I believe Sen Sanders is committing a terrible error that will cost him the nomination and
the Democrats the presidency.
While sparing HRC all the hovering questions by running a clean campaign
first, he is not only not using the possibility to highlight his superiority on political luggage
and history which could help him with minority groups, veterans and others ,
but also he is not preparing the public for the spectacle waiting the public when the duel with
Trump(or Cruz) starts.
When the issues such as her voting history on wars, Secretary of State
tragic mistakes such as Libya, endangering nation security with the use of a
private server , Bill grotesque history with women and her shaming of the women who went trough,
her past positions on LGBT,
profoundly racist comments as the Superpredators, weird insinuations as the gunfire in Kosovo
start being spit on her by towering, screaming bully of Trump it will be a
a BLOODBATH.
There is so many of them and even now she keep on making them
and when you hear them all spit one by one with a venom and conviction by the "other" candidate,
even diehard Dems will be appalled.
She will be destroyed and no whatsoever credibility will be accorded any
explanation she could give as the offences are BIGGER then anything we have ever witnessed in
president candidate.
Reps are stocking them like silver bullets and they will hit when the time comes.
So shoot now Sanders, otherwise other will use them to kill.
I am a psychiatrist, and I am terrified by the idea that someone with such a narcissistic,
and anti-social personality, would put the future and safety of our country at great risk, in
order to aquire another "property" that he desperately wants, as another trophy to add to his
list of buying everything he wants, no matter the cost or risk.
Unlike a real estate acquisition, you cannot (or should not) bankrupt this country, write it
off as a loss on your taxes, and move on to purchasing another "prize" you want, and feel you
are entitled to "collect/own". For a man who continually demonstrates the temper of a 5 y/o when
he is challenged, and has no political experience mixed with his "ballistic" temper, would you
really choose him to make decisions that involve the safety and welfare of our country, and to
make rationally based decisions in our current state of complex and fragile international affairs?
"... Trump is winning because he is NOT the establishment. Sanders, coming out of nowhere, with only PEOPLE rather than the establishment behind him, is running a fantastic race against a well oiled machine going on twenty years in the building of it. ..."
"... US will just follow the rest of the world's trend towards more extremist politicians and options. It is just a sign that these are not good times at least in peoples' minds. The extreme right is doing great in Northern and Central Europe, while the extreme left is doing the same in Southern Europe creating a rift in almost every issue, but specially the immigration policy. many countries are becoming difficult to govern at a time when separatism, both national (Scotland, Catalonia) and supranational (Brexit) is on the increase. ..."
"... "US will just follow the rest of the world's trend towards more extremist politicians and options. It is just a sign that these are not good times at least in peoples' minds." ..."
"... The odds are, you are right, about HRC being the nominee, but it is still a race, and it ain't over till it's over. I hope like hell you are right about TRUMP LOSING, regardless of who wins, but I have been following politics since the fifties, and HRC has had a hint of dead fish smell following her from day one. They used to talk about RR being the teflon prez, but compared to HRC, he was Velcro. ..."
"... She stinks in terms of the public's opinion of her, and elections are generally decided in the middle in this country. ..."
"... The Republican party is too far to the right for most Europeans, including me. And as of late it seems to even be going farther to the right (Tea party, Trump, etc). ..."
The MSM are doing their usual thing this morning, managing, like the referee at a pro wrestling
match, to miss the real action. It is true that a win is a win in a winner take all state when
it comes to delegates, but when the results are as close as three points, one or two voters out
of a hundred changing sides changes the results.
The people are obviously sick and tired of our old establishment politicians.
Trump is winning because he is NOT the establishment. Sanders, coming out of nowhere, with
only PEOPLE rather than the establishment behind him, is running a fantastic race against a well
oiled machine going on twenty years in the building of it.
When the actual election rolls around, the people who are pissed at the establishment, meaning
damned near everybody except the handful at the top of the economic and political heap, are going
to wish they could vote for an outsider.
The right wing outsiders will get their wish from the looks of things. They will be voting
AGAINST INSIDERS rather than FOR Trump. Their fires will be burning hot and bright, unless he
goes totally nuts campaigning.
This looks BAD for the country imo. The D's are in great danger of running a CLASSIC insider.
It's time for a change, and the younger people of this country feel it in their bones.
And about this old climate change issue, ahem. We can basically go to bed at night, not worrying
about it very much, in terms of people's beliefs, because all that is really left is a mopping
up operation as far as public opinion is concerned.
My generation will soon be either dead or in nursing homes, and the younger generation will
vote the scientific consensus, after a while.
I remember LOTS of people who were DEAD set, pun intended, in their belief that smoking is
a harmless pleasure. It has been a decade at least since I heard even an illiterate moron claim
that smoking is safe, although I do still hear an occasional smoker in denial say that when your
time comes, your time has come, and it does not matter about the WHY of it coming.
This is not to say we can abandon the fight, but that victory is assured, so long as we keep
it up.
After all, the actual EVIDENCE is accumulating that the world is warming up pretty fast.
I have no doubt at all than unless the last ten days of this month are very close to RECORD
COLD, we will be setting a regional record for the warmest March ever. My personal estimate is
that the odds of a frost kill of the tree fruit crop locally are among the highest ever. All it
takes is ONE good frosty night once the buds are too far advanced.
The Koch brothers and their buddies will continue to fight a dirty and ferocious rear guard
action of course, but in another decade, the issue will no longer be in doubt, as far as the general
public is concerned.
Trump is winning because he is NOT the establishment
Nobody is more establishment than Trump. He's a perfect example of a crony-capitalist. Again, this is the classic strategy of exploiting people's problems, and diverting their anger
towards scapegoats, like immigrants and foreign countries. Trump has proposed a massive tax cut for the 1%, and making life harder for immigrants only
helps business exploit them better, and undercuts wages even more for working people.
There is more than one way do define the word "establishment".
In one sense Trump IS the establishment, but in the sense I used it , he is the ANTI establishment,
no doubt, but he is also a new face on the political scene, running against the D party as WELL
as his own NOMINAL party.
No real republican thinks of Trump as a republican, if we define republican as somebody who
agrees with most or all of the positions and values of the republican party for the last couple
of decades.
What I am saying is that the foot soldiers of the R party have been ready to mutiny for a long
time now, and Trump has provided them the leadership necessary to do so.
The working class conservative voters are THOROUGHLY pissed at the R party establishment, feeling
betrayed at every turn.
People who used to work for a living in the industries sent overseas by the D and R parties
working in collusion have felt trapped until today, betrayed by the D party on the social consensus
they held dear, right or wrong, and fucked over by the R party they have been voting for as the
lesser of two evils.
Not many such people still believe in the American Dream, because they are simply not able
to get ahead anymore, no matter how hard they work.
And while they are mistaken to believe in Trump, at least Trump has not be been lying to them
continuously for the last few decades, AS THEY SEE IT.
( That he is lying to them now , in substantial ways, is irrevelant. He is a NEW face. )
Trump IS Wall Street, and HRC is in the vest pocket of Wall Street, except on cultural issues.
Now these comments may not make much sense to hard core liberals, because hard core liberals
have an incredibly hard time believing anybody who disagrees with them has a brain, or morals,
or a culture that suits THEM.
In actuality, at least half of the country disagrees with the D party social agenda, for reasons
that TO THEM are valid and more than adequate.
I agree: Trump has sold himself as an advocate for the working class.
It's the same strategy Republicans have been using for 40 odd years: using people's fears and
hopes to get them to vote for people who proceed to betray them.
Not that Democrats are enormously better, but, with our current political system they can't
be. If they get too progressive, the other party can move to the middle and cut them out.
It's nice to see you posting again. Your spot on. The Republican establishment has been exploiting
their base for the last 50 years with a whisper campaign of racism and bigotry for their own 1%
economic gain. The Donald has only removed the whisper from the campaign and increased the amount
of lies.
"Trump is the same ol', same ol', only worse"
"That's what puzzles me – this idea that fossil fuels are still valuable."
Nick, you over estimate the educated gray matter of your fellow humans. Most don't have your
vision and will not see it until EV's are the norm(10+ years from now). The fossil fuel Republican
parties base will be the last in the world to see the light. If they aren't already.
US will just follow the rest of the world's trend towards more extremist politicians and options.
It is just a sign that these are not good times at least in peoples' minds.
The extreme right is doing great in Northern and Central Europe, while the extreme left is
doing the same in Southern Europe creating a rift in almost every issue, but specially the immigration
policy. many countries are becoming difficult to govern at a time when separatism, both national
(Scotland, Catalonia) and supranational (Brexit) is on the increase.
If we move to the rest of the world we see the very negative result of the Arab Spring. Essentially
no single country that underwent those social revolutions has come better afterwards. Even Tunisia,
a moderate country, has seen its tourism badly damaged and it is now the biggest contributor to
Sirian foreign fighters. Saudi Arabia has a more extremist government that it is making a policy
out of foreign intervention, minority repression and confrontation against Iran, while its population
is cheering the change.
So don't be so surprised by developments in US politics that follow what is happening elsewhere.
It is a product of the times we live.
the world's trend towards more extremist politicians
There's nothing new about demagoguery, in the US or elsewhere, or revolutionary sentiment (I
guess I shouldn't have said Trump was "worse" – he's just a little less subtle about it than has
been the norm lately in the US).
Have you seen any actual data suggesting that there is a real change in "extremism", separatism,
social discontent or other similar things?
"Have you seen any actual data suggesting that there is a real change in "extremism", separatism,
social discontent or other similar things?"
Yes:
French National Front best results ever in 2014-2015 elections. They were the first party in
the last EU parliamentary elections in France with almost 5 million votes.
Alternative for Germany. New party in 2013. Best results ever in 2016 state elections, receiving
second and third place in the three states that held elections.
Freedom Party of Austria second best result ever in 2013 elections with 20,5% of the vote and
30% in Vienna.
Coalition of Radical Left (Syriza) best result ever in 2015 elections with 36.3% of the votes.
Podemos (Radical left in Spain). New party in 2014. Best result ever in 2015 elections with
21% of the votes.
Populism and demagoguery are taking the developed world by storm. New radical (right or left)
parties go from zero to taking second or third places in mere months.
"US will just follow the rest of the world's trend towards more extremist politicians and options.
It is just a sign that these are not good times at least in peoples' minds."
I don't have more than the foggiest idea about Javier's personal political beliefs, other than
that he occasionally makes a remark indicating he leans more to the left than to the right. I
don't think you do either.
Folks who are so TRIBALLY oriented that they cannot distinguish a skeptic from a partisan will
always of course assume that anybody who questions anything associated with their IN group is
a member of their OUT GROUP, and a fraud or a phony or an enemy of some sort.
I disagree with Javier's assessment of the potential risk of forced climate change, but he
on the other hand he never has anything to say, other than about the extent of forced climate
change, that sets off my personal alarm bells when it comes to environmental issues. On every
other environmetal question, unless I have overlooked something, he is very much in one hundred
percent agreement with the overall "big picture " environmental camp consensus.
It is GOOD politics to remember what RR had to say about a man who agrees with you just about
all the time. Such a man is a FRIEND, in political terms, and an ally, rather than an enemy.
Now about that fear card- both parties play it on a regular basis.
In case you haven't noticed, I support the larger part of the D party platform, except I go
FARTHER, in some cases, as in supporting single payer for the heath care industry. I have made
it clear that I am NOT a republican, and stated many times that I am basically a single issue
voter, that issue being the environment.
Now HERE is why I am supporting Bernie Sanders, nicely summarized, although I do not take every
line of this article seriously.
Any democrat who is not afraid to remove his or her rose colored glasses, and take a CRITICAL
look at HRC as a candidate, will come away with a hell of a lot to think about if he or she reads
this link.
I personally know a lot of people who have voted D most of their lives who would rather vote
for ANY other D than HRC. It is extremely hard for a lot of people to accept it, but she STINKS,
ethically, in the opinion of a HUGE swath of independents, and a substantial number of committed
democrats . A good many of them may stay home rather than vote for her, but they will vote for
Sanders, out of party loyalty and fear of Trump.
Sanders polls better,virtually across the board, in terms of the actual election, and he does
not have the negative baggage. I WANT a Democrat in the WH next time around.
Read this , and think, if you are not so immersed in party and personal politics that you can't
deal with it.
Millions and millions of D voters have digested it already, for themselves, over the last decade
or two, which is why Sanders is getting half the vote, excluding minorities in the south, even
though he is coming out of nowhere, without the support of the party establishment, without big
money backing him, against HRC who has been organizing and campaigning just about forever.
I am not saying this guy is right in every respect, but he has his finger on the pulse of many
tens of millions of D voters, or potential D voters.
If it comes down to Trump versus HRC, I am not at ALL sure HRC will win, but if Sanders gets
the nomination, I think he WILL, because even though he has been around forever, he is the NEW
face of the D party, and the PEOPLE of this country are SICK and TIRED of the old faces, D and
R both.
Trump and Sanders have in ONE important thing in common . Both of them are new faces, promising
to bring new life to their parties.
I like a lot about what Sanders is bringing to the table. But sorry Mac, I think its going to
be Clinton.
I'm non-aligned (anti-partisan), but I'd vote for Clinton a thousand times over Trump. And I think
a strong majority of the country will as well.
The odds are, you are right, about HRC being the nominee, but it is still a race, and it ain't
over till it's over. I hope like hell you are right about TRUMP LOSING, regardless of who wins, but I have been
following politics since the fifties, and HRC has had a hint of dead fish smell following her
from day one. They used to talk about RR being the teflon prez, but compared to HRC, he was Velcro.
Almost every regular in this forum seems to be mathematically literate. I challenge anybody
here to explain Cattle Gate as any thing except fraud, pure and simple, in realistic terms.
Hey, this ain't YET North Korea, where we actually believe our leader made a hole in one the
first time he ever tried golf, on a day so foggy nobody could see the green.
I absolutely will never vote for EITHER HRC or TRUMP.
If the D's run HRC, the best hope for the country is that the R's broker their convention,
and Trump gives up crashing the R party and his own personal hard core stays home. That would
make the election safe for HRC, assuming the FBI decides in her favor. Not many prez candidates
have ever had a hundred agents on their case.
Six months ago I was almost sure Trump was a flash in the pan, and would be forgotten by now.
I now fear that there is a very real possibility he may win.
The political waters are so muddy it is impossible to say what will happen a year from now.
Trump is the sort of fellow who successfully "aw shucks" away most of his nasty rhetoric once
he has the nomination, and then he will turn his guns on HRC. He won't have far to go to look
for ammo, and he will make damned sure everything smelly is on the front pages from day one, all
the way back to Arkansas.
Sanders is a far more desirable candidate in the actual election.
She stinks in terms of the public's opinion of her, and elections are generally decided in
the middle in this country.
If she can take her ten years plus campaigning advantage into a big industrial state, Obama's
political home, with the party establishment behind her, and win by only TWO POINTS points, what
does this tell you?She should have won by thirty points or more, if the people were really behind
her, rather than beholden to the party machine.
The deep south will vote for Trump in preference to HRC, with a couple of exceptions, maybe
three or four. So her big delegate lead from there doesn't prove a THING in terms of the actual
election. She is taking all the delegates elsewhere in winner take all states by only very narrow
margins. The BURN in D voter's hearts is mostly for Sanders.
Trump would likely be in worse shape in terms of public opinion, except he is a new face, politically,
and it takes a long time to build up such negatives, it doesn't happen overnight.
My personal opinion of HIS ethics is that he makes HRC look like an altar girl.
I am not too interested in politics, and even less in US politics. The Republican party is
too far to the right for most Europeans, including me. And as of late it seems to even be going
farther to the right (Tea party, Trump, etc).
I do not find myself much of a political space because I do not agree much with both left and
right parties in Europe. I am more of a traditional European liberal, which doesn't translate
well into a US political leaning, and even in Europe is very minoritarian. Let's just say that
I believe that individual rights are above collective rights and I believe in small government.
I also think that the economy should be strictly regulated to avoid dominant positions that always
go against the individual, and that medical care and education should be affordable to anybody.
But I am afraid all these belong to a pre-Oil Peak world and we are going to see very different
politics being played out as our economy starts to suffer from lack of affordable oil. Right now
oil is not affordable because producers cannot afford it, but if it goes up significantly in price
consumers will not be able to afford it.
"The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to
stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump,"
Huff Post writes
. Here's a list of attendees:
Apple CEO Tim Cook,
Google co-founder Larry Page,
Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker,
Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.),
political guru Karl Rove,
House Speaker Paul Ryan,
GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott
(S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.),
Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.),
Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas)
Kevin McCarthy (Calif.),
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.),
Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.),
Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas)
Diane Black (Tenn.)
"
A specter was haunting the World Forum--the specter of Donald
Trump,
" the Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol wrote in an
emailed report from the conference, borrowing the opening lines of the
Communist Manifesto. "There was much unhappiness about his emergence, a
good deal of talk, some of it insightful and thoughtful, about why he's
done so well, and many expressions of hope that he would be defeated."
Heading to AEI World Forum. Lots of interesting
guests. It's off the record, so please do consider my tweets from
there off the record!
Predictably Karl Rove, GOP mastermind, gave a presentation outlining
what he says are Trump's weaknesses. Voters would have a hard time seeing
him as "presidential," Rove said. Which we suppose is why they are
turning out in droves to vote for him.
yup - a group of billionaires meeting at an exclusive resort
debating how to circumvent the democratic process, failing to
consider that's the exact description of what's wrong with
America (and the GOP)
Tom Price'is one of the highest net worth Congressmen. His Georgia office is in Roswell, which is a corrupt little city in North Atlanta. Roswell city officials harassed and fined a mildly retarded man who refused to give up his ownership of about 20 chickens to the point that the guy was going to lose his paid for house, and he committed suicide. (Google Roswell Chicken Man). Tom Price fits right in with that bunch.
Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker,
Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.),
political guru Karl Rove,
House Speaker Paul Ryan,
GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.),
Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.),
Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas)
Kevin McCarthy (Calif.),
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.),
Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.),
Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas)
Diane Black (Tenn.)"~
So work this out with me:
The top 4 people on the list are committed NWO leftists.
The next one and third are reknown RINOs, with the second being a political dirty tricks mechanic.
The rest of the group are owned outright by the banksters.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
YOUR
REPUBLICAN PARTY LEADERSHIP!"
Maybe Reince Priebus should get a sworn oath out of these coniving little fucks to support the lead vote getter in the primaries. (Don't count on it.) Say..., where is ol' Reince anyway? Why isn't he out denouncing these weasels?
Flint is where I was born and raised. The Governor gave away billions of Detroit's assets for
pennies on the dollar with no one challah ginger that theft. Now he is stealing lives in Flint.
He needs to step down. I would provide a link for more info but I am not permitted.
Yep, as was likely. Sanders campaign is all about momentum and whether he can bring people on
side or whether they just think he has no chance. In that respect the early ballots were always
going to be tough, apart from NH and Vermont.
March 15 is probably the real decider. Big states, lots of delegates. Sanders really must win
a lot of them to keep going, assuming that the superdelegates stay strongly behind Hillary. He
has done well though this week, winning some smaller states and building some momentum towards
the larger ones. It's not over if he doesn't crush Hillary on the 15th in those big states, but
if he loses several of them it will probably be the end of the momentum he needs.
Sanders is still very much the underdog, but then that's kind of the way he likes it.
"... This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation process of global capitalism & its "1%" class. ..."
"... One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating, is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination economic empire is the goal. ..."
"... The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see the whole electoral mirage for what it is. ..."
"... Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing, especially the race war against the Arab people. ..."
"... Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump? ..."
"... Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept. It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show. What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing. ..."
"... Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more acute. ..."
"... why do American politicians become incontinent when they mention Saudi Arabia ..."
"... recycling mechanism for capitalism ..."
"... there is a suicidal death pact between the West and Saudi Arabia ..."
"... Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. ..."
"... For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism) has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru history 'The 99%'...). ..."
"... So long as he rises to militarily protect "National Interests" abroad - read: imperial billionaire class interests - he's really one of them. ..."
"... He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor. ..."
"... Excellent discussion and lecture. A very important part of the 'due diligence' of democratic participation and research by the people. ..."
Be nice to have a book called "The Foreign Policy of the 1%".
Maybe include references to GATT, TPP, oil wars as mentioned in the presentation.
Other questions:
1) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to Economic Hitman, John Perkins?
2) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to conservative founders like Jeane Kirkpatrick?
3) How does Foreign Policy of 1%: tie to rise to Regan Revolution? Trump?
This BRILLIANT presentation should be heard (and I hope RNN runs it in print so that it can be
copied, old-style, and distributed on 'paper')..absorbed as a concise, integrated history of globalization-the
neo-imperialist policy that continues from the 19th-20thc. imperialism... and revealed as a continuation
process of global capitalism & its "1%" class.
Deepest thanks to Vijay Prashad...and to others
like professor Bennis (present in the audience)... whose in-depth analysis of the system can, if
studied, contribute to putting the nascent 'political revolution' Bernie calls for...into a real
democratic movement in this country. We are so woefully ignorant as 'members of the 99%'- it seems
worst of all in America-- intentionally kept isolated from knowing anything about this country/corporation's
'foreign policy' (aka as Capitalist system policy or 'the 1% policy) that Bernie cannot even broach
what Vijay has given here. But he at least opens up some of our can of worms, the interrconnectdedness
of class-interests and the devastation this country's (and the global cabal of ) capitalist voracious
economic interests rains upon the planet.
The Mid-East is a product of Capitalism that will, if
we don't recognize the process & change course & priorties, will soon overtake all of Africa and
all 'undeveloped' (pre-Capitalist) countries around the globe--The destruction and never-ending
blur of war and annihilation of peoples, cultures and even the possibility of 'political evolution'
is a product of the profit-at-any-and-all-costs that is the hidden underbelly of a system of economics
that counts humanity as nothing. It is a sick system. It is a system whose sickness brings death
to all it touches... and we are seeing now it is bringing ITS OWN DEATH as well.
The '99% policy'
(again a phrase Prashad should be congratulated for bringing into the language) is indeed one
that understands that our needs --the people's needs, not 'national interests' AKA capitalist
corporate/financial interests --- are global, that peace projects are essentially anti-capitalist
projects.... and our needs-to build a new society here in the U.S. must begin to be linked to
seeing Capitalism as the root cause of so much suffering that must be replaced by true democratic
awakening a- r/evolutionary process that combines economic and civic/political -- that we must
support in every way possible. Step One: support the movement for changed priorities & values
by voting class-consciously.
The 1% or the oligarchy have completely won the world, our only way to fight against such power
is to abandon buying their products, take great care on who you vote for in any election, only
people who have a long record of social thinking should be considers. They can be diminished but
not beaten.
One of the most important takeaways, though not a necessarily new one but one worth reiterating,
is that national boundaries in terms of the US and the 1% are of no importance since a world domination
economic empire is the goal.
The bloated US imperial military budget reflects how the 99% at home fund this empire, of course
they never voting for it. The military is not a US military--it is the military of the 1% and
global capitalism. This actually should be the meme that those trying to raise consciousness put
forth, since those on the left and the right from the middle and lower classes can begin to see
the whole electoral mirage for what it is.
All of what's been said about the elites, the one percent, has already been said many years ago.
The conversation about the wealthy elites destroying our world has changed only in the area of
how much of our world has and is being destroyed. Absolutely nothing else has changed, nothing
else.
Clearly the methods concerned human beings are using to address the madness of the elites and
their corporate/military state have had absolutely no impact: Poverty is more rampant now than
ever before, the gap between rich and poor very much wider and the number of wars keeps increasing,
especially the race war against the Arab people. Meanwhile, as we continue to speak the ocean
is licking at our doorstep, the average mean temperature has ticked up a few notches and we are
all completely distracted by which power hungry corporate zealot is going to occupy the office
which is responsible for making our human condition even more dire. The circus that is this election
is merely a ploy by the elites to make us believe that we actually do have a choice. Uh-huh; yet
if I were to suggest what REALLY needs to be done to save the human race I would be in a court
which functions only to impoverish those of us who try to speak the truth of our situation objectively.
The 'Justice' system's only function is to render us powerless. Whether one is guilty or innocent
is completely irrelevant anymore. All they have to do is file charges and they have your wealth.
Good luck to all of us as we all talk ourselves to death.
Dear denden11: You get gold stars in heaven as far as I'm concerned for telling the exact truth
in the plainest possible terms. Bravissimo. "Talk/ing/ ourselves to death" is, I'm sorry to say,
what we are doing. I've been working on these issues for forty years, looking for an exit from
this completely interlocked system. I'm sorry to say I haven't seen the exit. I do understand
how we have painted ourselves into this corner over the past 250 years (since the so-called Enlightenment),
but without repentance on our part and grace on God's part, we're doomed because we all believe
the Big Lies pumped into us moment by moment by Big Brother. And it's the Big Lies that keep us
terminally confused and fragmented.
Don't Believe the Hype was an NWA rap anthem over twenty year ago.
I always liked the shouted line, "And I don't take Ritalin!"
Big Brother's web of deception is weakening. The ranks of unbelievers grows daily. But does
the cynicism beget People Power or Donald Trump?
In defeat, will Sander's campaign supporters radicalize or demoralize into apathy or tepid
support for Hillary - on the grounds that she's less of an evil than Trumpty Dumbty?
If not defeated, will Sanders and his campaign mobilize the People to fight the powers that
be? Otherwise, he has no real power base, short of selling out on his domestic spending promises
and becoming another social democratic lapdog for Capital- like Tony Blair.
Dear DreamJoe. I think you're right that BB's web of deception is
weakening, but I doubt that it's weakened enough. I'm sure you understand the 'deep state' concept.
It does not matter which flunkeys the "people" elect; the deep state continues to run the show.
What's going on now is all bread and circuses; it means nothing.
As material conditions change drastically for tens of millions of USAns, the old propaganda loses
effect.
New propaganda is required to channel the new class tensions. Still an opening may be created.
People can't heat their homes with propaganda, the kids are living in the basement and grandpa
can't afford a nursing home and he's drinking himself to death. That's the new normal, or variations
on it for a lot of people who don't believe the hype anymore.
Bernie and Donald are manifestations of a deeper systemic failures that have changed everything
for millions of people. B & D will come and go, but that crisis will remain, and will become more
acute.
Great work Vijay...got my "filters" back on. Cut and pasted original comment below despite TRNN
labeling of "time of posting" which is irrelevant at this point.
Wow...now that I got my rational filters back on this was a great piece by Vijay and succinctly
states what many of us who "attempt" to not only follow ME events but to understand not only the
modern history by the motives of the major players in the region. Thanks for this piece and others...looking
forward to the others.
Posted earlier while my mind was on 2016 election cycle watching MSM in "panic mode"
Thought this was going to be a rational discussion on US foreign policy until the part on ?
"Trumps Red Book". I had hoped to rather hear, "The Red Book of the American Templars" ...taking
from the Knights Templar in Europe prior the collapse of the feudal system. I will say that Vijay's
comment on Cruz was quite appropriate though it would also have been better to not only put it
into context but also illustrate that Cruz's father Rafael Cruz believes in a system contrary
to the founding ideals of the US Constitution: He states in an interview with mainstream media
during his son's primary campaign that [to paraphrase] "secularism is evil and corrupt". Here
is an excerpt of his bio from Wiki:
"During an interview conducted by the Christian Post in 2014, Rafael Cruz stated, "I think
we cannot separate politics and religion; they are interrelated. They've always been interrelated."[29]
Salon described Cruz as a "Dominionist, devoted to a movement that finds in Genesis a mandate
that 'men of faith' seize control of public institutions and govern by biblical principle."[30]
However, The Public Eye states that Dominionists believe that the U.S. Constitution should be
the vehicle for remaking America as a Christian nation.[31]"
Fareed Zakaria interviewed a columnist from the Wall Street Journal today on Fareed's GPS program
and flatly asked him [paraphrased], "Is not the Wall Street Journal responsible for creating the
racist paradigm that Trump took advantage of "? Let us begin with rational dialogue and not demagogy.
Quite frankly with regard to both Cruz and Trump [in context of the 2016 elections cycle] a more
insightful comment would have been...Change cannot come from within the current electoral processes
here in the US with Citizen's United as its "masthead" and "Corporations are people as its rallying
cry"!
Not the West....just the F.I.R.E industries...driving the housing bubble; shopping malls; office
buildings; buying municipal bonds [as they the municipalities bought and built prisons; jails;
SWAT vehicles and security equipment (developed by the Israelis); and keeping the insurance companies
afloat while AllState had time after Katrina to pitch their subsidiaries allowing these subsidiaries
to file for bankruptcy]...now all the maintenance expense is coming due and cities and counties
are going broke... along with the Saudi investments here in US.
Protecting oligarchs investments and rate of return on shareholders gains is worlds burden we
are told a needed evil in order to advance GROWTH endlessly. Growth code word for consolidation
of power and wealth by ownership consolidation globally by one percent. What about the 99 percent?
While populations simply need and want also income and investment security globally.
What about
populations in massive consumer debt for education, housing, etc. to fund one percent Growth.
Laborers across globe are all in same boat simply labor for food without anything else to pass
along to progeny but what is most important ethics. A world government established by corporatism
advantage by authority of law and advantage all directed toward endless returns to oligarchy family
cartels is not an acceptable world organization of division of resources because it is tranny,
exclusive, extraction and fraudulent. Such madness does NOT float all boats.
All this while oligarchs
control Taxation of government authority and hidden excessive investment and fraud return taxation.
While Governments in west don't even jail corporate criminals while west claims law is just while
skewed in favor of protecting one percent, their returns on investment and investments. Billionaires
we find in some parts of so called Unjust regions of world not yet on board with cartel game are
calling out fraud that harms individuals and society aggressively.
TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian court has sentenced a well-known tycoon to death for corruption linked
to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the judiciary spokesman
said Sunday.
Babak Zanjani and two of his associates were sentenced to death for "money laundering," among
other charges, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi said in brief remarks broadcast on state TV. He did
not identify the two associates. Previous state media reports have said the three were charged
with forgery and fraud.
"The court has recognized the three defendants as 'corruptors on earth' and sentenced them
to death," said Ejehi. "Corruptors on earth" is an Islamic term referring to crimes that are punishable
by death because they have a major impact on society. The verdict, which came after a nearly five-month
trial, can be appealed.
So when Bernie winds up on the regime change band wagon (of mostly leftist governments) and stays
silent in the face of US aided and approved of coups (Honduras/Zelaya being the next most recent
before Ukraine) while railing against the billionaire class on Wall Street and the neoliberal
trade agreements, he's not only missing the elephant in the room; he's part of this elephant.
For many years I would have been agreeing with you...after 50 years I have recognized that in
the scheme of things, no 'change' (from tribal to private property, from feudalism to capitalism)
has 'just happened'...magically born clean & clear. The process is messy, no clear beginning or
even END is really possible to see. History is filled with ironies and this time its the Dem Arm
of the Duopoly letting Bernie in- as an artificial straw-man candidate to make Hillary's campaign
appear to be a contest between the 'idealist' and 'the realist' and not the global coronation
it is --- let in by mistake (just as every power elite has miscalculated & underestimated the powerful
yearning for more justice & liberty& instinctive anger at the few that enslave the majority (thru
history 'The 99%'...).
And as all past power-elites have done, our '1%' has misread the age-old
evolution of culture when an old system NO LONGER WORKS that makes freedom, imagination & rebellion
more acceptable more attractive, more exciting and NECESSARY. Then, once energized BY NEED, DESIRE,
and yes HOPE....change begins and can't be stopped like a slow-moving rain that keeps moving.
As with past eras & past changes, in our own day this 'millennial plus 60's' powerful generational
tide is JUST BEGINNING to feel our strength & ability. Turning what was supposed to be a globalist-coronation
into what right now certainly seems like a step towards real change, towards building a recognition
of the power, we 'the 99%' can --IF WE ACT WISELY & WITH COMMITTMENT begin the work of creating
a new world.
Criticising Bernie is criticizing the real way progress works...We need to get out
of an ego-centric adolescent approach to human problem-solving, understand we need to keep our
movement growing even if it doesn't look the WAY WE EXPECTED IT TO LOOK...keep clear on GOALS
that Bernie's campaign is just a part of. The 'left' needs to recognize its our historic moment:
to either move ahead or SELF-destruct.. Impatience needs to be replaced by a serious look down
the road for our children's future. If we don't, the power elite of the System wins again (vote
Hillary?? don't vote??). We need to take a breath & rethink how change really happens because
this lost opportunity Is a loss we can no longer afford. The movement must be 'bigger than Bernie'.
I just hope he does not get forced to resign which the L-MSM is now beginning to parrot so Hillary
can win given the huge turnouts the Repugs are getting in the primaries. I want to see four candidates
at the National Convention...in addition to Third parties.
No one can be elected Commander and Chief by stating they will not defend oligarchs interests
as well as populations interests. We agree populations interests are negated and subverted all
over earth . That cannot be changed by armed rebellion but it can be changed by electing electable
voices of reason such as Sanders. Sanders will fight to protect populations and resist oligarchy
war mongering while holding oligarchs accountable. Sanders will address corrupted law and injustice.
Vote Sanders.
You are probably correct in your thinking, but the real power will never allow any potential effective
changes to the system that is. People who try usually end up dead.
This is why we must as citizens become active players in government far greater then we are today,
we must do far more then voting. We must have time from drudgery of earning a substandard wage
that forces most to have little time for advancing democracy. Without such time oligarchs and
one percent end-up controlling everything.
We can BEGIN the march toward mountain top toward socializations
which will promote aware individualizations. We don't expect we will advance anything without
oppositions in fact we expect increased attacks. Those increased attacks can become our energy
that unites masses as we all observe the insanity they promote as our direction. We merely must
highlight insanity and path forward toward sanity. Nothing can make lasting change this generation
the march will take generations. The speed advance only will depend on how foolish oligarchs are
at attempts to subvert public awareness seeking change. As they become more desperate our movements
become stronger. We must refrain from violence for that is only thing that can subvert our movement.
He could be doing exactly what Trump is doing except from the populist left perspective: taking
down the duopoly's both corporate mafia houses with uncompromising fervor.
Instead he does the LOTE thing for the neoliberal-neocon party "D". That's just dishonest bullshit
opportunism.
Do not receives daily email for a long time without clue why? so haven't in contact with TRN's
daily report until subject video appears on youtube website. and impressed by the panelists's
congregated pivotal works done thru all these years.
"... Dewey and Ford emerged from a brokered convention to lose the general election. So why? Because the party elites and elders want to protect us and stop of from falling into the abyss?… Most of us working two or three jobs think we're already in the abyss. The Obama abyss… ..."
In a stunningly honest and frank rant, FOX News' Judge Jeanine unleashes anchor hell upon
Mitt Romney and the GOP establishment hordes.
She begins:
"There's an insurrection coming. Mitt Romney just confirmed it. We've watched
governors, the National Review, conservative leaders, establishment and party operatives trash
Donald Trump. But Mitt Romney will always be remembered as the one who put us over
the edge and awoke a sleeping giant, the Silent Majority, the American people.
Fact. The establishment is panicked. Mitt essentially called for a brokered
convention where the Republican nominee will be decided by party activists and delegates irrespective
of their state's choice… You want a brokered convention? A primer Mitt. Whenever we have
a brokered convention we lose.
Dewey and Ford emerged from a brokered convention to lose the general election. So why?
Because the party elites and elders want to protect us and stop of from falling into the
abyss?… Most of us working two or three jobs think we're already in the abyss. The Obama abyss…
We are sick and tired of legislators of modest means who leave Congress
multimillionaires, whose spouses and families get all the contracts from selling the post offices
to accessing insider information so they can buy property and flip it. You're so entrenched
that you're willing to give Hillary Clinton a win. It doesn't matter to you which party, crony
capitalism and its paradigm will not change for the elite."
And that is just the introduction... Grab a coffee (or something stronger) and watch...
"... Donald Trump represents a challenge to the status quo because he doesn't want to democratize the world through bombing raids, says Richard Spencer from Radix Journal. US Congressman Alan Grayson agrees, saying the Republicans are desperate to stop Trump. ..."
"... The Republican establishment as reflected in Mitt Romney and others is absolutely desperate to stop Donald Trump. But what really is underneath it all is the fact that Trump does not adhere to the Republican Orthodoxy: "they've never met a war they didn't like." ..."
"... After Donald Trump and Fox news journalist Megyn Kelly's previous meeting, comedians and politicians alike have taken quite a few shots at Trump. What should we expect further? ..."
"... From Senator Marco Rubio to Mitt Romney Trump doesn't seem to be afraid of any speeches condemning him. Why is he so self-confident? ..."
"... The fact is Trump's version of nationalism, this idea "it's not be the world's policeman," let's actually look after ourselves, let's use the government to help the people. This kind of nationalism that cuts across left and right, cuts across liberal and conservative, cuts across Democrats and Republicans. It is a new thing for Americans. Trump is leading it. I would never have predicted that, but Trump is leading it. And the fact is the status quo doesn't like it because this is upsetting some of their assumptions. It is upsetting what they take for granted and so they are all in unison attacking him. And in the US the so-called conservatives, the left, the liberals they are all attacking Trump of the exact same reasons. ..."
"... Is Trump likely to issue an apology after his offensive comments towards Megyn Kelly? ..."
Donald Trump represents a challenge to the status quo because he doesn't want to
democratize the world through bombing raids, says Richard Spencer from Radix Journal. US
Congressman Alan Grayson agrees, saying the Republicans are desperate to stop Trump.
US Congressman Alan Grayson: I have to agree, just
this once, with Donald Trump. I think it is irrelevant. Part of the
problem that we are facing this year is that the candidates want to
make this some kind of war of personalities rather than a discussion
of what is good for our country. I think that is very unfortunate. I
don't think the Trump candidacy should be determined on matters of the
value of a degree from Trump University, or any of these ad hominem
attacks that we are seeing by one candidate against the other – often,
by the way, perpetrated by Mr. Trump himself. I don't really think it
matters what the size of his fingers might be; I don't think it
matters that Rubio is definitely a thirsty young man. I don't think it
matters that Bush is low energy, although he is certainly is. These
are not the things that we should use to determine who our national
leaders should be. Obviously, they've all indulged in it from one time
or another. And I don't think the voters favor that. But the fact is
the voters are going to make up their minds based upon what's good for
the country, what's good for them individually. I think the voters
have this one right.
The
Republican establishment as reflected in Mitt Romney and others is
absolutely desperate to stop Donald Trump. But what really is
underneath it all is the fact that Trump does not adhere to the
Republican Orthodoxy: "they've never met a war they didn't like."
It is true that there are hawks within the Republican Party who
are dismayed by the fact that Donald Trump rightly points out that the
war in Iraq was a disaster in everyone's light. And they are
disconcerted by the fact that he is willing to criticize predecessors
like George W. Bush, and frankly, rightly so. America lost four
trillion dollars in the war in Iraq and we left a quarter of a million
of our young men and women with permanent brain abnormalities because
of injuries they suffered in that war. At least there is one
Republican candidate who is willing to actually address those issues
which has caused the hawks a great deal of consternation.
RT: After Donald Trump and Fox news journalist
Megyn Kelly's previous meeting, comedians and politicians alike have
taken quite a few shots at Trump. What should we expect further?
Richard Spencer from Radix Journal: I think we're
going to expect fireworks. In fact the mainstream media, the so-called
conservative movements and the Republican Party have all declared war
on Donald Trump. It was a silent war for many months, now it is an
explicit war. They want anyone but Trump; they want anyone else in the
Republican Party to win this nomination. It doesn't matter if Rubio is
a moderate and Ted Cruz is an extreme Libertarian or something. They
want anyone but Trump because Trump actually represents a different
ideology from traditional American conservatism. Trump actually
represents something closer to European nationalism. It is a version
of the right that is "let's look at the Americans first, let's use
the government to help the American people, let's actually have
friendly relations with great powers like Russia as opposed to: let's
democratize the world through bombing raids." So Trump really
represents something different. He represents a challenge to the
status quo. And that is why the conservative movement, the Republican
Party, the mainstream media are all out to get him.
RT: From Senator Marco Rubio to Mitt Romney
Trump doesn't seem to be afraid of any speeches condemning him. Why is
he so self-confident?
RS: Trump is self-confident because he is Trump;
he was born self-confident. But he is also self-confident because he
has so much popular support. He has brought so many new people into
the Republican Party and he has brought so many more people into the
Republican Party than Mitt Romney did who attacked him. The fact is
Trump's version of nationalism, this idea "it's not be the world's
policeman," let's actually look after ourselves, let's use the
government to help the people. This kind of nationalism that cuts
across left and right, cuts across liberal and conservative, cuts
across Democrats and Republicans. It is a new thing for Americans.
Trump is leading it. I would never have predicted that, but Trump is
leading it. And the fact is the status quo doesn't like it because
this is upsetting some of their assumptions. It is upsetting what they
take for granted and so they are all in unison attacking him. And in
the US the so-called conservatives, the left, the liberals they are
all attacking Trump of the exact same reasons.
RT: Is Trump likely to issue an apology after
his offensive comments towards Megyn Kelly?
RS: I couldn't imagine Donald Trump apologizing. I
don't think he said anything completely outrageous towards Megyn
Kelly. The fact is Megyn Kelly doesn't like Donald Trump. Megyn Kelly
wants the status quo to continue. Megun Kelly wants a neoconservative
candidate or a typical Republican candidate. Maybe Kelly doesn't like
this new kind of nationalism that Trump represents. So there's no way…
that Donald Trump will apologize to Megyn Kelly. What he said
effectively is that "Megyn Kelly is out to get me." … But the
fact is, Trump has proved that you don't need Fox News; Trump has
proved you don't need the GOP establishment; Trump has proved you
don't need the conservative movement establishment. Trump is Trump.
Trump has a populist base that's bigger than those forces.
"... In my view, Clinton wants to be President only because it is there and it is a powerful role. For her, I think it affirms her egotistical belief that she is the best person for the job. She is a by the numbers politician; lacking passion and a cause and is beholden to Wall St. ..."
"... Clinton is a warmonger. Most of the candidates are. I wouldnt vote for anyone who was, no matter what their politics. So, the field is greatly reduced for me. ..."
"... The media likes a simplistic narrative, and the media wants Clinton win, no matter what the Democratic base wants. Its annoying, but not surprising, that they are trying to cast the Democratic primary as they have. ..."
This disgraceful episode shows the dark side of the sexism arguments. Equality is about every
women having the same opportunities as men. But what gets lost in the debate, or conveniently
ignored, is that an incompetent woman has no place taking or claiming precedence over a competent
man. Margaret Thatcher wrought a trail of destruction in the UK - her Reagan-esque and neo-liberal
policies led to many more Britons living in poverty and being left with no prospect of any dignity;
instead being trapped in a life-long welfare-cycle. How is it plausible that she should not be
judged on her performance, rather on some esoteric and exaggerated feminist ideal. She was a female
PM, sure, but she was an awful PM. Her political salvation was the Argentine conflict over the
Falklands. Without that, she would have deservedly been confined to the political scrap-heap much
sooner.
In my view, Clinton wants to be President only because it is there and it is a powerful role.
For her, I think it affirms her egotistical belief that she is the best person for the job. She
is a "by the numbers" politician; lacking passion and a cause and is beholden to Wall St. That
surely makes her sound more like a conservative rather than a liberal (the equivalent of Tony
Blair). Sanders might be a silly old fool, but he has a passion for the American ideal - that
all men (and women) were indeed created equal and his policies support that ideal. Clinton has
no policies - she is essentially asking the American people to trust her, when in reality, they
don't - not because she is a woman, but because she has a history of duplicity.
Clinton is a warmonger. Most of the candidates are. I wouldn't vote for anyone who was, no
matter what their politics. So, the field is greatly reduced for me.
"I am increasingly dismayed that 'older, wiser, more mature' voters are portrayed as solidly in
Hillary's corner"
The media likes a simplistic narrative, and the media wants Clinton win, no matter what the
Democratic base wants. It's annoying, but not surprising, that they are trying to cast the Democratic
primary as they have.
"... A somewhat campy (okay, VERY campy) take on the French Revolution, it quite effectively depicts the way hopelessness and inequality corrode away the moral fabric of human relations. ..."
"... it was Mike Nichols who said, Funny is very rare. And I would add, very valuable, and slightly deadly. ..."
[BILL CLINTON:] "I understand why we've got a race on our hands, because a lot of people
are disillusioned with the system and a lot of young people want to take it down. … I understand
what it's like for people who haven't had a raise in eight years. There are a lot of reasons
[to be angry]. But this is not a cartoon. This is real life."
Don't rag on cartoons, Bill. Many are more worth paying attention to than you are. I recommend
the following:
Galaxy Express 999
A wonderfully grim satire of neoliberalism, globalization, and Kurzweil-ian narcissistic
techno-utopianism.
The Roses of Versailles
A somewhat campy (okay, VERY campy) take on the French Revolution, it quite effectively
depicts the way hopelessness and inequality corrode away the moral fabric of human relations.
Both can easily be streamed online with English subtitles.
They used to say that Hitchcock was, "damned with faint praise," by being called a master
of horror. I think the same thing tends to happen to those who are funny. I think it was
Mike Nichols who said, "Funny is very rare." And I would add, very valuable, and slightly deadly.
"... Political consultants by and large, and especially in the establishment tier, operate and strategize on the sole core premise that voters are a) stupid (in the Pavlovian sense), and b) unreliable. The idea that small donors would be reliable over the course of a campaign is inconceivable (the larger donors certainly aren't that reliable). And if you're willing to flip messages in a heartbeat, it is probably not a safe bet; Sanders is pulling it off in part (so far?) through his own massive (so far…) consistency (and legacy). Also, he's positioned so far from anybody else (except maybe Trump?!?) that it's difficult to slipstream him and steal his donor base. ..."
"... I think that some basic economic/market concepts (commitment bias, sunk costs) can be considered as well. But the establishment consultants (who generally do quite well, thank you) don't see a $20 donation as a significant commitment with an expectation attached; it's a restaurant tip. BTW, Sanders' three million donations come from over one million donors, that's a rough average of two follow-up donations. Some of these folks are living hand-to-mouth; they're almost literally all in, unlike any millionaire or billionaire who maxes out and gives the rest to PACs. ..."
"... And Clinton's not dumb; not dumb? mmm, Ok, is she smart? Personally, I don't think so. Conniving and persistent? absolutely. ..."
And Clinton's not dumb; she could have tried just the same strategy. Why didn't she?
Because of her consultants.
Think of it as a jobs program. Fundraising consultants are important assets throughout the
life of a campaign (including the period after the election).
The fundraisers get a cut of funds they raise (10%-20% is common, I've seen higher… even ActBlue
asks for a tip, but they ask and don't require it, and it doesn't come out of your donation, it's
on top). This is an industry, which also has vendors (NGP / VAN and other political data platforms
have fundraising modules, before merging with VAN, NGP was a stand-alone campaign accounting,
compliance, and fundraising tool).
And in case there is any lingering confusion or doubt in anyone's mind; the campaign fundraising
context is a major conduit for "constituent" input on policy. When candidates say "I've heard
from/spoken with my constituents", unless they just did a townhall meeting, they are talking about
conversations at fundraising events. The candidates feel that they are actually connecting with
their constituents… and they are, just not with all of them. Naturally, business owners and affluent
blowhards are well-represented.
Which means that backing out of the existing fundraising mechanisms would be wrenching for
campaign and candidate alike, on several levels. It would also be considered an overt act of disloyalty;
and loyalty is the coin of the realm.
Political consultants by and large, and especially in the establishment tier, operate and
strategize on the sole core premise that voters are a) stupid (in the Pavlovian sense), and b)
unreliable. The idea that small donors would be reliable over the course of a campaign is inconceivable
(the larger donors certainly aren't that reliable). And if you're willing to flip messages in
a heartbeat, it is probably not a safe bet; Sanders is pulling it off in part (so far?) through
his own massive (so far…) consistency (and legacy). Also, he's positioned so far from anybody
else (except maybe Trump?!?) that it's difficult to slipstream him and steal his donor base.
I think that some basic economic/market concepts (commitment bias, sunk costs) can
be considered as well. But the establishment consultants (who generally do quite well, thank you)
don't see a $20 donation as a significant commitment with an expectation attached; it's a restaurant
tip. BTW, Sanders' three million donations come from over one million donors, that's a rough average
of two follow-up donations. Some of these folks are living hand-to-mouth; they're almost literally
all in, unlike any millionaire or billionaire who maxes out and gives the rest to PACs.
optimader
And Clinton's not dumb; not dumb? mmm, Ok, is she smart? Personally, I don't think so.
Conniving and persistent? absolutely.
The vote count is currently 62% for Bernie and 32% for Hilary, yet she has scored 6 delegates
vs. zero for him. What am I missing (besides a functioning brain)?
Yeah but Super Delegates only exist in case commoner voters come up with the wrong answer.
Hahaha. Pathetic. I will write in Bernie regardless of how the Dems 'fix' the selection.
Super Delegates: part of the modern Dem machine. Carter was the first nominee and pres under
the super delegate system. (Started 1972 after the McGovern nomination, i.e 'wrong' answer.) Carter
was also the start of Dem presidents who de-regulate business. Super Delegates act as supporters
of the status quo, making the party less responsive to voters.
Notice the Republicans don't have super delegates. Which party is really more democratic? It's
a ratchet, there's a check on how far populist left movements go in this country, but maybe not
populist right ones.
So far the partially reported totals are from the hinterlands, which is the only possible explanation
I can offer for whoever the hell Greenstein is with 7% of the vote.
Also wrt phone banking/push polling in NH: those of us who live here know this is why caller
ID was invented, and act accordingly.
adding:
The Dems came up with the idea of super delegates after the McGovern nomination in 1972. The idea
was to keep the party bosses in control of the nominating process. Studebaker talks about Carter.
Carter was the first Dem nominee under the super delegate system.
The GOP does not have super delegates to their convention.
But just because Trump is an imperfect candidate doesn't mean his candidacy can't be instructive.
Trump could teach Republicans in Washington a lot if only they stopped posturing long enough to watch
carefully. Here's some of what they might learn:
He Exists Because You Failed
American presidential elections usually amount to a series of overcorrections: Clinton begat Bush,
who produced Obama, whose lax border policies fueled the rise of Trump. In the case of Trump, though,
the GOP shares the blame, and not just because his fellow Republicans misdirected their ad buys or
waited so long to criticize him. Trump is in part a reaction to the intellectual corruption of the
Republican Party. That ought to be obvious to his critics, yet somehow it isn't.
Consider the conservative nonprofit establishment, which seems to employ most right-of-center
adults in Washington. Over the past 40 years, how much donated money have all those think tanks and
foundations consumed? Billions, certainly. (Someone better at math and less prone to melancholy should
probably figure out the precise number.) Has America become more conservative over that same period?
Come on. Most of that cash went to self-perpetuation: Salaries, bonuses, retirement funds, medical,
dental, lunches, car services, leases on high-end office space, retreats in Mexico, more fundraising.
Unless you were the direct beneficiary of any of that, you'd have to consider it wasted.
Pretty embarrassing. And yet they're not embarrassed. Many of those same overpaid, underperforming
tax-exempt sinecure-holders are now demanding that Trump be stopped. Why? Because, as his critics
have noted
in a rising chorus of hysteria, Trump represents "an existential threat to conservatism."
Let that sink in. Conservative voters are being scolded for supporting a candidate they consider
conservative because it would be bad for conservatism? And by the way, the people doing the scolding?
They're the ones who've been advocating for open borders, and nation-building in countries whose
populations hate us, and trade deals that eliminated jobs while enriching their donors, all while
implicitly mocking the base for its worries about abortion and gay marriage and the pace of demographic
change. Now they're telling their voters to shut up and obey, and if they don't, they're liberal.
It turns out the GOP wasn't simply out of touch with its voters; the party had no idea who its
voters were or what they believed. For decades, party leaders and intellectuals imagined that most
Republicans were broadly libertarian on economics and basically neoconservative on foreign policy.
That may sound absurd now, after Trump has attacked nearly the entire Republican catechism (he savaged
the Iraq War and hedge fund managers in the same debate) and been greatly rewarded for it, but that
was the assumption the GOP brain trust operated under. They had no way of knowing otherwise. The
only Republicans they talked to read the Wall Street Journal too.
On immigration policy, party elders were caught completely by surprise. Even canny operators like
Ted Cruz didn't appreciate the depth of voter anger on the subject. And why would they? If you live
in an affluent ZIP code, it's hard to see a downside to mass low-wage immigration. Your kids don't
go to public school. You don't take the bus or use the emergency room for health care. No immigrant
is competing for your job. (The day Hondurans start getting hired as green energy lobbyists is the
day my neighbors become nativists.) Plus, you get cheap servants, and get to feel welcoming and virtuous
while paying them less per hour than your kids make at a summer job on Nantucket. It's all good.
Apart from his line about Mexican rapists early in the campaign, Trump hasn't said anything especially
shocking about immigration. Control the border, deport lawbreakers, try not to admit violent criminals
- these are the ravings of a Nazi? This is the "ghost of George Wallace" that a
Politico piece described last August? A lot of Republican leaders think so. No wonder
their voters are rebelling.
Truth Is Not Only A Defense, It's Thrilling
When was the last time you stopped yourself from saying something you believed to be true for
fear of being punished or criticized for saying it? If you live in America, it probably hasn't been
long. That's not just a talking point about political correctness. It's the central problem with
our national conversation, the main reason our debates are so stilted and useless. You can't fix
a problem if you don't have the words to describe it. You can't even think about it clearly.
This depressing fact made Trump's political career. In a country where almost everyone in public
life lies reflexively, it's thrilling to hear someone say what he really thinks, even if you believe
he's wrong. It's especially exciting when you suspect he's right.
A temporary ban on Muslim immigration? That sounds a little extreme (meaning nobody else has said
it recently in public). But is it? Millions of Muslims have moved to Western Europe over the past
50 years, and a sizable number of them still haven't assimilated. Instead, they remain hostile and
sometimes dangerous to the cultures that welcomed them. By any measure, that experiment has failed.
What's our strategy for not repeating it here, especially after San Bernardino-attacks that seemed
to come out of nowhere? Invoke American exceptionalism and hope for the best? Before Trump, that
was the plan.
Republican primary voters should be forgiven for wondering who exactly is on the reckless side
of this debate. At the very least, Trump seems like he wants to protect the country.
Evangelicals understand this better than most. You read surveys that indicate the majority of
Christian conservatives support Trump, and then you see the video: Trump on stage with pastors, looking
pained as they pray over him, misidentifying key books in the New Testament, and in general doing
a ludicrous imitation of a faithful Christian, the least holy roller ever. You wonder as you watch
this: How could they be that dumb? He's so obviously faking it.
They know that already. I doubt there are many Christian voters who think Trump could recite the
Nicene Creed, or even identify it. Evangelicals have given up trying to elect one of their own. What
they're looking for is a bodyguard, someone to shield them from mounting (and real) threats to their
freedom of speech and worship. Trump fits that role nicely, better in fact than many church-going
Republicans. For eight years, there was a born-again in the White House. How'd that work out for
Christians, here and in Iraq?
What is interesting is that Trump is 100% right... I think he has a marketing talent. One
thing for certain, he created a problem for Repugs establishment and all those yellow US MSM and their
owners...
"... "She should be in jail, by the way, for what she did," Trump said. "Everybody knows she should
be in jail. What she did with the emails is a disgrace," he added. ..."
He then blamed US President Barack Obama and his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for
the Islamic State's rise.
"They have a bunch of dishonest people," he continued. "They've created ISIS. Hillary Clinton
created ISIS with Obama - created with Obama. But I love predicting because you know, ultimately,
you need somebody with vision."
Trump and Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, have fiercely sparred in recent weeks. Trump
took particular exception to Clinton saying that his provocative campaign-trail statements had
become propaganda for the Islamic State, especially his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the
US.
The Republican billionaire demanded that Clinton apologize, but her campaign
replied at the time: "Hell no. Hillary Clinton will not be apologizing to Donald Trump for correctly
pointing out how his hateful rhetoric only helps ISIS recruit more terrorists."
After Clinton said Trump had generally displayed a
"penchant for sexism," Trump went after her husband, former US President Bill Clinton. Trump
recently proclaimed that the former president has
"a terrible record of women abuse," referring to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, among other things.
At his Saturday rally, Trump also blasted Hillary Clinton for
a report on her husband's paid speeches while she was secretary of state. As he has done frequently
before, Trump further asserted that Clinton "shouldn't be allowed to run" because of the private
email system she used for her State Department work.
"She should be in jail, by the way, for what she did," Trump said. "Everybody knows she should
be in jail. What she did with the emails is a disgrace," he added.
An interesting and plausible hypothesis: Trump as a candidate who answers voters frustration with
neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... The data suggest theres some kind of connection. According to polls, whites with a high school
degree or less disproportionately favor Trump. These are the same people who have seen their economic
opportunities decline the most in recent years. This group also disproportionately favors tough restrictions
on immigration. ..."
"... A new study released this week showed that in Germany, the economic frustrations of trade nudged
many people into becoming right-wing extremists over the past two decades - throwing their support behind
the country's neo-Nazi parties. ..."
"... Still, these far-right parties have consistently earned a percentage point or two of the German
national vote. And the economists found that they have been particularly popular with people who have
been negatively impacted by trade. ..."
"... using German data on elections, employment, and commerce, they showed that places where trade
caused the most pain also had the largest increases in support for far-right parties. Over the past
20 years, Germanys exports and imports have both skyrocketed, first thanks to the fall of the Iron Curtain,
then due to Chinas rise as a major manufacturer. ..."
"... Workers whose industries were hurt by trade were were more likely to say they would start voting
for one of the extreme right parties. Even workers whose own industries were unaffected by trade were
more likely to support a neo-Nazi political party if they lived in a region hurt by trade. ..."
"... Christian Dippel, one of the authors of the study, says it's also important to look at the
context in each country. The neo-Nazi parties happen to be the voice of anti-globalization in Germany.
But in Spain, for instance, these views are the trademark of Podemos, a far-left party "known for its
rants against globalization and the tyranny of markets," according to Foreign Affairs. ..."
"... The larger lesson, Dippel says, is that globalization creates a class of angry voters who will
reward whoever can tap into their frustrations. These are usually extremist parties, because the mainstream
tends to recognize the overall benefits of trade. "When the mainstream parties are all, in a loose sense,
pro-globalization, there's room for fringe groups to latch onto this anti-globalization sentiment and
profit from it," he says. ..."
"... Author has shown that in America, recent trends in trade have hurt low-wage workers the most.
With his co-authors David Dorn, Gordon Hanson and Jae Song, he published a widely-cited 2014 paper measuring
the negative impacts of manufacturing imports from China, America's largest trading partner. Most of
those ill-effects - like unemployment and lower earnings - were borne by the workers with the lowest
wages. ..."
"... "Immigration always seems to be the most tangible evidence of the impingement of others on
your economic turf," Author adds. ..."
"... "In Germany, these three things get bundled up in these far-right platforms in a way that's
very difficult to unpack," he says. "It could be that you're bundling these ideas together for a reason.
It could be that you're bundling together what's really happening with an idea that's more tangible,
that you could sell more easily to angry voters." ..."
A popular theory for Donald Trump's success emphasizes the economic anxiety of less-educated whites,
who have struggled badly over the past few decades.
Hit hard by factory closings and jobs moving abroad to China and other places, the story goes,
blue-collar voters are channeling their anger at immigrants, who have out-competed them for what
jobs remain. Trump, with his remarks about Mexicans being rapists, has ridden this discontent to
the top of the polls.
The data suggest there's some kind of connection. According to polls, whites with a high school
degree or less disproportionately favor Trump. These are the same people who have seen their economic
opportunities decline the most in recent years. This group also disproportionately favors tough restrictions
on immigration.
But just because there appears to be a connection doesn't mean there is one. Has globalization
pushed working-class voters to the right? Nobody has proven that globalization has in fact pushed
working-class voters to the right or made them more extreme, at least not in the United States, where
the right kind of data aren't being collected. But unique records from Germany have allowed economists
to show how free trade trade changes people's political opinions.
A new study released this week showed that in Germany, the economic frustrations of trade
nudged many people into becoming right-wing extremists over the past two decades - throwing their
support behind the country's neo-Nazi parties. Written by economists Christian Dippel, of University
of California, Los Angeles, Stephan Heblich, of the University of Bristol, and Robert Gold of the
Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the paper was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Germany's far-right politicians, it should be noted, are not garden-variety nationalists. German
intelligence keeps tabs on these people, who frequently use racist and anti-Semitic language. They
say things like: "Europe is the continent of white people and it should remain that way." Many believe
in a global Jewish conspiracy. They are much more radical than, say, Marine Le Pen's National Front
party in France.
Still, these far-right parties have consistently earned a percentage point or two of the German
national vote. And the economists found that they have been particularly popular with people who
have been negatively impacted by trade.
How they measured the radicalizing power of trade
The economists took two different approaches to measure the connection between globalization and
right-wing extremism.
First, using German data on elections, employment, and commerce, they showed that places where
trade caused the most pain also had the largest increases in support for far-right parties. Over
the past 20 years, Germany's exports and imports have both skyrocketed, first thanks to the fall
of the Iron Curtain, then due to China's rise as a major manufacturer.
The researchers looked individually at Germany's 408 local districts, which are roughly equivalent
to counties in the United States. Each of these places was affected by increasing trade in different
ways. Areas that specialized in high-end cars, for instance, saw a happy boost from expanded exports.
Areas that specialized in, say, textiles, were stomped on by cheap Chinese and Eastern European imports.
This map shows changes in imports (bad!) compared to exports (good!). The dark blue regions are
places where imports increased a lot more than exports. These are the places where trade made things
worse, where people lost jobs and factories were shuttered.
These also happen to be the places where far-right parties made the most gains, on average. This
is true after controlling for demographics in each county, the size of the manufacturing sector,
and what part of the country the county was in.
The researchers argue that this relationship is more than just a correlation. To prove that trade
caused far-right radicalization, they only look at changes to the German economy inflicted by external
forces - say, a sudden increase in Chinese manufacturing capacity.
(Also, to get around the problem of German reunification, which happened in 1990, the researchers
split up the analysis into two time periods. From 1987 to 1998, they only looked at West Germany.
From 1998 to 2009, they looked at both regions.)
This evidence from patterns of trade and voting records is convincing, but there is one major
hole. The turmoil from trade caused certain counties to become friendlier to extremist parties -
but was it because the people living there became radicalized? Or did all the moderate voters flee
those places, leaving behind only the crusty xenophobes?
So, to follow up, the researchers used a special German survey that has been interviewing some
of the same people every year since the 1980s. This is a massively expensive project - the U.S. doesn't
have anything quite like it - and it allowed the researchers to actually observe people changing
their minds.
Workers whose industries were hurt by trade were were more likely to say they would start
voting for one of the extreme right parties. Even workers whose own industries were unaffected by
trade were more likely to support a neo-Nazi political party if they lived in a region hurt by trade.
In part this is because trade affects more than just the people who lose their jobs when the shoe
factory closes. Those assembly line workers need to find new jobs, and they put pressure on people
in similar occupations, say, at the garment factory or the tweezer factory.
What this means for the U.S.
All in all, the power of trade to radicalize people was rather small, measured in changes of a
fraction of a percent. This makes makes sense, because, again, Germany's far-right parties are way
out there. It takes a lot of economic suffering to cause someone to start voting with these neo-Nazis.
Christian Dippel, one of the authors of the study, says it's also important to look at the
context in each country. The neo-Nazi parties happen to be the voice of anti-globalization in Germany.
But in Spain, for instance, these views are the trademark of Podemos, a far-left party "known for
its rants against globalization and the tyranny of markets," according to Foreign Affairs.
The larger lesson, Dippel says, is that globalization creates a class of angry voters who
will reward whoever can tap into their frustrations. These are usually extremist parties, because
the mainstream tends to recognize the overall benefits of trade. "When the mainstream parties are
all, in a loose sense, pro-globalization, there's room for fringe groups to latch onto this anti-globalization
sentiment and profit from it," he says.
But is there an analogy between the far-right radicals in Germany and the wider group of disaffected
working class Americans who, say, support Donald Trump or the tea party? Certainly leaders on the
left also capitalize on anti-trade sentiment, but they usually use less harsh rhetoric or seldom
attack immigration.
David Autor, a labor economist at MIT, has been working to address the question of whether the
same dynamics are at play in the U.S. But it's a tough one, he says.
"What [Dippel and his colleagues] are doing is totally sensible, and I think the results are plausible
as well - that these trade shocks lead to activity on the extreme right, that they bring about ultranationalism,"
Autor says.
"We actually started on this hypothesis years ago for the U.S. to see if it could help to explain
the rise of angry white non-college males," he said. "But so far, we just don't have the right kind
of data."
Author has shown that in America, recent trends in trade have hurt low-wage workers the most.
With his co-authors David Dorn, Gordon Hanson and Jae Song, he published a widely-cited 2014 paper
measuring the negative impacts of manufacturing imports from China, America's largest trading partner.
Most of those ill-effects - like unemployment and lower earnings - were borne by the workers with
the lowest wages.
The higher-paid (and probably higher-skilled workers) were able to find new jobs when their companies
went bust. Often, they found jobs outside of the manufacturing industry. (An accountant, for instance,
can work anywhere.) But the lower-paid workers were trapped, doomed to fight over the ever-dwindling
supply of stateside manufacturing jobs.
China, of course, has been in Trump's crosshairs. He accuses the country of being a "currency
manipulator," which may have once been true, but not any more. He has threatened to impose a 25 percent
tax on Chinese imports to punish China.
But Trump has attracted the most attention for his disparaging remarks about immigrants - which
is something of puzzle. While it's true that non-college workers are increasingly competing with
immigrants for the same construction or manufacturing jobs, Author points out that there's little
evidence that immigrants are responsible for the woes of the working class.
"There's an amazing discrepancy between the data and the perception that I still find very hard
to reconcile," he says. "The data do not strongly support the view that immigration has had big effects
[on non-college workers], but I don't think that's how people perceive it."
"Immigration always seems to be the most tangible evidence of the impingement of others on
your economic turf," Author adds.
Dippel says that conflating these ideas could be a political strategy. He makes a distinction
between three different kinds of globalization - there's the worldwide movement of capital, goods,
and people.
"In Germany, these three things get bundled up in these far-right platforms in a way that's
very difficult to unpack," he says. "It could be that you're bundling these ideas together for a
reason. It could be that you're bundling together what's really happening with an idea that's more
tangible, that you could sell more easily to angry voters."
Jeff Guo is a reporter covering economics, domestic policy, and everything empirical. He's
from Maryland, but outside the Beltway. Follow him on Twitter: @_jeffguo.
...According to an Interfax report of his annual year-end news conference, Putin
called the Republican presidential candidate "a very bright and talented man," as
well as an "absolute leader" in the race for the presidency. (Another account,
from Reuters, translated Putin as saying Trump is "a very flamboyant man.")
"He says that he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level
of relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it,"
Putin said, according to Reuters' report.
The Russian president also said that it is none of his business "to assess
tricks Donald Trump [is] using to boost his popularity," according to Interfax.
Trump has repeatedly praised the Russian leader's toughness and said he would
be able to cut deals with him.
"He does not like Obama at all. He doesn't respect Obama at all. And I'm sure that Obama
doesn't like him very much," Trump said of Putin in October. "But I think that I would probably
get along with him very well. And I don't think you'd be having the kind of problems that you're
having right now."
Trump has also backed Russia's intervention in Syria, which Putin has said is aimed at
eradicating the Islamic State. "And as far as him attacking ISIS, I'm all for it," he told CBS
News' John Dickerson. "If he wants to be bombing the hell out of ISIS, which he's starting to do,
if he wants to be bombing ISIS, let him bomb them, John. Let him bomb them. I think we probably
work together much more so than right now."
"... The Rubes are mad at the state of the economy and blame Obama first but also believe that the GOP establishment has sold them down river. The squishy economy has caused the GOP elites to lose out to Trump and his antiestablishment we are not winning pitchfork toting mob. ..."
Could have been worse. Could have been shutdown or new round
of austerity. GOP intransigence is coming back to bite them.
The Rubes are mad at the state of the economy and blame Obama
first but also believe that the GOP establishment has sold
them down river. The squishy economy has caused the GOP
elites to lose out to Trump and his antiestablishment "we are
not winning" pitchfork toting mob.
The Dems need to get in
front of this parade before the General.
Billy Joe said...
I am hearing, adding on to Bakho's point above, this
was a 2 way deal. The Fed begins its modest tightening
schedule with Congress beginning a modest fiscal
loosening.
This is not a accident. It comes from a second hand source
related to a Republican Congressmen. Basically, Yellen
told Congress, if they loosen fiscal policy, they will
raise rates. That is what happened.......on a small scale.
Christine Todd Whitman fear mongering serves one purpose -- to support establishment
candidates. I do not remember her condemning Bush go killing million of Iraqis. She was
actually a part of this clique. So she should shut up and sit quietly (as any person belong to
criminal Bush II administration should)
The parallels are chilling. In pre-WWII Germany, the economy was in ruins, people were scared,
and they wanted someone to blame. Today we find ourselves with a nation of people who feel under
attack both physically and economically and are fearful. The middle class has never fully
recovered economically from the Great Recession. Income disparity is growing
...Language shapes behavior. Hateful language gives susceptible people permission to act on
their fears. Preying on the marginalized who are scared of the future is the time-honored tactic
of bullies and dictators. When times are difficult, people always look for someone to blame: It
is easy to pick out a target
Christine Todd Whitman is a former governor of New Jersey and former head of the
Environmental Protection Agency.
"... The argument began with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, alone among the candidates a consistent voice against American intervention in the Mideast, who said the "majority" of his competitors for the nomination "want to topple Assad. And then there will be chaos, and I think ISIS will then be in charge." ..."
"... Mr. Cruz made the case for keeping dictators like Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt close. "Qaddafi was a bad man," he said., "Mubarak had a terrible human rights record. But they were assisting us" in the cause of "fighting radical Islamic terrorists." He argued that this was far better than "being a Woodrow Wilson democracy promoter." ..."
"... Mr. Cruz's argument was meant to differentiate him from Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who had supported the ouster of Mr. Qaddafi and Mr. Mubarak, and whose campaign has attracted some veterans of the George W. Bush White House. But along the way it exposed a significant rift in Republican thinking, and puts him in a much different place than where his party was a decade ago. ..."
"... Hizbolah is only a terrorist to IDF when they enter Lebanon, the Israelis cannot do in South Lebanon what they get way with in Gaza and the West Bank. Too many GOP playing for AIPAC. ..."
"... If you dont like Assad why do you like al Sisi? Aside from the Egyptian military dictator has promised not to use the $3B annual bribe from the US to attack Israel...... ..."
"... While Rubio wants to arm al Qaeda so they can run Syria to do more 9/11s. ..."
"... Trump is right the media lies all the time and his thuggee opponents take them up on their lies. ..."
The candidates took strong positions on the
need to use force, but at times seemed uncertain about America's past military and diplomatic
interventions in the region.
At Republican Debate, Straying Into Mideast,
and Getting Lost http://nyti.ms/1m7DUuE
NYT - DAVID E. SANGER - DEC. 16
WASHINGTON - In a surprisingly substantive debate on foreign policy Tuesday night, the upheaval
in the Middle East gave Republican presidential candidates a chance to show off alternatives to
what they portrayed as President Obama's failed approach, but at many moments, the politics and
history of the region eluded them as they tried to demonstrate their skills at analysis and leadership.
At times during the two-hour debate, several of the candidates seemed uncertain about America's
past military and diplomatic interventions in the region, and did not acknowledge Mr. Obama's
continuing attempts to negotiate a cease-fire in Syria. And for most of them – Jeb Bush seemed
an exception – the strategy to defeat the Islamic State largely seemed to boil down to this: Drop
your bombs first and figure out the diplomacy later, if at all.
In their efforts to show that they were skilled at realpolitik, putting national interests
ahead of ideals, almost all of them dismissed the stated goal of Mr. Bush's brother, the last
Republican president. It was George W. Bush who declared in his second inaugural address that
"the calling of our time" was to support "the growth of democratic movements and institutions
in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
But to some in this generation of Republicans, democracy building is out; supporting dictators,
perhaps including Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who are willing to fight the Islamic State, is in.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the debate was long on the need to use military force, and short
on the question of how one gets at the roots of radical Muslim jihadism – or engages the Muslim
community in the United States and abroad in that effort. That discussion began with Senator Ted
Cruz of Texas defending, and expanding on, his recent vow to carpet-bomb the Islamic State, wherever
it may be.
"What it means is using overwhelming air power to utterly and completely destroy ISIS," said
Mr. Cruz, using an acronym for the Islamic State. He argued that in "the first Persian Gulf War,
we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day. We carpet-bombed them for 36 days, saturation bombing,"
and then sent in troops to mop up "what was left of the Iraqi army."
In fact, the Persian Gulf war was the first big testing ground for precision-guided munitions.
The last big "carpet bombing" was in the Vietnam War; military officials, including Britain's
defense minister, have noted recently that any such technique used in Syria would kill thousands
of innocent civilians living in places like Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital.
But Mr. Cruz pressed on when challenged by Wolf Blitzer of CNN, the moderator. "The object
isn't to level a city," he said. "The object is to kill the ISIS terrorists." He never said how
that is possible without tremendous civilian casualties, which is why carpet bombing is often
considered a war crime.
In some ways the debate was remarkable for the fact that it delved into the politics of the
Middle East at all; many of the candidates on the stage Tuesday night in Las Vegas did not appear
interested in that discussion even a few months ago. But the terrorist attacks in Paris and San
Bernardino left them no choice: They had to pass the commander-in-chief test, and the first step
in that process is to be able piece together something that sounds like a strategy.
The result was that a few of them were testing out their thinking about longtime questions
like regime-change – and whether it is better to press for democracy, even if it creates chaos
and openings for terrorist groups, or to back reliable dictators.
Syria poses the most urgent test, and there was disagreement over whether Mr. Assad had to
go first, or whether the United States and its partners should focus first on defeating the Islamic
State, even if that means leaving in power a dictator under whom upward of a quarter-of-a-million
of his own people have been killed.
The argument began with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, alone among the candidates a consistent
voice against American intervention in the Mideast, who said the "majority" of his competitors
for the nomination "want to topple Assad. And then there will be chaos, and I think ISIS will
then be in charge."
Though administration officials will not say so in public, they largely agree – which is why
getting rid of Mr. Assad has been pushed down the road, though Secretary of State John Kerry says
Mr. Assad's removal must be the eventual outcome if Sunni rebel groups are going to be enticed
into fighting the Islamic State.
Mr. Cruz made the case for keeping dictators like Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya and Hosni Mubarak
of Egypt close. "Qaddafi was a bad man," he said., "Mubarak had a terrible human rights record.
But they were assisting us" in the cause of "fighting radical Islamic terrorists." He argued that
this was far better than "being a Woodrow Wilson democracy promoter."
Mr. Cruz's argument was meant to differentiate him from Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who
had supported the ouster of Mr. Qaddafi and Mr. Mubarak, and whose campaign has attracted some
veterans of the George W. Bush White House. But along the way it exposed a significant rift in
Republican thinking, and puts him in a much different place than where his party was a decade
ago. ...
ilsm said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
Thuggee debates:
If your bombing (questionable whether it worked in WW II, utter failure against
VC/NVA) is failing eliminating "rules of engagement" and increasing civilian casualties is not
going to change the outcome. If the Germans had won WW II Bomber Harris would have been hanged,
and for Japan Le May would have been beheaded.
Hizbolah is only a "terrorist" to IDF when they enter Lebanon, the Israelis cannot do in South
Lebanon what they get way with in Gaza and the West Bank. Too many GOP playing for AIPAC.
Replacing a brutal dictator with a bunch of terrorists is insanity, the GOP has no other answer.
The mess in Lebanon and Iraq was caused by Reagan and worsened by GW.
If you don't like Assad why do you like al Sisi? Aside from the Egyptian military dictator
has promised not to use the $3B annual bribe from the US to attack Israel......
While Rubio wants to arm al Qaeda so they can run Syria to do more 9/11's.
Trump is right the media lies all the time and his thuggee opponents take them up on their
lies.
"... There's little doubt that what has happened to America's middle class has helped to create the climate that has fueled Trump's sudden rise. ..."
"... Those living in middle-class households no longer make up a majority of the population. ..."
"... The report is not entirely gloomy. Every category gained in income between 1970 and 2014. Those in the top strata saw incomes rise by 47 percent. Middle-income Americans saw theirs rise by 34 percent. Those at the bottom saw the most modest increases, at 28 percent. ..."
"... But the share of income accounted for by the middle class has plummeted over the past 4 1 / 2 decades. In 1970, middle-class households accounted for 62 percent of income; by 2014, it was just 43 percent. Meanwhile, the share held by those in upper-income households rose from 29 percent to 49 percent, eclipsing the middle class's share. ..."
"... For most families, the two recessions have wiped out previous gains and widened the wealth and income gap between the wealthiest and all others. "The losses were so large that only upper-income families realized notable gains in wealth over the span of 30 years from 1983 to 2013," according to the Pew study. ..."
"... Until the recession of 2007-2009, middle-income earners saw a significant rise in their overall wealth, but the economic calamity mostly wiped away those gains. Today, the median net worth of families in the middle (in 2014 dollars) is barely higher than it was in 1983. Those at the top have weathered the recession far better and, despite losses, have seen a doubling of their net worth over that same period. ..."
"... Politicians in both parties have sought for some time to appeal to middle-class voters who are economically stressed. President Obama made his 2012 reelection campaign about appealing to the middle class and casting Republican nominee Mitt Romney as out of touch and insensitive to their concerns. ..."
"... Trump, however, has tapped a vein of frustration and resentment among those who have suffered most from the economic maladies of the past decade and a half, and he has ridden it to the top of the GOP polls. He has done it by eschewing political correctness. ..."
"... Trump draws strong support from the kinds of voters who see illegal immigration as eroding the values of the country and who might worry that their jobs are threatened by the influx. About half of those Republicans who favor deporting immigrants who are here illegally back Trump for the party's nomination. ..."
"... Trump's campaign slogan is not just "Make America Great" but "Make America Great Again." He summons a time when the middle class was prosperous and incomes were rising. This was a time when the lack of a college degree was not the impediment to a more economically secure life that it has become - and a time when white people made up a higher share of the population. ..."
"... Whatever happens to Trump's candidacy over the coming months, the conditions that have helped make him the front-runner for the GOP nomination will still exist, a focal point in a divisive debate about the future of the country. ..."
"... He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you whos to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections ..."
"... Their replies were striking. Where merely affluent Americans are more likely to identify as Democrats than as Republicans, the ultrawealthy overwhelmingly leaned right. They are far more likely to raise money for politicians and to have access to them; nearly half had personally contacted one of Illinois's two United States senators. ..."
"... Probably the biggest single area of disconnect has to do with social welfare programs," said Benjamin I. Page, a political scientist at Northwestern University and a co-author of the study. "The other big area has to do with paying for those programs, particularly taxes on high-income and wealthy people. ..."
"... Where the general public overwhelmingly supports a high minimum wage, the one percent are broadly opposed. ..."
"... Where merely affluent Americans are more likely to identify as Democrats than as Republicans, the ultrawealthy overwhelmingly leaned right. ..."
"... That would explain the survey results discussed yesterday showing Clinton to be the preferred candidate among millionaires -- a category almost as factually broad and ambiguous as the middle class . The merely affluent -- AKA the liberal elite -- would be the Clinton supporters, whereas the ultrawealthy would support Rubio (or whatever other candidate they were sponsoring). ..."
"... it is not necessarily an endorsement of Trump but a relative statement - that he resonates with people more than the other contenders. This kind of thing (people rallying around alpha-type strongmen with supremacist narratives) has reliably happened anywhere and anytime there was a bad economy and serious lack of positive outlook. ..."
"... Trump 24%, Cruz 16% in South Carolina Poll ..."
"... Five Reasons Congress Hates Ted Cruz http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/09/30/Five-Reasons-Congre ..."
Charting Trump's rise through the decline of the middle class
By Dan Balz December 12 at 10:59 AM
For anyone trying to understand the emergence of Donald Trump as a force in this pre-election
year, the Pew Research Center this past week provided some valuable insight. There's little
doubt that what has happened to America's middle class has helped to create the climate that has
fueled Trump's sudden rise.
The Pew study charts the steady decline of the middle class over the past four decades. It
is a phenomenon often discussed and analyzed, but the new findings highlight a tipping point:
Those living in middle-class households no longer make up a majority of the population.
There has been a "hollowing out" of the middle class, as the study puts it. In 1971, the middle
class accounted for 61 percent of the nation's population. Today, there are slightly more people
in the upper and lower economic tiers combined than in the middle class.
The report is not entirely gloomy. Every category gained in income between 1970 and 2014. Those
in the top strata saw incomes rise by 47 percent. Middle-income Americans saw theirs rise by 34
percent. Those at the bottom saw the most modest increases, at 28 percent.
But the share of income accounted for by the middle class has plummeted over the past 4 1 /
2 decades. In 1970, middle-class households accounted for 62 percent of income; by 2014, it was
just 43 percent. Meanwhile, the share held by those in upper-income households rose from 29 percent
to 49 percent, eclipsing the middle class's share.
The past 15 years have been particularly hard on wealth and income because of the recession
of 2001 and the Great Recession of 2007-2009. For all groups, incomes rose from 1970 to 2000.
In the next decade, incomes for all groups declined. During the past four years, incomes rose
3 percent for the wealthiest, 1 percent for middle-income Americans, and not at all for those
with the lowest incomes. For those in the middle, the median income in 2014 was 4 percent lower
than in 2000, according to the study.
For most families, the two recessions have wiped out previous gains and widened the wealth
and income gap between the wealthiest and all others. "The losses were so large that only upper-income
families realized notable gains in wealth over the span of 30 years from 1983 to 2013," according
to the Pew study.
Until the recession of 2007-2009, middle-income earners saw a significant rise in their
overall wealth, but the economic calamity mostly wiped away those gains. Today, the median net
worth of families in the middle (in 2014 dollars) is barely higher than it was in 1983. Those
at the top have weathered the recession far better and, despite losses, have seen a doubling of
their net worth over that same period.
Within the overall trends of the middle class, there are winners and losers, according to the
Pew study. Winners included people older than 65, whose overall economic standing has increased
sharply over the past four decades. In 1971, more than half of all Americans ages 65 and older
were in the lowest income tier. Today, nearly half qualify as middle-income.
Those with college degrees have remained fairly stable in terms of their percentages in the
lower-, middle- and upper-income tiers. Then comes this telling finding from the Pew study: "Those
without a bachelor's degree tumbled down the income tiers, however. Among the various demographic
groups examined, adults with no more than a high school diploma lost the most ground economically."
This is where the report connects directly to what's happened politically this year. Pair those
last findings from the Pew study with what recent polling shows about who supports Trump.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News survey found Trump leading his rivals overall, with 32 percent
support among registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Among white people with
college degrees, he was at 23 percent and led his nearest rival by only four percentage points.
Among white people without a college degree, however, his support ballooned to 41 percent - double
that of Ben Carson, who was second at 20 percent, and five times the support of Sens. Marco Rubio
(Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.), who were tied for third.
Those without college educations have regressed economically. The Pew study shows that many
who have either a high school degree or at most two years of college have fallen out of the middle
class over the past four decades. Among those with high school degrees, the percentage in the
lowest-income tier has risen from 17 percent in 1971 to 36 percent in 2015. A similar pattern
exists for those with some college education but not a four-year degree.
Politicians in both parties have sought for some time to appeal to middle-class voters
who are economically stressed. President Obama made his 2012 reelection campaign about appealing
to the middle class and casting Republican nominee Mitt Romney as out of touch and insensitive
to their concerns.
In the absence of progress during Obama's presidency, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner,
and her principal challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), have made issues of inequality and wage
stagnation central to their appeals. Clinton's team long has believed that the election will turn
on issues of middle-class economics.
Trump, however, has tapped a vein of frustration and resentment among those who have suffered
most from the economic maladies of the past decade and a half, and he has ridden it to the top
of the GOP polls. He has done it by eschewing political correctness.
Trump draws strong support from the kinds of voters who see illegal immigration as eroding
the values of the country and who might worry that their jobs are threatened by the influx. About
half of those Republicans who favor deporting immigrants who are here illegally back Trump for
the party's nomination. These are also the kinds of voters who agree most with Trump's call
to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States until security concerns are laid to rest.
Trump's campaign slogan is not just "Make America Great" but "Make America Great Again."
He summons a time when the middle class was prosperous and incomes were rising. This was a time
when the lack of a college degree was not the impediment to a more economically secure life that
it has become - and a time when white people made up a higher share of the population.
Whatever happens to Trump's candidacy over the coming months, the conditions that have
helped make him the front-runner for the GOP nomination will still exist, a focal point in a divisive
debate about the future of the country.
EMichael said in reply to Peter K....
Baker was too kind to Balz.
Amazing that appeals to racist imbeciles are considered to be appeals
to middle class America. Over two decades ago, Trump's platform(if you can call it that) was accurately
described in The American President:
"I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the
reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't
get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that
he can't sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.
And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested
in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of
it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."
Peter K. said in reply to EMichael...
Also the corporate media refuses to focus on the one percent.
"The rich families remaking Illinois are among a small group around the country who have
channeled their extraordinary wealth into political power, taking advantage of regulatory,
legal and cultural shifts that have carved new paths for infusing money into campaigns. Economic
winners in an age of rising inequality, operating largely out of public view, they are reshaping
government with fortunes so large as to defy the ordinary financial scale of politics. In the
2016 presidential race, a New York Times analysis found last month, just 158 families had provided
nearly half of the early campaign money.
...
Around the same time that Mr. Rauner began running for governor, a group of researchers
based at Northwestern University published findings from the country's first-ever representative
survey of the richest one percent of Americans. The study, known as the Survey of Economically
Successful Americans and the Common Good, canvassed a sample of the wealthy from the Chicago
area. Those canvassed were granted anonymity to discuss their views candidly.
Their replies were striking. Where merely affluent Americans are more likely to identify
as Democrats than as Republicans, the ultrawealthy overwhelmingly leaned right. They are far
more likely to raise money for politicians and to have access to them; nearly half had personally
contacted one of Illinois's two United States senators.
Where the general public overwhelmingly supports a high minimum wage, the one percent are
broadly opposed. A majority of Americans supported expanding safety-net and retirement programs,
while most of the very wealthy opposed them. And while Americans are not enthusiastic about
higher taxes generally, they feel strongly that the rich should pay more than they do, and
more than everyone else pays.
"Probably the biggest single area of disconnect has to do with social welfare programs,"
said Benjamin I. Page, a political scientist at Northwestern University and a co-author
of the study. "The other big area has to do with paying for those programs, particularly
taxes on high-income and wealthy people.""
EMichael said in reply to Peter K....
"Where the general public overwhelmingly supports a high minimum wage, the one percent
are broadly opposed."
Yep
So what they do is to distract people from the need to increase wages by altering the minimum
wage and make low wages the responsibility of illegal immigrants.
Plausible(if not true) story made believable if you are a racist.
"Where merely affluent Americans are more likely to identify as Democrats than as Republicans,
the ultrawealthy overwhelmingly leaned right."
That would explain the survey results discussed yesterday showing Clinton to be the preferred
candidate among "millionaires" -- a category almost as factually broad and ambiguous as "the middle
class". The merely affluent -- AKA the "liberal elite" -- would be the Clinton supporters, whereas
the ultrawealthy would support Rubio (or whatever other candidate they were sponsoring).
cm said in reply to EMichael...
"Amazing that appeals to racist imbeciles are considered to be appeals to middle class America."
etc.
Are you suggesting the survey percentages are not accurate? One can suspect a significant sampling
error, but if the numbers were off let's say 5-10 percentage points, would it really make much
of a difference in quality?
Also it is not necessarily an endorsement of Trump but a relative statement - that he resonates
with people more than the other contenders. This kind of thing (people rallying around alpha-type
strongmen with supremacist narratives) has reliably happened anywhere and anytime there was a
bad economy and serious lack of positive outlook.
The competition between GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz heated up Sunday,
with Trump calling Cruz "a bit of a maniac."
Appearing on "FOX News Sunday," Trump said the Texas senator was not qualified to be president
because he doesn't have the right temperament and judgement to get things done.
"Look at the way he's dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there like a - you know, frankly
like a little bit of a maniac," Trump said. "You can't walk into the Senate, and scream, and call
people liars, and not be able to cajole and get along with people." ...
Previously: Ted Cruz Questions Donald Trump's 'Judgment' to
Be President http://nyti.ms/1XZ3RxD via @NYTPolitics
- Dec 10
"... Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street reforms and actions Bill Clinton performed as President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of Greenspan's record? ..."
"... The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 0.1 percent tax on stock trades, scaled with lower taxes on other assets, would raise $50 billion a year in tax revenue. The implied reduction in trading revenue was even larger. Senator Sanders has proposed a tax of 0.5 percent on equities (also with a scaled tax on other assets). This would lead to an even larger reduction in revenue for the financial industry. ..."
"... Great to see Bakers acknowledgement that an updated Glass-Steagall is just one component of the progressive wings plan to rein in Wall Street, not the sum total of it. Besides, if Wall Street types dont think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much. ..."
"... Yes thats a good way to look it. Wall Street gave the Democrats and Clinton a lot of campaign cash so that they would dismantle Glass-Steagall. ..."
"... Slippery slope. Ya gotta find me a business of any type that does not protest any kind of regulation on their business. ..."
"... Yeah, but usually because of all the bad things they say will happen because of the regulation. The question is, what do they think of Clintons plan? Ive heard surprisingly little about that, and what I have heard is along these lines: http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street-plan/ ..."
"... Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Streets excesses on Thursday. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief. ..."
"... There is absolutely NO question Bernie is for real. Wall Street does not want Bernie. So theyll let Hillary talk as big as she needs to . Why should we believe her when an honest guy like Barry caved once in power ..."
"... Perhaps too often we look at Wall Street as monolithic whether consciously or not. Obviously we know its no monolithic: there are serious differences ..."
"... This all coiled change if Bernie surges. How that happens depends crucially on New Hampshire. Not Iowa ..."
"... I believe Hillary will be to liberal causes after she is elected as LBJ was to peace in Vietnam. Like Bill and Obomber. ..."
Hillary Clinton Is Whitewashing the Financial Catastrophe
She has a plan that she claims will reform Wall Street-but she's deflecting responsibility
from old friends and donors in the industry.
By William Greider Yesterday 3:11 pm
Hillary Clinton's recent op-ed in The New York Times, "How I'd Rein In Wall Street," was intended
to reassure nervous Democrats who fear she is still in thrall to those mega-bankers of New York
who crashed the American economy. Clinton's brisk recital of plausible reform ideas might convince
wishful thinkers who are not familiar with the complexities of banking. But informed skeptics,
myself included, see a disturbing message in her argument that ought to alarm innocent supporters.
Candidate Clinton is essentially whitewashing the financial catastrophe. She has produced a
clumsy rewrite of what caused the 2008 collapse, one that conveniently leaves her husband out
of the story. He was the president who legislated the predicate for Wall Street's meltdown. Hillary
Clinton's redefinition of the reform problem deflects the blame from Wall Street's most powerful
institutions, like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, and instead fingers less celebrated players
that failed. In roundabout fashion, Hillary Clinton sounds like she is assuring old friends and
donors in the financial sector that, if she becomes president, she will not come after them.
The seminal event that sowed financial disaster was the repeal of the New Deal's Glass-Steagall
Act of 1933, which had separated banking into different realms: investment banks, which organize
capital investors for risk-taking ventures; and deposit-holding banks, which serve people as borrowers
and lenders. That law's repeal, a great victory for Wall Street, was delivered by Bill Clinton
in 1999, assisted by the Federal Reserve and the financial sector's armies of lobbyists. The "universal
banking model" was saluted as a modernizing reform that liberated traditional banks to participate
directly and indirectly in long-prohibited and vastly more profitable risk-taking.
Exotic financial instruments like derivatives and credit-default swaps flourished, enabling
old-line bankers to share in the fun and profit on an awesome scale. The banks invented "guarantees"
against loss and sold them to both companies and market players. The fast-expanding financial
sector claimed a larger and larger share of the economy (and still does) at the expense of the
real economy of producers and consumers. The interconnectedness across market sectors created
the illusion of safety. When illusions failed, these connected guarantees became the dragnet that
drove panic in every direction. Ultimately, the federal government had to rescue everyone, foreign
and domestic, to stop the bleeding.
Yet Hillary Clinton asserts in her Times op-ed that repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to
do with it. She claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the reckless behavior of institutions
like Lehman Brothers or insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks. Her argument amounts
to facile evasion that ignores the interconnected exposures. The Federal Reserve spent $180 billion
bailing out AIG so AIG could pay back Goldman Sachs and other banks. If the Fed hadn't acted and
had allowed AIG to fail, the banks would have gone down too.
These sound like esoteric questions of bank regulation (and they are), but the consequences
of pretending they do not matter are enormous. The federal government and Federal Reserve would
remain on the hook for rescuing losers in a future crisis. The largest and most adventurous banks
would remain free to experiment, inventing fictitious guarantees and selling them to eager suckers.
If things go wrong, Uncle Sam cleans up the mess.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other reformers are pushing a simpler remedy-restore the Glass-Steagall
principles and give citizens a safe, government-insured place to store their money. "Banking should
be boring," Warren explains (her co-sponsor is GOP Senator John McCain). That's a hard sell in politics, given the banking sector's bear hug of Congress and the White
House, its callous manipulation of both political parties. Of course, it is more complicated than
that. But recreating a safe, stable banking system-a place where ordinary people can keep their
money-ought to be the first benchmark for Democrats who claim to be reformers.
Actually, the most compelling witnesses for Senator Warren's argument are the two bankers who
introduced this adventure in "universal banking" back in the 1990s. They used their political
savvy and relentless muscle to seduce Bill Clinton and his so-called New Democrats. John Reed
was CEO of Citicorp and led the charge. He has since apologized to the nation. Sandy Weill was
chairman of the board and a brilliant financier who envisioned the possibilities of a single,
all-purpose financial house, freed of government's narrow-minded regulations. They won politically,
but at staggering cost to the country.
Weill confessed error back in 2012: "What we should probably do is go and split up investment
banking from banking. Have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's
not going to be too big to fail."
John Reed's confession explained explicitly why their modernizing crusade failed for two fundamental
business reasons. "One was the belief that combining all types of finance into one institution
would drive costs down-and the larger institution the more efficient it would be," Reed wrote
in the Financial Times in November. Reed said, "We now know that there are very few cost efficiencies
that come from the merger of functions-indeed, there may be none at all. It is possible that combining
so much in a single bank makes services more expensive than if they were instead offered by smaller,
specialised players."
The second grave error, Reed said, was trying to mix the two conflicting cultures in banking-bankers
who are pulling in opposite directions. That tension helps explain the competitive greed displayed
by the modernized banking system. This disorder speaks to the current political crisis in ways
that neither Dems nor Republicans wish to confront. It would require the politicians to critique
the bankers (often their funders) in terms of human failure.
"Mixing incompatible cultures is a problem all by itself," Reed wrote. "It makes the entire
finance industry more fragile…. As is now clear, traditional banking attracts one kind of talent,
which is entirely different from the kinds drawn towards investment banking and trading. Traditional
bankers tend to be extroverts, sociable people who are focused on longer term relationships. They
are, in many important respects, risk averse. Investment bankers and their traders are more short
termist. They are comfortable with, and many even seek out, risk and are more focused on immediate
reward."
Reed concludes, "As I have reflected about the years since 1999, I think the lessons of Glass-Steagall
and its repeal suggest that the universal banking model is inherently unstable and unworkable.
No amount of restructuring, management change or regulation is ever likely to change that."
This might sound hopelessly naive, but the Democratic Party might do better in politics if
it told more of the truth more often: what they tried do and why it failed, and what they think
they may have gotten wrong. People already know they haven't gotten a straight story from politicians.
They might be favorably impressed by a little more candor in the plain-spoken manner of John Reed.
Of course it's unfair to pick on the Dems. Republicans have been lying about their big stuff
for so long and so relentlessly that their voters are now staging a wrathful rebellion. Who knows,
maybe a little honest talk might lead to honest debate. Think about it. Do the people want to
hear the truth about our national condition? Could they stand it?
Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street "reforms" and actions Bill Clinton performed as
President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of Greenspan's record?
Yes Hillary isn't Bill but she hasn't criticized her husband specifically about his record and
seems to want to have her cake and eat it too.
Of course Hillary is much better than the Republicans, pace Rustbucket and the Green Lantern
Lefty club. Still, critics have a point.
I won't be surprised if she doesn't do much to rein in Wall Street besides some window dressing.
sanjait said in reply to Peter K....
"Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street "reforms" and actions Bill Clinton
performed..."
That, right there, is what's wrong with Bernie and his fans.
They measure everything by whether it is "pro- or anti- Wall Street".
Glass Steagall is anti-Wall Street. A financial transactions tax is anti-Wall Street.
But neither has any hope of controlling systemic financial risk in this country. None.
You guys want to punish Wall Street but not even bother trying to think of how to achieve useful
policy goals. Some people, like Paine here, are actually open about this vacuity, as if the only
thing that were important were winning a power struggle.
Hillary's plan is flat out better. It's more comprehensive and more effective at reining in the
financial system to limit systemic risk. Period.
You guys want to make this a character melodrama rather than a policy debate, and I fear the
result of that will be that the candidate who actually has the best plan won't get to enact it.
likbez said in reply to sanjait...
"You guys want to make this a character melodrama rather than a policy debate, and I
fear the result of that will be that the candidate who actually has the best plan won't get
to enact it."
You are misrepresenting the positions. It's actually pro-neoliberalism crowd vs
anti-neoliberalism crowd. In no way anti-neoliberalism commenters here view this is a
character melodrama, although psychologically Hillary probably does has certain problems as
her reaction to the death of Gadhafi attests.
The key problem with anti-neoliberalism crowd is the question "What is a realistic
alternative?" That's where differences and policy debate starts.
RGC said in reply to EMichael...
"Her argument amounts to facile evasion"
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to RGC...
'The majority favors policies
to the left of Hillary.'
... The Democrats' liberal faction has been greatly overestimated by pundits who mistake
noisiness for clout or assume that the left functions like the right. In fact, liberals hold
nowhere near the power in the Democratic Party that conservatives hold in the Republican
Party. And while they may well be gaining, they're still far from being in charge. ...
Paine said in reply to RGC...
What's not confronted ? Suggest what a System like the pre repeal system would have done in
the 00's. My guess we'd have ended in a crisis anyway. Yes we can segregate the depository
system. But credit is elastic enough to build bubbles without the depository system
involved
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Cracking Down on Wall Street
by Dean Baker
Published: 12 December 2015
The New Yorker ran a rather confused piece on Gary Sernovitz, a managing director at the investment
firm Lime Rock Partners, on whether Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would be more effective
in reining in Wall Street. The piece assures us that Secretary Clinton has a better understanding
of Wall Street and that her plan would be more effective in cracking down on the industry. The
piece is bizarre both because it essentially dismisses the concern with too big to fail banks
and completely ignores Sanders' proposal for a financial transactions tax which is by far the
most important mechanism for reining in the financial industry.
The piece assures us that too big to fail banks are no longer a problem, noting their drop
in profitability from bubble peaks and telling readers:
"not only are Sanders's bogeybanks just one part of Wall Street but they are getting less
powerful and less problematic by the year."
This argument is strange for a couple of reasons. First, the peak of the subprime bubble frenzy
is hardly a good base of comparison. The real question is should we anticipate declining profits
going forward. That hardly seems clear. For example, Citigroup recently reported surging profits,
while Wells Fargo's third quarter profits were up 8 percent from 2014 levels.
If Sernovitz is predicting that the big banks are about to shrivel up to nothingness, the market
does not agree with him. Citigroup has a market capitalization of $152 billion, JPMorgan has a
market cap of $236 billion, and Bank of America has a market cap of $174 billion. Clearly investors
agree with Sanders in thinking that these huge banks will have sizable profits for some time to
come.
The real question on too big to fail is whether the government would sit by and let a Goldman
Sachs or Citigroup go bankrupt. Perhaps some people think that it is now the case, but I've never
met anyone in that group.
Sernovitz is also dismissive on Sanders call for bringing back the Glass-Steagall separation
between commercial banking and investment banking. He makes the comparison to the battle over
the Keystone XL pipeline, which is actually quite appropriate. The Keystone battle did take on
exaggerated importance in the climate debate. There was never a zero/one proposition in which
no tar sands oil would be pumped without the pipeline, while all of it would be pumped if the
pipeline was constructed. Nonetheless, if the Obama administration was committed to restricting
greenhouse gas emissions, it is difficult to see why it would support the building of a pipeline
that would facilitate bringing some of the world's dirtiest oil to market.
In the same vein, Sernovitz is right that it is difficult to see how anything about the growth
of the housing bubble and its subsequent collapse would have been very different if Glass-Steagall
were still in place. And, it is possible in principle to regulate bank's risky practices without
Glass-Steagall, as the Volcker rule is doing. However, enforcement tends to weaken over time under
industry pressure, which is a reason why the clear lines of Glass-Steagall can be beneficial.
Furthermore, as with Keystone, if we want to restrict banks' power, what is the advantage of letting
them get bigger and more complex?
The repeal of Glass-Steagall was sold in large part by boasting of the potential synergies
from combining investment and commercial banking under one roof. But if the operations are kept
completely separate, as is supposed to be the case, where are the synergies?
But the strangest part of Sernovitz's story is that he leaves out Sanders' financial transactions
tax (FTT) altogether. This is bizarre, because the FTT is essentially a hatchet blow to the waste
and exorbitant salaries in the industry.
Most research shows that trading volume is very responsive to the cost of trading, with most
estimates putting the elasticity close to one. This means that if trading costs rise by 50 percent,
then trading volume declines by 50 percent. (In its recent analysis of FTTs, the Tax Policy Center
assumed that the elasticity was 1.5, meaning that trading volume decline by 150 percent of the
increase in trading costs.) The implication of this finding is that the financial industry would
pay the full cost of a financial transactions tax in the form of reduced trading revenue.
The Tax Policy Center estimated that a 0.1 percent tax on stock trades, scaled with lower taxes
on other assets, would raise $50 billion a year in tax revenue. The implied reduction in trading
revenue was even larger. Senator Sanders has proposed a tax of 0.5 percent on equities (also with
a scaled tax on other assets). This would lead to an even larger reduction in revenue for the
financial industry.
It is incredible that Sernovitz would ignore a policy with such enormous consequences for the
financial sector in his assessment of which candidate would be tougher on Wall Street. Sanders
FTT would almost certainly do more to change behavior on Wall Street then everything that Clinton
has proposed taken together by a rather large margin. It's sort of like evaluating the New England
Patriots' Super Bowl prospects without discussing their quarterback.
Syaloch said in reply to Peter K....
Great to see Baker's acknowledgement that an updated Glass-Steagall is just one component
of the progressive wing's plan to rein in Wall Street, not the sum total of it. Besides, if Wall
Street types don't think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful effects, why do they
expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too much.
Peter K. said in reply to Syaloch...
Yes that's a good way to look it. Wall Street gave the Democrats and Clinton a lot of campaign
cash so that they would dismantle Glass-Steagall. If they want it done, it's probably not
a good idea.
EMichael said in reply to Syaloch...
Slippery slope. Ya' gotta find me a business of any type that does not protest any kind of regulation
on their business.
Syaloch said in reply to EMichael...
Yeah, but usually because of all the bad things they say will happen because of the regulation.
The question is, what do they think of Clinton's plan? I've heard surprisingly little about that,
and what I have heard is along these lines:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/08/investing/hillary-clinton-wall-street-plan/
"Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street's excesses on Thursday.
The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief."
pgl said in reply to Syaloch...
Two excellent points!!!
sanjait said in reply to Syaloch...
"Besides, if Wall Street types don't think restoring Glass-Steagall will have any meaningful
effects, why do they expend so much energy to disparage it? Methinks they doth protest too
much."
It has an effect of shrinking the size of a few firms, and that has a detrimental effect on
the top managers of those firms, who get paid more money if they have larger firms to manage. But it has little to no meaningful effect on systemic risk.
So if your main policy goal is to shrink the compensation for a small number of powerful Wall
Street managers, G-S is great. But if you actually want to accomplish something useful to the American people, like limiting
systemic risk in the financial sector, then a plan like Hillary's is much much better. She explained
this fairly well in her recent NYT piece.
Paine said in reply to Peter K....
There is absolutely NO question Bernie is for real. Wall Street does not want Bernie. So they'll
let Hillary talk as big as she needs to . Why should we believe her when an honest guy like
Barry caved once in power
Paine said in reply to Paine ...
Bernie has been anti Wall Street his whole career . He's on a crusade. Hillary is pulling a sham
bola
Paine said in reply to Paine ...
Perhaps too often we look at Wall Street as monolithic whether consciously or not. Obviously we
know it's no monolithic: there are serious differences
When the street is riding high especially. Right now the street is probably not united but
too cautious to display profound differences in public. They're sitting on their hands waiting
to see how high the anti Wall Street tide runs this election cycle. Trump gives them cover and
I really fear secretly Hillary gives them comfort
This all coiled change if Bernie surges. How that happens depends crucially on New Hampshire.
Not Iowa
EMichael said in reply to Paine ...
If Bernie surges and wins the nomination, we will all get to watch the death of the Progressive
movement for a decade or two. Congress will become more GOP dominated, and we will have a President
in office who will make Hoover look like a Socialist.
You should like the moderate Democrats after George McGovern ran in 1972. I'm hoping we have another
1964 with Bernie leading a united Democratic Congress.
EMichael said in reply to pgl...
Not a chance in the world. And I like Sanders much more than anyone else. It just simply cannot,
and will not, happen. He is a communist. Not to me, not to you, but to the vast majority
of American voters.
pgl said in reply to EMichael...
He is not a communist. But I agree - Hillary is winning the Democratic nomination. I have only
one vote and in New York, I'm badly outnumbered.
ilsm said in reply to Paine ...
I believe Hillary will be to liberal causes after she is elected as LBJ was to peace in Vietnam.
Like Bill and Obomber.
pgl said in reply to ilsm...
By 1968, LBJ finally realized it was time to end that stupid war. But it seems certain members
in the State Department undermined his efforts in a cynical ploy to get Nixon to be President.
The Republican Party has had more slime than substance of most of my life time.
pgl said in reply to Peter K....
Gary Sernovitz, a managing director at the investment firm Lime Rock Partners? Why are we listening
to this guy too. It's like letting the fox guard the hen house.
"... If memory serves me correctly the last time CNBC did a millionaires poll Hillary won. She is not a populist, barely a liberal. Two political parties, zero candidates I can vote for. Yuck. ..."
"... Rubinite neo liberal. She is also popular with PNAC and the Kagan's neocon favorite she would hire Wolfowitz ... Management in big war profiteer firms is not afraid of Hillary as they suspect the Donald. ..."
"... Rubinite neoliberal is a very good definition of what Hillary actually represent politically. Third Way is another term close in meaning to your Rubinite neoliberal term. ..."
"... But unlike the Third Way term your term captures an additional important quality of Hillary as a politician: On foreign policy issues she is a typical neocon and would feel pretty comfortable with most of Republican candidates foreign policy platforms. Her protégé in the Department of State Victoria Nuland was a close associate of Dick Cheney. ..."
"... Very true. Brad has been moving left for a couple years or more. It's now obvious. He lets krugman lead the way but he follows. Notice Summers too has moved left . Is this for real or just to cut the wind out of Bernie sails ? ..."
"... One thing is certain: the old Rubinite toxic line is no longer dominant in the. big D party top circles. We can call that progress if we need to ..."
"... Is this for real or just to cut the wind out of Bernie sails ? Even if it's the second, it legitimates Bernie's views and critique. Also DeLong here is criticizing Brookings and other centrist organizations specifically for working with AEI. ..."
"... Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street reforms and actions Bill Clinton performed as President including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator? Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of Greenspan's record? ..."
"... I won't be surprised if she doesn't do much to rein in Wall Street besides some window dressing. ..."
If memory serves me correctly the last time CNBC did a "millionaires poll" Hillary won.
She is not a populist, barely a liberal. Two political parties, zero candidates I can vote
for. Yuck.
(Rubio was the top GOP choice, but Clinton still beat Rubio by a 21% margin.)
Syaloch -> EMichael...
Well, here are the issues millionaires indicated as being most important to them, and
presumably candidates of choice are based on their positions on these issues. Make of it what
you will.
Since she intends to be the Dem nominee, progressives expect she must be one of them. Only
when necessary. As someone has said, 'Run from
the left, rule from the center.' Always, always, run from the left.
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs...
Rubinite neo liberal.
She is also popular with PNAC and "the Kagan's" neocon favorite she would hire Wolfowitz and
spend more trillions protecting the Saudis from their rising victims.
Clinton has said: Iran is the enemy.
She will keep fighting Iran while Sunni terrorists fund ISIS!
Trump is merely less nuanced in insanity.
Management in big war profiteer firms is not afraid of Hillary as they suspect the Donald.
likbez -> ilsm...
"Rubinite neo liberal. She is also popular with PNAC
and "the Kagan's" neocon favorite she would hire
Wolfowitz ... Management in big war profiteer firms is
not afraid of Hillary as they suspect the Donald."
Exactly --
"Rubinite neoliberal" is a very good definition of
what Hillary actually represent politically. Third Way
is another term close in meaning to your "Rubinite
neoliberal" term.
But unlike the "Third Way" term your term captures
an additional important quality of Hillary as a
politician: On foreign policy issues she is a typical
neocon and would feel pretty comfortable with most of
Republican candidates foreign policy platforms. Her
protégé in the Department of State Victoria Nuland was
a close associate of Dick Cheney.
She is probably more warmongering candidate then
Jeb! and a couple of other republican candidates.
But at the same time she does not look like
completely out of place as an establishment candidate
from Dems, which are actually are "Democrats only by
name" -- a typical "Third Way" party. From Wikipedia
=== quote ===
In politics, the Third Way is a position akin to
centrism that tries to reconcile right-wing and
left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of
right-wing economic and left-wing social
policies.[1][2] The Third Way was created as a serious
re-evaluation of political policies within various
centre-left progressive movements in response to
international doubt regarding the economic viability of
the state; economic interventionist policies that had
previously been popularized by Keynesianism and
contrasted with the corresponding rise of popularity
for economic liberalism and the New Right.[3] The Third
Way is promoted by some social democratic and social
liberal movements.[4]
Major Third Way social democratic proponent Tony
Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was
different from traditional conceptions of socialism.
Blair said "My kind of socialism is a set of values
based around notions of social justice ... Socialism as
a rigid form of economic determinism has ended, and
rightly".[5] Blair referred to it as "social-ism" that
involves politics that recognized individuals as
socially interdependent, and advocated social justice,
social cohesion, equal worth of each citizen, and equal
opportunity.[6] Third Way social democratic theorist
Anthony Giddens has said that the Third Way rejects the
traditional conception of socialism, and instead
accepts the conception of socialism as conceived of by
Anthony Crosland as an ethical doctrine that views
social democratic governments as having achieved a
viable ethical socialism by removing the unjust
elements of capitalism by providing social welfare and
other policies, and that contemporary socialism has
outgrown the Marxian claim for the need of the
abolition of capitalism.[7] Blair in 2009 publicly
declared support for a "new capitalism".[8]
It supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in
society through action to increase the distribution of
skills, capacities, and productive endowments, while
rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve
this.[9] It emphasizes commitment to balanced budgets,
providing equal opportunity combined with an emphasis
on personal responsibility, decentralization of
government power to the lowest level possible,
encouragement of public-private partnerships, improving
labour supply, investment in human development,
protection of social capital, and protection of the
environment.[10] === end of quote ===
ilsm -> likbez...
H. Clinton is as likely to keep US out of the wrong quagmire as LBJ in 1964. Except, LBJ
may have actually changed his mind after he was elected.
Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs...
(Yes, There Will Be Triangulating. This is not a great example of it.)
Hillary Is Already Triangulating Against Liberals
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/11/hillary_clinton_triangulates_against_bernie_sanders.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top
via @slate - Nov 18
The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has begun using an odd new line of attack against
upstart Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders: He's too liberal on taxes and universal
health insurance. Why is she doing this? After returning to the position in which she entered
the race-as the near-certain nominee-she seems to be setting herself up for the general
election. But it's strange to see her now, after the previously shaky ship has been steadied,
attacking a candidate whose supporters she'll need in any general election campaign over an
issue that his supporters care about very deeply.
Triangulating against Sanders (and, by proxy, the left wing of the Democratic Party) with
conservative attacks does make some sense. For one, she is a Clinton, and this is what they
do.
At issue is Sanders' support for a single-payer universal health care system, which he and
others brand as "Medicare for all." A single-payer bill he introduced in 2013 would have
levied a 2.2 percent tax on individuals making up to $200,000 or couples making up to
$250,000, and progressively increased that rate to 5.2 percent for income beyond $600,000. It
also would have tacked an extra 6.7 percent payroll tax on the employer side, at least some of
which employers would likely pass on to workers.
The Clinton campaign is suddenly quite upset about that proposal and wants everyone to know.
She has committed to the same (policy-constricting) pledge that President Obama took in 2008
and 2012, ruling out tax increases on individuals making less than $200,000 per year or joint
filers making less than $250,000. This neatly positions her camp to say, by contrast, that the
bug-eyed socialist Bernie Sanders wants to take all of your money. ...
(Where HRC will get a lot of votes & contributions will be among those in the $250K & below
set, so no need to antagonize THEM. Not when she can
practically smell the nomination.)
Paine -> Peter K....
Very true. Brad has been moving left for a couple years or more. It's now obvious. He
lets krugman lead the way but he follows. Notice Summers too has moved left . Is this for real
or just to cut the wind out of Bernie sails ?
One thing is certain: the old
Rubinite toxic line is no longer dominant in the. big D party top circles. We can call
that progress if we need to
Peter K. -> Paine ...
"Is this for real or just to cut the wind out of Bernie sails ?" Even if it's the
second, it legitimates Bernie's views and critique. Also DeLong here is criticizing Brookings
and other "centrist" organizations specifically for working with AEI.
Syaloch -> Paine ...
Just as the revolution within the Republican party was the result of the undue influence of
an out-of-touch elite, the Democratic coalition has been threatened by the influence of the
Brookings-Third Way wing which seems, for example, to imagine that they can sell to the base
cuts to Social Security, an elite priority that has nothing to do with the reasons
working-class people vote Democrat.
"We supported and helped pass into law the Simpson-Bowles commission that came close to
securing the bipartisan grand bargain budget agreement for which we fought. We proposed our
own Social Security fix plan that combined tax increases on upper income earners with
benefit cuts on well-to-do seniors and benefit increases to poor seniors. We first proposed
then brought Democrats and Republicans together on a Social Security Commission plan that
remains the only bipartisan legislation to fix Social Security. We became the lead
center-left organization to promote chain weighted CPI and eventually counted President
Obama as one of our supporters."
"Yielding to pressure from congressional Democrats, President Obama is abandoning a
proposed cut to Social Security benefits in his election-year budget...
"Democrats on Capitol Hill had pleaded with Obama to reverse course on the chained consumer
price index (CPI), fearing it could become a liability for the party in the upcoming
midterm elections, which typically bring high turnout among older voters.
"More than 100 House Democrats wrote to Obama on Wednesday urging him to drop the chained
CPI proposal, following a similar letter from 16 Senate Democrats that was led by Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)."
RGC said...
Hillary Clinton Is Whitewashing the Financial Catastrophe
She has a plan that she claims will reform Wall Street-but
she's deflecting responsibility from old friends and
donors in the industry.
By William Greider
Yesterday 3:11 pm
Hillary Clinton's recent op-ed in The New York Times,
"How I'd Rein In Wall Street," was intended to reassure
nervous Democrats who fear she is still in thrall to those
mega-bankers of New York who crashed the American economy.
Clinton's brisk recital of plausible reform ideas might
convince wishful thinkers who are not familiar with the
complexities of banking. But informed skeptics, myself
included, see a disturbing message in her argument that
ought to alarm innocent supporters.
Candidate Clinton is essentially whitewashing the
financial catastrophe. She has produced a clumsy rewrite
of what caused the 2008 collapse, one that conveniently
leaves her husband out of the story. He was the president
who legislated the predicate for Wall Street's meltdown.
Hillary Clinton's redefinition of the reform problem
deflects the blame from Wall Street's most powerful
institutions, like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, and
instead fingers less celebrated players that failed. In
roundabout fashion, Hillary Clinton sounds like she is
assuring old friends and donors in the financial sector
that, if she becomes president, she will not come after
them.
The seminal event that sowed financial disaster was the
repeal of the New Deal's Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which
had separated banking into different realms: investment
banks, which organize capital investors for risk-taking
ventures; and deposit-holding banks, which serve people as
borrowers and lenders. That law's repeal, a great victory
for Wall Street, was delivered by Bill Clinton in 1999,
assisted by the Federal Reserve and the financial sector's
armies of lobbyists. The "universal banking model" was
saluted as a modernizing reform that liberated traditional
banks to participate directly and indirectly in
long-prohibited and vastly more profitable risk-taking.
Exotic financial instruments like derivatives and
credit-default swaps flourished, enabling old-line bankers
to share in the fun and profit on an awesome scale. The
banks invented "guarantees" against loss and sold them to
both companies and market players. The fast-expanding
financial sector claimed a larger and larger share of the
economy (and still does) at the expense of the real
economy of producers and consumers. The interconnectedness
across market sectors created the illusion of safety. When
illusions failed, these connected guarantees became the
dragnet that drove panic in every direction. Ultimately,
the federal government had to rescue everyone, foreign and
domestic, to stop the bleeding.
Yet Hillary Clinton asserts in her Times op-ed that
repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with it. She
claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the
reckless behavior of institutions like Lehman Brothers or
insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks. Her
argument amounts to facile evasion that ignores the
interconnected exposures. The Federal Reserve spent $180
billion bailing out AIG so AIG could pay back Goldman
Sachs and other banks. If the Fed hadn't acted and had
allowed AIG to fail, the banks would have gone down too.
These sound like esoteric questions of bank regulation
(and they are), but the consequences of pretending they do
not matter are enormous. The federal government and
Federal Reserve would remain on the hook for rescuing
losers in a future crisis. The largest and most
adventurous banks would remain free to experiment,
inventing fictitious guarantees and selling them to eager
suckers. If things go wrong, Uncle Sam cleans up the mess.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other reformers are
pushing a simpler remedy-restore the Glass-Steagall
principles and give citizens a safe, government-insured
place to store their money. "Banking should be boring,"
Warren explains (her co-sponsor is GOP Senator John
McCain).
That's a hard sell in politics, given the banking sector's
bear hug of Congress and the White House, its callous
manipulation of both political parties. Of course, it is
more complicated than that. But recreating a safe, stable
banking system-a place where ordinary people can keep
their money-ought to be the first benchmark for Democrats
who claim to be reformers.
Actually, the most compelling witnesses for Senator
Warren's argument are the two bankers who introduced this
adventure in "universal banking" back in the 1990s. They
used their political savvy and relentless muscle to seduce
Bill Clinton and his so-called New Democrats. John Reed
was CEO of Citicorp and led the charge. He has since
apologized to the nation. Sandy Weill was chairman of the
board and a brilliant financier who envisioned the
possibilities of a single, all-purpose financial house,
freed of government's narrow-minded regulations. They won
politically, but at staggering cost to the country.
Weill confessed error back in 2012: "What we should
probably do is go and split up investment banking from
banking. Have banks do something that's not going to risk
the taxpayer dollars, that's not going to be too big to
fail."
John Reed's confession explained explicitly why their
modernizing crusade failed for two fundamental business
reasons. "One was the belief that combining all types of
finance into one institution would drive costs down-and
the larger institution the more efficient it would be,"
Reed wrote in the Financial Times in November. Reed said,
"We now know that there are very few cost efficiencies
that come from the merger of functions-indeed, there may
be none at all. It is possible that combining so much in a
single bank makes services more expensive than if they
were instead offered by smaller, specialised players."
The second grave error, Reed said, was trying to mix
the two conflicting cultures in banking-bankers who are
pulling in opposite directions. That tension helps explain
the competitive greed displayed by the modernized banking
system. This disorder speaks to the current political
crisis in ways that neither Dems nor Republicans wish to
confront. It would require the politicians to critique the
bankers (often their funders) in terms of human failure.
"Mixing incompatible cultures is a problem all by
itself," Reed wrote. "It makes the entire finance industry
more fragile…. As is now clear, traditional banking
attracts one kind of talent, which is entirely different
from the kinds drawn towards investment banking and
trading. Traditional bankers tend to be extroverts,
sociable people who are focused on longer term
relationships. They are, in many important respects, risk
averse. Investment bankers and their traders are more
short termist. They are comfortable with, and many even
seek out, risk and are more focused on immediate reward."
Reed concludes, "As I have reflected about the years
since 1999, I think the lessons of Glass-Steagall and its
repeal suggest that the universal banking model is
inherently unstable and unworkable. No amount of
restructuring, management change or regulation is ever
likely to change that."
This might sound hopelessly naive, but the Democratic
Party might do better in politics if it told more of the
truth more often: what they tried do and why it failed,
and what they think they may have gotten wrong. People
already know they haven't gotten a straight story from
politicians. They might be favorably impressed by a little
more candor in the plain-spoken manner of John Reed.
Of course it's unfair to pick on the Dems. Republicans
have been lying about their big stuff for so long and so
relentlessly that their voters are now staging a wrathful
rebellion. Who knows, maybe a little honest talk might
lead to honest debate. Think about it. Do the people want
to hear the truth about our national condition? Could they
stand it?
"She claims that Glass-Steagall would not have limited the
reckless behavior of institutions like Lehman Brothers or
insurance giant AIG, which were not traditional banks."
Of course this claim is absolutely true. Just like GS
would not have affected the other investment banks,
whatever their name was. And just like we would have had
to bail out those other banks whatever their name was.
Peter K. -> EMichael...
Can you list all of the pro- or anti- Wall Street
"reforms" and actions Bill Clinton performed as President
including nominating Alan Greenspan as head regulator?
Cutting the capital gains tax? Are you aware of
Greenspan's record?
Yes Hillary isn't Bill but she hasn't criticized her
husband specifically about his record and seems to want to
have her cake and eat it too.
Of course Hillary is much better than the Republicans,
pace Rustbucket and the Green Lantern Lefty club. Still,
critics have a point.
I won't be surprised if she doesn't do much to rein in
Wall Street besides some window dressing.
"... Sanders says he is for "having a government which represents all people, rather than just the wealthiest people, which is most often the case right now in this country." But what that misses is the extent to which that has always been the case, and not by happenstance. ..."
"... Mortified by the threat to their wealth and power, the elite sought to reconfigure the government more to their liking, and to ensure that such an outburst of popular sentiment couldn't happen again. ..."
"... The main purpose of the new Constitution, then, was to preserve inequalities among individuals and the inequalities in the distribution of property among them. "Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society," Madison observes. Ever had it been, and ever under the Constitution would it be. The division of wealth and political power, between the haves and the have-nots, between (as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan has put it) the makers and the takers, was to be carefully maintained. For Madison, in Federalist No. 10, the question was how to do so while at least nominally "preserv[ing] the spirit and the form of popular government." ... ..."
Conventional political wisdom says that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, however popular in certain
corners, can't possibly win election to the White House. Too radical, goes the thinking. Inspiring,
common-sense ideas, perhaps, but come Election Day, a majority of American voters won't back the
redistribution of wealth implicit in his proposals. Why is that?
Believe it or not, one place to look for an answer is the Constitution, crafted by the richest
and most powerful Americans of their day to perpetuate their own control over the government and
economy.
Sanders says he is for "having a government which represents all people, rather than just the
wealthiest people, which is most often the case right now in this country." But what that misses
is the extent to which that has always been the case, and not by happenstance.
In late 1786, a farmer and veteran of the Revolution named Daniel Shays led an armed insurrection
of debtors and veterans in the hills of Western Massachusetts. Objecting to an onerous regime of
taxes and confiscations the state imposed to pay its creditors, the rebels marched through the countryside,
threatening the new federal arsenal at Springfield and shutting down courthouses to stop foreclosure
proceedings. Bankers and merchants in Boston - the same parties who owned the state's debt - lent
Massachusetts more money to put the insurrection down.
In October of that year, General Henry Knox, secretary of war, summarized the rebels' philosophy:
"Their creed is 'That the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscations
of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all. And
he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and justice, and ought to be swept
off the face of the earth.' "
Mortified by the threat to their wealth and power, the elite sought to reconfigure the government
more to their liking, and to ensure that such an outburst of popular sentiment couldn't happen again.
As schoolchildren learn - and adults often forget - the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was
only tasked with amending the Articles of Confederation, the document that had governed the breakaway
Colonies since 1781. The convention wasn't supposed to rewrite them entirely. The progressive historian
Charles Beard, whose influential "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" was the first work
to reveal the class-based nature of our founding charter, stated the matter plainly when he called
it a coup d'etat.
Contrary to what many assume, the Constitution was never subjected to a popular referendum, but
to the votes of state ratifying conventions that were themselves largely elected by only white propertied
males; indeed, only about 150,000 Americans elected delegates, out of a population of some 4 million.
With the goal of persuading New Yorkers to elect pro-Constitution delegates to the state's convention,
James Madison, with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, wrote a series of 85 essays under the pseudonym
Publius that were published in local papers between November 1787 and August 1788 under the title,
The Federalist. Madison's most famous contribution, Federalist No. 10, is widely acclaimed for its
idea that factions of citizens with disparate interests should be balanced against one another in
order to create a republic that would neither succumb to what John Adams called "tyranny of the majority"
nor lose its responsiveness to the people as it grew larger in stature and scale.
Yet despite the attention Federalist No. 10 has received from political scientists, it ought to
be much better known among all who favor a more equal distribution of wealth, because it explains
how our political system, often described as rigged, has in fact been rigged from the start.
"Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens," Madison writes
near the beginning of the essay, gesturing, as he does throughout The Federalist, to the fallout
from Shays' Rebellion, "that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded
in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the
rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and
overbearing majority."
That majority, it slowly becomes clear, are the debtors and small landowners, those more recently
designated the 99 percent. "The diversity in the faculties of men," Madison explains, leads to different
"rights of property," and this difference represents "an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of
interests" in the political community. "The protection of these faculties is the first object of
government," he adds.
The main purpose of the new Constitution, then, was to preserve inequalities among individuals
and the inequalities in the distribution of property among them. "Those who hold and those who are
without property have ever formed distinct interests in society," Madison observes. Ever had it been,
and ever under the Constitution would it be. The division of wealth and political power, between
the haves and the have-nots, between (as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan
has put it) the makers and the takers, was to be carefully maintained. For Madison, in Federalist
No. 10, the question was how to do so while at least nominally "preserv[ing] the spirit and the form
of popular government." ...
(Richard Kreitner is the archivist of the The Nation magazine.)
Some Republicans
are now worrying that Donald Trump could cost them the Senate
-- or even put their seemingly solid House majority in
danger.
Republicans have long known they were vulnerable in the
Senate in 2016. They currently hold a 54-46 majority, but far
more Republican seats are up in this cycle than Democratic
seats, and several of those are in tough states for
Republicans to hold (such as Wisconsin and Illinois). In the
House, Democrats stand to gain here and there because
Republicans won so many competitive seats in 2014, but few
analysts have considered the GOP's majority at risk.
If Trump actually wins the Republican nomination, the
question would be the scale of the disaster for the party.
The best-case possibility is that Trump tones things down
enough to be able to run as a mainstream conservative
Republican and the party can unite behind him. If that's the
case, the party would still likely do unusually badly with
the groups Trump has insulted so far, but the losses might be
contained. Trump might have little chance to win but he
wouldn't excessively drag down Republicans in races down the
ballot. Democrats would likely make modest gains in the House
and Senate.
Let's suppose, however, that Trump wins the nomination
while still proving unacceptable to many Republican elected
officials and other party actors. Then, yes, huge GOP losses
in Congress, state legislatures and other races are quite
plausible. If high-visibility Republicans denounce their own
nominee, plenty of GOP voters will wind up staying home in
November. Some might even cross party lines at the top of the
ballot and vote for Hillary Clinton, and won't cross back to
vote Republican for other contests. Republican candidates
will face a choice of pledging loyalty to a damaging nominee
or risk adding to the chaos in their party. ...
One potentially significant indirect effect, however, is
possible. Important decisions in House elections are being
made right now. Suppose disgust with the party or fear that
2016 will be a Republican debacle pushes some House
Republicans into retirement or hurts Republican recruitment
for quality candidates for seats that are open or currently
held by weak Democrats. The Trump factor could also be
affecting Democratic decisions today as well, possibly
encouraging better candidates to jump into congressional
races.
The upshot of all this is that Republican politicians and
all those who care about continuing Republican control of
Congress have strong incentives to ramp up their efforts to
defeat Trump. ...
'If high-visibility Republicans denounce their own
nominee, plenty of GOP voters will wind up staying home in
November.'
So why would he hand Hillary the job as prez by going
independent?
Faced with the rising clown shows of Donald Trump and
Ben Carson, the implosion of Jeb! Bush, and the fact that
everyone except his immediate family fates Ted Cruz, the
GOP establishment and the media tried very hard to give
Rubio a boost. The calculus makes sense: Rubio against
iether Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would make a nice
"young vs. old" storyline for the 2016 election while
giving the Republicans a chance to dump the image of the
party of old, racist white fogies, This despite glaring
evidence that Rubio's policy positions are so far to the
right, they might make Barry Goldwater nervous.
"... life simply because she was married to a President like he would like us to believe. If that was the case there would've been more first ladies running for office. She was a political animal from the start and was involved in every political decision her husband made and shaped his policies dating back to Arkansas. She came in as first lady and immediately announced she was not going to be like other first ladies. I think Hitchens is sort of being lazy with his analysis on how the Clintons attain power and how they've cultivated the path to their success in the political arena ..."
"... I'm sure Hitch would have some very colourful remarks to make about Mrs. Clinton's e-mail shenanigans were he still with us. ..."
"... The woman is remarkably despicable and I hate to have such a jaded view of the average American voter but I'm afraid she is going to get the Presidency based in large part because of the potential for the first female President. ..."
What he failed to realize is how is she reaching these platforms to try and reach the
highest office in the land. Did she get where she is in life simply because she was
married to a President like he would like us to believe. If that was the case there would've
been more first ladies running for office. She was a political animal from the start and was
involved in every political decision her husband made and shaped his policies dating back to
Arkansas. She came in as first lady and immediately announced she was not going to be like
other first ladies. I think Hitchens is sort of being lazy with his analysis on how the
Clintons attain power and how they've cultivated the path to their success in the political
arena
juicer67 2 months ago
I'm sure Hitch would have some very colourful remarks to make about Mrs. Clinton's
e-mail shenanigans were he still with us. He was irreplaceable.
michael davis 1 month ago
+juicer67 And a lot more to say about Benghazi as well. The woman is remarkably
despicable and I hate to have such a jaded view of the average American voter but I'm afraid
she is going to get the Presidency based in large part because of the potential for the first
female President. From my experience with chatting with people before the 2008 election,
many were voting for Obama in large part because he had a chance to be the first black
President - people were excited about that regardless of his stances. I'm afraid the same will
happen with Clinton and she likely knows it too. Its sad that people vote in that way.
"... But never mind us - how does she manage? When you and your husband have banked $125 million in speaking fees from the odious malefactors of wealth, and you insist that you feel the pain of the middle class. How do you maintain the deadpan after you've cashed $300,000 for a half-hour speech at a state university - which fee comes from student dues - and then declaim against crippling student loans? ..."
"... Small lies are often more revealing, especially when there was no need for them. Claiming, say, that you were named after Sir Edmund Hillary when you were born six years before he became a household name; or that you sought to enlist in the US Marines after years of protesting against the Vietnam War, graduating from Yale Law School and working on the campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern; or that you dodged sniper fire on the tarmac in Bosnia, when TV footage shows you strolling across it, smiling. ..."
"... There's the Iraq War vote flip-flop; the gay marriage flip-flop; the Keystone Pipeline flip-flop; the legalising marijuana flip-flop; and most recently, the Trans-Pacific Partnership flip-flop. ..."
"... 'The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut. Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more media-weighty notion that if you don't show her enough appreciation, and after all she's done for us, she may cry.' Christopher, thou shouldst be living at this hour. ..."
"... She is a self-obsessed, me me me first totally political greaseball. ..."
The presidential campaign here in the land hymned by one of its earliest immigrants as a
shining 'city on a hill' looks more and more likely to boil down to electing Donald Trump or
Hillary Clinton.
It is of course possible that the party of Lincoln and Reagan will not go completely off its meds
and nominate Mr Trump. It's possible, too, that the wretched FBI agents tasked with reading Mrs
Clinton's 55,000 private emails will experience a Howard Carter/King Tut's tomb moment and find
one instructing Sidney Blumenthal to offer Putin another 20 per cent of US uranium production in
return for another $2.5 million donation to the Clinton Foundation, plus another $500,000 speech
in Moscow. Absent such, Mrs Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. As we say here: deal with it.
Only last summer, her goose seemed all but cooked. Every day she offered another Hillary-ous
explanation for why as Secretary of State she required two Blackberries linked to unclassified
servers. Eventually this babbling brook of prevarication became so tedious that even her Marxist
challenger, Comrade Bernie Sanders of the Vermont Soviet, was moved to thump the debate podium
and proclaim: 'I'm sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!' (He has since backtracked,
declaring himself now deeply interested in her damn emails.)
... ... ...
But never mind us - how does she manage? When you and your husband have banked $125
million in speaking fees from the odious malefactors of wealth, and you insist that you feel the
pain of the middle class. How do you maintain the deadpan after you've cashed $300,000 for a
half-hour speech at a state university - which fee comes from student dues - and then declaim
against crippling student loans?
Small lies are often more revealing, especially when there was no need for them. Claiming,
say, that you were named after Sir Edmund Hillary when you were born six years before he became a
household name; or that you sought to enlist in the US Marines after years of protesting against
the Vietnam War, graduating from Yale Law School and working on the campaigns of Eugene McCarthy
and George McGovern; or that you dodged sniper fire on the tarmac in Bosnia, when TV footage
shows you strolling across it, smiling.
... ... ...
Changing one's position on an issue isn't the same as lying, but along with the 'Which lie did
I tell?' thought bubble permanently hovering over Mrs Clinton's head, one sees too the licked
finger held aloft. The American lingo for this is 'flip-flop,' as in the rubber sandal thingies
you wear on the beach before going inside to give a $200,000 speech to Goldman Sachs.
Mrs Clinton's flip-flop closet has reached Imelda Marcos levels. There's the Iraq War vote
flip-flop; the gay marriage flip-flop; the Keystone Pipeline flip-flop; the legalising marijuana
flip-flop; and most recently, the Trans-Pacific Partnership flip-flop.
And yet, as you work your way down this bill of attainder you feel like an old village scold.
Another member of the 'vast right-wing conspiracy'. A tiresome ancient mariner, banging on at the
wedding.
There's nothing new there. It's all been gone into, again and again. This election isn't about
the past. It's about the future.
And before you know it, you too, like Comrade Bernie - the prior version, anyway - are sick and
tired of hearing yourself whinge. Because it has all been gone into before. It's all 'damn' stuff
now. Mrs and Mr Clinton have been with us since 1992, our political lares et penates - and after
all this time, less than half the electorate think she's honest.
During one of the 2008 Democratic debates, the moderator asked her about the, er, 'likeability
factor'. It was a cringey moment. One's heart (I say this sincerely) went out to the lady. The
shellac deadpan mask melted. She smiled bravely, tears forming, and answered demurely with a
hurt, girlish smile and said: 'Well, that hurts my feelings.'
Whereupon candidate Obama interjected, with the hauteur and sneer of cold command that we've come
to know so well: 'You're likable enough, Hillary.'
The nervous laughter in the auditorium quickly curdled into chill disdain. How could he! But,
lest we slip into sentimentality, let me quote Christopher Hitchens on this anniversary of his
death, who in 2008 wrote: 'The case against Hillary Clinton for president is open-and-shut.
Of course, against all these considerations you might prefer the newly fashionable and more
media-weighty notion that if you don't show her enough appreciation, and after all she's done for
us, she may cry.' Christopher, thou shouldst be living at this hour.
When the latest version of Hillary was rolled out like a new product by her campaign apparatus,
she was rebranded as a doting granny. What's more 'likeable' than a granny? Unfortunately for
her, the meme didn't stick. But then it's hard to look like a cooing old sweetie when you're
swatting away snarling congressmen on Benghazi and explaining that you're suddenly against a
trade treaty you promoted for years. None of this does much for the likeability or honesty
factor.
Mrs Clinton has her champions to be sure, but it's been a long slog for them, too, with an awful
lot of heavy lifting. When her choir cranks up to sing her praise, one detects the note of
obbligato, not genuine ardour.
If it does come down next November to Trump vs Clinton we will - all of us - be presented with a
choice even the great Hobson could not have imagined. And those of us who would sooner leap into
an active, bubbling volcano than vote for Mr Trump will have to try to convince ourselves that
really, she's not that bad. Is she?
... ... ...
Christopher Buckley is an American novelist, essayist and critic, and a former speechwriter
to George H.W. Bush.
Jack Rocks • 19 minutes ago
What a coincidence. I was just watching Christopher Hitchens talk about Hilary Clinton
(no, he's not been resurrected, these are clips from a while ago).
sidor
Someone once placed Cherie Blair in between lady Macbeth and madam Clinton. I wonder if in
this linearly ordered sequence Cherie was meant to be a nicer person than Hillary?
George > Toy Pupanbai
Considering Trump is the only candidate who has signaled any sort of desire to depart from
the accelerating march toward globalist corporate totalitarianism, the vote is between Trump
and Everyone Else.
Terry Field
She is a self-obsessed, me me me first totally political greaseball. Trump is
uncouth, loud, but lacks smoothness as he TELLS IT AS IT BLUDDEE WELL IS. There IS a massive
local Muslim worry and that is evidenced by the gore that ran through the transport system of
London courtesy of home grown muslim (NOT islamist) killlers.
He SHOULD get the GOP nomination, since the rest are gutless and dissembling.
He could well win against that dreadful woman. Clinton supported Morsi in Egypt. Blood on
her hands.
James Morgan
Ah yes. Christopher Hitchens. I do miss that man.
Randal > James Morgan
Yes, because yet another ageing neocon warmonger and "former communist" idiot is just what
we are missing around here these days.
freddiethegreat
Just as Goofy would have been better than Obama, even Lady Macbeth would be better than
Hilary
"... Clinton is also increasingly seen as the least honest in the field, with 46% of likely Democratic primary voters now saying she is least honest out of the three remaining candidates. ..."
Clinton is also increasingly seen as the least honest in the
field, with 46% of likely Democratic primary voters now
saying she is least honest out of the three remaining candidates.
That's up from 33% in September and 28% back in June.
As for the rest of the field, it is beginning to look somewhat grim:
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson continues to lose ground with 14 percent
of the Republican vote. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who still must be
considered an up and comer, is at 12 percent. All other candidates
currently have the support of less than 5 percent of the Republican
electorate, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
And in other news, Trump is favored to beat Clinton for the presidency via the Electoral College.
Clinton still has the popular votes, but as Gore found out, popular vote doesn't mean a thing
in US presidential elections.
I still don't think there is the slightest chance Trump is going to be President – he's just too
much of a loose cannon and too uncoupled from the political inside track. My money is still on
Rubio. I'm not surprised that Trump could beat Hillary, though. Even if she were not a warhag
nutjob, Barack Obama has poisoned the well for the Democrats for this election, and quite possibly
the next as well depending on how the Republicans play their first term.
"... No candidate, including Sanders, is going to confess that endless U.S. interventionism in the middle east serves the Lobby's objective of keeping Israel's enemies divided and destabilized. ..."
"... Of course, the fact that a nominated Sanders would not only drag the national dialog left, but almost certainly win the Presidency, is strong motivation for the corporate world to intervene vigorously in all the different ways it can. A Sanders candidacy frightens them far more than narcissistic neoliberal Trump who would have little to no chance of winning against a hyena and only slightly better prospects of winning against HIllary. A Sanders' nomination might even frighten them more than winning the Presidency itself, since the nomination would have the effect of opening the flood gates to actual alternatives to the status quo. Once opened, those would be very hard to close. ..."
"... Now where there may still be a choice is in the American colonies. How long could Washington's endless wars last without the support of the Quisling leadership of its allies? I'm talking about a leader saying: "you stop attacking other countries or we impose a trade embargo." Maybe that's unrealistic but any moral leader of a western country would make this stand. Too bad we only vote in psychopaths. But, unlike America where it is too late, other countries still have the possibility of electing anti-war leaders – like the UK Labour Party. ..."
"... My one cynical add is that just because the 'law' says the president can do this or that, doesn't mean Bernie will be able to. Most of the democratic party will be against him. And an immediate impeachment process could very easily happen against him. No, he doesn't have to die in a plane crash, or be (JKF was not )assassinated by the CIA …the powers that run this country could just impeach him. ..."
"... Still, I really want him to win. My hate is pure for the neo liberal democrats. My compromise ideologically is easy for me to stomach. Go Bernie. Meanwhile, lets organize for a better world, outside of the corrupt political machine. ..."
"... Speeches, schmeeches. Words are wind. Look at the record. Hillary Clinton is a monster. The issue is not Bernie vs. Hillary. The issue is how could any sane American even consider voting for Hillary Clinton, against any candidate, even Trump (yes really). ..."
"... Just because Sanders has pledged to support the Democratic candidate in the general election doesn't mean that his supporters are obligated to do so. If Sanders is not the Democratic nominee, I will very likely vote Third Party, as I did in 2012. And you can do the same. ..."
"... I don't think his pledge to support the nominee undermines his candidacy at all. First, it's pro forma and carries no force. Besides, it was also absolutely required to even join the contest at a high level. If he wanted to have any impact on this election cycle, he had very literally no choice about it. To think otherwise seems more than a little naive, which seems to be an ongoing problem generally with the American left. ..."
"... Sanders is *almost* everything one could realistically ever hope for in a legacy party candidate with a real shot, and yet a significant portion of the left inevitably goes straight into the back corner of the drawer looking for reasons not to support him–or even to go further and declare him unfit. Worse yet, those saying this stuff offer no viable plans or alternatives at all. It's really astonishing to me and perhaps explains why the left is ever so easy to marginalize and push around. ..."
"... Bernie Sanders was the first senator to announce that he would boycott Netanyahu's speech in Congress, and he is the only senator who does not take any money from the pro-Israel lobby. He was one of a small majority in the Senate who did not sign the resolution last summer to approve of Israel's bombing of Gaza - and he didn't vote for it (there was no vote) or otherwise agree to it. The "unanimous consent" thing that Chris Hedges jumps up and down about and others parrot as "proof" that Sanders is pro-Israel is a procedural rule in the Senate, and there was no way to "object" to it, other than not signing the resolution in the first place. That's what he did, even though more than three-fourths of this colleagues signed on. And he has criticized Israel. You'd just never know it by reading Hedges and the CounterPunch crowd. ..."
"... To be fair, there's the sheepdog scenario (again, a terrible metaphor, put about by the Greens, which implies conscious collusion by Sanders, for which there's very little evidence). If that comes true, is that so bad? No, because we're not any worse off than we were before, and see #4 and #5 above. ..."
"... I just don't see how Sanders running is anything other than a net positive. The left really does need to figure out how to take yes for an answer. ..."
"... It seems to me like the major sovereignty-violating actions of the US Gov't happen with the approval of the executive branch. The military and intelligence services generally don't speak out or publicly act against the president's policies. They do leak a bunch of shit everywhere (the mysterious "high-ranking anonymous Obama official" who seems to pop up whenever the president's policies need to be opposed), but that you can live with. It is a real problem, one that makes me nervous. We know exactly where corporations go when their iron grip on democracy loosens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot ..."
I mentioned near the end of a piece called "Blowback,
Money & the Washington War Party" that I would compare Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton with
respect to its main subject, America and its wars. For context, I'd like to repeat the start of that
piece:
Whatever your answer might be, or mine, I think Stockman's answer is Yes, and he details
that answer in an excellent looking-back and looking-forward essay about the U.S. and its Middle
East "involvement." I have excerpted several sections below, but the whole is worth a full top-to-bottom
read.
Before we turn to Stockman's points, though, I just want to highlight two semi-hidden ideas
in his essay. One is about money. What Stockman calls the "War Party" in Washington is really
the bipartisan Money Party, since the largest-by-far pile of cash looted from the federal budget
(in other words, from taxpayers) goes to fund our military and its suppliers and enablers. Which
means that most of it is stolen and diverted in some way. Which means that those who do the stealing
have a lot of "skin in the game" - the game that keeps the money flowing in the first place.
Recall that what's now called the Money Party was what
Gore Vidal called the "Property Party":
"There is only one party in the United States,
the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat."
Which means the Washington War Party is a bipartisan gig. Thus our bipartisan wars, which for
Stockman answers the first part of the imputed question above. Yes, America does have the wars
it seeks. …
It concludes with this:
How Will This End?
It's easy to see that this ends in either of two ways. It will end when we stop sending money
and arms into the region - i.e., when we impoverish our wealth-drunk arms industry and starve
the fighting - or it will not end.
Which means, it will lead to continuous tears, American ones. And when, again, you factor in
the continuing spiral toward chaos guaranteed by continuing global warming, we may look back and
say, "Paris was our generation's Sarajevo." It's hard to stop a war when only a nation's people
don't want it. It's almost impossible to stop a war when the people unite with the wealthy to
promote it.
Which brings me to Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, war, and speeches each gave recently. But
that's for later. …
Later is now. I'm providing this context because I don't want to leave the impression this piece
is about Sanders and Clinton. It's not. This piece is about us, our future, and that of our children
… the future of all of us, in other words, who may choose to live in Washington's endless war-profiteering
environment - until that war comes home with a vengeance.
Do we have I choice? I believe we do, for now. I don't think that choice will persist, will be
available forever.
Sanders, Clinton & America's Endless War
In a piece by Tom Cahill in
usuncut.com, which starts with a report of Bernie Sanders' "socialism" speech, we find this near
the middle, a comparison of the foreign policy statements in Sanders' speech with a speech given
at nearly the same time by Hillary Clinton.
First, about Sanders, Cahill writes:
Sanders Acknowledges Error of CIA-Sponsored Coups
Sanders' [socialism] speech also surprised many viewers with exhaustive foreign policy proposals
aimed at reaching peace in the Middle East, while letting Muslim countries lead the fight against
ISIS. the Vermont senator cautioned against using the military to force regime change, citing
past CIA-sponsored coups in Latin America and the Middle East as examples of forced regime change
gone wrong.
"Our response must begin with an understanding of past mistakes and missteps in our previous
approaches to foreign policy," Sanders said. "It begins with the reflection that the failed policy
decisions of the past – rushing to war, regime change in Iraq, or toppling Mossadegh in Iran in
1953, or Guatemalan President Árbenz in 1954, Brazilian President Goulart in 1964, Chilean President
Allende in 1973. These are the sorts of policies do not work, do not make us safer, and must not
be repeated."
To defeat ISIS, Sanders urged the US to form a new NATO-like coalition with Russia and enemies
of ISIS in the Middle East, and force Muslim countries to lead the fight with support from the
West. …
"Saudi Arabia has the 3rd largest defense budget in the world, yet instead of fighting ISIS
they have focused more on a campaign to oust Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen," Sanders said.
"Kuwait, a country whose ruling family was restored to power by U.S. troops after the first Gulf
War, has been a well-known source of financing for ISIS and other violent extremists. It has been
reported that Qatar will spend $200 billion on the 2022 World Cup, including the construction
of an enormous number of facilities to host that event – $200 billion on hosting a soccer event,
yet very little to fight against ISIS."
"All of this has got to change. Wealthy and powerful Muslim nations in the region can no longer
sit on the sidelines and expect the United States to do their work for them," Sanders continued.
Not perfect if you're strongly pro-peace, but this would nonetheless represent a major
shift in both policy and spending, if implemented - something that can be done, I remind you, by
our commander-in-chief, acting alone. It may take Congress, or the illusion of congressional approval,
to make war. It doesn't require a single Republican (or war-making Democratic) vote to make peace.
Now about Clinton, from the same piece (my emphasis):
Hillary Clinton: U.S. Should Lead War on ISIS
Sanders' Georgetown address was a stark contrast to Hillary Clinton's speech at the Council
of Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York[.]
The former Secretary of State outlined her proposal to fight ISIS, which primarily consisted
of the US military taking and maintaining a leading role for an undetermined period of time.
"It is time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be
caliphate and deny ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria," Clinton said early in the speech.
"That starts with a more effective coalition air campaign, with more allied planes, more strikes,
and a broader target set."
"The Iraqi national army has struggled. It is going to take more work to get it up to fighting
shape," Clinton continued. "As part of that process, we may have to give our own troops advising
and training the Iraqis greater freedom of movement and flexibility, including embedding in local
units and helping target airstrikes."
Clinton's entire speech (about 30 minutes)
is above.
Endless War or a Move Toward Peace - Last Chance to Decide?
I'm not suggesting to you what to want. If you really want to enrich billionaire arms manufacturers
and their enablers in and out of office, that's up to you. If you want to give a well-organized foreign
fighting force yet more reason to encourage the same acts in the U.S. as their local sympathizers
perform in Europe, that's also up to you. If you want to remove American fingerprints - and national
entanglement - from foreign feuds, that's also your choice as well.
I merely want to point out that for once, there is a choice, and you can make that choice by choosing
between these two candidates, just as you can choose, using these two candidates, whether to aggressively
reign in
carbon use or continue to serve the wealthy who serve up
global warming.
Withdraw from foreign wars, or expand into them? Sanders or Clinton? The day is coming soon when
this will have mattered, and not just on late-night comedy shows. It's entirely likely that within
the term of the next president, our foreign policy chickens will come home to roost.
Me, I'd prefer those chickens not be armed.
(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. If you'd like to help him,
click here. This page also lists every progressive incumbent and candidate who has endorsed him.
You can adjust the split in any way you wish.)
Jim Haygood, December 5, 2015 at 2:59 pm
'Sanders urged the US to form a new NATO-like coalition with Russia and enemies of ISIS in the
Middle East, and force Muslim countries to lead the fight with support from the West.'
*yawn* Same old, same old yankee interventionism.
The sole reason for supporting Sanders is not for his tired old interventionist shtick, but to
deprive the Sheldon Adelson Republiclown Party of across-the-board control of Kongress and the
presidency (a disturbingly likely prospect).
No candidate, including Sanders, is going to confess that endless U.S. interventionism in the
middle east serves the Lobby's objective of keeping Israel's enemies divided and destabilized.
susan the other, December 5, 2015 at 3:51 pm
When, why, and how did the brand of globalism we have now (supra national corporatism) become
an article of faith for the global economy? Why can't we have a different form of globalism, not
one based on profiteering which is just war in a different uniform, a suit and tie? The
environment could unite us, Naomi Klein style. Equality could too because a global effort against
inequality would eventually have to end the looting and aggression of international corporatism
and feudalism. Isn't it an irony that all the great corporations and capitalist geniuses
pretending to manage the world can't fix the mess they made without taxpayers?
And consumers? If citizens in every country stopped buying things we'd win the planet back in
a month. The only thing we need besides dedication is local survival safety nets.
Brooklin Bridge, December 5, 2015 at 11:28 am
Agreed. It's one thing to observe -factually- that Sanders' momentum has halted, by some mix
of his own devices and those of an antithetical MSM and a traitorous corporate centric DNC, it's
another thing not to at least try to get him nominated. If that were to happen, no matter how
unlikely, the national discussion would virtually have to deal with Sander's platform and it is
hard to even imagine just how healthy that would be.
Of course, the fact that a nominated Sanders would not only drag the national dialog left,
but almost certainly win the Presidency, is strong motivation for the corporate world to
intervene vigorously in all the different ways it can. A Sanders candidacy frightens them far
more than narcissistic neoliberal Trump who would have little to no chance of winning against a
hyena and only slightly better prospects of winning against HIllary. A Sanders' nomination might
even frighten them more than winning the Presidency itself, since the nomination would have the
effect of opening the flood gates to actual alternatives to the status quo. Once opened, those
would be very hard to close.
Lambert Strether, December 5, 2015 at 11:00 pm
FWIW, I think Sanders numbers have plateaued for a very simple reason: He's not reaching
enough voters. We'll see how that goes when we are nearer the caucuses, and after the Sanders
campaign has made more attempts to peel away from some of Clinton's constituencies (which it's
trying hard to do).
Again, my litmus test is this: Sanders has said it will take a movement to get his platform
accomplished. So where is it? A movement implies staff, branding, events, etc. And professionals
know how it's done; Dean 2004 and Obama 2008. So where is it?
Carla, December 5, 2015 at 1:30 pm
The Democrat Party will not nominate Bernie Sanders. Period. Not gonna happen so quit holding
your breath.
In my state, we declare party membership by requesting a ballot of our chosen party in the
primary. Obama cured me of ever - EVER - asking for a Democrat ballot again. I'm Green and clean
for life - thanks, Barry!
Vatch, December 5, 2015 at 4:14 pm
If the Green party has a primary in your state, I understand why you wouldn't want to vote in
the Democratic primary. But the Greens don't have primaries, so you're missing a chance to to
have a very small influence over the choice of the Democratic candidate (or the Republican
candidate). If enough leftists decide that it's not possible for the Democrats to choose Sanders,
it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
In 2008 I voted for Obama (a mistake, of course, but a vote for McCain would also have been a
mistake). In 2012, I changed my ways, first by voting in the Republican primary, mostly so I
could have a say in the nomination of candidates for some lesser offices. I voted for Huntsman in
the primary, because he wasn't a total lunatic like Santorum. In the general election I voted for
Green candidate Stein. In 2016, I will vote in the Democratic primary, and then I'll wait to see
who's been nominated by the various parties.
Lambert Strether, December 5, 2015 at 11:00 pm
Then if Sanders is strong enough, the party will split. That's a good thing.
Lambert Strether, December 5, 2015 at 11:07 pm
Sanders:
To defeat ISIS, Sanders urged the US to form a new NATO-like coalition with Russia and enemies
of ISIS in the Middle East, and force Muslim countries to lead the fight with support from the
West. …
If one accepts America's imperial role, that's a reasonable play. (If one imagines that our
ruling class is long conflict investment, then all that matters is conflict, period; there's no
policy reason for the conflict needed, except as window dressing.)
Of course, I don't accept that. Clinton v. Sanders reminds me of Freud's comment about
psychotherapy turning hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness. But even so, there's a lot of
unhappiness to go around, and on a global, grandiose scale.
BEWARE: I may have to start moderating for outright endorsements. (Readers will note neither Yves
nor I have endorsed anybody). I've seen blogs torn apart by battles over candidates, and I don't
want that to happen to Naked Capitalism.
EoinW, December 5, 2015 at 8:32 am
Given the Obama experience, I'm not so sure there is a true choice. More like the illusion of
a choice. heck even if Rand Paul became President I'd expect him to go against his promises, as
Obama did and Sanders will do.
Now where there may still be a choice is in the American colonies. How long could
Washington's endless wars last without the support of the Quisling leadership of its allies? I'm
talking about a leader saying: "you stop attacking other countries or we impose a trade embargo."
Maybe that's unrealistic but any moral leader of a western country would make this stand. Too bad
we only vote in psychopaths. But, unlike America where it is too late, other countries still have
the possibility of electing anti-war leaders – like the UK Labour Party.
This in my opinion is the last chance to stop Washington democratically. An aggressive
anti-American stance which creates costs that even the War Party can't sustain. After all, those
who have started these wars going back to Yugoslavia have paid zero cost. Even in 2008 I thought
that Obama's election would be a blow for peace chances. Bush and the Republicans were making it
difficult for other leaders to obediently follow the Empire. Eight years of McCain might have
succeeded in finally isolating Washington. Instead we got Obama and the illusion of change. That
gave our Quislings the politcal cover to run back to the Empire. it's been full steam ahead ever
since then.
tommy strange, December 5, 2015 at 9:11 am
Well written thoughtful piece. I do hope Bernie gets through the fixed primary, cuz he can win
the general easily, especially since the economy is going to tank even deeper by then. I do know
that the only real change can happen through a bottom up libertarian mass force (anarchist,
democratic con federalist, etc), but we are NOT doing that now, and I am aghast we are not even
organizing for 'it'…and so…. Clinton has the record of a completely right wing arrogant fool that
would still even bomb Iran. Just imagine that one obvious possibility and what that would cause.
My one cynical add is that just because the 'law' says the president can do this or that,
doesn't mean Bernie will be able to. Most of the democratic party will be against him. And an
immediate impeachment process could very easily happen against him. No, he doesn't have to die in
a plane crash, or be (JKF was not )assassinated by the CIA …the powers that run this country
could just impeach him.
Still, I really want him to win. My hate is pure for the neo liberal democrats. My
compromise ideologically is easy for me to stomach. Go Bernie. Meanwhile, lets organize for a
better world, outside of the corrupt political machine.
JTMcPhee, December 5, 2015 at 10:11 am
The body– all the organs, fluids, nerves, hormones, etc. - of a person when some of whose
cells have turned on the whole, gone destructively rogue and metastatic - well, even as those
cells link and proliferate and multiply and trick the dying carcass into growing ever more and
larger conduits to deliver blood to the tumors, the "person" searches for treatments and
maintains hope and a grim determination and positive mental attitude, hoping for a cure that will
restore homeostasis and return the tissues to their proper function. Bear in mind that cancers
are cells that have shucked off the restraints on and regulation of growth, in favor of SIMPLY
MORE, unconcerned about the death of the body that feeds them. And those cells usually have
figured out how to hide from the body's regulatory processes. In the Actual World Battlespace,
aircraft and "units" carry devices that let them (nominally) Interrogate Friend or Foe, so they
won't or are at least less likely to be killed by "friendly fire." Somatic cells get identified a
similar way, and the immune system cuts the psychopathic cells out and recycles them. "The
Military" of course employs the same spoofing and fraud tricks that cancer cells use, in addition
to the ever-growing diversion of life resources into tumor growth, so the immune system is
suckered into thinking they are benign. The related disease processes, corporatization and
financialization, have pulled the same trick. (Cancerous livers and pancreases and pituitaries
keep sort of functioning, putting out hormones and converting nutrients and filtering and stuff,
until they don't, or they die with the rest of the body as some other essential-to-life function
fails and stops.)
There's what, maybe half a million "Troops" invested in the Imperial Project overseas and at
home. Their expertise is in killing, destabilization, raising up Sepoy armies and "national
police forces," on the idiotic assumption that the latter two will be under the orders of the
High Command. Even if these sh_ts did not just "bowstring" a Bernie Sanders, a hugely brave man
imo, if "we," whoever that is, speaking of agency, somehow arrange to "disengage" and demobilize,
these creatures that exist at all levels of the chain of command will then do what? Get good
paying jobs back home, become good citizens? Or go join up with the Eric Princes and other
private mercenary or "national" armies, to keep a paycheck and benefits and keep doing what so
many of the get off on? Let alone the other tumors like the rest of the Imperial and other-nation
state security types? And of course the Elites that rule us and happily will kill us because
"Apres nous le deluge…"
Yah, "We" as agents have to try, to "reform" the aberrant cells. But looking at the patient's
chart, the electrolytes are way out of whack, cachexia is well advanced, and the tumors are
pressing on and colonizing the vital organs… I personally don't think "we" can do better, but who
knows?
TG, December 5, 2015 at 10:30 am
Speeches, schmeeches. Words are wind. Look at the record. Hillary Clinton is a monster.
The issue is not Bernie vs. Hillary. The issue is how could any sane American even consider
voting for Hillary Clinton, against any candidate, even Trump (yes really).
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton made America de-facto allies of extremist groups including
Al Qaeda. You know, the guys that blew up the trade center towers on 9/11? Yes really. No it's
not in her speeches – she just actually did it. And here was Libya, and it's leader wasn't a
saint, but he mostly did good for his people – highest standard of living in Africa! – and he'd
made nice with US the last few years, and helped against terrorism etc. And Hillary allied with
extremist jihadist nut jobs and trashed the place, and now it's like something out of a Mad Max
movie and the average Libyan sorely misses Gaddafi, and ISIS is spreading, and refugees are
spilling out all over and there is no end in sight etc.
Somehow we have to get past the notion that anyone treated as 'serious' by the New York Times is
actually serious, and look at their record. Press releases are not reality. Trump may be an
arrogant loudmouth, and Bernie not a saint, etc., but Hillary should be beyond the pale.
roadrider, December 5, 2015 at 10:56 am
Yeah, Sanders sounds more reasonable but he's still endorsing the "War on Terrah!" and making
it sound like we're engaged in some kind of noble effort but being undermined by our so-called
allies. The part about being undermined is true but his overall stance ignores the elephant in
the room – not only did our our military/covert paramilitary misadventures lead to the emergence
of Al-Qaeda an ISIS but our continued association with the repressive, oligarchic petro-states in
the Gulf fuel the growth of Islamic extremism and sectarian violence in that region. Sanders
recognizes part of that problem but his prescription is far from a cure.
This post encourages support for Sanders but count me out. I get that Sanders is better than
Clinton on many issues but I can't support him in the primary because 1) I'm no longer a Democrat
and can't vote in the primary even if I were so inclined (and no, I'm not going to re-register as
a Democrat just to do that) and 2) Sanders has already endorsed Clinton (he'll support her if she
wins the primary) so how seriously should we take their policy differences?
Carla, December 5, 2015 at 1:55 pm
I agree. The fact that Sanders has pledged to support Clinton fatally undermines his
candidacy. Here in Ohio, arguably the most "progressive" member of the U.S. Senate, Sherrod
Brown, endorsed Clinton several weeks ago.
I'm telling ya, the Democrats will never allow a Sanders win. Votes don't matter.
Lambert Strether, December 5, 2015 at 11:23 pm
Again, there's no way to win running as a Democrat without pledging to support the Democratic
candidate. There just isn't. (And nobody said the support couldn't turn out to be nothing more
than a ritual pledge, right?)
And what's the better option? Creating a third party is not on*, and the Greens have their own
candidate (and the Greens have also been ill-treated by star candidates parachuting in; if I were
a Green, I don't think I'd support Sanders).
So IMNSHO the whole "ZOMG!!!! He pledged to support Clinton!!!!" is a test of ritual purity,
nothing more. It has no relevance to electoral politics at all.
The more important issue is whether Sanders is building up a parallel structure to the Democrats.
The small donations says yes. A real movement (my litmus test) would shout yes.
That would bypass the whole endorse/not endorse discussion, and totally f2ck the Democrats, too,
a consummation devoutly to be wished.
* Start with ballot access.
Vatch, December 5, 2015 at 7:40 pm
Sanders has already endorsed Clinton (he'll support her if she wins the primary)
Bernie Sanders has been in the Congress for more than 2 decades as an Independent. This year,
he suddenly starts campaigning in the Democratic primaries for the Presidency. Some Democrats,
especially life long Democrats, view this with suspicion. "What's this carpet bagger doing in our
primaries?", they think. To alleviate their fears of an outsider poaching on their territory, he
pledges to support the ultimate Democratic candidate for President. This allows undecided
Democratic primary voters to feel a little more comfortable about voting for Sanders. If he
manages to win the nomination, the Clinton supporters will be more likely to vote for him in the
general election.
Just because Sanders has pledged to support the Democratic candidate in the general election
doesn't mean that his supporters are obligated to do so. If Sanders is not the Democratic
nominee, I will very likely vote Third Party, as I did in 2012. And you can do the same.
Kurt Sperry, December 5, 2015 at 9:08 pm
I don't think his pledge to support the nominee undermines his candidacy at all. First,
it's pro forma and carries no force. Besides, it was also absolutely required to even join the
contest at a high level. If he wanted to have any impact on this election cycle, he had very
literally no choice about it. To think otherwise seems more than a little naive, which seems to
be an ongoing problem generally with the American left.
Sanders is *almost* everything one could realistically ever hope for in a legacy party
candidate with a real shot, and yet a significant portion of the left inevitably goes straight
into the back corner of the drawer looking for reasons not to support him–or even to go further
and declare him unfit. Worse yet, those saying this stuff offer no viable plans or alternatives
at all. It's really astonishing to me and perhaps explains why the left is ever so easy to
marginalize and push around.
TedWa, December 5, 2015 at 12:14 pm
Since Bernie has voted against pretty much all our involvement in the ME, I wonder if what
he's saying is that if the ME doesn't care enough to get rid of ISIL, then why should we? For
those doubting his character, please do read up on him more. He's not there for show, he gets
things done and does it for the people. What more could you ask for than a candidate that refuses
to take Wall St money and dark money fomr Super-Pacs? I mean, really – what more could you ask?
If he wins out goes citizens united. The TBTF banks will be broken up. SS will be solid for a 100
years and the things that matter to the people the most – will be his goal. He's no phony and
he's no psychopath like the past 2 Presidents or his adversary in this run up. I see no guile in
the man. When he says he's going to do something he gets it done. No one in Congress has been
able to cross party lines and get things done for "we the people" like Bernie Sanders. Look up
his record.
I support Bernie on a monthly basis and will continue to do so. I voted Jill Stein last time and
while that was a vote with a clear conscience, I knew there was no chance. Here we the people
have a chance. Come on now, NO SUPER-PAC MONEY OR MONEY FROM WALL ST !! What does that say? Is he
for you or against you? I'd say it screams that he is on our side. Jill Stein? Great. But there's
no way she can win. The media and TPTB won't cover her and won't let her debate. I can vote for
Bernie with a clear conscience because I took the time to see what the man is about.
3.14e-9, December 5, 2015 at 6:37 pm
Bernie Sanders was the first senator to announce that he would boycott Netanyahu's speech
in Congress, and he is the only senator who does not take any money from the pro-Israel lobby. He
was one of a small majority in the Senate who did not sign the resolution last summer to approve
of Israel's bombing of Gaza - and he didn't vote for it (there was no vote) or otherwise agree to
it. The "unanimous consent" thing that Chris Hedges jumps up and down about and others parrot as
"proof" that Sanders is pro-Israel is a procedural rule in the Senate, and there was no way to
"object" to it, other than not signing the resolution in the first place. That's what he did,
even though more than three-fourths of this colleagues signed on. And he has criticized Israel.
You'd just never know it by reading Hedges and the CounterPunch crowd.
As for endorsing Hillary, that remains to be seen. He said that in the beginning when he and
everyone else thought maybe he'd get a few votes from the fringe. Circumstances have changed
dramatically, and he's got millions of supporters who have said they will not vote for Clinton,
period. So we'll see whether he sticks with the party - which, goddess knows, has done everything
in its power to block him and to which he owes nothing - or whether he'll find another
alternative.
Lambert Strether, December 5, 2015 at 11:39 pm
Of course Obama and the Democrats have consistently betrayed their voters. Heck, go back to
Pelosi in 2006 taking impeachment off the table, or the Democrats in 2000 rolling over when Bush
was selected in Bush v. Gore. I mean, water is wet.
I just don't see any downside in Sanders running as a Democrat. No downside at all.
1) Sanders wins the nomination. Is that so bad?
2) The regulars screw Sanders over so badly that the Democrats split. Is that so bad?
3) Sanders actually starts a movement. Is that so bad?
4) Sanders puts single payer and free college on the national agenda. Socialism gets on the
national agenda.* Is that so bad?
5) Sanders runs on small contributions ONLY, with no SuperPAC money, achieving unheard of success
totally against conventional wisdom. Is that so bad?
To be fair, there's the sheepdog scenario (again, a terrible metaphor, put about by the
Greens, which implies conscious collusion by Sanders, for which there's very little evidence). If
that comes true, is that so bad? No, because we're not any worse off than we were before, and see
#4 and #5 above.
I just don't see how Sanders running is anything other than a net positive. The left really
does need to figure out how to take yes for an answer.
* Please name another politician who has or could have achieved this.
GlassHammer, December 5, 2015 at 1:57 pm
Are we assuming that the Pentagon, DoD, etc… are just going to accept new guidance from the
top? (That sounds like wishful thinking to me.)
And if they (Pentagon, DoD, etc…) resist new guidance, what is going to be done about it?
Curretly more Americans trust the military than any institution or politician. I highly doubt
anyone could swing public opinion against the Deep State at this point in time.
Daryl, December 5, 2015 at 2:55 pm
It seems to me like the major sovereignty-violating actions of the US Gov't happen with
the approval of the executive branch. The military and intelligence services generally don't
speak out or publicly act against the president's policies. They do leak a bunch of shit
everywhere (the mysterious "high-ranking anonymous Obama official" who seems to pop up whenever
the president's policies need to be opposed), but that you can live with. It is a real problem,
one that makes me nervous. We know exactly where corporations go when their iron grip on
democracy loosens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
McPhee, December 5, 2015 at 3:29 pm
Any Agent of Actual Change has to fear the "bowstring…"
I wonder if there is a real chance Jesse Ventura will be nominated by the Libertarian Party at
their convention in May or June and put him on the ballot in about 48 states. He says he's
interested and he's got my vote. I agree Bernie has no chance to win, partly because he's just
too humble and polite. He was a great athlete in high school, but he never talks about it. That
would get him some support in sports-minded Iowa.
"... "One thing with Hillary, she doesn't have the strength or the stamina to be president. She doesn't have it," Trump said at a Wednesday-night campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia. ..."
"... "Hillary shouldn't be allowed to run because what she did is illegal. What she did is illegal," Trump asserted Thursday. ..."
"... I don't know if Clinton privatizing her email server is illegal. I do know it's corrupt to the bone . ..."
"... However, the one line of attack that is substantial, and that she's had the most trouble dispelling, is her closeness to Wall Street . So is there anything Clinton can do to rid herself of the Wall Street albatross? Of course there is. She should say that if elected president, she'd subject the Wall Streeters to a higher tax rate than anyone else. (I'd exclude venture capitalists from this penalty, since they primarily fund innovation.) ..."
"Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Thursday lashed out at Donald Trump's comments suggesting that
Israel should offer 'sacrifices' to win a peace deal, telling a prominent Republican Jewish group
that conflict is the Middle East amounts to more than "a real estate deal."" [The
Hill]. Trump outflanks Clinton on Israel to the left. Hilarity ensues.
The Voters
Trump: "Think of it. Obama, your African-American youth - 51 percent unemployment, right? You
guys our age, they have unemployment that's double or triple what other people have. What the
hell has he done for the African-Americans? He's done nothing. He's done nothing. I don't think
he cares about them. He's done nothing. It's all talk, it's all words with this guy" [The
Hill]. Sadly, Trump is correct, on both counts. And he forgot to mention the foreclosure crisis,
which disproportionately affected Blacks.
"73% of Republican voters say Trump would win the general [Quinippiac].
Rubio: 63%; Cruz: 59%; Carson: 55%. So, not only a gigantic upraised middle finger to their own
party establishment and the entire political class, but pragmatic, too.
The Trail
"Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, broke with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
on Wednesday and called for a federal probe of the city police department following the release
of a video last week showing the death of a black teen, who was shot by a white police officer"
[Wall
Street Journal, "Hillary Clinton Calls for Federal Probe of Chicago Police Department"]. Say,
who is this "Rahm" character, anyhow? He just seemed to pop up one day, and now he's all over
the news. What gives? Where the heck did he come from?
"In a seven-page confidential memo that imagines Trump as the party's presidential nominee,
the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee urges candidates to adopt many of Trump's
tactics, issues and approaches - right down to adjusting the way they dress and how they use Twitter"
[WaPo].
"One thing with Hillary, she doesn't have the strength or the stamina to be president. She
doesn't have it," Trump said at a Wednesday-night campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia.
Trump's other lines that Clinton shouldn't even be "allowed" to run for president because
of her controversial email practices at the State Department. The FBI has said it is investigating
whether any material was mishandled in connection to Clinton's email account, which was run
using a private server in her home.
"Hillary shouldn't be allowed to run because what she did is illegal. What she did is illegal,"
Trump asserted Thursday.
I don't know if Clinton privatizing her email server is illegal. I do know it's
corrupt to the bone.
"How Hillary Clinton can shake the one charge that sticks to her" [Harold Meyerson,
WaPo].
However, the one line of attack that is substantial, and that she's had the most
trouble dispelling, is her
closeness to Wall Street.
So is there anything Clinton can do to rid herself of the Wall Street albatross? Of course
there is. She should say that if elected president, she'd subject the Wall Streeters to a higher
tax rate than anyone else. (I'd exclude venture capitalists from this penalty, since they primarily
fund innovation.)
"... One issue that is raised by Samwicks piece is the degree to which infrastructure spending should be connected with countercyclical policy. Certainly, it makes sense to have mechanisms available for dialing infrastructure spending up in response to slumps. ..."
Samwick points out that Hillary's infrastructure plan is a good start but too small.
The media portrays it as a bank buster.
Progressives need to start criticizing the Hillary plan as being too small, which it is. We should
aim for a much larger plan and maybe we could get what Hillary has suggested. It's a problem if
that is the starting point in the negotiation.
pgl said in reply to bakho...
I suggested the other day she should make it bigger. Andrew Samwick is one of the few honest Republican
economists.
pgl said in reply to bakho...
"It was almost eight years ago that I started writing about spending on infrastructure as a means
of countercyclical fiscal policy. There was an op-ed in The Washington Post, followed by an essay
in The Ripon Forum, as the Great Recession was beginning. I returned to it occasionally as the
weak recovery and inelegant policy discussions of economic stimulus continued the need for a sensible
plan to boost economic activity. This op-ed at U.S. News Economic Intelligence blog is a good
example."
I used to read Andrew's blog regularly but then I stopped. Too bad as he has been
all over the need for fiscal stimulus via infrastructure from the beginning. And Andrew is generally
considered right of center. So liberal and conservative economists have both been making this
argument.
Of course our resident gold bug troll JohnH insists that economists have not been calling for
such stimulus. OK - JohnH is not one to read Andrew's blog as Andrew writes some really high quality
posts which will not show up in JohnH's Google for Really Dumb Stuff program.
Seems Congress has passed a highway bill financed by gimmicks rather than raising the gasoline
tax. Speaker Ryan's dishonesty at its finest!
Peter K. said in reply to pgl...
I agree with Drum's main point.
However as I understand it Ryan had to pass this with votes from Democrats and some Republicans.
His supporters are framing it as continuing Boehner's parting deal to disgruntled Tea Partiers
who won't vote for anything.
Drum writes:
""Among other things, the measure would raise revenue by selling oil from the nation's emergency
stockpile and taking money from a Federal Reserve surplus account that works as a sort of cushion
to help the bank pay for potential losses." ... On the other hand, the revenue sources they're tapping in order to pass this bill are probably
pretty ill considered. "
The Fed can print up money so I don't understand why it has a "rainy day" fund. Sounds like
a budgetary gimmick which Drum glosses over.
Some of the money will come from the Federal Reserve. The bill cuts the Fed's annual dividend
payments to large commercial banks, redirecting that money to highway construction. It also drains
money from the Fed's rainy-day fund.
The banking industry opposed the dividend cut, but won only a partial victory. The Senate voted
to replace the current 6 percent dividend with a 1.5 percent dividend. The final version instead
ties the dividend to the interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds, currently 2.2 percent, up to
a maximum of 6 percent.
The bill also requires the Fed to fork over $19 billion from a rainy-day fund that has ballooned
to $29 billion in recent years. The size of the rainy-day fund also would be limited to $10 billion.
A Fed spokesman declined to comment, but Fed officials have previously criticized both the
dividend cut and the draining of the rainy-day fund, arguing Congress should not use Fed funds
to bankroll specific programs.
...."
Peter K. said in reply to Peter K....
It's slightly ironic that Paul Ryan and John Taylor wrote an op-ed criticizing the Fed for "easing
the pressure" on fiscal policy with monetary policy, when that's exactly what the highway bill
does.
Do all of these lefty critics of monetary policy not want it to "ease the pressure" of
fiscal policy either?
Hillary Clinton Unveils $275 Billion Infrastructure Investment Plan
By Amy Chozick
Evoking the investment in American infrastructure by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald
Reagan, Hillary Clinton on Monday unveiled the most sprawling - and costliest - government program
of her campaign to date.
Mrs. Clinton said her five-year, $275-billion federal infrastructure program was aimed at creating
middle-class jobs while investing heavily in improving the country's highways, airports and ports....
[ That would be $275 / 5 = $55 billion per year spending on infrastructure.
That comes to $55 / $18,065 = .3% of GDP infrastructure spending. ]
pgl said in reply to anne...
Then let's double her proposal to make it 0.6% of GDP! Dean Baker would love this calculation.
bakho said in reply to pgl...
I say multiply it by 10 and let the GOP win by whittling away 80%.
It is worth quoting Donald
Trump on this:
""I'm going to put this plan in front of lots of different people. It's going to go through lots
of scrutiny. There's room to negotiate. I'm a negotiator. There's room to negotiate.
Other people don't have any room to negotiate. But there's always going to be room to negotiate.
When I put something forward, I always have to leave something on the table, and if we have things
on the table. We can give up certain things.
ilsm said in reply to anne...
The pentagon is diverting $1,000B is resources into nuclear bombs to destroy the world.
How
about less militarist Keynesianism and some for the people?
It's hard to call a plan that spends $275 billion in taxpayer dollars over five years "modest"
and keep a straight face. But that may be the best way to describe the proposal Hillary Clinton
unveiled on Monday to upgrade the nation's ailing infrastructure.
Clinton's blueprint is certainly broad in scope: It aims to bolster not only roads and bridges
but also public transit, freight rail, airports, broadband Internet, and water systems. It's the
most expensive domestic policy proposal she's made to date. And when added to the nearly $300
billion Congress is poised to authorize in a new highway bill, the Clinton plan tops the $478
billion that President Obama sought for infrastructure earlier this year.
Yet the reaction from advocates of more robust infrastructure spending has been less than enthusiastic,
a nod to the fact that the size of the Clinton plan falls well short of what studies have shown
the country needs. "Secretary Clinton is exactly right to call her plan a 'down payment,'" said
Damon Silvers, the AFL-CIO's director of public policy. "The reality of our infrastructure deficit
is in the trillions, not billions."
Specifically, that deficit has been pegged at $1.6 trillion-the amount of additional money
governments at all levels would have to spend by 2020 to bring the nation's infrastructure up
to date, according to a widely-cited report issued two years ago by the American Society of Civil
Engineers. Even Bernie Sanders didn't make it that high, but he came a lot closer than Clinton
by introducing legislation to spend $1 trillion over the next five years on infrastructure.
The Clinton campaign has tagged the Sanders agenda as overly expensive, requiring either a
dramatic increase in the deficit or tax increases that hit not only the nation's wealthiest but
millions of middle-class families as well. Politically, the Sanders plan is only achievable with
the kind of the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate that Obama enjoyed briefly in 2009.
Clinton's proposal, by contrast, is pegged to the reality that barring an electoral tsunami in
2016, she would have to work with at least one chamber of Congress controlled by Republicans,
and maybe two. ...
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to bakho...
(It could be larger if there were to be some aggressive financing, meaning not 'just' closing
corporate loopholes, taxing offshore cash, etc. Like the suggested income tax increase on the
top 3%. Unfortunately ALL of this is unlikely unless both House and Senate come under Dem control.)
Hillary Clinton previewed her $275 billion infrastructure plan during a campaign event in Boston
on Sunday with construction workers, labor leaders and Democratic Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who endorsed
her candidacy. "Investing in infrastructure makes our economy more productive and competitive
across the board," she said in kicking off a week of appearances and announcements geared to creating
new jobs.
Clinton's proposal is two-pronged: It would rely on $250 billion of direct federal expenditures
for highways, bridges, tunnels and other major projects, and $25 billion more for a national infrastructure
bank designed to leverage public and private investments into billions of dollars of fresh low-interest
loans and other incentives for construction projects.
The lion's share of this additional federal spending on infrastructure would be offset by closing
pricey corporate tax loopholes, including tax inversion provisions that allow major corporations
to avoid high U.S. tax rates by moving their headquarters overseas while retaining their material
operations in this country. The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced last week that it was doing
just that in a planned merger with Allergan to take advantage of much lower corporate taxes in
Ireland.
The remainder of the financing for Clinton's infrastructure proposal would come from a new
infrastructure bank that would put up federal dollars to attract private investments to help bankroll
highway, bridge, mass transit and other construction projects to spur economic growth. ...
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
Any such proposal from Dems is seen as a gift to union labor, and calls from labor leaders to
enlarge it only makes that seem more obvious.
This is entirely the wrong way to sell such a
plan.
But a larger (Trump-scale!) plan would raise further ire from GOPsters. So, must go with the
timid version.
This could be a very dubious strategy, unless one is *extremely* confident of victory in Nov.
Dan Kervick said in reply to bakho...
One issue that is raised by Samwick's piece is the degree to which infrastructure spending
should be connected with countercyclical policy. Certainly, it makes sense to have mechanisms
available for dialing infrastructure spending up in response to slumps. But it may be a mistake
to build too close a political connection between infrastructure goals and macroeconomic stabilization
goals.
If the main pitch the public hears is is that we need to build infrastructure to boost
the economy, then when the economy is no longer in need of a boost, the political pressure for
infrastructure spending will flag. But it doesn't have to be that way at all - and shouldn't be
that way. We are very far behind where we need to be as a nation in our public works, as is shown
by that civil engineers scorecard. The various components of the infrastructure agenda need to
be part of a long-term plan for national development. When the economy improves and revenues flow
in to government coffers, great. The government then has more money to build stuff. The fact that
the next president and congress needs to get really busy re-developing our country has little
to do with whether job growth has "crested" or whether we will or will not be in a more of a slump
in 2017.
Another potential drawback of yoking infrastructure policy too closely to countercyclical policy
is that it risks casting the infrastructure development movement as economic ambulance chasers,
secretly pining for recessions so they can push through the infrastructure spending, and constantly
proclaiming recessions so they can trigger the countercyclical policy.
The infrastructure development agenda should be part of a broader agenda of re-commitment to
goals for national development, national excellence or national greatness. People who read a lot
about economic conditions - like the folks here - know how far America has slipped. But I think
many Americans are still amazingly in the dark about how far the US has fallen behind in many
standard measures of national prosperity and success. Politicians still don't have the nerve to
tell the people that we ain't what we used to be.
"... The temptation to ignore or downplay wrongness on your own side is obvious. In fact it's a bit of a prisoners dilemma. Reasonable people on both sides of the aisle would be better off if all reasonable people spent more time arguing with unreasonable ideological allies. However, unreasonable ideological allies are useful fools because they share an enemy with you, and sling mud and win skirmishes for "your side". ..."
"... Rush Limbaugh has long been a popular source of misinformation, foolishness, and insanity on the right. And let's not forget Glenn Beck. But it does represent the continued growth of a know-nothing right-wing media and subculture. ..."
Trump's success is a coat of many colors, arising from a patchwork of economic, social, political,
and cultural conditions. Not to mention the part attributable to the extraordinary nature of Trump
himself. But I do think one piece of the blame lies with conservatives lack of willingness to argue
with themselves. This is a not a unique problem to conservatives, but it is having disastrous consequences
there more than anywhere else right now.
The temptation to ignore or downplay wrongness on your
own side is obvious. In fact it's a bit of a prisoners dilemma. Reasonable people on both sides of
the aisle would be better off if all reasonable people spent more time arguing with unreasonable
ideological allies. However, unreasonable ideological allies are useful fools because they share
an enemy with you, and sling mud and win skirmishes for "your side". This is why among all
ideologies and parties, almost nobody spend enough effort and time arguing among themselves.
Breitbart news, Sarah Palin, and other Trump defenders are not a new phenomenon. Rush Limbaugh
has long been a popular source of misinformation, foolishness, and insanity on the right. And let's
not forget Glenn Beck. But it does represent the continued growth of a know-nothing right-wing media
and subculture. Until the rise of Trump though, it was too rare that smart conservatives would argue
against this with the fervor, effort, and rhetorical seriousness that they reserve for Democrats.
As Donald Trump continues to insist that he saw "thousands" of Muslims cheering the destruction
of the World Trade Center - let's pause to remember that
several Israelis were arrested and eventually deported for acting suspiciously on 9/11.
Trump has said he personally witnessed large numbers of Muslims holding "tailgate parties" in
New Jersey on Sept. 11, 2001, and his campaign manager suggested that "special interests" who control
the media have conspired to bury video footage to back the Republican candidate's claims.
The GOP frontrunner has dug himself in so deep defending those claims - which are not supported
by law enforcement or media accounts - that he mocked a disabled reporter who questioned his recollection.
Police detained, questioned and eventually released a number of Muslims in the New York City area
who were accused of behaving suspiciously following the terrorist attacks - but investigators found
most of those claims to be unfounded.
A New Jersey woman, however, reported some suspicious men she saw recording video from a moving
van that actually did result in arrests.
The woman, identified by police and news reports only as Maria, said she spotted three men kneeling
on the roof of a white van outside her New Jersey apartment building as she watched the towers burn
through binoculars.
She called police, who arrested five men - identified as Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner,
Omer Marmari and Yaron Shmuel - later that day near Giants Stadium while driving in a van registered
to Urban Moving.
Although it's never been confirmed, the company and the men are widely believed to have been part
of an undercover operation set up by Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, and they have been the
subject of numerous conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks.
Their case was transferred out of the FBI's Criminal Division and into its Foreign Counterintelligence
Section shortly after the men were jailed, and they were held ostensibly for overstaying their tourist
visas.
An immigration judge ordered them deported two weeks later, but
ABC News reported
that FBI and CIA officials put a hold on their case.
The men were held in detention for more than two months and given multiple lie detector tests,
and at least one of them spent 40 days in solitary confinement.
Intelligence experts suspect the men may have been conducting surveillance on radical Islamists
in the U.S., but Israeli officials have denied the men were involved at all in intelligence operations.
Investigators determined the men had no advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks, and they were
eventually sent back to Israel after 71 days.
One of the men denied Maria's claims that they had been laughing as they recorded video of the
doomed World Trade Center towers.
"The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily," the man
told investigators. "Our purpose was to document the event."
A lawyer for the men suggested at the time that Maria had exaggerated her claims because she mistook
the men for Muslims.
"One of the neighbors who saw them called the police and claimed they were posing, dancing and
laughing, against the background of the burning towers,"
said attorney Steve
Gordon. "The five denied dancing. I presume the neighbor was not near them and does not understand
Hebrew. Furthermore, the neighbor complained that the cheerful gang on the roof spoke Arabic."
"... Establishment Republicans, after initially dismissing Trump's appeal to the party base, have grown increasingly concerned with the durability his campaign has demonstrated. Trump has repeatedly issued the types of public statements that have been deemed gaffes, and proved fatal, in past campaigns. ..."
"... But he continues to enjoy a healthy lead both in New Hampshire and in national polling. ..."
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump has proven to be the GOP's summer fling gone awry: fun at first, when there
was no expectation of a commitment. But he's stuck around - long after the party establishment wishes
he were gone.
Now, concerned about lasting damage to the party's image, some in the Republican establishment
are plotting a full-scale attempt to torpedo his candidacy.
Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, on Monday filed a formal complaint
with the New Hampshire secretary of state challenging Trump's place on the first-in-the-nation primary
ballot, arguing in vain that the billionaire reality TV star did not provide proof he's a Republican.
Some Republican consultants are forming a group - Trump Card LLC - with the explicit goal of taking
out the brash-talking political neophyte. And the conservative Club for Growth has run anti-Trump
ads in Iowa.
"This is no longer a joke," said Cullen, who lost his bid before the state Ballot Law Commission
to knock Trump off the ballot. "Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue. He's doing damage to the Republican
brand that will prevent us from running a competitive national election next year."
With less than three months before the nominating process begins, Trump is still leading in state
and national polls, seeming to gain strength from his divisive rhetoric, rather than collapsing under
it.
The concern, party leaders and strategists say, is not just winning the general election and reclaiming
the White House. In a year when the GOP is hoping to maintain control of the Senate, party leaders
are increasingly worried about the impact Trump's campaign could have on down-ballot candidates in
purple states such as the reelection bids by Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Rob Portman
of Ohio.
"Kelly Ayotte is losing votes every day because of Donald Trump," Cullen said. "It's not like
Passover where voters make a distinction between good Republicans and bad Republicans. They will
throw them all out. Or they will reasonably ask, 'Why didn't you stand up to him? Was your silence
consent?' " ...
Donald Trump's popularity in New Hampshire seems to be seeping into Massachusetts, according to
a new poll.
Thirty two percent of likely Republican primary voters in the state called Trump their first choice
in the race for the GOP nomination for president, according to the survey by Suffolk University.
Eighteen percent picked Senator Marco Rubio in the poll. Senator Ted Cruz earned 10 percent, followed
by former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 7 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 5 percent, and
Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina both
at 4 percent.
No other GOP candidate drew significant support ...
Former state GOP chairman tries, fails to kick Trump off NH ballot
http://fw.to/I4okFoh
Donald Trump supporters
can exhale: their man will be on the ballot in New Hampshire's Feb. 9 presidential primary.
Not that Trump supporters were holding their breath. A challenge by former state Republican chairman
Fergus Cullen to Trump's eligibility was quickly thrown out Tuesday by the New Hampshire Ballot Commission.
Cullen had filed a complaint Monday arguing Trump was ineligible to be on the Republican ballot
because his views are inconsistent with the Republican party platform. The complaint, filed on behalf
of GOP presidential candidate John Kasich's super PAC, A New Day for America, claimed the real estate
mogul had previously supported Democrats and therefore should not be allowed on the Republican ballot.
...
(Is this what will be cited as 'unfair treatment' by future independent candidate
Trump, or just a silly maneuver by pissant Kasich?)
... While Donald Trump continues to hang onto the first-place spot, everyone else continues to
shift positions. In the last two months, the second-place spot has belonged to Ben Carson, former
Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Ohio Governor John Kasich and US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
But the battle for second place isn't even the GOP's most interesting contest. Republicans want
to know who will emerge among Rubio, Kasich, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie as the moderate/establishment choice (Some Republicans also include Fiorina in this
camp).
That question is anyone's guess. Ayotte is the only one who can provide the answer.
But to be sure, her decision is complicated.
Rubio ran television ads in her defense when she voted against the Manchin-Toomey amendment on
background checks for guns. As chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Christie spent millions
of dollars attacking Ayotte's foe, Governor Maggie Hassan, in her reelection bid last year (even
then, Republicans expected Hassan would challenge Ayotte in 2016).
However, endorsing Bush would give Ayotte access to his national fundraising base -- something
she will need for her own race. Kasich also seems like a safe bet: His Ohio background could mean
he is the most electable in a general election. What's more, Fiorina on top of the ballot could blunt
any energy female voters have to elect Democrat Hillary Clinton as the first female president, which
could have implications for Ayotte's own race.
Last but not least, Ayotte has a personal friendship with US Senator Lindsey Graham, with whom
she watches movies with her children.
The easiest thing for Ayotte is to not endorse. It is something of a New Hampshire tradition to
cheer from the sidelines when facing a major election in the upcoming year to avoid upsetting members
in their own party. ...
(It is likely that outgoing NH Dem governor
Maggie Hassan, who plans to run against
Kelly Ayotte in 2016 would be swept in
by a HRC landslide in NH.)
Donald Trump holds a commanding lead in the New Hampshire Republican primary, which is less than
three months away.
But the state party's chairwoman doesn't think the developer and television personality will ultimately
prevail there, calling his political style a poor fit for the first state to host a primary.
"Shallow campaigns that depend on bombast and divisive rhetoric do not succeed in New Hampshire,
and I don't expect that they will now," state GOP chair Jennifer Horn said Wednesday in a phone interview,
when asked about Trump's candidacy.
Establishment Republicans, after initially dismissing Trump's appeal to the party base, have grown
increasingly concerned with the durability his campaign has demonstrated. Trump has repeatedly issued
the types of public statements that have been deemed gaffes, and proved fatal, in past campaigns.
But he continues to enjoy a healthy lead both in New Hampshire and in national polling.
"In New Hampshire, historically, the truth is, people really don't make their final decisions
until very, very close until Election Day," Horn said, noting that US Senator Marco Rubio has been
climbing in state polls.
"People are probably underestimating [New Jersey Governor] Chris Christie. And, certainly, [former
Florida governor Jeb] Bush is working very, very hard in New Hampshire," she added. ...
WASHINGTON - Senator Marco Rubio is preparing a New Hampshire advertising blitz in the final weeks
before the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, challenging rival Republican Jeb Bush for airwaves
dominance and highlighting the Granite State's importance to his nomination hopes.
Rubio and an outside group supporting him have already reserved more than 1,900 spots - representing
$2.8 million worth of television ads - on Manchester-based WMUR-TV, the state's dominant television
station ...
ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs...
Someone is dumping Carson road signs all over the NH place.
US Is the Most Unequal Developed Economy Outside
Southern Europe http://bloom.bg/1NrQVeT
via @Bloomberg
Kasia Klimasinska - November 25, 2015
The developed world's most unequal economies are in struggling
southern Europe, closely followed by the U.S.
That's according to a new report from Morgan Stanley, where analysts looked at indicators including
the gender pay gap, involuntary part-time employment and Internet access. The bank also found
that the rise of economies such as China and India has helped drive down inequality between countries,
even though inequality within many individual has grown. Since the mid-1980s, income inequality
has risen the most in Sweden when looking at developed economies. Even after that increase, Sweden
(along with the rest of Scandinavia) still had the lowest levels of inequality. ...
Peter K. said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
And yet Hillary mocked Bernie Sanders for wanting the U.S. to be more like Denmark.
PPaine said in reply to Peter K....
Excellent example of her opportunism, unprincipled ambition and revolting sense of superiority
Among her peers those dangerous broiled creatures of middle class strivers domestic brimstone
She makes fellow victim turned brute [to the extent that] Dick Nixon look sympathetic
"... With less than 12 weeks to go before the New Hampshire primary, all Bernie Sanders has is New
Hampshire. ..."
"... In Iowa, Hillary Clinton leads him by 18 points. In South Carolina, Clinton is ahead of Sanders
by 54 points. Nationally, the latest poll had Clinton's lead at 33 percentage points. ..."
"... Over the past month it has become clear that New Hampshire is no longer Bernie Sanders's firewall,
but it remains the only reason he has an argument that there is a contest at all. Should Clinton ever
take a double-digit lead in the Granite State, there will be nothing for anyone to talk about in terms
of the Democratic contest. ..."
"... A substantial lead in the polls could prompt any candidate to look beyond the primary to try
to get a head start on the general election, but in Mrs. Clinton's case, gazing past Mr. Sanders to
next November is part of the intensified strategy to defeat him. ..."
"... "They are running on the same economic policies that have failed us before," Mrs. Clinton said
at a rally in Memphis on Friday. She did not mention Mr. Sanders, but his stances on wealth and income
have seemed to influence his rival's populist tone. "Trickledown economics, cut taxes on the wealthy,
get out of the way of big corporations," she said. "Well, we know how that story ends, don't we?" ..."
"... Mr. Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said Mrs. Clinton's obsession with the Republican
Party is a tactic to diminish her main Democratic primary opponent, whose economic message has attracted
enormous crowds and enthusiasm. ..."
"... "We are much closer to Secretary Clinton today than Senator Obama was in 2008," Mr. Weaver
said. "I don't think they think this is locked up." ..."
"... Among Democrats, Mrs. Clinton holds a 25 percentage point lead against Mr. Sanders nationally,
according to a Bloomberg Politics poll released on Friday, compared with a nine percentage point advantage
in the same poll conducted in September that also included Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who later
said he would not seek the nomination. ..."
"... The primary is by no means determined. Polls in Iowa, in particular, tend to undercount Mr.
Sanders's young supporters who do not have landline phones, his aides say. And he continues to lead
in some polls in New Hampshire, a state that was supposed to be a stronghold for Mrs. Clinton. ..."
"... Even as Mrs. Clinton focuses firmly on the Republicans, her campaign is increasing its indirect,
if aggressive, moves to squeeze Mr. Sanders. She has secured the backing of major labor unions, including
most recently the Service Employees International Union, which has two million members. Her campaign
has emphasized Mrs. Clinton's commitment to gun control, an issue that Mr. Sanders, as a senator from
a hunting state, has been less vehement about, and she delivered a major foreign policy speech on Thursday
in New York, the same day Mr. Sanders delivered a speech about Democratic socialism in Washington. ("Ah,
the attempted bigfoot," Mr. Weaver said of the timing of the two speeches. The Clinton campaign announced
its speech a day earlier than the Sanders team.) ..."
"... Hillary Clintons speech on ISIS to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) showed clearly what
to expect in a Clinton presidency: more of the same. In her speech, Clinton doubled down on the existing,
failed U.S. approach in the Middle East, the one she pursued as Secretary of State. ..."
"... The CIA-led policy in the Middle East works like this. If a regime is deemed to be unfriendly
to the U.S., topple it. If a competitor like the Soviet Union or Russia has a foothold in the region,
try to push it out. If this means arming violent insurgencies, including Sunni jihadists, and thereby
creating mayhem: so be it. And if the result is terrorist blowback around the world by the forces created
by the US, then double down on bombing and regime change. ..."
With less than 12 weeks to go before the New Hampshire primary, all Bernie Sanders has
is New Hampshire.
In Iowa, Hillary Clinton leads him by 18 points. In South Carolina, Clinton is ahead of
Sanders by 54 points. Nationally, the latest poll had Clinton's lead at 33 percentage points.
But in New Hampshire a poll this week showed the race tied. And last night, the state's largest
union decided to endorse him, bucking the national union which announced it was with Clinton.
Over the past month it has become clear that New Hampshire is no longer Bernie Sanders's
firewall, but it remains the only reason he has an argument that there is a contest at all. Should
Clinton ever take a double-digit lead in the Granite State, there will be nothing for anyone to
talk about in terms of the Democratic contest.
But so far Sanders is hanging on, even if there are some growing pains amid his campaign's
quick attempt to scale up with new campaign cash. Sanders now has more than 60 staffers, and he
opened his 14th campaign office, this one in Laconia, this week. ...
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
There is also a chance that Dems will go with the First Secular Jewish Major Party Candidate,
if The Donald has his say.
Hillary Clinton Looks Past Primaries in Strategy to Defeat Bernie Sanders
By AMY CHOZICK
NOV. 23, 2015
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - "Whenever Republicans get into the White House, they mess it up. They
mess it up, folks," Hillary Rodham Clinton told a crowd gathered in a field lined with trees covered
in Spanish moss here on Saturday.
At rallies these days, Mrs. Clinton criticizes the Republican presidential candidates for their
economic policies ("Our economy does better with a Democrat in the White House"); she knocks their
foreign policy approaches and says their positions on immigration and women's issues would set
the country "backwards instead of forwards."
What she does not do is mention her main Democratic primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders
of Vermont.
Mrs. Clinton has regained her footing in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, and she has locked
in the support of major labor unions and over half the Democratic Party's superdelegates, party
leaders and elected officials, needed to secure the nomination. She is now acting as if she were
no longer running against one rival, Mr. Sanders, but 14: the Republicans who are still preoccupied
with cutting down one another.
A substantial lead in the polls could prompt any candidate to look beyond the primary to
try to get a head start on the general election, but in Mrs. Clinton's case, gazing past Mr. Sanders
to next November is part of the intensified strategy to defeat him.
Even voters who support Mr. Sanders often say that Mrs. Clinton appears more electable when
compared with a Republican nominee. And while her economic message, considering her ties to Wall
Street and the "super PAC" supporting her, can seem muddled when contrasted with Mr. Sanders's,
it sounds more forceful to Democratic voters compared with Republican proposals. And, as a campaign
aide points out, the Republican candidates consistently criticize Mrs. Clinton, so it makes sense
for her to punch back.
"I love Bernie, and I feel he'd get something done about the lopsided distribution of wealth
in this country," said Siobhan Hansen, 58, an undecided voter in Charleston. "But," she added,
"I hate to admit it but I just think Hillary has a better chance in the general election."
Even as Mrs. Clinton's campaign has invested heavily in Iowa and New Hampshire and her schedule
revolves around visiting states with early primaries, her message has become a broader rejoinder
reminding voters of the 2008 financial crisis and linking the Republican candidates to the foreclosures
and joblessness that President Obama inherited. It is a strategy her campaign believes will be
effective in a general election contest after having a dry run before the primaries.
"They are running on the same economic policies that have failed us before," Mrs. Clinton
said at a rally in Memphis on Friday. She did not mention Mr. Sanders, but his stances on wealth
and income have seemed to influence his rival's populist tone. "Trickledown economics, cut taxes
on the wealthy, get out of the way of big corporations," she said. "Well, we know how that story
ends, don't we?"
At a town-hall-style event in Grinnell, Iowa, this month, Mrs. Clinton, talking about the importance
of voter participation, even seemed to forget, albeit briefly, that the short-term goal was to
win the Iowa caucuses. "If not me, I hope you caucus for somebody," she said. She paused. "I hope
more of you caucus for me."
Mrs. Clinton is focused on capturing the nomination and has been contrasting herself with the
Republicans since she announced her candidacy in April, the campaign aide said.
Mr. Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, said Mrs. Clinton's obsession with the Republican
Party is a tactic to diminish her main Democratic primary opponent, whose economic message has
attracted enormous crowds and enthusiasm.
As Mr. Sanders delivered his standard speech about inequality here on Saturday, Mr. Weaver
closely watched the voters in the front row who wore blue "H" T-shirts, indicating their support
for Mrs. Clinton, as they cheered for Mr. Sanders several times.
"We are much closer to Secretary Clinton today than Senator Obama was in 2008," Mr. Weaver
said. "I don't think they think this is locked up."
Mrs. Clinton may have been helped by the campaign's shift to foreign policy, where Mr. Sanders
is seen as weaker, in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris. Mrs. Clinton said
in a speech in New York on Thursday that the Republicans' approach to fighting the Islamic State,
compared with her own, amounted to "a choice between fear and resolve." She derided as un-American
the Republicans who said they would either bar Syrian refugees from resettling in the United States
or allow only Christian refugees.
"There are forces no candidate can control, and they can be detrimental," Representative James
E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, said when asked about the newfound focus on defeating
the Islamic State. "I believe in this case third-party forces are working in her favor."
Among Democrats, Mrs. Clinton holds a 25 percentage point lead against Mr. Sanders nationally,
according to a Bloomberg Politics poll released on Friday, compared with a nine percentage point
advantage in the same poll conducted in September that also included Vice President Joseph R.
Biden Jr., who later said he would not seek the nomination.
"By turning up the heat on Republicans, going after Trump, that's all part of the essence of
saying, 'I am the leader of the Democratic Party,' " said Robert Shrum, a strategist for Democratic
presidential candidates including John Kerry and Al Gore.
The primary is by no means determined. Polls in Iowa, in particular, tend to undercount
Mr. Sanders's young supporters who do not have landline phones, his aides say. And he continues
to lead in some polls in New Hampshire, a state that was supposed to be a stronghold for Mrs.
Clinton.
Even as Mrs. Clinton focuses firmly on the Republicans, her campaign is increasing its
indirect, if aggressive, moves to squeeze Mr. Sanders.
She has secured the backing of major labor unions, including most recently the Service Employees
International Union, which has two million members. Her campaign has emphasized Mrs. Clinton's
commitment to gun control, an issue that Mr. Sanders, as a senator from a hunting state, has been
less vehement about, and she delivered a major foreign policy speech on Thursday in New York,
the same day Mr. Sanders delivered a speech about Democratic socialism in Washington. ("Ah, the
attempted bigfoot," Mr. Weaver said of the timing of the two speeches. The Clinton campaign announced
its speech a day earlier than the Sanders team.)
Mrs. Clinton has also started to imply that Mr. Sanders's single-payer "Medicare for All" health
care plan would amount to a middle-class tax increase.
In recent days, she has unveiled a plan to give Americans with unexpected medical costs a tax
credit of $2,500 for an individual or $5,000 for a family. On Sunday in Iowa, she introduced another
tax credit to cover up to $6,000 of medical expenses for middle-class families caring for ailing
parents or grandparents. "I believe you deserve a raise, not a tax increase," she said in Memphis.
The Sanders campaign said that his plan would save the average family $5,000 a year through
the elimination of premiums, deductibles and co-payments, and it called Mrs. Clinton's plan "Republican-lite"
because it proposed short-term tax cuts over long-term benefits.
Mrs. Clinton's opponents point out that there is no more precarious place for her to be than
when she seems inevitable, as she did in the early months of the 2008 Democratic primary before
she finished third in the Iowa caucuses behind Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards.
This month, just after Mrs. Clinton had officially put her name on the ballot in New Hampshire,
she sat down to take some questions from the local reporters who gathered around her in a cramped
room at the State House in Concord. The first question: "How does it feel to once again be inevitable?"
Mrs. Clinton said she had put her name on the ballot in that very room in 2007. "I'm back again,"
she said. "I intend to do everything I can to work as hard as possible to be successful this time."
Hillary Clinton and the ISIS Mess
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Hillary Clinton's speech on ISIS to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) showed clearly
what to expect in a Clinton presidency: more of the same. In her speech, Clinton doubled down
on the existing, failed U.S. approach in the Middle East, the one she pursued as Secretary of
State.
The CIA-led policy in the Middle East works like this. If a regime is deemed to be unfriendly
to the U.S., topple it. If a competitor like the Soviet Union or Russia has a foothold in the
region, try to push it out. If this means arming violent insurgencies, including Sunni jihadists,
and thereby creating mayhem: so be it. And if the result is terrorist blowback around the world
by the forces created by the US, then double down on bombing and regime change.
In rare cases, great presidents learn to stand up to the CIA and the rest of the military-industrial-intelligence
complex. JFK became one of the greatest presidents in American history when he came to realize
the awful truth that his own military and CIA advisors had contributed to the onset of the Cuban
Missile Crisis. The CIA-led Bay of Pigs fiasco and other CIA blunders had provoked a terrifying
response from the Soviet Union. Recognizing that the U.S. approach had contributed to bringing
the world to the brink, Kennedy bravely and successfully stood up to the warmongering pushed by
so many of his advisors and pursued peace, both during and after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He
thereby saved the world from nuclear annihilation and halted the unchecked proliferation of nuclear
arms.
Clinton's speech shows that she and her advisors are good loyalists of the military-industrial-intelligence
complex. Her speech included an impressive number of tactical elements: who should do the bombing
and who should be the foot soldiers. Yet all of this tactical precision is nothing more than business
as usual. Would Clinton ever have the courage and vision to push back against the U.S. security
establishment, as did JFK, and thereby restore global diplomacy and reverse the upward spiral
of war and terror?
Just as the CIA contributed to the downward slide to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and just as
many of JFK's security chiefs urged war rather than negotiation during that crisis, so too today's
Middle East terrorism, wars, and refugee crises have been stoked by misguided CIA-led interventions.
Starting in 1979, the CIA began to build the modern Sunni jihadist movement, then known as the
Mujahedeen, to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The CIA recruited young Sunni Muslim men
to fight the Soviet infidel, and the CIA provided training, arms, and financing. Yet soon enough,
this US-created jihadist army turned on the US, a classic and typical case of blowback.
The anti-U.S. and anti-Western blowback started with the first Gulf War in 1990, when the U.S.
stationed troops throughout the region. It continued with the Second Gulf War, when the U.S. toppled
a Sunni regime in Iraq and replaced it with a puppet Shia regime. In the process, it dismantled
Saddam's Sunni-led army, which then regrouped as a core part of ISIS in Iraq.
Next the U.S. teamed up with Saudi Arabia to harass, and then to try to topple Bashir al-Assad.
His main crime from the perspective of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia: being too close to Iran. Once
again, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia turned to Sunni jihadists with arms and financing, and part of
that fighting force morphed into ISIS in Syria. The evidence is that the covert U.S. actions against
Assad pre-date the overt U.S. calls for Assad's overthrow in 2011 by at least a couple of years.
In a similar vein, the U.S. teamed up with France and the UK to bomb Libya and kill Muammar
Qaddafi. The result has been an ongoing Libyan civil war, and the unleashing of violent jihadists
across the African Sahel, including Mali, which suffered the terrorist blow last week at the hands
of such marauders.
Thanks to America's misguided policies, we now have wars and violence raging across a 5,000-mile
stretch from Bamako, Mali to Kabul, Afghanistan, with a U.S. hand in starting and stoking the
violence. Libya, Sudan, the Sinai, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are all cases where
the U.S. has directly intervened with very adverse results. Mali, Chad, Central African Republic,
Somalia are some of the many other countries indirectly caught up in turmoil unleashed by U.S.
covert and overt operations....
Jeffrey D. Sachs is the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
pgl said in reply to anne...
Jeff Sachs is right to praise Kennedy for not falling in line with the anti Castro nutcases. But
he just skipped over Kennedy's blunder re Vietnam. It was the dumbest thing we had ever done.
But then came March 2003 and Iraq. Hillary Clinton may be too eager for regime change but the
Republicans want to redo the Crusades.
ilsm said in reply to pgl...
Lodge etc. were being lied to by the pentagon reps in RVN, but JFK kept the lid on advisors.
The big mistake on Vietnam was LBJ assuming Goldwater was right.
That said JFK helped usher in the concept of "flexible response" which moved US closer to fitting
out US forces for the past 50 years' quagmires.
Keenan's containment strategy was ruined by NSC 68 which put pentagon responses senior to State.
pgl said in reply to ilsm...
The big mistake on Vietnam was listening to Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara. The Dick Cheney and
Don Rumsfeld of the 1960's.
RGC said in reply to anne...
A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
By Steve Kangas
The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed
by the CIA (1)
CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad
are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader
because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize
foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment.
So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition.
First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them
a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency
then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy).
It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion,
blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and
disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic
sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which
installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator's security apparatus to crack down
on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims
are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor
union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human
rights abuses follow.
This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special
school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning,
Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins."
Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use
of interrogation, torture and murder.
The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as
a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly
calls this an "American Holocaust."
The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not
involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only
threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms,
political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington's dictates, and declarations
of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation's
desire to stay out of the Cold War.
The ironic thing about all this intervention is that it frequently fails to achieve American
objectives. Often the newly installed dictator grows comfortable with the security apparatus the
CIA has built for him. He becomes an expert at running a police state. And because the dictator
knows he cannot be overthrown, he becomes independent and defiant of Washington's will. The CIA
then finds it cannot overthrow him, because the police and military are under the dictator's control,
afraid to cooperate with American spies for fear of torture and execution. The only two options
for the U.S at this point are impotence or war. Examples of this "boomerang effect" include the
Shah of Iran, General Noriega and Saddam Hussein. The boomerang effect also explains why the CIA
has proven highly successful at overthrowing democracies, but a wretched failure at overthrowing
dictatorships.
The following timeline should confirm that the CIA as we know it should be abolished and replaced
by a true information-gathering and analysis organization. The CIA cannot be reformed - it is
institutionally and culturally corrupt.
1929
The culture we lost - Secretary of State Henry Stimson refuses to endorse a code-breaking operation,
saying, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
1941
COI created - In preparation for World War II, President Roosevelt creates the Office of Coordinator
of Information (COI). General William "Wild Bill" Donovan heads the new intelligence service.
1942
OSS created - Roosevelt restructures COI into something more suitable for covert action, the
Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Donovan recruits so many of the nation's rich and powerful
that eventually people joke that "OSS" stands for "Oh, so social!" or "Oh, such snobs!"
1943
Italy - Donovan recruits the Catholic Church in Rome to be the center of Anglo-American spy
operations in Fascist Italy. This would prove to be one of America's most enduring intelligence
alliances in the Cold War.
1945
OSS is abolished - The remaining American information agencies cease covert actions and return
to harmless information gathering and analysis.
Operation PAPERCLIP – While other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for
arrest, the U.S. intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their
use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's master spy who
had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union. With full U.S. blessing, he creates
the "Gehlen Organization," a band of refugee Nazi spies who reactivate their networks in Russia.
These include SS intelligence officers Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (who massacred Jews in the
Holocaust), Klaus Barbie (the "Butcher of Lyon"), Otto von Bolschwing (the Holocaust mastermind
who worked with Eichmann) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny (a personal friend of Hitler's). The Gehlen
Organization supplies the U.S. with its only intelligence on the Soviet Union for the next ten
years, serving as a bridge between the abolishment of the OSS and the creation of the CIA However,
much of the "intelligence" the former Nazis provide is bogus. Gehlen inflates Soviet military
capabilities at a time when Russia is still rebuilding its devastated society, in order to inflate
his own importance to the Americans (who might otherwise punish him). In 1948, Gehlen almost convinces
the Americans that war is imminent, and the West should make a preemptive strike. In the 50s he
produces a fictitious "missile gap." To make matters worse, the Russians have thoroughly penetrated
the Gehlen Organization with double agents, undermining the very American security that Gehlen
was supposed to protect.
1947
Greece - President Truman requests military aid to Greece to support right-wing forces fighting
communist rebels. For the rest of the Cold War, Washington and the CIA will back notorious Greek
leaders with deplorable human rights records.
CIA created - President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central
Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. The CIA is accountable to the president through
the NSC - there is no democratic or congressional oversight. Its charter allows the CIA to "perform
such other functions and duties… as the National Security Council may from time to time direct."
This loophole opens the door to covert action and dirty tricks.
1948
Covert-action wing created - The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the
Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret
charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action,
including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile
states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist
elements in threatened countries of the free world."
Italy - The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to
win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition
leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works -- the communists are defeated.
1949
Radio Free Europe - The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe. Over
the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered
illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S.
Late 40s
Operation MOCKINGBIRD - The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists
to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles,
Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major
CIA player. Eventually, the CIA's media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated
Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service
and more. By the CIA's own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become
CIA assets.
1953
Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after
he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran,
whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.
Operation MK-ULTRA - Inspired by North Korea's brainwashing program, the CIA begins experiments
on mind control. The most notorious part of this project involves giving LSD and other drugs to
American subjects without their knowledge or against their will, causing several to commit suicide.
However, the operation involves far more than this. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford
foundations, research includes propaganda, brainwashing, public relations, advertising, hypnosis,
and other forms of suggestion.
1954
Guatemala - CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz
has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director
Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty
policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.
1954-1958
North Vietnam - CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist
government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize
a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win
the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy,
land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA's continuing failure results in escalating
American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War.
1956
Hungary - Radio Free Europe incites Hungary to revolt by broadcasting Khruschev's Secret Speech,
in which he denounced Stalin. It also hints that American aid will help the Hungarians fight.
This aid fails to materialize as Hungarians launch a doomed armed revolt, which only invites a
major Soviet invasion. The conflict kills 7,000 Soviets and 30,000 Hungarians.
1957-1973
Laos - The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos' democratic
elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a
member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an "Armee Clandestine"
of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA's army suffers numerous defeats,
the U.S. starts bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World
War II. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves.
1959
Haiti - The U.S. military helps "Papa Doc" Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his
own private police force, the "Tonton Macoutes," who terrorize the population with machetes. They
will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal
human rights record.
1961
The Bay of Pigs - The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro's Cuba. But "Operation
Mongoose" fails, due to poor planning, security and backing. The planners had imagined that the
invasion will spark a popular uprising against Castro -– which never happens. A promised American
air strike also never occurs. This is the CIA's first public setback, causing President Kennedy
to fire CIA Director Allen Dulles.
Dominican Republic - The CIA assassinates Rafael Trujillo, a murderous dictator Washington
has supported since 1930. Trujillo's business interests have grown so large (about 60 percent
of the economy) that they have begun competing with American business interests.
Ecuador - The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco
to resign. Vice President Carlos Arosemana replaces him; the CIA fills the now vacant vice presidency
with its own man.
Congo (Zaire) - The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public
support for Lumumba's politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents
in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.
1963
Dominican Republic - The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military
coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.
Ecuador - A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not
socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command,
cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.
1964
Brazil - A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao
Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty
in history. General Castelo Branco will create Latin America's first death squads, or bands of
secret police who hunt down "communists" for torture, interrogation and murder. Often these "communists"
are no more than Branco's political opponents. Later it is revealed that the CIA trains the death
squads.
1965
Indonesia - The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup. The
CIA has been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination
to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor,
General Suharto, will massacre between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being "communist."
The CIA supplies the names of countless suspects.
Dominican Republic - A popular rebellion breaks out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the
country's elected leader. The revolution is crushed when U.S. Marines land to uphold the military
regime by force. The CIA directs everything behind the scenes.
Greece - With the CIA's backing, the king removes George Papandreous as prime minister. Papandreous
has failed to vigorously support U.S. interests in Greece.
Congo (Zaire) - A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated
and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.
1966
The Ramparts Affair - The radical magazine Ramparts begins a series of unprecedented anti-CIA
articles. Among their scoops: the CIA has paid the University of Michigan $25 million dollars
to hire "professors" to train South Vietnamese students in covert police methods. MIT and other
universities have received similar payments. Ramparts also reveals that the National Students'
Association is a CIA front. Students are sometimes recruited through blackmail and bribery, including
draft deferments.
1967
Greece - A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections.
The favorite to win was George Papandreous, the liberal candidate. During the next six years,
the "reign of the colonels" - backed by the CIA - will usher in the widespread use of torture
and murder against political opponents. When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about
U.S. plans for Cypress, Johnson tells him: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution."
Operation PHEONIX - The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged
Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report,
this operation killed about 20,000 "Viet Cong."
1968
Operation CHAOS - The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with
Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as
student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are
searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals
and 1,000 organizations.
Bolivia - A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA
wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent
worldwide calls for clemency.
1969
Uruguay - The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political
strife. Whereas right-wing forces previously used torture only as a last resort, Mitrione convinces
them to use it as a routine, widespread practice. "The precise pain, in the precise place, in
the precise amount, for the desired effect," is his motto. The torture techniques he teaches to
the death squads rival the Nazis'. He eventually becomes so feared that revolutionaries will kidnap
and murder him a year later.
1970
Cambodia - The CIA overthrows Prince Sahounek, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping
them out of the Vietnam War. He is replaced by CIA puppet Lon Nol, who immediately throws Cambodian
troops into battle. This unpopular move strengthens once minor opposition parties like the Khmer
Rouge, which achieves power in 1975 and massacres millions of its own people.
1971
Bolivia - After half a decade of CIA-inspired political turmoil, a CIA-backed military coup
overthrows the leftist President Juan Torres. In the next two years, dictator Hugo Banzer will
have over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, then tortured, raped and executed.
Haiti - "Papa Doc" Duvalier dies, leaving his 19-year old son "Baby Doc" Duvalier the dictator
of Haiti. His son continues his bloody reign with full knowledge of the CIA
1972
The Case-Zablocki Act - Congress passes an act requiring congressional review of executive
agreements. In theory, this should make CIA operations more accountable. In fact, it is only marginally
effective.
Cambodia - Congress votes to cut off CIA funds for its secret war in Cambodia.
Wagergate Break-in - President Nixon sends in a team of burglars to wiretap Democratic offices
at Watergate. The team members have extensive CIA histories, including James McCord, E. Howard
Hunt and five of the Cuban burglars. They work for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP),
which does dirty work like disrupting Democratic campaigns and laundering Nixon's illegal campaign
contributions. CREEP's activities are funded and organized by another CIA front, the Mullen Company.
1973
Chile - The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America's first democratically
elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in
Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende
with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in
a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.
CIA begins internal investigations - William Colby, the Deputy Director for Operations, orders
all CIA personnel to report any and all illegal activities they know about. This information is
later reported to Congress.
Watergate Scandal - The CIA's main collaborating newspaper in America, The Washington Post,
reports Nixon's crimes long before any other newspaper takes up the subject. The two reporters,
Woodward and Bernstein, make almost no mention of the CIA's many fingerprints all over the scandal.
It is later revealed that Woodward was a Naval intelligence briefer to the White House, and knows
many important intelligence figures, including General Alexander Haig. His main source, "Deep
Throat," is probably one of those.
CIA Director Helms Fired - President Nixon fires CIA Director Richard Helms for failing to
help cover up the Watergate scandal. Helms and Nixon have always disliked each other. The new
CIA director is William Colby, who is relatively more open to CIA reform.
1974
CHAOS exposed - Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh publishes a story about Operation
CHAOS, the domestic surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and civil rights groups in the U.S.
The story sparks national outrage.
Angleton fired - Congress holds hearings on the illegal domestic spying efforts of James Jesus
Angleton, the CIA's chief of counterintelligence. His efforts included mail-opening campaigns
and secret surveillance of war protesters. The hearings result in his dismissal from the CIA
House clears CIA in Watergate - The House of Representatives clears the CIA of any complicity
in Nixon's Watergate break-in.
The Hughes Ryan Act - Congress passes an amendment requiring the president to report nonintelligence
CIA operations to the relevant congressional committees in a timely fashion.
1975
Australia - The CIA helps topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime
Minister Edward Whitlam. The CIA does this by giving an ultimatum to its Governor-General, John
Kerr. Kerr, a longtime CIA collaborator, exercises his constitutional right to dissolve the Whitlam
government. The Governor-General is a largely ceremonial position appointed by the Queen; the
Prime Minister is democratically elected. The use of this archaic and never-used law stuns the
nation.
Angola - Eager to demonstrate American military resolve after its defeat in Vietnam, Henry
Kissinger launches a CIA-backed war in Angola. Contrary to Kissinger's assertions, Angola is a
country of little strategic importance and not seriously threatened by communism. The CIA backs
the brutal leader of UNITAS, Jonas Savimbi. This polarizes Angolan politics and drives his opponents
into the arms of Cuba and the Soviet Union for survival. Congress will cut off funds in 1976,
but the CIA is able to run the war off the books until 1984, when funding is legalized again.
This entirely pointless war kills over 300,000 Angolans.
"The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence" - Victor Marchetti and John Marks publish this whistle-blowing
history of CIA crimes and abuses. Marchetti has spent 14 years in the CIA, eventually becoming
an executive assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Marks has spent five years as an
intelligence official in the State Department.
"Inside the Company" - Philip Agee publishes a diary of his life inside the CIA Agee has worked
in covert operations in Latin America during the 60s, and details the crimes in which he took
part.
Congress investigates CIA wrong-doing - Public outrage compels Congress to hold hearings on
CIA crimes. Senator Frank Church heads the Senate investigation ("The Church Committee"), and
Representative Otis Pike heads the House investigation. (Despite a 98 percent incumbency reelection
rate, both Church and Pike are defeated in the next elections.) The investigations lead to a number
of reforms intended to increase the CIA's accountability to Congress, including the creation of
a standing Senate committee on intelligence. However, the reforms prove ineffective, as the Iran/Contra
scandal will show. It turns out the CIA can control, deal with or sidestep Congress with ease.
The Rockefeller Commission - In an attempt to reduce the damage done by the Church Committee,
President Ford creates the "Rockefeller Commission" to whitewash CIA history and propose toothless
reforms. The commission's namesake, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, is himself a major CIA
figure. Five of the commission's eight members are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations,
a CIA-dominated organization.
1979
Iran - The CIA fails to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, a longtime CIA puppet, and the
rise of Muslim fundamentalists who are furious at the CIA's backing of SAVAK, the Shah's bloodthirsty
secret police. In revenge, the Muslims take 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Afghanistan - The Soviets invade Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to
any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when
the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess
state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the
World Trade Center bombing in New York.
El Salvador - An idealistic group of young military officers, repulsed by the massacre of the
poor, overthrows the right-wing government. However, the U.S. compels the inexperienced officers
to include many of the old guard in key positions in their new government. Soon, things are back
to "normal" - the military government is repressing and killing poor civilian protesters. Many
of the young military and civilian reformers, finding themselves powerless, resign in disgust.
Nicaragua - Anastasios Samoza II, the CIA-backed dictator, falls. The Marxist Sandinistas take
over government, and they are initially popular because of their commitment to land and anti-poverty
reform. Samoza had a murderous and hated personal army called the National Guard. Remnants of
the Guard will become the Contras, who fight a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista
government throughout the 1980s.
1980
El Salvador - The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleads with President Carter "Christian
to Christian" to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refuses.
Shortly afterwards, right-wing leader Roberto D'Aubuisson has Romero shot through the heart while
saying Mass. The country soon dissolves into civil war, with the peasants in the hills fighting
against the military government. The CIA and U.S. Armed Forces supply the government with overwhelming
military and intelligence superiority. CIA-trained death squads roam the countryside, committing
atrocities like that of El Mazote in 1982, where they massacre between 700 and 1000 men, women
and children. By 1992, some 63,000 Salvadorans will be killed.
1981
Iran/Contra Begins - The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits
to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. President Reagan vows that
the Sandinistas will be "pressured" until "they say 'uncle.'" The CIA's Freedom Fighter's Manual
disbursed to the Contras includes instruction on economic sabotage, propaganda, extortion, bribery,
blackmail, interrogation, torture, murder and political assassination.
1983
Honduras - The CIA gives Honduran military officers the Human Resource Exploitation Training
Manual – 1983, which teaches how to torture people. Honduras' notorious "Battalion 316" then uses
these techniques, with the CIA's full knowledge, on thousands of leftist dissidents. At least
184 are murdered.
1984
The Boland Amendment - The last of a series of Boland Amendments is passed. These amendments
have reduced CIA aid to the Contras; the last one cuts it off completely. However, CIA Director
William Casey is already prepared to "hand off" the operation to Colonel Oliver North, who illegally
continues supplying the Contras through the CIA's informal, secret, and self-financing network.
This includes "humanitarian aid" donated by Adolph Coors and William Simon, and military aid funded
by Iranian arms sales.
1986
Eugene Hasenfus - Nicaragua shoots down a C-123 transport plane carrying military supplies
to the Contras. The lone survivor, Eugene Hasenfus, turns out to be a CIA employee, as are the
two dead pilots. The airplane belongs to Southern Air Transport, a CIA front. The incident makes
a mockery of President Reagan's claims that the CIA is not illegally arming the Contras.
Iran/Contra Scandal - Although the details have long been known, the Iran/Contra scandal finally
captures the media's attention in 1986. Congress holds hearings, and several key figures (like
Oliver North) lie under oath to protect the intelligence community. CIA Director William Casey
dies of brain cancer before Congress can question him. All reforms enacted by Congress after the
scandal are purely cosmetic.
Haiti - Rising popular revolt in Haiti means that "Baby Doc" Duvalier will remain "President
for Life" only if he has a short one. The U.S., which hates instability in a puppet country, flies
the despotic Duvalier to the South of France for a comfortable retirement. The CIA then rigs the
upcoming elections in favor of another right-wing military strongman. However, violence keeps
the country in political turmoil for another four years. The CIA tries to strengthen the military
by creating the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which suppresses popular revolt through torture
and assassination.
1989
Panama - The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, General Manuel
Noriega. Noriega has been on the CIA's payroll since 1966, and has been transporting drugs with
the CIA's knowledge since 1972. By the late 80s, Noriega's growing independence and intransigence
have angered Washington… so out he goes.
1990
Haiti - Competing against 10 comparatively wealthy candidates, leftist priest Jean-Bertrand
Aristide captures 68 percent of the vote. After only eight months in power, however, the CIA-backed
military deposes him. More military dictators brutalize the country, as thousands of Haitian refugees
escape the turmoil in barely seaworthy boats. As popular opinion calls for Aristide's return,
the CIA begins a disinformation campaign painting the courageous priest as mentally unstable.
1991
The Gulf War - The U.S. liberates Kuwait from Iraq. But Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, is
another creature of the CIA With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. During this
costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein's forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence,
training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein's power at home, allowing him to crush the
many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. It also gave
him all the military might he needed to conduct further adventurism - in Kuwait, for example.
The Fall of the Soviet Union - The CIA fails to predict this most important event of the Cold
War. This suggests that it has been so busy undermining governments that it hasn't been doing
its primary job: gathering and analyzing information. The fall of the Soviet Union also robs the
CIA of its reason for existence: fighting communism. This leads some to accuse the CIA of intentionally
failing to predict the downfall of the Soviet Union. Curiously, the intelligence community's budget
is not significantly reduced after the demise of communism.
1992
Economic Espionage - In the years following the end of the Cold War, the CIA is increasingly
used for economic espionage. This involves stealing the technological secrets of competing foreign
companies and giving them to American ones. Given the CIA's clear preference for dirty tricks
over mere information gathering, the possibility of serious criminal behavior is very great indeed.
1993
Haiti - The chaos in Haiti grows so bad that President Clinton has no choice but to remove
the Haitian military dictator, Raoul Cedras, on threat of U.S. invasion. The U.S. occupiers do
not arrest Haiti's military leaders for crimes against humanity, but instead ensure their safety
and rich retirements. Aristide is returned to power only after being forced to accept an agenda
favorable to the country's ruling class.
EPILOGUE
In a speech before the CIA celebrating its 50th anniversary, President Clinton said: "By necessity,
the American people will never know the full story of your courage."
Clinton's is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing
the CIA because they don't know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem
in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform.
Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.
Furthermore, Clinton's statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully
clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details
of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA These facts
began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate
and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different
directions.
The CIA's response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern.
(Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church's fight against the Scientific
Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA's criminal behavior were harassed
and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners.
(See Philip Agee's On the Run for an example of early harassment.) However, over the last two
decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have
enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet,
where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency
must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton's "Americans will never know" defense is a prime
example.
Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must
deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with
this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of
democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants.
The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.
Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: "Which American interests?" The
CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country's
cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight
the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. The second begged
question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples' human rights?"
The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes
against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal
of collecting and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options. The
first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about
the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive
and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members
could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote. Which
of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship,
like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are.
North Vietnam - CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist
government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize
a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win
the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy,
land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA's continuing failure results in escalating
American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War."
We should have let the elections of 1956 go forward. Had we - we could have avoided the entire
Vietnam disaster.
RGC said in reply to pgl...
When you look at that list and you realize that it was done in our name and we were funding it,
it might piss you off a little.
Fred C. Dobbs said...
'Thinking About the Trumpthinkable' - Paul Krugman
Alan Abramowitz reads the latest WaPo poll
and emails:
'Read these results and tell me how Trump doesn't win the Republican nomination? I've been
very skeptical about this all along, but I'm starting to change my mind. I think there's at least
a pretty decent chance that Trump will be the nominee.' ...
Related:
Is Hillary Clinton Any Good at Running for President?
http://nym.ag/1DwluuR via @NYmag - Jazon Zengerle
- April 5
... The election model that's most in vogue - that scored the highest when applied to presidential
elections since World War II, correctly predicting every outcome since 1992 - is one created by
Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz called "Time for a Change." Abramowitz argues that the
fundamentals in a presidential election are bedevilingly simple: the incumbent president's approval
rating in late June or early July, the rate of real GDP growth in the second quarter, and how
many terms the party has been in the White House.
In 2012, for instance, Obama's relatively lopsided victory may have shocked Republicans on
Election Night, but by Abramowitz's reckoning it was practically preordained. Although second-quarter
real GDP growth was a relatively unimpressive 1.5 percent and Obama's approval rating was a good-but-not-great
46 percent that June, he was seeking reelection, and, according to Abramowitz, "first-term incumbents
rarely lose." In fact, he believes that being a first-term incumbent is worth 4 percentage points.
There was nothing in the Abramowitz model that looked good for John McCain in 2008 (bad economy,
bad approval ratings of a second-term president from McCain's party). In 1988, by contrast, George
H.W. Bush was also running to give his party a third term, but Q2 real GDP growth that year was
a booming 5.24 percent and Ronald Reagan's approval rating was above 50 percent.
Sound familiar? "If Obama's approval rating is close to 50 percent and the economy is growing
at a decent rate in the fall of 2016 - both of which seem quite possible, maybe even likely -
then I think Hillary Clinton would have a decent chance of winning," Abramowitz says. But then
there's the "Time for a Change" factor and those four extra points Obama enjoyed in 2012 that
Hillary won't have this time around. In other words, it would be an extremely close race.
Which brings us full circle. "What determines the outcome in 2016," Abramowitz says, "could
very well be the quality of the candidates." ...
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
Tweet: @AlanIAbramowitz
Trump exploits a crack
in the GOP's foundation http://wpo.st/ZHHn0
Fareed Zakaria - Washington
Post - November 12
Today's conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump's best days are behind him and that his poll
numbers will soon descend. Maybe. But Trump has come to represent something fundamental about
the Republican Party: the growing gap between its leaders and its political constituency. Even
if he disappears, this gap is reshaping the GOP.
At the start, Trump's campaign was based largely on his personality. On the issues, he had
a grab bag of positions and lacked coherence and consistency. But like a good businessman, he
seems to have studied his customers - the Republican electorate - and decided to give them what
they want. And what they want is not what their party leaders stand for. ...
pgl said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
"On the issues, he had a grab bag of positions and lacked coherence and consistency. But like
a good businessman, he seems to have studied his customers - the Republican electorate - and decided
to give them what they want. And what they want is not what their party leaders stand for"
What
his customers want is racism. And guess what - the alleged party leaders are racing to the front
to see who can be the most racist. This party has become a dysfunctional disgrace.
"... Mrs. Clinton's windfalls from Wall Street banks and other financial services firms - $3 million
in paid speeches and $17 million in campaign contributions over the years - have become a major vulnerability
in states with early nomination contests. ..."
"... In the primaries, Mrs. Clinton's advisers privately concede that she will lose some votes over
her Wall Street connections. They declined to share specific findings from internal polls, but predicted
the issue could resonate in Democratic contests in Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Michigan, where many have
lost homes and businesses to bank foreclosu ..."
"... Mr. Sanders zeros in on Wall Street donations to Mrs. Clinton in an aggressive new television
commercial that started running in Iowa and New Hampshire on Saturday: The truth is, you can't change
a corrupt system by taking its money, he warns. ..."
"... One of Mrs. Clinton's most prominent supporters in Ohio, former State Senator Nina Turner,
defected to Mr. Sanders this month in part, she said, because she felt he would be tougher on special
interests. And some Democratic superdelegates, whose backing is crucial, said Mrs. Clinton's ties to
big banks, and her invocation of 9/11 to defend her ties to Wall Street at the Nov. 14 debate, only
made them further question her independence from the financial industry. ..."
"... My parents had a saying in Spanish - 'Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres' - which means,
'Tell me who you're hanging with and I'll tell you who you are,' said Alma R. Gonzalez, an uncommitted
superdelegate from Florida. A lot of my Democratic friends feel that way about Hillary and Wall Street.
..."
"... Will she be another President Clinton who appoints a Treasury secretary from Wall Street? These
are major concerns. ..."
"... Indeed, Mr. Clinton's close relationships with Wall Street executives like Robert E. Rubin
of Goldman Sachs, whom he named his Treasury secretary, and his support for undoing parts of Glass-Steagall
have contributed to misgivings about Mrs. Clinton. ..."
"... While Mr. Sanders and another candidate for the Democratic nomination, former Gov. Martin O'Malley
of Maryland, have argued that big donors inevitably had influence with her, her campaign has pushed
back against suggestions that the financial services industry has bankrolled her campaign. Her aides
also said ads by a new group, Future 45, attacking Mrs. Clinton would only underscore her independence,
because the group's major donors include Wall Street magnates like Paul Singer. ..."
"... Bashing Wall Street is not an automatic win for Mr. Sanders, however. Ms. Gonzalez, the Florida
superdelegate, and some other undecided Democrats said they viewed Mr. Sanders as too hostile to banks
and corporations and too divisive in his remarks about American wealth. ..."
"... Ms. Turner, the former Ohio lawmaker, said the blocks of foreclosed homes in Cleveland were
a painful reminder that banks prioritize their own corporate interests. Mr. Sanders has been criticizing
the corrupt economy symbolized by Wall Street greed for decades, she said. ..."
Wall St. Ties Linger as Image Issue for Hillary Clinton
By Patrick Healy
Saturday, 21 Nov 2015 | 2:52 PM ET
The New York Times
John Wittneben simmered as he listened to Hillary Rodham Clinton defend her ties to Wall Street
during last weekend's Democratic debate. He lost 40 percent of his savings in individual retirement
accounts during the Great Recession, while Mrs. Clinton has received millions of dollars from
the kinds of executives he believes should be in jail.
"People knew what they were doing back then, because of greed, and it caused me harm," said Mr.
Wittneben, the Democratic chairman in Emmet County, Iowa. "We were raised a certain way here.
Fairness is a big deal."
The next day he endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders in the presidential race.
Mrs. Clinton's windfalls from Wall Street banks and other financial services firms - $3
million in paid speeches and $17 million in campaign contributions over the years - have become
a major vulnerability in states with early nomination contests. Some party officials who
remain undecided in the 2016 presidential race see her as overly cozy with big banks and other
special interests. At a time when liberals are ascendant in the party, many Democrats believe
her merely having "represented Wall Street as a senator from New York," as Mrs. Clinton reminded
viewers in an October debate, is bad enough.
It is an image problem that she cannot seem to shake.
Though she criticizes the American economy as being "rigged" for the rich, Mrs. Clinton has
lost some support recently from party members who think she would go easy on Wall Street excess
if elected. Even as she promises greater regulation of hedge funds and private equity firms, liberals
deride her for refusing to support reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that separated
commercial and investment banks until its repeal under President Bill Clinton. (Mr. Sanders favors
its restoration.) And for many Democrats, her strong support from wealthy donors and a big-money
"super PAC" undercuts her increasingly progressive rhetoric on free trade and other economic issues.
Her advisers say most Democrats like her economic policies and believe she would fight for
middle-class and low-income Americans. Most opinion polls put Mrs. Clinton well ahead of Mr. Sanders
nationally and in Iowa, and they are running even in New Hampshire, but she fares worse than him
on questions about taking on Wall Street and special interests. And even if Mrs. Clinton sews
up the nomination quickly, subdued enthusiasm among the party's liberal base could complicate
efforts to energize Democratic turnout for the general election.
In the primaries, Mrs. Clinton's advisers privately concede that she will lose some votes
over her Wall Street connections. They declined to share specific findings from internal polls,
but predicted the issue could resonate in Democratic contests in Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Michigan,
where many have lost homes and businesses to bank foreclosures.
Mr. Sanders zeros in on Wall Street donations to Mrs. Clinton in an aggressive new television
commercial that started running in Iowa and New Hampshire on Saturday: "The truth is, you can't
change a corrupt system by taking its money," he warns.
One of Mrs. Clinton's most prominent supporters in Ohio, former State Senator Nina Turner,
defected to Mr. Sanders this month in part, she said, because she felt he would be tougher on
special interests. And some Democratic superdelegates, whose backing is crucial, said Mrs. Clinton's
ties to big banks, and her invocation of 9/11 to defend her ties to Wall Street at the Nov. 14
debate, only made them further question her independence from the financial industry.
"My parents had a saying in Spanish - 'Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres' - which
means, 'Tell me who you're hanging with and I'll tell you who you are,'" said Alma R. Gonzalez,
an uncommitted superdelegate from Florida. "A lot of my Democratic friends feel that way about
Hillary and Wall Street.
"Are the working people in this country going to be able to count on hard decisions being made
by President Hillary Clinton with regard to her Wall Street chums?" Ms. Gonzalez continued. "Will
she be another President Clinton who appoints a Treasury secretary from Wall Street? These are
major concerns."
Indeed, Mr. Clinton's close relationships with Wall Street executives like Robert E. Rubin
of Goldman Sachs, whom he named his Treasury secretary, and his support for undoing parts of Glass-Steagall
have contributed to misgivings about Mrs. Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton has proposed imposing risk fees on unwieldy big banks and empowering regulators
to break them up if necessary - though this is not the wholesale breakup that Mr. Sanders favors
under a return of Glass-Steagall. She also proposes to make sure fines for corporate wrongdoing
hit executive bonuses, and to pursue criminal prosecutions when justified.
Yet even though she has taken tough stands in the past, such as chastising banks for widespread
foreclosures in 2007 and 2008, some Democrats are skeptical that she would ever crack down hard
on the executives in her social circles in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Washington.
Jake Quinn, an uncommitted Democratic superdelegate from North Carolina, said he was concerned
about Mrs. Clinton's willingness to clamp down on Wall Street malfeasance. "The financial sector's
ongoing relative lack of accountability makes me suspicious of any candidate who sources it for
significant support," he said.
Mrs. Clinton's advisers say that she has advanced the strongest regulatory proposals of any
candidate, putting the lie to claims that she would protect Wall Street's interests as president.
Any political harm resulting from her Wall Street ties would be minimal, they maintain, because
she never took action in exchange for donations. They also play down the possibility that Mrs.
Clinton will face voter turnout and enthusiasm problems if she wins the nomination.
While Mr. Sanders and another candidate for the Democratic nomination, former Gov. Martin
O'Malley of Maryland, have argued that big donors inevitably had influence with her, her campaign
has pushed back against suggestions that the financial services industry has bankrolled her campaign.
Her aides also said ads by a new group, Future 45, attacking Mrs. Clinton would only underscore
her independence, because the group's major donors include Wall Street magnates like Paul Singer.
"When billionaire hedge fund managers are forming super PACs to run ads attacking her, it's
clear they fear she will take action as president to crack down on the industry's abuses," said
Brian Fallon, a Clinton campaign spokesman.
Bashing Wall Street is not an automatic win for Mr. Sanders, however. Ms. Gonzalez, the
Florida superdelegate, and some other undecided Democrats said they viewed Mr. Sanders as too
hostile to banks and corporations and too divisive in his remarks about American wealth.
But others said they were more concerned that Mrs. Clinton had not broken with Wall Street
in a clear way, noting the lengths she went to at the debate to explain the relationship.
"She was waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 to defend herself, which we're accustomed to seeing
with demagogues on the right, and it just didn't feel quite right," said Kurt Meyer, a co-chairman
of the Mitchell County Democrats in Iowa, who has not endorsed a candidate. "She connected two
things, 9/11 and her ties to Wall Street, that I didn't like her sewing together."
Ms. Turner, the former Ohio lawmaker, said the blocks of foreclosed homes in Cleveland
were a painful reminder that banks prioritize their own corporate interests. Mr. Sanders has been
criticizing "the corrupt economy symbolized by Wall Street greed" for decades, she said.
"He shows righteous indignation and speaks for the common woman and man in saying they have
a right to be outraged at Wall Street," Ms. Turner said. "He doesn't just talk the talk. He walks
the talk."
And Mrs. Clinton? "Her ties are her ties," Ms. Turner said.
Mark--The passage "As Paul Krugman points out" links not to PK, but to a Brad Plummer Vox
article. I assume that you wanted to link to PK's column in this AM's NYT.
BTW, you may want to point to this Jeb! Tweet:
http://bit.ly/1gVFixr I think that he may have set a record for the total number of
horribly bad policy positions that one can advocate in 140 characters or less.
...and apparently the buzz in the automotive world is that "everyone" was doing it...
Anybody who thinks Mr. Cook and Apple can't disrupt the automobile industry clearly isn't paying
attention to the automobile industry. It seems designed more by cads than CAD. Smart elegant design?
The auto industry is retrogressive: low hanging fruit. The whole damn kit: from CEOs to Dealers
to Mechanics you can't trust. It's a moral atrocity.
Apple can and will seize the wheel and make a ton of money doing so...
As Paul Krugman points out, the scandal makes a nice counterpoint with Jeb Bush's latest "anti-regulation"
rant.
Of course there are many others. And of course there are also many cases of over-regulation. But
you don't win an argument for smart regulation unless you have plenty of examples to draw from.
I suspect Mrs. Clinton will be well-armed that way come the big time debates with Jeb!
Brett
Fisher's reaction is so typical for many economic libertarians that I've met. They can't
really dismiss environmental problems altogether, so instead they diminish and minimize - "Oh,
it's just some marginal emissions/a small amount of forest land/a little pollution into the
river! What's the harm? And do you really want to hurt an important company that employs
thousands over it over a little bit of dirty air?"
Jarndyce
Mark is too easy on both VW and GM in this paragraph:
"That's not as bad as an ordinary murder, where the killer picks out a specific
victim, because being personally singled out to be killed is somehow worse than being a
random victim. But in both the GM case and the VW case, people wound up dead (or injured,
or sick) through the choice of someone else. In the GM case, the company's culpability was
mostly passive: it made a design or manufacturing mistake and then didn't disclose it or
act promptly or adequately to fix it. What VW did was much worse: the 'defeat software'
wasn't a defect, but a deliberate decision to break the law with the predictable
consequence of killing hundreds of people, at least twice as many as died of GM's
malfeasance. I don't think you need to live in Marin County to find that objectionable."
The pertinent question is whether VW or GM knew that people would die as a result of their
actions. If they did, then they are as culpable as an ordinary murderer, despite not having
picked out a specific victim or having acted "passively" in deciding not to disclose their
mistake. They are comparable to a person who randomly fires a machine gun in a crowd.
David T
One of the ICCT engineers who uncovered this seems to be telling every news shop that will
listen that people should be checking other automakers for the same problem. VW's behavior is
so appalling and frankly stupid (destroy a company to sell a few diesels? It's not even their
biggest product line) that it's hard to understand what they could have possibly been
thinking. The general amorality of corporate culture may be part of it. But I wonder if there
was a bit of "everybody else is doing it" going on here too. (BMW must be pretty happy that
their car passed.)
Keith_Humphreys
Perfect movie reference(The
Third Man, 1949). The sociopathic black marketeer
Harry Lime is played by Orson Welles and his moral American friend Holly Martins by Joseph
Cotten. As they ride in a Ferris wheel far above the people of Vienna, this exchange occurs:
Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims?
Harry: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't
be melodramatic. [gestures to people far below] Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if
one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every
dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you
calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of
income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.
Ok. This may be an extremely stupid question, but how do we know that this was illegal?
Many regulations of this type in the electronics/telecommunications field are overspecified
and everybody knows the tests (and they cheat in similar fashions if not so explicitly and in
such wholesale fashion). If the regulation was written to state that an engine will pass the
following test then that's what would be built. Unless there was an explicit prohibition in
switching modes or a requirement that the test mode be comparable to driving mode then the
engineers may have just seen it as a game. So I'm not defending the amorality of this, but the
question of conspiracy is harder to prove if it may not be illegal except under the EPA's
theory. And if it wasn't obviously illegal, then what is the moral obligation of the worker to
trade-off their livelihood for exposing the fraud.
"... 1.TiSA would "lock in" the privatization of services – even in cases where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other services to public hands. ..."
"... 2.TiSA would restrict signatory governments' right to regulate stronger standards in the public's interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses. ..."
"... 3.TiSA would limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry, at a time when the global economy is still struggling to recover from a crisis caused primarily by financial deregulation. More specifically, if signed the trade agreement would: ..."
"... 4. TiSA would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and localization requirements for ICT service providers. A provision proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for the transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place in EU data protection law. In other words, multinational corporations will have carte blanche to pry into just about every facet of the working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the world's 200-or-so nations. ..."
"... 5. Finally, TiSA, together with its sister treaties TPP and TTIP, would establish a new global enclosure system, one that seeks to impose on all 52 signatory governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial risk and social and environmental responsibility. In short, it would hammer the final nail in the already bedraggled coffin of national sovereignty. ..."
"... So, not to be snarky or anything but when does the invasion of Uruguay begin. ..."
"... In the US, corporations largely have replaced government since WWII or so, or at least pretend to offer the services that a government might provide. ..."
"... Neoliberalism that we have now as a dominant social system is a flavor of corporatism. If so, it is corporations which now represent the most politically powerful actors. They literally rule the country. And it is they who select the president, most congressmen and Senators. Try to ask yourself a question: to what political force Barak "change we can believe in" Obama serves. ..."
"... "And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place" ..."
"... This is such a huge, huge, vital issue. Privatisation of public assets has to rank as one of the highest crimes at the government level. It is treason, perhaps the only crime for which i wouldn't object capital punishment. ..."
"... What's more, we now have some 40 years of data showing that privatisation doesn't work. surely, we can organise and successfully argue that privatisation has never worked for any country any time. There needs to be an intellectual assault on privatisation discrediting it forever. ..."
Often referred to as the Switzerland of South America, Uruguay is long accustomed to doing things
its own way. It was the first nation in Latin America to establish a welfare state. It also has an
unusually large middle class for the region and unlike its giant neighbors to the north and west,
Brazil and Argentina, is largely free of serious income inequality.
Two years ago, during José Mujica's presidency, Uruguay became the first nation to legalize marijuana
in Latin America, a continent that is being ripped apart by drug trafficking and its associated violence
and corruption of state institutions.
Now Uruguay has done something that no other semi-aligned nation on this planet has dared to do:
it has rejected the advances of the global corporatocracy.
The Treaty That Must Not Be Named
Earlier this month Uruguay's government decided to end its participation in the secret negotiations
of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). After months of intense pressure led by unions and other
grassroots movements that culminated in a national general strike on the issue – the first of its
kind around the globe – the Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez bowed to public opinion and left the
US-led trade agreement.
Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay's historic decision has
been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the country's borders, mainstream media has refused to cover
the story.
This is hardly a surprise given that the global public is not supposed to even know about TiSA's
existence, despite – or again because of – the fact that it's arguably the most important of the
new generation of global trade agreements. According to WikiLeaks, it "is the largest component of
the United States' strategic 'trade' treaty triumvirate," which also includes the Trans Pacific Partnership
(TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).
TiSA involves more countries than TTIP and TPP combined: The United States and all 28 members
of the European Union, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel,
Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea,
Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.
Together, these 52 nations form the charmingly named "Really Good Friends of Services" group,
which represents almost 70% of all trade in services worldwide. Until its government's recent u-turn
Uruguay was supposed to be the 53rd Good Friend of Services.
TiSA Trailer
TiSA has spent the last two years taking shape behind the hermetically sealed doors of highly
secure locations around the world. According to the agreement's provisional text, the document is
supposed to remain confidential and concealed from public view for at least five years after being
signed. Even the World Trade Organization has been sidelined from negotiations.
But thanks to whistle blowing sites like WikiLeaks, the Associated Whistleblowing Press and Filtrala,
crucial details have seeped to the surface. Here's a brief outline of what is known to date (for
more specifics click
here,
here and
here):
1.TiSA would "lock in" the privatization of services – even in cases where private service
delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other
services to public hands.
2.TiSA would restrict signatory governments' right to regulate stronger standards in the public's
interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and
laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast
licenses.
3.TiSA would limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry,
at a time when the global economy is still struggling to recover from a crisis caused primarily by
financial deregulation. More specifically, if signed the trade agreement would:
Restrict the ability of governments to place limits on the trading of derivative contracts
- the largely unregulated weapons of mass financial destruction that helped trigger the 2007-08
Global Financial Crisis.
Bar new financial regulations that do not conform to deregulatory rules. Signatory governments
will essentially agree not to apply new financial policy measures which in any way contradict
the agreement's emphasis on deregulatory measures.
Prohibit national governments from using capital controls to prevent or mitigate financial
crises. The leaked texts prohibit restrictions on financial inflows – used to prevent rapid currency
appreciation, asset bubbles and other macroeconomic problems – and financial outflows, used to
prevent sudden capital flight in times of crisis.
Require acceptance of financial products not yet invented. Despite the pivotal role that new,
complex financial products played in the Financial Crisis, TISA would require governments to allow
all new financial products and services, including ones not yet invented, to be sold within their
territories.
4. TiSA would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and localization requirements
for ICT service providers. A provision proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for
the transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place in EU data protection
law. In other words, multinational corporations will have carte blanche to pry into just about every
facet of the working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the world's 200-or-so
nations.
As I wrote in
LEAKED: Secret Negotiations to Let Big Brother Go Global, if TiSA is signed in its current form
– and we will not know exactly what that form is until at least five years down the line – our personal
data will be freely bought and sold on the open market place without our knowledge; companies and
governments will be able to store it for as long as they desire and use it for just about any purpose.
5. Finally, TiSA, together with its sister treaties TPP and TTIP, would establish a new global
enclosure system, one that seeks to impose on all 52 signatory governments a rigid framework of international
corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial
risk and social and environmental responsibility. In short, it would hammer the final nail in the
already bedraggled coffin of national sovereignty.
A Dangerous Precedent
Given its small size (population: 3.4 million) and limited geopolitical or geo-economic clout,
Uruguay's withdrawal from TiSA is unlikely to upset the treaty's advancement. The governments of
the major trading nations will continue their talks behind closed doors and away from the prying
eyes of the people they are supposed to represent. The U.S. Congress has already agreed to grant
the Obama administration fast-track approval on trade agreements like TiSA while the European Commission
can be expected to do whatever the corporatocracy demands.
However, as the technology writer Glyn Moody
notes, Uruguay's defection – like the people of Iceland's refusal to assume all the debts of
its rogue banks – possesses a tremendous symbolic importance:
It says that, yes, it is possible to withdraw from global negotiations, and that the apparently
irreversible trade deal ratchet can actually be turned back. It sets an important precedent that
other nations with growing doubts about TISA – or perhaps TPP – can look to and maybe even follow.
Naturally, the representatives of Uruguay's largest corporations would agree to disagree. The
government's move was one of its biggest mistakes of recent years,
according to Gabriel Oddone, an analyst with the financial consultancy firm CPA Ferrere. It was
based on a "superficial discussion of the treaty's implications."
What Oddone conveniently fails to mention is that Uruguay is the only nation on the planet that
has had any kind of public discussion, superficial or not, about TiSA and its potentially game-changing
implications. Perhaps it's time that changed.
So, not to be snarky or anything but when does the invasion of Uruguay begin. Wondering:
don't they want to pay $750.00 per pill for what cost $13.85 the day before? Aren't they interested
in predatory capitalism? What is going on down there?
Jim Haygood, September 23, 2015 at 12:17 pm
Most symbolic is that the eighth round of multilateral trade negotiations under GATT (now WTO)
kicked off in Punta del Este, Uruguay in Sep. 1986.
It went into effect in 1995, and is still known as the Uruguay Round.
susan the other, September 23, 2015 at 1:21 pm
And will international corporations issue their own fiat; pass their own laws; and prosecute
their own genocide? Contrary to their group hallucinations, corporations cannot replace government.
And clearly, somebody forgot to tell them that capitalism, corporatism, cannot survive without
growth. The only growth they will achieve is raiding other corporations. They are more powerless
and vulnerable than they ever want to admit.
hunkerdown, September 23, 2015 at 8:13 pm
And will international corporations issue their own fiat; pass their own laws; and
prosecute their own genocide?
Sure. There's prior art. Company scrip, substance "abuse" policies, and Bhopal (for a bit
different definition of "prosecute").
In the US, corporations largely have replaced government since WWII or so, or at least
pretend to offer the services that a government might provide.
likbez, September 24, 2015 at 10:54 pm
They are more powerless and vulnerable than they ever want to admit.
You are dreaming. Neoliberalism that we have now as a dominant social system is a flavor
of corporatism. If so, it is corporations which now represent the most politically powerful
actors. They literally rule the country. And it is they who select the president, most congressmen
and Senators. Try to ask yourself a question: to what political force Barak "change we can
believe in" Obama serves.
As Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) aptly noted:
"And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that
many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they
frankly own the place"
gordon, September 23, 2015 at 9:03 pm
The TISA has a history. It's really just a continuation of the MAI treaty which the OECD failed
to conclude back in the 1990s.
What I don't get is why all those countries want to sign up to these agreements. I can see
what is in it for the US elites, but how does it help these smaller countries?
likbez, September 24, 2015 at 10:43 pm
Elites of those small countries are now transnational. So in a way they represent the fifth
column of globalization. That explains their position: own profit stands before interests of
the country.
vidimi, September 24, 2015 at 4:19 am
This is such a huge, huge, vital issue. Privatisation of public assets has to rank as one
of the highest crimes at the government level. It is treason, perhaps the only crime for which
i wouldn't object capital punishment.
What's more, we now have some 40 years of data showing that privatisation doesn't work.
surely, we can organise and successfully argue that privatisation has never worked for any country
any time. There needs to be an intellectual assault on privatisation discrediting it forever.
"... The sultan of Najd, Abdelaziz al-Saud bowed his head before the British High Commissioner in Percy Cox's Iraq. His voice quavered, and then he started begging with humiliation: "Your grace are my father and you are my mother. I can never forget the debt I owe you. You made me and you held my hand, you elevated me and lifted me. I am prepared, at your beckoning, to give up for you now half of my kingdom…no, by Allah, I will give up all of my kingdom, if your grace commands me! ..."
Never let it be said that Britain's leaders miss an opportunity to inflame
fear and loathing towards migrants and refugees. First David Cameron warned
of the threat posed by "a swarm of people" who were "coming across the Mediterranean
… wanting to come to Britain". Then his foreign secretary Philip Hammond upped
the ante.
The chaos at the Channel tunnel in Calais, he declared, was caused by "marauding"
migrants who posed an existential threat. Cheer-led by the conservative press,
he warned that Europe would not be able to "protect itself and preserve its
standard of living" if it had to "absorb millions of migrants from Africa".
With nightly television coverage of refugees from the world's worst conflicts
risking their lives to break into lorries and trains heading for Britain, this
was rhetoric designed to stoke visceral fears of the wretched of the Earth emerging
from its depths.
Barely a hint of humanity towards those who have died in Calais this summer
has escaped ministers' lips. But in reality the French port is a sideshow, home
to a few thousand migrants unable to pay traffickers for more promising routes
around Britain's border controls.
Europe's real refugee crisis is in the Mediterranean. More than 180,000 have
reached Italy and Greece by sea alone this year, and more than 2,000 have died
making the crossing, mostly from war-ravaged Libya. The impact on Greece, already
wracked with crisis, is at tipping point.
On the Greek island of Kos, 2,000 mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees were
rounded up on Tuesday and locked in a sports stadium after clashes with riot
police, who used stun grenades to maintain order. Numbers reaching the Greek
islands have quadrupled since last year.
But nothing in Europe matches the millions who have been driven to seek refuge
in Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan or Jordan. Set against such a global drama, Calais
is little more than deathly theatre. Britain is not one of the main destinations
for either refugees or illegal migrants – the vast majority of whom overstay
their visas, rather than stow away in the Channel tunnel.
Last year 25,870 sought asylum in the UK and only 10,050 were accepted. By
contrast, Sweden accepted three times as many and Germany had more than 200,000
asylum and new asylum applicants. Nor is Britain's asylum seeker's benefit rate,
at £36.95 a week, remotely the magnet it is portrayed. France pays £41.42; in
Norway it's £88.65.
What does suck overwhelmingly legal migrant workers into Britain is a highly
deregulated labour market, where workplace protection is often not enforced
and which both gangmasters and large private companies are able ruthlessly to
exploit.
The case, reported in the Guardian, of the entirely legal Lithuanian farm
workers – who are suing a Kent-based gangmaster supplying high street supermarkets
over inhuman working conditions, debt bondage and violent intimidation – is
only the extreme end of a growing underbelly of harsh and insecure employment.
If ministers were remotely concerned about "rogue employers driving down
wages" by using illegal migrants, as they claim, they would be strengthening
trade unions and rights at work. But they're doing the opposite. And they're
using the language of dehumanisation to justify slashing support for asylum
seekers' children, locking up refused applicants indefinitely and targeting
illegal workers far more enthusiastically than the employers who exploit them.
But what risks dividing communities can also turn them against such anti-migrant
crackdowns. In recent months, flash protests have erupted in London and other
cities against UK Border Agency attempts to arrest failed asylum seekers or
undocumented migrant workers. In areas such as Elephant and Castle, riot police
have been called in after UKBA vans were surrounded and pelted with eggs by
angry locals and activists trying to prevent the detention of people seen as
part of the community.
The chaos at Calais and the far larger-scale upheaval and suffering across
Europe could be brought under control by the kind of managed processing that
northern European governments, such as Britain's, are so keen to avoid.
'If the current US and British-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen continues,
expect Yemeni refugees to join the region's exodus in the months to come.'
'If the current US and British-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen continues,
expect Yemeni refugees to join the region's exodus in the months to come.' Photograph:
Yahya Arhab/EPA
But that would only be a temporary fix for a refugee crisis driven by war
and state disintegration – and Britain, France and their allies have played
a central role in most of the wars that are fuelling it. The refugees arriving
in Europe come from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia
and Eritrea.
With the recent exception of the dictatorial Eritrean regime, those are a
roll-call of more than a decade of disastrous western-led wars and interventions.
In the case of Libya, the British and French-led bombing campaign in 2011 led
directly to the civil war and social breakdown that has made the country the
main conduit for refugee trafficking from Africa. And in Syria, the western
funding, arming and training of opposition groups – while fuelling the rise
of Isis – has played a crucial role in the country's destruction.
If the current American and British-backed Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen
continues, expect Yemeni refugees to join the region's exodus in the months
to come. So the first longer term contribution Britain and its allies could
make to staunching the flow of refugees would be to stop waging open and covert
wars in the Middle East and north Africa. That is actual marauding.
The second would be a major shift in policy towards African development.
Africa may not be leading the current refugee crisis, and African migrants certainly
don't threaten European living standards. But as a group of global poverty NGOs
argued this week, Africa is being drained of resources through western corporate
profit extraction, extortionate debt repayments and one-sided trade "partnership"
deals. If that plunder continues and absolute numbers in poverty go on rising
as climate change bites deeper, migration pressures to the wealthy north can
only grow.
There is a genuine migration crisis driven by war and neoliberal globalisation.
Despite the scaremongering, it hasn't yet reached Britain. But it's a fantasy
to imagine that fences, deportations and better security can protect fortress
Europe. An end to the real plunder and marauding would be more effective.
ID0049691 nadel 13 Aug 2015 10:55
Why don't you start with yourself? How many of your ancestors like millions
of other Europeans, went to Africa, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand
and elsewhere to "settle" there over the past centuries? Now that the tide
is turning you and your likes do nothing but whine and accuse others of
being "left wingers". The left wingers seem to be the only people left with
human feelings.
Beastcheeks 13 Aug 2015 10:55
Thank you Seamus - a beacon of light amongst the marauding dirge of mass
media ignorance and hatred that characterises the current mainstream British
position. When I read many of responses to your reasoned arguments - I hang
my head in shame. Mass delusion and hatred not dissimilar to Nazi Germany
I'm afraid. The very fact you have to spell out the obvious truth - that
you can't bomb the hell out of people and then cry foul when they come to
us for safe refuge - beggars belief. I am well and truly disgusted and am
in the process of relinquishing my British nationality. No longer am I willing
to tolerate such ignorant intolerance in my name.
rentierDEATHcult 13 Aug 2015 10:51
Shias are not joining ISIS ... but the vast majority of Sunnis are not
joining it, either !?
Kurds are Sunnis - they're fighting ISIS.
Sunni tribes in Iraq are collaborating with Shia (often Iranian) militias
to fight ISIS.
Even fellow Sunni Jihadists in the al-Nusra Front (& affiliated brigades)
regard ISIS as ignorant nihilists and want to have nothing to do with them.
Your thesis about a Shia + Sunni conflict driving the wave of migration
into Europe is, simply, flawed.
Its utter nonsence, in fact.
Moreover, Shia and Sunni have lived amongst each other, largely, in peace
during that 1400 years. Prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, most
suburbs of Baghdad were mixed and a significant proportion of families shared
a dual Shia + Sunni tradition.
Rj H 13 Aug 2015 10:42
There are some good and bad points to all this as demonstrated on this
comments thread. There seems to be no real consensus and blame is shifted
from one side to the other (whether political, social, class or economic).
The only thing we (indigenous population) might all agree upon is; upon
stepping back and looking at the current state of the UK (formally Great
Britain) most of us will come to the conclusion that something has gone
wrong and the country and the UK is not enjoying good health. That fact
alone should demonstrate that those in charge are not doing their jobs properly.
Poor leadership across 40 years has damaged this country. A country that
once governed FOR its people now governs contrary to the majority of its
people's wishes. Those at the top are not capable (or indeed willing) to
look out for those at the bottom. We as a population are being hit and abused
by a government that cares only for the wealth and power of a select few.
Never have so many been owed so much by so few. The government has reduced
the people's voice to a hoarse whisper. We need to regain our voice and
SHOUT back that we won't stand for this situation any longer.
blueanchor rentierDEATHcult 13 Aug 2015 10:36
"How is Islam responsible ...?".
Aren't the battlelines across swathes of Islam's heartland in the Middle-East
drawn up broadly on Sunni v Shia lines? For instance I don't think you'll
find any Shia joining Isis. What you have now is an eruption of the Islamic
sectarian dispute which has been running on and off for 1,400 years, and
people are fleeing to escape it.
musolen David Hicks 13 Aug 2015 10:35
No, you're right, of course we don't, that's the point.
One sided trade deals are negotiated with massive distortion favouring
the big multinational corporations but listen to the IMF and all you hear
is we have to 'open up our markets to enable free trade'.
The US has more trade embargoes in place than any other nation and EU
is close behind and the irony doesn't even register on the faces at IMF
and World Bank trampling the world spreading their Neo-Liberal rubbish.
My point was that to have capitalism, if you are an advocate of capitalism
you have to accept those free movements of goods, money and people.
Paul Torgerson Rob99 13 Aug 2015 10:35
Well at least there is one person on here who has not swallowed the right
wing xenophobic crap. But the right wing press is doing a great job of brain
washing the populace. Examining the facts indicates a humanitarian problem
that will not in any way disadvantage Europe even if they allow ALL these
people to settle in Europe
wasson Bicbiro 13 Aug 2015 10:34
So you think if the UK minimum wage was lower than Poland they'd still
come? I'm afraid I'm going to have to to disagree with you there bic. They
come because they can earn in a week what they earn in 3 months in Poland.
Simple as.
rentierDEATHcult sludge 13 Aug 2015 10:32
If you know anything about Lawrence of Arabia (since you brought him
up), you would know that the British were collaborating against the Ottomans
by inciting Arab tribes to revolt against them.
The Ottoman state was seen as an Islamist bulwark against European colonialism,
especially, British imperialism.
So i'm not sure why you think the British would have undermined the Saudis
and handed territories they had seized back to the Ottoman Turks - against
whom the British were collaborating - (using the Saudis) !?
You need to understand and embrace this part of recent British history.
Because anyone that doesn't understand (or acknowledge) their history is
not to be trusted with the present.
bugiolacchi dragonpiwo 13 Aug 2015 10:28
UK is not part of Shengen. Non-EU migrants who work, live, travel freely,
and prosper in the rest of Europe need a visa to cross the few miles of
water between us and the continent.
As per the ID cards, every time they interview an 'illegal' immigrant,
one of the reasons given for coming here is that it is the only country
(in the world?) where one does no need to identify themselves when asked
(a 'utility bill' my socks...) and can drive without a driving licence or
car documentations with them, but to 'present' them later. A Christmas invitation
if one wants to 'blend' in the background'. Again, a 'utility bill' as an
idea.. hilarious!
rentierDEATHcult sludge 13 Aug 2015 10:19
The 'Gazzeteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman & Central Arabia' authored by
John Gordon Lorimer has now been declassified by the British government
and provides significant insight into the relationship between Abdulaziz
al Saud and the British colonial authorities.
The memoirs of HRP Dickson in his 1951 book "Kuwait and Her Neighbours"
provides further details on how Britain supported the rise of the Saudi
monarchy as de facto colonial agents of Pax Britannica.
Dickson was British envoy to the Gulf emirates and an aide to British
High Commissioner for Iraq - Sir Percy Cox
Dickson recounts this exchange between Sir Percy and Abdelaziz al Saud
during the conference in al-Aqeer in November 1922:
The sultan of Najd, Abdelaziz al-Saud bowed his head before the British
High Commissioner in Percy Cox's Iraq. His voice quavered, and then he started
begging with humiliation: "Your grace are my father and you are my mother.
I can never forget the debt I owe you. You made me and you held my hand,
you elevated me and lifted me. I am prepared, at your beckoning, to give
up for you now half of my kingdom…no, by Allah, I will give up all of my
kingdom, if your grace commands me!"
He'll be colorful, entertaining figure in the Republican's primary circus. He might be able to expose
the hypocrisy of other candidates. I hope he stays in it for a couple of debates...
I like one of his quotes: "I'm a free trader, but the problem is you need really talented people
to negotiate for you ... But we have people that are stupid." "
"I don't need anybody's money ... I'm using my own money, I'm not using the lobbyists,
I'm not using donors, I don't care. I'm really rich."
"The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems."
"Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump. Nobody."
"When Mexico sends its people they're not sending their best ... They're sending people that
have lots of problems ... They are bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists."
"I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I will bring back our jobs from
China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I'll bring back our jobs and I'll bring back
our money."
"How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are the politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid
are they?"
"I'm a free trader, but the problem is you need really talented people to negotiate for you
... But we have people that are stupid."
"Saudi Arabia, without us, is gone. They're gone."
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
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Trump 'strongly considering' Michael Flynn pardon,
points at FBI 'conveniently losing' his records
Matthew Walther The failure and delusions of the adults in the room 
Matthew Walther The 2020 Democratic frontrunner is a Republican
The passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has refuted any notion that
Trump's ascension to the White House would mark an end to neoliberalism. Poor whites who
supported Trump expected him to offer America a new version of conservativism that would break
with neoliberalism. Instead, furthering neoliberal policies has become a critical objective
that works in tandem with Trump's xenophobic rhetoric
The protection
of the people of the United States, its homeland and its way of life; 
UK Toryism today is not so much a political party espousing an ideology as it is an ideology that has taken over a political party. It is the ideolgy of exploitation of a tiny clique over an entire society and has become, through extensive and relentless propoganda, embedded the fabric of UK society. It is a class ideology that requires a middle classes and poorer apirants to the middle classes to accept cuts to their influence and hence wealth by creating an demonising a constructed underclass. The underclass serves as:
1. a frightening lesson to those who do not conform
2. scapegoats for every kind of social and cultural ill
3. a fungible source of wandering labour who can be compelled to exploitation and discarded at will
It demands the destruction of the state that supports people and replaces it with a state that supports business interests only. Everything must become a commodity – especially humans. It is an ideology that decries income distribution to the less wealthy but in every instance creates laws that ensure distribution of vast majority of wealth to the wealthiest. It is the insurance company for the wealthy as well. The taxpayer is the insurer.
The greatest single example of wealth redistribution from the politically weak is the student loan wheeze. The mob in their greatest exploits could not have contrived a more elaborate form of extortion. As Tory idoeology 'crapifies' every job in the UK, they goad the young into what have become school factories, turning out people with certificates but often very little relevant qualification for a shrinking economy. Meanwhile the governement sells the loans to "investors" (themselves and their friends) for pence on the pound.
Create the law that create the conditions that create the cash flow, and never lift a finger to do a real days work.
What's not to like?
Given the over population of the island, that oil is running out, and that they have gutted any social and cultural cohesive factor, and even if Brexit evaporates, the long term bodes ill anyway.